Fractured Ribs

I've been having pain in my ribs for the past two weeks due to an accidental kick during karate sparring one evening at class. The pain had been subsiding, but this past Sunday it took a sudden turn for the worst and I decide I should go get it looked at.

With the holiday weekend and not wanting to bother ER, I waited until Tuesday to see my own doctor and have him check me out. The pain had subsided once more to the point where it is still hurting but no longer severe.  As my doctor was checking my ribs it was clear that all of his pushing and probing wasn't causing me any major discomfort, so imagine my shock when the "routine" x-rays come back showing that I have four fractured ribs (#7, 8, 9, 10) and even more scary - four old broken ribs that I didn't even know I had done and definitely didn't get any medical attention for!

I had a karate tournament coming up in two weeks that I was excited about sparring in, but my doctor made it clear that I really shouldn't participate in the tournament and should take it easy for next few weeks. I'm such a mess.

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Ultralight Platypus Dog Chews

Platypus hydration bags are relatively indestructible and are definitely known to last a long time even with heavy abuse. However, leave one where your 85lb Lab can get to it and it becomes just another dog chew, albeit a rather expensive one.



Lesson learned, one half of my ultralight water gravity filter (my clean bag) is now a rather useless piece of plastic thanks to my dog! Actually, now the neck is ruined I have something I can make from it - a water scooper for my gravity filter system.

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Trail Food: Uncle Ben's Microwave Ready Rice

Like many of you I'm always on the lookout for new foods that I can take with me when I go backpacking.  I've tried many of the Mountain House dehydrated food packages and for the most part they taste great and are easy to prepare on the trail, but the portions are typically for two people and the amount of sodium/salt in them is outrageous!

I'm a big fan of freezer bag cooking in general and like to pre-package my own ingredients that I can easily rehydrate with hot water and let sit in my bag cozy. In fact I highly recommend that you check out the Trail Cooking website (formerly freezerbagcooking.com) for much more information and hundreds of recipie ideas.

But wait, back up, you said microwave rice, right?  I sure did. Last week, my wife came home from the grocery store with a multipack (6) of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice Whole Grain Medley that she picked up for next to nothing using some manufacturer coupons. We've had Ready Rice before and found that it's a convenient way to whip up some rice in the microwave when we're in a time pinch, but I've never thought of using it for hiking - after all, who carries a microwave? However, my wife noticed that as well as being able to be prepared in the microwave in 90 seconds, the Ready Rice packages had directions for being heated in a skillet by adding two tablespoons of water and heating until warm, usually under 2 minutes!

I had given up on rice as part of my freezer bag meals because the normal quick-rice options are kinda bland. The Ready Rice Medley collection however, is perfectly seasoned and comes mixed with other ingredients like vegetables or different rices to make it much, much tastier.  Combined with some tuna or even chicken and you have a delicious, quick and easy hot meal for the trail.  Each package is two portions, so I have to open them and divide the contents which is no big deal, but it beats couscous any day of the week. In fact I've eaten enough couscous to be done for life.  I definitely recommend that you check it out, it may not be the most light weight food option but it sure is a tasty one.

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GSI Dualist on sale at REI

Worth a mention, the GSI Dualist is currently on sale at REI for $34.99 (regularly $49.99). This is a great pot set and at a fantastic price. I use the Soloist version of this set, but I'm seriously considering buying one of these just to have a backup especially at this price. Snap one up!

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Home-made Camera Tripods

A long time ago I came across a website that showed how to make a really nifty little Pepsi bottle top camera tripod out of a few inexpensive nuts and bolts, but I lost it and the idea slipped from my mind. Recently I came across what I think is the same posting and got excited about playing with this concept to come up with a cheap tripod system for my own purposes.

To the right is a picture of the pieces I used to make a very simple camera tripod setup. I was particularly interested in making a tripod for my mountain bike that I could install on my handle bars or seat post for video recording parts of my rides. So, in addition to the parts shown on the right and listed below I needed to find a way to attach the tripod rig to my bike.

Parts list for basic tripod rig:

1. 1/4-20 Bar Knob
2. 1/4-20 x 1 1/2-inch stainless steel machine screw
3. 1/4-20 stainless steel nut (or lock nut)
   
4. 1/4-inch split washer
5. 1/4-inch Stainless steel washer

To solve the problem of attaching the tripod rig to my bike I looked to see what was already on my bike to see if I could reuse something rather than start from scratch. That's when I noticed the front and rear reflectors. Now this is probably not a great idea, but I always removed the reflectors off of my bikes. I know I'm not going out at night and if I do my Cateye bicycle lights and the reflective tape on my frame will do a more than sufficient job of making me visible.

So, I removed the two reflectors and the arms that were holding them to my handle bars and seat post and noticed that when I removed the actual reflector from the arm there was a perfect 1/4 inch hole where the screw went, exactly the right size for my home-made tripod rig.

Below is a photo of the basic tripod rig attached to the bike reflector arm that was attached to my seat post (red reflector). All that I had left to do was to reattach the arm to my seat post with the new tripod on it and TA-DA I had a custom-made mountain bike rear facing camera tripod attachment. Total cost for the parts listed above from my local Lowes Home Improvement was $3, beat that!


I did the same for the front of my bike making a handle bar tripod using the reflector arm that was originally attached. Now I can attach my digital camera to the front or back of my bike depending on the view I want to record. It will probably result in very shaky footage because of all the wobbling around, but I'm sure a rubber bushing or two will improve that.

I hope this was interesting and encourages you to come up with some camera tripod ideas of your own. As I said I had found the bottle top tripod post a long time ago, but my appetite was recently rekindled by the use of my Stickpic. Have fun!

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Alcohol Stove Mass Production?

I've had lots of inquiries about my alcohol stoves asking if I would be interested in selling them. I hadn't thought that much about making them to sell and to be honest I really didn't want the hassle of dealing with everything that goes along with selling - shipping, payments, e-mails, and definitely don't want to compete or steal sales from the original developers.

However, it seems that there is continued interest from the ultralight backpacking crowd to purchase my stoves - remember I'm not the original inventor or manufacturer of any of these but I do take care in the work I do and pride myself on high quality.  I'm being quite honest at the fact that I have made these stoves based on the instructions and designs made available online - I'll even link to the original manufacturers site's below.

So I'll leave it up to you all to decide if you want me to make my stoves available to purchase online. If I get enough responses via e-mail (see my profile) or comments to this post I'll set up a Paypal e-commerce site and some pages specifically for purchasing my stoves and go from there.

As you can see in the photo below, I have been cranking out stoves for a while mostly to perfect the process but largely because they're fun to make despite being able to only use one at a time :)



I've been playing with three different stove models, all of which function perfectly but weight and style comes down to personal taste and the individual.

•  Classic soda can stove but with no tape or glued seems - very light and quick to prime
• A two-piece aluminum beer bottle stove based on the classic Whitebox Stove design, but without rivets and with no need to create a rolled top edge - very strong and super easy to use
• My version of the Minibull BIOS stove. Made from aluminum beer bottles and created from a single piece by inverting the walls. Almost indistructible and extremely reliable and easy to use
  

Below is a photo of my garage work bench showing my one-ton arbor press and a Bud-Lite stove about to be formed using the mold. There's really no other easy way to make these unless you have a very powerful press.  It's been a little trial and error perfecting this process, but I am able to consistently make very high quality and perfectly functional one-piece alcohol stove this way.  I currently carry one of these with me when I go backpacking.



Here is a close-up of the press with a Bud-Lite stove blank ready to be pressed with the smaller mould on the top. It takes only seconds to make one of these once the blank has been cut. Note that I place a small square piece of thick metal plate on top of the stove before I actually press it into shape, but it's been removed in this photo - it's actually hiding on the left side of the press :)

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