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April 29, 2004

Water, precious water (Paul Ashton)

I think we all take water for granted. It falls out the sky, it floods us out of our homes, we like to sit by it in the summer. We fish, we soak, we drink. But we take it for granted.

So what am I getting at here? Well I have recently invested in a couple of Katadyn water purifiers. This has been motivated by the need not to carry too much water while backpacking. So why had we not bought water purifiers before? Simply because our Texas camping experiences have been in areas where there was precious little water available to purify!

Whether Big Bend NP or North Padre NS, once you are camping out there in the middle of nowhere you basically have to have all the fresh water you need to survive. And then some more to clean your teeth, take a shower, and so on. But the point is, there is often no water in arid climates that you can depend on.

There have been horrific stories about unnecessary deaths in West Texas. One Frenchman is reported to have set off alone in mid-summer to backpack the Chisos Mountains. The rangers said that he left with a gallon of water in his pack. Days later his body was found and the pack still contained that gallon of water. No matter how often you tell people they should sip little and often before they feel thirsty, many folk simply hoard their supplies until they start to feel funny. The slippery slope from feeeling funny to dying is apparently quite steep.

We have personal experience of helping people in severe trouble in Big Bend. People who should have known better but lost reason when they became tired, thirsty and disoriented. Sadly one group we helped were so close to help but were oblivious to the fact that they were so close. Thank goodness we were there at the right time to get them to safety.

Now we are preparing to hike in a climate that is famous for its rain showers, swollen streams and black peaty bogs. So we will be able to carry less, but we will still need water!

April 26, 2004

The Trucial States, 1971 (Paul Ashton)

Thirty three years ago this group set out to tour all seven of the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) in just three days. This was taken on the third day after sleeping rough on beaches and generally being thrown around in three rented Land Rovers. The skinny guy on the right is me!

The location was in a rejuvenated wadi - the cliff behind is an older wadi fill deposit that had been eroded by a flash flood. At the time the main road from Fujairah to Sharjah was a dirt track (in the foreground) up the wadi. Perfect for being swept away in a flash flood but fortunately these happen very rarely in the Oman Mountains. This image was scanned from a print that was made from the original Ektachrome slide. Which explains the blue cast - should have used Kodachrome!

A highlight of the trip was spending the night on a beach north of Fujairah. The men gathered firewood and found a palm log that was perfect - until we rolled it over and discovered several black scorpions. Not a word of this was mentioned to the women but we proceeded to drink a lot of Scotch and beer in order to forget about the deadly insects. That night I woke up to the sound of creatures crawling all over the beach - panic was averted when I realized they were only hermit crabs!

April 25, 2004

Colombia 1988 (Paul Ashton)

More old photos coming out of the closet! This one is of Salvador, trusted driver in Bogota, Colombia, during a weekend expedition down to the Magdalena River. The pistol grip shotgun wasn't really necessary for the trip! The old Dodge taxi (cream with a green roof) used to be the preferred mode of transport. Ostentatious vehicles were a no-no, probably still are.

April 24, 2004

Outdoor Product Manufacturers (Paul Ashton)

Getting ready for a season of backpacking, wild camping and generally enjoying the great outdoors. Hopefully some good photographs as well. So who makes the good stuff? Well, that depends on how much you want to pay. There's always the Rolls Royce category for the extreme outdoors types, but who makes good stuff at reasonable prices? Here are some manufacturers we trust:

REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) - Not only their own products but also the ones they sell in their stores and catalog. If an item isn't listed below then it's because we have the REI brand. Basically everything from tent to t-shirt.

Mountain Hardwear - Serious quality at every turn.

Montrail - Best pair of cross trainers I've ever worn - wear them nearly every day.

Asolo - Serious hiking boots - I have two pairs of the same style and size (don't ask me why!).

Marmot - We both swear by their breathable waterproofs, simply the best.

Primus - Light, quality cooking and lighting products.

MSR - High quality cookware for the backpacker.

Leatherman - Expensive but very strong pocket knives - don't even look at the cheap knock offs!

Therm-a-Rest - The best (only) sleeping pads to consider. A good nights sleep is worth paying for, this is one item not to skimp on.

Katadyn - Water purifiers. Swiss quality says it all. Who ever heard of a sick Swiss?

Sea to Summit - Silk mummy liners from Oz. Not cheap but they feel so good!

Berghaus - Quality from Europe.

April 21, 2004

How to fix an obsolete laser printer (Paul Ashton)

In 1993 I did six weeks fieldwork in Tunisia and on the strength of it bought an Apple Laserwriter Pro 630 to go with the Macintosh IIfx I had inherited from a business partnership gone awry. The printer boasted the latest technology including photograde 600 dpi printing. Over the years this printer has done sterling work, first attached by a serial port, later using a slow ethernet connection. It is a workhorse and is cheap to run as well (unlike inkjets that are cheap to buy and expensive to run). I think I paid $2,500 for it, a lot of money for a struggling consultant. It paid for itself in a week, however, being used to print scanned images for a client from borrowed aerial photos.

Yesterday, eleven years almost to the day, it croaked. Two orange lights instead of a single green. The instruction manual (Apple had instruction manuals in those days) said this was a major service problem. I looked up the cost of a replacement network laser printer - around $700. I Googled for help. Up came fixyourownprinter.com. I studied the relevant pages and decided to go for their solution. They overnighted a new part (glass fuser lamp) together with a CD containing an instructional video. I received the part at noon today and an hour later I printed a test print. Excellent!

Oh, yes - Apple list the Laserwriter Pro 630 as one of many "obsolete" models that they no longer service. But that green light is glowing again, Steve!

April 19, 2004

Childhood Haunts Revisited (Paul Ashton)

Son Pete has discovered Tanworth-in-Arden, the parish where I grew up. Some nice photos of a derelict van in the neighborhood can be seen here. I swear the place was quite refined all those years ago!

Cader Idris Links (Paul Ashton)

A couple of really good Cader Idris links:

Ann Bowker's website on mountains. More people should read this site and take note that retirement years are for doing all those things that were never before possible!

The v-g site, which has the best description and advice for "wild camping" I have found for the UK. I think we'll be following their advice as soon as we have our kit on the right continent!

April 17, 2004

Griffin Technology iMic (Paul Ashton)

We own a lot of 1960s - 1980s LPs. They take up space, are covered in fungus, are noisy, but represent an era gone by - Chuck Berry, Cream, Beatles, Clapton, Muddy Waters, Otis Reading, Moody Blues, ELO, even 1980s disco extended dance mixes!!!! The iMic attaches to a USB port and to a turntable and with demo software actually records very good quality AIFF files that can be imported into iTunes and thus have CDs burned. A huge box of LPs will be reduced to a small folder of CDs. I may even be able to raise some cash for those old albums at 1/4 Price Books in nearby Rice Village. Right now its Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" on the turntable.

HP Scanjet 4670 (Paul Ashton)

As noted below, I was not intially very happy with the Scanjet 4670 even though it looks like its a neat product. After three days use, it croaked. The scanning "bar" stopped in mid scan and that was that. So I called HP and spoke to a friendly customer service agent who talked me through a potential recovery process ("it's a neat machine isn't it" - "no, it doesn't work!"). But this attempt failed and so I was told to return the unit for replacement. For some very optimistic reason I had decided to throw the box away, so I wrapped up all the various parts in a pastic sack and went to Microcenter, Houston's best computer store (IMO) and returned it for a replacement. "No units in stock. Come back at 4 p.m." So I did. And I got a replacement. And so far so good, this one works. Not a good experience but one that could have been much worse. Possible reason for successful replacement sans box - I wrote down the HP case number.

April 11, 2004

GPS Route (Paul Ashton)

The route shown below is a representation of a wild goose chase. Basically I decided to go to Microcenter and the Apple Store in Houston to buy some Apple stuff. So I switched on the Garmin eTrex Vista GPS unit as I left the apartment (bottom right) and proceeded to drive the freeway to the West Loop/Galleria area (right top and left sides of the rectangle. The return journey was down Richmond Avenue.

Why a wild goose chase? Well, all the computer stores in Houston seem to have honored Easter Sunday as a holiday - since when did the soldiers of commercialism take a day of rest other than Christmas?

April 10, 2004

Maturin-Caracas-Houston (Paul Ashton)

I left Maturin Friday lunchtime (the evening flight was cancelled as it is Easter, a major holiday in Venezuela), overnighted in Caracas and flew on to Houston today. Continental upgraded me to First Class which was very nice indeed (believe it or not, other airlines would rather have an empty First Class than reward frequent flyers with an upgrade!). The photo below was taken from my airport hotel window - there is no doubt that sex sells alcohol in Venezuela!

April 7, 2004

Bloody Mary Morning (Paul Ashton)

Last evening over dinner with friends I discussed the lyrics of Willie Nelson's Bloody Mary Morning ditty, particularly the fact that he refers to "flight #50 is the way to fly". As any old Continental Airlines hand will tell you, this was the early morning flight from Los Angeles to Houston when their planes were known as the "proud bird with the golden tail". It's all history now, the planes are mostly blue and white while Flight 50 starts in Houston, goes through Newark and on to Frankfurt, and their hostesses are called flight attendants!

April 5, 2004

Rollright Stones vandalized (Paul Ashton)

The Rollright Stones, located on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border and featured here on focalplane.com have been vandalized in a possible April Fools Day prank gone horribly wrong. Yellow gloss paint has been daubed on 70 stones (that's about all of them), desecrating a religious site and probably killing off lichens that are hundreds of years old. Restoration could cost up to £100,000.

April 4, 2004

Mountain Rescue (Paul Ashton)

One day after posting the Cader Idris Travelogue, there is a report in the Birmingham Post of a group lost on the Brecon Beacons. They were well equiped but still got into trouble due to poor weather. Happily all turned out well.

April 2, 2004

Cader Idris Travelogue is up (Paul & April Ashton)

A day on a Welsh mountain.

April 2, 2004

April Fools Day Trick? (Paul Ashton)

The following was received this morning. It has nothing to do wih focalplane.com. Don't open the links and files if you receive an e-mail like this puporting to be from focalplane. "noreply@focalplane.com" does not exist.

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