Matter of Perspective

I bought new camera.  Or rather, I bought an old camera.  In camera years it’s probably about 200 years old, but in actual fact was made in 2005.  5 years is a old for digital camera.  The hype around the latest-greatest is not always hype, but it does tend to bury many of the realities [...]

Matrix 360

Matrix 360 is a circuit training workout I created that’s awesome for hotels and on-the-go because it requires no weights.  It consists of 6 circuits (or sets) of 6 exercises for a total of 36 exercises covering all major muscle groups. Done over 10 weeks you have 360 total exercises; hence Matrix “360″.  For those [...]

Passage of a Whistle

“The Butterfly” played by Barak Bruerd on an Overton Low D
As an Irish musician (a very flexible term when applied to myself), I have a certain affinity for flutes and whistles.  So it’s no small thing for me to have sold my Copeland Low D whistle on ebay.  Copeland whistles are the Cadillac of Irish [...]

World AIDS Day

Article by Dan Haseltine for Blood:Water Mission

I was not really prepared.  As I turned the corner, my eyes took it in, and I felt my lungs fill with air, and let it all go,  as if I had just beheld a great waterfall, or a mountain vista.  It was nothing of the sort.  But it [...]

Truth About Bottled Water

Good:Water

Alcohol Stove

The alcohol stove, largely unknown in our modern REI world of high-tech camping, dates back more than a hundred years and was the standard cooking device for explorers, adventurers and hobos.  Designs vary from an open pool of burning alcohol to double-wall designs that self-pressurizes and a good design will boil water every bit [...]

Flow

Award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century — The World Water Crisis.

Compact Florescent

Among the biggest reasons for not being a little greener is that it costs money and is a hassle. But most people aren’t taking advantage of one of the most obvious ways to be both environmentally friendly and save some some extra cash: CFL’s.  Compact florescent lights.  Consider this: lighting accounts for 20 percent of [...]

Native American Flute

A number of years ago I found myself inexorably drawn into the realm of woodwind crafting.  A tangent of one of my lesser known, and much neglected skills – flute playing.  I started off with classical flute in the 6th grade.  No, scratch that… I started off with recorder when I was 7 years old.  [...]

Trouble w/ the Alphabet

Marsabit

Marsabit.  It’s a bit like Mars, but without the long trek across the solar system. Though after nine spine-rattling hours  along a dusty, boulder strewn road, I staggered out of the 4×4 Land Rover looking as if I’d just spent a month in space.  The landscape was an incredible mix of red volcanic rock and [...]

Resources

In my never-ending quest for knowledge the web has proven both a fantastic resources and an incredible waste of time.  In an effort to assist you in maximize the former I’m providing my shortlist of resources on my favorite subjects.  Be sure to browse the posts in my tag cloud since many of them contain [...]

Helpless

Water flows out of the well and onto the dusty hands of 50 or so laughing school children who crowd in to get a drink during a break between classes.  The school is a cinder-block shell along a sandy road deep in the bush of southern Mozambique and the very fact that it exists at [...]

Surviving 32…

I’ve been 32 years old for about a month now and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. I expected that somehow being 32 would have imparted a bit more maturity into my life; a little more temperance. And yet having spent the better part of 6 hours the other week hiking a [...]