Coleman Stove Gadget Wish...

In my arsenal of gear, I have several of those two-burner white gas (naphtha) Coleman stoves. I'm sentimentally fond of the older style with the round brass tank (first picture). The ones with the cheapish red crimped tank are ok (second picture) but the tanks can leak at the crimp.

 

 

Most reasonable people have "upgraded" to a propane version, but to me, they don't cut it. However, I recently discovered a neat piece of gear that seems to be calling me. I saw it at Canadian Tire. It's basically a rod that slides into the burner in place of the Coleman tank. Then you connect either a disposable propane tank to it, or better yet, a hose from a larger refillable propane tank It looks like this:

It's a bit pricey at $30 or so, but I see one in my future  :)

Reminiscing...

Words unnecessary   :)

Wireless

With the wireless router hiding in a corner of the basement, the attic dwellers are taxing its range. Debbie's Netbook, 2 Ipods, and 2 PlayStations are all fighting for its "weak" signal. I need to locate it a little more "central" I guess, but in the meantime, I found a nifty antenna in the Surplus isles of Princess Auto. Just unplug the rubber whip from the router, and replace it with this gizmo for an extra 5db...so far so good.

NHL East; See what I mean?

What a difference a day makes. 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th place are all at 55 points. This nail-biting intensity is going to require a larger infusion of Jolt and popcorn (2nd picture)...

NHL Eastern RollerCoaster

Wow! Last week Montreal fell to 12th place in the east. Now they are in 7th !  The top 12 seem to be shifting daily. Fun to watch for sure...

B/W...

Yeah...remember "B/W" ? It stands for Black and White :) While trying to organize some digital files I came across these shots of the boys...likely taken in '99 or so. Shot on real film, developed and printed at home and subsequently scanned. This is a foreshadowing of one of my pending decluttering tasks; namely, I have a mountain of darkroom gear that is heading to the trash. I can't seem to give it away, and I'm tripping over it in several household locations...

Family History bits...

On Apr 9th  1913, my Grandfather Eliakim Rowsell a 28 year old bachelor and lumberman, married Elizabeth Budgell, a 24 year old spinster. Eliakim was born on Dec 15th 1884 at Exploits Island, son of Robert Rowsell and Elizabeth Ann Stride. Elizabeth was born Mar 31 1889 at Leading Tickles, daughter of Isaac Budgell & Rosanna Noseworthy. Minister was an Ensign Ebsary, and the ceremony was witnessed by Adolphus Rowsell and Mollie Frampton.

found this info here...

Also, see this 1921 Census data, extracted from here:

SurName	Given Name	Sex	Rela.	Status	Birth Yr	Birth Mo	Age	Religion	Birth Place
ROWSELL	Elikiam	M	Head	Married	1885	Dec	35	SA	Exploits
ROWSELL	Elizabeth	F	Wife	Married	1889	Mar	32	SA	Leading Tickles
ROWSELL	Cheslie(DAD)	M	Son	Single	1914	Mar	7	SA	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Cecil	M	Son	Single	1916	Jan	5	SA	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Ralph	M	Son	Single	1921	April	6 M	SA	Grand Falls

The following from the 1945 census:

ROWSELL	Eliskim?	Husband	M	M	60	Exploits	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Elizabeth E.	Wife	F	M	54	Twillingate	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Chesley	Son	M	S	31	Grand Falls	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Cecil	Son	M	S	29	Grand Falls	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Ralph	Son	M	S	24	Grand Falls	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	R.Roy	Son	M	S	20	Grand Falls	Grand Falls
ROWSELL	Anne M.	Adopted	F	S	13	Grand Falls	Grand Falls

Wire Bender...

UPDATE: Comment from Brian, that Lee Valley sells these.

This looks like a nifty gadget. A little thingy that you can mount on a bench for bending light wire into various shapes. The little pins can be used for a more "custom" bend. It's from the Duluth Trading Company. Anybody ever see one around these parts ?

Take the Roof off Winter (as it were)...

Knock on wood...we've had a pretty nice January so far; no real snow since New Year's Day with moderate, but mostly below zero temperatures. We ventured onto the Frog Pond for a skate. The ice is not too good, but we take what's given. With the collective foot-growth over the last year, I had to surrender my skates up in favor of silly crampons, but that's ok. I like walking on (thin) ice :)

 

 

 

 

 

Gadgets, Hand Warmers, Disposable, Lazy ?

As a hopeless gadget nut, during winter, my mind often reminisces about joyful things of the past. Mention hand warmers these days, and most people think of the disposal chemical hot packs or whatever they are called. You know the drill: use them once and chuck'em in the landfill. Then whine because the government is not doing enough to recycle. When I was in school, they taught us reduce, reuse, and recycle, in that order. Nowadays we rarely hear of the first two. It seems you can waste as you wish as long as you "recycle". But again I digress. Back to hand warmers. Other than the disposable ones, traditionally, I remember two others. One you burn a charcoal stick in and the other one was a young boy's dream, largely because it gave you an excuse to have a can of lighter fluid. Yee-Haw and bring on the Pyromania ! Let's concentrate on that type. Of course in my gadget and gear lust I am not without said devices. Zippo, the lighter folk import a nice one. They don't make it in Pennsylvania, but it does come from Japan.The only downer for long-term use is that the platinum-catalyzed glass fiber burner gives up the ghost in a year or so.

Mountain Equipment Co-op sells these, but it seems that nobody carries the replacement burners. The burners are only about an inch long:

 

As usual, it's Ebay + China to the rescue. I found some replacement burners and some knock-off Hand Warmers too. Amazingly, the package arrived (from Hong Kong) in 3 days. I couldn't believe it. The Zippo is a better unit, but the Chinglish ones can be landed here for about 30% of the price. I fired up both today, and the Zippo is a little less "hot" or more regulated. Overall, these things are brilliant. A little bit of work to fill, light etc but well worth it. Let me know if you want to try one. Want to know more? See links below:

Zippo Hand Warmer

Google is your friend.

It could be worse...

Still no word on repair costs or possibilities. I'm thankful nobody was hurt, and things can always be worse. Like the snail who was mugged by two turtles; when asked to give a statement to police the snail responded: "It all happened so fast". This week should reveal some answers nonetheless...at least we didn't fare as poorly as this SX4 driver...

 

Stupid is as Stupid does...

Well, for my first hyper-intelligent act of the new year, while driving home from church, full of charity and good will toward my fellow humans, I wasn't paying attention to the car in front of me...I'll let the pictures do the talking:

 

 

Interestingly, none of the six airbags deployed...

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year all !! Once again we celebrated with a carnivorous episode. It was snowing pretty hard all evening (still is) but living in this neck of the woods, you can't let weather be any kind of determinant, unless you crave depression. Family visiting, and all were "fed" up :)

Notice the heater? Didn't want my delicate toes getting too cold :)

Let it snow...

Cattle Boys BBQ Sauce!!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

The Midas "Touch"

I'm not really inclined to embrace popular technology too much, and am not a real Apple 'fan". However, from time to time personal biases and hangups must take a back seat to the facts. Case in point, the third generation 32 gig Apple Ipod Touch; this device is absolutely stunningly ingenious. Joel has had an older 16 gig model for a while, and James received the 32 gig model for Christmas. The features crammed into this little thing are incredible:

• 7,000 songs
• 40 hours of video
• 40,000 photos
• Voice Control
• Up to 30 hours of music playback
• Up to 6 hours of video playback
• iPod touch 3.1 software
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth
• Nike + iPod support built in
• Built-in speaker
• Earphones with Remote and Mic

If you have a wireless router, it's great for internet browsing, YouTube, Email, and there's even a Skype client that makes it into an pseudo I-Phone (without the monthly bill). The on-screen keyboard is quite usable, and configuration is child's play. The Swiss Army Knife of personal devices, I highly recommend one.

The BlackBerry Storm, on the other hand, is the worst device I have ever had or used. (had to throw that in didn't I ?).