SuperCat Stove

There are many reasons why you might want a lightweight stove that's powerful enough to boil water.  I carry one on backpacking trips, but one would also be handy if the power goes out at your home (hurricane or other natural disaster).

Andrew Skurka has a page showing you how to make the awesomely simple and very efficient SuperCat stove, so called because you make it from a cat food can.  Seriously.  I can vouch for this design because it's the exact same stove I use when camping.

Check it out.

Pitching Pennies

Right up front I'll warn you that this game can be considered gambling. I pitched pennies quite a bit while growing up, and yes, money exchanged hands, penny at a time. I trust that you're mature enough to deal with it if it offends you, and likewise bright enough to figure out how to change the rules to eliminate the stakes if you so desire.

The game is simple. You and your friends stand a set distance from a wall and each tosses, in turn, a penny. The object is to have your penny land closer to the wall than any other. If yours is the closest, you collect all the pennies. This is best played outside against a brick or concrete wall, indoors on tile. Carpeting changes the game significantly.

There are all kinds of "house rules" that can be agreed upon beforehand. Rather than list the one's we used, you can think of your own. As for disagreements, c'mon... it's pennies!

Matt Rutherford: Dreamer

Matt who?

Simply put, Matt decided to challenge himself, and he's well on the way to meeting his goal. That goal was to sail westward through the Northwest Passage, and if he made it, to continue his voyage down the coasts of North and South America, around the Cape Horn, then back up the east coasts until he again reaches his starting point in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

23,000+ miles.

Solo.

Non-stop.

No layovers in port. No relief crew. Just himself in a donated 27' sailboat.

He's already three fourths of the way through his journey of over ten months, heading north in the Atlantic waters east of Brazil. He still has a long way to go, but, according to conventional wisdom, the toughest parts are behind him. Maybe.

Here's a link to the website SolotheAmericas.org, where you'll find Matt's blog, photos, maps and more.

It's not just a sense of adventure that drives Matt. He's collecting money for the Chesapeake Regional Accessible Boating (aka CRAB), to sponsor programs that help the disabled and handicapped sail and enjoy the ocean.

Dreamers can make a difference.

The Space Race

Fifty years ago today, the Space Race was won, but the Soviet Union. The USSR launched Sputnik, a small, simple satellite whose continuous beeping announced to the world their victory.





Three and a half years later, on 12 April 1961, the USSR would take the next step into space, when Senior Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin travelled into space aboard Vostok 1 (while in orbit, he was promoted to the rank of Major).




(Please ignore the obnoxious soundtrack in this video.)

The United States would put Alan Shepard into space less than a month later.