Tue, 26 Apr 2005

Co-Dependency
Co-dependency is another useful concept in psychology. I think it’s helpful to know about these concepts in psychology because it can help us to understand ourselves and other human beings.

posted at: 14:01 | path: /living | link

Mon, 25 Apr 2005

Make your own generator
Here are simple directions on how to make your own generator.

posted at: 23:41 | path: /living | link

Sat, 23 Apr 2005

Windstream Power Systems
This low rpm generator looks pretty sweet. The website also has a useful discussion of torque in generators and alternators.

posted at: 12:33 | path: /living | link

Back to power
I seem to be doing a lot of visiting of old topics these days. I guess it’s the dialectic process at work. At the moment I’m back to alternate power- no doubt spurred on by Colin’s discussion of wind power. There often seem to be dribs and drabs of energy that nobody uses because it’s not enough at one time. Wind power is a good example of this. I think it would be useful to have a system that can take advantage of these small amounts of energy and store them up until they make a large enough amount. I think one way to do this is to use stored kinetic energy. In relation to this, I’m looking into hand driven generators.

posted at: 12:28 | path: /living | link

Thu, 21 Apr 2005

Newspapers galore
We have a lot of newspapers in Ottawa, as it turns out. Here’s a list of them.

posted at: 18:51 | path: /living | link

Tue, 19 Apr 2005

Glossary of Financial Management Terms
Well, I’m doing it- I’m writing a business plan. And running into lots of ‘financial jargon’ in the process. This site has a nice glossary of business terms. At least now I know what assets and liabilities are.

posted at: 18:55 | path: | link

Posting signs
I tend to get concerned about the legality of things. I want to post some signs advertising my tutoring, but I started to wonder if it was actually legal to post things on telephone poles. Turns out it is. Here are the details.

posted at: 13:56 | path: /work | link

I want a kotatsu!
My friend Diana just returned from a trip to Japan, and has told me about an exciting new furniture item- the kotatsu. It looks super cozy. Bring on the kotatsu!

posted at: 00:53 | path: /living | link

Fri, 15 Apr 2005

The Seasons in Algonquin Park
A nice review of the seasons in Algonquin park, with some discussion of camping pros and cons during each of them.

posted at: 13:17 | path: /living | link

Black Fly Hunting Season
Each year, the town of South River, Ontario, opens Black Fly Hunting Season on May 7th. Here’s a quote from their website: “The South River municipality has declared open season from May 7 - June 4, 2005 for the third annual spring Black Fly Hunt. All interested hunters are invited to apply for a valid hunting license, which is valid for hunting black flies as well as seasonal discounts at local businesses in the vicinity of South River. Interested hunters with valid licenses will don whatever protective gear is necessary to seek out and capture as many black flies as possible for the official weigh-in at the close of the Spring Hunt in early June. The event closes with the crowning of the 2005 World Champion Black Fly Hunter.”

posted at: 13:08 | path: /living | link

Self Acceptance
Self acceptance- that’s a challenge for me! Definitely one of my goals. There are many many many self acceptance sites on the internet. I just try to pay attention to the stuff that works for me. I liked the idea on this site to write down the personality traits that you most fear you have and then think about how you would accept yourself even if you had all of these traits. Kind of scary, but okay!

posted at: 10:23 | path: /living | link

Wed, 13 Apr 2005

Uber Stove Design
Oh. Wow. The general directions for all alcohol stoves.

posted at: 21:55 | path: /living | link

Super Simple Stoves
I’ve become fascinated by super simple alcohol stoves. There are a lot of stove designs out there that are *pretty* simple, but I’m talking super simple. The one listed earlier is super simple. This design is also super simple- maybe even simpler than the last one. And the ‘pot stand’ is built in.

posted at: 21:44 | path: /living | link

Sun, 10 Apr 2005

Foo
The origins of the venerable term ‘foo’.

posted at: 17:53 | path: /living | link

Sat, 09 Apr 2005

Movies I don’t like
Believe it or not, there are some movies that I don’t like. I can now add Sin City to that list. In fact, it is going to go on my list of Top All Time Movies That I Don’t Like. I’m not saying other people aren’t allowed to like it, mind you. This is just me talkin’. At least I can say that Colin, Andrew, Keltie and I had a bit of a bonding moment after watching it together- but maybe that’s just the Pollyana in me coming out.

Thanks to the wonders of IMDB, I can now tell you the titles of the other movies on my Top All Time Movies That I Don’t Like List. They are, in no particular order:

• Seven (to which I don’t deign to link)
• Buster’s Bedroom
• Omega Doom
• Mulholland Drive

Fri, 08 Apr 2005

Hiking Thousands of Miles
I’m finding this person’s journal entries really inspiring. She has hiked literally thousands of miles, often hiking for months at a time. I’m also finding her descriptions of the way the trail system in the States works very inspiring- with trail boxes, trail towns, trail guides, etc. I want that for the Trans Canada trail here.

posted at: 10:48 | path: /living | link

Thu, 07 Apr 2005

Hiking Gourmet
Okay, I know I’m obsessed with camping food at the moment. But perhaps it will pay off for some of you someday- you never know! Also, I have a really bad memory, so I find that I have to read information over and over again until it is firmly entrenched in my brain. At the moment I’m looking for ideas for using powdered butter. I visited this idea a long time ago in my blog, when I discovered Butter Buds. And now I’m back.

Here’s a bunch of suggestions for spicing up camping food that I found, including some ideas for powdered butter. These guys even made sushi on the trail! Which- when you think about what’s in sushi- is entirely do-able if you are willing to catch the fish.

posted at: 15:13 | path: /living | link

Wed, 06 Apr 2005

Ultralight Baking? Wah?
For some time now, Andrew and I have razzed Colin by threatening to take a back country oven with us camping. In doing research on ultralight backpacking I assumed baking would be anathema to those who go in for this sort of thing. Thus, imagine my surprise upon disovering this site dedicated to ‘ultralight baking’. And Andrew, you’re in luck- all of the cakes are egg free.

posted at: 22:44 | path: /living | link

Animal Senses
A main part of my thesis involves describing what sorts of senses a particular animal has, and over what distance these sense operate. Here’s a page with links to lots of articles about determine what sorts of senses particular animals have and how these work.

posted at: 17:13 | path: /school | link

Making your own trail food
The one exception to my ‘I am not a person who makes things’ rule is that I will happily make any sort of food (seitan immediately springs to mind). Consequently I enjoyed this article on making your own trail food. I particularly enjoyed the writer’s description of how you start to feel about those freeze dried pouch foods after the third or fourth day on the trail.

I know this is a hot topic among the people I know, camping afficionados and camping sufferers alike, so I have also started a Camping Food wiki page. (I know, I’m wiki obsessed). This page contains a listing of possible camping foods, with a rating beside the food. People can add foods and rate foods on the wiki.

posted at: 14:14 | path: /living | link

Attention all Glebeites
This one is going out to all those people I know who live in the Glebe. Here is a link to the Glebe Community Association. They are doing their yearly membership drive at the moment. Come on- I know you’ve got that meddling busy body spirit in you! I’m considering adopting a planter box

posted at: 09:58 | path: /living | link

Tue, 05 Apr 2005

Sleeping Bag Test Two
For my second sleeping bag test, I decided to try, in addition to placing the warmer side of the sleeping bag up, some warmer clothes. Since my goal is simply to find a warm sleeping option, I figured that changing a few variables at once was okay. I wore warm synthetic socks, synthetic long johns, a synthetic t shirt, a polar fleece zip up sweater and a balaclava. The weather was 4 degrees with the wind WNW 18 km/h gusting to 30 km/h. There was definitely a difference to the way the sleeping bag worked when the warmer side was up. This was particularly evident when I rolled over on to my side and some of the thin side ended up covering my back. I could feel the heat leaving from the thinner side of the bag. Over all, I felt slightly warmer than during the first sleeping bag trial. My torso, in particular felt pretty toasty. By the end of my time out on the balcony, however (15-20 minutes) my legs and feet were starting to feel cool. Again, my final assessment would be that in this configuration I would probably be O.K. at this temperature, but still a bit uncomfortable by morning. All of this talk of dual sided sleeping bags has created a bit of a discussion among various individuals. Here’s an Appalachian trail hiker’s review of his ‘sleeping quilt’ experiences (see bottom of page for discussion).

posted at: 00:09 | path: /living | link

Sun, 03 Apr 2005

Sleeping Bag Test
I tested out Colin’s sleeping bag on the balcony to see how it would work in the weather today. The weather was 8C, with a NE 13km wind. It was raining. Although I was out of the rain on the balcony, the air was damp. Colin’s bag is a MEC Oasis sleeping bag. It’s rated to 10C if you have the light side up and 0C if you have the heavy side up. Unbeknowst to me, I had the light side up, so it was rated to 10C. I was wearing synthetic gym socks, cotton leggings and a long sleeve cotton shirt (I know cotton isn’t good for winter/spring camping but I thought I’d see what happened). I was also wearing a belaclava made out of light polarfleece. I synched up the draw strings at the top so that the bag was fairly tight at the top- a bit smaller than shoulder width on me.While in the bag, I tried changing position a few times to see how that affected things. I stayed outside for about 20-25 minutes.

The first thing I noticed is that Colin’s bag is considerably larger than I am. I warmed up the space around me and the part of the bag that I was touching fairly quickly. When I moved around a bit I cooled down. The parts of the bag that I wasn’t directly touching were cold to the touch.

I’ve never bothered to pull the draw strings on the top of this bag before and I really liked the effect. Normally when I move around, I can feel the cold air rushing in to the bag. This time, the bag moved with me and I felt very snug, even though I could feel the wind quite strongly on my face.

After about twenty minutes I was feeling cool and my toes were getting cold. However, it wasn’t too severe. If I had been wearing thicker socks and a sweater I judge that I could have made it through the night, although I suspect that even with the extra clothes I would have been a bit uncomfortable by morning.

Now I need to test out the 0C side to see if that makes any difference.

posted at: 19:59 | path: /living | link

Sat, 02 Apr 2005

Principles of Wood Combustion
Various stoves try to burn wood and other substances efficiently. I visited this topic before when I was researching wood stoves, but having learned about the camping stoves, I think I’m in a better position to understand some of the information. This site discusses how combustion works, with an eye towards what stove factors affect combustion. This site has an interesting review of wood stove issues involving fuel efficiency of stoves and also discusses the wood gas stove, which sounds promising.

posted at: 21:00 | path: /living | link

Homemade Popcan Alcohol Stove
I kept seeing references to homemade alcohol burning stoves made out of pop cans while I read about stoves on the ultralight backpacking sites. I just didn’t understand any of the instructions until I looked at this page. Now I get it.

posted at: 19:50 | path: /living | link

Making Alcohol Fuel
First I wanted to know how to make a camp stove. Now I want to know how to make the fuel for the stove. Here’s some information on how to make alcohol fuel.

posted at: 15:18 | path: /living | link

Make Your Own Gear
I admit it- I’m not a maker of things. I would like to be, but I’m not. Be that as it may, I like to know how things work, so I like to learn how things can be made, even if I’m not the one making them. That’s why I was happy to find this homemade outdoor gear site.

posted at: 15:00 | path: /living | link

Camping Light in Winter
I’m not particularly interested in camping in the winter (at least, at the moment) but I figure that looking at winter camping equipment lists will also give me some ideas about what I can get away with in cool spring weather. This list was helpful. I note the use of a spork and titanium fuel container.

posted at: 11:25 | path: /living | link

Fri, 01 Apr 2005

Testing Clothing
I’ve decided to use my balcony and the cool daytime temperatures to do some clothing tests, in preparation for my spring camping trip. Today I sat out on my balcony in a variety of clothes combinations to see how I would feel. The temperature was 10 degrees and the wind was 32km, gusting to 41km, WSW. I put warm clothing on my legs, and then varied what I was wearing on my torso.

Clothes that didn’t change during the experiment: cotton long johns, warm socks, a long sleeved thermal undershirt, pants, hiking boots, gortex wind pants, fleece neckwarmer, fleece hat, gloves.

Clothing that was tested: Wool sweater (just under 2 pounds), fleece sweater (11 ounces), winter coat (1 pound, 7 ounces), gortex shell (1 pound 4 ounces), k-way (8 ounces).

Findings: I know that not having a water resistant or water proof layer wasn’t an option, so I didn’t test the fleece and sweater by themeselves. The K-way and gortex shell performed identically heat wise. By themselves, they didn’t cut it. With either the fleece or the wool sweaters, they were fine (with hoods up). However, there is the issue of breathability. The winter jacket worked fine by itself. However, it is water resistant, not water proof

Some further comments: I was doing this test just sitting still, to mimic conditions where it is night and you are just sitting around camp. Under these conditions, could I have gotten away with less on my legs, or fewer items in the hat and mittens department? Probably not, with this level of wind. As it was, my legs felt cooler than my torso, my hands were cool and I could feel the wind on my neck where it wasn’t covered by the neck warmer.

Here’s an interesting discussion on using gortex vs using nylon.

posted at: 13:58 | path: /living | link

Converting from general to standard (vertex) form of a quadratic
Here’s an explanation of how to do so, in general terms.

posted at: 13:27 | path: /work | link

Quadratic Quizzes and Quiz Practice Problems
A whole wack of them relevant to the Ontario Grade 10 Math Curriculum

posted at: 12:49 | path: /work | link

All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.