Almost every day I will go check out Candle Power Forums, the flashlight discussion area where I learned about Maglite upgrades, battery chargers, and LED flashlights. I haven’t bought another flashlight for myself since I bought the Fenix L2D and I’ve been very happy with it, using it whenever I take the dogs out at night.
Year: 2009
Going Gear
I have been pretty good about not getting anymore flashlights and really don’t need anymore flashlights, but I did end up buying a really small AAA light recently (I’ll write more about it later). I wound up getting it from a website called GoingGear.com because they had reasonable shipping rates and a 10% off discount code. I was surprised to be charged sales tax, but it turns out they are located in Smyrna.
GoingGear has some neat stuff. It is mostly camping gear. They have a neat video about the iTP flashlight I got on their home page. Under “most popular items” they have an array of “firesteel” products. These are rods made of iron, magnesium, and rare earth metals that you can rub quickly with the back of a knife and flaming globs of magnesium come off to help you start a fire. The YouTube video he has on this page shows how it works. Anything that makes showers of sparks like that and helps me start a fire when I don’t have a lighter or matches and only costs $2 is something I need to have. However, I will admit that I don’t think I have ever in my life needed to start a fire when I didn’t have matches or a lighter. Still, *firesteel*! So I got the “bobcat” size (larger than squirrel and mouse sizes, smaller than moose or wolf sizes).
Also in the firebug category were these powdery rocks that catch fire fairly easily when exposed to the sparks and help you then get a real fire going with some more tinder. The powdery rocks even float in water and repel water themselves, so you can make a fire when it is pretty damp out. Another kind of neat video here.
The last kind of neat thing he demonstrates in a video on his home page is a line of pens and notebooks called Rite in the Rain. These let you write (in the rain?) on paper that is water resistant and the ink doesn’t run even when submerged. I could see where if you had some kind of field work to do that sometimes had you out in the rain (like a park ranger or something) that would be neat to have. I did not buy any of that or the wet fire stuff, but it was neat seeing it in action.
Third Quarter Report
Along with the economy in general, my web site revenues seemed to have put the worst behind them, but the recovery is slow. I had three months in a row where I will earn a payment from Amazon (greater than $10 worth of commissions earned) whereas last quarter I only had one. AdSense is still anemic, but I got $5 in September. Somebody bought a couple of LED flashlight bulbs, so that sale almost certainly came from a link on the blog when I wrote about those. The most expensive item I sold was a Casio Men’s Pathfinder Multi-Band Solar Atomic Black Watch for $167.92. That locked in a payment for the month all by itself with a commission of $10.08. For the quarter I sold 40 items worth $1,060.52, earning $54.38.
Opossum in a Fig Tree
I’ve had a lot of opossum activity lately. A few weeks ago at night, I let the dogs out and they were barking which they don’t do unless they’ve got something. So I rushed outside and they were barking at a tree. I used the flashlight to scan the tree and there were two faces looking back at me. Opossums about five feet apart in the branches. I thought it wouldn’t be good to take a picture because that might force them to play dead and they would fall out of the tree. Then just the other night we were taking a walk and the dogs perked up about something, but it was near a house where there are outdoor cats. I turned on my flashlight on low to look around and there was something scurrying towards us. It turned and came straight down the sidewalk towards us at a fairly casual walking pace, a opossum. I held the dogs back and it stopped as if it was just noticing us, thought better of its current path and turned to cross the street and away from us. The dogs loved this.
Then tonight I let the dogs out and they went bolting into the backyard. They don’t do this unless they are on to something. I grabbed the flashlight again (I keep one hanging right next to the back door for this kind of thing) and looked all around. Directly under the fig tree I could see out towards all of the canopy, but I didn’t see anything. I got out and went to the side and there was a opossum hanging on and watching us. I went back in and the dogs followed (amazingly) and got the camera. With the dogs shut inside I was able to snap this photo.
Yard Man, Meet Lawn Boy
When I first bought my house, Mr. Deckbar donated his old Lawn Boy mower to me. It was just like the one we used to have and I used it for several years but each Spring it was harder to get started. Norm turned me on to Starting Fluid which will bring just about any engine to life (it is pure octane, actually ether I think) but even with that it was sluggish. So I checked out Consumer Reports in 2003 and they had a Yard Man mower that they liked and said did a good job of mulching. With the old mower I would bag and compost the clippings sometimes, but mulching is better because it just recycles the clippings into the ground where they help the grass grow.
