Category Archives: General Talk

Patagonia and Black Friday

General Talk, ,

And so here we are — another Black Friday approaching — and after all these years I still don’t know what to make of it.

I know why it exists. It exists so businesses can make money. Lots of money. In a short period of time.

Is it a good thing? No, not for me. For others; I guess they have to decide for themselves.

This isn’t the first time I have written about the Black Friday phenomenon. I have shared my rants many times over the years. However, this year, I’d like to point out something different. A different company. Patagonia.

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Book Review: The Secret Knowledge of Water, by Craig Childs

General Talk

 

Back in September of this year I reviewed three of my favorite “desert” books. All three were written over 50 years ago. Here I review another that is worth adding to your library.

The Secret Knowledge of Water was written about 25 years ago (originally published in 2000). Like the other three books, this one is also timeless.

The cover includes a wonderful quote from the book:

There are two easy ways to die in the desert: thirst and drowning

For those of us who have lived and explored deserts extensively, this dichotomy says so much.

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The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir — My Book Review

General Talk

 

“In the predawn hours of July 10, 2014, the son of legendary Alaskan explorer Roman Dial walked alone into the untracked rainforest of Costa Rica’s remote Pacific Coast. ‘I’m planning on doing 4 days in the jungle,’ he wrote his father before leaving, ‘it should be difficult to get lost forever.’

Then he vanished . . .”

This would be the last communication from Roman Dial’s son.

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Happy New Year

General Talk

For the 20+ years that Joyce and I have been married, most years we awaken on Christmas morning and New Year’s Day in a campground. Occasionally we stay at home. This year was a stay at home for Christmas time.

We had planned on heading out to the Lake Mead area after Christmas but a mild case of the flu, which has been lingering for a couple weeks, made us decide to stay home to completely recuperate at. We’ll be heading out in the camper soon.

Joyce loves to decorate for the holidays. Given all her efforts, I decided to put together a collage of her work.

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Backpacking Art

Backpacking Gear, General Talk
US Commemorative Stamps Honoring Pioneers in American Industrial Design (2011)

No, this isn’t about pictures or paintings related to backpacking or the outdoors, but aesthetic industrial design. Equipment or clothing that is functional and whose form is pleasing to look at. Its form follows its function. The technology may even elicit a pleasant emotional response. 

Normally clothing might be considered fashion more than industrial design, but the clothes we wear in the wilderness in extreme conditions are really technology. So I’ll include clothing.

This post will consider these elements and design in backpacking gear and see if there are any outstanding examples of these principles.

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PopUpBackpacker is 10 Years Old !!

General Talk
 

It was time to update the copyright notice in the footer of the Website when I noticed that it has been a little over 10 years since PopUpBackpacker was created.

Over the past 10 years I have covered a lot of territory backpacking, hiking, camping and writing about the things that interest me. In this post I’ll cover some highlights, where I have been and what the future might hold for me and PopUpBackpacker.

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Haboob

General Talk

This photo taken in the Salton Sea area by NWS #Skywarn Spotter Steve.For those who occasionally hike or camp in deserts, I’d like to share a recent weather event we had in our lovely desert on Oct 6, 2022. Should you happen to experience one of these this post will explain what happened.

It is called a Haboob, which is an Arabic name. This is what it looked like down by the Salton Sea, which is about 60 miles from our house.

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4 Million: What’s in a Number?

General Talk

Today I received a message that this website’s software needed to be updated with a couple new versions.

Typical stuff. Software updates are supposed fix bugs, and more importantly to me, patch security vulnerabilities. So I installed the updates. As I usually do, I took a quick tour to ensure everything was working. At the bottom of the sidebar, I saw the Page View statistics.

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