I’ve never camped before in my life. I’ve slept under the stars before, sure, but that usually had nothing to do with an interest in getting away from it all. So, here I find myself one week away from a 22 day, demanding trek across the Atlas Mountains in Morocco with not a clue as to what I’ve gotten myself into… or what I need to make it through.

My biggest fear (today anyway) is that I’ll be ill-equipped for the trek and get something painfully gross like black toe where I start bleeding out of my feet and losing toe nails… or something worse. With that in the back of my mind, I began the process of researching gear and equipping myself as quickly as possible in order to have time to test everything out before I find myself cold and broken in some desolate landscape with Arabs speaking French.

The first thing I noticed when I began to outfit myself is that there’s no getting around looking like a stereotypical hiker. It was hard to do, but after enough looks from store employees after I asked for an item that “looked cooler” or had “less straps”, I resigned myself to the idea of function over form.

Anyway, here are the spoils of an afternoon spent visiting Patagonia, EMS, and Paragon:

Round 1 Trek Equipment

1. SCARPA Men’s SL M3 Backpacking Boots: I am not messing around with my feet. These seem to be top of the line.
2. Marmot Precip Jacket: I don’t expect much rain next to the Sahara, so I didn’t go wild on a hardshell waterproof layer.
3. Marmot PreCip Pant: I really hope it doesn’t rain…
4. Marmot Afterburner Jacket: Yes, this is my first fleece article of clothing ever, BUT it’s name is “Afterburner”, so that makes it automatically cool.
5. Pearl Izumi Grip-Lite Glove: I’m a little worried these won’t be warm enough when we start getting to altitude…
6. Patagonia Men’s Active Brief: If I have to walk 8 hours a day wearing the same underwear over and over, these things better be made with magic and rainbows.
7. Eagle Creek Undercover Leg Stash: How cool is this thing? Top secret document storage. (I wanted it in black, but oh well…)
8. NALGENE 32-Oz. Wide Mouth Tritan Bottle: Yeah… I needed a water bottle… I still need another one, but “testing” out the Nalgene first.
9. SMARTWOOL PhD Outdoor Light Crew Socks: They were out of medium thickness, so I’m testing out light. Still need to buy 3 or 4 more pairs if they work out.
10. NIKWAX Footwear Conditioner: To help break in the boots with the added benefit of waterproofing.
11. Casio Men’s Solar Atomic Pathfinder Multi-Band Watch: I can’t go to the wilderness without a cool gadget or two. This thing does temperature, barometer, altitude, digital compass and more.
12. CAMELBAK Omega 70 Reservoir: A bit of an impulse purchase based on a recommendation from the guy helping me at EMS. The idea of riding a camel with a Camelback does appeal to me, though…
13. OSPREY Talon 33 Pack: This was one of the most difficult purchases and the one where I truly resigned myself to function over form. It does have a pretty evil looking, skeleton bird logo, so that’s cool.
14. OUTDOOR RESEARCH Helios Sun Hat: “SolarShield™ fabric provides UPF 50+ sun protection”… so I assume that’s good.
15. Adventure Medical Trail Easy Care Kit: Only rated 1-3 days… no problem!
16. Black Diamond Contour Elliptic Shock Trekking Pole: I always thought walking sticks were for old people, but everyone I talked to assured me I would be happy I had these.
17. Men’s Merino 1 Crew: This thing is amazing. Super thin wool feels soft and delicious on your skin. Plus the cut is actually slim instead of boxy. Very nice.
18. Men’s Capilene® 2 T-Shirt: Yes, the wool Merino is nice, but its price is very high, so I thought I would test out the synthetic alternative and see if I could make do.
19. Men’s Capilene® 2 Bottoms: I hope this stuff works…
20. Eagle Creek Travel Towel X-Large: “Extra large size allows for full body coverage.” That’s what I’m talking about… but seriously, this thing better dry in a hurry.

Notice there are no pants on this list. Every pair I saw looked horrible and I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase a pair, but after doing a little more research, it would appear that I have no choice but to look like a dork if I want to be comfortable.

Oh well… once I get the pants, I need to remember to put all this stuff to the test and quickly finish gearing up.

A quarter of a mile to death...

After seeing coverage on a number of blogs I follow and The New York Times, I was excited to get a chance to check out Chicago’s newest attraction while there for a wedding last weekend. We landed in the windy city Thursday night. The next morning, we were standing in line at 9am in the basement of the Willis Sears Tower anticipating the 103 story elevator ride to the observation level.

Once up, you have to walk all the way around to finally get to The Ledge. Luckily, it was early so there wasn’t too much of a crowd. After making our way to the edge of The Ledge, you do instinctively find yourself questioning whether you should really step out onto the glass 1,353 feet above the pavement.

Of course, you do step out. It’s what you came here for. It’s certainly an interesting moment, however the exhilaration slowly moves from the focus to the periphery replaced by 2 parts awe and 1 part annoyance that the people sharing the glass enclosure with you get in the way of all your good photographs.

I should remember to indulge my tourist tendencies more often.

MyBestDesktops.com launched one year ago with Halloween desktops, so it’s exciting to once again be in the season of drinking and being scary! So far we’ve had a cute jack-o-lantern and a scary ghost… what’s next?

I need to remember to keep uploading stuff!

Well, seems like I’ll be going to Seoul, South Korea on business next week.

I should remember to see as much as I can… including their neighbors to the north.

California Literary Review: North Korean Propaganda Posters

My Best Desktops is in the midst of a Halloween desktop wallpaper blowout! Head over there and download ‘em while they’re hot!

El Toro, the new wooden coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, is simply amazing (Just check out people’s expressions in this shot of the first plunge)… and I’m not even into rollercoasters.

Everything about it screams of a fantastically designed experience. It’s simply the smoothest riding coaster I’ve ever ridden. Its lift is quickly paced leaving no time for regrets, no time for the old-school (and if this ride is any indication) unnecessarily drawn-out moment of anticipation before gravity takes control and no time for nonsense. It just cuts to the chase which is awesome!

From the first nearly 80º initial plunge, to the bucking bull modeled and relentless hills, to the completely expected twisting finally; nothing is superfluous. Nothing pulls you out of the thrill.

And this is the odd part about it: the ride doesn’t seem to try to scare you. It doesn’t allow time for it, so the whole thing is just a massively good time. Just thinking about it again gets my heart rate going.

I have to remember to make it back out to Great Adventure this Summer for another ride!

This is something I’ve been meaning to write about ever since I read the article (and more importantly the comments on the article) “Top 12 Guns for Geeks and Gadget Goons” over at Gizmodo that revealed just how much crossover there is with geek/gadget culture and gun culture.

The funny thing about living in New York is that no matter how many friends you have, you continually have to remind yourself that your circle of acquantances and people you run into on a day to day basis in no way represent the average population of the rest of the country. That means that none of your friends probably have guns. No one I know owns a gun, although at one time I did live with someone who was into guns, but then it was rifles for shooting on a range and not what the article was about: the best handgun for concealed carrying purposes.

I’m not going to get into the debate of gun control (although I hate guns), because the bigger question to me is whether people who run around the internet flaming each other, pwning each other’s grammar, calling the WAHHHHAMBULANCE for each other and generally being loud-mouthed and childish should be packin’ concealed heat. I hate to say it, but it somehow smacks of overcompensating for physical shortcomings.

I dunno… call me crazy, but I’ll now remember to think again next time I’m considering attending any tech conferences in this country. (Especially MacWorld since it seems like some geeks are out to kill them some Finder… I just wonder if they eat what they kill!)

(Image from Geeks with Guns activities surrounding SXSW)