Fitness equipment for home and travel

I've mentioned before that I like to lift weights. I first started when I was around 13, had a few at home - a bar, some dumbbells, those cheap plastic weights. Had no idea what I was doing and looked to my friends for help - which was sometimes good and sometimes....not so much.

There was a gym in the high school and I started working out there a lot with my rugby and wrestling teams. I was never pushing huge numbers but I took pride in my strength (damn good for a little guy) and my fitness level made me a lot more successful in sports. BTW, I posted a few strength benchmarks at the bottom, mostly random stuff as best as I remember it.

I really slacked off after high school and I suffered for it while trying to wrestle in university. I also hated cardio work so if I wasn't doing sports year round my wind was sucky (yes, that's the technical term).

When I went to college in Ontario at 21 and stayed in the residence, I started eating like mad (free food), working out every day (great gym), played tons of badminton, and I put on a ton of muscle and size. Felt great. Then I moved north and things got a lot more complicated. There was a gym here full of old, garbage machines but it did have sufficient free weights for me - I prefer free weights. Unfortunately I was in there one day and saw a guy working out, shirtless, with the most extensive ring worm all over his torso that I could ever imagine. I never went back. It was HORRIFYING. Now I needed to find some home workout options; easier said than done when you live in the ass end of nowhere. I lived in an apartment so there wasn't a ton of space and shipping ranges from insanely expensive to impossible. We get a barge once a year, truck service for about 8-9 months depending on weather (ice roads over rivers, ferries when they melt) and fly in service.

I ended up getting a bowflex. Cost a LOT at the time and I had to get it flown in for some ridiculous sum. It was OK. Good enough for arms and shoulders, OK for back, not very good for legs (not that I cared, I never worked them) and pretty damn crappy for chest because of the cable angle. I supplemented with push ups. It was fairly small and folded up which was good because I was in an apartment with my girlfriend.

Eventually I got tired of it, sold it, and managed to get a barely sufficient bench and some crappy free weights. Just enough to be useful though. We had moved into a townhouse so we dedicated a bedroom to it; there was just enough room but a miscalculation could put a bar through a wall easily. Also got a chin up bar.

That worked out OK and I actually made some great improvements (some fitness benchmarks at end of post) though I used to have to borrow weights from people to up my bench press :)

I really ended up becoming too bench press oriented. It's a fine exercise but I made it the focus of my workouts allowing myself to get out of balance physically. Always a mistake.

Eventually the town opened up a proper gym and I started working out there. Excellent results and I cleared out my old gym - we really didn't have space for it anymore as we had to move to a smaller place. As much as the new town gym started out as a pretty positive experience (nice to have access to more and better equipment) I rapidly was reminded of why I really don't like going to gyms. As the gym became more popular, various problems started to crop up:

- Overcrowding became a big issue, it was nuts
- The people in charge of the gym had no idea how to run one and bought a lot of terrible equipment (for a lot of money) and didn't take care of the equipment they had

- There wasn't enough cardio equipment to go around so they kept buying more and more, past the point that there was enough space for it. Eventually the place just became dangerous, people tripping over everything, no room for free weights etc.

- The level of asshole began to rise steadily. It's strange, my memories of working out at the various gyms prior to moving here were very positive. People were helpful, polite, tidy - gym etiquette was understood and followed. Even extreme roided-out bodybuilders were good people to work out with, they love the sport and can be a great training resource. Now....wtf!? Not just here but even at gyms I've gone to while travelling, I can't get over the rude and confrontational behavior I have encountered. Friends of mine have gotten in actual fights in the gym over nothing.

The gym here was cheap and it was available 24/7 (great for shift workers) but it was just an impossible situation for me. People didn't clean up after themselves (gross), the crowding, the heat (no A/C), the smell - it was too much.

Fortunately my work had a spare room we could use, my old office, and Sears finally had some decent Olympic weights for sale. Too much money later, I was pretty well set up at work, which is great. I prefer to work out at home but there just isn't space in the places we live here because there are no basements. Due to the permafrost, all the houses are on pilings or blocks. Working out at work was even better because there is always some down time available, doesn't eat up any part of my day. I hate driving to a gym, working out, driving home - lots of wasted time in cities.

That worked out OK for a while. Unfortunately, a few years ago I was in a car accident. Hurt my back, neck, etc - and hurt my shoulder. A lot. Initially I didn't recognize how serious the injury was. I had a difficult time getting treatment where I was and the physiotherapists and doctors I saw were not fitness-oriented. This is a problem I have run into in the past, working with rehab people that don't exercise themselves (serious exercise) and do all their work with either elderly patients or patients who are overweight and in terrible physical condition before the exercise.

A couple of examples:

I saw a doctor in town for a follow up. She's a great doctor and was EXTREMELY helpful (many don't want anything to do with car accidents) but was somewhat shocked at one of my complaints:

Me - "Any time I try to bench more than 200 lbs it hurts a lot and my shoulder starts to collapse"

Her - "You can't lift that much! That's just unhealthy, no one should do that"

Um....


Then talking to the physio guy (I've had a lot of bad experiences with physio) he said a lot of similar things. We talked about what I used to do and where I wanted to go and he pretty much told me weight lifting was unhealthy and I should focus on running. Running? Really? I hate running and that's an activity that can be hard on the body. Personally if someone said you could only do one thing I would say swimming...

A common thread through this and past rehabs was that there at times seemed to be some surprise at what my fitness level was post-injury. Some seemed to think that because I was stronger or in better condition than the "norm" (whatever that is) that I should be satisfied with where I was. Where I wanted to be free of pain and back to the level I was! Not at the level of a 30 year old video game junkie with a fast food diet.

Seriously, it got pretty weird at times. I think I needed to find sports therapists.

After a very long period of time which ended up mostly being self-rehab and some unfortunately infrequent but very helpful massage therapy, I'm basically back to 100% health but I am most definitely not back to 100% strength. I'm starting to suspect that is not such a bad thing and I want to go in a different direction. In my 20s I focused a lot on bench press and pure weightlifting exercises and not as much on overall fitness. Lifting hard was fun and it kept my weight in line; hard lifting is a great cardio workout too btw. Unfortunately that can no longer continue for two reasons:

1. My injury history - I just don't feel comfortable doing a lot of the exercises I used to and I can't lift the same weight with the same intensity. Part of it is quite frankly a little fear of re-injury, part of it is I am just tired of trying to work my way back to what I was but the biggest part is I just don't think it's a good workout plan for me in the future, for what I want to accomplish (more on that later). I've decided to focus more on core strength (something I used to giggle about), my back, and shoulders. The legs and chest will of course be involved but with my injury history, I need to get everything more even and those areas are lagging.

2. Where I should be moving to (still waiting *sigh* for paperwork) - I intend to buy a small house when we move and there's a good chance it won't have much of a basement (if any). There's no room at work to set up my gym and I don't want to take up a bedroom in the house just for my workout equipment. I'm sure there are one or more gyms in town but I still hate gyms :)

I want workout equipment that is small, effective and portable (if possible). Stuff that won't require a basement or separate room, that can be brought out as needed but doesn't take over half the house for space. And hopefully something that can travel with me.

My fitness goals:

1. Maintain a healthy weight. This is the big one. I didn't realize how much the extra weight was hurting me. I'm down 31 lbs in 3 months and feel fantastic. At least 5 more lbs to go...maybe 10. We'll see. Weight is just a comparison benchmark, it's inches that matter.

2. Develop and maintain a high level of functional strength. It sounds a bit cocky but I am already stronger than most men. I would go so far as to say I am very strong for my size.** There aren't any tasks I shy away from and I'm one of the guys you call when you have something heavy you need moved. However, I want to focus more on whole body strength, strength that applies well not just to lifting stuff but also to martial arts/combat training and perhaps sports now that I may be returning to civilization. And I want to continue strengthening my body to avoid injury, make it easier to hike long distances with a heavy pack, and increase my strength over a whole range of motion - improved flexibility.

3. Increase my cardio fitness level. This will be the easiest if I move as I will be walking 5-10kms a day to and from work carrying a backpack. I may bike some days but I prefer walking. I don't intend to start running (still hate it) but I will either keep up the stair work on days off or add in some hill climbing.

My minimum workout equipment will consist of:

- TRX suspension straps - already have

- Adjustable dumbbells - plan to get a set of 5-90 urethane powerblocks, I have some mediocre ones but I will sell them. We have bowflex ones at work. The small set are fine, the big ones are garbage. This barely made the list as there are alternatives to dumbbells.

- Chin up bar - prefer to get a wall mount (or joist if that's possible), I have a doorframe one

- Push up bar(s) - already have two kinds, atlas chest builder and more standard ones

Equipment I intend to add but can live without:

- Adjustable bench (flat to incline)

Equipment that would be nice:

- Dip Stand (ultimate body press)

Equipment I may consider someday but it's hardly a burning concern:

- Sandbag trainer

Some notes on home gym equipment:

Atlas Chest Builder Bar

- I own this and I am a fan. I prefer it to normal push up bars, I just like knowing that everything is symmetrically aligned, especially when doing pushups with weight (loaded backpack)

Travel Doorway Pull up bar

- I don't own this so can't verify if it is good but I like the idea. It breaks down as small as can be expected for a real chin up bar and would be extremely useful when traveling. It is still pretty large though, you'd really have to love your chin ups to carry it.

Need Help resistance band

- I don't own this yet but I think I am going to get one. I like the concept, it's cheap, and looks a lot better than using a chair for the same purpose.

ICheck out Zuzana from BodyRock.TV. She is amazingly fit (scary almost) and does some great home workouts. Some of the equipment she uses that I like (but haven't tried yet) are the Ultimate Sandbags, a Dip Bar that is either this one made by ultimate body press or something similar and a wall mounted chin up bar, again either similar to or the same one made by ultimate body press.












I'm not sure about sandbag training. Some of it looks good, some of it looks goofy. I'll have to try it at some point. The sand bag itself is...ok I guess...you could do similar or better exercises perhaps with real weights (or improvise your own sandbag) but then, you'd have to own the real weights! Something like this is small to ship and carry around when empty and you can usually find sand. Except here of course, though I've used cat litter as a substitute.

I really like the dip bar, it would be very effective and it folds up quite small. If you can set one up, I prefer a wall mounted or rafter mounted chin up bar to a doorway one. Some door ones are OK, some are crap, but all the ones I have used cause a slight amount of damage to the door frame or wall and tend to creak alarmingly.

All of that is useful home equipment but not a lot of use when traveling other than (maybe) the take apart door frame chin up bar. I usually fly out of here twice a year at a minimum; used to be a lot more for training courses. It's always a pain trying to work out when traveling. You have to find a gym, they have to allow day use (some only do memberships), the gyms can be gross or not good, or there might not be one at all. I've tried resistance bands - not a fan. I tend to use my luggage for some exercises and try to do pushups but it's not very effective. I recently came across some videos on the TRX suspension trainer and was very interested. Simple, very compact, and works just about anywhere - all you need is a door, tree, rafter, or a pole. It actually looked like something that could be the base of a regular workout rather than some garbage item *cough cough resistance bands cough cough* that would sit in my closet, never to be used.

I haven't been working out with the TRX for a long time but am impressed so far. It provides an especially good shoulder workout. Back workout is good though I would add in chin ups where possible, leg work is very good for me, excellent stomach work that is so much better than situps, and the chest work is good though I would add in dumbbell press and/or weighted pushups where possible. Bicep/triceps work is surprisingly effective though I would add in some dumbbell work where possible. I especially love being able to do handstand pushups with this thing. I am not able to do an actual handstand pushup - I don't think I can do an actual handstand for that matter, I keep getting freaked out at the thought of my shoulder collapsing (I need to get over that) and it affects my balance. I've been doing them with my legs against a wall but it's awkward and I did keel over once. Hooking my foot in the TRX allows me to go pretty much vertical and I can drop my other leg down as a spot if needed.

The TRX looks like the perfect base for my workout and I can add in other things as needed. It's good for men, women, and youth. It's totally portable, it weights next to nothing, and it will work almost anywhere. Could be a good thing if you ever had to evacuate or bug out too - take note preppers! What are you going to do in your underground bunker, cabin/cave in the woods or at a family retreat to keep your fitness up? I think this is the best answer and it won't add a lot of bulk/weight to your bug out bag.

Notes on me:

I am 5'9 and 3/4" - hey, I need every scrap of height I can get. One of my tall friends always laughs, he says only a short person would say their exact height. He is always "about 6'4." Of course, one of my old friends always used to say he was "about 6 feet" until we finally pinned him to the wall and measured him. We left a mark on the wall at his 5'8 height :)

Benchmarks over the years:

13 years old - body weight-115 at 5'9 - yikes!! I have a very slim frame and I had a crazy growth spurt after grade 8, I grew 6 inches in a very short time. It left me with stretch marks on my knees and hips. I was actually tall for a while...but stopped growing.

18 yrs old - body weight-140-145; bench press*-175 was the most I ever tried, I would guess it was more; chin ups-oodles and oodles; 30+ 1 arm pushups

22 yrs old - body weight-180; bench press-260; chin ups-not great; maybe 12 1 arm pushups. Put on 20+ lbs of mostly muscle in 8 months - more stretch marks, this time on my biceps :(

25ish yrs old - body weight-190; bench press-315; chin ups-so-so; squat-315; bent over barbell row-225?

Car accident at age 29? my memory sucks. Very bad, I fell apart. Shoulder problems, back injury, etc.

33 yrs old - body weight-206; bench press-230-240; chin ups-6 regular, 2 wide; squat-SFA

34 yrs old (now)- body weight-175, bench press-estimate 260 but I haven't checked; chin ups-15 regular, 4 wide (I still suck at those); squat-not sure


*1 rep max

**for my size refers more to my small frame/bone structure than my height. Though being taller can help, being too tall can be a hindrance in other ways. But there is no substitute for that large framed "man" strength often called farmboy strength or build (for lack of a better term). I can add a lot of muscle but I can't make myself any bigger. My Dad is a good example of this. He doesn't exercise, was never a fitness buff, he is 61 years old, is overweight, and a little shorter than me. He also has some injuries from car accidents (damn cars!!).

He has enormous hands, his frame is substantially larger than mine and he is STRONG. Damn strong. He can't lift or carry anymore like I can (due to injury) but he has a crushing grip, is tough as nails, and can do things that I have never come close to. Watching him work on a car outdoors in the freezing cold, without gloves, can make you think that maybe that previous generation that grew up on the farm was tougher.

My grandfathers were the same. Shortish, overweight, but huge hands, big frames, outdoor workers (logger and farmer) and tough, tough, tough, strong men. WWII vets. Miss them dearly.

Your cell phone - a great tool if you are allowed to use it

One of the more disturbing trends from the England riots is the desire to shut down cell service and social networking sites to "keep criminals from using them."

It's not just "criminals" that might be using such sites in the event of a riot, emergency, whatever - it's all of us. The use of a cell phone to call for help is pretty obvious, not to mention tracking down loved ones in an emergency. And the importance of safety information passed through facebook is something I discussed in my post Social Networking - Lessons from the Slave Lake Fire.

It's ridiculous to turn off those sites and block cell service. It can have dangerous consequences for people that rely on it and it's ham-handed, totalitarian bullshit - and the kind of thing western governments criticize China and middle eastern countries for doing. We have a friend that lives in London, it was extremely reassuring to be able to contact her on FB and get updates.

San Francisco is already doing it, it was rather ironic to read one of the press releases where the police spokesman was encouraging BART riders to CALL FOR HELP if they had trouble with protesters. I guess there are some call boxes on the trains? Something?

Not impressed.

I'm going to write a little more on the London riots at some point but it may be on my other blog.

Don't be a dick on ebay

So my probably final ebay selling spree is in full swing. Most of my knives are gone, soon I will just be selling some miscellaneous items and probably some gun stocks.

It's been pretty good this time but I again got a whiney message about shipping.

Seriously, I have all the shipping info listed and I emailed the person a separate message when I shipped it. It's been 8 FREAKING DAYS!!!!!!!!!! You paid for regular shipping, I said it would be at least 2 weeks if not 3. *sigh* But I just responded with a nice message, reiterating the shipping information and thanking him for being patient and for buying the item. I can understand a little, people want their stuff right away (too bad they won't pay for that).

I had an annoying experience myself the other day. I was looking for a new forend for my mossberg 590, something with picatinny rails, and saw one that interested me. The listing for for a mossberg 500/590 but when I looked at the picture (and it was a personal pic, not one pulled off the net), the label on the part clearly stated it was for a remington 870. Also, the person had included a link to the manufacturer's website about the item....clicked on it and it went to the 870 description.

It wouldn't be the first time I've gotten incorrect parts, either remington parts for my mossberg or vice versa so I messaged him to confirm what gun his item was for. I listed the above confusion over the listing (wrong picture, wrong link) and asked him to confirm the item was for the mossberg.

His response:

Read the listing.

Wow, that's some swell customer service (ebay business). I know who I will NEVER buy from.

Dick.

Shadow Tech Knives Talon E and Backup - Knife Review

A few months ago I was looking for a small, belt carry fixed blade knife and started hitting up the ol' google search. I already periodically carried a Fallkniven F1 which is a great knife but not exactly what I wanted - looking for something a shade smaller and with a more "safe" handle. I thought I might have my answer with the Fred Perrin Street Beat but it just wasn't quite right for me - handle was a little off for my hand, the price is high, and the sheath left me a little underwhelmed. One of the searches brought me to a forum where someone was suggesting Shadow Tech Knives; after viewing the website, I decided to try two of their models, the Talon E (small bowie shape) and the Backup (small bowie shape).

TALON E:
BLADE LENGTH: 3 1/2"
O/A LENGTH: 7"
THICKNESS: 3/16"
WIDTH: 1 INCH
STEEL: 1095 HIGH CARBON STEEL RC-57-58
FINISH ON BLADE: POWDER COAT
SHEATH: KYDEX WITH HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL AND 45 DEGREE DRAW OPTION, LEFT OR RIGHT SIDES.

BACKUP:
BLADE LENGTH: 2 1/2"
O/A LENGTH: 6"
THICKNESS: 3/16"
WIDTH: 1 1/4"
STEEL: 1095 HIGH CARBON STEEL RC-57-58
FINISH ON BLADE: POWDER COAT
SHEATH: KYDEX WITH HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL AND 45 DEGREE DRAW OPTION, LEFT OR RIGHT SIDES.

www.stknives.com

They have some pretty interesting knives and I liked the two I picked up, though the Talon E was the definite favorite for me.

Talon E Positives
- great handle, love using the bottom of the blade as a guard (reminiscent of the street beat)
- solid knife
- inexpensive ($65) and comes with an excellent kydex sheath
- comfortable carry, very small while still feeling like a "real" knife that I could get hard use from

Talon E Potential Negatives (I didn't have any for my use)
- carbon steel, some may prefer a thinner stainless
- a little heavy
- handle scales are not perfectly matched to tang all the way around

This is more of a defensive stabbing blade IMO than a bushcraft or utility/EDC blade. I have done zero tests for bushcraft and probably won't bother but I do find it useful for EDC tasks thanks to the comfortable handle.

Backup Positives
- very small
- grooved handle (could be considered a subhilt?) provides a very secure grip with just three fingers
- inexpensive ($65) and comes with an excellent kydex sheath
- comfortable carry, very small while still feeling like a "real" knife that I could get hard use from
- very short (yet solid) blade makes it legal to carry in more places

Backup Potential Negatives
- carbon steel, some may prefer a thinner stainless
- a little heavy
- three finger grip on hilt (I generally will not carry knives like this)
- very wide, more than I would like for a small knife (some may love this)

I would consider this primarily a defensive stabbing blade. It could be used for EDC/utility though I don't like the shape for that. Very limited if any use for bushcraft as far as I can see (no testing done).

They sell a lot of different models of knives, including partially serrated versions, spikes, push daggers, tanto tips, etc.


I also completed a video review of the knives, you can see them through these links:

Youtube knife review Part 1 of 2

Youtube knife review Part 2 of 2

24 Hour Daylight

Note: This post went from mildly reflective to downright depressing in a hurry. You might want to pass on it but I decided to leave this rambling post as it was.

I am coming to the end of the 24 hour daylight period here. We are already getting sunrise/sunset period, the sun goes down just after 1 am and is back up around 3:30 am. Another week or so and we will actually get about 30 minutes of official darkness.

If all goes as planned this will be my last summer in the Arctic. I never would have imagined when I showed up here at age 22 that I would have spent over 12 years living in a small town near the Arctic Ocean. I have had some great experiences here. I met my wife here at a dance bar of all places, we raised children here, I made many friends, I went out on the land, camping, fishing, dog sledding, all sorts of outdoor experiences. I have driven this northern highway through beautiful mountains, I have driven the ice roads, flown a plane to the ocean, and seen things more beautiful than I can ever explain.

Unfortunately so many of the positive memories are obscured by the bad ones. This is a transient community, I have watched so many friends come and go over the years. This is also a place that is dominated by social problems. Alcohol abuse and, to an increasing extent, drug abuse are overwhelming common. Education is not valued and most children don't graduate high school. Generations of people here have been scarred by sexual and physical abuse thanks to residential schooling and I don't know if they will ever recover. Many of the smaller communities are in a terrible state. During my time here, especially my time as a volunteer police officer, I can't begin to count the number of drunk people I have pulled out of ditches, the violence I have seen, the self-abuse, and the sheer scale of human misery that most white middle class men don't have to deal with in Canada. I've certainly worked in some rough urban areas before I came here but this was different. I saw people at their worst inside their homes. Attempted and actual suicides, rapes, beatings - it's hard to imagine how casual the whole process around it becomes. A few times I had a mild adrenaline rush, you think you are "taking down the bad guys." And then, if you are paying attention, you realize there are few bad guys but a lot of really fucked up people that are floundering in life and need help.

A few weeks ago I was driving home from work and a woman fell into the road, I almost hit her with the work truck. She was covered in blood, drunk, and mostly incoherent. I picked her up, put her in the truck and drove her to the hospital. People were standing by the road watching, uncaring. I don't know if she was beaten or took a fall, I don't even know her name. I carried her into the hospital and this was the first question I got: "Does she belong to you?" No one was concerned about a man carrying a bloody woman in, no one was going to call the police, they didn't even want my name. Just another routine morning though perhaps there was some mild surprise that I brought her in at all.

Such violence and substance abuse creates both direct and indirect victims. The emergency care workers and the police become desensitized and uncaring but how else do you cope? That woman was patched up, probably stuck in a cell to dry out and most likely back at it the next day. I scrubbed down, tossed my clothes and spent an hour washing blood from the truck; didn't think much of it until some other people I work with started freaking out at what happened. At times I used to be mildly concerned with how relaxed I was with everything going on. Shouldn't this affect me more? Or is it affecting me and I am suppressing it?

There's also such an ugly strain of casual racism here. Generally the kind of underhanded racism that can be the hardest to do something about. The first few times that some prick said something shitty about "toothless Eskimo sluts" or something to that effect to my face, not realizing that my wife is aboriginal,* it was easy to enact some personal satisfaction. But it's a lot more common to see people exclude me from their social circle as non-whites seem to make them uncomfortable.

*I'm ashamed to say that I don't think I would have been quite so forward with my reactions if I wasn't in a mixed marriage.

I still have such fond memories of the racist old bitch of a nun that did our pre-marriage interviews. My wife was Catholic, sort of, and I was an uncaring agnostic that had turned away from organized religion. I was willing to get married in the Catholic church for her but I knew it would be an issue (my mother was Catholic). My wife, who grew up in a tiny village that only knew the church through the same priest (lived there for 50 years) wasn't familiar with all the BS that surrounds a Catholic marriage or how out of step with reality the "modern" Catholic church is.

So the nun sat us down for a little meeting. After establishing that we wanted to get married, my wife was Catholic, I wasn't, and that we were living together, it went something like this...

Crazy nun (to me) - "Have you been baptized"

Me - "In the Mormon church"

CN (looking at me as though Satan was made flesh) - "That doesn't count. It must be a Christian baptism at least."

Me - "Mormons are Christians but whatever, I'm not getting baptized"

CN - "We can talk about that later. We are going to need to do a background check on you."

Me - "Um, what?"

CN - "All you white men are just up here looking for your Indian** wife, you are probably already married down south."

Me - "WHAT did you say?"

CN - "These mixed marriages never really work anyway, you should really stick to your own kind."

Me - "Go fuck yourself, we're done here."


Yep, what a sweet old lady to put in charge of marriage interviews. Very culturally sensitive but then the Catholics still like to pretend they didn't brutalize the north for a hundred years.

That was the end of that fiasco, Justice of the Peace, here we come!

**One of the easiest ways to figure out someone is American is their use of Indian as a descriptive term; it is almost never said here other than for old names such as "Department of Indian and North Affairs." To most people in Canada, that's a serious racial/cultural slur. I remember this older couple that flew in, they asked for some weather information then the woman asked me this classic touristy question, "We were going to fly a little north and seem some of the coastal towns but I was wondering if they were just typical dirty Indian villages that aren't worth seeing?" I told her that I didn't know what a typical Indian village was and she should be aware of 2 things. 1) Going up to one of the towns and calling it an Indian Village (let alone dirty Indian) is incredibly insulting and possibly dangerous. 2) It's doubly insulting as the Inuvialuit aren't "Indians" as she understands the term.


I moved here in '99 for work, this is where I was posted with the company. Work has consumed my life here to an unhealthy degree. In our modern and wonderful society it seems work is our main focus and what defines us. Even in a smaller, supposedly slow paced town, I have worked so much just to try to keep up with the extremely high cost of living.

A move is what we need. I want a change in our lives, a chance to start over in a place where we can put down roots. I want a place that will be my home, where I can try to make some positive contributions to the community and plan for what looks like a bleak future.

This is the place where I became a man, it has shaped me, mostly for the better. I have certainly learned a lot living here and I don't regret coming but I do regret staying this long and once I leave, I don't plan on coming back.

New video review - Large Survival Knife Comparison

I did a relatively brief side by side comparison of four of my favorite large survival knives:

The Cold Steel SRK
The Fallkniven A1 (which I repeatedly called an F1, oops! lol)
The Cold Steel Recon Scout
The Ka Bar Heavy Bowie

Large Survival Knife Comparison youtube video

Social Networking - Lessons from the Slave Lake Fire

I meant to make this post in a far more timely manner. On May 15, 2011, a forest fire destroyed approximately half of the town of Slave Lake Alberta (pop. 7000). One of the most interesting things that an outside observer can learn from that terrible disaster was the role that social networking played in alerting people to the danger.

The town's official notification method for evacuation was radio. A not unreasonable method but one of little use once the radio station burned down!

The timeline information is from this CBC article.

Friday May 13

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) posts a link on its Wildfire Info Facebook page to this fire forecast for the Slave Lake area: “The wildfire hazard for tomorrow is EXTREME. The forecast is calling for warm temperatures and very strong winds. Winds will be from the south east 40 km/hr gusting up to 60 km/hr.”

Saturday May 14

Noon - Wildfire starts burning 10 km south of Slave Lake. Several communities west of Slave Lake are put on two-hour evacuation notice.

5:30 pm - A second fire starts east of Slave Lake. Residents of Poplar Estates, Mitsue and the Sawridge Indian Band are evacuated to a Canadian Red Cross evacuation centre at Northern Lake College in Slave Lake. Fire Chief of Lesser Slave River Regional Fire Services confirms that 10 buildings have been hit in the Poplar Estates/Mitsue area.

7:15 pm - Officials with Alberta Health Services meet over telephone to create evacuation plan for Slave Lake Healthcare Centre in north of town. Nine ambulances are called in from surrounding communities to join the two already on standby in Slave Lake.

10:30 pm - Town of Slave Lake declares a Local State of Emergency.

Sunday May 15

7:39 am - SRD posts a message on Facebook: “For evacuations, local authorities will be contacting you and keeping you informed.” It reports that homes along the Old Smith Highway, northwest of town, have also been evacuated, but that the Town of Slave Lake has not been evacuated.

7:52 am - SRD posts a message on Facebook that Hwy 2 west of Slave Lake is closed.

9:19 am - SRD reports on Facebook that Hwy 88 west of Slave Lake between Hwys 2 and 745 has been reopened. Hwy 2 east of Slave Lake to Mitsue is open, “but motorists are being escorted by pilot vehicles.”

9:30 am - Town of Slave Lake reports that 400 hectares were affected by the fire east of town overnight, with 150 hectares still active with hot spots. Two-hundred sixty residents from Poplar Estates and Mitsue have registered at the evacuation centre in Slave Lake. The fire southwest of town is moving westward and has burned 300 hectares so far. Residents in communities west of Slave Lake are still on two-hour evacuation notice.

All highways are open, and the Town reports that the fire chief “is confident that the Town will not be evacuated; however, weather conditions continue to be a challenge for fire crews today as winds are expected to gust up to 70 kph and temperatures will go up to 18C.”

1:21 pm - SRD reports on Facebook that communities on the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake from the Town of Slave Lake to Canyon Creek (25 km to the west) are now being evacuated: “Winds of up to 70 km/h are pushing the wildfire toward these communities. The fire is now more than 1,000 hectares in size.”

2:00 pm - In a press release, SRD reports that the two wildfires near Slave Lake are out of control, burning around 2,000 hectares. Residents who are evacuated from communities west of Slave Lake are told to go to the town to register at Northern Lakes College campus at the corner of Main Street and Hwy 2 in the south end of town. Municipal District of Lesser Slave River has already declared a Local State of Emergency.

2:30 pm - The Town of Slave Lake reports that Hwy 2 east of town is closed due to smoke, and Hwy 2 west of town is open only to evacuate residents.

Between 800 and 900 evacuees from communities west of town are expected, and the high school and middle school are set up to house evacuees. An Emergency Command Centre has been set up at the town hall at Main Street and 1A Ave. “Slave Lake is not under evacuation notice,” a Town release states.

3:15 pm - SRD posts message on Facebook: “It is hard to say whether or not Slave Lake will be evacuated. Firefighters are building a fire break between the town. Stay tuned for additional updates as they become available.”

3:45 pm - Courtney Murphy, news director of local radio station Lake FM, joins government officials in an airplane to survey the fire. Within five minutes, she sends photos to the radio station’s Facebook page with her phone and does live reports from the air. The station’s Facebook page and radio broadcasts become vital links for the public.

Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, Mel Knight, also tours the area by air for around 2 ½ hours, telling CBC Radio that night, “It’s a place where you don’t want to be at the moment.” Knight tells people to visit the SRD Facebook page for updates on the fire.

4:30 - Brenda and Dave Derkoch have piled family photos into a basket. They look outside to see smoke and ash moving closer. With Dave in one truck attached to his trailer and Brenda in another truck, the pair drive with family from their southeast home at 35 Parkdale Way to Main Street then south to the highway. Brenda is told by RCMP to head east, Dave is told to go west. A little more than 1 km down the road, Brenda is told the highway is closed and to turn around and go west.


4:36 pm - Courtney Murphy’s plane lands and she goes back to the station to continue broadcasting. There are reports of widespread power outages in Slave Lake, and the radio station is periodically going on and off the air.

5:13 pm - SRD posts to Facebook: “Slave Lake is NOT being evacuated. Poplar Estates remains evacuated as well as the subdivisions of Wagner, Widewater, Assineau, Canyon Cree and Bear road.”

5:15 pm - Four homes west of the Derkoch home, Sandy Gaskell, her husband and daughter are about to sit down for dinner. Worried about smoke in the area, Sandy asks her daughter to call the Town office, but they are told there is no evacuation order in place. They look outside and see their neighbour’s home on fire. Their daughter grabs a bowl of food and a spoon, and the family leaps into their vehicle and drives off. As they look back, they see their neighbour’s fence go up in flames, then the fence around their own home.

5:50 pm - At the headquarters of radio station Lake FM at 221 – 3 Ave NW, power goes out for the last time, and the station goes off the air. Courtney Murphy and her staff run out of the building and drive away. Forty minutes later, the radio station goes up in flames. The middle school across the street remains intact. Courtney Murphy and staff continue to send updates by phone to the station’s Facebook book page, as well as Prairie FM, a sister radio station in High Prairie.

The Canadian Red Cross tells media it has organized a team of 10 volunteers, 400 shelter cots, 300 blankets and 800 hygiene kits, which are on their way to Slave Lake. On their way, they receive word of a full evacuation and they drive instead to the community hall in Westlock, about 1 ½ hours south of Slave Lake. They wait for evacuees.

5:54 pm - SRD posts message to its Facebook site: “We have just received notification that residents of Slave Lake are being evacuated. The wildfire east of Slave Lake near Poplar Estates has now crossed Highway 2 and Highway 88. Winds in excess of 100 km/h have quickly pushed the fire closer to town.”

6:00 pm - Although there are many reports of houses and building in Slave Lake on fire, no official evacuation order has been issued. Hundreds of people drive to and gather at the Wal-Mart parking lot and in a nearby baseball diamond, just south of Hwy 2.

On his way there, Ernest Supernant stops at the parking lot of the 7-Eleven on the northwest corner of Main Street and 6 Ave SE. He looks north one block as flames hit the library, town hall and shopping centre, then across the street to the Ford dealership, where cars and trucks are engulfed. “Things were just blowing up left and right.”

Roger Auger’s roommate, who works at the radio station, tells Auger to pack his bags and leave. Auger goes to the Wal-Mart parking briefly, but heads back into town, frustrated by a lack of direction from officials. Separated from her son, Dorothy Beaver stays in the Wal-Mart parking lot and watches the fire leap over the highway and engulf the town. Michelle MacIsaac hears the dramatic tale of how her nephew climbs up a balcony to save his sister from a burning apartment building.

6:30 pm - Between 6:00 and 6:30, the province evacuates 29 patients from Slave Lake Healthcare Centre in the northeast of town. Twenty staff, including doctors, nurses and medical students join the patients. On the way out of town, the RCMP tells them the road out of town is closed. Ambulances and handi-buses drive to the Nova Inn off Main Street. Power has been cut. Staff set up mattresses for patients. Within 45 minutes, the road out of town is open again and ambulances and buses drive patients to hospitals in Westlock, Athabasca and Boyle. One patient is flown to Edmonton. Three doctors and two EMS crews stay behind in Slave Lake at the Emergency Command Centre, which has been hastily moved from Town Hall, which was evacuated and has since caught on fire, to Northern Lakes College.

7:41 pm - Despite a mass exodus from town, Lake FM reminds residents on Facebook that no evacuation order has been given for Slave Lake. Lake FM reports that SRD requests that residents gather in “non-combustible areas,” such as parking lots.

7:42 pm - SRD posts message to Facebook: “Residents in Slave Lake are being directed by the Town to gather in safe places within the town limits like the airport and large parking lots. The wildfire has entered the town limits and there are reports of several structural fires.”

8:05 pm - Courtney Murphy, who is now in a baseball field south of town where dozens of other residents are staying, receives a call from Slave Lake mayor, Karina Pillay-Kinnee, that the entire Town of Slave Lake is to be evacuated. Because her radio station is now off the air, Murphy calls Prairie FM in High Praire to broadcast the evacuation order. She also sends an update to her boss in Edson, who updates the station’s webpage and Facebook page within three minutes. Murphy tells people in the parking lot and word spreads. Within five minutes, an official with SRD phones Murphy to confirm she got the evacuation notice.

Alberta’s state-of-the-art Emergency Public Warning System, which notifies people of imminent emergencies over radio and TV airwaves, is not activated. Alberta Emergency Management Agency operations head Colin Lloyd defends the decision two days later, emphasizing that the local radio station had been destroyed and that there was not enough “lead time” for the system to have been effective.

11:00 pm - Resident Barb Courtielle is still in the Wal-Mart parking lot, desperate for news from her daughter, Annette. Annette and her children were travelling west on Hwy 2 earlier in the afternoon behind a pilot truck when smoke forced them to turn around. Annette heads north on Hwy 88, west of Slave Lake. She hits heavy smoke from other fires and it takes hours before she is able to turn around and get access to Edmonton, checking in with her mother, Barb, along the way. Overnight, hundreds of Slave Lake residents drive to evacuation centres in Athabasca, Edmonton and Westlock, as hundreds of firefighters continue to battle the Slave Lake fires, along with 29 out-of-control blazes across the province.

Monday May 16, 2011

10:37 am - At a press conference in Edmonton Dana Woodworth, managing director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, echoes the premier’s sentiments. He reports that 95 percent of Slave Lake residents have been evacuated, and no one has been hurt or killed, something he attributes to fast action by firefighters, the leadership of the mayor and the local emergency response team.

Slave Lake mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee reports that the new town hall and library are destroyed, but that schools and “other major public infrastructure” are intact. She estimates that “a little more than a third [of the town] has perished.”

_________________________________________________________________

I didn't write this post and repost the above information to pick on anyone in government or Slave Lake. I know first hand just how confusing an emergency situation can be and I don't have enough information to judge all that occurred. What is very obvious is how much more effective facebook and twitter can be to alert people to danger rather than older systems using TV and radio. I strongly encourage everyone to sign up/like/whatever any and all government and emergency services facebook and twitter pages for their area. Additionally, bookmark important webpages. Consider forming your own facebook group for family and friends to help you communicate in an emergency.

Review this CNN article Facebook assembles group to plan for disasters. Sign up to FEMA's page, the Red Cross, and Global Disaster Relief.

Too Many Knives

I've made past mention of my efforts to reduce my ridiculous knife collection on ebay - so far, I've managed to do some major whittling down but there are still a lot to sell.

Now it's time for some of the more tough decisions. I want to reduce what I own down to just three useful categories:

1. EDC Knives - folding and fixed blade

My current EDC knives are:

- Benchmade Griptilian 550HG
- Boker Fred Perrin neck bowie
- some crappy throw away keychain folders, one in pocket and one on my keyring

The one change I am going to make is I am going to switch to the Spyderco Yojimbo 2 when it comes available (got my pre-order in), I was able to handle a prototype and it's freaking awesome.

2. Large Survival Knives - some tough decisions here plus these can be the hardest to sell online due to the high shipping cost.

I think I am going with:

- Cold Steel Recon Scout
- Fallkniven A1

The CS is awesome but I still want to get some kydex sheaths - there's some cash out of pocket :(

I was going to sell the A1 but I think it could come in handy if I move to BC with its year-round wet climate. We plan to be on the water a lot more too. I already have a very strong retention kydex sheath for it and I think it will be my "strap to my leg in case I have to build my own civilization after I fall in the river while boating" knife.

I may keep an Ontario Rat 5 knife as well, still undecided.

3. Small Survival Knives - I am keeping my box full of $10 mora knives. I generally favor the 511 for the protruding guard and yes, I know that real bushcraft people everywhere are gasping in horror and that real men don't need guards on their knives. It's just safer and I prefer it that way. So there! :)

I will probably keep a couple of serrated river knives also, I have some quick deploying titanium knives that I attach to life vests.

Everything else must go *sigh* except for some machetes, they are handy and aren't worth selling due to low dollar value/high shipping cost.

I am selling all my "tactical" or fighting knives and all my other folding knives. What a terrible waste of money. I have no need for them and it's better to have a use version and a spare of a knife I am used to rather than constantly rotating my carry knives. Or just leaving them in a box collecting dust.

This blog is taking off

I now have three followers! WOOHOO!

I continue to be amazed at how much traffic I get. I was pretty much expecting zero and a need to turn to my mom for pity page clicks but so far it hasn't been too bad. Of course, writing more would help. And...writing better would probably help a lot! :)

Random Post - hilarious blog entry

I LOVE this woman. Here is some excellent advice.

**Warning, if you are like me, you will be giggling and saying "knock knock motherfucker" for days.**

And that's why you should learn to pick your battles.