Swimming at Eagle Falls

Yesterday was the first really nice, really hot day of the summer. We had heat upwards of 90 degrees. Tim, Scott and I decided to take the day off and go out to the mountains and go swimming. We headed to Eagle Falls, a waterfall with a nice swimming area about an hour and a half out of Seattle on the way to Stevens Pass. We hit a ton of traffic on the way out and it ended up taking 3 hours to get out there. It then took us another hour to actually find the stop since the directions we had been given were about 10 miles off. Once we finally found the place it was about 6:30 and the sun was going down but it was still 80 or 90 degrees out. We jumped in the freezing river and went swimming. I just got a new water proof digital camera case and used it for the first time taking some really cool underwater photos and videos. When we got out of the water the sun set and we were totally numb, shaking uncontrollably for about 15 min. This was my first time at Eagle Falls but it will not be the last.

Full Moon

I was coming home this evening and noticed the beautiful full moon illuminating a tree behind my apartment. I thought it looked really nice so I took this photo.

Inventables

When I was at the TED conference a few months ago I met Keith Schacht and Zach Kaplan the founders of Inventables, a amazing new company offering a really unique product.

Inventables produces a quarterly hands-on magazine designed to introduce, educate, and inspire users about new materials and technologies. Every issue contains 20 difference new interesting materials. Each material is tagged with a card explaining how to use it, what is interesting and gives a few ideas of how the material could be used to create a new innovative product.

When they showed this to me at TED my eyes lit up and I knew I had to get a subscription. The other day I finally received my first issue and it is very cool. Some of my favorite materials are the Double-Image Metal Engraving, Flexible Wide-Angle Fresnel Lens, 3D Knitted Fabric, and then Stretch Sensing Rubber. I can't wait to see what they come up with next issue.

Here is an example, the Stretch Sensing Rubber pictured above.

The card explains the material...

Attach the battery and stretch the rubber string watch the light bulb. This allows you to measure how stretched something is even if bent around a corner or woven into fabric. Also, this rubber can be made any shape (e.g. sheets).

The material is synthetic rubber with carbon particles mixed in to make it conduct electricity. As stretched, the conductivity decreases (but the bulb brightens because the circuit reverses).

then gives you a few ideas of how the material could be used...

Step: There is a classic toy that is a paddle with a rubber ball attached by a rubber band. Replace the rubber band with this sensor to add electronic scoring and sound effects.

Stretch: Wrap the sensor around your chest to monitor breathing and lung capacity.

Leep: A unique control for MP3 players, skip to the next song by stretching.

New Shoes

I am a big fan of Merrell's Moc shoes. They are extremely comfortable, have a super slick design, and are lace free. I can't tell you how nice it is to be lace free. I just got a pair, the Merrell Hemp Moc, with a nice natural woven hemp upper. I am very happy with them. If anyone is looking for a new pair of shoes check these out.

Mt Rainier Camping Trip

This weekend my dad and I went camping up at Mt Rainier. We went up Saturday, hiking from the Paradise parking lot. It was a beautiful day as we hiked up the mountain but as the sun started to fall storm clouds moved in and started dumping a combination of rain and snow on us. We had just found a place to camp so we immediately scrambled to pitch our tent as the rain continued to poor down, the sun set, and the wind picked up. Once our tent was up we got all our gear inside and tried to warm up.

The next morning we woke up as the sun was rising, the wind was still blowing and it was cold as hell. We waited in the tent for about an hour and a half as the shadows from the surrounding mountains slowly lifted off our camp. Once we had sun we made some breakfast, packed up our stuff and head back down.

Our camp site at the base of Mt Rainier. (click for large version)