Victorinox Swiss Army Champion Plus Pocket Knife

Measuring just 3-1/2 inches long, the Champion Plus is stylishly cased in the famous red Swiss Army body that’s recognized around the world. More importantly, the pocket knife contains 30 stainless-steel tools appropriate for just about any occasion. The standard camping tools include a large blade, a small blade, a corkscrew, a can opener, a bottle opener, a small screwdriver, a large screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, scissors, tweezers, and a toothpick. And that’s just the beginning, as the Champion Plus also offers a punch reamer, multipurpose hook, wood saw, fish scaler, and hook disgorger. In short, there’s no better accessory for camping, hunting, and fishing trips.

Should the basic tools not cut it, the Champion Plus steps up with a host of extras, including a metal file, metal saw, fine screwdriver, mini screwdriver, and chisel scraper. Add in such tools as a ruler, nail file, nail cleaner, magnifying glass, pressurized ball point pen, straight pen, sewing eye, and key ring and you’re well equipped for everything from repairing holes in tents to reading the fine print on instructions.

As with all Victorinox items, the Champion Plus is made to exacting standards, with 60-plus individual parts and 450 steps going into its construction. Victorinox attends to every detail, from selecting the finest materials to performing the final inspection. In addition, each individual tool has been hardened in a different way to stand up to its designated use. Such care is unmatched, and is why the Champ series is recognized by such international experts as the New York Museum of Modern Art and the State Museum of Applied Art in Munich, both of which have selected it for their “excellence in design” collections. Outfitted with a nylon handle and an aluminum housing, the Champion Plus carries a lifetime warranty.

Get Victorinox Swiss Army Champion Plus Pocket Knife!

Swiss Army Knife. 1897-2009.

For reasons I can’t quite figure out, Victorinox is releasing a 125th anniversary Swiss Army Knife. From my most basic research, the company was registered in 1897 and the first knife built in 1890. Either way that isn’t 125 years. But, the black knife is clean, simple, beautiful – I like it.
Diamonds and Gold, gangster.
My favourite edition of this knife is probably the one built with a hardwood case. I like the red handle, have two of them myself, but wood is good.
And finally, my man Fidel with the classic Red Knife.

Wenger Giant Knife 2007

The largest Swiss Army Knife I’ve ever seen.  At around $2300, you’d probably need to spend a fair amount on reinforced pockets in your pants to carry the monster.  Is it practical?  Of course not!  But I bet you’d do a double take if you ever saw one in person – I certainly would!

The Swiss are renowned for their precision in the sphere of their mechanical labor and of course, their timepieces boast no exceptions. However, Victorinox became famous in 1897 once it brought to the planet the Swiss Army knife, way before the Swiss Army watches were born.

Victorinox was founded by Karl Elsener.

these quality knifes were enjoying the pinnacle of victory, Karl turned his attention to supply the finest wrist watch there is and so his magical handy work gave birth to the Swiss Army watches are a few steps ahead. And why is that so? If you look at the same famous brand and exceptional quality, the Swiss Army watches are on your wrist or elsewhere, they are simply stunning. You can wear them featuring in either a steel or leather band. Their dials are made of mother-of-pearl and the other expensive models arrive decorated with diamonds.

Entrepreneurs need to wear a model designed for flamboyant display. Their commercial partners and customers will hold a very good impression of them once they wear the “Ambassador” line of watches. For the sportsmen, the “Active” line of these watches are on your wrist or elsewhere, they are simply stunning. You can wear them featuring in either a steel or leather band. Their dials are made of mother-of-pearl and the other expensive models arrive decorated with diamonds. Entrepreneurs need to wear a model designed for flamboyant display.

Their commercial partners and customers will hold a very good impression of them once they wear the “Ambassador” line of watches. For the sportsmen, the “Active” line of these watches can operate up to 330 feet undersea. There is something meant for each personality once it brought to the Swiss Army knife, way before the Swiss Army watches which are currently equal to the line of these watches can operate up to 330 feet undersea. There is something meant for each personality once it comes to Swiss Army watches which are currently equal to the planet the Swiss Army watches.

Every one of the Presidents of the United States of America have been given these knife as gifts. At the moment in time while these quality knifes were enjoying the pinnacle of victory, Karl turned his attention to supply the finest wrist watch there is and so his magical handy work gave birth to the planet the Swiss Army watches were born. Victorinox was founded by Karl Elsener. Karl’s aim was to create an item that would yield massive demand and additionally at the same period provide jobs for his countrymen.

A breath of new life has come to an old but faithful Linux distribution, Knoppix. Version 5.1.1 was released in January 2007 and 2 years later no further activity convinced me that Knoppix was a dead project, maybe Klaus Knopper had other things to occupy his time.

Fast forward to 2009 and we have seen 3 releases of Knoppix since February 2009 alone. The latest version 6.2 was released on November 18th 2009. Knoppix popularized the idea of a ‘Live CD’ where one could boot a computer to the CD without having to install anything on the hard drive. You could literally try before you committed to using it, or only use it for troubleshooting. It came with a large collection of free software which justly earned it the title of  a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ for computer enthusiasts and technicians. Other Linux distributions such as Suse and Ubuntu have also utilized the ‘Live CD’ delivery mechanism. What set Knoppix apart from other Linux distributions was its ability to automatically detect and configure for a systems hardware on the fly during boot-up, and it often got all devices working on systems I used it on. Other Linux distributions have followed suit and offer the hardware detection capability as well.

New Desktop

With Knoppix 6.0.1 released in February 2009, the KDE desktop was replaced with LXDE, a lightweight desktop environment. Many software packages were also absent from this version. Version 6.2 released November 2009 has further reduced the number of software packages included in the standard release. The Knoppix release notes indicate this is to encourage folks to re-master Knoppix adding tools specific to a need or purpose, such as computer forensics or educational tools etc. The good news is that the DVD version does include a large number of software packages, but even with the DVD version Kstars (Virtual Planetarium) and K3B (CD/DVD burner) are absent. Alternatives for K3B are on both the CD and DVD versions of Knoppix.

Swiss Army Knife looses its blades/tools.

No longer can the CD version of Knoppix be thought of as a Swiss Army Knife or technicians toolkit, it’s been reduced to a single blade It has evolved to become a base platform for hobbyists to extend. It’s a shame, I have utilized Knoppix for many years as a diagnostic tool kit. Its usefulness as such is now diminished and I have been using Ubuntu as a supplement since Ubuntu is on a regular release schedule. Now Knoppix is actually outpacing Ubuntu in releases and includes later versions of the Linux kernel and web browsers. I look forward to where Klaus Knopper takes this platform during 2010 and beyond.

Gains ability to install bootable image on flash drives and SD cards.

Knoppix since the 6.0.1 release has had a really nifty feature whereby a fully working and bootable copy of Knoppix can be installed onto a USB Flash Drive or SD Card using a  built-in utility. It just takes a few clicks to install, previously this feat was only for the most technical, now your grandmother could do it. The utility is very safe, not allowing you to install on a mounted device by accident (ie the HD you just booted from). This feature makes Knoppix truly portable and capable of saving configuration changes and locally stored files between sessions. I have found the ability to boot systems to Knoppix on an SD card to be especially useful, netbooks and other modern systems support booting from a memory card. SD cards are so much more compact versus a CD or USB flash drive. Carrying a bootable operating system in your camera bag is very feasible!!

Kick its Tires!!

Interested in kicking Knoppix’s tires? Visit their website and download from one of many mirrors.

Our friends over at Victorinox Swiss Army sent this along for us to enjoy. Here’s what they said-

“Watch Daniel Humm’s video demonstration on how to carve the holiday turkey with our Victorinox knives!”

Click on the image to make it bigger.

In the morning we had a good late breakfast and the friendly owner of the hotel Sulzburg looked up the ferry crossing times for us on the internet website and the crossing scheduled for twenty past eleven looked absolutely perfect, so we checked out, said goodbye, promised to come back and set off towards Romanschorn. 

We drove along the Seestrasse which runs directly along the side of the lake, first through the municipality of Horn which although being in the Canton of Arbon is separated from it by a part of the Canton of St. Gallen, and then the town of Arbon where I calculated that we had time to spare and so we parked the car and walked along the lake for one last look across the water from the Swiss side.  It was a lovely town, spotlessly clean with no litter or graffiti, manicured lawns and perfect flower beds.  Switzerland was voted second in the World quality of life survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2006 and I imagine that a town like Arbon must have helped secure the high score (if you are wondering, France was first and the United Kingdom was eighteenth).  In the same survey, out of the top ten cities voted best to live in, Switzerland had three, Geneva, Zurich and Bern.

There was still plenty of spare time to get to the ferry terminal but then things went badly wrong and I followed signs to the passenger ferry instead of the car ferry and ended up on the wrong side of the harbour.  The ferry was in and cars were driving on but I just couldn’t find a way to get there.  Finally I had to drive out of the town and start again and we eventually arrived at the terminal to watch the ferry passing out of the harbour entrance.  The ferries run every hour so the only thing to do was to park the car and take a short walk into the town and have a relaxing beer and calm down.  We found a hotel with tables outside and we sat in the sun and talked about our holiday.

We tried to agree on five things that make Switzerland famous.  Our final choice might have included Roger Federer or Ursula Andress but in the end we agreed upon Swiss watches of course, that was obvious, cuckoo clocks because even though they are strictly speaking from Germany the Swiss were important for the ‘chalet’ style that they introduced at the end of nineteenth century and is the sort of cuckoo clock where it is common to have a Swiss music box with tunes like ‘Edelweiss’ and ‘The Happy Wanderer’.  Muesli, which was introduced around 1900 by the Swiss doctor and nutritionist Maximilian Bircher-Benner for patients in his hospital in Zurich.  Toblerone, the Swiss chocolate bar that was invented by Theodore Tobler in 1908 in his factory in Bern but most of all we had to agree on the Swiss Army knife.

Various models of Swiss Army knives exist, with different tool combinations for specific tasks. The most common tools featured are, in addition to the main blade, a smaller second blade, tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew, can opener, bottle opener, slotted screwdriver, flat-head screwdriver, phillips-head screwdriver, nail file, scissors, saw, file, hook, magnifying glass, ballpoint pen, fish scaler, hex wrench w/bits, pliers and key chain. Recent technological features include USB flash drives, digital clock, digital altimeter, LED light, laser pointer, and MP3 player.  That’s a startling collection of potential weapons in one utensil but I can’t help thinking that it was a good job Switzerland didn’t go to war with Germany because I can’t imagine Hitler’s crack Panzer division being turned back by an army wielding nailfiles and toothpicks.  Manufacturers today  supply over fifty thousand a year to the Swiss Army which works out at a new knife for every soldier just about every three years or so.

We decided that we liked Switzerland and wished that we could spend another couple of days here.  When it was time to leave we paid for our drinks with what has to be some of the finest bank notes in the world.  Everyone knows that the Swiss are fond of money and they leave no one in any doubt of this with the quality of their notes.  Not only are they brilliantly colourful but they are printed on high quality paper as well.   These bank notes reminded me of my dad’s insistence on always returning home from foreign holidays with currency for his personal treasure chest.  Even if it was 90˚ in the shade and everyone was desperate for a last drink at the airport dad was determined to bring a souvenir note or coin home and would hang on with a steadfast determination and would deny last minute drinks to everyone so long as he could get his monetary momentos back home safely.  How glad I am of that because now they belong to me and my left-over Swiss bank notes have been added to the collection.

Soon it was time to go so not wishing to miss a second ferry we returned to the terminal in good time, joined the queue of traffic and eventually boarded the boat.  We took a seat on the top deck and watched Switzerland slip away and Germany draw closer and as we looked back there was a dramatic sky with big rolling clouds over the Alps and a tourist zeppelin negotiating its route around the edge of the lake.  After forty minutes we were back in the Federal Republic and passing through customs and reassuring the border guards that we had nothing to declare.  This all seemed a bit unnecessary but I suppose Switzerland isn’t in the European Union and rules are rules!  Interestingly Germany has more neighbours and borders on mainland Europe than any other European country, which I suppose partly explains why they were so dangerous at various times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

No prizes but see if you can name all nine, the answer is at the foot of the page.

Germany’s neighbours: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland. At various times in the twentieth century it has invaded or annexed all of them except Switzerland.  Lucky Switzerland!  Austria and France both have eight European mainland neighbours.

(What to change)

Money is an interesting concept. Mostly because it isn’t what we think it is. Which means that the thing that needs to change is how we think.

Money isn’t actually any one thing at all, it has aspects and uses and effects that are separate and distinct depending on circumstances and situations. For instance, the types of money that I know of, comes in at least nine forms. There is the spending cash you have in your pocket for a cup of coffee, a donut, or a lotto ticket, etc. There is the money set aside for major or regular expenses. There is taxes, savings, credit, interest and dividends. There is Capital and there is currency. It is all the same stuff in some ways and yet it is not either. There are important distinctions and we need to appreciate what those are and what they mean.

Unfortunately most people haven’t got a clue. I worked in a bank for several years in my twenties. In retrospect I can look back now and appreciate that I am pretty fiscally ignorant in many ways. But even then I was much more conversant with how money worked than many of the people I dealt with across the counter. And that was just talking about the very basics of money management like interest rates. As a friend of mine recently said to me, he always thought he was pretty good with money, he was conservative and careful, he didn’t get into debt and didn’t habitually waste money on trivia. And yet he was not well off or even looking like being so. So if he was brutally honest with himself, he would have to admit he wasn’t actually any good with money. If he genuinely was good with money then he would have known how to manage and leverage what he did have into a significant fortune. It has been done by others, so the failing must logically therefore lie in his appreciation and abilities with money. In general, that’s probably true, and the same logic would apply to me as well and indeed most of the people I know. I do have several friends who have managed to do very well for themselves and patently they do have a more insightful grasp of what they are doing with money and I applaud them for that.

I might make a couple of nitpicking comments. One is that mathematically you can’t have everyone being above average, therefore not everyone can be wealthy. Wealth being a relative thing after all. By whatever mechanism, it can only be a slim minority who can fight their way through to the apex, and in consequence the rest of us must end up being also-rans. My second comment is a quote attributed to Honoré de Balzac: ~ behind every great fortune there is a great crime. Which isn’t to say that my friends who have done well are criminals , we will leave that aspersion to lie upon the truly wealthy.

(NB – try Googling the phrase “behind every great fortune there is a great crime”. There are some very interesting and disturbing stories)

Link – Billionaires

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At this point I will cut and paste a couple of items that I have recently read that are relevant to our subject.

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(from: Oftwominds ~ by C H Smith)

Pareto’s curiosity was sparked by the fact that the greatest amount of wealth was in the smallest number of hands. His observation boiled down to: If you gave everyone in a society one dollar, eventually 80% of those dollars would wind up in the hands of 20%. And of course out of that 20%, 4% would hold 64% of the dollars. In this sense Nature’s capitalism is always at work. Money moves from poor managers to strong managers. Strong managers put that money to use by investing in plant and capacity which puts people to work. Albeit imperfect and prone to greed, when left alone it works better than socialism.

It has been my experience that nearly all of the people I know and have met have no idea what to do with their money. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, government officials and even money managers, all have no clue what to do with their money. Multi-million dollar lottery winners are broke in short order. People in entertainment routinely die broke. Bubbles come and go as they all chase the dream of something for almost nothing.

It is not under-education or an inability to think critically which part people from their money, it is their uncontrolled emotions. Faced with purchasing a house which they know is unaffordable or choosing to rent they will not bother to run the comparison as long as it is their dream and “someone” told them they could. Had grumpy old Mr. Critical Thought been allowed to show up and run a spread sheet or put the numbers into Quicken they (the cold, emotionless reality of the numbers) would have irrefutably deprived them of their “dream”.

This drama plays out everyday at different levels across the spectrum of human psychology, the food you should not eat because you are morbidly obese, the years-old but never used exercise equipment in the garage, the spouse or partner who is abusive but you can’t leave, the dress, shoes, house, boat, car you have to buy but cannot afford, the candidates we vote for because we like the way they part their hair. The inconsistencies, contradictions and convolutions are endless and mind-boggling to the point of madness to the observer.

I close with a comment by Harun I. on the intrinsic difficulties of managing capital assets to retain purchasing power. “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Hedge Funds and The Pareto Principle (February 19, 2007)

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And from: Market Ticker ~ by Karl Denninger

There have also been those who disagree with my definition of “money.”  I will therefore remove that term entirely, since “money” connotes different things to different people and we’ll go through the definitions again:

Asset: An item that has value of some varying amount of stability.  Examples are a stand of trees, a stack of sawn and finished lumber, a bushel of corn, a house, a car, a CNC machine and a computer.


Currency: An abstraction of a collection of assets, also of varying value against those assets.  Often used as a medium of exchange between parties who wish to exchange one asset for another, and sometimes used as an abstracted store of value.  Examples include federal reserve notes and quarter coins.  Some forms of currency are officially backed or mandated for certain uses, but not all.


Credit: A further abstraction of currency, but generally fungible with currency in commerce.  When brought into existence backed by an asset, credit is “hard” or “secured”; when not, credit is “speculative” or “unsecured.”  Credit always, in some form, requires payment of interest.


Interest: The amount one pays for the use of credit, usually (but not always) denominated as a percentage.  The elements of interest are the risk of failure to pay, the risk of debasement of the unit credit is denominated in, the scarcity of credit and the demand for profit on the lending transaction.


Liquidity: The amount of currency and credit in an economic system that is available for deployment (that is, is not committed to some other purpose) at any given point in time.

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It was very good of Karl to do half my work for me there, and cover a few I didn’t mention, now for me to expand on the rest.

…I know of money that comes in at least nine forms: There is spending cash,  money set aside for major or regular expenses, taxes, savings, credit, interest, dividends, Capital and currency.

Karl covered Currency, Credit and Interest: so that leaves me Cash, Expenses, Tax, Savings, Dividends and Capital.

Cash – folding, walking around money, readies. Cash is what you have for incidental expenses, it is disposable income and needs to budgeted as such. After everything else is accounted for, then cash is what you have left over to be used or wasted however you like. The comment about gambling where you only bet what you can afford to lose applies to this. It is a medium of exchange and of value to pay for the things you like and enjoy. It can be used to buy something solid and long lasting, but typically it is for consumables and the ephemeral, such as your lunch or a bunch of flowers. For most people this would also only amount to at most a couple of hundred dollars a week, although there are the wealthier amoungst us who can burn through many thousands of dollars disposable income. Our little luxury purchases might be some nice sun glasses, theirs might be a Loius Vutton handbag at $3000. So there is a pretty wide spectrum of what constitutes disposable income/cash, but it all comes under the category of things that you can do without and would survive losing.

Expenses – Bills, rent, mortgage payments, weekly groceries, car running costs….  These all cost money to service, but it is a different order of money use than Cash. This is money that has to be spent, that has to be budgeted for and is a constant call on our income. Some expenses we can not avoid and these need to be ranked, prioritized, then paid. This is money that we only nominally have in our possession and is traded away for the essentials we need. In fact our expenses are our current and future income committed to being paid to another party. All that we can do is analysis very carefully what we are spending this money on and why, then determine just how essential it is. Typically we will stack all sorts of expenses up against our income, right up to the limits of what we can afford, but truth to tell there is often much we can do to rationalize what our outgoings are as well. It is incumbent upon us to clarify and define exactly what is essential and why, much of our expenses may be rather more optional than we imagine. At that point our expenses have become large-scale cash transactions that we have chosen to commit to long term. That’s fine if you can and want to do so, but recognize the difference between what is essential and what is optional and discretionary.

Tax – this is not optional and if it is structured properly it is seamless and invisible in deducted money from you. It is necessary in our modern social systems to pay taxes to finance the administration and support of our society. The more efficiently that can be done the better. If it is your money, then it is in name only, and should ideally be collected without you doing anything or being materially involved. GST for instance is built into the cost of anything you buy and takes away a percentage of your money as you use it. In contrast, a user pays scheme like road registration requires you to specifically go and buy a coupon or license for the right to drive and use the roads. (actually that is a poor scheme and should be replaced with a fuel tax – but that’s an argument for another time). So if tax systems are designed properly they should be unavoidable, everyone gets to pay their fair share, and the money involved is really only a book entry. It will show on a bank statement but that’s all, in a way it is the ultimate expense, money that is yours but not yours and is not seen or missed.

Saving – There is a very wise observation that noticed the only way to get rich is to spend less than you earn. It really is that simple, less money going out than coming in means you accumulate an increasing positive balance. Most of us struggle with that, either we don’t have good enough control of our expenses and other outgoings, or we are restricted by a low income, it is not easy but knowledge helps. If we can find a surplus of money over essential expenses then it becomes a choice about how we handle it from there, it is a bit like coloured sand. As a kid it was possible to buy test tubes with multiple layers of coloured sand in them. It is all sand but it was organized into bands of different colours, money is the same. We need to be able to divide our money up into various roles, categories and functions. And we all need to be able to save. That can be helped a lot by good public policy, but it also requires good habits and knowledge by everyone too. The positive results of turning money into savings is increased control of our lives. It is then available for emergencies or it can become another different form of money if enough of it is accumulated, it can become Capital.

Capital – This is just a particular form of savings. Some savings is just an accumulation of enough money in order to finance a large purchase, expenses money on a larger than normal scale. Savings that are retained and structured as capital is not spent per-se, it is invested. It has been said that an asset is something that will not just retain its value, it will earn and return you additional value, as opposed to something you own that does not return you any additional value but instead continues to cost you. By that definition, a car, a house or a boat are not assets as they typically will cost you money to maintain and might not even be sold for as much as you paid for them. Houses can attract a capital gain, but that is certainly not guaranteed whatever anyone may tell you. Therefore savings in order for it to be capital has to be utilized in a way that does not involve spending it in the normal sense. Savings that is capital is money in a financial instrument which is an asset you own that can be assured of a reasonable expectation of retaining its value, as well as earning a return. The basic and standard mechanisms for achieving that are: retaining your money as a cash deposit in the bank and allowing them to hire out your money to third parties, or buying shares in a company and getting a dividend return from them for your money. Thereby, your accumulation of money has been put to work in a productive and useful enterprise that creates additional wealth. This is a completely different use and understanding of money from all the rest.

Dividend/interest – (this is the other half/side of Karl’ s definition of interest)  So there are a few basic and a number of more complicated mechanisms for getting a return on capital. The more complicated schemes will often try to nett a capital gain in addition to a dividend or interest, but that often starts to slide over a very blurry line into gambling, which is something that needs very rigorous regulation. In any event, the ideal is that we would all have enough accumulated money/capital that there can be a sufficient return gained on it that could cover our requirements for savings, taxes, expenses or cash. What sort of percentage return you get on your capital is a bit of an open question. As in all the rest of life there are no guarantees on anything and inherently with money there is also the likelihood that someone somewhere is going to be trying to steal or scam your money. So both your capital and your dividends are always at risk. On the positive side, money is working for you rather than you working for money and you will be cash-flow positive from good money management.

(NB ~ just a note on taxes, capital and dividends/interest. There is no justification for taxes on capital or capital gains taxes. Certainly no government is going to cover anyone’s capital loses, so they have no rights to any capital gains either. But taxing dividends and interest is entirely justified and should be pitched at the same rate as GST. This is proper place for an income tax, and has the big advantage that it can be done easily, seamlessly and universally)

Coloured sand – so to return to analogies and coloured sand, money is money and it is all the same stuff basically, but it can be divided up into many different flavours, colours and functions and it is up to us to determine how we allocate it and use it. Some uses are just wasteful, some are dangerous and many are useful. It is better we don’t misuse and misapply it through ignorance. Used properly it can be very useful stuff indeed. It is both a store of value and a medium of exchange, hmmm did I cover those two functions…??? At any rate, moneys is a tool to be used and like any tool can be used or abused, the problems tend to come from it being a lot like a swiss army knife, it has so many functions it can dazzle and confuse. Hands up who has managed to cut themselves opening and closing blades on a pocketknife, haha. The same rule applies, the more careful you are and the better you know how to use the tool the better it will work for you.

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First you'll need one of these

Reminisce for a second. Pause and remember the days of messing around in the woods with your good old Swiss Army knife by your side. Whatever nature tossed in your path, the faithful red Swiss had a blade to deal with. A saw for cutting a branch. A blade for whittling a catapult. Some tweezers for getting out the splinters.

Well now it would seem Swiss Army tools have been folded away and replaced with apps to be installed on your iPhone and taken out into the great yonder. There’s a raft to choose from and here’s our top five.

1. Survival Pocket Ref by Double Dog Studios £0.59

This one’s the app daddy for those who enjoy the more extreme side of the great outdoors. It contains over 500 pages of essential survival tips ranging from building a shelter to surviving on a strict diet of hedge-tucker. The pictures look great too. Visit site.

How to build a shelter

What to eat

Let's hope this won't be needed

2. Flower Garden by Snappy Touch £1.79

One for all you green-thumbed, sofa seeking garden lovers out there. This app is perfect if you like the idea of gardening but can’t face getting your hands dirty. Simply plant up some seeds, give them a dash of water and email the fruits of your labour straight to your loved one in the form of snazzy bouquet. Visit site.

Pick a variety, any variety

My how you've grown my pretties

Instant brownie points

3. Bicycle Gear Calculator by Jean Pierre Martineau £2.99

Biking is soaring in popularity and this app is a must have for all the double-wheeled bus dodgers currently gracing our cycle lanes. Aimed at those wishing to custom build their dream machine, you can calculate your gear ratios, choose from over 200 preset tyre size and, get this, analyse your skids. Visit site.

Technical stuff

Technical stuff

Now we're talking!

4. Hill Lists by Graham Haley £0.59

For Jacks, Jills and just about anyone else who enjoys a good hill, this app contains detailed information on a plethora of English peaks. You can view your current location, look up your slope on Google Maps and check the OS grid location of the hill you’re ascending. Happy climbing people.

Pick a hill, any hill

Ah, so that's where I've just climbed

Enjoy the view

5. Go Skimming by Buzz Interactive Ltd Free

A nice little promotional app from the Cumbrian Tourist Board. First pick from one of four Lake District waters: Windermere, Ullswater, Derwentwater or Wastwater. Next find yourself a nice juicy pebble. Finally, pretend your iPhone is said pebble and fling (without letting go) until your wrist’s content. Visit site.

A good lake for a skim

6, 7, 8, plop

Next stone

Lovely illustrations from Robert Samuel Hanson for Form Fifty Five.

So I got into the Prius this morning to take it to the mechanics.

(Yes, I know. Real Men, and Real Women, change their own oil. Well, I do too — on the lawnmowers. I just prefer to have people who have more expertise than I do the maintenance on the cars I and my family trust our lives and livelihoods to. Except the windshield wiper blades. Those I change myself. Also I sanded and painted a couple little rust spots on the Matrix the other day.)

We have the keyless remote entry/start, so I pushed the start button. It didn’t start, just lit up the idiot light that means “you don’t have the remote on you, idiot”. But I did, so I pushed it again. Same light.

Sigh. Battery had gone dead in the remote after just under 5 years service. So I pushed the remote into the slot on the dashboard and verified that even without battery power, it works in the slot. Started up, drove it in, waited. Quite a while.

Finally they were done and I found out what took so long: They’d found a mouse nest in the air filter. After cleaning that out and buttoning up, the check engine light came on. Deciding they’d bumped something in working on the air filter they reset it and drove it a bit; the light stayed off. All good.

So I got in and called the Toyota dealer, who’s just down the street from our mechanics. Asked about the remote battery. I was told I could buy a new battery at a drug store and was given instructions on how to open the remote up to access the battery. After disconnecting I tried it but couldn’t figure it out, so I drove to the dealer and went in to ask. “Huh. This isn’t like the newer ones…” So we went to the parts department, and the guy there knew how to get it open. The two of them only had to struggle with it about 30 seconds to open it. I am assured the new ones are much easier; I told them I’d probably need a better reason than that to buy a new Prius.

Anyway, they got it open, but then there are four little Philips screws you have to remove to get to the battery… don’t ask me why… and the parts guy’s suitable screwdriver had gone missing. He went looking for it, and I attacked the screws with the point of my Swiss Army knife. I won.

He sold me a battery (drug store would’ve been cheaper, but less convenient at that point — meanwhile another customer bought the exact same kind of bottle of touch up paint I’d gotten at the auto parts store last weekend, and he paid about 50% more), I put it all together, verified it was working, and drove off… and the check engine light came on.

So back to the mechanics and I got a ride to work.

They just called. They claim the Prius is pretty sensitive to high oil levels and they’d put in a little too much, but they’ve fixed it and cleared the light and it didn’t come back on after a longer test drive.

No word on how the mouse is doing.

Over the Thanksgiving long weekend I attempted to interview my grandfather, Ian Cattanach, about the various self taught artworks belonging to himself and his brother. More on that later. As my grandfather was looking for the photos of his brother and himself setting up the “white man totem pole” he found a couple of harmonicas that he had bought at the church garage sale.

The following is a transcript of what followed…

Ian : Chromonica… made in Germany.

Me : Oh… that’s the one you were telling me about.

Ian : I got it on the sale there, yeah.

Me : Oh wow.

Ian : Beautiful… then I got this here, this is one of the very oldest Swiss Army Knives you can get.

*At this point I pick up the Chromonica and hold it up to play a few notes*

Ian : Ooh oh, that’s… got H1N1 look at them! *He snatches Chromonica out of my hands* Anyway… *Begins playing the Red River Valley on the harmonica*

At this point my grandmother comes home from church and there is a discussion about church, the whereabouts of the photos and ‘roast beef sangies’. All the while Red River Valley is being played on the harmonica. After this song is finished a rousing rendition of ‘Skip to my Loo’ is played.

Ian : Nice sound isn’t it! And you see how neat that knife is, it’ll stay up until you push that little dealy.

Me : Yeah that’s neat.

Ian : Yeah it’s a dandy. Boy that’s the nicest harmonica I could ever get.

Click here if you would like to listen to the audio, including the sweet sounds of the Chromonica.

The Swiss Army knife, first introduced in 1897 by the Swiss innovator Karl Elsener, was a tool born out of the need to be smaller and sleeker than current design without compromising functionality.  Karl found that the original knife –imported from Germany and being quite robust –was just too heavy.  He decided to form the Swiss Cutlery Guild and in turn produced a lighter and more elegant knife, which featured two blades (one small, one large), an awl, a can-opener, screwdriver and corkscrew.  When it hit the market it was an instant success and with its popularity booming in Switzerland, other countries caught wind of the new device and sent in orders to have them shipped abroad.  With new finances, came new features.  Successive iterations of the device introduced new tools like the wood-saw, scissors and bottle-opener.  Eventually, both a toothpick and tweezers were added, along with a metal-saw and metal-file, Phillips screwdriver, and such important features as a fish-scaler with hook-disgorger.

During the Second World War, large quantities of these tools were sold to the US Army, Navy and Air Force, under the brand name “Offiziersmesser”, which due largely to fact that American soldiers couldn’t speak Swiss-German, was promptly coined with the nickname Swiss Army knife.  Hence the legend was born.

Now, you may be asking me why I am giving you a history lesson about the Swiss Army knife or introducing words like Offiziersmesser, so let me give you a word you probably do know:  netbook.  For those who are scratching their head trying to figure out if a netbook is either a book about nets, or another sort of Swiss contrived device for amplifying one’s yodeling –think again.

The netbook, brought to the masses in 2007 with the announcement of the Asus Eee PC, was a tool born out of the need to be smaller and sleeker than current design without compromising functionality.  Sound familiar?  Well, in-fact there are plenty of connections to be drawn between netbooks and the Swiss Army knife.  This is what happened:

The long dominant position of desktop computers, as stated in last month’s article, is essentially fading out.  There are still necessities for desktop use, like multimedia editing, bleeding-edge gaming and other processor-heavy applications, but the large majority of people are taking their presence online or on the road –and why wouldn’t they?  As we become more linked with –and hence dependent on– technology, we need to stay connected when we leave our homes.  Laptops had filled this roll and still do, but tend to gravitate to one end of the spectrum; either being too heavy or too expensive.  So, there was a gap to be filled, not by something more robust, but by something more portable (smaller, sleeker, lighter) and more practical (cheaper, more integrated features, longer lasting).

Enter: netbooks.  Not only do they fulfill all of the requirements as stated above and being more affordable at the same time, but they also, due to their booming popularity (35 million units are expected to be sold in 2009) have many new features in the works.  While these new features probably won’t exist in the form of a bottle-opener, toothpick or hook-disgorger; you can expect to see features like instant-on based on ARM technology, which allow your computer to boot in a few seconds; detachable screens that allow for easy reading of things like e-books; and of course, ever-increasing battery life, ever-decreasing size and a large selection of open-source operating systems to connect to the cloud.

Fortunately, you don’t need to look into the future to discover a wealth of uses for your condensed little computer now.  A netbook’s biggest strength –potential for practical uses –can be leveraged to improve your digital life.  Even if you don’t have an Eee PC like I do, most of these recommendations can still be applied.

#1 Read it like a newspaper (or novel):
Reading anything on netbooks due to their extremely small screens, is not an easy task.  After an extended session of surfing the net or reading some blogs, my eyes hurt from trying to focus on the miniscule type size and my hand hurts from constantly clicking down to fill the page.  That is until I discovered a couple of handy little tools called EeeRotate (http://tinyurl.com/eeerotate) and Readability (http://tinyurl.com/read-eee).  EeeRotate does exactly what it says: it rotates the screen, as well as the touchpad, 90 degrees so that you are in portrait mode.  That’s great and all, but now you have to scroll horizontally more often than vertically –this is where Readability comes in.  Acting as a bookmark, when clicked it enlarges and reformats the main text of the website (what you’re reading) to become more readable by removing all the excess junk cluttering the screen (ads, links, images, etc.).  With these two tools combined, you are left with a narrow, highly-readable column of the content that is vertically aligned, which can easily be scrolled with the rotated touchpad.  For an even further distraction-free reading environment, you can press F11 in your browser for full-screen.  The effects of the Readability bookmark are awesome for any computer, but combined with EeeRotate on a netbook and you’ll be devouring the web in no time!

Talk on it like a phone (with video!):
While this one is probably better known than the previous recommendation, it’s still worth saying.  With a netbook’s built-in camera and microphones, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be using it as a phone.  Programs like Skype (http://www.skype.com/) allow you to make free video calls to anyone in the world who uses Skype as well.  You can even have Skype give you a local phone number, which routes to your computer or voicemail; or call any landline or mobile phone on the cheap.  The handiest feature I have found is the ability to freely call any toll-free number in the world, like 1-800-Can-You-Unlock-My-Debit-Card-So-I-Can-Buy-Pad-Thai.

Play it like a jukebox (without the coin!):
You probably won’t sync your entire music library to your netbook and with Wi-Fi, you don’t need to.  You can stream your music through iTunes from another PC or listen to music online with The Hype Machine (http://hypem.com/). Connect your netbook to your stereo or speakers and you’ll be rockin’ like it’s the 50’s!

Netbooks are amazing machines for all kinds of practical uses.  For more absurd uses look here: http://tinyurl.com/robot-eee

I closed the previous post with a checklist of items to take with you when traveling by plane.  I think it is worth discussing some of these items in a little more detail.

The Ten Things You Should Never Leave Home Without:  This is a given.  Whenever you leave home, you don’t want to be without these items.  This is especially true for any trip that requires air travel.  For example, you definitely don’t want to be staying in an unfamiliar place without a flashlight with you when the lights go out.  A couple of these items (Swiss Army knife/multi-tool and Res-Q-Me/vehicle escape tool) need to go in your checked baggage; the rest are best carried in your carry on bag so you have them at hand.  I also usually pack my stainless steel water container in my checked baggage, although you can take them as carry on as long as they are empty when you go through security.

Backup Photo ID – as discussed in the previous post, personally, I carry my passport when I travel as a second ID and in case I need to travel overseas unexpectedly for professional or personal reasons.  This comes up often in my field.  I recall working with someone a few years ago who lived in Minnesota but was on a personal family vacation to Texas when the Ica earthquake in Peru struck.  A decision was made to send him to Peru to assist in the response.  Poor fellow was late arriving two days because he had to fly back home to collect his passport before being able to depart for Peru.  In the disaster and emergency response business, days can definitely mean lives.  So personally, my passport is always at hand when I travel.  And if you live or are traveling anywhere near a US border, you might elect to evacuate (or be evacuated) from a disaster into a neighboring country.  But in any event, having a second photo ID card, carried somewhere other than where your primary photo ID is carried (your wallet) is prudent in case your wallet is lost, stolen or misplaced.

A full change of clothes in your carry on bag – I promise you will never regret having the ability to change your clothes before your reach your destination and retrieve the rest of your clothes from your checked luggage.  Have you ever spilled a drink (or had one spilled) all over yourself on an airplane?  Or worst case: Have you ever had your kid (or someone else’s) throw up in your lap?  This is all foreseeable.  And if your checked luggage does not show, you will have a clean change of clothes with you until it does or you can replace it.

I always travel in what I call my traveling outfit.  I don’t find travel a good way to keep myself or my clothes clean and presentable.  Airplanes are hot before they take off; and cold afterwards; cabs and other forms of public transportation taken to and from the airport are often dirty.  Airports themselves are often dirty – especially baggage claim areas.  It is hard to eat and drink on flights without spilling a bit on yourself – especially in cramped coach seats. So by carrying on a clean set of clothes in my carry on bag, I am assured of being able to change out of the soiled-on-arrival traveling outfit into something more presentable, even if my checked baggage is lost or delayed in arriving.

A Pack Towel in your carry on bag – I must admit that I first got the idea to always pack a towel in my carry on bag from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  But it was a good idea.  A towel, like an empty bag, has literally hundreds of uses – especially while traveling.  It can be used to help wipe up those nasty spilled drinks that fall onto your lap.  It can be used to provide a clean place to sit.  It can be used to dry your hands if the airplane restroom runs out of paper towels.  It can be used to dry your body if you need to wash more than just your hands (see spills, vomit, etc.).  It can be used to help staunch bleeding in the event of an accident.  A good pack towel almost deserves to make the list of things you should never leave home without!

MSR Packtowl

And by a pack towel, I mean one that is designed for camping or travel – is quick drying, folds up small.  The one I carry is an MSR microfiber Packtowl Personal made of polyester and nylon and comes in a convenient pouch.  I am also a huge fan of the As Seen on TV ShamWow and typically pack a large and small one in my bag as well.

ShamWow !!!

An Extra Empty Bag – We start from the premise that you should always have an empty bag with you.  But when you travel, you should bring an extra empty bag with you – something to serve as a day bag for excursions that you put things in that you want to take with you (camera, extra clothing, towel, etc.).  When we travel, we carry more with us when we go out because we are not at home and often do not have access to our things that we are used to having around us.  So we need a bag to carry these things in – and this is usually distinct from the bags that we pack in.  But once we put things in a bag, it is no longer an empty bag… so we need to remember to take two empty bags when we travel.  A backpack is perfect for this purpose.  So one of our empty bags that we take when we travel should be a backpack.  The one I take with me is one of the Lands End foldable backpacks.  My second bag is either an eco-tote or a kivu keychain backpack.

Medications and Prescription Drugs for the duration of travel plus at least one day – like clothing, packing medications and prescription drugs that you take regularly is something that you obviously need to pack.  I always try to bring with me at least one day’s extra supply, because you never know when you might miss a flight, or find your flight – the last of the day – cancelled.  It might be wiser to bring even more with you in case you have to delay your return home for longer, but I’m not prepared to set this as a rule.  If your return home is delayed for any reason more than a day, it is likely you will have the time to visit a local drug store and get your medications or prescriptions refilled as needed.  But having one or two extra days with you allows you to be prepared for these simple delays without causing you to miss a regular dose or having to make an extraordinary trip to a pharmacy.

Thus ends this second part of Traveling Prepared that focuses on travel by air.  The third part will focus on travel by car.

I have been doing a lot of traveling the past few months, both by plane and automobile and I’ve found that each poses different challenges to Living Prepared™.  And I’ve been on different kinds of trips – from simple business trips (powerpoint and projector in hand) to disaster response exercises in semi-austere environments to a family camping vacation.  I thought it would be a good time to review some lessons learned from these experiences and to see how I am measuring up to the standards of this blog.

Airline travel

Airline travel poses significant challenges – especially if you are carrying on all of your baggage – to keeping the 10-12 items you should not leave home without with you – because of airport security.  I’ve gone on a couple of day-trips or quick overnights and haven’t needed to check any baggage – actually, I didn’t want to check any baggage because of the additional time (and expense) it takes to check domestic baggage.  And there are some items on the list of items you shouldn’t leave home without that aren’t going to (or shouldn’t) make it through the TSA security checkpoints – namely a Swiss Army knife/multi-tool and the vehicle escape tool.

Carry on only flights

I lost one of my Res-Q-Me’s that I have perpetually attached to my key chain at one checkpoint.  I forgot to take it off my key chain and leave it at home and the TSA screener asked what it was when I emptied my pockets and placed my keys in a bin was going through security.  Odd thing… I had to stop and explain to him what the device was and that he should confiscate it from me – both because of the blade (though shielded, it could easily be taken apart to become a weapon) – and the window shattering punch – which – although I don’t know whether it would break an airplane window – I would not want to find out.  He somewhat remained unconvinced, but I reassured him that he should indeed put it in the bin of confiscated items and that I wasn’t worried about it as it was only a $10 item and I had others at home.

Second odd thing – on two other occasions, I have successfully gone through security with a Res-Q-Me on my key chain, which I put in my carry on bag to go through screening (including, at this very moment! Yikes!  I promise to put it in my checked bag on the way home from this trip).  I don’t want to comment further on the state of screening at the nation’s airports, nor do I intend to continue to test these procedures informally or unintentionally.  But I hate being without my Swiss Army knife especially when away from home; I find that I still use it daily for both the mundane and creative tasks.

I have seen mailers at airports such that you can mail yourself items that you can’t carry on a flight.  This is a great solution if you plan to be somewhere for several days and don’t want to check a bag.  But personally, I have actually become a great fan of checking one bag – especially if I have a connection to make.  This allows me to take with me all those items that I can’t carry on – Swiss Army knife, Res-Q-Me (when I remember to stick it in there), a decent bottle of hand sanitizer, and depending on the purpose of the trip, some other tools that are prohibited from carry on baggage (more to follow).  This also avoids having to lumber around the airport and on and off planes with bulky luggage.

Packing for a plane trip

When flying, let’s start with these premise: you will always have a carry on bag, and in that carryon bag should be not only things you need/want with you on the flight (books, snacks, iPod), but also everything that you can’t afford to be at your destination without.

This actually should not be a long list.  I’ve had a couple of experiences with lost checked luggage and have learned a lot from them.  Let me share those with you.

Just over 10 years ago, I was working as the emergency communications officer for UNICEF, based at UNICEF’s global headquarters in New York.  I was part of a team of instructors who were going to be training 100 UNICEF staff from around the world to be a part of their rapid response team – ready to respond to humanitarian disasters wherever and whenever they took place.  The training was to take place at an abandoned facility outside Bamako, Mali, on the border of the south Saharan desert.  My checked luggage never, ever, arrived.  In that bag were 100% of my clothing (beyond what I was wearing on the plane) and all of the training materials that had been prepared for the trainees.  Fortunately, I was able to borrow a couple of changes of clothes from other UNICEF staff, as well as personal supplies (sunblock, etc.), and bought some t-shirts in the local market.  We conducted a hands-on training and all ended up okay, but most of my favorite expedition clothing and my camera and my personal travel kit were lost forever.

After that experience, I resolved to always carry on:

• At least one full change of clothing
• Valuable personal possessions (e.g. computers, cameras)
• Anything you absolutely need to have at your destination for professional reasons (e.g. presentations, handouts)

So, I should have learned from that experience… and for a while, I tried to live by that rule.  Unfortunately, that often made my carry on bag a bit on the heavy side, and I do have chronic lower back problems, so I found myself relapsing into a check-the-maximum baggage mindset.

Just a few years later, I was caught out again.  I was sent on a mission to Dili, East Timor during that country’s process of independence from Indonesia via Darwin, Australia in 1999 on behalf of the U.S. Government.  I arrived in Darwin after 36+ hours of coach middle-seats on full planes with less than an hour to run between connections in Los Angeles and Sydney.  I made it.  Needless to say, my checked bag was three days behind me.  Being on such a long trip, I had carried on a couple of changes of clothing, but did not have the tropic-wear required of the 100+ degree heat of Darwin and Dili.  A quick trip to the local surf shops in Darwin got me some t-shirts and shorts that I still like to wear to this day.

Lesson learned again.  Maybe for you the solution is to try to carry on everything you take with you on a flight.  Personally, I find it annoying to watch people get on planes with enormous wheeled bags that take up an entire overhead compartment (which need to accommodate the bags for at least two or generally three persons each), plus a large “computer bag” plus a third tote or plastic bag – truly stretching the limits of what should be allowed on a flight.  And all that baggage doesn’t include a good Swiss Army knife or multi-tool!   Sometimes packing light enough to carry on only a small bag is possible but I find it challenging.

Right now, I am on a flight to the Midwest where I will be for the next four days.  I took a fairly large computer bag on wheels as my carry on bag.  It has four large pockets on it, but it will still fit under the seat in front of me if it has to (and it had to on the small jet I took on my connecting flight).  One pocket has a full change of clothing in it – including a pack towel and an empty bag (a Lands End folding backpack – it is always good to have a backpack with you on any extended trip away from home).  One has my computer in it.  One has reading material for the flight and files I need for this trip. The fourth has my iPod, power cords for computer & phone, pens, business cards, sunglasses & sunglass case, flashlight, and keys (including whistle, photon freedom flashlight, and Res-Q-Me [doh!]) and other small items.

I also carry my passport with me when I travel domestically – as one never knows when one will be called voluntarily or involuntarily out of the country.  My passport is also carried in a zippered pocket within my carry on bag.  In general, it is always good to have a second form of picture ID carried with you when traveling by air – and carried in a separate location from your primary picture ID (generally a driver’s license carried in your wallet) – such that if your primary is lost, you will have another that will enable to continue your travels until you get home.

Checked Luggage

Annoyingly, a lot of airlines are now charging extra for even a single checked bag.  Boo!  I prefer to fly always on direct flights – these are often cheaper – and usually not much more expensive than flights which require connections – and will get you to your destination a minimum of two hours – usually more – faster than a flight that requires one or more connections.  Living in the New York City metropolitan area, I fortunately have an awful lot of choices where airlines and airports are concerned – and can usually find a cheap direct flight that goes where I want to go and when I want to go on an airline that does not charge for the first checked bag.  [My favorite airline is JetBlue, in case you are wondering, which I take whenever possible. Four reasons:  comfortable seats, clean planes, friendly staff and DirectTV at every seat.  Beats the crap out of the major airlines which are more expensive, more uncomfortable, less friendly and with no free/no choice of entertainment (you know who you are)].

So, today, I am flying one of the major airlines, have a connection to make, and I had to pay $15 to check a single bag.  While I am on this rant, I understand that airlines have real costs associated with handling baggage, and by charging for second or each bag that passengers check, they are passing these costs on to those passengers using those services, which certainly seems reasonable on one level.  But just a couple of years ago, in part because of the stricter security screenings taking place at airports, airlines were actively encouraging passengers to check as much baggage as possible while only carrying on a single small bag.  This greatly sped the process not only of getting through security screenings at airports, but also in getting on and off of airplanes.  And that all made the process of flying so much more comfortable and reduced conflict between passengers, without overstuffed overhead compartments and bags consuming everyone’s foot-space, and it taking 20 minutes or more to deplane while everyone gathered all of their items.  All I can say is:  what happened?  This was great.

A checked bag carries all the things I’d like to have with me for the trip.  This includes clothing, toiletries, my Swiss Army Knife, Res-Q-Me (heh heh hee!), other tools as appropriate, and other obvious items.

In August, I traveled to California for a week to take part in a disaster response exercise.  I made a detailed inventory of everything I packed – both in my checked and carry on baggage.  I was going to share it here but don’t think it really adds a lot to this discussion.  In part 2, I’ll go over some of the specific items that you should be packing with you in your carry on and checked luggage, and that should be informative.

Here’s a preview:

Essential Things to Take With You on A Trip by Plane:

• All of the things you should never leave home without
• Backup photo ID (passport preferably)
• Full change of clothes on your carry-on bag
• Pack Towel (carry on)
• An extra empty bag (min. 1 backpack)
• Medications/prescription drugs for duration of trip + min. 1 day (carry on of not easily replaceable)
• First Aid Kit

Much more to follow in Part 2

I just watched this video in a bid to learn how to use the tin opener on my Swiss Army knife as for the 2nd hostel running I’ve had a can of tuna I’ve been unable to open due to shoddy kitchen tools available.

Christ, you wouldn’t want to get stuck in a lift with that guy would you. Get to the point douchebag! After all that the tuna was vile low grade stuff, on a par with cat food no doubt. But I felt obliged to follow through with what I started so I munched it anyway. Urgh.

Now I’m on my way to Bran Castle which is about an hour away on the bus. It is often wrongly reported that Vlad the Impaler lived here, he did once attack it though.

I didn’t think much of Bran itself as there are loads of tacky tourist stalls and tents, but the castle was quite impressive and had a look about it that suggested Count Dracula could easily make himself at home there. 6 lei in (would have been 12 without the student card) and another 10 if you want to use a camera. You’d be mad to pay the extra though as you can easily get away with taking snaps anyway as long as you’re discreet.

I was meant to go to Rasnov Fortress on the way back but I just couldn’t be bothered as I’m feeling very sleepy. I intend* to try and get an early night tonight though as I suspect sleep will be in short supply tomorrow night on the mini-bus to Moldova.

When I got back I had a another little look round a few parts of Brasov that I didn’t get a chance to yesterday.

Now I’ve just stopped for a cheeky one in the Blue Train Club. It’s not a particularly friendly place and I won’t be coming back. Still, the Silva beer is nice enough. It could either give me a much needed perk-up or go the other way and leave me bordering on a comatose state. Actually it just maintained the status quo, I feel exactly the same.

* Intentions are one thing but I’m posting this at half 4 in the morning as I got a little bit too involved with Civilization Revolution on the iPhone, doh. Great game though, pretty soon the iPhone is going to have to start being considered a serious gaming device.

I’d had the Victorinox ‘Climber’ model since I was around 10, but hadn’t really started using it until I moved to Uni, where it became invaluable. Realizing how much I was using it now, I decided it would be worth investing in one with more features. I went for the ‘Swiss Champ’ model in the end, as it had the most features without being ridiculously big and unwieldy. It’s about 3.1 cm wide and crams 33 functions into its relatively small size, no wonder this model is in the museum of modern art!

It’s a bit too big and heavy to go in a pocket, but I always have it in a leather pouch on my belt. Since getting it, I don’t think there’s been a day gone by where I haven’t used it, and if it wasn’t for the law, I’d have it with me 24/7.

Of course, the tools on a Swiss Army Knife can’t compare to a proper tool kit, but they’re perfect for odd jobs and times when other tools aren’t available. Everything is high quality stainless steel (except the magnifying glass and toothpick, obviously).

My most used tools are probably the small blade, the various screw drivers, pliers and of course, the bottle opener!

I highly recommend that you get one of these (or one of the smaller models, more suited to your needs) especially if you’re a person that is always doing odd jobs around the house. It’s without a doubt, the most useful thing I own.

So I have this incredible Swiss Army knife that I carried all over Europe that I want to take on this CO trip.  It is a little nasty from like 15 years of peanut butter dig outs and such.

Anyone know where the hell I can get this thing cleaned around Chicago??  I am not putting it in the dishwasher nor dousing it with WD-40 like some people have reccomended.  What the hell?  How am I supposed to cut off my own arm if I am trapped under a boulder?

     Victorinox has equipped Swiss soldiers with pocketknives for over
100 years. Through out the years the Swiss Soldier’s knives have been changed to fit the technology of the current time period. Starting in February of 2009 Swiss soldiers will benefit from the latest in knife technology, as the tradition continues, and they receive the new Victorinox Soldier’s knife.
     The requirements of the Swiss Army demand a knife suitable for military use, of great quality, with much attention given to safety.  As a result, only the best stainless steel will be used for the production of the blade, the wood saw, the can opener with 3mm screwdriver, the 7mm lockable screwdriver with wire stripper & cap lifter, the Philips screwdriver, the reamer and punch tool. The main cutting blade is serrated and is able to be opened with one hand. Both the blade and the 7mm screwdriver are locked in place, after being opened, providing added safety. The OD Green knife grip shells have also had a technology update. Made from a two-component plastic these OD Green grip shells are made to be durable and give the new soldier’s knife a better grip when used. And finally as all soldier knives have been, this new soldier’s knife has been designed to require very low maintenance while providing service for a lifetime.
     The New Soldier OD Green knife is now available from Victorinox Swiss Army Knife with a SKU number of 53495.

Victorinox Swiss Army New Soldier Knife

I’ve often wondered, what makes a good mother? And if I were to be marked out of 10, what would I get?

I mean these days are you considered a maternal goddess simply because you manage to keep your offspring alive, fed and watered till they’re 18, or is there more to it than just ensuring the survival of the young? Maybe it’s about teaching Junior not to knock every other child to the floor, in the stampede to get the last biscuit. Or how it’s unacceptable to spit at passing old ladies in the street, or hold up the local corner shop with a Swiss army Knife, for the sake of a pocketful of jelly beans.

Basic ground rules no longer seem to apply to kids today and it’s hard to know what will keep them from falling off the straight and narrow. Personally I concentrate on good manners, eating well, doing what they’re told – and the all important learning not to interrupt me when I’m on the phone. But who knows if this is enough.

Perhaps there should be a Parents Manual 101. A check list so we can tick off what we’ve done right, what we’ve got wrong and and what’s still to come. Actually scratch the last one. If we knew what was to come, the survival of the young would be put into jeopardy and Prozac sales would sky rocket.

I do sometimes feel that I probably fall well below the Mother’s Mark – that’s the parental version of the Plimsoll line, there to let you know when you’re about to drown in another child rearing disaster. These feelings of inadequacy are often as a result of me completely losing the plot, followed by my temper. Generally over something that is, in the grand scheme of things, really not that important at all.

Like my daughter sifting through her dinner as if I’m deliberately trying to poison her with an olive. Or my son deciding that the clean, cream wall is the perfect empty canvas on which to exercise his untapped artistic talent. The sort of stuff that I no doubt did at that age – and got a smack for.

So when one tearful child has gone to bed with no pudding, because he refused to eat any of the vegetables, or the other is glaring at me as she stomps to her room because I’ve abruptly switched the TV off – without giving a full  60 minute’s worth of warning – then I feel like crap. Well actually, lets be honest, initially I don’t feel that bad at all. I’m normally glad to have some peace and quiet at last and a chance to sit down without being talked at, tugged down to floor level or questioned over everything I say.

It’s about an hour later when I go into their rooms and see them laying there, all angelic looking with a tear still clinging onto an eyelash. Then I feel like crap.

Worse still, when looking for reassurance the next day, I ask my daughter, “So do you still love me or am I the meanest Mummy in the world?”

“Of course I do”, she says, looking horrified at the very suggestion she wouldn’t, ” you’re the very best Mummy in the world”.

And that’s when I feel REALLY crap. As I think to myself how important, on a scale of 1 to 10, was it that she ate that last piece of aubergine.

The trouble I find is that intending to be nice, loving and patience to my children every minute of the day, and actually achieving it are often about as far apart as the North and South Pole.

Sometimes it’s impossible not to be a bitch, even to them. I never mean it, but they seem to have this knack of catching me at a time when I’m especially stressed out, tired and hungry. They then  pull out all the stops and leap up and down on my very last, very frayed nerve. At that point, unfortunately for them, the most appetising looking thing to bite off just so happens to be their heads.

To make matters worse, it’s at these times that I come out with the most god awful things. Threats I have no intention of ever carrying out, character assassinations that are completely unfair and phrases that instantly morph me into my own mother. I hear the words come out, and even in mid flow think to myself ‘what the hell, shut up will you’.

I’m presuming, or rather hoping I’m not alone in all of this. Judging by some of the sad looking children and the angry, muttering mothers I’ve seen stalking around the supermarket and away from the playground, I’m guessing not.

In a perfect world I’d deal with stress better and never take it out on my kids. But the trouble is, as with most multi-tasking mums, half the time I’m too busy trying to work to play dress up with Barbies, and too busy cooking, feeding and clearing up to make necklaces out of pipe cleaners and the contents out of the ‘Bits’ draw.  By the evening I am certainly too bloody tired to discuss in detail, all those things that children find endlessly fascinating, and parents find, well, boring.

Yesterday for example, after a long day at the keyboard, my daughter informed me that for her latest school project she had to learn all about the banana. Now it’s not that I don’t care about the banana project, or wish to restrict her learning all about the cutting edge life cycle of this thoroughly nutritious fruit. But my brain just doesn’t have enough functioning cells left at the end of the day to process such an uninteresting topic.

I could let her lose on the Internet to find out more, but god only knows what would pop up if she Googled ‘ banana + picture’. I have images springing to mind, and none of them I wish to have burned into the memory bank of my 8 year old. I am tempted to just be blunt – ‘A banana grows, it’s peeled, it’s eaten – end of story’. But I suspect this just won’t cut it.

Besides that, it would be mean to crush her imagination and wish to learn. Particularly as I’m something of a witch when it comes to policing her homework and making her learn her times tables in the holidays – when all the other little girls seem to be out chatting with their friends on the street corner, wearing 2 inch silver kitten heels and eating sweets…

Juggling life and kids is an uphill battle at the best of times. Add to that a job, whether in an office or 10 feet from the kitchen table, and you may as well throw in a couple of knives and a blindfold. I wonder how many woman wish they didn’t have to do it all, or at least to be seen to be doing it all.

Given the choice, some days I think I’d rather go back to the Stone Age way of life. Sitting at home in my nicely decorated cave, with nothing to do but carving up and cooking whatever gets dragged back in through the door after the hunt. As long as there was Ebay that is, and Eastenders on the telly.

Anyway I have to say I felt slightly better about my mothering skills the other day, when I set eyes on this picture. I may bark, bite and occasionally smack my kids, but at least I’m not subjecting them to this type of beauty pageant child abuse. I ask you, what sort of self obsessed mother does this to her child? It’s freakish, warped and quite frankly creepy.

In comparison to these ‘eyes on the prize’ mothers,  I’m practically Maria Von Trap, with a little Mary Poppins thrown in for free.