Hubris thinks what he thinks. He also knows that a lot of people who need therapy become therapists. And he knows that one of the first things you learn when becoming a therapist is that you can’t diagnose yourself or be your own therapist.
And so, Hubris thinks what he thinks. Maybe he ought to talk to a therapist?
Or a friend? Oh, wait…
Everyone’s happy to know that Hubris doesn’t actually sleep in those weird outdated polo shirts, right?
Hubris has a drawer full of those shirts, and by golly, the especially torn-up ones would be good for PJs, wouldn’t they? Maybe tear the buttons off the collar. I dunno.
You know I’m not just assuming he owns torn-up ones. I’ve drawn a few into the strip over the years.
Here. I made you a little checklist for this weekend. And I saved you some time. Marked that last one for ya.
Okay, who here reads Bearmageddon? I do. And Ethan Nicolle is taking a short hiatus to do some catch-up. So what do I do? I love me some guest comics, so here’s my Bearmageddon guest work.
Jeff Outdoors –
The man abuses outdoor gear, so you don’t have to
I own far too many backpacks. So, when I got invited on a Swiss Alps hut ski trip, the first thing I did was buy a new pack. The recommended pack size was 30 liters, so I narrowed my scope to two packs designed for 30 liter ski mountaineering. The Deuter Freerider Pro 30 and the Mountain Hardware Via Rapida 35. They both looked perfect for a 6 day hut trip on spring snow. I have loved my Arc Teryx Borea ski pack, but it’s a bit big and heavy for a European hut trip (no sleeping bag, stove, fuel, or dinners to pack). Eventually, I found the Via Rapida in a local shop in medium and bought it. It’s 2135 cubic inches with the lid, but it shrinks beautifully for day skiing.
So far, I’ve hauled it around the local ski hill, skied on the local trails many times, hiked up my icy road a dozen times, and skinned up a local peak with it on New Year’s Day. I’ve gotten used to the new strange features it has and have come to appreciate some of the little things.
The lid comes off easily. I’ve found that I don’t use it at all… yet. Once the lid is off, there is a little flap that acts as a top, which fastens to the same buckles that the lid snaps to. The buckles are switched so that you don’t accidentally snap the left side into the right side, etc. This seemed nonsensical to me at first, but when I started strapping all kinds of gear to the outside when I was snowshoeing with friends, I quickly came to appreciate the difference, although different color buckles would work just as well.
The drawstrings and locks are funky also. Pull on the red tab to close, pull on the yellow tab to open while pulling the collar open. You could also just squeeze the barrel lock, but once you get used to grabbing the tab, it becomes easier than trying to squeeze the little lock with gloves on.
There are two stash pockets that are accessible from the top and have zipper closures. I didn’t think I’d ever use them, but now I use them so much I don’t like using my other packs.
Even the key zipper pulls and buckles can be used with mitts on because they’ve added medial tubing so each zipper tab sticks out. There are easy to grab compression straps on the sides, which double as ski stabilizers AND they are all quick release instead of just sliders. The ski straps/loops on the sides are nice and burly and wide enough for all but the big powder skis. I though my double cambers would flop around in them, but the compression straps held them tight. There is no reinforcement on the sides to keep your edges from cutting the material (it is ripstop, though). In fact the whole pack is fairly light nylon compared to my Borea, but it hasn’t had a breech yet. The front panel is made of Dyneema (whatever that is) and is supposed to be able to handle sharp mountaineering type things without getting thrashed too much.
The pack has a funky feature that allows for strapping your skis in a cross fashion on the front panel, but it interferes with storing your shovel, so I’m not sold on that feature. Maybe if you are a snowboarder, you could use this feature, but then, if you’re a snowboarder, I’m not going to wait and find out. If you have a shovel with big enough holes in the blade, there are these cute little aluminum bottle openers attached to little bungee cords that hold your shovel on the outside of the pack. It’s remarkably fast to remove the shovel, yet it stays put in a yard sale.
The big front Dyneema panel pocket has a zipper top, but the pack’s compression straps tunnel through this pocket, which allows snow to get in. The adjustment of the compression straps is inside this front pocket (nearly inaccessible), which I thought was a bad design, until I realized that the straps only need adjusting in unusual circumstances. And when those circumstances arise, you’ll happy to have the flexibility.
I’m not a fan of white material on anything that I use in the snow OR the dirt. It’s a stupid choice of color for several reasons. My Via Rapida has white on the front panel. Also, there is a nifty little whistle on the sternum strap that I have not been able to rip off. The whistle sticks up enough that when you have gloves on, you think that the whistle is the buckle release, so you end up squeezing the whistle for three minutes thinking that the buckle is stuck. This is a bad idea for rescue situations. I don’t think you’d get much sympathy from your buried ski buddy, when, after the rescue, you tell him he could have breathed a bit sooner if you hadn’t been squeezing your whistle.
There are a lot of little tweaks that this pack has that makes me think they asked the right people when they designed it. For instance, there are sewn patches on the shoulder straps that are burly enough to hold a King radio, as well as little rings that are great for clipping on a camera or altimeter. The waist buckle system takes some getting used to if you’ve never used one like this, but in the end, you’ll like it. And the whole waist belt comes off for the super light days or air travel. The key ring in the pocket is easy to use with mitts on, and even the shovel handle keeper is quick release and steadfast.
Lastly, the frame sheet keeps this pack light, yet strong enough to haul 30 pounds on a training hike. The 30 pounds on a steep narrow trail felt like nothing. I had excellent center of balance, no rub spots, and overall comfort.
Pros
Cons
The absolute best day ski pack I’ve ever tried.
There you go. The Jeff Outdoors has spoken.
Wanna shop the pack? Click on the pack!
Holiday photos are great, am I right? There you are, looking at your past self and recalling the good times and thinking “Who the hell is about to jump through that waterfall and tackle me into the freezing water?” Lovely.
This was taken on a kayak/raft trip down the Grand Canyon. I’m above Lava.
It was Mike, by the way. Splash!
The days when your scoutmaster told you to dig a trench toilet are OVER. There are many places now where you are expected to pack in your food and pack out your… not-food-any-more. There are good reasons to do this- mostly having to do with courtesy for the next people who will be camping where you’re camping now. That sort of reasoning seems to be losing traction these days, so let me re-phrase the situation as- YOU are the next people camping after someone else. You don’t want coyotes or rats or ants or other creatures waiting around the campsite when you get there, knowing there’ll be poo buried in a shallow grave when you wander off again. So unless YOU want to be the chimp that messes up the deal for everyone else (including yourself if you have plans to return to that campsite) you’ll play Good Camper and do what you oughtta.
Hm. That intro got out of hand.
But that’s part of the issue here! Everyone, especially small children, knows that the funniest thing on the planet is poop. Second funniest is other people making poop and third is other people dealing with poop. Actually, I may have that list reversed. Doesn’t matter. The subject causes giggles, then outright laughter and general hilarity. I have a good scuba story dealing with poop underwater, for example. Conversations about poop get out of hand and tend to go on a while.
So, how come there isn’t more literature on poop? Is it because of the indelicacy of the subject? The difficulty in using good and proper language when dealing with the subject?
Nuh-uh. For example, this review is for this here book:
See there? No trouble dealing with indelicate language, even in the title.
The book doesn’t even deal with generalized poop. No underwater scuba poop, no doggie doo, no daylight bombing raids around the chimp enclosure at the zoo. No, this book is entirely devoted to poop along a river, and more specifically, what happens when it’s been taken away from the river and has to be dealt with.
There are twelve chapters. Twelve. About Poop. Making it, carrying it in a boat, disposing of it properly, accidentally disposing of it horribly, horribly wrong and who had to pay the price. There are probably some countries where doody is not the secret shame of every man, woman and child. A buddy of mine has lived in India, where there are neighborhoods within which a far more cavalier attitude toward bodily function prevails. Apparently it makes for some sidewalk art that no one in the states is going to fund. No one.
The best chapter, and one that was repeated while I was on a Grand Canyon trip is ‘Mirage Of Poo’. Turns out that if you spill a river toilet out of the back of a truck across a steaming hot highway, it takes on the glassy appearance of a water mirage- at least to the bicyclists that are approaching. It also turns out that applying caliper brakes on your bike while in the middle of a large hot puddle of dookie, the brakes don’t work the way you’d like them to, and you… ahem… go down. at speed. I don’t say this as a spoiler to the book, and I can’t bring myself to say that I’m trying to ‘whet your appetite’ for the book. That’s nasty. I’m just saying… it’s a book about poo and it’s as funny as… a book about poo. River poo.
Plus! Plus! There’s a GLOSSARY in the back… in case you’re not a rafter (I’m not) and it has definitions to all the rafter-specific words used in the book. PLUS, there’s a whole page of EUPHEMISMS FOR POOP! Both words AND phrases! I note with dismay that my children’s favorite ‘Pop a squat’ (not that they are redneck trash, thank you) is not on there, but I’m sure you have a pencil for when you get a copy of the book for yourself. You can add it to the list. Freebie!
I bought a stack of copies of this book years ago, just to give to other paddlers as Christmas gifts. I can recommend you doing the same. It’s cool. I don’t have a trademark on the idea.
I’ll make it easy. You can shop the book HERE.
Good night and good poo.
I think we leave off skiing and snowboarding for a bit, here. Hope you enjoyed it. The big news on this end is that the National Cartoonist Society (I’m a member, isn’t THAT weird) has added a division category to their annual awards. It’s ‘webcomic’, though someday, I reckon it’ll have some other nomenclature, as everything in the world goes to the web. There might be better webcomics than Hubris, but I don’t care. I’m submitting. Cross your fingers for Hubris! Also, click on ‘VoteHubris’ and StumbleUpon and Google+ and Tweet some Hubris and all that other stuff. ‘Like’ the Facebook page and everything. Every word out there in the cloud is another reader someday, and when there’s enough readers, I’m updating every day and having more fun with you guys. ‘Cause I like you and all.
Well, there you go. The alternate version of Monday’s cartoon, long and tall. Whattaya think? Better? Annoying? Different Good or Different Bad?
We could even take it one step farther and stack this same cartoon onto the end of itself. Hubris could drop over endless cliffs in a cartoon loop. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll post that tomorrow.
Okay, little feedback needed here. Today’s cartoon is newspaper format. That means it’d fit neatly into the spaces that newspapers and syndicates decided they need cartoons to be.
Now, since Hubris is a webcomic, I could have (still can, I guess) redesign the whole thing to take advantage of the fact that it’s on a webpage. Instead of a series of panels running horizontally at the same height, would YOU rather see a clever use of a tall panel where Hubris can fall and fall? Remember that you’d have to scroll down to see the whole thing. Would the novelty of a more dramatic panel arrangement help or hinder your enjoyment of a webcomic?
Click on the comments section below and say a word or two about that, if you have a minute. Thanks!!
Greg
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