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Choosing a Backpacking Stove

There is a huge market for backpacking, expedition and camping stoves these days, resulting in the availability of many products targeted at different consumers. You can find many stove options suitable of various purposes, fuels, and pocketbooks. These stoves range from classic designs modeled after ones our grandparents used to newer stoves genre incorporating cutting edge space age vaporization technology and special materials to make them lighter, perform better or just look more modern. Each stove design has its own special features (e.g. white gas stoves work at subfreezing temperatures, butane stoves are as easy to use as a home gas range, alcohol stoves burn clean, hexamine stoves and fuel are ultra-light, wood stoves don't require packing in fuel, water activated cookers are relatively safe to use and solar stoves are pollution free). And each stove design has its unique drawbacks (e.g. petrol stoves use caustic fuel, gas stoves must use prefilled canisters, alcohol stoves have a poor heat to fuel weight ratio, hexamine gets very expensive, wood blackens pots, water activated cookers are heavy, solar stoves are generally extremely slow to cook with). This can make stove selection exciting and potentially a difficult endeavor since no one stove has it all, making stove selection an exercise in compromise rather than a hunt for the ultimate stove.

Faced with all of the stove choices out there these days, you may need to do a little research to narrow down which stove, or stoves, will best suit your particular needs. Some of the factors to consider when selecting a backpacking stove include:

Some backpackers may even find that they need to plan for different types of cooking systems for separate treks or multiple platforms on extended treks, should the main/preferred fuel type not be available on a leg of their journey. Visit our Stove Systems Page for more on the system concept, as you will need more than just a stove to cook.

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Zen Backpacking Stoves - How to Choose a Stove

I recently responded to a comma question on another website that really made me think. The question pertained to commas in sentences that have conjunctions followed by conjunctive adverbs. I am reposting my response herebecause (1) it was an interesting question and(2) my response may help people who have a similar question.

Go here for the original post and discussion. (external site, new window)

You asked a complex question, but I will take a crack at explaining how to use commas in your sample.

Lets use this sample: The rider had a lot of experience, but, nevertheless, could not control the wild stallion.

This sentence should not have a comma before but because the text that follows is not an independent clause.

If you were to remove nevertheless, the sentence would be structurally identical to the sentences described in this post, as follows: The rider had a lot of experience but could not control the wild stallion. It has no subject following but and, therefore, does not need a comma before but (similar to this sentence).

In brief: If you have two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, use a comma before the conjunction. Otherwise, dont.

Now, lets think about your question specifically and examine the commas around conjunctive adverbs, including nevertheless. Lets add a subject to the second part of the sentence (which requires adding the comma before the conjunction) and see what happens.

First approach: Some people say you should use commas around nevertheless because nevertheless and similar words are conjunctive adverbs, whichare set off from the rest of the sentence with commas. Using the commas around conjunctive adverbs following conjunctions can make a sentence sound choppy, but this advice represents strict adherence to comma rules.

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Zen Comma | Meditations on Correct Comma Use from the ...

SAN ANTONIO A Texas reporter ditched the How much wood would a woodchuck chuck tongue twister and chose to rap the "Alphabet Aerobics" for her warm up, and the video showing the impressive feat has garnered more than 330,000 views since Sunday.

In the YouTube video, KWES (Odessa) reporter Kim Powell almost perfectly raps to the challenging song Alphabet Aerobics by Blackalicious before her live broadcast. After rapping for a minute and a half while swaying to her beat she signs off with the classic-but-often-overused mic drop.

For the record, I did it A Capella and the music was added later on. I'm not entirely off beat ;), she Tweeted on Monday.

Powell admitted on Facebook that she normally warms up for live shots by rapping, but she didnt realize it'd be going viral a few days later.

Her followers on social media are calling her performance impressive and are even comparing it to actor Daniel Radcliffs take on Alphabet Aerobics on the Jimmy Fallons Tonight Show.

You crushed Daniel Radcliffe's version! Maybe you should have been on Jimmy Fallon, one Facebook commenter wrote, while another said, This is your chance to get on Ellen.

Powell said on Twitter that the craze has made Monday one of the strangest days of her life, adding that she was praised, insulted and proposed to.

rsalinas@mysa.com

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Texas TV reporter proposed to after 'Alphabet Aerobics' rap video goes viral

By Dr. Mercola

Scientists have been linking the benefits of physical exercise to brain health for many years, but new research is making it clear that the two aren't just simply related; rather, it is THE relationship.

As reported by The New York Times, new evidence shows that physical exercise helps you build a brain that not only resists shrinkage, but increases cognitive abilitiesi.

A study of mice produced a powerful illustration of just how influential physical exercise is on your brainii.

The mice were divided into four groups that included a group that had plenty of access to stimulating and sensual activities.

But only one group had a running wheel in their cagesand when the cognitive tests were completed, it turned out that being able to use the running wheel was the only thing that mattered in determining how well they did on the tests.

According to the New York Times:

"Animals that exercised, whether or not they had any other enrichments in their cages, had healthier brains and performed significantly better on cognitive tests than the other mice.

Animals that didn't run, no matter how enriched their world was otherwise, did not improve their brainpower in the complex, lasting ways that Rhodes's team was studying.

"They loved the toys," Rhodes says, and the mice rarely ventured into the empty, quieter portions of their cages.

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Exercise Benefits Your Brain Health - Mercola Peak Fitness ...

Exercise has been touted to be a cure for nearly everything in life, from depression, to memory loss, Alzheimers disease, Parkinsons and more. At the same time, similar to the topic of sleep, I found myself having very little specific and scientific knowledge about what exercise really does to our bodies and our brains.

Yes, yes, I know all about it, thats the thing with the endorphins, that makes you feel good and why we should exercise and stuff, right? is what I can hear myself say to someone bringing this up. I would pick up things here and there, yet really digging into the connection of exercise and how it effects us has never been something Ive done.

Inspired by a recent post from Joel on what makes us happy Ive set out to uncover the connection between our feeling of happiness and exercising regularly.

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Most of us are aware of what happens to the body when we exercise. We build more muscle or more stamina. We feel how daily activities like climbing stairs becomes easier if we exercise regularly. When it comes to our brain and mood though, the connection isnt so clear.

The line around our endorphins are released is more something I throw around to sound smart, without really knowing what it means. Here is what actually happens:

If you start exercising, your brain recognizes this as a moment of stress. As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting the enemy or fleeing from it. To protect yourself and your brain from stress, you release a protein called BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor). This BDNF has a protective and also reparative element to your memory neurons and acts as a reset switch. Thats why we often feel so at ease and things are clear after exercising and eventually happy.

At the same time, endorphins, another chemical to fight stress, is released in your brain. Your endorphins main purpose is this writes researcher McGovern:

These endorphins tend to minimize the discomfort of exercise, block the feeling of pain and are even associated with a feeling of euphoria.

Overall, there is a lot going on inside our brain and it is in fact oftentimes a lot more active than when we are just sitting down or actually concentrating mentally:

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Why Exercising Makes Us Happier - Social - Thoughts on ...