Upward and Onward

Last week was my last week at Equinox as their designer, they threw a little surprise going away party for Molly and I and gave me a custom made hiking stick to take on my adventures at La Vida. It was very sweet of them and I felt very blessed to have had a chance to work and learn there.  As much as I was sad to leave, I am very excited for what lies ahead for me.

Molly asleep on the climbing gym couch
- all the long days there are tiring her out!

 This week I am helping the local climbing gym: Milton Rock Gym run while the owners are on a 10 day trip to the Red in Kentucky. I get to run the gym  and house sit for them in their "awesome-log-cabin-house-tucked-away-in-the-middle-of-the-woods" while they are gone:) Its been my first time climbing in months and i can't tell you how depressing it is to see how much strength I have lost, but also how amazing and refreshing it feels to be back to it. Yesterday it was pretty slow for the last 2 hours so I started climbing with some of the regular members. It's hard to describe how climbing again makes me feel, but I felt like the "real KB" was back, this is who I really am, this is my element, this is where I feel truly alive, pushing myself to get to my goals- however big or small they are, feeling exhausted but invigorated at the end of the day, letting everything else go in my mind and just focusing on the climb-how to move my body to use the least amount of strength to get to the top- how to tackle the specific moves and problems directly in front of me- just to push myself and see what happens, climbing and laughing with good people, I felt like I was "at home", like I was back to where I am supposed to be, and dang does it feel good. Even though I will only be here for a week and wont be able to climb on a regular basis this summer again because of La Vida, I am happy for the week I get to climb and be surrounded by something I absolutely love.


May 7th I will be off to Ohio to visit my family and some friends I haven't seen in a year, and then on the 15th off to Boston/New York to start another summer with La Vida. I couldn't be more excited about either of those trips:)

As for the fall, it's all a mystery to me right now, I've prayed about it a lot and God's answer has been to trust and wait for God to open the doors when he wants me to start thinking about it.

As I have been packing up all my stuff from the Berwick house I have been thinking of all the things that I have done/learned here, and it makes me feel really accomplished and happy about the adventure here - even if it was hard at times - good things did happen here.

heres my list of what I learned:

I (slightly) learned how to cook
pretty extensively how to sew(all I did at work it felt like)
how to use a chainsaw
how to shoot a "22", some hand guns and a assault riffle:)
how to be patient in Molly's training
to give myself rest when I need it
how to study the Bible at the depth I was searching for
how to Kayak
I learned how to Stand Up Paddle Board

and so many more things but these are just some of the first that came to my head - I'm sure as I process more this next week as I get ready to officially leave this place I will see even more things that I have learned here. I love learning, especially things that you don't expect yourself to learn but God had you learn them anyways.

Check out Paul Petzoldt's films of NOLS in the 1960's

pretty cool stuff

Coolest new product I've seen recently

The Blow-up-waterproof-solar-charged-lantern designed for many different applications - heard about it from my new favorite webstire: The Gear Caster blog. check out the video!

As for Backpacking:

You can charge it during the day in watever activity your doing, it just needs to be soaking in some sun rays, and you can turn it on (high or low setting) for some ambient light around camp. use it as your tent light so you don't headlamp-blind your tent buddy, or use it around the stove/dinner for some night lighting. The plastic around the super bright LEDs help to diffuse them and turn them into a more ambient light, and the whole ting can fold down and fit in your pocket!

Prety awesome huh?!

Sneak-Peek of how much of a design/craft dork I truly am.

This pattern I drafted up is a Poncho design for a company
 in japan called Hikers Depot, they specialize in ultra-light gear

This is a quick peek at the new poncho design right next to the original  sample

This is a tarp that I am designing for the same Hiker's Depot company 

Some tie downs that are getting sewn down to the tarp

My jimmy-rigged way of testing to see if the sewn application of the tie downs and middle seam truly are waterproof - This theory will be solved on monday when I go back to work and see if any of the water gathered in the fabric has leaked through down into the cup. The sewers said it would be waterproof - but i don't also trust em so I'm testing it out myself.

 2 Liter Pop Bottle Thermos for a client - This prototype was one of the first when I was trying to work out some details, but the final product looks similar to this with a handle. The idea is that contractors, frat-boys, road-trippers , can recycle 2L pop bottles (and soon to be milk jugs as soon as I get to that prototype) to store their water in instead of buying nalgenes. It's a way of recycling/extending the life of old pop-bottles.

This orange cart is used for millitary  purposes,  the designer of the cart wanted a pack that would lay on top of the cart to help move gear around whatever environment the soldiers are in. The back has a dual zipper access, clips to the cart for stability and in addition to the two main handles on either end, there are daisy chains on the sides that offer additional handles for assistant moving the pack while fully loaded.

This has been my other project this week. - This project was really fun for me because I actually got to sketch and design it from scratch - the client just told me what the cart needed to do according to the cart and let me run with it - it was awesome having to figure out my own way of how the pattern and prototype/product would work rather than reverse engineering some one else's product.

You know your a dork when you start freaking out about this kinda hardware.

The two similar ones are V-SRBs - V shaped Side Release Buckles,  a slightly lighter and sexier version of teh good ole' SRBs

the one a the right is something Equinox had never seen before,  the Apex WaveLock. A smaller lighter version of the common Ladder lock but with ridges in the tensioning slot to create a stronger hold on the webbing when there isn't any direct tension being put on the webbing, so these puppies stay in place almost 100% of the time until you purposefully move them.

Pretty awesome right?

Last but not lease, Molly got a new bed! The fabric was some old scraps of my Grandma's and the stuffing is fleece scraps from work. At Equinox we try to keep our fleece scraps out of landfills as much as possible so I grabbed a bag and used it for Molly Baby. This bed has a waterproof lining underneath the corduroy fabric - and a zipper along 1/3 of the bottom so you can take out the bag of scrap fabric and wash the Bed liner when it gets all hairy and smelly from our not-always-so-fresh-and-so-clean-canine-companions.

Hope you enjoyed getting a sneak peak of my recent design life!