Stuff going on
We had breakfast with Dave Sklorenko(sorry if I mispelled the last name) on Saturday and had a nice talk. I did my long run for the week after we got back from breakfast. Chris and I went out to Rock Cut to do some trail riding later that day. Then we went to CJ's house and ate dinner with him and the kids.

Sunday we went to mass then the branch meeting. After the meeting Dave and his wife and Stu and Jennifer Ambrose came over and checked out the house. After they left Matt, Chris, and I went over to Dan's house and did a bunch of cleaning. Dan, his parents, and my dad went down to Allendale for the week so we are housesitting for him. We must have filled 3 or 4 trash cans full of trash, beer cans, and pizza boxes!

AT '09

Alcohol stove
I started working on building an alcohol stove last night. Unfortunately I bought the wrong type of alcohol (70% isopropyl) instead of the ethyl alcohol so the two designs I made did not seem to work very well. The problem with using isopropyl alcohol(from what I remember from organic chemistry) is that the kind I was using had 30% water in it (water+fuel=no fire) and isopropyl alcohol is not as volatile as ethyl alcohol. Another note is as the alcohol gets burned off the % of water left behind may increase. I ended up making a Pepsi Can stove weighing ~1/3 of an ounce, and a modified cat food can stove(i dont have a cat so I used a tuna fish can). The pepsi can stove looks like it will work very well I just need to get the right kind of alcohol to test it out.

Tarp tent
This will most likely take a bit longer to make than the stove. I was able to aquire a sewing machine for FREE! I tried to find one at the Salvation Army store down the street, but they didn't have any. Luckily I have a friend at work who just gave me one. The two person tarp tent I am looking at weights 1lb 8oz and includes bug screening. The kit(I have to build it myself) comes with instructions and all of required material and costs ~$50. Depending on how the tarp tent build goes I may try to make some other equiptment (pack, down hat, etc.)

Reading
I have been reading a number of books on how to plan a trip of this sort. I also found an interesting site in which gave me my new favorite quote that is a statement to live by "hike your own hike." I take it as stop worrying about everyone else, unless they are harming others. Let people learn thier own lessons.

I will try to keep updating. It is getting hard with school and the two jobs to keep up with everything.