I made a video for the Sparky and got it up on youtube last night. I wanted to show the knife in better detail and show what it can do, so go listen to me ramble for a few minutes about sharp things.

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While on a quest to find some cured bacon, I came across Patak Meat Products, in Austell, GA. I have been looking for a quality meat store for a while, especially one that offered some cured and smoked meats that I could take backpacking without worries of spoilage. I have been to many meat stores over the years, and have never really found one that was all that great. I submit PMP as the best meat store ever (yes, I know they are called butcher shops), for several reasons:

UNO - Location - PMP is in the middle of nowhere in Austell, which is already in the middle of nowhere. OK, Austell is right next to Atlanta, but Austell still feels like the middle of nowhere. We passed by a Marathon facility with a hell of a lot of petroleum products silos, several trailer parks, a few sketchy neighborhoods, and a junk yard or two. Mind you, PMP is a very nice, clean, neat looking group of buildings, with several high end German vehicles sitting out front, so their choice of locations was interesting. Maybe zoning laws do not take kindly to a buttload of meat. I know it does not sound like a good location, but it is maybe 10 miles from me, which makes it a fantastic location.
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Here are some more shots from Callaway Gardens. You can find larger versions of all of them in the forums.

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My wife and I headed to Callaway Gardens yesterday to see what was going on in the world of butterflies and flowers. I haven’t been there in at least 10 years, and that was only for the Christmas lights show, and she hasn’t ever really looked around the grounds of the gardens, so we both were not prepared for some of the wonderfulness that we came across.

The day started with the Butterfly House (or whatever they call it), which is one of the gardens’ main attractions, and for good reason. You walk in to the lobby, with butterfly artwork and fat rednecks everywhere, then stroll through some double doors into the hatching area. From what I can tell, they let the caterpillars form cocoons in a lab type area, then pin them up in rows in a display behind glass so visitors can watch the process. Judging from the amount of butterflies in the conservatory combined with the short life span of a butterfly, taking care of the cocoons is a constant process.

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Several people have contacted me, asking that I start offering a fire kit for sale on Going Gear, so this is that kit. The kit is a refinement of several that I have made for myself and others, and is one that will cover a wide range of situations.

You have two quick and easy flame/spark sources, a bottle lighter (no fluid included) and a firesteel. You have three types of tinders: wax and sawdust, fatwood, and PJ cotton balls. You have a striker/tinder scraper with the hacksaw blade piece. You have duct tape to hold the tinder scrapings in windy conditions, or to do just about anything else, since duct tape is the most awesome thing [i]ever[/i]. You even have a badass plastic container from Target brand travel sized Q-tips. Finally, you have a ranger band to hold it all together. Of course, being a fire kit, especially from a pyro like me, you can burn the case, the ranger band, and the duct tape as well if you are really hurting to get a fire going.

Ideally, the firesteel and lighter would be used in most situations, since you can usually find natural tinder in the area to get a fire going. If you are lazy or everything is soaking wet, then you turn to the included tinders (or the case, ranger band, and duct tape).

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I finally received the firesteel knife from the knifemaker, Erik Boese, a couple of days ago. I am giddy with excitement over this thing. It is exactly what I wanted it to be, so hats off to Erik for doing a great job bringing our ideas to reality. I think I am going to go with Sparky as the name for it, since that sounds awfully appropriate for what the knife is. I wanted to wait until I had some nice shots of it before posting too much more about it, so I took care of that today:

More pictures are in the store. I have the preorder up in the store for those of you that are interested.
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Altrec has a nice sale going on at the moment, with some stuff up to 75% off after the combined savings. Add the 40% off coupon (Save40now) and you have some sweet deals.

REI does its super clearance twice a year, every February and August. They will take an additional 50% off on items that have prices ending in .83, so the savings can be crazy sometimes. Expect minimum discounts off retail to be 60% on super clearance items, usually more.

The store sale starts on Friday, and runs for 10 days. The vast majority of the items will be clearanced the first day, but they will add items throughout the week, so additional visits can be worth the drive sometimes. If you want the really good stuff, be there when the store opens on the first day and go straight to what you really want. Expect to see assholes with 15 sleeping bags being dragged behind them. Feel free to kick these guys in the nuts, unless it is me, in which case you should help me carry the bags.

Online is a completely different matter. Sometimes it starts on Friday, sometimes it starts a day or two earlier. Expect things to sell out fast. REI does not update its inventory real time, so sometimes you still might have items that are out of stock. Even if you have stuff on your order you end up not wanting, you can always call and cancel after you place the order or just return it in store.

If you want me to be your best friend ever, and more importantly keep my poor ass doing giveaways and passarounds, use these links to shop and add things to your cart:

REI

REI Outlet

If you want to see the clearance items, use the menu up top, hover over a category, then click on the “sale and clearance” link. Look for items ending in .83. Your cart is the same for REI and REI Outlet, so feel free to jump back and forth between the sites. Place small orders for in store pick up instead of spending a lot of time shopping, because everything good will be gone by the time you are done.

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Well, here is some relatively definitive proof that someone at Backcountry reads Going Prepared. OK, maybe he did a google search, but I can hope!

Rocky and anyone else, join the board and make yourself known. We love BC and you might even receive some marriage offers from the womenz (possibly some of the more gear hungry men as well) in exchange for gear or employee discounts. If BC has a policy against posting on forums, tell us you work for a secret government agency or something. Womenz like mysterious men too!

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I received some samples of butane lighters along with the recent bottle lighter order. Butane lighters are nice to have thanks to their high flame temperature and ease of use, so they make a nice complement to a bottle lighter or other flame source. I was looking for something small, simple, and high quality, so I asked for about 10 different lighter samples to see what kind of butane lighter would be best. The company makes some surprisingly high quality products, especially considering how cheap they are compared to most metal refillable butane lighters.

Here is what came in, along with a AA battery for size comparison:

Some are all metal, some are mostly plastic, and some are a mix between metal and plastic. All of them have great finish quality and work well in my tests. The ones I am thinking about ordering are the second from the right in the top row and the middle three on the bottom row.

The two slim ones are about as slim and sleek of a butane lighter as I have seen, and are made out of a good looking metal. The black and silver one is the lightest out of the bunch, and the other one is a nice little compact lighter. I wish I could order more than two or three, but the minimum order quantities are 500 for each lighter or 1000 each if I want a logo on there. What do you guys think?

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