In the past five weeks I have been to Miami, Orlando, Cleveland, Chicago, Fairbanks Alaska, Fortuna Costa Rica. For one stint of that I went Fairbanks to Boston to Costa Rica in a 24 hr period. I walked into my home dropped the Alaska suitcase, grabbed the prepacked Cost Rica suitcase, slept for 6 hours ,and was back on a plane 13 hrs later. I think that qualifies as a HALT test considering the lowest temperature I experienced in Fairbanks (Arctic circle edge) was -30F on top of a mountain and then 85F in Costa Rica in the Rainforest.
So why did I do all of this? Because it’s me and it seemed fun.
- In Miami I did a half marathon and tested my terrain shoe design in a base use-case endurance test. report: The soles did fine but the upper material has to be changed. You may recall my outdoor freezing (Use Case 7) training video. BTW the body works very different in cold than in warm.
- Orlando was presenting at the RAMS conference and wishing I didn’t have to stand so much right after the marathon.
- Cleveland and Chicago were great customer visits.
- Fairbanks Alaska was to see some cool tech and also catch the Northern Lights from the top of a mountain and then a crazy sled dog ride through the forest.
- Cost Rica was because I promised the wife Australia in the Spring and then found out that takes like a year of planning so Costa Rica seemed like a good substitute while we plan Australia next year.
You’ll be seeing some upcoming articles on reliability observations from these adventures.
Proposed Titles:
- “Who inspected this repelling equipment?” or “I now know why the guy on the cover of my book looked nervous”
- “40 years of dog sled design optimization to ensure reliability in the Iditarod”
- “Regular ski snow gear doesn’t work at less than -30F”
- “What happens if this Soviet cold war era snow cat breaks down when we are on top of the mountain?”
- “I don’t know if these are the right running shoes for Miami”
- “Did we land at O’Hare or were we shot down?”
-Adam
Leave a Reply