Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Failed cellphone pocket for backpack hipbelt.

Stupid rationale for making a cellphone pocket for the hipbelt pocket of my Osprey Exos 58:  Another pack I used, the ULA Circuit, had a hip pocket that swallowed my Samsung Note 4. I wanted the shallow pocket of my Exos to do the same.
pocket in a pocket




I started with just a black vinyl sleeve that held the top third of the phone, hoping that the phone would stay in the pocket.  A few times it didn't stay in the pocket and the black sleeve would flop about when I removed the phone--that made replacing the phone with one hand cumbersome.
Pocket of vinyl and ripstop
I added the bottom 2/3 of 1.6 oz ripstop nylon which helped keep the phone in the hip pocket, but it still flopped enough to make replacement clumsy. Design issue:  the phone case attached to the hip pocket with a snap on the middle front of the phone case.  Rather than make another pocket that snapped to the bottom of the hip pocket, I quit this project in favor of another location because my upper arm rubbed against the phone case when I walked.  Potential new site:  top of the shoulder strap--two loops present attachment points.


February 22: Update:  positioning a phone on the top of the shoulder straps can interfere with the load lifter straps above the top loop.  Instead, I placed two snaps on the shoulder strap webbing below the adjustment buckle and two matching snaps on the phone case.
Now that I've got the phone where I want it, I can't remember why I wanted it in such an accessible spot.  No cell signal in the wilderness.  I'm planning to use paper maps with only occasional phone use to confirm my path near unsigned trail junctions.  😀  Oh, yeah, on training walks in town, I can check my pace and mileage or plug in my ear buds and tune in NPR, etc.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Vandals!

The pool at the gated Community where my mom lives is heated year-round to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.  It's 4-6 degrees warmer than most lap swimmers can tolerate and only about 14 degrees cooler than the jacuzzi, but most people who use the pool move pretty slowly or maybe the warmer water makes them slow.  The pool has one wave dissipating lane divider and no lines on the bottom to help swimmers stay straight. Until recently.

One day an elderly gentleman complained about the "vandalism" that had just occurred. He pointed out 4 lines crudely drawn on the bottom of the pool from one end to the other. Just 4 lines, no graffiti, no obscenities, just 4 lines. I was happy to see the lines but I said nothing in view of the man's ill temperament. He said management might consider installing security cameras. He said "they had to have done it at night. It must have taken at least two or three of them and a lot of time. And the pool guy can't figure out how to get the lines off. It must have been some kind of Grease pencil."

The pool's still hot but I can swim straight. I noticed another swimmer in the pool swimming over one of the lines and still bumping into the wall or the lane divider--I laughed but not out loud.

I changed the subject. I said that I'd heard about increasing break-ins in the community. The conversation moved on to drug addicts, at which the man said we should give them all the drugs they want but with arsenic mixed in. That so shocked me that I couldn't respond. I don't know where such idiots come from.

We have an idiot in our President Trump. Yet the local bumpkins think they've discovered an outrageous crime and want to murder drug addicts.