I was watching an Alton Brown show (Rides pavement or something like that) and he was interviewing a bunch of truckers. They have a fantastic machine called the Lunchbox Oven. It plugs into the cigarette lighter and can heat things to 300 degrees (some sources said 325-350). The couple was using it for soup, meatloaf, etc. I’m getting pretty excited thinking about cooking something on the road. You arrive at your campsite and the meal is ready for you!

Here’s one Lunchbox oven .They have a few other handy cooking devices too.

Tags: road trip, cooking, climbing

Don Briggs is getting a lot of press for his creativity. He starting freeze ice on grain silos so people could climb them and wrote a book about it too.

• You might see the LA Times article Climbing silo: Farming, extreme sports combine in other papers.
• I like the Iowa Farmer’s coverage: Unused silos serve as setting for ice climbing Iowa style.

Tags: don briggs, ice climbing, silos

Good to Great is now on TV. (Here’s the SF schedule). It feels like a PBS documentary, but has a pretty good story about the Dallas Police and their Level Five Leader chief of police (he looked at his shoes when first introduced to the mayor.) There are a few clips of Jim Collins bouldering indoors and outdoors.

Also, here’s an older article about piece about social sectors, which includes a photo of him climbing: “A ‘Good to Great’ Second Act”.

Tags: jim collins, climbing, pbs, good to great

Which for many of you, means the gym will be much more crowded. 

If you’re getting annoyed by all of the teenagers at your gym (I’m not, but say you are…), maybe they can join a new teens-only gym.  It’s hard to believe, but this gym in Mountain View is open only to teens and has a rock-climbing wall.  If it gets couch potatoes to start working out, that’s a great thing.  But from the photos, it looks like it appeals to teens who would want to go to the gym already.  The marketing looks like a standard gym.  They get treated just like adults in another way too, gym fees are $59/month!  Read Teen time at gym

Tags: climbing, gym, teens

Given the past climbing losses in China and Oregon, there have been efforts to create a climbers’ alert network. One of them is called Climb-Aid. It’ll give climbers a place to put their climbing plans online in case friends and family need to track them down. You can read about it in the Durango Herald’s article. But since the site isn’t up yet, make sure you tell your loved ones where you are going before you head out.

Tags: climbing, aid