The I.T. Life

I try to be fairly active outdoors, however I’ve never done enough to justify something like SPOT. For those that are not aware of what it is, SPOT is a device you take hiking, camping, wherever; you pay a small fee for monitoring and if you get yourself in trouble you hit the button, it transmits via satellite your GPS coords to the monitoring center, and they contact the correct (and nearest) authority. The big point of SPOT is to have a SAR team on speed dial basically. However, I have some beef about this; the reason is many SAR teams respond to the police, and thats it. However, that doesn’t make this any less useful. On top of those emergency services, SPOT can also send emails, SMS messages, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. You can basically keep track of your trip, and let your friends know where you are without messing around with a cell phone and reception. Very cool for sure.

Now, lets talk about the new SPOT Connect. A problem with SPOT is it is this great device, however you do all the configuring before you leave home, and you carry a device with basically 3 buttons (I’m OK, Help, and 911). You can set I’m OK to send facebook messages, or things of that nature. But that is it; no screen, nothing. So the SPOT connect takes the same GPS tracking and communication, and adds bluetooth; this way you can control it all from your smartphone. Pretty cool eh? Check it out.

My tax return is coming soon so I’m going to use it to buy some new toys for the summer, help me get active. I’m going to MEC this week and picking up a nice pair of hiking boots, so that I get out more with SAR and stop complaining about my old work boots. Also going to Canadian Tire and getting a bike rack for my Jeep. A buddy of mine told me he wants to buy a bike and from that we are going out together and getting in shape. I’m going to get a bike rack to help us get where we want to go! I can’t wait!

So Valentines day is coming up and I convinced the wife to order me some new EDC toys. Don’t worry, I’m gonna get her just as nice a gift. I’m planning on getting the Fenix EO1, which is a nice little 10 lumen single AAA light, I’m hoping to use this as a keychain light if its not too big. Next is a Nite Core Defender Infinity R2, a great 145 lumen single AA light. This will have 2 main purposes, a backup SAR / hiking light, and a primary EDC light when I want to cut down size or weight, instead of carrying my D20 R2. A really cool thing about this light is it can use rechargeable lithium batteries, which boost run time, and can possibly boost output as well. Lastly, the  Princeton Tec Eos, a 50 lumen three AAA headlamp. This probably won’t be a EDC for me, since I usually EDC at least one light, however this will be used for hiking and SAR.