User Friendly?

Recently I had to show someone how to use a very simple piece of electronics. As I was demonstrating the two step process I realized it should not require two steps to do what that person wanted but only one step.

Often it seems that the people capable of developing things are not the people who really understand the end users. Case in point, traffic flow patterns decided by civil engineers because civil engineers know how to build roads. I know a lot of civil engineers and they are very good at what they engineer and build, but ultimately they think differently than the average driver. I don't know who would be better at designing traffic flow patterns but I am sure that some profession would be. Another example, computer programs are all written by computer programers. Again programers are great at making things work and getting software to do what I want, but sometimes it seems like the person using the software was an afterthought to the purpose of the software. The Janzen Gear ice axe was in many ways a lesson for me about the whole just-because-you-can-doesn't-mean-you-should aspect of industry.

If you are ever in the position to create a product that will be used by people, keep user friendliness in mind. After using dozens of software programs and driving tens of thousands of miles I feel we can do better. That of course starts with me since I try not to be a hippocrite all of the time. If I ever make something and you can not figure out how to use it, let me know and I shall change it. If we all make our products just a little more user friendly just imagine where we will go.

The Man Behind Apple Inc.

In case you have never heard of Jonathan Ive, I'm telling you now. This is the guy that brought us first the iMac and every significant Apple design since then. If there is one guy to blame for how cool Apple products look, it is this guy.

He is in the news because there is a rumor that he is going to leave the United States to head back to the United Kingdom, where he is originally from. Apple, it seems, will not allow him to stay with the company if he moves. I am somewhat surprised. This guy has done so well over the last 15 years that they should let him live wherever he wants and send a staff of 10 or 20 people with him. I'm sure it is more complicated than that, but I am not sure why it has to be.

2010: My Year in Review

January started with me as confident as ever about my career and my running going as well as it ever had gone. I moved out to Colorado to live with some college friends and I have to say that was an amazing three months. I met so many people. I had so many beautiful runs through the mountains. I enjoyed life. I even officially started Janzen Gear in February. However, my running took a hit as I adjusted to the altitude.

However, March came and went and I fell apart. After three months of unemployment I was totally out of money and without any interviews in that whole time, I was depressed. I was so stressed out that things were not going the way I had planned that I gave myself back pain. That was a huge life lesson about the things in my life that I value, and what is really important to me. I am guessing that it will never happen again because I have a better understanding of my own mentality.

Because of the whole money thing I packed up and went to Minnesota and worked for my uncle for six weeks in the family greenhouse. It was tough physical labor. Not what I ever expected my first job out of college would be.

In mid May I headed back west to teach rock climbing at Boy Scout camp again. It was my fourth summer at a Boy Scout camp. I had a fantastic summer. I climbed harder than I ever have before. I ran like crazy until I got a stress reaction. My friends and I had a great time. Again, it's humbling to have a master's degree in engineering and be teaching 13 year olds how to belay for a relatively small paycheck. I also attempted the Grand Teton for the first time and I led two pitches up the Casual Route on the Diamond before it rained and snowed us off. Regardless, this summer was about the relationships I have with my friends, and it was an unequivocal success. I have the best friends in the world!

I followed up the summer with a month long road trip through Utah, California, Washington and Montana and a few other states. In the psychological aspect of life I was able to spend time with two of my American friends who shared the summer of 2009 experience with me in Pakistan. In many ways it was the final chapter in my mental recovery from that experience. I also spent two days trying to climb the Nose on El Capitan solo and a day trying the Regular Northwest Face on Halfdome. The inspiration for the road trip was to do something "big" my climbing just did not pan out, I had a great time, learned a bunch, but I ended up scared and tired. So at the suggestion of my friends, on two days notice I ran the Wonderland Trail, and accomplished something "big".

Once again out of money I had the choice between staying in Colorado and making snow (physical labor) for a few months or going home in the hopes of a job offer and more Internet access to apply for more jobs. I went home, also because my grandma had a stroke this summer and my family is very important to me. I only have one family.

The last three and a half months of the year were, by my standards, uneventful. I gradually began running more miles in hopes of some good races from the 5k to the marathon in 2011. I had an interview at GE and they ended up going with someone more qualified.

By the numbers:

• I estimate from reading my own blog, that I applied to approximately 378 jobs in 2010. 
• I ran 3379.6 miles total including five 4+ hour runs and nine 100+ mile weeks. That is an average of 9.25 miles per day, every day all year. Only one personal record racing this year, 1:36 at 15 miles.
• I slept in 12 states and traveled in 22 states. 
• 11 painting started and 10 paintings finished, a record for me.

2010 was, for me, about valuing the intangible things in my life like relationships, health, freedom, and life itself more than I did when I was younger. The lessons I have learned about saving for a rainy day, starting a company, stress, communication, and other still unknown things are not all clear to me yet. I think that the lessons of 2010 will impact me for the rest of my life. I feel that events of the past year will teach me new things for years to come as I continue to mature and better understand what really happened in many situations.

Thank you all for the comments and the caring in person, on the blog, in letters, on Facebook, and in your prayers. This blog has been a great way to express myself and I plan to keep at it for years to come.

Thank you,

Isaiah Janzen

I'm Designing an Airplane

About three years ago I finally learned everything I need to to fundamentally design a plane. Two of my friends and I wrote a 62 page report where we designed an airplane and we received an A for our dozens of hours of work. I am a little lacking in the manufacturing department, but I hear carbon fiber is very forgiving. The point being, I am going to design a full scale airplane, then I will design a scale model (with features that might have to be different due to the size). Then financially willing, I'll build the scale model and fly it. If all of that goes as planned, I don't know what will happen...

Why?

At the core of this idea is something that I have more or less based my education on. I came up with the idea about eight or ten years ago in high school. It's different. No one has done it. They have done many things like it but they have not done it. Furthermore, I am a rocket scientist and materials scientist. My specialty is not getting a job, although I feel I am getting better at that, I create things. New and patentable and innovative things all come flowing out of my head. I can't turn my brain off. Therefore I am going to do some homework

What chance do I have of actually finishing any of this?

It depends on how you define finishing. The paper and computer design work will be done. The model and subsequent full sized airplane require so much experience that I do not have. Any possibility of either one happening will depend on factors like, if I am employed, how much each one will cost, and other projects I have. A full size airplane will likely take years to build and cost hundreds of thousands probably millions and have very little practical value. Although, there is some future in communications...

Just Do It.

I procrastinate. Monday I started working on a project that I've had in my head for over a year. I've had all this time on my hands but because I did not know where to start, I did not start. That was until I was sitting there after lunch and I decided to start working on it. Yep, it's another product, another invention that inevitably I will try to sell to someone. I am terrible at selling by the way.

I am not alone trying to do my own thing. It is certainly not my first choice, at this point in my life, but it is what it is. I am still trying to get a traditional engineering job. Experience and a salary would be huge for me right now.

The last few days here in Wisconsin have involved frozen sidewalks and roads and below zero wind chills. Not the kind of thing that makes me want to go out and run 13 miles. However, I made the choice years ago that I want to be as good as I can be. So the choice wether I will run or not is a choice that I have already made.

In the words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

The Last Laptop You Will Ever Own

The recent release of the Macbook Air has a many technophiles ogling. Myself included. My current 12 inch Powerbook G4 is six and a half years old. My laptop has survived over six years, and chances are I will resell it and someone else will use it for a few years. This is not terribly surprising considering the most complicated programs I have ever run on my computer are Matlab, a Halo demo, remotely accessing a server, and video encoding. Now there are remote desktop applications, such as iTeleport, for iPhone and iPad so non-phone-based applications can be used. You can use your computer from your phone. There is also a sweeping range of applications for mobile platforms that enable creation of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, gaming, video editing, mathematical computing, reading books, and location (GPS) based services. That is to say, I do not need to have a mobile computer.

What does the future hold? Smaller, lighter, better battery life, and probably flexible or at least foldable. Imagine something the size of a magazine, just a flexible and heavy, with the capability of your current computer. Or something the size of your phone that folds to the size of a magazine, or even a laptop and is as capable as your computer.

Some are touting the Macbook Air as a possible computer for light-duty users. That is somewhat of a farce or 90% of computer users can be considered light-duty users. My six year old computer was strong enough to do 95% of what I wanted it to do the last five and a half years as an engineering student. For most of the people that use computers a fast processor, huge amounts of hard drive storage and a whole bunch of gigs of RAM is more than they need. I have 768 megabytes of RAM in my current computer and I have used my computer more than most.

Now programs do become more unwieldy over time. I have a program called TextEdit on my computer, which makes very basic documents, like 1992 era word processing. It is much smaller and takes less processing power than Microsoft Word, but it doesn't do nearly as much. So over time programs will require more memory and faster processors. That being said for 90% of users the ability to use the Internet, Microsoft Office, listen to music, watch videos, edit photos and video, and play a few games are all they want or need. I feel that buying a top-of-the-line or very capable laptop now that will last the next five years may be the last laptop many people will ever own.

From the Moon to a Mine in Chile to Mars?

Watching the first miners come out of the mine in Chile after being trapped underground since August 5th was interesting. As I write this only two miners have reached the top with 31 still to go. One of the commentators equated this moment with Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon. In large part because it was a technological achievement with lots of media coverage. I also read that NASA was providing advice and some health and medical equipment to the rescue effort. When it comes to putting human bodies in strange situations safely NASA knows what it is doing.

Every time someone compares something to the Moon landings I feel a little disillusioned. We landed on the Moon in 1969. It is 2010. What have we done in the 41 years since then? Okay, okay, we have made huge improvements as far as environmental regulations like clean air and water. We have advanced technology far beyond what most people even know how to utilize. My iPhone has more capability than a fifteen year old computer. We have done other things as well, such as address sustainability, efficiency, quality of life, disease, and of course crash a few economies. While all of that is very nice and that work is tremendously important, it does not inspire in the same way as exploration.

I really am a modern day explorer. "Had I only been born a generation or two earlier." It is the lament of every explorer. They have all felt at some point like they had to invent a challenge to overcome. The challenge of the Moon, circumnavigating the Earth, or climbing the highest mountain are all very legitimate and easily defined. They have also all been done. Next it becomes about doing the challenge in the best style. Which is an inspirational attitude yet fundamentally the challenge has already been completed.

I do not know why I want to do something no one has done before but I know that I do. This comes in many forms. My run on the Wonderland Trail in September was an example of doing something that no one had really done before. Yet it has been run in a much faster time and thousands of people backpack it every year so it was really not something new. As the NASA budget gets reorganized and re-prioritized it seems that the chance that the US will send humans farther into space is low. Our inspiration is so different and esoteric than in the past. Hundreds of years ago it was a new future in the New World. In the early part of the 1900s in the US it was a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. In the 1940s it was winning a war. In the 1960s it was getting to the Moon. To be honest it seems that the great problems that we are trying to solve in 2010 are things like the economy, national debt, healthcare, world hunger, clean water, and according the the commercials who would make the best politician.

What I'm trying to say is: let's go to Mars. Why? It would most likely create a number of jobs. We would develop and refine a number of technologies to be more efficient and reliable. It is something inspirational and tangible. It could be profitable. Besides the obvious book and movie deals there is the advertising. NASA and the US government in general has not really tackled this issue yet. For example, astronauts would probably spend most of their time in shorts and short sleeve shirts. Why not get some company to pay millions for the exclusive rights to have astronauts wear their shirts? Or why not put some nice flashy patches or stickers on astronauts space suits for other sponsors? There is also the space ship itself, pens, pencils, computers, watches, food, tools, utensils, and all of that other plain white stuff in a spacecraft that could take stickers. The astronauts, scientists, engineers, and others directly involved in the mission could be contracted for perhaps five years after the mission to make speaking tours, many of which could turn a profit for the government. There is also the merchandise and internet advertising, because I am sure they would blog their way to Mars and back. Why not sell a ton of Mars rocks?

Whoa, that paragraph kind of got away from me. I could talk about space profits for a long time. Anyway, what is next? I do not know.

The Future of News, Media and Writing

I learned in the past week or two that newspapers had lost tens of thousands of jobs in the past few years. Which may not seem like a huge number, yet since 2001 about 25% of newspaper jobs have been lost. It is really not surprising that newspapers are closing. With the rise of the internet news is available to billions of people, free. Whereas a newspaper is limited by distribution, printing and journalist travel, the internet is not.

I feel that the recession has helped most of us in the developed world reevaluate how we spend our money. Eating in and saving money is as rewarding as eating out. Canceling a newspaper subscription is one way to save money. After all, most of the news is available on the internet as well. Is anyone really going to cancel their internet service to save money anyway?

This also provides an opportunity. A young person interested in writing can start at a very early age with a free blog and progress to more complicated traditional expensive writing outlets. Which is to say it is easier to get started as a writer. The barrier to entry is about twenty minutes of your time, probably less. Every industry can be categorized according to it's barrier to entry. Manufacturing cars has a high barrier to entry and writing used to have a high barrier to entry. However, an aspiring writer no longer needs a printing press or traditional publishing company to inform 100 or 10,000 people of an idea or event. Of course, this is assuming that success as a writer is defined as having a following and not the size of your paycheck.

YouTube has done a similar thing for videos. iTunes, Pandora, MySpace, and others have done a similar thing for music. Facebook has just accelerated the whole process for all sorts of media. The growing trend of amateur competitions to find the best performers such as American Idol will continue in one form or another in every media industry.

While it is not explicitly said, YouTube is where the next actors and film makers are now. Instead of film makers starting with a still camera at a young age and progressing to traditional film cameras when they can afford it, we are handing nine year olds video cameras.

Going back to the news, specifically newspapers, I can envision a time when there are no salaried writers, simply editors, fact checkers, and a slew of free lance writers that jump on a story and pump it out as quick as they can in the hope of getting the free lance fee first. At the extreme end of this imagine a Twitter feed scrolling continuously on CNN. Of course there could be an anchor reading the feed so that people don't have to read. There would also be pictures and videos, taken by more free lance people. Lest I paint an incomplete picture do not forget all of the advertising.

I think we are still years from having CNN be a continuous Twitter feed yet I feel that change is inevitable. We will still continue to consume media and information, probably many times more than we do now, and it will be different.

(On a side note, I jump around on topics in this blog. I do not intend to seem unfocused. I simply have many different interests and I am constantly learning different things. I am constantly learning how to function in this world. From create a documentary to write a book to be an engineer. I am constantly learning how to do.)

How to Make Money from Space

This is kind of a vague area. Most people think space is cool and it's nice to hear about the most recent Mars rover but at the end of the day all we hear is how much it costs and not how much was made. So being a rocket scientist I will try to explain through several past examples and possible future scenarios. This post is inspired by the most recent state of the union address and some new goals the president gave to NASA.

First a story that was told to me in my aerospace avionics class by an 80+ year old retired guy. I forget the name of the company or the person but it was my professor's friend. Anyway for the Apollo program they had to use circuit boards and resistors and transistors. At the time the average useful life of the best stuff available was like three days. Apollo missions were up to 12 days. I believe my professor's friend owned a transistor factory. Anyway he was the head of the company and got the contract for the transistors and did those batches by hand. Apparently he had trouble sleeping during the missions because the chance that all of the parts he had cooked in the furnace worked for the whole mission was very low. Fortunately, there was never a problem. So the space program forced engineers to make more reliable components that benefit us today in every electronic device we use.

Nasa has required things that are smaller and lighter, mostly electronic things. They have not always come up with the innovation itself but required that some innovative piece be used. For example, the shuttle landing strip and shuttle tires. The landing strip is, I believe, the flattest landing strip in the world. It is also made of a very rough surface so that it can move water off of it faster than any other "road" in the world. This creates an issue when you have a spacecraft landing at very high speeds on only a handful of tires. The tires for the shuttle had to be very advanced. Things we take for granted in our tires in the teens (2010s) were not really existent 35 years ago when the shuttle was being designed. Now we have wires and many layers and tires that just keep going.

Other inventions they have at least helped create are water filters, cordless tools, and memory foam. NASA has contributed to over 6,300 patents, and you can bet most of them are the useful kind of patents.

We must also remember that communications and weather satellites bring in money directly because of the information that they transmit. Talking on a satellite phone costs around $1.00 per minute, yet tens of thousands of people use satellite phones every year.

Now the future is much more interesting. I can only imagine that the technology innovations will continue to keep coming (unless Apple and Google have a war for the world's technology). However the interesting postulate is about what the future holds. Space tourism? That's a really big question. There are only a few thousand people in the world that can currently afford to go into orbit. There are probably a million or so that can afford to take a flight into "space" at 100km above sea level and enjoy a few uninterrupted minutes of free fall (weightlessness). That is unless we can figure out some way to get to orbit without traditional liquid fuel rockets (yeah... that's not happening this decade) which are very very expensive.

Another possibility is mining. Almost every 90s space video game hinted at mining colonies, as well as Star Wars, Avatar, and other fantasy media content. They were somewhat right. If we can find something (paladium, platinum, uranium, lutetium, and other rare earth elements) on Mars that we run out of on Earth then it may become economical to mine on other celestial bodies.

One somewhat far fetched possibility, yet one that people like me sit around and talk about, is the possibility that Earth by itself is not enough. We have too much waste. What if we could dump it all on Mars for only three times the price of driving it to Michigan? What if all of our mining occurred in space? What if we could terraform Mars (think Dubai meets Army Corp of Engineers) so that it was a giant recycling center. Biodegrading waste and making oxygen, yet still harsh enough that we couldn't live there without spacesuits. How cool would that be to get a three year assignment to Mars? Kind of like the south pole, but it's Mars.

I can't quote a number and say if you pay X you will get Y. Unfortunately, I think that one of the most lucrative aspects of space is the exploration itself. I doubt Columbus, Cortez, Shackelton, Admundsen, or Armstrong will be forgotten soon. So there is always the speaking tours, the book deal, the movie, action figures, conferences and the like. To quote Pawn Stars, "the problem with one of a kind items is that you can't compare it to the last one you sold." I'll translate that to mean you just do not know the end result and the profitable tangents when you try something new.

An Entrepreneur is:

I've realized that I've been using the word entrepreneur often recently and it isn't something they really teach in any school I've been in so I will tell people what it means. I'm going to try and describe different qualities of an entrepreneur. First the definition from the Apple Inc. Dictionary application 2.0.3 on my computer:

entrepreneur |ˌäntrəprəˈnoŏr; -ˈnər|nouna person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.• a promoter in the entertainment industry.

ORIGIN early 19th cent. (denoting the director of a musical institution):from French, from entreprendre ‘undertake’ (see enterprise ).

To be honest, that is a very lacking definition. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject:

• Scrappy. An entrepreneur will do what it take to survive. He or she will do unpleasant things to stay afloat. For example: "Call who? You've got to be kidding. I can't do that!"
• Desperate. Whatever it takes to make the sale will be considered.
• Terrified. This is one that separates those who do and those who do not. To make it as an entrepreneur you have to wake up terrified about what you have to do, then do it anyway. Many people delay their life because they are afraid. I am working on this one...
• Committed. There is no half effort in starting a venture like a company. It's all or nothing.
• Passionate. Who else would work around the clock on some project just to get paid in sweat equity (ownership in a company based on work put in instead of money invested) and intellectual property?
• Stingy. Somehow money just seems to always disappear...
• Brave. Facing fears on a daily basis changes the nature of risk. What might once have seemed like a huge risk is now even less scary than driving in Boston.
• Helpless. While many entrepreneurs start with the intention of doing everything on their own most quickly learn they can't do everything. In fact many find that there aren't too many things that they do well.
• Curious. Of the successful start up companies that I know of most of the owners thought 'why can't I/we do it better?' There is a certain interest to attempting something with an uncertain end.
• Resourceful. An entrepreneur doesn't have to be a true renaissance man but he or she does have to get things done that are outside of his or her formal training.
• Energetic. I think this word fits better than optimistic or hopeful. The idea is that an entrepreneur is excited to go to work and be there all day long.

That's what I can think of. I thought about innovative for a while but I think that an entrepreneur honestly does not have be terribly innovative. I think that often times it involves applying a proven method to a different location or market such as franchising.

If you have any additional thoughts post them blow.

The Unemployment Chronicles: Week 11

In the world of job searching: I worked kind of hard this week. Two things happened to encourage me. First, I paid my bills. Nothing is as motivating to make money as paying one credit card with another credit card. I also applied for more student loan deferment. Second, my formerly unemployed roommate got a job. Now he is a mechanical engineer and had he gotten a job at a power plant or something I would be as disappointed or motivated, but he got a job as a product development engineer at a small company working on pieces for shoes, among them running shoes. Uhh... yeah.

I checked all the websites for aerospace companies in the area, applied for half a dozen more jobs including internships. I asked about a possible part time job with the local Boy Scouts, again no go. They would like to have me in May, but that's another ten weeks away.

So It looks like I am in the lead for one of the professional blogging jobs I applied for. It seems that I will get paid by the click or visit. I proposed this because that way if I get more traffic I get more money. I am a big fan of getting paid on commission. Maybe that's why I'm not getting paid now?

I finally finished my documentary on Pakistan! Well, I finished the director's cut. That is the 2:29 long version. I know about 11 people who would want to watch a two and half hour documentary. So I'm going to work on cutting it down, and retroactively asking the "actors" for permission when I decide how much each person is in it. My goal with this documentary is to be real. I don't want to make these mountains seem dramatic or romantic or insane. I want to show it like it was. As the 2:29 version stands now it's about 99% accurate. There are a few things from the expedition I left out. Some things are not meant to be shared. However, comparing my movie to other related documentaries I have seen they really miss a lot of the personal feelings. Most mountaineering documentaries portray experienced, jaded, professional people and in mine I am the main character. Everything was new for me. I think that it all elicited a higher emotional response than my more experienced friends. I had never been to a mountain when someone died. I had never seen a helicopter evacuation. I had never had dysentery in the middle of nowhere Asia. All of these things were freaking me out! I think that in places you can see the fear on my face. In other places you can see the disassociation between the fear and the danger that everyone has up there that keeps us alive and moving.

In Janzen Gear news I borrowed a sewing machine! This means that fabric prototypes will be appearing shortly! I haven't played with it yet but I bought climbing webbing and plan to start making harnesses shortly. I also talked with several investment casting companies because after further research it seems that investment casting is the best way to go about making the head of my ice axe. As far as ice axes go, it is by far the most complicated head on the market. That probably means it's going to be more expensive. Cilogear upped the ante with backpacks, why not Janzen Gear with ice axes? (Besides I have a few ideas for crampons and carabiners... I also know more about metal than most...) I also applied to two different competitions with five digit monetary rewards which could float Janzen Gear and I through 2010.

The rest of my time was spent: running 94 miles. I was hoping to get more miles in but I had two good workouts so I'll take it. One of those was a hill workout which after grade and altitude conversions means I was doing some of my repeats at sub 5 minutes per mile effort. That is very good news although for the actual hill I was doing over 6 minute pace.

I finally got to see another friend that I worked with in the summer of 2008. However we only hung out for about 45 minutes. We went to the Frozen Dead Man Festival in Nederland. Apparently in the past some guy in Ned wanted to be frozen so when he was almost dead or dead someone put him on dry ice, he was poor and could not afford the more expensive cold chambers. Then apparently the story got out and now they have a festival complete with no parking, 1500 people, and two local brewing companies.

I did go skiing, only four runs. I did a few runs and was so dead from running that I quit at lunch and slept in the car. (I managed the ticket free. I'm not in position to spend money skiing right now. Thank you friends!)

Motivational quote of the week:

"Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible." — Doug Lawson.

Successful Innovative Company of the week: volume 19

The successful innovative company of the week is: Jetboil

what they do right: Jetboil came on the camping and mountaineering stove scene in 2001 with their namesake signature stove. This stove changed the possibilities of what a stove could do. It is more effiecient than any stove was before. It locks in place so it is easy to hang in steep situations. It has neoprene on the outside so you can grab it with barehands when there is boiling water inside. It is made of aluminum and is very light. The actual stove and a fuel canister pack inside the mated pot. It just works better than any stove that came before it. This was a game changer.

I was talking with an aquaintance who is a professional mountain guide and he said that on a training trip about two years ago he started to cook supper and he was the only person that didn't have a jetboil so he went out and bought one the first chance he had. When professional mountain guides are all using it you know it works.

Since their first product they have expanded to include pans and larger pots and detached fuel canisters. Their product line includes everything for cooking. They also have a coffee press attachment and I have to say a nice cup of coffee in the morning is so nice sometimes.

What they could improve: Simply put a few years after Jetboil came on the scene MSR responded with the Reactor. The Reactor is amazing and I would easily take it over the Jetboil. It boils water faster, it has a bigger pot, and is less prone to wind which are all significant factors when using the stove to mainly melt snow high on a mountain (which is what I like to do). The Reactor does not have the twist lock connection that the Jetboil has and thus I have never seen anybody hang one, which is necessary when you are using a portaledge (which I also like to do).

I would also be interested to see what Jetboil could do in the liquid fuel stove realm. Currently all of their stoves use propane/butane canisters. Offering a stove that used white gas and/or kerosene would expand their appeal.

The Unemployment Chronicles: Week 10

This series ends when my current and projected income is enough to make more than the minimum payments on all of my bills and expenses.

In the world of job hunting: I heard back from several employers, mostly for the free lance writing jobs. As far as networking and applying for more engineering jobs this week was a wash. I think that engineering companies generally take a long time to make decisions and hire from "within" that is to say interns or relatives or friends. It's who you know so often that makes a difference.

I started Janzen Gear. It has a website and I registered as a sole proprietor in Colorado. So it's real. No more deliberating about doing it or not. Now it's a thing. I have a job? Well, I have a company, wether that counts as a job or not we'll see. In Janzen Gear news I'm talking with several machine shops about ice axe production and I plan on placing an order this week (with my credit card, woohoo more debt). Then I haven't figured out how to sell them exactly but I'll figure it out and start selling and advertising and making tiny bits of money. The harness has been stagnant because I do not have access to a sewing machine to make a prototype, yet. I'm also going to make Janzen Gear t-shirts. If you want to be part of the revolution stay tuned for details. They will be much cheaper than the ice axe and socially acceptable to wear around town, unlike an ice axe or climbing harness.

If anybody has an urge to invest in a start-up company, I'll take your money. We can make it formal (written on paper) and you can have input into what I do.

It was very anticlimactic actually starting Janzen Gear. It took 15 minutes on the Colorado Secretary of State website and cost only 20 dollars. The website was free and took another 15 minutes. I had always envisioned starting a company with thousands or millions of dollars and rich investors in suits at a board room signing papers and everybody smiling shaking hands. Then bells and whistles and trumpets and maybe fireworks. At which point I would take the afternoon off and buy something expensive like a new computer. Instead it took less effort than this post. It took far less effort than applying for a job.

I am really excited to see what I can do with Janzen Gear. I have known for almost a decade that I wanted to start a company and do my own thing. Now I am doing that. So the question now is: will I make succeed?

On the not stressing out about income portion of my life: I spent most of the week in uptown Sedona, Arizona. My grandparents are owners at a condo there and spend part of the winter down there where cold is below 45 degrees. It was fantastic. To answer the question in everyone's mind, "do you feel relaxed and refreshed to start working hard doing whatever it is you do?" The answer is no. 2009 was such a stressful year in my life between my thesis and Pakistan that 2010 has been a piece of cake comparatively. (That's half of cathedral rock below, it's a few hundred feet high.)

For those of you that are not familiar with Arizona it's usually pretty dry. Much of the state is a desert or very arid. Sedona is famous for it's red rocks. They are these steep (easiest routes 5.9+) towers of sandstone shades of red and orange. They have been featured in dozens of old western movies. Now the town is something of a tourist/retirement place. Which is fortunate for me because we went to several truly amazing restaurants. I had the best steak that I have ever had. I had scallops, twice.

As far as running goes it was my lowest mileage week in two months. Only a paltry 71 miles. I took a day off after I think a 46 day running streak. I only doubled once the entire week. On the other hand I PR'd at 15 miles at I think 1:36:something on a treadmill at 4500 feet. I also ran my fastest 5k in practice at 16:50 on a track at 4500 feet. Then I had a nice fartlek session. My right knee has been hurting most of the week I think a combination of hitting it mixed climbing and running three strait days on a treadmill. I don't think it is an overuse injury from bad form or bad shoes because it has been getting better every day.

Motivational quote of the week: "Everybody gets knocked down. How quick are you gonna' get up?" - The Hours, Ali in the Jungle (as seen on the newest Nike commercial). By the way Simpson on the mountain refers to Joe Simpson crawling down the mountain after Simon Yates cut the rope and he fell into a crevasse. Simon Yates still climbs extensively these days. He is rumored to even party in Katmandu from time to time.

Untapped Niches

It all comes down to the market. Everything I read by successful entrepreneurs goes along the lines of "find a niche and and provide them something they don't have."

And that, might be something that can't be taught. You can teach what to do with something. You can teach how to develop something. You can teach how to find a niche. But show me what a niche is missing. If you can do that in a quantifiable systematic process you will make money. Lots of money.

In the past, three to 15 years ago, it was websites. A new way to connect people from different geographic or social locations that might never interact could now share information. 100 years ago it was the car. A way for people to get from A to B without horses or rivers or railroad tracks. In the world of mountaineering gear it was first the ice axe, then pitons, then crampons, then harnesses, then chocks, and finally cams and ice screws. In the world of music it was records, then tapes, then cds, then iTunes and the iPod. In the world of farming it was the steel plow, the tractor, and then evolving land conservation techniques.

The problem is knowing what comes next. There are millions of patents that have been granted. However, very few actually include a breakthrough improvement that makes people open their wallets.

So I do not have any advice on profit, otherwise I would be profiting off of a niche. Right now I am just trying to define the problem and ask the right question. Only then can I have the right answer.

Don't Talk to Me

You are actually invited to talk to me, it's just a really appropriate title. This story begins with a death. Boa Sr was an 85 year old woman from an isolated tribe of islanders near India. She was the last member of her tribe having outlived her children. Thus another language and tribe is extinct. The group that she was from is believed to be related to the Sentinelese people. They are the group that survived the 2004 Tsunami and shot arrows at helicopters and generally resist all contact, hostilely I might add. Their estimated population seems to be around 200 plus or minus about 160.

They are one of the few tribes known to exist that remains basically uncontacted. There are also a number of tribes in South America and New Guinea. Most likely over 100 groups and probably 10,000 people total around the world that do not have enough contact with modern society to be classified contacted.

Why is this significant? Several reasons. Often times when tribes are first contacted many of them die from sickness and disease. So by isolating themselves from modern society they don't all get sick and die. Second, language diversity. Now this is a tough one. How many times have we wondered how nice it would be if the world only spoke one language? Spending several months in Costa Rica and Pakistan I wondered this many times. However, I have come to the conclusion that I do not want that to happen. There is a story of a time long ago when everyone spoke the same language and people tried to do the impossible. Perhaps we could accomplish great things with no language barrier but I think we would just dig ourselves in a deeper hole. Third, experience counts. In the world of useful knowledge there is what I would consider three levels. (I'm making this up as I go.) First there is the uninitiated. For example, I am not a qualified surgeon. I know very very little about it. Second there is education. There is the time to learn the basics of a skill. Often times another person teaches the student but inevitably there is only so far that a teacher can take a student. Third there is experience. This is the practicing of a skill without the guidance of a teacher. This is the difference between success and repeated failure. Education is kind of like the failure time for usefulness. Anyone that has done research can attest to that. These uncontacted people have experience that is rare. In the book Born to Run a scientist suggests that one in a billion people know how to persistance

hunt. In fact the author learns and tells about the six people from a tribe in South Africa that still know how to do it. What other experience are we missing?

Elaborating on the uninitiated/education/experience thing I watched Avatar a few weeks ago. Aside from any political message that was being made there was knowledge that the Navi had that humans did not have. Another example was the Oonopidae family of spiders that I studied in Costa Rica. Nobody knew exactly what these things did. They are generally 1-3 mm across so about the size of an ant. There are dozens of species and yet their role in the ecosystem is not known. We know enough about ecosystems to know that all creatures play a role. Unfortunately, we don't always know what role they play. Did you know that dirt is in large part excrement from grubs and small creatures? So by killing the "pests" we are destroying the future soil.

My point is that there is education and experience out there that we don't know about. And as humans we have a pretty bad history of judging the value of things. How many species have we hunted to extinction? How much waste have we dumped into the ground the spread in the air? Taking a tangent for a moment, what is the most valuable physical resource in the world? Answer: air, more specifically the right mixture of oxygen and other stuff to live.

I feel that in the past, thousands of years, technology has increased at a rate that made the world more profitable and able to sustain a larger population. However, I am extremely worried that recently as we build higher and higher technologies we lose some of the foundation. If you want a quick laugh and then a little fear watch the movie Idiocracy. Basically the world goes downhill because people forget the basics. In the movie people start watering plants with an electrolyte (salt) sports drink. Surprise, surprise, the plants don't grow. I am afraid that we have possibly already lost some of that basic knowledge that makes the earth sustainable.

So what is the solution I am going to offer up to get the education and experience from these cultures that is most likely beneficial to the world, without killing them all? Nothing. I have no solution. Like a politician I suggest we just table the issue, don't kill all the uncontacted people, and revisit it when we have better capabilities. Perhaps then they can educate us in the ways we have forgotten.

Forget Layering!

The wisdom of the ages says, "wear a whole bunch of different layers in the winter to keep you warm. If it gets too hot take one off, if it is cold put another one on." Well, I'm here to tell you forget that because it is inefficient. Oh it does work, sort of. I'll explain...

Layering as it is practiced by all of the people I know who use it consists of 1-3 layers of light long sleeve silk or polypropylene or capilene. Think Under Armor type of shirts, except a little bit more loose in general. Then these people wear 1-2 layers of heavy insulation like wool or fleece. They cover that up with 1-2 layers of wind/water resistant jackets or pull overs. That's a great combination if you plan on standing around all day. However, if you plan on doing something physical and generating heat you are going to sweat, even if the windchill is below zero.

How can I blast a time tested system? How can I say that it is not the best cold weather clothing system? Experience. Nearly every time I go on a winter hike or cold weather outing with less experienced people we have to stop in the first twenty minutes and they take off clothing.

I do not know the name of the person who coined the name "action suit" but I discovered it on my own in New Hampshire's mountains and with a little help from friendly corporate softshell advertising. It works like this: wear one combination of clothing that consists of relatively few layers and commit to wearing them all day long even if it gets hot. Those layers hopefully have venting zippers and hoods so that you can cool off while working hard. Then have one (just one) layer that you put on when you stop to rest or cook or belay. This is generally a belay parka and puff pants.

My preferred system which I have now used in three states, two countries, and three time zones, hiking, ice climbing, skiing, bicycling in the winter, and up to 23,000 feet is this:

• A full body softshell bib made by Ragged Mountain that I bought used that they don't make any more. Mine has two chest pockets, leg zippers to chinch it or loose it near your ankles, a half moon zipper for using "the loo", and a two way zipper in the front so I can zip the bottom part open if I have to go or zip the top part open if I am too hot. Here is a similar suit that is twice the price of what I paid.
• The Patagonia R1 Hoody! I think I average blogging about this once every two months. Anyway it is an extremely breathable yet insulated hoody with a half zipper and partial face mask. It also has hand extensions with thumb holes. The nice thing is that if it really warms up I can unzip the chest and take the hood off and vent a lot of heat. As some of my videos in Pakistan in the tents at camp two and three show. I even have a spare that still has the tags in case they quit making it. This and the bibs make up the core of my system.
• A pair of gloves. Always a pair of gloves they are light and do wonders to keep your hands a little warm and out of the wind. The actual gloves vary based on the temperature, wind and activity. I have four different pairs that I rotate through depending on the activity. Although I am not an expert on gloves and I can't wait to have $160 to drop on a pair of nice insulated leather ones...
• Depending on the temperature I will either wear running shorts, half tights, or thick full length 2008 Patagonia nordic skiing tights that they don't make any more under the bibs.
• If it is cold I will wear a long sleeve under the R1 Hoody. I have two Nike long sleeve shirts that are really light and fit very nicely. I also have some compression tops similar to Under Armor but I usually feel my motion is restricted when I wear those.
• Occasionally I wear my Mountain Hardware Alchemy jacket over the bibs when it is cold and windy. More often than not though it is too warm. This is a tried and true jacket that has been around for ten years and will probably be here another ten.
• When the temperature is too warm for my parka I carry a three ounce 2007 Marmot Ion jacket. It's mostly wind proof and water proof. I will start sweating when I wear it most of the time but it really keeps the wind off and is absolutely worth the three ounces of weight. I carry this in the summer rock climbing and cycling too. Basically it's the one thing that is guaranteed to be in my pack on any trip in any season.
• For a belay/rest/cooking parka I have a Mountain Hardware Sub Zero Hooded Jacket. It is not the warmest parka out on the market but has always been plenty warm up to 7000 meters. I like it because the waist cut is a little higher than many jackets so I can get to my harness. It also has a ton of pockets including an inside pocket big enough for a one liter Nalgene or thermos. It also has an insulated hood which is a must.
• I have a pair of Mountain Hardware Compressor pants which are synthetic and again not the warmest insulating pants on the market. They have full side zips so I can put them on while standing and wearing crampons without lifting my feet off the ground. One note on why I have so much Mountain Hardware stuff is that the stuff just fits me really well. The sleeves are the right length for me.
• A pair of thick mittens. I don't always carry these for skiing or short hikes but anything more than a few hours or in serious weather will see a pair of either Outdoor Research Alti Mitts or Valandre Oural (down) mittens in my pack because I like my fingers.
• When it is really cold I wear the Outdoor Research Gorilla balaclava. It is very warm and windproof and can be worn with my goggles or with my sun glasses.

I will skip the discussion on footwear because that could take up a whole post. So that is my action suit. You can see that in general there are not many layers, just several functional layers with hoods and chest zippers so that I can air condition myself or turn up the heat. Is there room for improvement? Yeah, any clothing system will vary based on the weather and more importantly in my case the budget. This system and these articles of clothing have served me very well so far so I do not expect any big changes to my system in the next few years.

One last comment I have is about hoods. When it comes to winter clothing hoods are a must. You can put it on or take it off in several seconds and you do not have to worry about putting it in a pocket or your backpack. You lose a lot of heat through your head. Protecting your neck and head from the wind and cold can keep in a lot of heat. This is again why the R1 Hoody is so amazing. When fully zipped up only my nose and eyes are exposed. When unzipped my chest, head and neck are all exposed and I cool off rather quickly.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 11

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: ING Direct.

What they do right: give you interest on your checking and savings account. There was a time in life I paid bills with checks. Then I finally learned something and started using free bill paying on the internet. No more stamps, envelopes, not even bank statements mailed to me. I don't have to pay postage and nobody has to waste paper. ING masters the internet bank. They only have nine locations according to Wikipedia, but they have millions of users.

Now lots of banks give interest, but ING Direct consistently gives 2-3 times higher interest than other banks on their checking account and somewhat higher interest on their saving account. Most of the money saving is due to not have brick and mortar locations and using so little paper. As a corollary they also have less employees than a similar sized bank.

Their website is also set up very conveniently. Several of the banks I am part of have confusing websites but ING has done very well. There are not many buttons, the links are descriptive, and the pages show you everything you want to know without a bunch of advertising fluff and disclaimers.

I must also mention ShareBuilder. Apparently you can invest in the stock market and in very little amounts. I've never used it but Russ told me to mention it. I think that Russ recommends it too and he is a smart cookie with his money so I believe him. So there Russ, I mentioned it.

They also sponsor a bunch of marathons and other races. People that sponsor stuff for running are just cool. It's like a subversive way to get people exercising.

What they could improve: ATM access is always a little troublesome. It's fine when you find one of the free withdraw ATMs but when I am traveling it is a hassle because I'm looking for an Allpoint sign which is tiny. So I often get charged the two or three dollars to withdraw money.

Also, ING group recently announced that their business model was unsustainable. Their insurance branch received like 7.4 billion from the dutch government because of the recent economy so they announced they would separate the insurance and bank instead of being a banc-assurance company. Also, it is possible for other companies to copy the business model of offering a high interest rate and steal customers. So ING Directs looks poised to lose a bunch of customers because people have no loyalty. That being said they are the first and still the biggest online bank so they have experience which will probably help them survive a slew of new competitors.

As I set out to publish the 11th edition of this series I have to remind people that success as I define it can be short lived or long term. Also, innovative sometimes means just harder marketing so people forget about your competitors. I'm saying that in ten years perhaps none of these companies will be around because their business was not sustainable. That being said I think we have a lot to learn from failure and success. Even short term success if properly managed can turn into something great. Professional athletes compete for 5-15 years and many never have to work again. I will be interested to see in several years how my "successful" companies are doing.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 10

The Successful Innovative Company of the Week is: Wikipedia.

What they do right: they give away free information. I first heard about Wikipedia in high school and at the time we were not allowed to source it. In serious publications people still don't but everyone takes a journey there to verify information. It is a starting step for a journey of a thousand miles. It is a pool of knowledge to swim in or dump your glass.

The strength of Wikipedia is in the millions of people that update it. I was reading a message board the day after Dathan Ritzenhein set the 5000 meter US record and one of the first comments was something like 'you know Wikipedia is great when it already has his record less than an hour after he set it'.

Wikipedia is also vastly underutilized by the advertising industry. I mean if you are doing something that you want to make your company look good, well go on Wikipedia and change it so that people know you are trying. I mean when it comes to companies first there is your website (propaganda) then there is Wikipedia (the truth). I'm not saying delete the negative information on Wikipedia I'm saying add more of the positive stuff. Add the history, the people stories, sales information, product information, details, add wikipedia pages for your products. It's free. People believe it. It's like a snowball effect, start a page for your new product and as people update it it will grow and become it's own thing. I mean it's just so obvious to me how any company, brand, famous person, whatever can help their image by using Wikipedia. It's like a minibiography that you have the chance to edit. Do you want to see how history will remember your company (or you), well, write history! For all the money spent on bandwidth, website templates, computer templates, just about anyone could add a paragraph to Wikipedia.

What they could improve: If people had to have an account to update Wikipedia that would make them more accountable. I mean you could still set up an account to falsely update one thing and then not worry when it was deleted, but it would slow down a lot of trolls.

I see accountability as the largest challenge to Wikipedia. For incorrect information there is no punishment to the person that posts it. I am not sure exactly how to get around this, maybe some sort of approval before something goes live by the page author.

Pre-start-up work

Before a company starts there are things that usually happen. They do not have to happen for every industry and I am focusing on the production of goods for the outdoor industry and selling them to consumers. For those that have started businesses or read about this sort of thing please comment below when I miss something.

A hopefully complete list in no particular order:

• A business plan: usually a document but it could just be in your head that provides insight into how the business will be run, who the customers are, How many customers there are, how you will get the customers, the money that is needed before a profit is made, the employees and management team, the predicted growth, and more or less where you want to be in five years.
• A customer(s): someone willing to hand you money for something you are doing.
• An employee(s): who is actually going to do the work. I count a small business of only a few people all as employees. The reason is that, I think, customers and investors are the ones that determine how good of a job you are doing. So they are in essence your boss.
• Money: unless there is basically no barrier to entry (like blogging) there needs to be some input of money to jump start the process. People need to eat and they can't do that working for free. Products need to be made but someone has to pay for the material and production.
• An idea: you have to have something that people will pay for be it an idea, service or product. You have to provide something for them to consume.
• You have to be enthusiastic and committed: I can not think of even one business where you start making money on day one. Perhaps in the first month for ebusinesses. Probably the day you go "live" or open your doors but chances are you are working on it full time before that point. This is more like investing and gambling than working at a job. You don't get paid just for showing up.

Additionally there are things that you should consider before starting:

• A lawyer: if you are starting with founders having a personal lawyer in addition to the company lawyer can help insure that you are not forced out overnight as has actually happened to inventors before.
• An accountant: because money will be flying in all different directions you might like to know where it is all going because there is a good chance that someone's money disappears and you will get the blame.
• Money: if you can live without a salary for several years more power to your start-up!
• A vacation: when is the next time you are going to get to go somewhere?
• Insurance: there is a better chance you will get sued as a business owner than an employee of the man.
• A place to live: just incase you can't afford rent for awhile it's nice to have friends with couches or parents or a van.
• Found with a woman: there are many grants and loans available to women in small businesses. There are also incentives for minorities and people with disabilities.
• Do work for the government: there are hundreds of grants through the government for science and technology in addition to contracts for all sorts of work.
• Consider location: what resources could help your business grow? Business incubators, state tax incentives, target market, potential employees, cost of living, and shipping costs all vary by location.
• Have fun: if you're getting into the business to make millions of dollars you're in it for the wrong reasons. If you are starting this business to make the world a better place, well, I can't really think of a better reason to start a company.

Please add your thoughts below. I'm sure I missed something.

Successful Innovative Companies: Volume 8

The Successful Innovative Company of the week is: Patagonia.

What they do right: They care about more than just profits. The founder Yvon Chiounard, the same guy that founded Black Diamond, had this environmental idea that he would try to make performance clothing with the least damage to the environment. That means he uses recycled materials, nontoxic dyes, organic cotton, safe labor environments in third world countries, and actively recycles old Patagonia products among other eco-friendly initiatives.

Patagonia promotes The Cleanest Line of products as a world leading brand in putting the environment before profits. They also helped to start the 1% For the Planet charity. Patagonia is surely one of the leaders in environmental production and does well informin their customers about their initiatives.

They also make some great clothing! I bought a R1 Hoody last year for $95 marked down from $135. At the time I thought I was crazy. It fit well and had nice features like thumb loops, a hood, an offset zipper and chin mask, a chest pocket and it was warm. I thought it would be a nice addition to my stuff to take to Pakistan. I wore it for two days while ice climbing and hiking in February. Oh my it was good! It breathed so well that if I wore it alone I could run or hike hard when the temperature was well below zero and the sweat would quickly vent off of me. It really provides no protection from the wind but that is no problem for most situations. As soon as I would stop hiking and stand there, as long as there was no wind, it would quickly heat up so there was no need to throw on another layer. To adjust the ventilation I could take my hands out of the thumb holes and slide the sleeves up my arms or I could take the hood off and zip the zipper down until my bare chest, head and neck were venting to 15 degree New Hampshire. I wore the R1 Hoody every time I went above camp one on Broad Peak this summer. I wore it on Longs Peak in August. I wore it running the Presidential traverse in September. If there is one shirt I will use when the temperature will be below 40 it is the R1 Hoody. I even bought a second one for $85 in March when I saw it on sale. I was so paranoid that they would quit selling them that I have it still with the tag on in my room just waiting for me to break the one I currently use.

But Patagonia, also known as Patagucci, does not only sell amazing hooded shirts. They cover the entire mountaineering range of clothing as well as city dweller clothing of sweaters and pants made of cotton and cashmiere.

Finally they have created a website called The Tin Shed. It is a collection of stories told with videos, pictures and words of the Patagonia environmental effort as well as their sponsored athletes.

What they could improve: Personally I think they send too many emails. I seem to get two or three emails a week sometimes twice a day announcing new sales or new items or the new surfing catalog. While it is nice that they are so proactive about telling people what they are doing they are trying to hard and I have archived several of their emails just from reading the subject.

They are also a very expensive company. None of their clothing comes cheap. This is the price of their hard work making The Cleanest Line yet for a poor 23 year old like myself it is prohibitive. That is not a bad marketing strategy, in fact they are doing quite well, but unless you can afford it it is too expensive.