My Review of REI Venturi 30 Pack

REI

Reach for the spry REI Venturi if you're fitting a long hike into a single day. This lightweight pack boasts high ventilation and weather resistance.

REI Venturi 30 Pack

Great daytrip bag.

Alaskanwonder Salt Lake City, Utah 3/22/2009

 

5 5

Gift: No

Pros: Lightweight, Easy To Load, Comfortable, Good padding

Best Uses: Day trip, Hiking

Describe Yourself: Avid Adventurer

What Is Your Gear Style: Comfort Driven

What a great bag! I use this bag almost every weekend for short 3-7 hour dayhikes in Utah's Wasatch mountains. There is more than enough room for any gear that I may need, but more importantly enough room for my wife's gear and items for my dog as well. I've taken this bag cross country skiing, snow shoeing and hiking it its been great for every activity. There is a great hydration feature as well. I would recomend this as a daypack for anyone who likes dayhikes, but I wouldnt recomend it for any overnight trips.

()

Sunday Morning in Washington...and other thought on News.

I have been consistently frustrated with the availability of information to the average American citizen by the many sources of media and the partisan nature of reporting in this country today. I have wanted to discuss this issue at length for some time, and from time to time I offer my sound bites and opinions while sharing a beer with a friend or over a cup of coffee. There are several forms of media that we consume: TV, Printed Media, Radio and Online Content. I would like to begin this dialogue by tackling the televised segment of our media consumption. In the future I will continue to tackle the others as well. Surely this is a time altered opinion, and hopefully something that I will be able to speak about these and many other political topics at length in the future.

Every single day I sit at my desk speaking with clients of "The Firm" about the state of the economy, the state of the market and the vast array of information (CRAP) on TV which calls itself news. Whether you watch your local evening news, or if you focus on Nationally syndicated broadcast news on any of the major networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOXnews) its all a bunch of crap. If it bleeds, it leads...it’s that simple. Each of these networks is in business to increase their market share and make more money. They do this through creative marketing, focusing on the negative stories in the news and engage in a constant game of one upsmanship.

If you really want news...real news. There are several sources available. In my opinion you can learn more in the several hours of the Sunday Morning Washington talk show circuit than you can in a week of CNN, MSNBC, FOXnews ect. Now while I love to watch Rachel Maddow or Chris Matthews carry forward the policies and thought processes that I agree with, in the same breath Sean Hannity & Bill O'Reilly do the same to further the conservative (Neo-Conservative) agenda. While it is certainly entertaining there is little to be gained other than some simple sound bites and concise criticisms of any alternate agenda. If you want to dig beneath it all you need some source of balance in your political diet, some way of reaching beyond the punditry professed by the majority of "News" networks you need to dig deeper.

On a daily basis there is a great deal of actual news available on PBS on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. PBS is a not for profit institution funded by the American tax payer. Wow! What a thought! Bipartisan tax monies offered to a not for profit agency to provide non-partisan/bi-partisan news to the public. Additionally Frontline offers a weekly documentarian insight to what is going on in the world around us, it provides a uniquely in-depth insight with interviews and concise information concerning what is going on in the world...again....in a non-partisan way.

Each an every Friday night I begin my weekend with Washington Week with Gwen Eiffel on PBS as she wraps up the week in sound bites and new clips paired with particular points of view offered by other news editors and news columnists in many of the major publications in the world. Sunday is like Christmas to me. Face the Nation, Meet the Press, This Week and Fox News Sunday. These shows provide a great deal of insight into the political psyche of our county on a weekly basis. Surely each network has a particular focus and agenda that they intend to get across to the American people, however if you watch even one of these shows you will gain an insight into the specifics in a way that no network news show intends to provide on a nightly basis.

If you waste you time aligning your exposure to the media which is most in line with your political stream off consciousness you will never be capable of furthering your political scream of consciousness. If you are a raging conservative and watch only Fox News.....you will never understand the thought process of Democrats/Liberals. Like wise if you are a raging liberal and choose to only watch MSNBC you will never be able to understand the Republican/Conservative thought process. Yet by absorbing several sources of media, several perspectives on one political topic you may be able to further your ability to understand the problem more thoroughly and address is more succinctly.

So there you go. There are some great media offerings out there that are far more informative than the forms of media that we seem to ingest daily. Crap in.....crap out. It’s a simple formula.

The Political Meliu

On January 20th 2009 when President Obama was sworn into office America entered a new period in our political evolution. Clearly the Republican party is falling apart, seemingly held together by the glue provided by Rush Limbaugh. The same party that is brought together by the mantra "Drill Baby Drill" is the same party that simply has no solutions....no answers....no change. Obama swept into office carrying the banner of change and has no intent to back down from his ambitious political track. To be sure his plans have been vast and extremely ambitious. Yet there is a great deal of disagreement over the mandate of his policies on such topics as earmark reform, healthcare, food sourcing, clean renewable energy, education and a host of other policies. Over the last 8 years we have wasted the political capital that was so entrenched when George Bush was voted into office. The party of small government simply became larger. The military expanded far beyond the role of national defense and comfortably stepped into the role of world police. The Republican party has clearly entrenched their belief structure within thier supposed party leadership of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Lindsay Graham and to a great extent Rush Limbaugh. Somehow the head of the GOP R-Michael Steele has been hung out to dry for being more than the party of "NO". Michael Steele is in my opinion a wolf in sheeps clothing. It seems to me that he subscribes to some abject moral imperative far beyond the Christian ethic. Perhaps he should consider aligning himself with the conservative democratic coalition, The Blue Dog Democrats.

President Obama has created a Dynamic stream of consciousness that clearly the Republicn Party cannot grasp. Once again....to be sure. We are spending a great deal of money, more money than anyone can firmly understand. Over the last 45 days since President Obama's Inauguration the Republicans have paraded before both houses of congress with some very colorful posters comically showing how large the stimulus would be in terms of 100 Dollar bills stacked one atop the other. Then going further to explain how many times we could encircle the earth......HOW IS THIS USEFUL? Answer....its not. This is what I am talking about, the Republican party is simply the party of no. The party of temper tantrums, such as John Boehner dropping a copy of the stimulus plan on the floor at the house, such as Lindsay Graham heralding the end of the American dream.

My hope is that the White House doesn’t confuse "The American Dream" with "The American Promise". There is no American promise, you must work hard, make tough decisions with the hope that you can watch your children do better than you have. Obama is an exemplary model of "The American Dream". Born to a single mother who traveled around the globe, raised by his Grandparents and with no stable father figure in his life beyond his Grandfather, sent to the best schools through his academic achievement. Attained his Law Degree from one of the best Law Schools in the country, and became the first African American editor of The Harvard Law Review and yet gave up some clearly extremely lucrative job prospects to work as a community organizer. He worked his way up from the bottom...he had nothing and came from nothing. He became a state Senator.....a US Senator...and ultimately President of the United States of America. After 8 long years I am finally proud to call myself an American again, proud of our President.

The Republican is simply the party of no....a party with no new ideas, the party of old ideas who can’t see the future. They are simply holding on to failed dreams. Simply attempting to stay on message at a time when they offer no alternative. This is not the Republican Party, this is the Rebupli-Can’t party. Political Party