We gave nephew David a kid sized Camelbak for his 6th birthday, and it reminded me of a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while on how to properly clean a hydration pack. Before I met Tyla, I don’t know if I cleaned mine more than once or twice. Turns out she doesn’t like drinking moldy water. Who knew? We now have quite a few of these bladders and I’ve gotten a lot better at keeping them sanitary.
The big problem with these things is that if you crumple them up and throw them in a dark spot, they’re never going to dry out. It’s a petri dish. So the number one task after you use your Camelbak is to get it dried out. You can try sticking something inside like tongs to keep it propped open, but make sure you wrap paper towels around any metal so you don’t get rust inside. You can also break one leg off a plastic hanger and attempt to hang the bladder sideways. I ended up purchasing the hanger that you see in the photo. The hardest part is figuring out how to use it! I haven’t found anything better for getting it completely dry in a fairly short amount of time.
Camelbak officially recommends that if you’re using it regularly, you can just keep water in it, or you can get most of the water out and throw it in the freezer. That should keep you free from most bacteria. It looks like some of their new hydration packs even come with built in hangers!
You can also buy cleaning tablet and brushes specially made for cleaning out the main compartment. Camelbak also sells a lot of replacement parts so you if something gets too damaged or dirty, you can just replace it.
I feel like there are probably better hydration systems out there, but so far I’ve been content with our Camelbaks and we own a bunch of them. If you’re looking to save some money, there are a lot of websites and YouTube videos about alternative ways to dry and clean these things.
Crystal Mountain recently installed a giant air bag. They put it underneath a jump so that people much younger than me can practice their jumps without much fear of injury. I just had to know what it felt like so last weekend Tyla and I went down to Crystal along with a couple friends from work, Andy and Aim.
It’s so nice to have contractors that you can trust. For any heating question, I call up Chelsea’s Dad who owns PMG Mechanical (206) 624-5040. When we bought the house, I asked him to come over and inspect our equipment. He recommended replacing the water heater immediately and said the furnace would last us through the winter but not much more. These recommendations lined up directly with what we heard from our inspector.
We ended up with a Carrier Infinity 80% efficient two stage furnace and a Carrier Infinity suitecase air conditioner. Brent recommended that we go with the 80% furnace over one of the high efficiency models because they just haven’t nailed the reliability of those models yet. The two stage furnace will give us a big boost because it only runs at partial power most of the time, but for the rare occasion when it gets really cold, the furnace kicks in full power. The fan is also incredibly efficient and costs almost nothing to run. The air conditioner is an extra small and quiet model that is normally installed in commercial locations where size and noise are a factor. In our case, it we only had about 5 feet to our property line and I wanted to still get yard waste bins and the lawn mower through. After it was installed, we still have 3 feet of clearance to the fence. It’s definitely a splurge but I’m betting we’ll think it was worth it as time goes on. Plus, we’ll be the party house when it’s hot outside! The final bit that we added to the bill was an electronic air cleaner. It increases air flow through the system, creates an allergy free environment, and is very easy to clean.
For the first time in my life, I own dirt! Yard care is a chore for some people, but after years of living in apartments and the condo, I’m excited to have a chance at taking care of a yard. We’ll see long long that feeling lasts!
I’ve gotten a few questions about my theater room and how much it costs to put something like this together. I know it’s impolite to talk about stuff like this in public, but on the flip side, I also want to point out that this might not be nearly as expensive as you think. Plus when I was putting this together, it was very helpful to read through other people’s build list. So I’ll just list out all the gear that I used and you can click the links if you want to look into buying it for yourself. I did this almost as cheaply as I could except that I splurged and spent a couple hundred extra to get a slightly better projector that had a lot of lens shift. That makes it a lot easier to mount it wherever is convenient and adjust the lens to hit the screen. And I suppose you could save some more money if you go for a 720p projector instead of 1080p, but if you can afford it at all, go for 1080p. At this size of a screen, you’ll notice the difference.
My parents came out for a visit this past weekend. While they were here, I thought it would be fun to attempt some food in the
Kirkland 5k
Tyla’s company operates a booth every year at the Kirkland 5k and they encourage their employees to run. This year Tyla, Chelsea, Nancy and Megan all ran. Tim and I watched from the side of the road and snapped some photos.