Shearwater - Rook

Description: A short CD, ten songs but taking up only a little over 36 minutes.

The chick has light gray feathers. Upon reaching maturity, the feathers develop an iridescent character that is most visible when the band takes flight. The colors of trumpets, dulcimers, strings, and woodwinds are all found in the plumage.

Voice: The call of the Shearwater is especially beautiful. It often starts mournful, but grows more confident and wondrous. The call ends quickly, never outlasting it's welcome, and generally leaves the listener wanting more.

The timbre of the call leads some ornithologists to assume a relation to the Buckley bird, but the resemblance is superficial. The structures of the calls are closer to those of the Hollis bird, although calls of both birds are distinctly different.

Habitat and Range: They frequent lonely, desolate coasts, especially in cooler climates such as the British Isles, Newfoundland, and Patagonia. They make occasional forays into the Appalachian Mountains and the deserts of the American Southwest.

Nesting: The Shearwater makes it's nest on the ground on uninhabited islands. A single egg is laid, and it can take a year before the egg hatches and the chick reaches maturity.

Official Web site

Tags: Music Review

A Good Week

This has been a good week so far. On Sunday, I finished my Wilderness First Aid certification course. Now I should be able to offer more help to people I encounter while hiking. It also puts me closer to leading hikes for Venture Outdoors.

My favorite clothing company, Nau, has a new lease on life. They will be a little smaller for the new version, but they'll still be making the same environmentally and socially conscious clothing. You can read more on their blog.

Politics also shows something promising, with Barack Obama looking to have a huge lead over John McCain. I hope this continues.

The new Futurama DVD also came out this week. The Beast With a Billion Backs was an entertaining release.

Tags: Outdoors

Nau is Closing

My favorite clothing company, Nau, is closing. Many people focused on Nau's unconventional business model (direct sales only, storefronts exist to let you try on clothes and have them shipped to you). Many focus on the environmental standards they upheld (all organic and recycled fabrics, recycled packaging) and their focus on charities (donating 5% of income to charities). To me, those things were the icing on the cake, the reason I loved Nau was the clothing.

They tried to rethink every element of the clothing to see if it could be improved. This lead to many small but interesting things. Belt loops were placed to avoid pressure points while wearing backpacks or climbing harnesses. Buttons were similarly chosen to have low bulk under belts and attached to webbing to reduce wear on the clothing. Seams were curved to provide more useful coverage, hems were doubled on hiking pants. All the fabrics were designed to stretch. Everything combined made the clothing incredibly comfortable. I haven't found any pants as comfortable as the Nau pants that I have. They aren't just comfortable, they are durable too. I've abused one pair of pants while caving, and they have held up incredibly well.

The clothes also looked good. Nau let you wear outdoor performance clothing without making you look like you shop at outdoor shops. I get frequent compliments on the Nau clothes that I have. The clothes had no logos, so you were not turned into a walking advertisement by wearing them.

I am quite sad to see them go. I hope that their ideas will get picked up by other companies. I know REI has started placing belt loops in similar places to Nau's designs, I'd like to see this catch on more. Perhaps Patagonia can make use of the completely recycled waterproof-breathable fabrics developed for Nau (currently Patagonia's WPB jackets are not fully recycled). Perhaps their designers can get jobs at other outdoor companies and help tweak their designs.

I wonder if perhaps their business model is what did them in. Could they have sold clothing through other retailers instead of setting up storefronts? There are other environmentally friendly clothing manufacturers who took the more conventional route and are doing well. Would it be better for them to compromise a little bit and continue to do good (through charities and supporting non-sweatshop factories)? I can't speak for them, but I'd prefer that they stay around.

Since they are closing, I encourage people to make use of their closing sale where everything is 50% off. Get some of the best clothing around while you still can.

Tags: Outdoors