Dear my seven or eight readers –

I made two new year’s resolutions around my blog. First, that I would write more frequently and try to include photos. The second point was that I would try to focus my writing more on our work and to also mention what kind of silly adventures my Marmot gear ends up in as I stomp around the hinterlands of Nepal. I have been admittedly lax on both points, as I feel one should be with resolutions.

But my guilty conscience and my appreciation for all of the support that Marmot has given to me and the dZi Foundation has motivated me to tell a few stories.

Fireproofing: In my last entry I complained about the cold in the office, and I had been long combating my chattering teeth by wearing a combination of the Marmot Superhero Jacket and my Guide's Down Sweater. The Superhero Jacket is truly, and I’m not just saying this because I’m writing a blog on the Marmot website, an awesome piece of gear. Super warm, wind and waterproof. It was my most reliable motorcycling-around-Kathmandu-jacket, ready to brave the dust and the wind and the occasional rainstorm. My favorite jacket ever. But I say ‘was’ because every superhero has their kryptonite.

Even despite the warm layers of gear, I finally broke down and got a propane-powered heater for the office. It’s a little monster of a thing that shares a size, shape, and early-eighties technology with R2D2 from Star Wars. So, the heater now sits and pukes out heat next to my desk which then compels me to take off my very warm Marmot layers and hang them off of the back of my chair. Yep, we know where this is going. Rolling the chair into the heater. The Superhero jacket, while nearly invincible, is vulnerable to belching-eighties-robot-heaters.

I felt like a massive idiot for burning a six inch hole in the side of my beloved jacket.

Then I felt like an even more massive idiot when I repeated the feat on the sleeve of, yep, my down sweater. Now I have a down vest.

So, to the good folks at Marmot (one quarter of my readership), please work on the fire-proofness of your gear. Or on the mental capacity of your bloggers….

Another Type of Fire: I have lugged around untold tons of paperwork and computers and waterbottles and ipods and all of the mechanisms of sanity in my Pilot messenger bag for the past year. It’s a great bag and super convenient when tearing around Kathmandu on motorcycles. My only complaint is that it’s just big enough to carry much more stuff than I need on a regular basis (tape recorder? Extra hard drive? Climbing shoes? Surrre, why not…).

So last week I ran out of chili sauce – big crisis. I have become addicted to a certain sauce made of ground up chili peppers known here as dole kursani (round chillis) or, by some, as man-killing chillis. My main supplier is our Nepal Director, Ang Chokpa and I begged her for another batch, which she, in turn, delivered to me in a small plastic container. Perfect for the little ipod pocket of the trusty messenger bag!

Surprise. Man-killing hot-pepper juice minus leaky plastic container plus ipod pocket equals severe and unexpected ear pain.

So, this leaves us wondering why on earth would anyone want me to review gear? I suppose I may find some small role as a product tester in strange but not-terribly-extreme environments. It should be said that after a good scrubbing the Pilot bag has held up much better than my headphones and is ready to accumulate another layer of pollution and travel grime. That bad boy is invincible.

What this all signifies to me is that I really need to get myself out of Kathmandu. Away from the heaters, the plastic containers, the iPods of the world. Back to the villages, the farms, the real work. Soon.