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It’s obvious from looking at their window display that On Off Digital World is full of technological marvels, all the latest in consumer electronics today, though their real bread and butter comes from selling to tourists some desperately needed photography equipment. After all, the store is practically in the heart of the city, near most of the major attractions. This means that someone’s going to stop by and pick up film, lenses, and the like, and because they’re from out of town, well, it’s naturally easier to get them to pay a premium, especially for hard-to-find specialty items.

The greatest thing about On Off Digital World to me is that it brings back a particular period of old New York. Well, the eighties, mostly. It was a time when a token was necessary to get into the subways, and pizza was a buck a slice and comic books in the same neighborhood. Back then there was no Neflix and video on demand, a time when, in fact, cable was still trying to take off with regards to mass appeal. It was an innocent time, in a way — a time when mom-and-pop operations like Montgomery Ward were the source for electronics. Such is the nostalgic appeal of On Off Digital.

Going to enjoy the Great Outdoors?
Make sure you pack a backpacking tent or you just might regret it.
Mother Nature is no one to fool around with, and she can be quite unpredictable!
Thus, even if it’s only a relatively short hike of at least half a day’s travel time, be sure to shoulder a lightweight backpacking tent, just in case (of storm or a whole lot worse).
This way, you will at least have shelter and not be completely subject to the elements.

Appears like common sense, doesn’t it?
Yet many hikers take to the trails without so much as a thought to the chance of disaster.
Needless to say, lots of people who enjoy the wild do so without schlepping along a backpacking tent, nonetheless light, and manage to survive all right.
Without a doubt, many such folks may well be experienced survivalists!
But simply because it’s better to be safe than sorry, even at the cost of some inconvenience, it is more than recommended that one is carried.

It’s just good sense.

Besides, you weren’t going to go off entirely empty-handed, were you?
After all, what’s a hike with a corresponding picnic at some point!
And if you’re going to schlepp something along, why not one of the most important bits of gear in terms of anything outdoors-y.

You’re going to need your food and water in any care for sure.
It’s only just one more step to carrying a full-fledged tent, only designed to be as lightweight as possible for unexpected overnight stays.
The possible trouble is slight and pales in comparison next to the reassurance that comes from being totally prepared.

So enjoy Mother Nature and her bounty – try not to tempt fate!
Do the right thing and be pro-active, not just reactive: don’t leave home without your tent!

Demand a family trip? don’t we all! but allow us to face the facts a getaway can be high-priced. I am aware in these troublesome economic times many of us do not have the additional money sitting around to afford to pay for a getaway. But let us not forget that a trip would not at all times need to be a significant cost. There are scaled-down vacations one can take to preserve their sanity while still enjoying themselves on a great vacation. One of the key travel sites to deliver great bargains and special discounts is Travelocity. They have wonderful deals and bargains and you may also find Travelocity Coupons to make the cost even better. So the very next time you are about to pull your hair out, stop and consider taking a good getaway, even if the spending budget is limited.

The electronic cigarette is a rare example of truth in advertising, for these devices are plainly as the name implies, where nicotine is supplied through the power of a battery in contrast to fire! Yes, it’s the 21st Century, and utilizing a match is so old-fashioned. After all, does anyone still rise up of their seats simply to change the channel? ( For that matter, do folks still watch tv or are they more regularly surfing the online world and watching content via Netflix and such?)

On account of technological advances, these smokeless cigarettes – another name by which they are often referred – provide nicotine with no combustion, potentially offering up a more safe solution for users. In truth, they are ordinarily sold as the most convenient method to eventually give up smoking! But although carcinogenic substances is generally absent, many makers still present warning labels with their products as a result of existence of nicotine. In truth, in the States, they’re categorized as drug delivery devices by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and so controlled by the agency’s regulation as such.

But because this is the United States, the case has ended up in the courts, although the most recent decision on record went against the Food and Drug Administration. As a result, electronic cigarettes are usually, though not always, prohibited for sale to minors at the local level, whether state, county, or municipal. For example, it is actually legal in NH inspite of a robust movement in opposition to it in the legislature.

The scientific community continues to be essentially as divided up, too, with a 2010 Boston University School of Public Health study suggesting that such products actually are less dangerous than typical cigarettes and so possibly of assistance in quitting smoking even though the World Health Organization proclaimed exactly the opposite 2 years prior. Most tellingly, however, users happen to have been making ecigarettes more and more popular all along!

If you are like a lot of people you understand that vacationing is critical for keeping your sanity. You work astonishingly hard and so you have earned the occasional travel time to get your sanity all over again. Nonetheless a vacation don’t even have to get really highly-priced. To put it accurately there’s lots of internet sites committed to searching for the best offers for you and supplying them to you in a simple understandable format. Travel sites will every once in awhile also supply you with coupons or promotions. For instance the surprisingly famous site Travelocity will now and again have particular promotions or Travelocity Coupons that will be capable to help save much more money on their already surprisingly low prices. So take care of your sanity and consider that trip you have continually desired.

It is really interesting that kayak fishing only has recently become a popular sport, since hunting had traditionally been among the most popular uses of a kayak by the Inuit who created these boats. But fishing had not been something they did with kayaks, therefore it was not until much later that sport fishing found kayaking.

As can be imagined, by far the most stable and comfortable of modern designs are used for kayak fishing. This requirement has lead to the introduction of such handy novelties as twin-hulled, or catamaran, kayaks, which are stable enough to support anglers standing upright. This is a very important development because fishing typically requires long hours, and the strict confines of a conventional kayak could make for some rather sore butts!

These designs let the modern fisher to have both speed and stability. However traditional boats may still be more or less stabilized by the use of outriggers. Kayak fishing nowadays regularly involves such conveniences as propulsion via foot-pedals that work flippers below the boat.

While not as fast as an electric or gas motor on board, these flippers offer a lot more power than paddling – and free the fisherman or woman’s hands, which is quite a helpful feature when it comes to such common tasks as fighting game fish pulling the kayak through the water!

Indeed, it is precisely for this kind of excitement that many anglers actually launch their fishing kayaks from a larger boat, playing game fish from the kayak and fighting it as it pulls the kayak through the water.

Other conveniences catering to the kayaking fisher include things like specially designed hatches, built-in rod holders, and mounts designed for catch bags and equipment. These traits on boats customized for the sport has helped increase the sport’s popularity, a happy case of enthusiasts petitioning the manufacturers successfully.

A backpacking tent is a necessity even when you expect to do only a simple hike. I learned this lesson the hard way, personally, and it would’ve been at a great cost were I not lucky enough to have been rescued by volunteer forest rangers who dutifully responded to a midnight call.

My friends and I hadn’t taken any gear at all, never mind a backpacking tent. It was meant to be nothing more than a quick enough romp up and down a straightforward mountain of modest height, some two thousand feet above ground level and the tallest point in all the region. It was Mount Buck, near Lake George in upstate New York, the busiest tourist attraction around for miles. Yet as luck would have it, it turned out to be a cloudy, then rainy, day (note to self: check weather forecast day-of).

Nevertheless with no backpacking tent, we decided to proceed anyway. After all, we’d traveled up from New York City hundreds of miles, way over three hours by car; we really needed to stretch our legs! But soon it got dark – just like in the movies, fading to black in mere seconds – and we’d thought we were done for. It was literally black, and we made the decision to remain in place so that we do not worsen our predicament.

Luckily, that fateful choice proved to be the right one, as it was through remaining on the trail that volunteer forest rangers, hiking up the trail hours later, were able to fairly easily rescue us. But until that hopeful time, at one or two in the morning, we had to endure the cold – how cold it gets, and how rapidly, in a forest! And so by no means leave home without portable shelter: always take your tent along, no matter what.

Unless you have one of them portable Coleman Roadtrip grills, camping food will most likely mean something like an MRE, or Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Originally created for the U.S. military, MREs are self-contained light-weight rations available in a wide variety of flavors. They are also produced by other countries for their own militaries, with all the familiar flavors a local would expect!

For instance, MREs for South Korean troops include such regional delicacies as kimchi, while Italians enjoy beef tortellini; Swedes and Norwegians get cod stew with sour cream and potato, and Poles make do with bogracz (beef goulash). And though soldiers in the field can’t use camping grills for obvious security reasons, thanks to the marvels of modern science MREs now offer hot food flamelessly!

Modern day MREs contain a Flameless Ration Heater, or FRH, which will raise the temperature of an eight-ounce entree by a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in no more than twelve minutes. FRHs use a simple chemical reaction to provide heat sufficient to warm up the precooked contents of an MRE.

The concept is to use the natural oxidation of a metal to produce heat. MREs now reach boiling point within seconds, steaming and bubbling! In ten minutes or so, dinner is ready. As can be imagined, they are not anywhere near the power of your least expensive Coleman Roadtrip grills, but they ain’t bad at all, either, and more than welcome for {anyone spending the night outdoors.

No, combat cuisine doesn’t compare to camping fare, but it’s not really that bad, and, frankly, isn’t roughing it part of the overall experience, regardless of whether in the military or living out of doors?

Of course, you could just opt to go totally authentic and hunt game and roast it over a campfire spit! But an MRE is really a nice compromise between that and a Coleman grill.

Presently, water delivery is rather common, not just at the office but also for one’s home. But now there is a service that takes the idea a few steps further, with bottleless water delivery for the most environmentally responsible solution available on the market. Watermatic Coolers is a company that’s been applauded for its impressive new vision of delivering clean water without bottles, trucks, or processing plants by The American Business Awards. Best of all, it costs less than bottled water and needs just a one-time installation that is professionally done with a minimum of hassle. Lower costs, better for the environment – no wonder Watermatic was a finalist for the 2008 Stevies!

Mention marble sculpture and most folks are likely to think about some thing like Italian marble statues, for instance as Michelangelo’s David or Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. But some of the greatest works of marble are entire buildings themselves, for instance India’s Taj Mahal in Agra, an ancient bustling city on the banks of the Yamuna in Uttar Pradesh.

First mentioned inside the old Hindu epic the Mahabharata, where it was called Agrevana, or “the border of the forest,” today’s Agra is most famous for the Taj Mahal, Urdu for “crown of buildings.” It’s a marble mausoleum constructed by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtza Mahal.

It is possibly the most breathtakingly beautiful piece of marble sculpture anywhere, an entire complex built to symbolize eternal love. It is not for nothing that the Taj Mahal is usually found on lists of the seven wonders of the modern world, including one made by polling a hundred million people.

Thus the Taj Mahal attracts anywhere from two to four million visitors each year, of whome about two hundred thousand are from outside the country. This is really a significant fact, as admissions are significantly lower for Indian citizens than for foreigners.

The very best time to see this stunning work of marble is during the cooler months of October and November, which are important considerations since lots of walking can be expected (the whole complex consists of several buildings and sweeping gardens) on account of the strict air pollution controls in place that ban all traffic, except for some electric busses. Environmental pollution is also a serious matter in the area around the Taj Mahal.

Its storied white marble had turned yellow, and now there’s a four thousand and fifteen-square mile area around this UNESCO World Heritage Site where emissions are subjected to the strictest standards.

Here’s a novel thing to do in New York as a tourist: personal training. Forget the tourist traps like Zalman Silber’s Skyride; if you want true heart-thumping excitement, how about hiring one of the many attractive personal fitness trainers available for a jog, swim, stretch, or bike-ride around town? Seriously, there’s no better way to take in the sights than in a manner a native might.

Thousands – no, hundreds of thousands – of New Yorkers exercise each day, whether specifically working out or otherwise enjoying a physically rigorous leisure activity. Why not you? It could be a lot less expensive than the above mentioned Zalman Silber affair. Instead of helicopter flyovers on film (which is all that his Skyride is – and not even “all” at that, but only “some,” to be exact), why not jog past the West Side heliport near the downtown nabe of Chelsea? Or just take a bicycle ride past the USS Intrepid a mile uptown, along the same waterfront, with its fighter jets and other military aircraft permanently parked above deck.

You want excitement? There’s no thrill more visceral than working out with an attractive able-bodied trainer when new in town! Not only will you enjoy the company of someone that’s good-looking, but you’ll also be able to stay healthy. Even if you’re not exercising at all, picking it up for the first time (or after a long while) when in a new unfamiliar environment can be really fun. In fact, it can be so exhilarating that you need to be mindful of checking your own enthusiasm so as to not get hurt, especially as a beginner!

Indeed, organizations like the 50 States Marathon Club were founded to serve people who already have, all on their own, combined fitness and traveling into one unbeatable vacation package. And for many who are retirees, exercise and travel go hand-in-hand every day! It’s a great idea with which almost anyone can participate along.

Of course, many people have long traveled just to do certain things at, specifically, certain places. Climbing and hiking come to mind immediately; they are perhaps the pastimes most associated with travel. But there are many sports and otherwise physically rigorous activities that can be intimately tied to a certain place. Bicyclists and kayakers are as similarly enamored of particular places as climbers. Surfers and hangliders, too, as these sports depend on conditions that are often most dependable at specific spots.

And so when in New York one may bike, swim, run, kayak, and of course simply walk all over the place. Indeed, it is one of the most versatile cities in the world in this regard, with very free open space in most cases: row or paddle where you will; run or pedal as long as you can. This isn’t news for natives, of course, but tourists may be surprised that New York truly has it all, including outdoors life!

Racing isn’t on the minds of most bicycle commuters, unless they happen to be messengers or deliverymen who, normally, ride to work! And in such cases, it would not be too surprising to find them employing what could pass for ad hoc racing strategies of the sort found in informal alleycat contests.

It might seem surprising that people who need to ride all day, every day, would also ride so fast, particularly when not actually on the job but merely commuting there. Wouldn’t these kinds of individuals rather take a little break from any type of racing for a while? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to slowly ease oneself into one’s day instead of rushing, rushing, rushing all the time?

Most folks would agree. But for the speedsters, it’s all about the speed. For these kinds of people, it is like how fish have to swim and birds need to fly. It’s not so much a conscious choice as an inborn need. If anything, it is how they warm up for the day ahead.

Of course, the majority of people commuting by bicycle would like to get there as quick as possible, as well. But for them, what’s possible is a lot more limited, in all likelihood, than for the racers who tend to make their living from bicycling all day.

Such individuals have so much practice, and they will have accumulated so much experience. They are almost fearless – and though fear usually lend wings to feet, fear when bicycling, particularly in an urban environment, can be an impediment to speed.

In fact, habitually slow riders tend to be those with no confidence. They are afraid – and understandably so. But the fear slows them down – not that speed is an absolute necessity for them anyway. The point is that it isn’t a matter of some being fast so much as others being slow.

It’s fascinating to watch old science fiction movies and compare the technology onscreen with current state-of-the-art technology in real life. For example, isn’t it funny that the world of interplanetary travel depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” should not have thought of mobiles and invented them – though in fact, such devices were in reality just another five or so years away from commercial feasibility! And it’s funny how with all the cinematic attention focused on such grand ambitious technologies like extraterrestrial travel the wonders that really did take place, in the real world, should carry, arguably, a lot more weight, impacting as they do our lives in perhaps much more important ways. Take, for instance, the kind of rides operated by serial entrepreneur Zalman Silber.

Zalman Silber is the founder of a number of tourist attractions in the United States and Australia. Some are really great, such as Skywalk and The Edge, while others are rather uninspired, such as the Skyride and Oztrek. These latter two are billed as an immersive you-are-there experience for the whole family – blah blah blah – but they’re nothing more than travel flicks the type you can get on public TV, educational fare you’ve seen a million times over already in school, even. They are helicopter fly-overs of New York and Sydney, respectively, with the only concession to “multimedia” (a buzzword that’s been commonly used to ballyhoo them) being so-called motion seating providing kinetic feedback in sync with goings-on onscreen.

Nothing, as noted already, anyone hasn’t seen before.

Yet such things were to be found in many a science fiction film (albeit B-grade knock-offs, admittedly), someone’s vision of what hi-tech audio-visuals would be like one day! Obviously, that just speaks to the poverty of the imagination on the part of the writers more than anything else, but the point is that such contemplation makes for much amusement when screening the science fiction films of yesteryear.

Or take one of the earliest scenes from “Logan’s Run,” when the title character uses a kind of television-teleporter to find a date. Instead of going to a bar, the people of that world use this device to summon dates! It’s nothing short of a kind of 3-D Craig’s List!

These “everyday details” are especially likely to show up in the more thoughtful and interesting movies, and on the whole make up one useful yardstick by which much of the best examples may be separated from the mundane. For most sci-fi flicks focus on laser guns and starships, but leave out what really makes science fiction interesting in the first place, the nexus between science and technology and the everyday lives of human beings.

Notice how the worldwide web has changed everything? And what is it but a network of computers connecting to one another, serving up information, normally in a graphical (and truly multimedia) way? Nothing especially difficult here; no “warp drive” or “plasma cannon” here – proving the old adage that life is stranger than fiction!

The NEMO Equipment tent is the main product category of NEMO Equipment, an outdoors company specializing in high-level design and engineering. The company was started by Cam Brensinger while still in school, and was moved after his graduation to its present location between New Hampshire’s gorgeous White Mountains and RISD and MIT, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

From the very beginning, the NEMO Equipment tent was destined to put the new business on the map, targeted as it was to bring significant innovation to the industry. Early concepts researched the probability of creating an entire tent from one compound beam rather than sewing them together.

Once successfully developed, the business began hiring its first employees. Its expertise in the field even allowed it to provide consultation on human habitats for lunar and martian exploration! And so, with its credibility thus established, the organization branched out beyond the original NEMO Equipment tent to research other designs for an increasingly diverse market of outdoorsmen and women.

The spirit of extreme sports had by then taken hold of campers, hikers, climbers, and trekkers alike, and so the AST range of products designed for extreme situations was unveiled. Industry accolades poured in right alongside increased sales, and no less than U.S. Navy Seals have endorsed NEMO products for real-world use that’s reliable like no other.

Most recently, NEMO Equipment has been exploring greener products, work that has resulted in the first-ever nearly hundred percent recycled tent, with poles made of bamboo. Product lines have expanded to offer tent accessories and even fan gear, in response to the company’s dedicated following!

Actually, the business is staffed with individuals whose pastimes generally incorporate company products. Being avid outdoorsmen and women themselves has surely lent the business invaluable marketing insight.