Redhatter’s Web Blog

Hi All… I just received this email… Some may have seen it before, and I could’ve just forwarded it to people, but rather than forwarding an email that’s already been forwarded at least 6 times, complete with the email addresses of everyone involved, I figured I’d post it up here.

A co-worker got a pen stuck inside our printer. He started to try and remove the pen, but I told him we don’t have time for that now, just put a note on the printer telling folks not to use it and then report it to the Help Desk. So he grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it. I left before he finished the note.

About 20 minutes later, one of my techs comes in laughing and says he was just in the lobby, saw a piece of paper on a printer and went to investigate. Attached is what he found. Sometimes things don’t always come out the way you want them to…

Hrmm, yes… I’ve heard of people putting their tackle in mighty unusual places, but I wouldn’t rate an office printer as being one of them I’d want to try. Thanks to “Jo” who originally sent the email, and to the chain of people who eventually forwarded it to me (Tim being the last on the chain). Being a bit sore and sorry after a buster on the bus (entirely my fault), I needed the chuckle.

(Update 20080211: During an upgrade of my blogging software, I accidentally lost the photos of the shower… I’ve since taken new ones, of the portable shower, and the new in-house installation.  Click any photo for a larger image.)

Those of you in this part of the world, will probably know about the massive water shortages brought on by the drought. Particularly in Brisbane, where the problem is that dire, that we’re moving to level-5 water restrictions, which means luxuries like washing cars and watering lawns are largely things of the past.

Residents have been asked to keep their showers to 4 minutes or less — but is there a better solution? Well, when camping, we often have to face working with a limited supply of water. Often we have two supplies, drinking water that we bring with us, and washing water that we collect from the campsite. Lugging buckets of water around is no fun, thus it pays for us to be efficient in our water usage.

Camping showers often are overglorified bags with shower nozzles attached to the bottom. Usually there are two types, one is usually is made of black plastic, and is designed to absorb heat from the sun. The other is a bag you just fill with heated water. They need to be suspended overhead, often quite high to be useful. They’re heavy when fully loaded, making hoisting them a challenge, and don’t offer that much pressure. You can also get showers that are powered from a 12v supply, which overcome this issue, but then one must have a car or small SLA battery nearby. None of these are all that useful when not camping either.

Kym Schluter, however, came up with a rather novel idea. Hardware stores sell pressurised weed sprayers which can carry several litres of water. By attaching a suitable hose and nozzle to these, you can build a camp shower which is portable, doesn’t need to be hoisted up high, and provides decent water pressure without electricity. He’s been using this shower for a number of years now, and over time, a number of us have made replicas of it. None of the camping stores seem to be selling these showers — but thankfully, your local hardware store will carry most, if not, all the components you’ll need to build one of your own.

The shower consists of three main parts, the pump pack itself, the hose and the nozzle. The lot connects together using standard hose fittings, allowing you to theoretically use any off-the-shelf trigger hose nozzle. The unit pictured on the left is a 6L pressure pack. A short length of clear 12.5mm tubing connects the bottle to a hose fitting. On the bottle side, plumbing tape is wrapped over the screw thread to seal the gaps. The hose was fitted by heating the end up (place it in hot water for a few secs) then pushing it over the end of the thread. It was then clamped to keep it from slipping off. You’ll find the other end of the tube will neatly fit inside the hose fitting, making a secure fit.

To make the hose, we used some 10mm clear tubing, with a screw-in adaptor fitting on one end, and a standard hose fitting on the other. The thread on the screw-in fitting is wrapped up with plumbing tape and clamped much like the pressure pack, and the other end will generally fit quite securely.

The whole assembly is completed with a standard off-the-shelf trigger nozzle. You can use almost any fitting here, bearing in mind that soaker nozzles tend to loose pressure quickly (<2 seconds). Ideally you’re looking for something with a fine spray. The nozzle pictured here has several settings, the ones that are useful are “centre” (uses a small 2cm ring in the centre of the nozzle), “jet” (produces a 2mm jet of water), “flat” (produces a 5mm×1mm rectangular jet) and “mist”. Your mileage will vary.

I haven’t produced any diagrams of the system, since it’s a pretty simple concept, but I figured I’d pass this idea on. We’re thinking of building one for one of my uncles: my cousin and his girlfriend both see nothing wrong with half-hour showers. This system, you can take as long as you like… you still won’t use any more than 6L water. I’ve found using this unit, I’m able to get everything done with water to spare. Couple this with one of the solar showers mentioned earlier, and you’ve got a green way to keep clean.

Installing an in-house trigger shower

Since posting the above entry… we’ve actually installed a similar shower arrangement in our house.  Using typical washing machine adaptor fittings that you can obtain from any hardware store, you can achieve much the same thing.  You don’t have the 6L limit, which is both a positive, and negative, and you don’t have to pump it.  The photos here show the installation (left), and a close-up of the fittings in use (right).  To use this on a mains supply, you’ll need a water hammer arrester, like the one pictured in the photo — otherwise the water hammer generated when releasing the trigger will push the hose off the end of the fitting.

Hi All…

I’ve just got back from a rather relaxing weekend. Where was I these last few days? Well, rather atypical behaviour for a geek like myself, I ditched the laptop and other I.T. parafenalia, packed up the car, and headded across to Queen Mary Falls, just outside Killarney. This was a basecamp organised by the Bushwalkers of Southern Queensland, we were camped on a private property right up in the highlands just a short drive from Carr’s Lookout.

We got there about midday, having left Brisbane at around 8:00AM, passing through Boonah, and up the long and windy steep road on the way to Killarney. The afternoon was spent pretty much unpacking the rather heavily laiden car (3 adults packed into a 1982-model Subaru stationwagon doesn’t leave much space for comfort). What was immediately apparent when I first stepped outside, was the temperature and strong wind. We were expecting it to be cold, as we were at quite a high altitude, however just how much colder, was a suprise. The wind was blowing pretty much constantly the whole weekend, changing only in direction. I was wise to leave my hat in the car — I don’t fancy doing a Mary Poppins/Flying Nun impersonation.

Day 2 began with a long walk around the Queensland/NSW border fence down to the Killarney gate… a round trip of 17.6km. There wasn’t all that much in the way of photo opportunities, although I tried to get some shots of the countryside in — mostly rolling hills. We managed to get a shot of Mt. Lindsay (see left) whilst having lunch on top of the ridge, although cloud cover meant the views weren’t all that we’d have hoped.

Towards the end of the walk, we were met by domestic cattle on numerous occasions, coming up to check us out, before running off to the other end of the paddock. At one point… where we had lunch in fact, it looked as if the cattle were guarding the track (see right), but it would appear that it was merely animal curiosity — they quickly moved off when we started walking again.

The walk finished a very steep descent (see left) down to where the cars were waiting. This was hard going on the knees, and before long, my feet were sending messages up my spine about it. This was probably the hardest bit of the walk. Definitely not what it was cracked up to be. Nonetheless, we made it… and of course, we were stiff-legged for much of the evening.

Night soon approached, and we gathered around the campfire for another night of bad jokes, stories and other discussions. This of course presented an opportunity to experiment with trying to photograph the flames. Long-exposure photography is an interesting challenge, and one that can give rise to some nice effects when done right, especially with things like flames and waterfalls.

Day 3 started out with the usual sharing of easter eggs… being Easter Sunday. Cereal and chockies for brekky… Eggcelent! Then came the decision of what to do for the day. We weren’t in the mood for a long walk, however there are quite a few tourist spots around to look at, and a few of us had hatched up the idea of doing the Queen Mary Falls walk this day. It certainly sounded better than just laying around. So while the more adventurous (masochistic) ones tackled Wilson’s Peak, the rest of us piled into a few cars and checked out the local sites.

First stop, was Queen Mary Falls (left). There was a little traffic on the path with various other bushwalkers checking out the place, but it was an easy going, graded bitumen path, a stark contrast to yesterday’s walk. I managed to get a few shots of the falls, which weren’t looking at their best due to the dry weather lately. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant walk, well worth the trip.

Along the way we stopped at another lookout, this time for Daggs Falls (far right), and yes, another snap of the falls… there was also a rather interesting monument erected for Samuel and Mary Young, who owned land which included the reserve (inner right).

Further down the road, we looked at Brown’s Falls (left). Again, quite a bit of traffic on the track, but once we got there, it was quite a nice spot. There was some opportunity for photography on the way, with a moth spotted on the way to the falls, and a couple of birds (feathered) spotted on the return (right).

The remainder of the day’s activities were decided over Devonshire tea & scons before lunch. The general consensus was to have a look at the Condamine Gorge. There was no set-up walking path or lookout for this, basically we were walking on private property. We set off from the campsite on-foot after lunch, and soon arrived at the cliff overlooking the gorge. There weren’t that many opportunities for photos, since much of the view was obscured by trees — and none of us were willing to get close enough to the edge to avoid them.

Whilst the views were glorious despite the obstructions, we did manage to get a few snapshots. We also discovered an echidna (right), unsuccessfully trying to remain hidden under a fallen branch. On the return, we also startled a wallaby which took off at high speed — needless to say I wasn’t quick enough with the camera.

That evening, we discussed the days events. For us, it had been windy pretty much the entire day except for when we were in the gorge checking out the waterfalls. We were surprised to learn that the more adventurous group on Wilson’s Peak had enjoyed practically no wind, and glorious views from the top. That said, a lot of the people on that trek were quite keen bushwalkers, and thus someone like myself would likely find themselves way behind the others.

Weather-wise, we had a pretty good trip… but of course, rule no. 1 when camping: it always rains the day you wish to leave. We had some rain overnight, and in the morning on Day 4, cloud descended over the camp (left). To add to this, it also rained a bit that morning… just to make sure. The weather held long enough for us to get everything packed away, but we wound up having to stuff the tent in the car damp — it is presently stretched out in our garage drying out. That said, it was bright sunshine by the time we pulled into Boonah, and the drive home was uneventful.

I didn’t take as many photos as I have on previous journeys, however it was a great trip, and a place I’d be keen to visit in the future. Trips of the entire camp can be viewed on my gallery site.