Nalgene: My Personal Myth Buster

[articulate]

Inspired by Wil's thread (http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2839)
http://www.markdstephens.com/Nalgene_Bottle/bottle_1.jpg
My old buddy: the basic white Nalgene wide mouth, blue lid, and 8 years old. She accompanied me to nearly all classes at ASU. I adorned her with gear stickers. We hiked, climbed, backpacked, and adventured for many years together, she and I. We've done the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Zion, and some other not-so-well-known destinations like Mount Lemmon, Little Granite Mountain, Pinnacle Peak, Camelback Mountain (innumerable ascents up the Praying Monk), Queen Creek Canyon, Aravaipa, the Chiricahuas, the Supes...

I'm getting dewy-eyed. How many liters of water has she provided me, slaked my thirst during backcountry romps? And for a one-time fee of merely $7.99. . .
http://www.markdstephens.com/Nalgene_Bottle/bottle_2.jpg

I got gas after work one night, my bottle with me. Maybe only half full - yes, half full. I set her down on the bumper, paid for the gas, pumped --- and drove away.

I was home when I realized what I did. "Brooke!" I began, "I gotta go out again. I left my bottle on my bumper. Oh my GOD! I'll be back, oh GOD!" I went back to that gas station and searched and searched. But I knew where she had to be. I checked the street where I pulled out, but I couldn't find her. Daylight was fading, the clock was ticking.

So I did what any normal person would do: backed into on-coming traffic and turned on my high beams. I wasn't going home without my bottle, dammit. And there she was! In the gutter! Nearly flattened, the lid split, and a wall of traffic coming on...

I ran. I grabbed. I jumped into the Jeep, thankfully the doors were off. And drove home where I could properly nurse her back to life.

http://www.markdstephens.com/Nalgene_Bottle/bottle_3.jpg

http://www.markdstephens.com/Nalgene_Bottle/bottle_4.jpg

She'll still hold water, but the lid is history. We suspect she'll life a long life, but she'll never hold the same amount of water again. Shape Displacement they call it. It's just a fancy term for "Look what happens when you're negligent."

Long live good gear!
:sunny:

[edgear]

That's a beautiful story. I think you should submit it to Nalgene. Maybe they'll hook you up with a new bottle or two (or at least a replacement lid).

All of my Nalgenes are definitely adorned with custom stickers as well. I think it's almost a requirement!!
:shakin:

[Redback]

OK thats differant, here i was thinking it was some chemical additive and it turns out to be a drink bottle.

Baz.

[bigreen505]

:iagree: I feel your pain. I had to buy a new lid for my favorite bottle last month and it just isn't the same.

Try this, get a new lid on it and fill it most of the way to the top with boiling water and see if you can massage it back into shape. I have never tried it on anything that extreme, but it works very well on bike bottles that get flattened from altitude changes.

Sorry about your friend.

Bill

[ZooJunkie]

You could fix that... Heat and pressure will get her almost back into shape.

[seth_js]

Ha ha. That was great. :wavey:

[hoser]

Great story! The good news is they have replacement caps (http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/index.html)... though I know it will never be the same.

[goodtimes]

There is a way to fix that.....I have picked up a thing or two about plastic bottles in the past couple years. When you consider that I make ~200,000 of them each day at work....it probably isn't surprizing. It is almost amazing what 156,000 watts worth of IR lamps and 600psi of clean, dry, oil-free air can do to plastic.....:peepwall:

[DaktariEd]

Sniff...
Geez, man...
I'm just in shock...all teary-eyed.
So sad...sorry to hear of your loss....
Will you be bringing her beat-up, mangled old carcass to the ExPo Trophy?
I'd like to pay my respects....

:rolleyes:
Ed

[Ursidae69]

I enjoyed this thread. :D

[kcowyo]

Jeez, you are overly sentimental......

Nalgene -----> :truck: <----- some heartless Mother$%#@*!


My condolences. A good drinking buddy is hard to find -

[articulate]

Thanks for humoring me people. Ed, perhaps I should bring the bottle to the rally just for fun.



There is a way to fix that.....It is almost amazing what 156,000 watts worth of IR lamps and 600psi of clean, dry, oil-free air can do to plastic.....:peepwall:
Nice one! I hadn't thought of that. What do I need to produce 156,000 watts of power? A Plutonium-powered DeLorean or anything like that?

I won't be able to just replace the cap because the mouth is now oval shaped. I'll need 156,000 watts and 600psi of air first. Or a new drinking buddy.

[Redback]

Well i have benifited from this, as i have learnt a new word.....Nalgene..... not earth shattering, but might fill in a couple of minutes around the campfire:camping:

Baz.

[goodtimes]

Nice one! I hadn't thought of that. What do I need to produce 156,000 watts of power? A Plutonium-powered DeLorean or anything like that?

I won't be able to just replace the cap because the mouth is now oval shaped. I'll need 156,000 watts and 600psi of air first. Or a new drinking buddy.

You can pull 156kW off the grid with no problem. Well, you might need a bigger circuit breaker than you have in your box right now. How much bigger? Assuming 120 volts...you would need a 1,300 amp circuit....for the IR lamps. You also need to drive the 350hp motor to run the compressor to get that 40 bar of air....and lets not forget about the.....

Ya know.....it might just be cheaper to go spend the $5.50 to get a new drinking buddy that looks like your old drinking buddy (pre-abuse). Or, you could spend an extra $1.50 and get a new drinking buddy that looks like this:

http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/images/subcategory/Narrow-Mouth_Bottles_Nalgene_Flask.jpg

[david despain]

Nice one! I hadn't thought of that. What do I need to produce 156,000 watts of power? A Plutonium-powered DeLorean or anything like that?




Dr. Emmett Brown: No, no, no. This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 jigawatts of electricity I need.
Marty McFly: Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium. Did you rip that off?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb-casing full of used pinball machine parts! Come on! Let's get you a radiation suit. We must prepare to reload.

why yes you do... at least until Mr. Fusion comes along! :cool:

[articulate]

Dr. Emmett Brown: No, no, no. This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 jigawatts of electricity I need.
Marty McFly: Doc, you don't just walk into a store and buy plutonium. Did you rip that off?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb-casing full of used pinball machine parts! Come on! Let's get you a radiation suit. We must prepare to reload.

why yes you do... at least until Mr. Fusion comes along! :cool:
:jump:
You win the random movie quote contest. Excellent work on picking that one up!

I should ask, how many jigawatts are in 156,000 watts?

[articulate]

Ya know.....it might just be cheaper to go spend the $5.50 to get a new drinking buddy that looks like your old drinking buddy (pre-abuse). Or, you could spend an extra $1.50 and get a new drinking buddy that looks like this:

http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/images/subcategory/Narrow-Mouth_Bottles_Nalgene_Flask.jpg
Exactly.

:friday:

[david despain]

:jump:
You win the random movie quote contest. Excellent work on picking that one up!

I should ask, how many jigawatts are in 156,000 watts?

oh i love random quotes from movies and tv shows. my brothers and i can hold entire converstaions in them. usually use all the kevin smith movies, simpsons, big lebowski, star wars, and the best one to use for quotes is star trek the next generation. of course there are others as well. take note of my sig line...

also i dont think there is a jiga watt. but if its gigawatts then it would be .000156 gigawatts. which by the way is also equal to 209.196 horse power

[DaveInDenver]

oh i love random quotes from movies and tv shows. my brothers and i can hold entire converstaions in them. usually use all the kevin smith movies, simpsons, big lebowski, star wars, and the best one to use for quotes is star trek the next generation. of course there are others as well. take note of my sig line...

also i dont think there is a jiga watt. but if its gigawatts then it would be .000156 gigawatts. which by the way is also equal to 209.196 horse power
Back To The Future rules, being a punk kid back then.

The spelling in the script was "jigawatt" according to IMDB. Thing is there is no jigawatt measurement, so we are left to assume they mean either mean gigawatts or they just made up a fictional measurement. A gigawatt (GW) is 1000 megawatts (MW) or 100,000 kilowatts (kW), basically it's 1 billion watts. That's a bunch considering the Hoover Dam produces about 2000 MW or 2 GW for all 17 of its generators combined. Incidentally, you typically consider it takes about 1 kW or so per household, so the Hoover Dam supplies about 1.7 million houses and that 1.21 GW could suppy around a million homes with power!

Now the sticky part is I had a prof who insisted that it's pronouced 'jiga' and actually he's technically right. The root of scientific prefixes is Latin and giga is pronouced correctly with a soft 'g'. It's been hardened mostly by the tech industry here in the US to 'giga' (as in gigabyte), but most older scientists and engineers will still say it with a soft 'g', since they may have also learned Latin when they were younger. So the movie spells it wrong but says it right, if they mean a gigawatt. Personally I think 'jigawatt' sounds better, but 'jigabyte' doesn't. But the argument is that a gigawatt is 1000 watts, while a gigabyte can be defined either as 1000 MB or 1024 MB, depending on who you ask. If you take the literal road, a giga or mega or kilo anything in the binary world is 1024 times the root and so I guess you could say there are two different giga prefixes and so the classic analog one is 'jiga' and the modern digital one is 'giga'. Kinda geeky, eh?

[articulate]

Kinda geeky, eh?
Would that be geeky with a hard G or soft G?


GOD dude! I'm pissing my pants your post was so funny!
:xxrotflma

[datrupr]

There was nothng "kinda" geeky about your post at all Dave. It was completely geeky, with a hard 'G', Mark. But, it was, as usual, very informative and also quite hysterical. Now, talk about threads going way off topic.

[DaveInDenver]

Well, OK, yeah it was a /totally/ geeky train of thought. But, if you say 'geeky' with a soft 'g', it kinda sounds like cheeky. And that can be loosely defined as being basically flippant, as in lacking correct level of seriousness about things. At least that's my understanding of the Brit usage, right?

[kcowyo]

From praise of a Nalgene (soft "g") bottle to binary numbers.... :Wow1:

Yes, this thread certainly is "lacking the correct level of seriousness about things." Which is just the way I think the articulate one intended.

Thanks for getting us back on topic Dave! :smiley_drive:

RE binary numbers, I'm not one of the 10 types -

[devinsixtyseven]

great thread :D.

i have only broken a nalgene bottle once, the hard lexan kind...it was full of water, and i dropped it on the concrete as a show of how tough they are. of course, the two or three layers of stickers held it together with only minor leaking, but the weight/incompressibility of the h20 inside cracked it.

empty, we tried to break one...shot, dropped from a 5th story window...nearly indestructible.

-sean

[articulate]

great thread :D.

i have only broken a nalgene bottle once, the hard lexan kind...it was full of water, and i dropped it on the concrete as a show of how tough they are. of course, the two or three layers of stickers held it together with only minor leaking, but the weight/incompressibility of the h20 inside cracked it.

empty, we tried to break one...shot, dropped from a 5th story window...nearly indestructible.

-sean
The hard lexan kind. Yep! Gotta be careful. Nevertheless, it's a tough bottle. You just won't break the white, flexible style. But they take on a stink if you put anything in 'em...like tequila.

[paulj]

I had one of the white ones break on me. It was an old one, and had been used constantly to hold cold water in the fridge. I have an older one, with a lid from the same material as the bottle, but that is reserved for special night time use :-)

paulj