It's an interesting contrast. Vodka is among the most simple and pure of spirits, distilled many times to show off the basic essence of its grain (or potatoes) and water source. But perhaps there's no other bottle that carries with it such a variety of contexts in which its imbibed. Because of its straight-forward, back-to-basics presentation, you can drink vodka like, say, a college student who wants to mask the taste. Or a James Bond-inspired martini drinker who hasn't learned about gin yet. Or for its, um, less-hangover-y nature and overall lower impact to your systems the next morning. And countless other ways.

Or, you could drink vodka like those people who invented it - those from Northeastern Europe, where long, cold winters mean grapes won't really grow, and the best source of sugar to ferment and distill are hardy cereal grains.    

There, in Russian, Ukraine, and Poland, vodka is not an ingredient to mix in a highball or create a cocktail, but the clear, cold, heavy texture of the drinking experience. 

Atlas Obscura takes a look into the vodka culture of Russia, which is rich, fascinating, and, of course, ice cold.

Typically... you’ll pour for others before yourself, and rarely if ever pour a single shot for yourself and nobody else.

And yes, a shot. Vodka is not served in a martini, or a gimlet, or a screwdriver; in Russia, vodka is drunk all by itself, ice cold, and in a shot rather than sipped. “They would never think of putting vermouth in it, or cranberry juice, or orange juice, or anything like that,” says [Dr. Patricia Herlihy. “You drink it neat, in the small tumbler."

To find out how they got there, what food goes best along a shot, and what to expect from different styles, check out the piece in full: How to Drink Vodka Like a Russian  [AtlasObscura.com]

And if you're wondering which one you should drink, check out: Best Value in Booze: What's the Best Vodka Under $25? (Hint: it's Russian)

We’re all told today how to act like a man. It’s ingrained in our movies, our music, even our weekly basketball pick-up games. If there's a more meaningless phrase a kid hears growing up than "be a man"... it's news to me as a now adult male.

Cause sometimes, I do feel like I’m losing the battle of mirroring the towering image of my grandfather with his fast cars, Scotch laced musings, and the gold-plated De-Ville lighter nestled in his pocket next to an amazing pocket watch. I have pictures of him on wooden skis with the most amazing wool sweater and vintage goggles that makes a part of me incredibly proud to be his grandson.

He was a guy that had a heartbeat for adventure, and I feel the same draw in myself when I take the time to listen. Daily life seems to dampen that call, piling on responsibility and duty while all the time it gets a bit more muted and I feel it being replaced with a sense of lost time and regret. And while I'm lucky, not all of us had grandfathers whose lifestyles are worth emulating. 

But here’s the deal, the beat that made my grandfather an adventurer, a guy worth looking up to are completely different than the passions buried in me. I tell myself, weekly, to stop trying to act like that man, the man that lived in a different time and had his own sets of deep seated daily-life struggles. Be you, and be the very best version you can be. The stories and pictures may always be of the mountaintop successes, of the full sail on open sea; but they started as a first step and you can do that today. Here are a few steps to take to become the man you should be.

1. Start an adventure list – This is the most important part of becoming that bolder version of you, the one with pictures and memories of wild adventures. If you start looking at where you want to be, it’s amazing how quickly the past opens up. A few years ago I wrote down three mountains I wanted to summit, and a few stretch adventures that would let me see the world. Within a few years I had bagged all the mountains and travelled farther than I dreamed. I’ve seen sunrises from summits and distant islands, climbed glaciers in foreign countries and eaten more foods I couldn’t pronounce than you can imagine. I actually had to turn down a few opportunities because I was somewhere equally amazing during the same time. Don’t plan small, throw in a few goals that will take a massive amount of effort and luck to achieve, like driving the Autobahn in an Aston Martin (I’m still working on this one).

2. Make the time to listen – Take the time to dream, to really dream about what you want to do. And don’t make it about where you think people would want to see you, or where the best pictures may come from. Really listen to your heart on this one and find what would make your heart pound. The experiences that truly shape us come from those moments that make you feel alive, and only you know what those are.

3. Celebrate the first steps – Like I said, those mountaintop victories started with some pretty banal steps along the way, and it’s that hard work most people don’t want to do that keep them from the adventure. If you want to climb a mountain, be in the shape it takes to do it. Most of my opportunities came with the urgency of a last minute trip, so if I hadn’t been in mountaintop shape I wouldn’t have been able to say yes. If you want to dive off the Great Barrier Reef one day, it’s worth making sure you are PADI certified and ready to grab a tank and go when the opportunity arises, because that’s how it always happens.

4. Be ready to say yes – A long time ago, I also made the commitment to say yes more often. I was falling into a pattern of coming up with reasons why I couldn’t do what I wanted and most of them were paper-thin at best. I was too tired, had to work on Monday, and didn’t have the right gear to do it. But then again, think of the story I could tell when I came in talking about summiting a 14,000 ft peak over the weekend – what did you do with your 48 hours of freedom? It can be a stretch, but it’s amazing how much can be fit into your life if you stop finding the reasons why it can’t.

5. Surround yourself with people who inspire – One of the reasons I started writing down an adventure bucket list was because I started hanging out with a few guys who inspired me to dream. They were active, passionate, and dedicated to spending the time it took to squeeze every bit out of this life. They effectively re-defined what a man is in my mind because they were starting to figure it out themselves and it inspired me to do the same.

You see, a man isn’t a collection of bad-ass photos with leather, scotch, and dapper beards. A man is that guy listening to the beat of adventure buried in his chest, who is dedicated to finding out what makes him come alive and isn’t afraid to step out and make it happen. What is that adventure buried in your chest, and what are you going to do about it?

'O let not Time deceive you / You cannot conquer Time,' wrote W. H. Auden, and what better way to feel the constant crushing weight of your impending mortality than watching the gorgeous hands go round on a clock that you spent hours endeavoring to make? Thanks to Clickspring who produced this 16 part YouTube series on How To Make A Clock In The Home Machine Shop you too can have a continual reminder of the ravishes of time in your very own home! [But seriously, it's a magnificent-looking clock]   

In addition to in-depth videos documenting the creation of every cog and wheel, Clickspring shows you how to craft all of the parts (0ther than the mainspring) entirely from raw stock. He even shows you how to build many of the tools that you'll need by machining them at home. It's no walk in the park, but in the end you'll have a stunning Large Skeleton Wheel Clock built entirely from scratch. 

Source: Clickspring via Popular Mechanics

Outdoor recreation activities - camping, backpacking, climbing, and the like - bring with them a fair amount of gear. And while it's built to stand up and protect you from the elements, all that exposure, packing and unpacking, weather, bugs, rocks, trees, etc will eventually bring with them some wear and tear.   Knowing how to fix your own gear saves you time, saves you money, and if you're out in the backcountry, might save your life. Or at least keep the rest of your trip much more comfortable. 

The editors of Backpacker magazine assembled a collection of easy, DIY equipment fixes to get your gear back to functional and get you back outdoors.

There's lots of video content so you can actually see what's going on, not just read it, which makes this thing well worth bookmarking. 

Fix It: How to Repair Hiking Gear [Backpacker.com] 

Right now, the three TV shows that my wife and I are in the midst of - Love,Togetherness S2, and Girls S4 share one (though probably more) thing in common: they all make great use of music. Good scores, yes, but also amazing pop songs that give each show a cohesive vibe, emotional weight, and has me reaching for that Shazam button non-stop.

Of course, with the way movies and TV shows work, they play four bars of a song to set the tone, then drop the music so the actors can be heard and the story moved forward. So, by the time the phone is grabbed and the app opened, the opportunity is usually lost. Sure, you can pause and rewind, but that gets pretty annoying when you engrossed in a show. (Worth it says me, not worth it says everyone else on your couch.) And while movies will detail their soundtrack in the end credit, and the listing often ends up on IMDB, tv shows are more interested in advancing to the next episode.

So, were there only a crowd sourced community where you can look up songs by episodes, and they tell you everyone that appeared. 

Of course, there is, and I'm in love. It's called TuneFind.com, and its a serious improvement over the various movie and tv song sites that have popped up and been forgotten over the last ten years.

Here's why: there's a preview of every song. I presume it's iTunes' 30 second thing, but being able to listen to a sample of the one you're looking for is the handiest thing in the world for music fans. Moreover, there are immediate links to iTunes, Apple Music, and Amazon, so you can add them to your list of things to check out. No more emailing yourself potentials so you can get back to the show.

It's good stuff. Go check it out: TuneFind.com

Welcome to What's Good, ManMade's monthly Show and Tell day, where we let you know what we've been reading, watching, and listening to. 

Here's what's good this month ...

Reading

Chris:

I recently finished "King Dork" by Frank Portman. It's a "young adult" book, meaning it's about and appropriate for teenagers, but I loved it. Portman, to me, will always be Dr. Frank, the singer/guitarist/songwriter of the Mr. T Experience, my very favorite band from the 80s/90s Bay Area/Gilman Street/Lookout Records punk rock scene.

The book is about growing up, and rock and roll, and literature, and relationships, and all the good things coming-of-age novels should be about. And it finds a way to use "to ramone" as a verb. If this had come out when I was in high school, it probably would have changed my life. Reading it in my early 30s, it likely did too. 

David:

The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer. Interesting read from the perspective of a wandering musician who built up community on the premise that people inherently want to help and give. Her tagline is “don’t make people pay for music, let them”. She’s real, she’s honest, and she’s incredibly crass, but it’s fascinating to see the world from such a unique perspective.

Justin:

I'm re-reading W. C. Heinz' The Professional (we've featured it here before). It chronicles the east coast boxing scene of the 1940’s during the final weeks of training as a young fighter pursues the middleweight boxing championship.

Hemingway called it “the only good novel I've ever read about a fighter, and an excellent novel in its own right." It’s the thematic predecessor to every ROCKY movie, but with the realism of a sports journalist at the top of his game delivering an assortment of shady characters, coarse-and-clipped dialogue, and the tactile reality of pursuing the American Dream in tough times. You’ll smell the sweat.

Bruno:

I just finished "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. It's weird. Sort of a non-story about a guy who doesn't seem to care about anything. Even after he's murdered someone and been sentenced to death (by guillotine), he's kinda like '"Oh well, that's life". The book ends like this:

"... gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still."

Camus' Absurdist worldview will make you think about your place on the planet. I loved it. Recommended.

Watching

Chris:

Togetherness, seasons 1 and 2. It's so great. I read this week that it didn't get renewed for a third season, which is a shame, but we're only four episodes into season 2, so perhaps it'll close up nicely. The music is excellent, and the look of the show is so solid without being show-y. "Amanda Peet blew me away," is not a sentence that I'd ever thought I'd say, but I'm extremely impressed. Every word she delivers is just right. Highly recommended. 

David:

Slow TV month for me what with so many sunny days to distract me, but Archer Season 6 (extremely not safe for work) was sufficiently binge watched and I’m liking a new series called The Catch with plenty of interesting twists so far.

Justin:

I just had a sinus surgery so I'm bedridden and making my way through the Original Star Trek series. I'd never had any exposure to Star Trek before the JJ Abrams' reboot; I was such a Star Wars fan as a kid that I had only contempt for Trek fans. However someone recently pitched it to me as The West Wing in Space (which isn't really true) and it had me hooked. I decided to start at the beginning rather than at Next Generation which most of my friends were raised on, and while it took a little getting used to, I'm really enjoying it. N. B. If you choose to watch it on Netflix, start with the second episode since the first one was the pilot that never made it to air because it was too cerebral and didn't have many of the key actors that made the series a hit, and has just been included for posterity.

Bruno:

Viral videos, mostly. This one:

And this one:

Listening

Chris:

I quite like M. Ward's new album, More Rain, but that's kind of the only recent release I've been paying attention to. I finally caved and signed up for Apple Music, so I'm honestly just swimming in the reality that I can basically listen to any song I want just by searching for it, and all for less than the price of buying one album a month. I've been doing the radio and playlist thing a bit, and just letting things play. I need to start "hearting" stuff so I can actually remember which ones I'm liking. 

David:

I’ve been switching between Google Play and Amazon Prime. It’s opening up a new world of not picking artists, but instead picking moods or activities. I can actually tell the app that I’m working out, and entertaining friends, and it gives me three-four playlists to choose from with well-curated music that just seems to flow. I love it.

Justin:

Pretty much just Ultralight Beam from Kanye's new Life of Pablo album over and over. 

Bruno:

Ophelia by the Lumineers keeps coming up on my Amazon Prime stations, and I never don't want to listen to it. Huh.

Ditto for Silver Lining by First Aid Kit. 

What are you reading, watching and listening to this month? Share your favorites in the comments below. 

As we start spending more evenings on the porch, it's time to make it a more comfortable place to entertain. Here's a great outdoor coffee table to hold your drinks while enjoying the night.   I've neglected to spend the time to make my patio somewhere to entertain for much too long. We spend plenty of time out there, but it's always been more of a collection of sun-faded chairs gathered around a small fire-pit. If this sounds familiar, it's time to start treating that space like it's somewhere you want to be. This simple but great looking table is a great start to a space that you'll want to show off.

This project is for the base, with a variety of options for putting on a top. Be sure it's sealed well to protect against the sun and rain, and

Oh, Summertime. The best time of year for delicious drinks made with fresh ingredients. In doing my research for this piece, I had a hard time not wanting to just make up a drink for each herb! 

If you've ever wanted to have fresh herbs for all the tasty drinks you love to whip up, make this summer the summer you plant your very own cocktail garden. Don't have a green thumb? Don't worry about it. Herbs are some of the easiest things to grow! Without getting into to much botanical detail you can rest assured that growing any plant in which you only harvest the leaves or flowers is much easier than something that has a root or a fruit! You don't need seeds for most of these as well! I did some research and found several of my local and big box hardware stores carried most or all of the plants listed below.

I'll list out each plant, a little about it and a few drink ideas (virgin too)!

1. Mint

Ah mint, the king of cocktail herbs. It's unique flavor makes it a versatile addition to almost any liquor. Mint even has a few sister plants, like chocolate mint and pineapple mint, that you can use in special drinks to really add some fun flavors!

With Spirits: Julep, Pineapple Mint Mojito

Virgin: Mint Lemonade, Mint and Lime Soda

2. Lavender

Lavender is my favorite drink addition. I love it's familiar earthy-sweet aroma. The color also adds a fun pop to any drink you make. It's scent can be so strong, it's best to hold the herb in your open hand, clap you other hand on top gently to release it's oils and top off you drink with it. Throwing it in to a shaker with ice could really bruise it and dilute the smell.

With Spirits: Lavender Negroni, Lavender Collins, Honey Bee Martini

Virgin: Lavender Mint Soda, Watermelon Auga Fresca (add lavender)

3. Thyme

My second favorite herb and a cousin to lavender is thyme. I love thyme for it's sophisticated woodsy bite that adds a touch of savory to a really sweet drink. Check out Thyme's sister, Lemon Thyme. It has the slightest hint of citrus, it's wonderful!

With Spirits: Lemon Thyme Gin Sparkler, Raspberry Thyme Smash

Virgin: Thyme Lemonade

4. Lemon Verbena

Lemon Verbena is a unique plant boasting light citrus qualities. You could use this plant to add a citrus flare when you a) are our of lemons or b) don't want to dilute your libation.

With Spirits:  Lemon Verbena Gimlet, The Frezier Affair
Virgin: Herbal Sodas (including lemon verbena)

5. Rosemary

Rosemary is a delicious warming herb. It reminds me of the deep woods, a crackling fire and thanksgiving all at one time! If you love the straight gin and want more juniper flavor, you can add this juniper cousin to your drink and make it Super Gin! I love this herb in everything!

With spirits: Rosemary Gin Fiz, Ruby Red Rosemary and Honey Cocktail

Virgin: Rosemary Vanilla Honey coffee syrup

6. Sweet Basil

Basil is another great herb you wouldn't expect to see outside of a pasta dish. I love the delicate licorice flavor it brings to drinks. Play around with relative thai basil or cinnamon basil to your drinks to hone in the perfect amount for your drinks.

With spirits: Strawberry Basil Martini, Blackberry Gin Fiz

Virgin: Cucumber, Mint and Basil Soda, Peach Basil Sweet Tea

7. Tarragon

Tarragon is another fantastic licorice-like herb that adds a unique, subtle earthiness to your drinks. In some ways, wether good or ill, I'd like to think it reminds me of certain cold medicines from my childhood! Tarragon goes best with neutrals and gins.

With spirits: Beet me in St. Louis (beet and tarragon gin)

Virgin: Tarragon Lemonade

8. Stevia

Stevia isn't as much as a flavoring herb as it is a sweetener. It boasts zero calories and is totally natural! I add a few leaves to certain cocktails instead of sugar for a fun twist!

A lot of my research came from The Drunken Botanist. Check out her website our her book The Drunken Botanist for more information about the plants that make up all the drinks we love! 

Odds are if you're reading this blog, you're already taking good care of your kitchen knives with a home sharpener of some sort. But are you keeping as good an eye on your pocket knife or other daily-carry type knife? I recently realized that I hadn't quite noticed how dull the knife I often carry had become and set out to buy a good whetstone to take care of it. So here's a brief guide on how to give your pocket knife the TLC it desperately needs.    Thankfully you don't need much by way of materials; just a good sharpening stone, a rag and some water should do the trick. Click here to view the full guideand get those bad boys as sharp as can be!

You can buy cold brew coffee at a coffee shop. But, if it happens to be from a certain Seattle-based java-serving monolith named after a Melville character, or an pink and orange East Coast chain known for selling fried rings of dough for, uh, "placing" into your coffee, then what you're actually getting is cold coffee...that is, hot coffee that's been iced down.

Cold brew is an entirely different beast altogether. And with the weather warming up, it's time to cool our coffee down. Or, more accurately, never heat it up to begin with.  If you're not familiar, here are a few nerdy facts about it:

• Cold-brew is - as the name says it - coffee that's made with cold water. Yep, no boiling, no heating, nada. Just water and quality beans.
• It tastes different than your regular cup of coffee; it's less acidic, less bitter, and contains less caffeine, so it's waaay more enjoyable and easy on your gut.
• It's super easy to make and perfect for summer and outdoor events....hello, camping trips!

Totally hooked, right? Ok then, let's get to it..

How To Make The Best Cold Brew Coffee

Ingredients and tools needed:

• 1 1/2 cups freshly fine ground coffee. Try a dark roast if you're going for richness. Always use freshly ground coffee beans!
• 5 cups of water
• Large French press or big mason jar and fine mesh-sieve/cheesecloth.
• Ice (optional) - TIP: If you're going to use ice, make some coffee ice cubes to avoid diluting the brew.

Steps:

• Pour water in the French press and add ground coffee. Stir stir stir.
• Cover with french press lid (but don't plunge it!) or cover with a small plate.
• Let is sit at room temperature for at least 10 hours, but up to 16. (Okay...1 day max). Make it after dinner, go to bed, and it'll be ready the next morning.
• Once it's ready, carefully plunge the press, or strain through a sieve and cheesecloth. Pour liquid in a clean container. This liquid will be your cold-brew concentrate.
• Use a 1:1 ratio of cold-brew concentrate and water, or modify the ratio depending on how strong you like your coffee.
• Refrigerate or add ice cubes, add sweetener if needed (recommended: honey or agave syrup) and serve. Done!

Easy peasy, right? Now, let's try a few variations, 'cause you know, variety is the spice of life...and coffee.

Add milk and a couple drops of vanilla, and a couple drops of almond extract.
Like one of those fancy barista flavoured lattes, but at a 1/3 of the price! And made at home. How modern and foodie is that?

Boil the water with cinnamon, cardamon, and 1 star anise.
Boil the water that you're going to use for the brew with the ingredients mentioned above (easy on the star anise! Use the smallest one you can find). Let it cool down, and then use it to make the concentrate. The result: a chai-like brew that's Taj Mahal tasty (er..you get the idea).

Add a bit of sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk.
This combo is also called Thai Cold Coffee, and even though it has extra sugar added, it's totally worth it. Best summer treat!

Take the plunge and make you're own brew! Serve it at your next shinding or enjoy it while kicking back in your backyard. Yep, you're welcome.

 This ManMade post was originally published on June 23rd, 2013.

Dads sure do seem to have a love/hate relationship with their yard work. If you find yourself falling further on the 'hate' end of the spectrum with how much effort you're having to put in, check out these 17 Ideas to save you time and keep you enjoying your yard instead of working for it.   The tips come courtesy of Chris and Peyton Lambton from HGTV's "Going Yard" via this picturesque post over at Popular Mechanics. With hot tips like planting perennials or "non-fussy flowers" to making use of aesthetically pleasing rain barrels, there are some great ideas here that everyone could use. 

Click here to see all 17 ideas on PopularMechanics.com.

This isn't the first multi-person transit vehicle-turned-personal road trip travel home makeover project I've shared, and it probably won't be the last. Why? Cause I always think this is a great idea.    This way, as long as you've got permission to park, if you have a lake, you've got a lake house. Any mountain can become a mountain retreat, and you can extend to fishing cabins, beach houses, even a home base for rock climbing or cave exploration. 

This makeover comes from Marco Khalil and Caroline West, a Vancouver, BC couple featured on DesignSponge. The project came to life when "they first recovered the floor in an utilitarian vinyl tile. Then they added a timber daybed and a cubby unit comprised of vintage wood crates – both of which are easily removable when the bus needs to fulfill its cargo-carrying role as a truck. The full renovation took ten days."

"Now the bus, which they call Riley, serves as the backyard cabin on their property. Marco and Caroline regularly use the bus as a mobile cabin and, whenever they can, they book their favorite seaside site at a local RV park that provides everything they need – a firepit, BBQ, coastal beach walks and a modern bath facility."

I don't know how this compares, costwise, to fixing up an old RV or to buying a new (and not nearly as customizable) one, but I'm definitely interested in figuring it out. 

Take the full tour at DesignSponge: A School Bus Turned Vacation Home

For our money, this DIY project is a hit. It's handmade, but its technique and process aren't immediately obvious, so it looks like a high-end store bought item. And it's sleek, modern, built-to-last, and pretty practical. Not sure you could ask for much more from a weekend project.     

DIY Pete details all the steps at the Ryobi Tools site. He makes a mold from aluminum roof flashing, then creates the inner part of the form from plywood, cutting the parts with a jigsaw. After that, it's cast, cure, and a custom walnut base to bring the whole thing together.

Nicely done, Pete. 

Modern Concrete Log Holder - Ryobi Nation

German industrial designer Dieter Rams is best know for his "functionalist" approach: that good design makes a product useful, and allows the design to disappear. (The calculator and podcast app on your iPhone mimics Rams' designs.) Best know for his work with Braun, he's about to celebrate his 84th birthday, and still lives with his wife, Ingeborg Kracht-Rams, in the home he designed in the 1960s, just outside of Frankfurt and it's as awesome as you'd think it would be.   

The couples' home is featured in the 2011 Phaidon book "Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible" by Sophie Lovell.

Learn more about the Rams home, his work, and his famed "ten principles of design," at Yatzer.com: Good Design is As Little Design as Possible. All photos by Phillip Sinden.

For a little DIY take on a Rams-inspired design, check out Brandon's modern CD player and iPod stereo:

In honor of this month's National Grilled Cheese Day, here's a zesty recipe you ought to try out for yourself: The Grilled Cheese Taco!   I'm actually not sure what else to write about this as its appeal should be fairly self-evident. Either you're down to test out this zest-filled grilled cheese (bomb)shell of fun or you're not. Check out the recipe at The Food In My Beard and if you are game to try it, tell us about your experience.

Looking for some new home decor inspiration? 

Check out some of the stunning images from the brick house tumblr.Often minimalistic, these images tend to tout natural lighting and clean lines throughout. I've spent a good deal of time scanning through these and cataloguing the designs I'd like to steal for my own home later on.   

There are some things that just make me stop and stare. If you're like me this video of a CNC lathe crafting a chess piece from a metal blank is about 4 minutes of mesmerizing relaxation.  Being a diehard maker at heart, this video makes me happy. Seeing something go from a simple and unremarkable piece of metal into something precise like this chess rook is an incredible glimpse at the process and also an impressive example at what this CNC lathe can do.

While most of us won't have an opportunity to play with something this impressive in the near future, it's still a great example at how far CNC has come in the past decade and the amazing amount of opportunity it has. What would you do if you could play with this CNC machine for a day?

I've personally been a slow convert to the idea of using fire-starters. As a boy I thought they always burned in a kinda cool way, but as I got older for whatever reason I thought of them as a way of cheating somehow. Like a real man just found a way to light things on fire on the first go-round or something. However, I've come to see the proverbial light and ease of comfort that a fire-starter can bring to adverse conditions...   

Or at least I've found a way to meet in the middle between full on survival mode and buying a fire-starter from the store: DIY fire-starters! As it turns out there are quite a few good ideas that all work well in their own ways and have their own personalities in terms of when and how to use them. 

1) Campfire starters by Wood & Faulk (pictured at top): a simple combo of wax and wood chips. A great way to use up all the saw dust generated in the workshop. Get the how-to here. 

2) These pinecone fire starters are straightforward to make, and have the added benefit of a few essential oils to make every extra aromatic and awesome. Get the how-to from The BBB Craft Sisters at Design Sponge. 

3) The Dryer Lint Toilet Paper Tube: Put some dryer lint inside a toilet paper roll. Stuff a small wad of newspaper in either end and let it expand to keep everything in place. Light on fire. Done. 

4) Alcohol-soaked wine corks: This video shows you an easy way to fill a jar with wine corks and rubbing alcohol to have on hand whenever the firepit calls. 

5) Fire Kit: Here's a slightly different take from Instructable-r Laurex2002. It's a complete waterproof kit include matches, a candle, some birch bark, and a pencil sharpener to help make tinder. Cool idea. 

6) Seattle Backpacker's Magazine shows you how to create this survivalist classic: petroleum jelly embedded in a cotton ball. Get the how-to here. 

Or actually master starting a campfire with just one match.

If you're a serious off-roader or just a generally well-prepared person, this might be the thing for you. It's a portable welding kit that runs off of car batteries and is perfect for getting whatever welding you need done regardless of where you are.   

The kit can be purchased all together from Trailweld.com or you can make your own from the necessary components. According to Popular Mechanics, the $225 basic kit includes: 

• Welding lead- 12 ft of Temco 4g welding wire with Rod Clamp
• Ground Lead- 12 ft of Temco 4 g welding wire with Ground Clamp
• (2) 1 ft battery leads to connect batteries in series
• (6) premium crimp style battery terminals
• 7018 ¼ rod
• Rod Container
• Auto Dim compact welding goggles
• Carrying bag/ Battery Cover

Read more from Popular Mechanics or check out How to: Get Started Welding.

These warm spring days are the perfect reason to stay out on that patio a bit longer. Nothing goes as well with late nights and fun friends than cold drinks, and this concrete project is a great way to make it a good night.  

There's something great about working with concrete. It's like the grown up version of Play Doh, mold it how you like and wait a bit for it to dry and stay like that forever. This type of project can be customized to meet your needs and design, so it will fit right in on just about any patio.The materials on this project are basic and easy to combine, and the results are just fantastic. Take a look at the project here, and have one more reason to get out to enjoy the evenings!