When will I ever need to use ______ ?

xkcd.com

One of the pleasures of being an engineer parent is when your kids come home with math homework.  It's an opportunity to flex parts of your brain that haven't been exercised in decades. (Never mind the depression/anger that arises when the teacher gives the parent a bad grade.)

But it gets even better when you are able to tell them that this ridiculous concept that they're learning really can be used in real life, if they get into certain professions.

This series will be a journey of answering the question, "When will I ever need to use         ?". It will be populated by real life examples that I encounter during the course of my job and my sons' math-lete adventures.

Salomon Quest 4D GTX Backpacking Boot Review

Purchased from REI. I tried all of the hiking and backpacking boots that they had in stock and found that these and the Asolo Power Matic were the only ones that didn't rub my feet the wrong way.  (For my usage, the Asolos only added a feature of the bearing in the laces eyes that make your boot explode open when you untie and unlock the laces; nice, but not worth the extra money.)

The Salomon's were comfy right out of the box, though I did have to get the one size larger than my normal shoe size (The Asolos would have worked with my normal size 12.)

Wore these in New Mexico (see amusingly insufficient video) for a week and had no blister development. Walked and hiked about 50 miles over that week. Break-in consisted of wearing them around the house for about 4 hours while sitting at a desk and watching TV (so, really nothing).

The locking heel cam is really nice for getting the right tension on the lower and upper part of the boot.

For a simple action video with white legs, see my YouTube posting: http://youtu.be/7_CqZFZnBsE