Nalgene widemouth glow in the dark.

Regular readers might be aware of how last spring I upped my daily water intake to support the weight I wanted to lose at the time. I did indeed lose nearly 20 lbs, and since then, I've included LOTS of water in my daily diet. At this point, if I don't drink at least 32oz. daily, I feel really shitty. So I've amassed an army of Nalgene and other water bottles. I've reviewd HumanGear's awesome Capcap widemouth bottle cap replacement (I found a hard-to-find blue one yesterday when @ REI with SB&T's Eric). Anyhow, I like to always have a couple of full bottles in the freezer and one in the fridge. I take medication at night, and I also use a CPAP sleep apnea machine which has a humidifier tank that needs to be filled with water. It's much easier to fill my CPAP tank from a Nalgene with a HumanGear Capcap, or a Guyot Designs Splashguard, than to get up and go fill the tank at the bathroom sink.

So, I've always got a bottle on the nightstand, that way I have water ready for my morning meds as well. I've spazzed out in my sleep before and launched Nalgene bottles off the nightstand, waking me up, and scaring the shit out of me. Enter the new Nalgene Glow bottles! They come in green and blue, the blue one, in daylight, is sort of that milky white condom color, but when you kill the lights it glows a deep blue. It's not terribly bright, but it works well, and would probably work very well with the Firefly LED bottle lid lantern by Guyot Designs. I like the glow concept for camping as well, if you're sipping say, Gin and Juice by the campfire, after lights out, you can find your drink. I've also used widemouth bottles for bladder evacuation so as to avoid going out of a tent in total cold. With the glow bottle, you know where to reach if you've got to piss (just be sure to THOROUGHLY wash that bottle at your first convenience!).

The green version is visibly green in daylight as well, and seems to put out more light in darkness than its blue brother. These bottles aren't clear/transparent like the other Eastman Tritan copolymer Nalgene bottles (and the old Lexan/BpA ones), but they are translucent, and you can still get an accurate idea of how may ounces you've got left until you need a refill. As with most phosphorescent items, they glow brighter and longer when first exposed to a bright light source. The first picture above shows the bottles in front of my Phillips BriteLight energy light, which is used for seasonal mood improvement by emulating sunlight. I left the bottles in front of it about 2 minutes and they glowed brightly enough for me to take the next photo, with my phone in late afternoon darkness. Now, with a Surefire G3 light shone onto the bottles for several minutes, they glowed more brightly, like the last picture (this last photo I found on a site that sells these bottles). My results with various light sources on these bottles are consistent with other images of this product that are floating around online. Like I said, they're not mega bright, but they glow enough for you to locate your bottle in total darkness, which I can see being handy in any number of situations.

I picked up my GITD Nalgene bottles @ Sportco, in Fife, WA, they were just over $8.00 USD each, with my store membership, I think they probably retail for around $12.00 USD on average though, as they go for $11.50 USD on Nalgene's site. It's odd, I was unable to find a listing on Nalgene's official site for the green glow bottle, so I wonder if they plan on doing more colors, like reddish, or orange?

Either way, it was a good weekend for gear. I found the elusive blue color HumanGear Capcap (most are green),

in addition to getting a Fisher Spacepen #PR4 refill for my Benchmade model 1100 tactical pen. I picked up a black steel NiteIze S Biner for my keys as well, as I'm tired of the plastic one I've been using.





I finally picked up a Byrd lockback at a knife shop up by Eric's house. Spyderco engineers and designs the Byrd line to be manufactured in China as a lower-cost alternative to Spyderco's pricier knives. I'd always been curious, but could never find any Byrd knives I liked the looks of in physical brick and mortar stores. I picked up the plain edge BY07 Byrd Crossbill. Everything about it is very reminiscent of my first all stainless Spyderco Endura. It has a nice wicked sharp hawkbill blade, and has that heavy duty feel that all stainless Spydercos tend to have. I paid slightly less than MSRP at the shop we went to, though you can find this same knife for about $23.00 USD on many discount web shops. My only complaint so far is that it comes with the clip positioning the knife tip-down, an easy fix, holes are already tapped for clip reversal, which I'll do after I finish writing here! Stainless handled knives can be slippery under wet conditions, so I may think about having a talented friend help me make some friction grip grooves with a dremel, and keeping with the glow in the dark theme, I may fill and detail work I do with some sort of GITD paint or something. How cool would that look!? Anyhow, if I feel the need to write later tonight, I'll hop on here and give more detailed impression of my new Byrd Crossbill, but until then, I'll be guzzling cold filtered water, in the dark, from my new Nalgene glow bottles. :)