hi-tech toys for christmas

Over the last few years I have been feeling fairly satisfied with the amount of *things* that we have in our home. We go through regular purgings every so often, and it seems to do the trick when it comes to keeping a minimum of junk in the home. While I haven't bought into the HDTV, flat panel, iPod fads yet, I must admit that my latest hobby (underground exploration) has got me eyeing some new hi-tech toys that would prove very useful.

Over at PPP, there was an opportunity to review a company called OpticsPlanet. While I don't feel like asking for a new pair of sunglasses this Christmas, some of their night vision and thermal imaging optics are really cool looking, particularly the hands-free night vision cameras. I can imagine strapping one of these things onto my head for my escapades in the darkness. It beats having to stop every so often to try and snap photos, and when I tried to use my digital camera to grab some video, it didn't work so well. Since the only light down there was coming from my flashlight, and the flashlight and camera weren't inline or connected in any way, the video capture came out dark and jumpy.

My only real concern is if I were to smack my head on some rocks I don't know how durable these cameras are, and I'd hate to spend several hundred (or up to several thousand) dollars on a high-tech camera and then break it while I'm crawling on my stomach through a tunnel. So I'll have to really dig through their site to narrow it down to the truly heavy duty products. I also noticed that they sell hand-held GPS units, which I've been looking at for some time now. I'm sure would help with finding remote caves, but I doubt I'd be able to pick up a signal once I'm beneath the earth, under several hundred feet of solid rock.

They offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee and free shipping on orders over $29.95. The sites easy to navigate, although many of the sub-pages are extremely busy with tons of links scattered throughout every paragraph to other sub-pages. It makes the descriptions kind-of hard to read, so I just skip down to the pictures below. If you know someone into caving or any type of night-time exploration and you are feeling hard-pressed on finding a gift that will truly "wow" them, check out these night vision scopes and cameras. Try to get one that can fit over (or under) their caving helmet. I'm going to do some more research and add one to my Christmas list, along with some cheaper items from the web that I feel would be useful in cave exploring like glow-in-the-dark chaulk!