Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 6, 2013

5

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 6, 2013 

“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

SENIORS BEWARE: 
GRANDPARENTS’ SCAM

STILL GOING STRONG

 Last year, I read an article about a “Grandparents’ Scam. What happened 
was grandparents would receive an urgent frantic call from a grandchild 
saying they were in a terrible bind and needed money immediately. It could 
be $1000 and even more! Sometimes the grandchild was away at college and 
therefore the call seemed believable, so the grandparent believed the story. 
I could imagine receiving a call like that and it would be terribly upsetting. 
Many people were duped by this. 

 I hadn’t heard about this lately until I stopped to visit a friend after 
her daughter’s untimely death. She told me about this terrible phone call she received. The caller 
pretended to be her granddaughter and said she was picked up for drunk driving and was going to be 
put into jail if she didn’t wire money for the fine. The girl was so hysterical, my friend actually could 
NOT rule out it wasn’t her granddaughter! Luckily her granddaughter lives in the front house, so a 
quick walk to the front ended her fears. Also my friend was told to mail the money to Mexico which 
didn’t make sense as the caller was supposedly calling from New York City.

 When I stopped to visit another elderly friend, I told her what happened. She said she 
received a similar call. What is so crazy is that my second friend doesn’t even have grandchildren. 
Her only son was killed by a drunk driver probably 30+ years ago! The caller said, “Grandma, you 
know who this is.” The caller was trying to get my friend to say the name of her grandchild, but she 
couldn’t. She had no grandkids!

 Please be leery of any phone calls like this. It’s sad these people prey on unsuspecting folks’ 
emotions. 

THE ESBIT POCKET STOVE - 

Reincarnated!

 By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” and other 
books. He leads self-sufficiency classes, and does a weekly podcast at Preparedness Radio 
Network. He can be reached at School of Self-reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041 or 
www.ChristopherNyerges.com]


At least 40 years ago, we all had to get the little Esbit pocket stove for 
our camping trips. They were made in Germany, but you could obtain 
them at some of the various camping supply stores that were more 
common back then. The entire stove is just a little larger than a pack of cigarettes,and it folds open 
so that the two “doors” become “legs.” You set the stove on the ground or a sturdy surface, and 
when open the bottom is just a little off the ground, so there’s an air space underneath. You add 
a little fuel tab, and you rest your metal cook pot on the top. It was ingenious, small, lightweight. 
You hardly knew it was there. 

When you purchased one of these little Esbit stoves, it came with little fuel tabs, probably trioxane. 
One tab was enough to bring a cup of water to a boil. 

But as campers with no money, we never bought fuel. We’d just stuff some twigs into the Esbit 
cooker, light them, and cook some soup or tea in a metal Sierra cup. Sometimes we just cooked in 
an old soup can. I’ve used my Esbit stove in the desert, in the mountains, and even in the parking 
lots of rest areas in California and Arizona!

In the last four decades, we’ve seen some amazing high-tech gear for the campers and backpackers. 
At a recent self-reliance and survival shows in Utah, I’ve seen no less than six new high-tech cookers, 
all very useful and – very expensive. There are many variations of the original Esbit cooker, 
generally which go by the name of “tommy cookers.” 

Never being a fan of heavy, bulky, expensive gear, I’ve never bought into many of the new products 
that flood the marketplace. Of course I do have a few such stoves, and they are great to store in 
your garage in case I ever have to cook in my backyard after an emergency. I have used mine in the 
backyard many times.

Getting back to the Esbit. I didn’t even know the company was still around, until I got one of the 
latest Esbit stoves to test. This time, it’s not the tiny stick-in-your-pocket cooker. But it’s the same 
stove on steroids. 

The new Esbit stove is bigger, a bit too bulky for most backpackers, but ideal to stick in the car for 
camping, or to keep handy for home emergencies.

It measures 13 " deep, 10" wide, and 4 inches high. It weighs around five pounds. It won’t fit into 
your pocket but it would f it into your trunk. I don’t think anyone would backpack with it, though 
you might just carry the grill along.

We tried cooking on the large Esbit cooker during an expedition to the local mountains, and found 
it to be convenient to use and easy to pack back up.

 I was with a group and Francisco Loaiza and his son Benjamin – mostly his son Benjamin (a 
recent Eagle Scout) – did most of the cooking.

While everyone agreed that they’d not carry this stove backpacking, it seemed ideal for the cookout 
for three to five people where a convenient stove in the trunk is just the thing.

 According to Francisco Loaiza, “I like the fact that it is constructed of stainless steel, and 
would resist rusting and I like how it folds up to a nice compact size. Some other barbecues are 
"oddly shaped" and would be more cumbersome to pack neatly. This is a basic box shape as opposed 
to the round mini barbecues I have used in the past.”

 We both liked the charcoal bag which allows you to neatly carry charcoal, and pack it within 
the stove. 

 Though this Esbit stove might be a bit small for a large group, it’s fine for a small family barbeque, 
car-camping, and emergency backyard use. It’s built of stainless steel, compact, and neatly 
fits into a convenient carrying case. Loaiza and I both noted that some stoves of this category have 
covers, which would allow one to use the stove as an oven. Though this new Esbit stove has no 
cover, one could easily be fabricated with aluminum foil.

 Esbit stoves are exclusively distributed in the U.S. by Industrial Revolution, whose web site 
is http://www.industrialrev.com/esbit.


ASTEROID EXOPLORER HAYABUSA2 MESSAGE CAMPAIGN

You Can Send a Message to an 
Asteroid

 The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is 
scheduled to launch the asteroid explorer “Hayabusa2” 
on the H-IIA Launch Vehicle in 2014. The spacecraft 
will arrive at an asteroid in 2018 to investigate it for 
one and a half years—and to leave there a collection of 
messages from the general public—before returning to 
Earth in 2020.

 JAXA will record and load names, messages and 
illustrations, from those wishing to participate, on the 
craft’s onboard devices—the target marker and the re-
entry capsule. The target marker is a marking device that 
will be dispatched from Hayabusa2 when the spacecraft 
lands on the asteroid. The marker will remain on the 
asteroid after the craft’s re-entry capsule departs for its 
return to Earth.

 The final stage of the Hayabusa2 mission will be a 
sample return. The craft will attempt to collect and bring 
back sand from the asteroid for study, with the goal of 
elucidating the origin and evolution of the solar system 
and learning more about the raw materials of life.

 The re-entry capsule will be detached from the 
Hayabusa2 main body to return to Earth while 
protecting sample sands from the asteroid from high 
heat at the time of re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere. The 
capsule plays the last important role for the Hayabusa2 
mission by carrying sand back from the asteroid.

 The asteroid probe “Hayabusa,” launched by JAXA 
in 2003, was a project designed to demonstrate various 
exploration technologies, looking toward the beginning 
of the age of round-trip exploration in the solar system. 
The chosen destination was “Itokawa,” an asteroid of only 
500m diameter. Combining an Earth swingby and use 
of ion propulsion engines in a unique way for cruising, 
the probe reached this unexplored body and showed us 
a marvelous world beyond our imagination. Hayabusa 
provided the first close-up look at a Near Earth Object 
(NEO).

 An improved version of the original Hayabusa probe, 
Hayabusa2 will visit a small asteroid whose orbit is 
similar to that of Itokawa, but whose composition is quite different. The target body of Hayabusa2 will 
be a C-type asteroid, considered to contain more organic or hydrated materials than S-type asteroids 
like Itokawa. What types of organic materials exist in the solar system, and is there any relation to life 
on Earth? The mission will challenge these questions.

 The following details are provided for those interested in sending a message to the asteroid:

• Campaign name:


“Let’s meet with Le Petit Prince! Million Campaign 2”

• Campaign period:


From April 10 through July 16, 2013.

• Items you can send:


Names, messages, collection of messages, and illustrations, which will be recorded and loaded onto 
Hayabusa2.

• How you can apply: Please refer to the following JAXA website: 


http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/hottopics/20130329.html

 Through this message campaign and Hayabusa2’s six-year space mission, JAXA hopes to increase 
worldwide public understanding of Japan’s space probe activities. 

 Incidentally, the phrase “Let’s meet with Le Petit Prince!” in the campaign’s name is derived from 
French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic story, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), in which the 
Prince is depicted as living on an asteroid.

 For the Hayabusa2 project outline and mission overview, please refer to the following site: http://
www.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/hayabusa2/index_e.html

 For background on JAXA, see their website: http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.


Hayabusa2 illustration? Akihiro Ikeshita