"Bottled Air" Business

I have some genuine Florida Beach sand I'll sell for $100 to some lucky individual...

Turn anyplace into a beach with Solar's vacation in a jar!

Cheaper and safer than a vacation!!!

Hurry! Supplies Limited!!

Hey if you would have told anybody 20 years ago you were going to get rich selling bottled water they would have laughed you out of the room....

Hey, didn't I read a long time back that one of the Beach Boys used to sit with his feet in a bowl of sand in his apartment while he wrote their music? That none of them were truly "beach boys"? Could be true.

I grew up on the beaches of California while they were starting, and never saw any sign of them while I was there. But mine were Northern to Central California beaches. Maybe they didn't slum, up our way.

Not exactly:

Mountain Valley Water, located just outside of Hot Springs Ark. has bottled and sold water since 1871.

Place Name: Hot Springs National Park Established: 1871 Mountain Valley Spring An exclusive combination of taste and tradition has made Mountain Valley Spring Water "America's Premium Water" since 1871.

There's a sucker born every minute.

Air should be bagged, not bottled. Just run the numbers.

I'm afraid he's right....I'm changing over....

Solar's Bag-O-Sand on sale now!

Nice to have some people here offered their unique products for sale,.. But the one million question is: Have you ever succeeded in finding someone to buy yours as that british family did??

Wow! I at least expected the air to be compressed! These folks are selling empty jars!

I'm well aware of the pollution in certain areas, and can imagine rich people there buying something akin to scuba tanks filled with fresh air from pleasant-smelling locations, but that kind of money for an empty jar? Incredible!

Observing how they are 'filled', I wonder if they charge extra for any included butterflies...

Just for the record, and I am NOT one of the people who buy into any of this, but, these, from the news in the US.

www.newsweek.com/44-page-water-menu-americas-first-water-sommelier-288019

And there were MANY more like it, on a simple Google search, including BusinessInsider talking about the person who went to a Water Tasting with a Water Sommlier (looks SO much better in leading Caps, no? So much more believable) and found it wasn't as much of a hoax as it seemed. Really?

Then this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar

There were SO many Google replies I couldn't bring myself to limit the choices. Just Google "Oxygen Bar".

These, I think (AND I think this IS germane to OPs question, because NONE of these are places where the air, technically, "will not sustain human life", unless one is suffering a compromised cardio, and maybe vascular, system already) are indicative of people with way too much A)Money, B)Time, and C)Regard for their "cool quotient".

OTOH, and I think this has to be said, I have read some disturbing reports about places where during certain times of day, or seasons of the year, the air quality is SO compromised that healthy people (i.e., not compromised as mentioned above) find it impossible to sustain a "normal" (for their area) lifestyle. I haven't researched this, but would suspect we are talking about places similar in ecology and geography to the LA basin in Southern California, USA, but with the added ecological burden of rampant and rapacious material production business practices, such as one might have found in Detroit or Flint Michigan, USA, or in the Mon-Ohio valley of Pennsylvania, USA, (around Pittsburgh) 80-100 years ago. Combining the two circumstances would seem to be ingredients for a potentially lethal "air cocktail".

My two cents, as an unabashed and confirmed "GLOBAL" climate change denier. I DO realize we've done LOCALIZED environmental harm, and we need to fix it. Engineers, without political bent, could go a long ways toward identifying the problem areas, and the specific fixes. But not with "Global" in front of the problem description.

So, to the OP, two takes. Are we talking about "for fun?" Stupid, assinine.

Are we talking about for health? Could be, in some places, truly "life or death".

One reason why I don't believe in One World Government, or even one National Government overriding States Rights, as we are continually heading toward here in the US. One size NEVER "fits all".

When I grew up on the farm, I drank water out of the same creek as the cows.

It was probably cleaner than any water I drink now in the big city.

With you there. I still drink creek water when I know the spring, or enough of the creek above my source, to know that the system of filtration God designed has had time to do it's job. And it tastes far better than anything I'd ever even think of buying. Paying for water only makes sense when I need the container. And I try to keep those reusable for as long as possible, and re-use them.

Drinking water from a stream jogged a distant memory - Lyn. A reply a bit OT I know - but others can rate me on this.

We were evacuated to Lynmouth from London when we lost our home in 1940 and lodged in a primitive row of riverside cottages by the edge of the East Lynn (no relation to you I guess).

No gas or electric. Lighting by candle and oil lamp. No running water. Cooking and heating was on a coal fired range. We had plenty of river water for general ablutions - scooped up in a bucket - and we had an outside toilet (but I don't know where the sewage went) but with hindsight I can guess, as it could explain why we were advised to fetch drinking water from a nearby spring up the hill - it trickled out of a short horizontal pipe buried in the wooded hillside - and took ages to fill a bucket (a white enamel pail kept for the job) - the time taken to fill was why Mum sent me to fetch the water - and to go back to tell her when it was full.

The first time I did it I found it was too heavy (Mum knew it would be but - I didn't - I was only 5) - but rather than run back to tell Mum - I thought I would be a hero and I dragged and bumped it along best I could - spilling it as I went - only to trip trying to lift it over the doorstep to lose most of what was left. Oh well - Mum's know best.

Next time I only part filled the bucket - and had to make numerous journeys. After a while I developed strategy of maximum water - minimum trips. And when to expect the fastest flow - sometime soon after heavy rain.

It's surprising how much water 3 people can drink.....but it was free!

PS: We were only there for a few months - sadly these cottages got demolished in the Lynmouth flood disaster in 1952.

Ablutions ! yes it was a new word for me as well in 1956 when I was called up for National Service in the RAF. How about 'Reveille' ? it was a word I learnt at the same time.

In military terms the two go together in a practical way. 'The ablution' the toilet block in our barracks had (in those days) a tank of hot water that you mixed with cold to wash/bathe. Trouble was, the last men in had to wash in cold water because the hot water had all gone.

If you did not like washing in cold water, like me in the Winter when I first joined, you leapt out of bed at Reveille to be first in.

On a technical note, did your contribution to pumping water add to or subtract from the work done.

dkwarner. Yes, how right you are. Reveille and Boy Scout days and summer camps long before the RAF. I should have remembered. Which prompts - fatigues - and latrines - all new to us kids then.

Fetching water in dixies and billycans...in a trek cart....spilling most of it if running over rough ground....I mention the water aspect to get back on topic...re Ali18 at #27

That must have been a terrible ordeal for the grown ups, everyone I suppose.

I can't imagine the hardships everyone had to endure.

On a happier note, one summer, when I was about your age, we spent two months in a mountain cabin while my father worked for the US Park Service.

We had outdoor toilets and a water faucet that was constantly running into the sink and down the drain, onto the hillside. It too was spring fed.

My brother and I built a canal system that fed into "lakes" about 3 feet across down the hill. It was great fun for us and my mother was used to cooking on a wood stove since that's what we had on the farm in Rural Arkansas. And an outhouse and outside water pump as described by dkwarner.

You say hardships, Lyn, and looking back from today, yes it was, but we knew no better. It was a matter-of-fact life. We just got on with it.

There were shortages and rationing because of WW2, but as things began to appear on the shelves again in the late 40's we ((Dad) didn't have the money to pay for them anyway - but in spite of that - I recall those days with a sense of happiness.

But digging a 3 foot canal sounds like hard work to me even if it was fun.....phew!

No, no. The canal was only 6 inches deep. The ponds were 3 feet across.

Because I was the youngest, my ponds were at the end of the canal and regularly overflowed.

There was my brother, sister and three male cousins and the boys played all summer.

Like you, I didn't know that we were poor. Well, we had a 300 acre farm and ate beef, pork and home grown veggies out of the garden, so we weren't really poor.

We went to California every summer to visit relatives while dad worked and the farm took care of itself.

That's how we care to be in the Sierra Nevada's in the summers.

Lyn, OT I know, but, where were you in the Sierra's? I lived in Pollock Pines for 4 of the happiest years of my life (Prior to that, in Oregon, where it was even happier). Some of our other respondents are also from/in the Sierra's (One in Placerville, or Hangtown, as we called it, just 13 miles down the mountain from Pollock Pines). Who knows, maybe someday we can get the Old Sierra Dog's (just came up with that, change it to meet your tastes) together for a cup of coffee and chat about old times.

BTW, before the Sierra's, we lived largely as you guys have been describing. We had a flush toilet, indoors (!), but flushing was with a bucket. Our water came from a seep cistern, and we heated it on a woodstove. That was in the late 50's-early 60's. We didn't have fields, nor room for any quantity of grown goods, but we were still never hungry. No new toys or new clothes as kids, and one pair of shoes had to last. But as my older sister said a few months back (we are in our 60's), we didn't know we were poor till we moved to the city (Sacramento, California) and people told us we were poor.

We didn't believe we HAD been poor, but we sure had no problem seeing how poor living in the city was. After that we went to the Sierras, where we had less, but loved it far more.

Poor, like many things, appears to be A)relative, and B)in the eye of the beholder.

We were south of you in Sequoia National Park. Our location was was literally in the middle of nowhere.

I was too young (5-6) to remember much, but I do remember my mother, sister, brother and I walked to Atwell Mill from our camp one day. I got so tired that I waited by the side of the road for them to return. They didn't worry about me, there was no one else around for miles.

The other name I remember from that time is Mineral King.

I haven't been back there since 1965.

My grand parents lived in Woodlake at the time.

As I remember, the Sierras still have a lot of " literally in the middle of nowhere ". And it doesn't help when discussing "Where were you? Oh we were in ...?"that they cover SO MUCH territory. But, they are, after all, a mountain range.

I don't think we ever made it to Sequoia National Park, though we did stay in places South of us like Calaveras Big Trees, which I think may be in the area. Most of my mountain rambling, since I was only 8-about 12 years old up there, was further up, toward Timberline and over into Lake Tahoe, and more or less East and West of us by 20 miles or so, the distance stuff with my folks or my friend's folks, and anything up to about 2o miles out, on my bike. Like you, and even though there were, in summer, a LOT of tourists in our area, my folks didn't worry too much about us rambling all day, and them not hearing from us from sunup to sundown. Practical people, really. And maybe they also thought since we were running up and down 200 and 300 foot cliffs exploring caves, abandoned Ghost Towns, and old ruins, when we weren't actually ON our bikes, no weirdos be able to grab us if they wanted to.

I'm pretty sure my folks weren't HOPING we'd get grabbed, anyway. Although then I think back on the trouble I cause them, it might have made more sense that way.

We went to KCNP during one of our trips up there.

It's sad about the drought (tcmtech is all wet dry) and all the damage it has done.

I remember us driving our pickup down/along a fallen Redwood Tree that was part of a road, somewhere. I can't find the picture of that my dad took of that and can find no photos of it now. We drove through the live tree in Sequoia many times.

We've lost many Pines in Arkansas from dry weather and Bark Beetles.

It seems that the discussion has turned into reminiscences,.. Let's go back to the essence of the topic, which is: How do you see it??

Personally, What has really attracted me to such a strange piece of news is the buyer's position!!.. How did he make sure it's a genuine product as the seller has mentioned in the report <<It's a genuine product. We've never shipped a jar that was just filled in the kitchen or the garage at home>>??

At any rate, This reminds me of Einstein's quotation:"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,.."

I couldn't tell (or perhaps didn't pay close enough attention when I looked at the photos) to see what kind of seals were on these jars. I presume these were shipped by air, probably involving more than one takeoff and landing. There is a fairly good chance that some of the original air leaked out, and other air, likely including some jet fuel vapors/exhaust leaked in.

Even if the seals were perfect, I strongly suspect that any benefit to the end user was, to a large degree, psychological.

Vaguely similar to the pet rock craze of a few years back...

Why not genuine ? Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to contrive something that is not genuine to look genuine - and why bother when they're knee deep in the real stuff.

But on shipping there might be a need to condition the bottle to get the temperature right to recreate the original source.

For instance, I have got a tiny piece of the Athabasca Glacier I brought back from Canada 20 years ago. I keep it in a small phial in the freezer to maintain the integrity of the sample. If I let it melt, others think it is just Canadian tap water when I show it to them.

Discussions here have a way of taking on a life of their own.

Depending on the interest shown, topics wander all over to those which are more interesting to the participants..

The original topic is but a passing novelty having little or no scientific nor engineering interest.

Your question may have generated more interest on a psychology, or advertising forum.