Even "lighter" is the magnifying lens incorporated into the platform of many compasses.

Along the lines of starting fires with lenses, there are stories, perhaps urban legends (or maybe rural legends) of brush fires being started by suns rays inadvertently focused on super dry brush here in SoCal by broken bottles, etc. I have seen this mentioned in print but I don't know of any proven cases. Probably don't want to magnify this issue out of proportion.

Yes, but we can look at things through the lens of of 20/20 hindsight and focus our attention on the key points

As more of a novelty than anything else I recall hearing about someone who could successfully start a fire by smoothing a peice of ice into a lens and using that. I think there might be a youtube video out there somewhere of him demonstrating this.

An amusing stunt but probably not a practical strategy in most situations.

Fire starting with ice was done on Mythbusters. They also started a fire with a soda can and some chocolate - used the chocolate to polish the bottom of the can, used the can to concentrate sun rays on some tinder. Iirc, Dave Canterbury used a bag of urine to do the same.

All nice tricks, not gonna rely on them to start a fire in a situation.

I've seen it done at one of Mors Korchanski's classes. The sky wasn't even perfectly clear and even with the northern latitude of Edmonton, one of the instructors polished up a Coke can with chocolate and started up a tiny fire bundle. Then took the embers to a larger bird's nest and achieved fire. I didn't think he could do it in those conditions.

Since I am a Coke drinker and not a Pepsi one, I have heard it said that the curve on the bottom of a Coke can is a bit deeper and better shaped to do this. Just another reason to drink "the Real Thing"!

If its dark I'll use my lighter,If sunny I will start it with lens before sun goes down to save my lighter.

Cant wait to start practising with lenses.

No need at all to rush into marriage IMO.

A lot of people are just not happy no matter what.
We got married right out of school and spent a lot of time with just each other. Would leave work and head to a restaurant and sit there the rest of the evening then go home and go to bed and get up and go to work again the next day. Slept in late on the weekends and then went to the mall and ate then a movie, spent pretty much all day there. Waited 10 years before having kids.

One on one time together is definitely harder once you have kids. My hubby and I hit the road this weekend with our 9yo and 2mo to go visit our 23yo. It was a long drive and our little one slept most of the way while the boy put on his headphones and played video games, read books and did puzzles. My husband and I talked about everything under the sun for the entire drive. It's the first time since the baby was born that we've had that much uninterrupted to talk and it was awesome. :-)

Good for you! It is so easy to get tangled up in the everyday hassles of daily life, and not spend near enough time just talking with your spouse or partner. I know we always are better off when we find that time.

This is one of the reasons that my wife and I go road tripping several times a year. Our kids now are road warriors and do very well with this.