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mattp

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Everything posted by mattp

  1. mattp

    Clinton Two faced

    I don't think "history will show" there has ever been an administration which has so damaged our military, political, and moral authority in the world, driven up the national debt to such an extreme, baldly lied to Congress, the American people, the UN and everybody else so consistently, and took end-runs around the Constitution and the established political processes in such a dramatic fasion. Certainly not one that competed in all of these areas at the same time and certainly not in recent history. And what has he accomplished? They've gutted environmental regulations, passed a piss poor prescription drug subsidy that does as much for drug companies as anybody else, rammed through special tax breaks for the rich that were clearly so questionnable they could only get them passed with sunset provisions, and made your grandmother take her shoes off to board an airplane by telling us this makes us safer. He's pretty much had to punt on everything else -- even though his party had control of Congress for six years of his term. You're not seeing "gray," you're just plain blind. I don't like Hilary but, in all seriousness, what could she possibly do that would be WORSE?
  2. Trees are the enemy. The bas%#@s are reclaiming the Chief as we sit here, doing nothing.
  3. That was probably some realtor's hype. I've had more than one client sell or have homes in Ballard appraised at 375-400 in the last year. These were post WW2 homes in the flats with no view, but decent houses.
  4. I'm stating the obvious, but a good neighborhood varies from block to block or even house to house. We liked our old neighborhood of Ballard, because we could walk to the grocery store and it was a 24 hour community (well, as close as Seattle gets but they do have a Denny's). Now we live in a snobby area and you know what? Our neighbors are friendly and we actually socialize with them. I lived in Capitol Hill, Eastlake, Montlake, and Phinney Ridge. My sister lives in the Central District. I've got friends in Columbia City and West Seattle. All in all, I'm partial to Phinney and Ballard if you want to live somewhere that allows you to walk to the store, restaraunts, and etc. But damn if my buddy in West Seattle doesn't have a pretty good location. Don't underestimate the value of living close to where you work. Going home for lunch is nice!
  5. Krugman or somebody had an editorial in the Times over the weekend where they were setting forth a fairly compelling story of how the Bush administration had oil company lobbyists editing scientific reports or policy reports based on science in order to make it sound like the case for global warming was uncertain.
  6. I'd gladly skip the pain and the painkillers, myself. Good times last night for sure. Thanks to Ketch, Jon and Tim for setting it up!
  7. Anybody have a digi camera with USB output? Send me a pm.
  8. In a pinch, a bit of duct tape works OK. It doesn't last very long, but it will get you down that sloppy warm down-climb before it turns to trash.
  9. Consider Sahale Peak. It is right in the middle of the North Cascades, and offers close-up views of all the glacier-clad peaks in the heart of the range. The standard route is virtually a walk up with a bit of scrambling at the top that I'm sure you are up for if you've climbed a bunch of 14'ers. For a little more of an alpine feel, you can climb via the Quien Sabe glacier instead of the regular route, but you probably ought to know something about glacier travel if you are going to go that way. Another good choice would be Mt. Ruth, but it may involve a very steep snow slope in early season (it comes before you get to the peak itself, after leaving the pass on the approach). It too has a small glacier on the climb to the summit. These "smaller" peaks in the more alpine part of the range will not have the same character as the volcano's - you will be in the mountains more than above it all - but they'll give you a taste of what makes Washington special. If you want to climb one of the volcanos and get the glacier experience too, I'd recommend Mt. Baker via the Coleman Glacier route - but you should definitely have some who knows about glacier travel along with you. Baker is probably #1 in terms of bangs for bucks (a big mountain climb, great glacier ambiance, and short approach/low overall effort).
  10. mattp

    Zappa

    My guitar wants to kill your mama was always one of my favorites: You know, your mama and your daddy Saying I'm no good to you They call me dirty from the alley Till I don't know what to do I get so tired of sneakin' around Just to get to your back door I crawled past the garbage and Your mama jumped out, screamin' "Don't come back no more" I can't take it My guitar wants to kill your mama My guitar wants to kill your mama My guitar wants to burn your dad I get real mean when it makes me mad Later I tried to call you Your mama told me you weren't there She told me don't bother to call again Unless I cut off all my hair I get so tired of sneakin' around Just to get to your back door I crawled past the garbage and Your mama jumped out, screamin' "Don't come back no more" Later I tried to call you Your mama told me you weren't there She told me don't bother to call again Unless I cut off all my hair I get so tired of sneakin' around Just to get to your back door I crawled past the garbage and Your mama jumped out, screamin' "Don't come back no more" My guitar wants to kill your mama My guitar wants to kill your mama My guitar wants to burn your dad I get real mean when it makes me mad
  11. It is an odd quirk of human character that we will spend so much time and money taking care of an ornery little parasite that spends all day sleeping on top of our drycleaning and then goes outside to dig up the new flowers, but damn if we don't complain any time our little darling doesn't come around for his regular petting! I'm glad the little beast is doing better.
  12. I have both a Kodak format and a GAF slide projector.
  13. Fair enough, ChucK. The Times cut 2/3 of my letter where I wrote that I'd like to see the Democrats draw attention to what they might want to see done - like maybe they should push for REAL homeland security rather than making your grandmother take her shoes off when she boards and airplane, or maybe they should push Bush to actually try to involve all the regional powers into a discussion of Persian Gulf or Middle East regional issues, and that bringing the troops home is just one part of this playbook but the actual withdrawal date they selected makes it look like they are targetting - guess what - the 2008 election (on this point, I may agree with KK). My MAIN point was not that this was a bad move, but that it might be a bad FIRST move unless they follow up with something a little more visionary as in forward looking. I'm sorry they cut my letter without giving me a chance to take a second look, but they did at least print it.
  14. The NY Times published my letter today.
  15. Be carefull thinking you can take any advice here and it will answer your quest for the ideal day pack. The features that are most important vary from person to person and the comfort of carrying said pack will vary according to your body shape and the way you pack the thing. For a light-weight sack that you will carry to camp or to the base of a climb and then pull out of a larger approach pack, there are a number of packs that are little more than a stuff sack with straps on them (some have a slot in the back for a square piece of blue foam). This is a great way to go for many moderate peak climbs or alpine and subalpine rock routes. You asked about carrying skis and an axe and crampons, so you are looking for something bigger than a "klettersac" but don't overlook this option for most of the "alpine light" climbs around here and for many of the ski tours as well. I have always looked at features and overall pack weight when purchasing a day pack but at the end of the day it has just turned out that some packs were more comfortable than others after I started using them, or I found the zippers on one to be inconvenient... or something. You'll need to actually try a few packs before you find what you like. Features I like include a top lid that extends, and for skiing I like a zipper access to the bottom of the bag for pulling out a down sweater at rest stops even though most smallish day-pack sized bags do not have this. I prefer two straps on the back to hold the top lid as opposed to one because I very often tuck a pair of snowshoes or a rope or something under the top lid and these two straps may be enough to hold it without additional attachment whereas one almost never is. I like to have a pair of daisy chains up the back and don't care about special attachments for a shovel or crampons or even the ice axe loops that all packs have on them (most people find the ice axe attachments or even tool tubes essential). If there are two parallel daisy's and generous side compression straps you will have no problem attaching any tools or toys you want, and I prefer not to have extra loops and thingy's back there when I'm not using them. (Note: virtually none of the available packs have long enough side compression straps for my taste. The manufacturers cut them short to minimize grams and so the salespeople can display a pack that doesn't look as if it has things dangling from it, but the result is you cannot strap your ridgerest pad or other bulky items on the side of the pack.) If the waist belt is one of those bulky padded affairs, I like having the option to completely remove it when I may want to haul the thing up a chimney or maybe replace it with a less bulky piece webbing or something for rock climbing. The stiffened padded waist belt is often in the way of gear loops while climbing or when switching off the pack or hanging it at belay ledges. If you climb for very long and do a variety of climbing from ski mountaineering to alpine rock climbing, you are going to end up wanting more than one day pack.
  16. Thanks for that. I haven't been to Huntington's for eons, but when I was about twelve my buddy and I started scrambling up the Pinnacle (in summer conditions) and decided maybe we better retreat when we started seeing pitons all around us. The Presidentials are cool!
  17. I realize that Democrats have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar too, and I think it was for years the Democratic party that stood for graft in some eastern seaboard seaboard states, but don't you guys think Bush and Abramoff have really outdone themselves? And haven't the scandals of Bush, Reagan, and Nixon outshadowed any Democratic presidential foibles in the last 25 years? It would seam to me the Democrats could do a lot for themselves and for this country if they were to push some real ethics and accountability laws. Everyone knows lying to Congress is a felony, and everyone knows Administration officials lied to Congress repeatedly yet nobody is willing to utter the word "lie" in public. Everybody knows the kind of influence peddling and outright fraud that Abramoff was practicing was way over any line, yet barely a whimper. Surely they are not worried they'll have a hard time explaining how Bush has been far worse than Clinton, who was investigated non-stop for 7 years without finding any crime in Whitewater, travelgate, stripper gate, etc., and whose aids testified before Congress 85 times and the only lie they ever caught was a lie about a blowjob. Their near-silence on these issues and their complete failure to promote new or old law or policy about corruption in government says to the world: it's all just politics as usual and you can expect more of the same. Lame!
  18. I do keep hoping the Dem's will get their heads out of their asses and actually form a party platform, but thy just don't seem inclined to do so. I bet they could get somewhere with a national conversation about how America should renounce GWB's cowboy politics and we need legislation or some other mechanism to force the commander in chief to put more emphasis on diplomacy before starting new wars. I bet they could make progress by talking about how tortured prisoners have yielded sparse if any good information while our being caught engaging in these programs in several different locations over several years, proving it is not an abherration but a policy, has really hurt us. Even if the cynnics are going to say that there may always be cases where it is necessary and the spooks are going to do it anyway, some acknowledgment of what we've been doing and the enactment of tighter restrictions on handling prisoners would help our public image around the world and our self image at home. National medical care, too, is a topic just waiting for attention and I believe virtually all polls say it has popular support. And then there's global warming. And on and on. In all these areas and so many others, just a slight change in the criticize-Bush-but-put-forth-no-concrete-alternative current stance would muake some real difference. The Democrats seem paralized by the fear that they'll lose the moderate voters or alienate anybody who ever goes to church or whatever, but I don't think it would be hard to address these matters and say: HEY, we have room for religion and family values too. After all: unjust war, torturing prisoners, letting half the nation go without proper health care, and destroying the planet are NOT family values or even conservative goals. The real issue none of them seem to have the stomach to tackle is ethics and lobbying. Maybe they are just as rotten as the Republicans and fear that a Democratic administration is going to be caught by any reforms they might call for now, but I find it hard to imagine any tight group of Dems I've read about is as completely criminal as the Bushies and the Abramoff machine, and so intensely partisan while committing their greedy crimes.
  19. mattp

    Cohiba

    I'm a little ahead of myself. You are correct: it is next week. More than one of my Upmanns may have caught fire by then ... is scotch on the rock a good substance for putting out small housefires?
  20. mattp

    Cohiba

    I've got some Upmanns that are pretty good at about a fifth the price of those Cohiba's. These are blond wrapped, while I prefer maduro, but not bad never-the-less. Maybe we should have a smoke break at tomorrow night's Sausage Fest. Smokes go with sausage.
  21. The 24V Bosch Annihilator is a good unit, as is the 36V Hilty TE6, and I'm sure there are others. These new "super tools" can drill dozens of holes on a single charge as compared to the old Bosch Bulldog that would produce as few as six or eight holes in granite on a newly charged battery (I think they come with larger and smaller battery options, and my buddies have opted for the larger stronger batteries). However, depending on what kind of bolting you are doing, the new super tools may be overkill and they weigh more than their less manly predecessors or some of the “weaker” options out there even if you have to bring along an extra battery. I say this because the drilling was a very small part of virtually every route development effort that I've been a part of, and in practice I have rarely seen anyone do a good job of it when they placed dozens of bolts in a day. In Western Washington, at least, I think most folks spend at least a full day to explore, clean, top-rope, and carefully think through all the placements for just about any single pitch of bolt-dependant climbing. This means that, assuming you are trying to carefully craft a quality pitch as opposed to simply slamming something in you may not need all the extra fire power that the monster tools are packing. Of course your methods and your goals may vary, and maybe you want to put up a giant bolt ladder somewhere or replace all the anchors at an old crag, and the rock at some areas (e.g. North Bend) is very hard and may demand greater power. Your mileage may vary, and others will undoubtedly have a different view on this, but my point is that power is not necessarily everything and these machines are very heavy. Sometimes a smaller motor or even the old flintstone rig is a good choice.
  22. what the ALMIGHTY -mother -fuck -are you- the hell -referring to. sir????? I am referring to the fact that Bush and his warmongering buddies wanted to attack Iraq long before 911, and they lied to the American people and told us that Saddam helped Al Queda do the dirty deed.
  23. Yes, sanctioning misbehavior may have some of the effect you describe. However, I'd be much more confident that we are taking corrective action if, while going after Gonzalez, the Dems would promote a broader discussion of how the "system" works and how we might change it. Of course, this might risk having the evil Republicans allege that a Democratic administration could be tempted to or has done something similar and it might risk opening up a political can of worms that Democratic commitee chairs cannot control. At the heart of it I'm starting to think that chipping away at the current Administration may be satisfying and there may be some side affect as you describe (where future Administrations or individual government officials will fear potential sanction if they act improperly), but more than the side affect, we will only be further creating the impression that Washington is mired in an unproductive sword fight between Dems and Repubs if the main point in all of this is "we're going to bust the Bushies."
  24. I've been suffering some serious back pain and have not even been able to sit in front of the computer. Yesterday I had an MRI and started a dose of steroids so, as long as the steroids hold anyway, I may be able to post here.
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