glacier

Don't fuck with MC-Hawking, he's the Quake-master.

Saturday: Didn't go to Vantage to take a couple of newbies out for their first day on rock. Didn't climb in beautiful sunny weather with the other 12 peaople who weren't there. sunday: Stuck at home doing maintenance/improvement. Some entertainment in chasing the cat with the vacumm. Tried to get the motorcycle going, but hte old battery is too tired to take a charge, so off to Schucks for a new one to throw on the charger. Took in Touching the Void last night w/ the g/f and a couple of her coworkers. very well-done - the camera work was nicely nauseating in illustrating the shock and disorientation. "Oh shit, I'm going to die to Boney M."

Yeah, I've been meaning to add them to my first aid kit, along with the leeches.

Yeah, our firm is doing monitoring up there on the various rockslides and such. So go FA it quick while its hand to fists, then you can get another FA in the afternoon when it has expanded to OW, then chimney, then face... Also a lot of nice boulder problems, if you can catch them on the way by.

and you thought you had problems... squirrel jousting

Actually, the dinosaurs lived and adapted for about 180 million years, with at least one massive extinction within that time that may have been asteroid-induced (or WMDs - we're still looking). The mammels coexisted with the dinosaurs, to some extent, throughout a large portion of the Mesozoic, but were utterly out-sized and out-competed at that time. The only reason they survived to expand past the K-T boundary event was that they were a bunch of non-specialized scavengers that could live off rotting dino carcasses. And if Jackson's boob is the acme of our evolution, it's time to call down another bolide. oh, and Bush in 41.2 seconds

"The driver, a woman from Houston..." Well, that explains a lot.

Grenade! The best part is that the driver was claiming to be driving to Vancouver, WA. Another proud day to be an American.

That damn 12-inch cast iron frypan.

Fish Gear go to 'Repairs' on their order form. I've had them do cam slings and trigger bar repairs - call them about tricams.

changing world technologies

Comments from my favorite flaming conservative, Andrew Sullivan

Here's one for you Stoney. /shudder/

Save the Hubble Petition I dunno - for the cost and original sanfus with the Hubble, I think it has given more bang for the buck than nearly any other NASA project in recent years. Like the Mars rovers, it provides visual data that people can see and therefore sets off their imaginations. One of the arguements for the obsolecence of the Hubble is that it will be replaced by the James Webb telescope - however, if the Hubble is allowed to degrade, it would be several years before the Webb is launched and online (2011), and additionally, the Webb is an infrared telescope, so has a different mission than the Hubble.

"Examined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection"

Soon after 9/11 my folks sent me a package, which I received in battered and opened condition a couple of weeks later with the 'inspected for security' or some such bullshit sticker on it. The most amusing thing was that the jar of homemade jam my mom had sent was missing. We had a lot of running jokes regarding the state of homeland (homemade?) security after that. On the opposite end, I sent a 'rattlesnake egg' (look it up if you don't know what it is) to a friend in Saudi Arabia in the late 1980's - as the envelope was bulky and contained metal, local postal workers were required to open it. My friend was called to the compound post office, wondering what the big deal was- he watched as two Saudi postal workers, sweating bullets, tentatively opened the envelope, then jumped back screaming at the 'egg' released, buzzing. He immediately knew who sent it and sent me a rather amused letter.

SlinkyCorp. enters the aerospace business.

Stop me before I post again: mad scientist v. hamster

"Fart proudly." - Benjamin Franklin

And the Snaffle's big brothers: Badgers!

And just because it hasn't been posted for a while Wheeee!

Yer right, I usually just hip belay - then my kidneys are the only things getting cross-loaded.

I used to set up my belay similar, but the current wisdom (vie Petzl, I believe) is that clipping in through the waist loop and crotch loop can create a triaxial load on the belay biner. hence - the clip in through the belay loop. If you use a grigri, the setup actually works better, as the grigri is perpendicular to the biner, and the rope can be fed/controlled a bit smoother. Another reason - if you are on a multi-pitch, it can be a pain to thread the belay biner through the same loops that you are tied in to. final note - the belay loop is typically the strongest loop/stiching in the harness. Of course, always tie in through the waist/crotch loop combo though, because these points are reinforced to take the wear and tear of the rope abrasion.

Catching the Short Bus, ricer style.

Nah, after Charlie, from when he climbed at SG - he'd just wrap his catcher-mitt hands around some hold and pull.