ScottP

I bought my first house in 1985 for $85,000. It sits in the Maple Leaf neighborhood just north of the U District. I couldn't really afford it, but I really didn't like the idea of paying for somebody elses wealth. I sold it 15 years later for $185,000. With the principal of $65,000 remaining when I sold it, I cleared about $120,000. A return of about $8,000 a year on the investment seems a better deal than the $7200 a year I figure I would have spent on rent in that same time. Figure your return on a house investment is half of what mine was and it still seems a good deal.

Do they yell, "Outta the way GRANDPA!!!" when they swerve past you? That was YOU! Whippersnapper little fucker!

Hmm... A peeve is an annoyance. An annoyance is the state of being annoyed or irritated. As I see it, if someone has a peeve it is something that bothers them, hence the liberal use of and "WTF" in the peeve thread.

My spawn at the moment of waking...

I looked at that peeve thread and thought, "Only in America can people be so bothered by such trivial shit." I get a kick out of driving the speed limit only to have people barrel up to me, swerve around me, give me the finger and then turn to see me pull up next to them at the next light.

Agreed, but you have to admit that as Lightnin Hopkins tunes go, "Mister Charlie" rocks more than most.

Closer to 3 body lengths. As for the worshippers, I would rather hit them than those pointy things behind them.

Lightnin Hopkins' "Mister Charlie" Robbie Robertson said that after he heard Lightnin play, he practiced and practiced until his fingers bled, trying to emulate the sound. It was only after all the pain that someone told him Lightnin Hopkins was the king of the slide guitar.

After Six was my first route in the Valley also. I remember it fondly. A good route to start on, for sure.

Yeah, what he said.

The one highlighted in yellow...

Moonstone Beach has some good boulders and a nice, topropeable sandstone crag. On the north end of the beach, is a short, steep face with an ancient bolt ladder and a newer bolted sport route. Across the highway is a steep face with good trad and bolted routes on it. Just north is Patrick's Point State Park with myriad possibilities: Wedding Rock has a number of climbs, including the classic Low Tide Crack on the west face of the first sea stack. Ceremony (?) Rock has a bolted route or two visible form the road as you drive toward Wedding Rock with a trail and stairs up the back for easy toproping. To the north and south of Wedding Rock along the water's edge are more faces that should have new development. There is another obscure route called California crack to the south that was an aid test piece into the 80's that probably goes free by now. The Humboldt County climbs website is easily found via google. It provides some ideas for modern routes and bouldering scattered up and down the coast. There is a climbing shop to the south in Arcata (used to be called Adventures Edge) that can give you some good beta. Have fun, it is a great place to play when the weather is good.

2nd and 3rd pitches of Rattletale 10a/b

Take a cue from the rats.

Goddamn! You can't see the forest for the trees!?! Woof!

He apparently fell from a small height onto someone else who was using a nail gun. The cops talked to the guy with the nail gun but determined it was an accident. I saw this on CNN this morning. The "resident expert" held up a tape measure and a drill bit and said, "You can see how long this nail is. It is pretty long. The guy is lucky, though he might have some neurological damage." No shit.

George Carlin's take on precognizance of death: "You might wonder why I would even suggest that someone can affect the manner and style of his death. Well, it's because of a mysterious and little-known stage of dying, the two-minute warning. Most people are not aware of it, but it does exist. Just as in football, two minutes before you die you receive an audible warning: "Two minutes! Get your shit together!" And the reason most people don't know about it is because the only ones who hear it are dead two minutes later. They never get a chance to tell us. But such a warning does exist, and I suggest that when it comes, you use your two minutes to entertain and go out big. If nothing else, deliver a two-minute speech. Pick a subject you feel passionate about, and just start talking. Begin low-key, but, with mounting passion, build to a rousing climax. Finally, in the last few seconds, scream at those around you, "If these words are not the truth, may God strike me dead!" He will. Then simply slump forward and fall to the floor. "

Be VERY cautious... I nearly burned my retinas pulling a pair of black panties off my first redhead.

A friend of mine was trying to fiddle in some pro while climbing wet rock on one of the pitches below the Tower on Serpentine Arete. He sketched and fell from about 15 feet up. Back pedaling down the slab, he hit the snowbank I was standing behind, bounced off the top and disappeared over the side. The rope zipped through my hand as I locked off the ATC I was using. He was't hurt, but I got second degree burns despite stuffing my palm in the snow once he had stopped falling and I was able to switch hands on the brake end.

CLAIM: "I went to Congress with the same intelligence. Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at." FACT – CONGRESS WAS OUTRAGED AT PRESENTATION BY THE WHITE HOUSE: The New Republic reported, "Senators were outraged to find that intelligence info given to them omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war." According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), many House members were only convinced to support the war after the Administration "showed them a photograph of a small, unmanned airplane spraying a liquid in what appeared to be a test for delivering chemical and biological agents," despite the U.S. Air Force telling the Administration it "sharply disputed the notion that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons." CLAIM: "The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years." FACT – WHITE HOUSE ESTIMATES OMIT INEVITABLE COSTS: The President's proposal to cut the deficit in half deliberately "omits a number of likely costs" such as the continued cost of Iraq and its own defense spending plans. All told, he is proposing roughly $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending, including $1 trillion to make his tax cuts permanent, $70 billion for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and $50 billion more for war in Iraq. The result is that the deficit is predicted to be "in the range of $500 billion in 2009" – not even near half of what it currently is. CLAIM: "I think, if I might remind you that in my language I called it a grave and gathering threat, but I don't want to get into word contests." FACT – BUSH MADE FAR MORE DIRE STATEMENTS BEFORE THE WAR: While the President did call Iraq a "grave and gathering" threat, that was not all he said. On 11/23/02, he said Iraq posed a "unique and urgent threat." On 1/3/03 he said "Iraq is a threat to any American." On 10/28/02 he said Iraq was "a real and dangerous threat" to America. On 10/2/02 he said, "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency" and that Iraq posed "a grave threat" to America.

Isn't the Wall Street Journal generally a non-photo publication?

"The problem with conservatives is they want it both ways or try to change the rules to suit their own ends."

In related news, Secret Service agents stormed a meeting of opponents of the Brightwater Sewage Treatement Project in a Seattle suburb after receiving reports of idle threats against shit...

I meant it to go in the Rapture thread.