Jim

good ones: white-tailed, sitka, mule deer caribou/reindeer elk moose bison wild boar gray & fox squirrel cottontail rabbit & snowshoe hare pheasant bobwhite quail chuckar variety of ducks and geese almost any fish so-so: black bear pronghorn antelope ruffed grouse & sharp-tailed grouse ptarmagin peccary ugly: raccoon opossum woodchuck eels never touch store-bought cattle, unless travelling way-out.

Relax of the holiday - you're going to be busy soon enough. Physiology made my head hurt.

Congrats!! We're you off to?

Certainly parent involvement is key. And there are two parent families that let their kids drift. But there are many famlies, for whatever circumstances, that are trying their best but the kid needs some additional attention. I voulenteer when my kid was at home, sometimes I would take her with me, sometimes I had other kids come by our house. I don't mean that putting time into your community should be so structured - time helping others in your neighborhood or through your church or such is wonderful. My remarks were aimed more at the yuppies who would rather sit at home flipping thru the lates patagucci catalog or check on their investments than get off their butts and outta the house to make a larger contribution. You would be surprised how much time you waste during the week. Why not several hours a week helping out. IMO.

Yea, I can. Just as you can disagree. My opinion is that we are a very privlaged society that is growing increasing self-centered and unwilling to help some of society's less fortunate, and fixated on the latest TV shows or Hollywood scandal. Yet it's easy to spit vile about anything, while doing nothing to fix it. You like to climb? Cool, so do I. But I still find time to give something back. You should too.

The no child left behind stuff is a joke. For the relatively small amount of federal contribution to local schools the Bill is forcing major changes. While accountability and raising standards is a good thing, standardized tests should not be the only way to assess kids. Just teaching to the test and other "non-essential" items are going by the wayside. Folks say they care about kid's education. But they don't DO anything. There's so many kids out there that need some guidance and help. Sorry your experience wasn't so good Sisu. I've been tutoring kids for 15 years now, even while my kid was still at home. I've worked with some developmentally disabled kids, and kids just having a bit of a hard time. All of them appreciated it and worked hard. One kid I tutored twice a week during the school year and during the summer for 4 years in High School. We keep in touch and he's in college in NYC. Generally people are lazy. They want to have their nice lattes after going to the gym, or take Thai cooking classes in the evening rather than doing some voulenteer work. Teachers, health care folks, police, firemen (women) work hard enough. everyone else should be voulenteering on some steady basis. I mean WTF? Talk is cheap.

Why not, I'll latch onto the troll. Sisu is correct, public schools have to take all comers. Behaviorial problems, learning disabilities (of all sorts), larger classroom sizes, etc. And add to that the fact that kids in private school generally come from a higher income bracket with a two parent household where the parents are involved in the kid's schooling. Bravo to Sisu and other public school teachers for doing their best in a tough job

PP - you're doing the same thing Rummy did. Taking bits and pieces of unverified information, often produced by dubious sources and stitching together your own story. What a joke. The CIA analysts have already said they don't stand behind the conclusions given my Rummy and his buds. And of course the Administration will send a letter to the Senate committee that cherry picks their version, w/o the input of analysts. And of course they will leak it to the Standard. Get real. Nothing new here.

I've lived up there too. But if they're such rugged indviduals - then let them pay for the dang thing themselves and stop feeding at the federal trough.

Is this kinda stuff getting old or what? From both the Dems and the Reps. We're going into a nosedive of debt and the Energy Bill is loaded with pork for the industries. Here's a couple of examples. Retoractice exclusion from lawsuits for MTBE producers..this gasoline additive has fouled ground water in 28 states, and at least a dozen lawsuits have already been filed. So.... the industry will walk away and the public will pay the bill. Courtesy of Tom Delay ® Texas, where the chemical industy thrives. Ethanol subsidies. A load of pork for the midwest farmers via Tom Daschel (D). $20 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas, and coal industry. $18 billion in loan guarantees for gas pipeline in Alaska (if it's such a good idea, why not leave it to the market?) Courtesy of the Alaska representatives. Provisions to explore for oil and gas on the North Slope in areas previously agreed to be off-limits (1988) to protect sensitive areas and wildlife for native subsistence hunters. And of course - no increase in the fuel economy standards. That will help reduce our oil dependence. WTF? Both sides of the aisle are just plodding along the same well-worn trail. Though you have to give the Reps more credit as they own the house and senate these days.

Always bad to have engineers making calls on ecological science. Very pervasive heavy hand in this administration. I was at a conference on Western Rivers recently where the keynote speaker said that the Bush Administration was the worst ever regarding environmental issues. He got a standing ovation.

Man, is this fucked up or what? Cowboy government goes in against all warnings from international community and CIA, goes it alone. And now we're stuck. If we leave it will become a hornets nest. Carl Rove is telling the Pres we have to start pulling out to catch the election cycle. We still refuse to hand over any responsibility to the UN, so they say no thanks to help paying the bill. And it would look "bad" politically to send in the extra needed troops from the US. We're going to be paying the costs of this one, economically and politically for a long time.

Typical http://www.gristmagazine.com/muck/muck111203.asp?source=daily

Oh this is another good PR move. WTF - we blow up an empty warehouse? That will show them. I also see that Paul Bremmer is being called on the carpet to speed things up. The election cycle is going to catch up. This $87 billon plus boondoggle continues to be a grim tale.

Pun intended. Gotta love the IHs for crewing.

Can't have too much democracy ya know.

Exactly.

We had no intention of climbing that thing - just out for a trek in the park, and curious. We made a half-hearted attempt on Fitzroy, but we didn't really have the time to commit to it. Bailed after 4 pitches. We choose to climb some less commiting peaks and travel around for the several months we had. If you're really commited to climbing something big in southern Patagonia my best advice is make sure you have lots of time. You can literally sit around for 5 weeks waiting for a 3 day stretch of good weather. Quite frankley we could have gotten over our heads on Fitzroy real soon - we're not the big boys, just hackers. But we did get up Cerro Solo (glacier) at the head of the valley near Camp Bridwell, Cerro Madsen (mostly 3rd/4th, summit pinnacle 5th) near Fizroy, Orosorno (volcano near Puerto Montt), and great pinnacle rock climbing at the Refugio Frey (including Torre Principal) near Baralochie, Argentina. Didn't make it to ushuaia, but I heard from travellers that it's a cool place. Very good fly-fishing opportunities down there.

Well, not working for the government they won't listen to me. Tacomas seem ok, but for work way far from the road the 250 has gottten me up and down some steep stuff and back home. I have no use for it as my personal vehicle - we just use them for work. PS - congrats on the recent long run - those things are hard!!

Ohh. And this from a cubicle driver.

For fun the Suburu. For work I'll take the F250 with a winch.

I had to do some field work last week and a truck wasn't available so I had to rent one outta Portland airport. Got stuck with the dreaded Mercury Mountaineer. This POS climbs as well as its namesake. A little mud an snow and this thing gets stuck - I couldn't believe it!! I think a damm Saturn would have been better. The ground clearence on this thing is about that of a VW bug. Another fancy SUV best left in the QFC parking lot. The only satisfaction I got was having the thing get raked by branches on the overgrown road and seeing a bobcat on the way back down the mountain. Stupid yupster trucks.

PP - you crack me up! Just look at how the supposedly liberal media ripped the Regan mini-series from the tube under conservative pressure, how Sixty Minutes canceled segments on the tobacco industry and on the nuclear industry due to industry pressure. There is no liberal media bias because there is no liberal media in this country. OK - maybe Z Magazine with it's circulation of 10,000. Hell, PBS and NPR have canceled numerous shows on prisioner rights, AIDS, and Gay issues when the conservative and religious right came calling. Liberal bias, what a joke!

No doubt here - the revolving door of pols/consultants is bad - but the republicans are better at the big money games, meaning defense contractors. Look at the string of connections among the defense department - American Enterprise Institute - and the current admin. That said, the repubs are not alone. There is a lot of back-slapping across the aisle.

Oh man - if you're going all the way down there stay away from that crap! It's only been climbed a couple of times because it's a death trap. We hiked up the shoulder to just get a look at it and it's grim. If you need a long climb jump on the one of the Paine Towers. Some nice long treks up thru the British Camp and over the col. Honestly, there's more interesting climbing down there.