chelle

I haven't looked at the ingredients label but I think the primary ingredients in super chalk are rubbing alcohol and chalk particles. One thing I use on my feet to keep them from getting too moist and causeing blisters is athletes foot spray. The miconazole dries out the skin and toughens it up a bit. A tip I got from an ultra runner after I got wicked blisters on a warm summer mountaineering trip.

check your pm's.

Clinicals are over. See you at the Nickerson around 7ish.

No crazy, but the discussion should happen over in Spray...

Here's what the NYTimes is reporting. February 1, 2005 King Sacks Government, Assuming Power in Nepal By AMY WALDMAN NEW DELHI, India, Feb. 1 - For the second time in three years, Nepal's king has dismissed the government and declared a state of emergency, plunging the conflict-plagued Himalayan nation into further crisis. Professing himself a champion of multiparty democracy, King Gyanendra announced on state-run television today that he had sacked the country's multiparty government, including the same prime minister he had dismissed in October 2002, then later reinstated. He said he would form a new government under his “chairmanship.” The Associated Press reported that soldiers had surrounded the houses of the prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and other government leaders, and that armored military vehicles were patrolling the streets of Katmandu, the capital. There were reports that leaders of two political parties - the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) - that have regularly clashed with the monarchy were being detained in their homes. Land and mobile phones in the capital were not working, and officials with Jet Airways and Indian Airlines in New Delhi said flights were not being allowed into or out of the city. A Thai Airways flight, unable to land, returned to Bangkok. The city, once a famed tourist destination, was essentially cut off from the outside world, much as it has been under recent blockades mounted by Maoist rebels the government is fighting. The government of the mountainous, majority-Hindu kingdom has been fighting an insurgency since 1996, when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announced that it intended to abolish the constitutional monarchy and establish a people's republic in its place. At least 10,000 people have died since then. The third of three ceasefires between the two sides broke down in August 2003. The country, which saw the first introduction of multiparty democracy in 1990, has been flailing in its efforts to create a sure-footed democracy. The king, often operating behind the scenes, has either appointed weak governments or acted to weaken them. Parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for November 2002, have yet to be held. The current government was appointed last July after street protests prompted the previous prime minister to resign. In his announcement, the king accused the government of failing to conduct parliamentary elections and being unable to restore peace in the country. "A new Cabinet will be formed under my leadership," he said. "This will restore peace and effective democracy in this country within the next three years." The response from India, Nepal's neighbor, and until now largely a supporter of the king, was quick and blunt. “These developments constitute a serious setback to the cause of democracy in Nepal and cannot but be a cause of grave concern to India,” a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said. “The latest developments in Nepal bring the monarchy and the mainstream political parties in direct confrontation with each other. This can only benefit the forces that not only wish to undermine democracy but the institution of monarchy as well.” Analysts also disagreed. “This is a fairly disastrous decision - the worst possible option,” said Dr. Ajay Sahni, the director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. The move, he said, would alienate the king from all of the major political forces in the country even as it did nothing to strengthen his hand in fighting the Maoists. “The belief is that he can concentrate all power and will consequently be able to exert this power in more coordinated manner,” Dr. Sahni said. “The idea is that to handle insurgenc of this manner you need dictatorial powers. It is an old miscalculation.” The army, outnumbering the Maoists at best seven to one, was stretched far too thin over the country's formidably mountainous terrain to defeat the Maoists, he said. Diplomats from western and regional powers backing the government have offered similar assessments that the conflict cannot be won militarily. At present, the government's control in much of the country has been reduced to district capitals, with no government presence to speak of in the terrain beyond. Both it and the Maoists have regularly resorted to human rights abuses in an increasingly vicious war. A recent report by Amnesty International criticized growing numbers of unlawful killings by both sides, saying that neither government soldiers nor Maoist cadres were being held accountable for extrajudicial killing of combatants or civilians. But Dr. Sahni predicted that foreign military aid to the government would continue, even with the latest blow to democracy. A Maoist ascension in Nepal, he said, had tremendous potential to destabilize the region, where several countries, including India, are also battling left-wing insurgencies. “What do you do - abandon him?” he said of the king, who came to power in 2001 after a palace massacre left his ruling brother dead.

I find this discussion interesting in a couple ways... 1) A bunch of men discussing how women might feel about how their accomplishments are portrayed in a book and debating the merits of feminism. 2) I would bet dollars to doughnuts that back when Allison Hargraves died and left two small children without a mother many men on this site would certainly have a heated discussion about how it was irresponsible of her to pursue her climbing aspirations given the risks.

The New Bush Doctrine, by George Soros President George W. Bush's second inaugural address set forth an ambitious vision of the role of the United States in advancing the cause of freedom worldwide, fueling worldwide speculation over the course of American foreign policy during the next four years. The ideas expressed in Bush's speech thus deserve serious consideration. "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," Bush declared, "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." There is a bow to diplomacy in the assurance that fulfilling this mission "is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend our friends and ourselves by force of arms when necessary." Similarly, Bush recognizes that outsiders cannot force liberty on people. Instead, "Freedom by its nature must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities." Finally, there is acceptance of diversity, for "when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way." I agree with this goal, and have devoted the last fifteen years of my life and several billion dollars of my fortune to attaining it. Yet I find myself in sharp disagreement with the Bush administration. It is not only that there is a large gap between official words and deeds; I find that the words sometimes directly contradict the deeds in a kind of Orwellian doublespeak. When Bush declared war on terror, he used that war to invade Iraq. When no connection with Al Qaeda could be established and no weapons of mass destruction could be found, he declared that we invaded Iraq to introduce democracy. We are about to convert elections in Iraq into a civil war between a Shi'a-Kurd dominated government and a Sunni insurrection. In Iraq and beyond, when Bush says that "freedom will prevail," many interpret him to mean that America will prevail. This has impugned our motives and deprived us of whatever moral authority we once had in intervening in other countries' domestic affairs. If, for example, we offer support to Iranian students who are genuinely striving for greater freedom, we are now more likely to endanger them and reinforce regime hardliners. To explain what is wrong with the new Bush doctrine, I have to invoke the concept of open society. That is the concept that has guided me in my efforts to foster freedom around the world. The work has been carried out through foundations operating on the ground and led by citizens who understand the limits of the possible in their countries. Occasionally, when a repressive regime expels our foundation – as has happened in Belarus and Uzbekistan – we operate from the outside. Paradoxically, the most successful open society in the world, the US, does not properly understand the first principles of an open society; indeed, its current leadership actively disavows them. The concept of open society is based on the recognition that nobody possesses the ultimate truth, and that to claim otherwise leads to repression. In short, we may be wrong. That is precisely the possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge, and his denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the US not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers our policies high-handed and arbitrary. President Bush regards his reelection as an endorsement of his policies, and feels reinforced in his distorted view of the world. The "accountability moment" has passed, he claims, and he is ready to confront tyranny throughout the world according to his own lights. But we cannot forego the critical process that is at the core of an open society – as we did for eighteen months after September 11, 2001. That is what has led us into the Iraq quagmire. A better understanding of the concept of open society would require us to distinguish between promoting freedom and democracy and promoting American values and interests. If it is freedom and democracy that we want, we can foster it only by strengthening international law and international institutions. Bush is right to assert that repressive regimes can no longer hide behind a cloak of sovereignty: what goes on inside tyrannies and failed states is of vital interest to the rest of the world. But intervention in other states' internal affairs must be legitimate, which requires clearly established rules. As the dominant power in the world, America has a unique responsibility to provide leadership in international cooperation. America cannot do whatever it wants, as the Iraqi debacle has demonstrated; but, at the same time, nothing much can be achieved in the way of international cooperation without US leadership, or at least active participation. Only by taking these lessons to heart can progress be made towards the lofty goals that Bush has announced.

You're a great climbing partner and friend. Travel well and have a blast!

keep sending back what you get, but get yourself off the list and help save some paper.

Call the 800 number on the junkmail and tell them to take you off their list permenantly, then mail back the crap they mailed you and call the number on the back of the mailer, then call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (567-8688) and opt out of junk mail for life. more info here.

what a load of biased BS Whatever dude. I formed my opinion after being an active member of a fairly middle of the road christian church for 6-7 years. I got tired of seeing little scandals in that community of a few hundred people, where no consequences were imposed as long as they said "sorry, I guess I was a bad Christian. But I have asked for forgiveness and I know God has forgiven me." I also got tired of the way they treat other people who do not walk their exact talk, people of other faiths and non-believers. I finally got so disgusted by the hypocritical holier than thou attitude that I walked and have not looked back. If that makes me biased, so be it. Maybe your personal experience is different and your OPINIONS are BIASED by that experience. Think about it.

Those are just more sins to confess and be forgiven for. As long as they say "sorry" in the proper way they are completley absolved. I've been troubled by how hypocritical christianity (especially born agains and charasmatic christians) behave for years. The only faith that I've found where people truly try to live by the golden rule is budhism. The current form of christianity being displayed by the Shrub is completely devoid of compassion for anyone other than his "base" aka corporate America. Bill I share many of your sentiments.

Sounds like fun. Where are the photos?

of that monkey that is getting sworn in today... From The New York Times: January 20, 2005 Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER On the eve of President Bush's second inauguration, most Americans say they do not expect the economy to improve or American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House, and many have reservations about his signature plan to overhaul Social Security, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. Seventy percent, however, said they thought Mr. Bush would succeed in changing the Social Security system. The poll found that 43 percent of respondents expect most forms of abortion to be illegal by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House, given Mr. Bush's expected appointments to the Supreme Court. The Times/CBS News Poll offered the kind of conflicting portrait of the nation's view of Mr. Bush that was evident throughout last year's presidential campaign. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were generally optimistic on the eve of Mr. Bush's swearing-in about the next four years, but clear majorities disapproved of Mr. Bush's management of the economy and the war in Iraq. Nearly two-thirds said a second Bush term would leave the country with a larger deficit, while 47 percent said that a second Bush term would divide Americans. A majority of those surveyed said that they did not expect any improvement in health care, education, or in reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly by January 2009. Just under 80 percent, including a majority of those who said they voted for Mr. Bush in November, said it would not be possible to overhaul Social Security, cut taxes, and finance the war in Iraq without increasing the budget deficit, despite Mr. Bush's promises to the contrary. The findings, coming after a tensely competitive election, suggest that Mr. Bush does not have broad popular support as he embarks on what the White House has signaled would be an extraordinarily ambitious second term, which in many ways will commence with Mr. Bush's swearing-in and speech on Thursday. That could undermine his leverage in Congress, where even some Republicans have expressed concern about major aspects of Mr. Bush's Social Security plans. Mr. Bush's job approval rating is at 49 percent as he heads into his second term - significantly lower than the ratings at the start of the second terms of the last two presidents who served eight years, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. And 56 percent said the country has gone off on the wrong track, about as bad a rating Mr. Bush has received on this measure since entering the White House. Still, as Mr. Bush enters what the White House views as a critical two-year window before his power begins to wane, the poll suggests that Mr. Bush's effort to lay the groundwork to reshape the Social Security system has had some success. Fifty percent said Social Security is in crisis, echoing an assertion that Mr. Bush has made and that has been disputed by Democrats and independent analysts. Answering another question, 51 percent said that while there were good things about Social Security, the system needed "fundamental changes," while 24 percent said it needed a complete overhaul. But 50 percent said it was a "bad idea" to permit workers to divert part of their payroll taxes into the stock market, as Mr. Bush is expected to propose. That number leaps to 70 percent when the question includes the possibility that future guaranteed benefits would be reduced by as much as one-third. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were not likely to put their own Social Security money into the stock market, and a majority said that in pushing for a Social Security overhaul, Mr. Bush was more interested in helping Wall Street than protecting the average American. "I think it's a bad idea," said Tina DeSantis, 46, of Pennsylvania, who identified herself as a Republican. "People that I've encountered don't necessarily have the tools necessary to make proper decisions with them and end up losing money." And Ilene Bernards, 46, a Republican from Clinton, Utah, said she feared that permitting people to invest in private accounts would end up destabilizing the system. "We would be farther in the hole than we already are with Social Security, because at some point if people use their money and lose it and they're old, then somebody is still going to have to take care of them," Ms. Bernards said. The nationwide telephone poll was taken Friday through Tuesday with 1,118 adults, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The poll suggests that in some ways, many Americans are expecting Mr. Bush to succeed in making major changes in the political landscape over the next four years. That is most notable on the question of abortion; 71 percent expect Mr. Bush to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to outlaw abortion. A majority of Americans, 71 percent, support some forms of legal abortion, albeit some with more restrictions than now exist. Tony Rhoden, 53, an independent from Queens, said of the president regarding abortion: "He is against it, so obviously whatever judges he picks are going to be ruling in his favor. He wants someone who thinks the way he does. It seems to me that with everybody he's putting into place whatever he wants, they're going to get for him." The poll also found that concern about the war in Iraq is rising: 75 percent said Mr. Bush had no clear plan for getting out of Iraq, a sharp jump up from 58 percent last fall, and a majority said that he routinely exaggerated conditions there. And 75 percent said they believe a significant number of American troops will still be stationed in Iraq when Mr. Bush leaves the presidency. The poll also found that 53 percent of Americans think the war in Iraq will not have been worth the loss of American life if unconventional weapons are never found. A majority of respondents said that Iraq, which has been plagued by violence over the last week, is not secure enough to proceed with elections in two weeks, as scheduled. However, the respondents are divided over whether the elections should be postponed in the hope of some sense of order being restored there. In any event, only 15 percent of respondents said that elections would produce a decline in violence in Iraq; 40 percent said it would create more violence. Respondents do not appear to share Mr. Bush's concern about the urgency of the Social Security problem, in the context of other problems facing the nation. Asked to name the most important problem facing the country, just 3 percent named Social Security, while 11 percent named Iraq and Osama bin Laden, and 10 percent identified "war" and the economy. Still, 54 percent of respondents said they do not expect the Social Security system to have enough money to pay them pensions when they retire, a figure that has not varied much since the Times/CBS News Poll started asking the question in 1981. And younger people were much more likely to support the change Mr. Bush is seeking than older Americans. On taxes, another area where the Bush administration is expected to make a major effort over the next four years, 54 percent said investment and interest income should be taxed at the same rate as wages. Republicans have been moving to reduce the tax on investments and interest as a way of overhauling the tax system and encouraging business investment. At the same time, by a margin of 47 to 40 percent, Americans think that temporary tax cuts that were passed in 2001, and are due to expire this year, should be made permanent.

TNF has a pretty bad policy, IMO. I bought one of their expedition duffles when I went to Aconcagua back in 2000 so that my gear would sit in camp in a well protected bag. After being carried on mules for 3 days to camp there were holes worn in it. When I got home the person at their warranty/repairs desk told me that I had not used the bag as intended. That it was not intended to be strapped onto a mule with rope and have friction applied to the surface over many hours of travel. I was a little confused since it was their expedition duffle. Finally a manager sorted the whole thing out and they repaired the bag for free to keep me from making a scene. I later found out that they had stopped using ballistic nylon as the base fabric before coating it with rubber. But they still charge the same amount for a crappy product.

No. Just softening up his "base" for the next big rape of working Americans...Social Security reform. He's a fear mongering puppet of the corporate and right wing spin masters.

Seems to me that whoever wanted the gear should have been a little more thorough in checking out what was available. Haste makes waste (of everyone's time).

Have fun. I'm sure you can find some sweet SLC lass to teach it too.

Are your avatars secret expressions of portions of your tortured psyche? Read the assertions in today's NYTimes article and discuss. - - - - - January 11, 2005 The Secret Lives of Just About Everybody By BENEDICT CAREY One mislaid credit card bill or a single dangling e-mail message on the home computer would have ended everything: the marriage, the big-time career, the reputation for decency he had built over a lifetime. So for more than 10 years, he ruthlessly kept his two identities apart: one lived in a Westchester hamlet and worked in a New York office, and the other operated mainly in clubs, airport bars and brothels. One warmly greeted clients and waved to neighbors, sometimes only hours after the other had stumbled back from a "work" meeting with prostitutes or cocaine dealers. In the end, it was a harmless computer pop-up advertisement for security software, claiming that his online life was being "continually monitored," that sent this New York real estate developer into a panic and to a therapist. The man's double life is an extreme example of how mental anguish can cleave an identity into pieces, said his psychiatrist, Dr. Jay S. Kwawer, director of clinical education at the William Alanson White Institute in New York, who discussed the case at a recent conference. But psychologists say that most normal adults are well equipped to start a secret life, if not to sustain it. The ability to hold a secret is fundamental to healthy social development, they say, and the desire to sample other identities - to reinvent oneself, to pretend - can last well into adulthood. And in recent years researchers have found that some of the same psychological skills that help many people avoid mental distress can also put them at heightened risk for prolonging covert activities. "In a very deep sense, you don't have a self unless you have a secret, and we all have moments throughout our lives when we feel we're losing ourselves in our social group, or work or marriage, and it feels good to grab for a secret, or some subterfuge, to reassert our identity as somebody apart," said Dr. Daniel M. Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard. He added, "And we are now learning that some people are better at doing this than others." Although the best-known covert lives are the most spectacular - the architect Louis Kahn had three lives; Charles Lindbergh reportedly had two - these are exaggerated examples of a far more common and various behavior, psychologists say. Some people gamble on the sly, or sample drugs. Others try music lessons. Still others join a religious group. They keep mum for different reasons. And there are thousands of people - gay men and women who stay in heterosexual marriages, for example - whose shame over or denial of their elemental needs has set them up for secretive excursions into other worlds. Whether a secret life is ultimately destructive, experts find, depends both on the nature of the secret and on the psychological makeup of the individual. Psychologists have long considered the ability to keep secrets as central to healthy development. Children as young as 6 or 7 learn to stay quiet about their mother's birthday present. In adolescence and adulthood, a fluency with small social lies is associated with good mental health. And researchers have confirmed that secrecy can enhance attraction, or as Oscar Wilde put it, "The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it." In one study, men and women living in Texas reported that the past relationships they continued to think about were most often secret ones. In another, psychologists at Harvard found that they could increase the attraction between male and female strangers simply by encouraging them to play footsie as part of a lab experiment. The urge to act out an entirely different persona is widely shared across cultures as well, social scientists say, and may be motivated by curiosity, mischief or earnest soul-searching. Certainly, it is a familiar tug in the breast of almost anyone who has stepped out of his or her daily life for a time, whether for vacation, for business or to live in another country. "It used to be you'd go away for the summer and be someone else, go away to camp and be someone else, or maybe to Europe and be someone else" in a spirit of healthy experimentation, said Dr. Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now, she said, people regularly assume several aliases on the Internet, without ever leaving their armchair: the clerk next door might sign on as bill@aol.com but also cruise chat rooms as Armaniguy, Cool Breeze and Thunderboy. Most recently, Dr. Turkle has studied the use of online interactive games like Sims Online, where people set up families and communities. She has conducted detailed interviews with some 200 regular or occasional players, and says many people use the games as a way to set up families they wish they had, or at least play out alternative versions of their own lives. One 16-year-old girl who lives with an abusive father has simulated her relationship to him in Sims Online by changing herself, variously, into a 16-year-old boy, a bigger, stronger girl and a more assertive personality, among other identities. It was as a more forceful daughter, Dr. Turkle said, that the girl discovered she could forgive her father, if not change him. "I think what people are doing on the Internet now," she said, "has deep psychological meaning in terms of how they're using identities to express problems and potentially solve them in what is a relatively consequence-free zone." Yet out in the world, a consequence-rich zone, studies find that most people find it mentally exhausting to hold onto inflammatory secrets - much less lives - for long. The very act of trying to suppress the information creates a kind of rebound effect, causing thoughts of an affair, late-night excursions or an undisclosed debt to flood the consciousness, especially when a person who would be harmed by disclosure of the secret is nearby. Like a television set in a crowded bar, the concealed episode seems to play on in the mind, attracting attention despite conscious efforts to turn away. The suppressed thoughts even recur in dreams, according to a study published last summer. The strength of this effect undoubtedly varies from person to person, psychiatrists say. In rare cases, when people are pathologically remorseless, they do not care about or even perceive the potential impact of a secret on others, and therefore do not feel the tension of keeping it. And those who are paid to live secret lives, like intelligence agents, at least know what they have signed up for and have clear guidelines to tell them how much they can reveal to whom. But in a series of experiments over the past decade, psychologists have identified a larger group they call repressors, an estimated 10 to 15 percent of the population, who are adept at ignoring or suppressing information that is embarrassing to them and thus well equipped to keep secrets, some psychologists say. Repressors score low on questionnaires that measure anxiety and defensiveness - reporting, for example, that they are rarely resentful, worried about money, or troubled by nightmares and headaches. They think well of themselves and don't sweat the small stuff. Although little is known about the mental development of such people, some psychologists believe they have learned to block distressing thoughts by distracting themselves with good memories. Over time - with practice, in effect - this may become habitual, blunting their access to potentially humiliating or threatening memories and secrets. "This talent is likely to serve them well in the daily struggle to avoid unwanted thoughts of all kinds, including unwanted thoughts that arise from attempts to suppress secrets in the presence of others," Dr. Wegner, of Harvard, said in an e-mail message. The easier it is to silence those thoughts and the longer the covert activity can go on, the harder it may be to confess later on. In some cases, far stronger forces are at work in shaping secret lives. Many gay men and some lesbians marry heterosexual partners before working out their sexual identity, or in defiance of it. The aim is to please parents, to cover their own shame or to become more acceptable to themselves and society at large, said Dr. Richard A. Isay, a psychiatrist at Cornell University who has provided therapy to many closeted gay men. Very often, he said, these men struggle not to act on their desires, and they begin secret lives in desperation. This eventually forces agonizing decisions about how to live with, or separate from, families they love. "I know that I did not pursue the orientation that I have, and know that I have always been as I am now," one man wrote in a letter published in Dr. Isay's book "Becoming Gay." "I know that it becomes more difficult to live in the lonely shell that I do now, but can see no way out of it." When exposure of a secret life will destroy or forever poison the public one, people must either come clean and choose, or risk mental breakdown, many therapists say. Dr. Seth M. Aronson, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, has treated a pediatrician with a small child and a wife at home who was sneaking off at night to bars, visiting prostitutes and even fighting with some of the women's pimps. At one session, the man was so drunk he passed out; at another, he brought a prostitute with him. "It was one of those classic splits, where the wife was perfect and wonderful but he was demeaning these other women," and the two lives could not coexist for long, Dr. Aronson said. In a famous paper on the subject of double lives, published in 1960, the English analyst Dr. Donald W. Winnicott argued that a false self emerged in particular households where children are raised to be so exquisitely tuned to the expectations of others that they become deaf to their own longings and needs. "In effect, they bury a part of themselves alive," said Dr. Kwawer of the White Institute. The pediatrician treated by Dr. Aronson, for example, grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household in which his mother frequently and disapprovingly compared him to his uncle, who was a rogue and a drinker. Dr. Kwawer's patient, the real estate developer, had parents who frowned on almost any expression of appetite, and imprinted their son with a strong sense of upholding the family image. He married young, in part to please his parents. Both men are still getting psychotherapy but now live one life apiece, their therapists say. The pediatrician has curtailed his extracurricular activities, returned home mentally and confessed some of his troubles to his wife. The real estate developer has separated from his wife, but lives close by and helps with the children. The break caused a period of depression for everyone involved, Dr. Kwawer said, but the man now has renewed energy at work, and has reconnected with friends and his children. The secret trysts have stopped, as has the drug use, and he feels he has his life back. "Contrary to what many people assume," Dr. Kwawer said, "quite often a secret life can bring a more lively, more intimate, more energized part of themselves out of the dark."

Ducknut - I can only give you some simple instructions... 1) Make the two loops you'd make for a clove hitch. 2) Overlap them and then pull 1/2 of each (inside 1/2) through the outside edges to make two "ear" loops. 3) Place over hands or feet of your captive and pull the tails of the rope tight. From there you are on your own. And I don't wanna hear about it. Mr.E - you commenting on my age? You're still older than me...

I'll second this one. And add Patsy Cline to the list.

Hey Ducknut...there's a way to modify a clovehitch to create handcuffs that allow you to tie up unruly girlscouts or climbing partners.

How about the Latona or the Nickerson? My lungs could really use a non-smoking place.

Have fun out there, Snowboy. We've got an inch of slush down here in Seattle today.