chelle

Pavement has a great song on the Crooked Rain album. - - - - - Unfair Down to santa rosa half moon bay Across the grapevine to l.a. We’ve got deserts, we’ve got trees We’ve got the hills of beverly Let’s burn the hills of beverly!! Walk with your credit card in the air!! Swing your nachos like you just don’t care!! (your guess is as good as mine) This is the slow sick sucking part of me This is the slow sick sucking part of me And when I’m sucking kisses diee..worrkk [? ? ] Up to the top of shasta gulch And to the bottom of the tahoe lakes Manmade deltas and concrete rivers The south takes what the north delivers You fill hack? ? ? Lost in the foothills of my mind Drinking sterno, say good night To the last psychedelic band From sac’to, northern cal. From sac’to northern cal. Take it; neighbor; cuz you’re my neighbor; And I mean famous; you’re my neighbor; You do me favors; cuz I’m your neighbor; I’m not your neighbor, you bakersfield trash. Traaaaaash! traaaaaash!!!

MisterE - you forgot to add white sand beach and 80 degree ocean waves with palm trees and fruity cocktails. And suntanned cute cabana boys! That's my favorite!

thats the salton sea ya moron. got a better idea of the scope of the fires now? Oh, thanks for setting me straight, chicken little. I thought it was just Plam Springs and the surrounding desert cities area. The fires are unfortunate, because so many homes are burning and people have been killed. In scope they're really not much different than fires in BC this summer and you weren't all up in arms about them. This sort of thing happens every few years in CA when there is the right mix of santa ana winds and dry temps. Later this winter there will likely be a lot of rain and massive mudslides with homes falling off into the ocean after being reclaimed by the sea. Stay tuned to your news station for CA devastation 2003/2004.

Or near that huge golf course pictured in the lower right of the sat photo.

Hey Dru. PLEASE make your photos a little smaller. Some of us don't have a 20" monitor and having to scroll up/down and sideways gets tiring...

Went belaying...had fun.

This thread is a riot. I can't believe how many of you guys are sooo in the closet about your phobias. Get over it.

I forgot to include the tip.

You can rent ropes, but I wouldn't recommend using them if you have an old one you can bring/leave behind. The climbing shops actually ask westerners to leave there ropes if they are old because they use them to replace the old threads on the routes. You will have no trouble getting rid of it. A question about your reservations...how much did you get quoted and which place are you planning to stay at? Tonsai is cheapest, then east railay, then west. Most of the rooms are pretty similar but the prices vary A LOT. In Tonsai I paid about 500 bhat ($13) for a room with 2 beds/ bath/& fan. I paid 800 bhat ($20) and 1200 bhat ($31 - got suckered when we arrived) for the same thing at another place over in E. Railay. And the Tonsai place was way nicer. Don't pay for all your days up front and renegotiate every time you go to the front desk to pay. They will drop the prices. But if your budget is unlimited, you might as well stay at the Dusit Resort. It's a 5 star place that goes for about $300 a night, and armed guards to keep out the dirtbags... Looks way pimp though. You can get a little bamboo/grass mat shack with mosquito netting and a fan for about 300 bhat over on Tonsai, but you will get a lot of bug bites and some people we knew had rats in their places. Enjoy your trip. You will love the really cheap great food. Fried bananas or a banana pancake (crepe) and a game of chess at the Andaman in Tonsai is a great way to wind down the evening, before the $7/hour Thai massage before bed. p.s. the hike down into the lagoon is totally worth it. It's waaaay cool 5.fun tree root scrambling. If you like to explore there are tons of cool caves and going through the ThaiWan cave at night would be cool. Bring a headlamp if you do the night ascent/rappel. I am soooo jealous.

Probably more like a binobo chimp. They're known for their tendencies to masterbate and to trade sexual favors... I actually think their social structure is based on sex.

Yeah. I know he took photos for it. I know a couple guys who posed.

We already knew that about you dear Trask. ...and no thanks.

Just buy the thing and then you'll have all the months to do whatever you want with. Dean's work is really good in my opinion. Shows the beauty of the female form, climbing, and the clifs without being tasteless.

Damn dude. Can you please return that? I really need to look at it periodically to calm my nerves. Good thing that it's getting cold out now and I don't have to worry so much.

I can see rattlesnakes in a crack a couple pitches up being kinda scary, but in general I think I'd prefer a frog, snake, lizard, or spider on route compared to a bat. I had to share the crack on the 3rd pitch of Nutcracker with a lizard last fall, and also with one on Haystack at Lover's Leap. They were kinda cool and I knew they wouldn't hurt me. The crawled down as I went up we just kinda coordinated it.

The only thing worse than trying to teach a good friend how to ski is teaching a signifigant other how to ski. It's a recipe for disaster. I'm thinking of checking out back country skiing this winter (using AT gear not tele). I used to be a pretty good skier (could get down most CA black diamonds fine with the occasional wipeout). I ended up switching to snowboarding but am not interested in snowshoeing behind the crowd nor a split board. Is there much about skiing technique in the back country that is totally different than in bounds? Do I need to take a lesson again?

I started wearing a helmet at ski areas a couple years ago when I got a concussion after hitting my head on some icy snow in a wipeout fall. It keeps my head warmer too.

Thanks for the warning.

Macromedia flash crashes my computer. Guess I'll still just have to wonder. Most of Kubrik's movies make me wonder.

I think the year was 1975... I would never want to go back to jr. high or high school. Life is so much more fun when you're of legal age and have a few dollars in your pocket. Saw the swarm a few years after that conversation on my neighbors front porch. I remember having nightmares. Why would parents let 9 year olds watch the swarm anyways? Jaws, the Deep, and the suicide scene in Sat. night fever also caused me some stress. It's a wonder I love movies at all today.

No thanks. We all have our "thing" and exploring dark, dank, caves with slimy animals and furry ugly flying things doesn't sound fun to me.

I tell them about it, but caveat the site so they know what to expect. This place is overall good, but is a f'ed up as any dysfunctional community.

Yeah! That was a funny one. Got me to commit too and run it out until I rounded the corner. I think I hinted there was something, with the exclaimation of "Oooh gross!" just before I took off.

I remeber a conversation with a couple of older playmates when I was about 5 or 6. There was some article in Time magazine about killer bees and a map with dates projecting their migration. We were trying to figure out how old we'd be when the bees came and everyone was killed. Pretty morbid topic for a group of kids. Now that I think about it I was waaay to serious waaay too early in life.

for me cracks just feel way more secure, so I prefer those. I get sketched climbing bolted routes on top rope sometimes. Kinda dumb, but I hate how insecure those little crimpers and nubbins feel under hands and feet.