JayB

Hahaha. The "Z-Snap!" Oft-seen, never so aptly described until now. You should trademark that one.

All joking aside, I think the *last* reason any woman posted her pic or sanctioned it posted to the "hot climbing chics" thread was to "bring hope" to some cardre of socially inept guys who can't otherwise get a date. You couldn't be more correct, of course, but it was an unintended consequence that I thought that they should be made aware of before doing anything that might heap yet another misfortune on this vulnerable and oft-neglected population. Think of what would happened if the editors of Climbing had come out and revealed that the photo of whatshername was a hoax. Much wailing around the firepits at J-Tree and elsewhere had any such thing come to pass...

What pisses me off is that I have posted here for *years* without ever posting a pic of myself. Then I see a thread where a bunch of the ladies here are having fun and supporting each other. And the fallout, of course, is getting shit from the guys on this site. I have never regretted a single post I have put up until this one. I honestly regret posting my pics and getting shit for it. I made a big mistake. If anyone deserved to catch shit for the pictures that they posted, it's me, and I'm actually kind of disappointed by the lack of abuse I got, especially for the late-pubescent-shirtless-flexo-pano-photo that I put up. Lame. When it comes to your photos though, I haven't seen anything but positive comments that referred to your photos in particular. You look great, and pretty much everyone that chimed in seemed to echo my own comments, where I said that any woman who is into active stuff in the outdoors that's brave enough to post a photo here is a 10 in my book. Don't regret posting those photos, ladies! Your collective contributions will probably serve as a beacon of hope to the hordes of single-male climbers milling around in a state of perpetual despair over their chances of finding an attractive woman that not only shares their passion for the outdoors, but has a healthy sense of humor, and self. If you pull the photos, scores of men ranging from bearded, hemp-clad, marginally employed dudes living out of the backs of their Subarus, to intense, introverted and awkward techies languishing in their cubicles between trips to the North Cascades will figure that all hope is lost and hang their heads in despair. "All is lost, it was all a cruel hoax - and there's nothing left to do but gird myself for a life spent alongside an erstwhile soul-mate who thinks the woods are "icky" and is transported into a state of transcendental ecstasy at the sight of the latest Pottery Barn catalog arriving in the mail. Jerry Roach was right. 10 things I learned in the mountains. Number four - 'Surfer girl isn't in the mountains!...Aaaaaargh why couldn't I have been born with a passion for cutting edge male fashions, gourmet cooking, and ....ballroom dancing. Someone kill me now...Aaargh." Don't do it!

At least in Orange County/Irvine 'bad' may be a bit of an understatement: http://ml-implode.com/

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-subprimemap07-sort2.html And from the too little, too late files:

I'm waiting for the Twenty-first Century's answer to Thorstein Veblen to come along and dissect the rise of Conspicuous Virtue in the US.

Hey Ballo: Check the messages in the Climbing Partners Forum, and/or put up a post with some plans of your own and you should have no problem hooking up with folks. Quite a few of the regulars on this site live in Portland.

Not interested enough to dig into it, but it looks as though there's been something of a falling out between some of the CF disciples. Edit: Slow work day. "My, my, my what ever happened to the concept of being a good loser? Mark Twight gets some notoriety and all we hear are venomous accusations from the most generous fitness lunatic in the world about how Mark Twight stole his ideas. Did Glassdick invent pushups and pull-ups? Can he even do a push up or pull-up? Shit, can he even touch his toes? Mark Twight’s stock goes up as the film 300 continues to ratchet up top profits. This weekend the film was ranked #2 in ticket sales after being #1 the previous two weekends. Good for Mark Twight, he earned it. Here’s hoping that he will get other training gigs as a result of this. We here at the Moynihan Institute subscribe to the adage that winners win and losers whine. When I was still fighting I can remember all those Monday afternoon whiners in the gym, assuming they showed up. They all went over a litany of reasons of why they were “robbed” but the winners were silently banging away on the bag getting ready for the next fight. Such is life. Maybe it’s different in the world of minor league fitness celebrities but among professionals like myself in the world of business there are results and then there are results. No one judges my performance based on my intentions and no one gives two shits about my cry baby excuses and he said – she said stuff. That’s fine. I’m a professional and a hallmark of being a true professional is being stoic. This doesn’t mean I am some sort of droid but it does mean that I don’t let my emotions interfere with my professional performance. Let me make something clear and this I nothing unique. People “steal” shit from me ALL THE TIME. Every time someone does I attempt to get a little better at thwarting it in the future. I may even call them privately on it. This is part of the game and I accept it like a man not some belly aching bitch. It’s one thing when someone plagiarizes from a book or takes a copyrighted invention as his own. These are the exception not the rule. In most cases “stolen” stuff is much murkier and when you get down to it not stolen at all. There are a lot of gray areas in the world of grown ups. So Mark Twight gets a little notoriety from his hard work with the cast of 300 and all of a sudden Glassdick starts in with he stole this and he stole that. Assuming that he stole anything when did this happen? Would this have even been an issue if he had never got the 300 gig or if the movie was a dud? This reeks of sour grapes. Who does Glassdick think he is Bikram Choudhury? Get over yourself asshole. You squeezed your certification dough out of Twight. Consider yourself overpaid. Is there anything more pathetic than a grown man whining about how he was “screwed”? This surely doesn’t pass the John Wayne test. What’s that you ask? Well when in doubt of the masculinity of the action I am about to take I ask myself, “What would the Duke do”? It’s usually pretty clear cut. I can remember loosing a close fight on a decision and whining about it at length. After about an hour or two of it my trainer told me to shut up, suck it up and to knock the guy out next time so there’s no question about who the winner is. Well the winner in this saga is clearly Mark Twight. He will ALWAYS be a winner and Dregg Glassdick will ALWAYS be a loser. Bwhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!" http://www.moynihaninstitute.com/

One or two sets of nuts, double in finger sizes only if you want to economize Single set of cams from 0.5 to 4 if you have the money, otherwise #1,2,3 Double up coverage in the hand-size range with hexes. Odds and ends: ~8-12 over-the shoulder slings, 2 cordellettes, nut-tool, knife.

Places to avoid: - Ranier Valley - First Hill, -Northgate, -Large swaths of Capitol Hill unless you like find alocholo-junkie-transients and the myriad benefits they bring to any neighborhood, -Belltown. Supposedly some nightlife type stuff there but not the most desirable or affordable place to live. -Lake City/Kenmore. -Anyplace north of Greenwood.

Ballard/Freemont/Phinney Ridge/Green Lake/ and possibly Greenwood. Freelard is probably the best in many respects, with resonably affordably living, close to some nightlife and the climbing gyms. Getting to/from downtown/I-5 at any point during the weekdays probably sucks unless you can get there via bus or bike.

Also, please note the early onset on manboob. Sorry, JayB, but you put it right out there for anyone to take a swipe at it. Ah yes. The heartbreak of moobs. If it weren't for all of the balding and chest-hair I'd have the estrogen levels checked.

talkin to me? pay attention or go back to reps/dems debate. No. But thanks for paying attention.

Tvash: Better move that photo to the hot climbing chick thread before anyone gets offended... Nice work on the photo/calendar deal though.

I have to agree with E-Rock here. Any guy who wants to talk smack about the ladies that were brave enough to post here had better damn-well post some photos of themselves before opening their mouths. Any woman who is passionate about climbing, skiing, biking, paddling, fly-fishing, or anything active in the outdoors and is brave enough to post a photo here is a 10 in my book.

Youth. 1990. 17 years old. I think the idea was to spoof the random-flexing-guy-in-nature photo genre, but it's well worth mocking in it's own right. As my wife is fond of saying, all downhill from here... Non-Epic Minor Epic: Note Hairline Contrast vis-a-vis early 90's shot. Moderate Epic Major Epic

Yup.

The odds are high that at the very least it'll make them think twice about who they hit and when. If the parents don't fulfill this role, someone else will. This reminds me of a coversation that I had with my wife's Aunt and Uncle a while back, who have 3 very nice kids to their credit. The said they never relished disciplining their kids, but they knew that if didn't do it, someone who loved them quite a bit less inevitably would. If it wasn't them, it'd be the teacher, if it wasn't the teacher, it'd be the principal, and a couple of steps later it'd be the police, the warden, or worse. A kid that hits his parents is going to be on the receiving end of a peer-delivered ass-whupping at some point, and the younger they are when it happens, they better of they and everyone else that interacts with them will be for it.

well, i think perhaps you're a tad bit on the lucky side too. my kid has thrown more than his share of tantrums, publicly embarrassed me and annoyed other people. h/e that doesn't mean that i hadn't drawn the line. he was just more stubborn about accepting his inability to get what he wants. i think the key is that he doesn't win them. now that he's older, he's a great kid that behaves himself, mostly does what he's asked with a normal amount of pre-teen grousing, still hugs his mom, opens doors for strangers and says thank you. i think it's a gross oversimplification to say that tantrums in younger children is a reflection of an unhealthy sense of entitlement. True - but if the tantrums are indulged, you can be pretty sure that they'll develop one. What really freaks me out is seeing little boys that hit their Moms - like in the face, with a closed fist - and no one does anything but say "Now Joey, It's not nice to hit Mommy" or something like that. To my mind, a boy that hits either parent - but especially his Mom - knows absolutely no limits or boundaries, and will pretty much hit anyone he feels like. Hell - I can still remember quite clearly what happened the one time that I stuck out my tongue at my Mom, so I can't even begin to imagine the spanking/grounding/toy-removal/and iterative "Never do that again, here's why, and if it ever does happen again, here's what's going to happen" lectures that would have resulted from that. My only hope was that at some point a good, prolonged, and severe ass-whupping on the playground by someone who hits back would send these kids the message that their parents never did, and/or that the violence and misery that their kid would inflict on the rest of the world would primarily be visited on his parents, rather than those who weren't responsible for creating a human with the morals of a goat and the manners of a baboon.

"Impact of global warming on Glacier Termini and Survival: I read in the 2002 North Cascades National Park-Natural Notes that: " More than 90 percent of the North Cascades glaciers could disappear within 40 years if the annual temperature increases by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)." We have observed the response of North Cascade glaciers to a climate change of nearly this magnitude at the end of the Little Ice Age and we did not lose nearly 90% of the glaciers, nor did most of them finish their retreat, adjusting to the post Little Ice Age climate in less than 40 years. Thus, this figure is not correct. Annual mass balance surveys on nine glaciers in the North Cascades indicate that North Cascade glaciers have lost an average of 0.5 m of thickness each year from 1984-2005. This 11-12 m of glacier thickness lost is approximately 20-40 % of the entire volume of North Cascade glaciers, gone in twenty one years. What do recent trends suggest about the likely future of North Cascade glaciers? First, a 1.5-2.0 warming following the Little Ice Age led to retreat of all North Cascade glaciers. North Cascade glaciers lost 35-50% of their volume in the last century and a somewhat lesser amount of glacier area (Pelto and Hedlund, 2001). There are a significant number of glaciers in the North Cascades that have not fully adjusted to the post Little Ice Age climate, thus their response time can be as much as a century." http://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/globalwarming.html Colorado: "According to Madole (1976), during the latter part of the Pleistocene (~1.8 million years before present - 10,000 years BP) and into the early Holocene (10,000 years BP - present) large valley glaciers were present across most of the higher mountain ranges of Colorado and a small icecap even formed in the northwest part of Rocky Mountain National Park. Valley glaciers in the Front Range were typically 15-25 km long and 1-3 km wide, reaching down to elevations of 2440 to 2745 m. These valley glacier ranged in thickness from 215 to 460 m and the longest was 45 km long (located in the valley of the Cache la Poudre River and fed by the icecap). In Colorado only two Pleistocene glacial advances are recorded on the landscape: Bull Lake and Pinedale (The names come from the Wind River Range where these glacial advances were first identified.). The Bull Lake glaciation is thought to have occurred 125,000 to 50,000 years BP, while the Pinedale glaciation has been dated to 29,000 to 7,600 years BP. Generally the Bull Lake glaciation was more extensive. Additionally there have been three small Holocone (10,000 years BP to present) glacial advances termed, from oldest to youngest, Triple Lakes, Audubon, and Arapaho Peak advances. Collectively these minor advances are termed Neoglaciation, and the largest glacier during these advances was only 1.6 km long. The Arapaho Peak advance is local evidence for the Little Ice Age (the popular name for a period of cooling in the northern hemisphere lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries). Most of the glaciers and perennial ice patches in Colorado today are the tattered remnants of these small Little Ice Age glaciers." http://glaciers.pdx.edu/gdb/maps/all.php?page=co_glaciers.html

Whew... that took a while to parse. Let’s see if I understand correctly. Intelligent Design implies that a directed consciousness underlies the biotic changes that have occurred since the dawn of life on earth. It is a form of teleology. And that is a sort of metanarrative, so there’s some linearity inherent. In contrast, we take an orthodox view of evolution that says that there is no linearity with respect to design. There is in the sense of contingency in that the eye developed from primitive photoreceptors, not ex nihilo. But, even though plants also respond to light, they will not develop eyes. So, you have to have suitable precursors for it to evolve into something more complex. The ear, for example, it evolved from the modification of the jaw bones. Evolution is not forward-looking; rather it is backward-looking. It does not have an end-design in mind. It cannot even be said to have ‘mind’. Intelligent Design differs in that it postulates that an end-design informs everything. The disbelief in metanarratives characterizes the postmodern view of history. But wait, conspiracy theory implies specifically that a human agency is the director, and often, in that view, a human agency strives to disproportionately acquire power at the expense of the masses, I mean, with respect to a grand conspiracy. I’d have a hard time believing as Philip K. Dick said once, “The Empire never died.”. But in more recent history there is a sense of the formation of political blocs much as in the way outlined by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, etc. Add technological advances into the mixture and one can imagine the very real possibility of a ‘total control state’. How 'bout some potential paranoia with your morning coffee, eh? I don’t know about anyone else but I tend to lump things such as political machinations, cover-ups, covert operations, etc. into the conspiracy category. There are very real examples of the preceding, but one would be hard-pressed to claim that there was some ‘evil’ intent behind the actions. I’ll try to make a list now…Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the MkUltra Project, Gulf of Tonkin incident, … Here’s one you may be familiar with…when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market in the ‘80s. Shit, the metals market is replete with scandals…does anyone want to buy some Indonesian gold? Anyway, back to your statement. Yes, I agree in the general case. I disagree in particulars. That's a thoughtful extension to the analogy I was trying to make. I only had the general case in mind.

Care to explain? Are you saying that these kids would be burning books instead, if the trillion dollars were being spent on books instead of bombs? Their message (albeit offensive) is pretty clear: down with the war. But let's go ahead and keep pretending that only radical fringe groups feel this strongly about it. My response here was directed towards the line of thinking contained in this comment: "OTOH, they're doing something to effect the change they want to see. That's cool." One could extend the same logic to Klansmen burning a cross in a public square. While all of us are legally obligated to respect any particular groups rights to use political speech to promote whatever agenda or message they want, there's no such obligation upon anyone to feel as though what the group of protestors is doing is "cool" simply because they are "doing something to effect the change that they want to see."

Very interesting research. Video here: http://glumbert.com/media/spiders

My money's on Obama taking the Democratic ticket and the Oval Office unless he makes a mis-step of Muskie/Hart/Dean proportions somewhere along the way. Not sure who will take the Republican ticket, but Romney made a massive mistake by trying to burnish his far-right cred at the last minute. The last minute changes of heart pretty much hosed his appeal amongst moderates, and did little or nothing to increase his standing amongst Jerry's kids.

High quality rant by John Long on the Potter/Davis thread at supertopo: "Doug Thompkins (North Face and later Esprit) was the original golden thumb, fat cat textile tycoon and meta oranginc Andy, and every other 60s era Yosemite climber with bid-ness aspirations followed Doug's coattails - Chouinard, Robbins, and who knows the rest. (Little known secret: it was Thompkins' wife who had a little clothing line called Plain Jane which triggered the whole shebang). The Thompkins work model was a great one - plenty of time off for adventuring (kayaking in the 80s, mainly), make exciting and comfortable clothes, have them made in Hong Kong (one year he exported more than a billion dollars of threads out of HK). The advertising (especially with Chouinard) was 60-70s faux coolio, always anchored at some level with real folks who were projected to be just a little more connected, smelly, hip, talented, natural, and basically more lyrical than the rest of us. These meta cool "common Joes" were seamlessly woven into the branding, which on the face of it was always a grass roots kind of fandango but in fact was spun that way and orchestrated down to the last adverb per what was said and who said it. Again, the unstated credo behind all those photos and all that ad copy was that these were the authentic folks, the real people, devoid of put-on, guff, ego, self consciousness, et al. They had more meaningful relationships with their dogs than you did with you wife or boyfriend. The result was a proto spontaneous wheat grass yubba dub concoction of yams, organic burgers and precious new-age mottos declaring most anything that would vouchsafe their current stand as being the nee plus ultra of organic swank spiritual back room hand job tomfollery, all for the price of their 100 dollah organic under wear. There's cult aspect to all of this jive, as well, and manifests in the negative judgement toward anyone who fails to embrace their "save the environment" campaign as the only viable pursuit of mankind, now and forever. What you have when you scrape off all the social accretions and insider hip hoppery is an expensive but great product you are likely to get sick of before it wears out. Admit it--Patagonia product is peerless and it always has been. Just about all the other stuff, especially the core message, suffers mightily not from lack of content, importance and relevance of theme, and commitment to same, rather the method of discrimination is such that it's in-grown and hierarchical. It's not an intellectual organization nor should it be one, or could it ever be one, but you'd like to see a little more original thinking coming out of the place. But that's their business. I just think it's a shame that they have decided to use a grass roots approach of featuring real people doing real things and then show those real folks the back door once it came time to pay some little bit for the pleasure."