JayB

So I was riding home tonight, and noticed three pairs of laminated wooden skis sitting outside - awaiting their doom amidst a pile of junk on the curb. I stopped and took a closer look, and quickly decided that I should rescue them from such an ignominious fate. All three pairs are fully wooden - wooden bases, wooden edges, and all have simple cable/spring bindings. My hunch is that they were manufactured sometime between 1940 and 1960, but I haven't been able to find much information on the manufacturers. After snooping around a bit on the internet, I've become quite curious about their history, and if anyone out there knows of a good resource for figuring out when vintage skis were made and by whom, I'd really appreciate the help. I think that I may try to do a bit of restoration on at least one pair so that I can use them myself, and give the others away to friends or family - so at least they die in service, or get preserved on someone's wall instead of rotting away in a landfill. More Info: Pair#1: Splitkine "Super," skis with Tempo "Loipe" cable bindings. Pair #2: Bonna "Model 2000: skis with "GressHoppa" cable bindings. Pair#3: Norge Ski "Tur Model" with "Tempo" cable bindings. Says "Trysil Knut" at the top and "Hickory Sale" at the bottom.

WM sold the company to his son several years ago. I don't think he's been all that involved in the production since the late 80's Scot Schmidt NF one-piece era, but I could be wrong. Even then, Greg Stump's movies were better IMO. Now there's abouta dozen different companies cranking out ski movies each year. "Booter Crunk" and "War" had a good mix of park and big-mountain footage, and you can download them for a week's worth of viewage at www.totalvid.com for $4. "Teddy Bear Crisis" had lots of huge-air-off-giant-cheese-wedge-into-powder footage, and lots of bad European techno, and a bit of big-line footage - but way less variety than the other two. "Booter Crunk" also features lots of Oregon talent if I'm not mistaken.

I have a demo-model/prototype device on the back of my truck that allows me to sleep comforably, and high-off the ground in any weather - very resistant to wind and rain, and set-up time is zero. It's also bolted to the frame and made of fiberglass so packability is an issue, but... Looks like the ultimate solution-in-search-of-a-problem unless you're camping in a pit-of scorpions or something.

I think that the history of the text - who decided what to include and exclude and when, is an even more interesting topic. There was a time in my early teens when I was intensely interested ferreting out examples of senseless cruelty, barbarism, etc in the Bible, as I was sure that once I disclosed their existence the more obnoxious religious types around me would be speechless, then run home and examine the basis of their faith in a more rational light. After about two-dozen such encounters over the course of about ten years, it began to dawn on me that I was engaged in a hopeless task. I've more or less completely lost my zeal for that sort of conversation by now, and find that I care less and less about what people say they believe and more and more about how they behave. I think that Mormon theology is some of the craziest shit I have ever come across, and have no idea how a rational being could believe 1/1,000th of it - but just about all of the Mormons I've met have been extremely polite, hard-working, considerate folks who seem to look after one another and raise nice kids - so they're cool with me. Ditto for any other religious people who believe crazy shit but treat others nicely. Sometimes you have to argue, like when Creationists try to change the curriculum at the local high-school, but I think I'm pretty much in the pick-your-battles stage now.

Are you planning to ski park and/or switch in them? Yo no comprende twin-tips for BC usage, but of the two it looks like the ANT might be a better all-mountain ski.

Not a terribly eloquent or profound revelation here - but the fact of the matter is that climbing is considerably more dangerous than anything else that most of us do - probably by an order of magnitude at least. Certainly far more dangerous than driving - the fact that we think otherwise is due to the fact that in making such comparisons we're comparing two unlike statistical sets. If you normalized the death rate involved in driving and climbing by the number of hours that the population spends driving versus climbing, that'd be quite clear. Put another way, if the average citizen spent as much time climbing as they did driving, the death toll from climbing would be several times more than the toll from driving.

The U.N. is one thing, the actions of diplomats and various bureaucrats who work there is another. I just think it's funny as hell that the same people who are still convinced that the invasion of Iraq had its sole origins private conspiracy to enrich oil companies and large-scale contractors, despite the absence of any factual evidence whatsoever to base such a claim on, are still perseverating about that while absolutely ignoring the extensively documented corruption and bribery that occured within the ranks of the principal opponents of the invasion. If the US failed to address shortcomings in the program, that's regrettable, but accepting what appear to be intractable problems while maintaining a no fly-zone and single-handedly supplying the political will necessary to keep the sanctions in place is one thing, and perpetually arguing on Saddam's behalf while officials in your government are accepting bribes from him in return for this service is quite another. I could go on swapping competing bits of minutia about the war for quite a while, but I just don't have the time anymore. If you get lonely, feel free to search through my old posts and paste in a response to whatever aspect of the war is under discussion....

20-30 minutes up a scree slope. Kinda sucks in early season, not bad in late season. Sounds like the main lines are already in-but-thin.

I have to admit, the part about the cabal of corrupt oil-men on the take influencing foreign policy in the lead-up to the war was actually right on. Tip of the Iceberg....

Climbed there a few times. The main flow is a FAT, steppy, two-pitch WI3 that has a somewhat longer steep section at the top. It can normally accomodate two parties, but there's a bit of a funnel effect in the middle and I've seen people get bombed. There's mixed variations on either side of the line. To the left of the main line theres WI3/3+ stuff that comes in later in the season - also some mixed options way, way left when everything is fat. To the right there's normally a WI4 pillar with some hanging curtains that also get done from time to time. A few feet to the right of this there's a cool 1 pitch WI3/3+ that you can link up with the main flow. There's a rampy WI2 a bit further to the right, then a 4+/5- pillar even further right. That's about it. Lots of fun and the main line probably stays in until May in good years. The only bummer about the place is that it is one of the first places to come in, so it's pretty crowded early season - and the pilars are TRable so they get beat to death and look like cottage cheese by mid-December. Early season. Late season Note the absence of the right-most pillar/flow in this photo, and the deterioration of the center-line as well. Images poached from climbingboulder.com. Link here: http://www.climbingboulder.com/ice/db/hoosier_pass_lincoln_fall/

The skiing itself in Colorado wasn't terrible, but what killed me was the hype-to-terrain ratio. That, and the inconsistent snowfall. Dry powder is great, but if it falls once every three weeks, lands on a wafer-thin base, and either gets blown away or tracked out in less than two hours it's really not all that impressive. Toss in a twitchy, poorly-bonded, depth-hoar and suncrust laden snowpack in the BC and and the suck factor only intensifies. Despite the skiing, Colorado is a great place to live though.

Ahh Colorado. That Western mindset that bigger is always better. It's got some nice parts, and parts I'd like to spend more time. Not my cup of tea right now, but still a fun place. The biggest downside to Boulder (and Colorado) are the idiots that think it's the greatest, most special and unique snowflake place on earth. It's not. There are pleny o' places similar. Or far superior, like Whistler.

I loved Twain's dig at Cooper. His essay on anti-semitism in Austria "Concerning the Jews," is another obscure classic IMO. Link Here Favorite quote from this one: "I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being - that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus* could not have been condemned. Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay him reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents. A person who has for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope." *Of the Dreyfus affair.

Orwell's novels are as subtle as a 2x4. He's a much better essayist. Huxley was a better novelist. I also find Huxley's concept of the state gaining power by infantisizing the populace much more relevant to todays world, as well as topical jabs at consumer culture ("ending is better than mending", no new sport can come unless it requires more equipment than the last, etc.) much more interesting. Maybe he was heeding the parable cited by Teddy Roosevelt. Given the politics of the day - just slightly less than a decade after Bernard Shaw et al's copious apologia for Stalin - my hunch is that he thought a literaray 2x4 was what the times called for.

Orwell's novels are as subtle as a 2x4. He's a much better essayist. Huxley was a better novelist. I also find Huxley's concept of the state gaining power by infantisizing the populace much more relevant to todays world. Speaking of 2x4s, Ayn Rand was far worse. No kidding. The didactic punishment that she dealt out in "The Fountainhead," was so tiresome that I gave up after about 100 pages, which is 100X more reading than necessary if all you want to do is understand her basic message. I think the book is so tiresome and repetitive that the most intersting thing about it is that apparently large numbers of people took it seriously at some point? The first explanation that I can think of - that the American public was reacting against the prevailing conformity of the 1950s - seems a bit too pat.

Why?

I actually came across the essay during my Sophomore UW when I had a history TA who had was so sick of reading poorly composed essays that he refused to grade anyone's work until they read "Politics."

What aspect of the connection between the two is interesting to you? I'm not terribly familiar with A. Huxley's Bio, but I think that the fact that Brave New World was published in 1931 - before the apex of most of the totalitarian regimes, and that Orwell completed 1984 after the world got a glimpse of the true nature of them is telling. In the case of Huxley's dystopia at least, the truth was far more horrifying and brutal than fiction. With respect to "Politics," I think that Orwell's indictment of the vague and euphemistic in the place of concrete terms is pretty thought provoking stuff - no matter what your politics are.

"Politics and the English Language," Orwell. 1946. Read it.

Detonating oneself in a crowd of civilians doesn't exactly jive with the survival-over-observance scheme either, but that hardly seems to have put the brakes on the practice....

That's probably true. Sounds like quite the gig.

Aren't you in industry though?

60 is closer to the norm.

General is the key word. Jobs that are dull, dirty, dangerous - or a combination of all three generally pay pretty well, because they have to to attract workers. Not true at the other end of the spectrum. There's a reason that they guys handling the biohardous waste that research labs crank out probably make more than the guys in the white coats that are generating it....

Yup. New job comes with internet access, eh?