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sexual_chocolate

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Everything posted by sexual_chocolate

  1. if you plunk down fat cash on a super safe, the sheath is prolly gonna wear down just about as fast as with some cheapo rope. i used a beal 9.7 non-dry for 3 straight years on everything from alpine to sport, and still sometimes use it. best part is i picked it up for 100. if i were you, i'd pick up the cheapest 10 mil you can find, and make sure your biners are smooth and clean (old biners that get chunky eat rope. i just got on a route with permadraws, didn't check one, and it shredded on my new 9.4 sheath: sucky.) But, having said that, you like most will lay out cash for the one with the best advertising shtick and the one that looks the coolest, which is fine cuz it'll work like any other.
  2. seattle to brem ferry's about an hour and hits you for around 13 with car and fivish just walk-on me thinks. seattle's rush hour will slow you down for 15 minutes through downtown on I-5, and more for eastside stuff which i doubt you'll worry about. seattle to airport is about 30 minutes, or an hour or more during rush hour. have fun here.
  3. Oh my gosh, they called this one early, didn't they?
  4. Seems as though it hasn't broken through any official news conduits yet, if it indeed is going to happen.
  5. sexual_chocolate

    Peak Oil

    When i was recently shopping for a car, it seemed that every manual was listed with a higher mpg than the automatic. the plates in an automatic slip more(?) for smoother shifting, although i think most now have a locking mechanism for freeway cruising.
  6. that's rad that your doing well already. also sounds like you're figuring out stuff for yourself too about being super sensitive to movement and positioning and such while climbing. cool. i think this awareness makes climbing really interesting, so it's not just an injury related activity for me.... you ever do any static climbing on harder steep boulder problems? man that's one of my fave things figuring out how to lock, position, twist etc to make every move FULLY static. i do it in the gym all the time, and not only do i love doing it, it's probably improved my big muscle strength in a climbing specific way more than anything i've ever done. but with the injury thing: i just read something by thich naht hanh which really clicked. he talked about how if there is pain or injury, often our reaction is to tighten up around it. so then we have a "physical" injury, and we layer on to it our emotional reaction, which creates a secondary layer of injury, which makes the healing of the initial injury harder. he talks about really relaxing and noticing this reaction, and then really feeling the injury fully without the secondary reactivity. in my own experience i feel like i then have a much deeper connection to what's really going on, sans the baggage, and as a result, the injury feels like it's healing literally right on the spot as i relax into it. it's kinda hard for me to explain it in words cuz it feels pretty subtle, but i can't ignore the connection between this process and what feels like quick healing. congrats on getting your spring project. i got one of my own recently, and feels pretty good to send!
  7. 13c! buahahaaaa, you must have #2 nuts for fingertips. great climb regardless. pretty special to have the first non-controversial lead ascent of a gem like that.
  8. sexual_chocolate

    so MattP

    You once insulted me by saying I climb like an albatross. Hater.
  9. When you say the tendon hurts when the fingers are extended, where does the tendon hurt? At the base of the ring finger? Was the move dynamic when the injury occurred? (You say you were clipping bolts, so you were stationary?) I don't know if there is any perfect time-line for your return to hard climbing; it's all so subjective. I've had what I thought were little things that, because I didn't pay attention to them, turn into 3 month ordeals, and I've also had painful pulls and tweaks that I swore would take weeks to heal be fine in just a few days (this seems to be happening more lately, simply because I think I've gotten smarter about really listening to my body and taking care of it, and not getting panicky or bummed when injured). Something that i've learned also is how to climb with an injury. it's actually a big learning experience, because it takes me a lot of awareness to be able to use an injured finger in such a way as to not hurt it further. slow has been the key for me, as in setting the hand/finger in just the perfect position that NO pain is felt. this obviously necessitates perfect control in my climbing, and having done tons of static climbing has given me the control to be able to do this on "harder" climbs when injured (when injured, i tend to avoid any moves i can't do completely statically). bottom line though is really listening and figuring out for yourself when you can climb. there are other somewhat esoteric approaches i also engage in when injured that i won't go into here, but ice, rest, gentle stretching, easy and very slow climbing with NO pain, and heat can all help, as can relaxation exercises such as meditation. boo yah.
  10. We'll see the real cause of this at some point, but certainly a possibility is that he is getting a little over-extended in his zeal to develop a viable counter-weight to US/capitalist influence throughout the region. I certainly hope that the generalized sentiment will not become one of viewing Venezuela/oil as the region's saviour, any more than some thought "neo-liberal fiscal policy" would be (I doubt this to be the case).
  11. Hey yeah, it's truly something that presses on my mind, but I guess that's what I get for being geographically literate! But seriously, you made an assertion that I was curious about.
  12. I think one can read the information less for its predictive qualities and more for its contextualization of the "Iraq situation"; as such, it's much better than any prediction it might be making (what was the prediction, by the way?). The political allegience of those who point out the truth has nothing to do with the quality of the truth itself. To say so is to fall in line with the worst of the McCarthy efforts. I'm wondering if PP even read the article I linked...it seemed to me more of a historical perspective than some kind of "apocalyptic" prediction. The Prediction (as I see it): "The hour of the invasion draws near. As we write this, on December 28, 2002, the Iraqi government has told a solidarity conference in Baghdad that “he who attacks our country will lose. We will fight from village to village, from city to city and from street to street in every city....Iraq’s oil, nationalized by the president...from the hands of the British and the Americans in 1972...will remain in the hands of this people and this leadership.” The Iraqi armed forces may not be able to put up extended resistance to the onslaught. But the Iraqi people have not buckled to American dictates for the past more than eleven years of torment. They will not meekly surrender to the imminent American-led military occupation of their country. And that fact itself carries grave consequences for American imperialism’s broader designs." I doubt he read it either, but I don't think it would make any difference anyway. I suppose the above would be the only "prediction" in the article, but one that I don't necessarily agree with, only because it lumps three quite separate factions into one "Iraqi" group. At some future point, the US may see armed resistance from the Shiites and the Kurds, but I think that included in the current US machinations are mechanisms that will keep both in line for at least some time to come (I imagine they consist of both economic and security issues being used as leverage points for continued support for the US presence).
  13. Which is the most glaring example of this that you see in the anti-invasion/war camp?
  14. I mean it's easier to kill them, ignore suffering and injustices in their countries, and be just indifferent to it all, if you know nothing about them. It's also easy to oversimplify relations with those countries and solutions to their problems. So what you are saying is that if the American public had known where Iraq was on the map, they couldn't have been duped into this nettlesome war that fits your above scenario to a t?
  15. it's easier to care less about people and countries that you know nothing about So what you are saying is that the geographically literate care more about people and countries? And when you say "care", do you mean care about their well-being?
  16. I thought they liked to make themselves look good by wearing blue wind-pants?
  17. Let's question the assumption inherent in the post: Why is geography an important skill to have?
  18. I think one can read the information less for its predictive qualities and more for its contextualization of the "Iraq situation"; as such, it's much better than any prediction it might be making (what was the prediction, by the way?). The political allegience of those who point out the truth has nothing to do with the quality of the truth itself. To say so is to fall in line with the worst of the McCarthy efforts.
  19. Hey, last time I checked, you had your own sandbox to play in. Now don't bother me again; I have a world to save.
  20. ok fine. You gave the Iraq takeover a c or c+; How could it have earned a d or an f? Meaning: What metrics are you using, and how could it have faired worse?
  21. Erik Satie's interesting to my ear and inner organs. Turn of the century pianist/composer. Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry or shoot myself when listening to him.
  22. Plus, I think not only general larger scale locale parameters play into the equation. In Seattle, there were certainly neighborhoods that had a long way to go in playing catch-up with the general area price trends; these areas will perhaps be more immune to any downturn, since even current price levels are attractive compared to those houses 10 minutes away. People will continue to buy that which they can afford. But even in the central areas, things aren't completely insane. My wife just called me and told me of a house in Ballard with a detached garage on an average-sized lot going for 360,000. Compare that to other metropolitan areas around the country. I might be crazy, but I see Seattle with slow price appreciation over the next few years with entry-level houses; with stagnation and maybe some depreciation on mid- to upper-end houses.
  23. Yes, but local conditions do play a role, and while the growth in certain locales has undoubtedly reached unsustainable levels (LA? SF? Miami?), Seattle seems as though it is still playing catch-up with other major metropolitan areas (which I believe it is moving towards). I have a hard time believing Seattle would have an across the board 20% downturn affecting entry/mid/high level housing, but I also invested in the stock market in 2000!
  24. But heck yeah things are gonna get rough for all the interest only's. Any talk about how it's going to affect housing prices? It seems as though certain markets are so heavily saturated with interest only's that in a couple of years when they adjust, the housing market will flood with bankruptcies, with buyers unable to afford at today's prices with the then higher interest rate. I am willing to bet Seattle will not suffer a negative price adjustment though, only a slowdown....
  25. Ah, speak to me of useful exercises! While I appreciate your condescension, I'd rather you did a little ascending for once. Come on little bird, fly! I suggest you wear blue when trying!
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