allison

That is what is known as D4, and you should ignore it except insofar as to mitigate the bleeding....

Did I mention it bothered him so much he threw up his hands in disgust?

[ 10-04-2002, 12:41 AM: Message edited by: allison ]

As a corrollary, I'd like to suggest that we share what we don't know now that we knew before. I will go first. I climb less and less, but do more things that I should maybe rope up for. I always question when what I do that is 5th class, with a full pack, for a few moves, but I never question it that much, as I still do it. But..it is not with much fear or reservation. I wonder in my case just how far this will go. Full-on alpine 5th, even easy, spooks me if it is exposed. I am a sporto to the core on the 5th class front. But if it is scrambly and not exposed with a little 5th, who cares and it's over in a sec. I think my condition is mild, comparatively speaking, and would like to hear what others do now that they wouldn't have done before they knew when they were climbing 5th, and when they were scrambling 3rd. I've come to the common perspective that there is no such thing as 4th class, except really steep greasy heather which by my definition can be 4th.

Hear about the cannibal who passed his friend in the jungle?

I find the Doctor's breed of humor to be most excellent.

I don't wish to engage in any sort of flame war here, and I've never professed to being an expert rigger, but in my line of work I do a fair bit, and am constantly surrounded by it. There are failures of all stripes in theatrical and large venue concert rigging. Have I directly, and personally, been at fault? Never once that I can think of, but in the grand scheme of things, perhaps indirectly at some time. I honestly cannot say for sure. I've never seen a severe failure that resulted in a serious accident, fortunately, but I would say nationally that a couple of stagehands a year meet their fate as a result of such, or of a fall. Such is the nature of temporary installation. Our work is not as dangerous statistically as that of ironworkers, but I'd say it's on par with construction workers in general. Last time I checked long-term disability insurance was not readily available to workers in my field. Similar to climbing accidents, there is always a lot of follow-up when there is a failure. We always want to know how and why it happened, so that we can learn from our mistakes. To that end, I had a long conversation with one of the most experienced and talented theatrical riggers in the city today about how an aluminum biner could break. He came to roughly the same conclusions I had on my own, but it was great at talk to him about it further. We can only hope that the ongoing investigation about Monday's tragic accident will answer our questions. As I said at the beginning, I don't want to get into a flame war about my qualifications, experience, or the nature of my work, but I've been at it for sixteen years, and I feel inclined to defend myself in this case. I don't believe in the context of the rigging discussion that I ever couched it in terms of whether I was represented by a trade union or not, as it is irrelevant.

quote: Originally posted by Attitude: My rack and harness gear for trad: 3 tied slings - single, double, triple belay gloves (Home Depot) 2 hero loops (6 mm perlon) Just ran across this post which proves once and for all that I am not the same person as Attitude. 1. I do not lead trad. How the hell would I know what gear goes on a rack? All's I do is take it off and hand it back to the person who put the gear in. 2. I would never, ever wear gloves when handling a line with a person on the other end of it. But more importantly, not it has been proven once and for all that I AM NOT ATTITUDE. Sorry to all who do not care for taking up bandwith. I am now done with this. [ 10-05-2002, 02:44 AM: Message edited by: allison ]

RA-MU-TA RA-MU-TA RA-MU-TA RA-MU-TA I've hear rumors from the women in the wardrobe department at the 5th Avenue Theatre(they take all of their stuff there too) that they might be closing up shop. Anyone heard this? I would be heartbroken!

In the case that I referred to, both individual involved had more than ten years of experience climbing regularly, and the one of them who told me about it said that the rope handled like a dynamic, not a soft one, but one on the stiff side. The rope was not a solid color either, it had a weave to it. Someone in the family works in outdoor retail, so the rope could have come from an unusual source. I hear what you're saying, Kurt, but it can happen. It was one of my regular female partners, I believe you know who I am talking about.

The idea of the rope being a static one is interesting, and as I prepare to go to work on a rigging call this evening, I continue to ponder. First of all, if there's a lot of gear to pick from in your pile/closet/car, it's not impossible for the most experienced climber to accidentally grab a static line. This happened to a friend of mine last year who has a lot of gear that's constantly coming and going from the gear closet. Fortunately no one fell before the mistake was discovered, half a day into climbing. As far as whether a static line could cause additional stress that could potentially break gear, well, I think it is possible. In my work we rarely use carabiners, as steel shackles are better suited to overhead rigging for a number of reasons. In my work, if there is a rigging failure, it's typically the wire rope that fails before the hardware, but aluminium is so brittle that there are times I've seen formerly stressed pieces fail, many more times than steel matter of fact. My gut still tells me the rope would break first if the hardware were in good condition. So we are all speculating here obviously, but it seems possible, though not likely, that if a static line were used, and the broken biner had perhaps been dropped a time or two, which could put hairline cracks in the unit, that this could have led to the accident. The fact that the gear near the top suffered the worst follows this logic. Before anyone jumps on me because I don't lead trad, let me say that while this is true, I've seen so many rigging failures over the years in my work that I'm just as qualified to conjecture on this as anyone else. Forgive me for speculating, but I'm just as disturbed by this as the rest of you, and can't for the life of me figure out how this happened. [ 10-02-2002, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: allison ]

Thanks, you guys, my membership here at cc.com is money well spent. I just hope the IRS never catches on.... On a personal note, I would like to extend a thanks to the moderators for keeping things civil recently. Thanks. Jon, Timm@y, Becky, Chinook, Sierra, and the moderators, the whole lot of you:

Erden, thanks so much for sharing all of this information. It's got to be terribly difficult for you to seperate what happened from the analysis of what happened. You are very courageous, and I for one appreciate it. Once this is all over, take some time to grieve.

To Jim McDermott:

Correction: My apologies are to all of the others who had to sit through it. I am not apologizing to Ray or Greg. I did nothing to them except defend myself.

Hi, to all of the rest of you, my apologies for taking up needless bandwidth trying to defend myself against Ray and Greg in the now-closed thread on 11worth. My comment about Tex was an innocent one, and I know better than to try and defend myself against these guys. So sorry for wasting everyone's time with such a pointless endeavor. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming....

I never claimed that I wasn't fat, ugly, or stupid, but, well, I am not promiscuous. Plain and simple.

Whoops, Flash, I think they missed your ironickal irony.

Petey, you are my hero!

SK: I was merely commenting on his cuteness. Ray: As far as jumping into bed with everyone on the board, I'm not sure where you get your information, but I am fat, ugly, and have a bad personality. What makes you think anyone here would be interested in that?

Truly, to have an upstanding citizen like yourself not like me, well, it saddens me deeply.

Perhaps it seemed like that because you were so drunk.

Dang, Texplorer is CUTE!

Hmmm...not necessarily gone...new sez the shnow level be 4000. If summer's going to leave this quick, let there be FRESHIEZ.

While I wish for the goat and his people to beat this topic to death, I would like to day here that... HOMPOHOBIA BLOWS GOATS!!! and one more thing: shut your little know-nothing post-adolescent pie hole and let the grownups talk, Fence Sitter. You might actually learn something if you shut your mouth and listen for a while. Better yet, go read a book.