Mtguide

There's a great scene in one of the Wayan's brothers' films of two gang bangers leaning up against a brick wall,right next to each other.One gets out his cell phone and punches in a number.In a few seconds the other guy's phone rings,and they carry on a cell phone conversation standing about a foot apart.Very well done scene,funny as hell.

Hmmm;sounds just like the Clinton-haters,no? ---------------------------------------------------- "When Clinton lied,no one died..."

Cinema 21 is an old vintage 40's theater similar to the Alladin on SE Powell& 13th,if you've ever been there for the Banff Mt. film festival,about the same size,spongy funky old foldup seats.Not sure just how many it seats.Your worst problem will be to find parking;it's a mess.Come early for that reason as well as getting tickets.Sellout is hard to say;TTV has already been showing at the Hollywood here in PDX,and getting great response from everyone I've talked to.If it gets anything like the Banff show,yes,it will sell out.

Fantastic;stunning photo.Good on ya,mate.

Sounds very interesting;any chance you'd be including the trek on the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu? I've wanted to do that one for years.Great pic,BTW.

That boy needs reminding that the worst day in the mountains is better than the best day at work.And maybe he ought to see the Warren Miller film clip of the kids in Northern India having the time of their lives skiing on dirty lousy crap snow on skis made from old lumber mill bandsaw blades nailed to slats of crate wood,and tied on with wire.Gratitude,bucko,not attitude,for every sweet and glorious day of life in the mountains,no matter what the skis,the weather or the miles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Joy,shipmates,joy..." -Edward Abbey

At Scout camp one summer we waited for a particularly hated,overbearing and nerdy counselor,and a "city boy" to boot (we called him "Pearshape") to enter the old outhouse,then snuck up behind and threw a bomb made of a half-dozen M-80's wired together through a hole in the siding,then sat back to watch.When it exploded,the resident nest of yellowjackets under the roof were,to put it mildly, aroused, and within seconds, Pearshape came bursting out the door,screaming(he was too religious to swear),his pants around his ankles,his ass and legs plastered with well-seasoned shit, and covered with dozens of angry,stinging yellowjackets,as he hopped,stumbled,rolled and thrashed and flailed on his way to the nearby Brazos River.Every time he slapped at the yellowjackets on his legs and ass,he just got more shit on his hands,and then of course he had to slap at the ones on his face and neck and in his hair,and well,you get the picture.We had hell for weeks after that,but were the camp heroes for years,even among some of the Scoutmasters,who didn't care much for Pearshape either.Nowdays you'd get sued bigtime for something like that.But those ol' Texas country boys did play a little rough. We also used to draw straws to see who would climb out on the hood to clean the windshield while a carload of us went tooling down the freeway in Ft.Worth at 60 MPH in our '53 ford coupe.If it took you more than a minute you had to do the rear window,too,or they wouldn't let you back in the car; and they might not anyway if you didn't do a good enough job. Lesson learned: Give 'er hell!

We should be due for the yearly seasonal "weather window" of 10 days to two weeks that occurs almost every year,anywhere from end of Jan. to end of Feb.When I was first new to the Pac NW in the mid 60's it was pretty dependable within that time period, but it's been more sporadic of late.Maybe this being a more normal kind of NW winter,it'll be on time with sustained clear,cold,calm weather.Keep an eye on this: N.Pacific weather

Hmmm,now that would be a nice long rappel...

Nicely put,Murray.There's absolutely no question that these kinds of considerations aforethought are necessary,no matter what cultural terms they're framed in.The lack of this kind of thinking has left us with urban sprawl,strip malls,dying city centers racked with decaying ghettoes and no affordable housing,the bulldozing of once-healthy neighborhoods for misplaced freeways,demolition of valuable historic buildings and the rawness and hardness of cities like Oakland,Denver,Houston and E. St. Louis,cities that have grown completely out of control based on the technology of the automobile.This is supposed to be prosperity?Yeah,for the greedy few at the top,while all the rest are mired in the rat-race.Anyone who works in a cubicle and commutes knows what this means.These are indeed problems in our society,which is only just barely still recognizable as a tattered shadow of a democracy,if indeed it ever was. Not that the societies in which feng shui originated were perfect,by any means.Chinese monarchies,iron rule, simply established centuries of relative civil stability that eventually produced the leisure classes who had the time and money for this kind of thing.These were feudal societies with plenty of brutally downtrodden peasantry.You can still see this desire for stability at all costs in the way the Chinese govern today.And I have a hard time seeing the feng shui in the destruction of ancient villages and the displacement of millions for the construction of the Three Gorges Dam,not to mention the strangling of the mighty Yangtze River and the inundation of its spectacular gorge.It's every bit the disaster of a Glen Canyon or Hetch Hetchy,and then some. But the basic principles of Taoism and feng shui are nonetheless very,very ancient,and are rooted in very practical,simple and useful ideas of respect for both the natural environment and for the most basic human needs,and how to bring the two into harmony.Some utilization of nature is necessary for people to live well.How to do that without eventually destroying the land base that provides food,fuel and materials is an original fundamental concern of feng shui; the book Farmers of Forty Centuries talks about this.What we're now seeing is a much later development,so that most people know of it,or think of it as a sort of psuedo-superstition appplied to interior design,architecture,or landscape design.Hey,it sells books,little hexagonal mirrors and Chinese-coin windchimes,right?

Yeah,ain't it cool?

Guys,Joe and Simon would be proud-in the true tradition of mad dogs and Englishmen.See you there.

Well,yeah,of course not.No.I'm not saying that all; my experience has simply been that instead of being wiped out for several days or a week,that muscle soreness/stiffness and general fatigue seem to be much reduced and much less long-lasting.How much is dependent on how strenuous the climb was,particularly duration as well as the intensity of total effort expended. Recovery drinks and supplements aren't magic powders;but they are concentrated amounts of electrolytes,aminos,complex carbs,etc.,that can make a definite difference,especially when you don't wait too long to use them once your effort is done.These things are simply the basics that the muscles need for recovery.Muscle tissue will take in these substances from whatever you ingest;doing it in the form of specific supplements simply hastens and enhances the process.Ideally,the muscles are in the optimum mode for uptake of glycogen for about about an hour after you stop your exertion.Eating or drinking the right things,in the right amount,within that time window, is simply going to give you the best recovery rate,very simple.It's certainly not going to perform miracles if you've just done the El Cap-Half Dome linkup or anything else of that level.But it will definitely shorten your recovery,and will sure as hell do you more good than plain water,donuts,beer,or nothing at all. I'm simply going on personal experience.Give it a try,see what you think before making a judgement. ----------------------------------------------------- "Better Living Through Chemistry"

For a number of years I've had good results from a combination of Twinlab Ultra Fuel recovery drink,and Branched Chain Amino supplements,both before and after climbing,bc skiing,etc. I've also rediscovered for myself the value of getting out of the gym for conditioning,doing as much as possible to replicate the conditions you'll be dealing with on the real thing-in other words,the best conditioning for climbing,is climbing.IMHO.

Nice closeup there;(gotcha).

Well,that'd be a good start;but you'd have to lose Wolfowitz,Rove,Gale Norton,pretty much the whole cabinet, plus neocons like Grover Norquist,to really turn things around.Quite a passel of skunks that need fumigating,all right.Wonder if we'll ever get our country back.

Aid climbing at Broughton's,Madrone(sneak in),Beacon,Carver,Rocky Butte,ice at Pete's Pile,cliffs below Mirror Mountain(to right of Skibowl-serious stuff,too)drytooling in the gorge(great practice)more ice on Illumination rock,Steel Cliffs,& the Black Spider(also serious) on Hood.(Played out?-I don't think so)Further south are Wolf Rock ,Santiam Pinnacle;out by Oregon City there's a little area called Waterboard Park.Or head up to Snoqualmie for N.Face of Chair Peak. Tons of stuff to do.Check out Portland Rock climbs;Izzat OK for a start?PM me.Lots more where that came from.

yep,that's me; no other Mtn-or Mnt-guide on the user list.Mtguide(me) and the cowboy are one and the same. --------------------------------------------------- "Gimme a chaw o' that there rosin,Sal...whoops,put that thang down; ya like ta 've blowed muh laig off there,pard!..."

That is my login name,"Mtguide"; always has been.Is there a " Mtnguide" or "Mntguide" registered on this site? I'll have to check the user list.

Well,that's been the reason behind space exploration from the get-go.Ever notice how many of the ass-tro-nuts have been geologists,engineers,etc.?They ain't goin there to set up some nature preserve. All this in spite of numerous extraordinary hazards and knotty problems which render Mars essentially uninhabitable,at this or any other time.Just a few minor things like,too small of a planet to have enough gravity to retain an oxygenated atmosphere,dust storms with winds of up to 700mph which last 6 mos.+,radiation levels several hundred times that of our own moon,which is about 100 times higher than on earth,and distance from the sun which contributes to temps of up to 250 below zero. Much has been made of the ideas of "terraforming " Mars ever since an article in LIFE magazine back in the 60's.Recreating the atmosphere,creating weather,water,etc,etc,etc. There is a whole Mars Society which plunges doggedly ahead with trips to the Arctic tundra in plastic space helmets and jump suits,Mars as the future home of mankind,jumping off place to the stars. Riiigghhht; just fuck up this planet till it's totally unliveable,then abandon it and all those who can't afford the tickets to an ugly end.Fast food technology,the disposable planet,shake the blood and grasping hands off your feet and please wipe your boots upon entering the spacecraft.Just more corporate asshole greed and thievery. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "...careless people who smash things up,then walk away to let someone else clean up the mess..." -F.Scott Fitzgerald,"The Great Gatsby"

Refer to my post on the thread "Muffy owns skis" from about 2 or 3 weeks ago--should give you all the beta you'll need to get up and running.Lessons can be a big help,especially for someone like you who's an experienced downhiller--most good alpine skiers can progress very quickly,much more so than people learning to tele who've never skied before or who have only XC backgrounds.You could find yourself doing beautiful tele turns by the end of this season with a few good lessons and lots of practice. Mattp is exactly correct,too. Anyway,there is a vast fund of knowledge out there--no need to reinvent the wheel.

Well,I see someone else has figured it out,too.... (pssst; it's been going on since Reagan's tax "reform" of 1986,the most massive transfer ever(until the Bush tax cuts)of wealth from the lower,middle and upper middle classes to the top 1%.)

Hmmm,yes,she does...have a...lot(!) to,uh,offer(shudder).

Interesting; it's a proven fact that anger and meanness can make a person(if you can indeed call Rush a person)ill; maybe all the pain he's caused others has come back to visit him;scapegoating the poor,minorities,women;all that bile has to go somewhere--what goes around comes around.Couldn't happen to a nicer guy,eh?