ivan

agreed. despite the serious fuck-you life's laid down on you, you sound much more mature and thoughtful - i think you still have good days ahead, so keep your head up

i say...yes!

jesus christ i hate hearing this - i exclusively use the euro death knot and always make a point of leaving long, long tails (and trying like hell not to rig the rap up on the tails afterwards )

april: for the common defense: a military history of the united states by allan millet and peter maslowski - recently got appointed an adjunct professor by cwu so i can teach an american military history class on my high school campus - thought i'd get to pick my own textbook and rattled this one off before discovering i have to use another, much longer one - not the most spellbinding of a page-turner, but then it's a textbook i suppose and by it's very nature then inclined to prefer boring generality to exciting detail - only 600 pages but it konked out shortly after vietnam - think there's a newer version that covers the good olde shrub years

gawdamn skiers n' their spring corn

good to see you're still drawing breath there, josh - how you been since your big accident years back?

5/2 - day 8 - nobody to climb w/ but it was 80+ at days end and nary a cloud in the crystal sky, so what can you do? scampered out to beacon, belting out bale-loads of smoke along the way n' bitch'n ballads, the 'lesberu purring away n' throwing engine warning lights out like it's wont to do - were time compressed into a single moment and a single feeling, i'm sure this wouldn't be the worst of em all to settle on, spring setting in and summer beckoning right behind... not a soul in the parking lot, not right at all for so rare a spring day - what worries me really about the closed hiking trail is there isn't a sign at all of work being done to fix the damn thing - if i had a dollar for every tourist who stops, pays the 10$, then curses to discover the main attraction is under wraps, i'd have 1/10 of what the park's getting... joe lent me a mean sawzall n' i put it to some use - climbed the 1st pitch of stone soup and, while cleaning it, cut down all the nasty extruding studs n' filed n' em nice n' smooth

i'm still here if you'd like to call me a cork-soaker n' question my political positions, shit, i was just getting warmed up...

4/28 - day 7 - been out to hike hamilton a couple times the past few weeks but that shit don't count - been a bad fews weeks of loss: health, cool students, ambition, colleagues, etc. - got a taste of bacon to soothe the senses today - me n' mike at the base of stone soup in the cool grey of the afternoon - the alpine start to three tree ledges - to the swiss ledges from there, swapping leads - sawzalled a couple bolts to get'em more righteous - shit, there's so many more to do - set off 2 huge blocks on the rap back down, topping a big tree along the way - for the best really - stoked to see so much chalk on p1 & 2, just gotta improve them amateur bolts for the sporto's

where are the snowfucks of yesteryear?

seriously, i'dve been scared i'dve spilt my damn beer :

is it odd that, given its multi-millennial history, the phrase "ain't democracy a bitch?" doesn't yield a single goddamn google hit?

Jim's church is Beacon I never even remember him going to church and wearing tin foil until they closed the rock for the birds gawdammit, i fell into that one... i'm totally w/ him though - my drive out today i was practically puking over the steering-wheel i wanted to solo the corner so bad - fucking stellar day - the breath of the gorge blowing big n' warm

just part of a long shitty week really - hard to work w/ teens (or human-beings in general) and not have to deal w/ this insanity shockingly often - this was my 4th go-round i can remember in less than 2 decades - this kid i really liked though, so it was different... beautiful day out at beacon today - couldn't find anybody to climb w/ so wandered up hamilton mtn instead...

funny, i'm the opposite way - after years of not having to set foot in a church, this past week one of my favorite kids went and fucking killed himself, forcing me to set foot in crazy evangelist strong-hold for his memorial

saw jim out at the ozone a few weeks ago n' he was looking as hale n' hearty as ever, pink it's hard to get him too far off the ground these days...

i'd never placed a bolt in my life until working those 1st 2 pitches (and installed them all of lead) so yup, most of them deserve replacing, especially b/c of the extra long studs exposed (most of them could just be saw-zalled short actually and be fine, there's plenty of steel in the hole) - i don't have any of the requisite equipment though and so haven't yet fixed it - i give my unlimited blessing to those who'd want to improve any pitch of stone soup and would like to be along on the endeavour, should you care for the company that corner of beacon is wicked littered w/ junk, on all the ledges, from ground to summit - the base is a morass of water bottles, beer bottles, cigarette butts, n' fee slips, largely b/c of the hurricane winds that dump everything there - i made a right kewl trash dump up on the swiss ledges, half way up, that has, in addition to all the standard tourist-debis, the tattered remains of some real-kewl gay-pride TAT from many decades ago the 1st pitch of stone soup makes most sense if you look at it from an aider's perspective and go there in february (when the s side closure sets in) and it's soaking wet (that line is the only dry one there at that time - you can tell that in one of your pictures by noting how it's the only line not heavily moss-clad) i'd love to see the lower and 2nd tier more developed go to the top and see how if you like it any better?

you ain't the first, you won't be the last

i've been jaded against the sandy ever since it tried to kill me it sure is a looooong way around the mtn to do it too the cooper spur in spring is magic - hike in one day and put a camp in near tie-in rock, the next morning's a simple frolic up the climbing face and then back down - bring plenty of whiskey...

done the cooper spur or sunshine yet?

shoulda done the reid, it's even kewler...

the most dissapointing civil war battlefield i've visited is "the crater" at petersburg - it just ain't that big these days timely post there, big bill, the War of Northern Aggression ended this day 151 years ago - fine, ya'll won the war, but we're still winning the peace bitches happy to hand over vanderbilt - thing's a damn bible but worth the read - it was my yosemite summer book a few years ago and helped ensure i got a good night's sleep

all routes follow the whims of the Great Magnet

i miss'em already