ivan

strange - i wrecked my windshirt while climbing hyperspace last year...

it got weird, didn't it? look, we told ourselves - we wouldn't let it get wierd...

ballsy - how much time/space do they need for the chutes to work?

oh, i thought it more anabell lee'ish, ya know - wanna to shack up w/ a dead chick? It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.

is that like an edgar allan poe kinda thing?

Just start a "what did you do last weekend" thread! Those are great! actually, been doing most of my climbing during the week lately - it's nice only being 20 minutes away, and that most of routes are overhanging enough to stay dryish - maybe i need a "what the fuck i've been doing at 3 in the afternoon while you bastards are still in your cube" thread?

awesome - hope to be up there this weekend! anyone else gonna make the hajj?

I think my mom would have dragged my sorry ass there by a chain behind the truck, regardless. ah, today is nothing - the great halo 3 sick-out from a couple years ago though...wow, there was an epic educational day...

should i post on my recent epics trips to the o-o-o-o-o-gawd zone? if sport climbing is like having gay sex, sport climbing in the rain is at least like having gay sex w/ a rock star

it seems like, by your own admission, you just need to get the hell away from work. i seem to recall both of us are father-types now, which make us all the more pissed off at these independent bastards who have the time and finances necessary to jet-set across the damned world in search of ice and adventure. me, i'm currently going through the cracks in my couch trying to scrap us gas money for a n cascades jaunt this weekend...if i can't find enough i'll have to settle for rainier for christ's sake!

naw - he still climbs (and to my limited knowledge, at a higher grade on rock than you - come climb both pitches of flying swallow and flying dutchman w/ me this summer and we can both see how we measure up to what he's done) but he doesn't have the same alpine ambitions as you, john - he doesn't do big mtns/ice/extreme adventure stuff. similiar to you, i don't understand how anyone can love and be so good at one part of the equation and be so lackadasical about the other, but that's the way it is. at any rate, jim opdyke considers him as a son, and that's good enough for me to stick up for him, regardless of him climbing el cap or anything else, 10 years ago or 10 minute. i think well of you too, so let's just talk about climbing, which we all love in one form or another, in whatever shape we find ourselves in, from the depths of our slothful torpor or the zenith of our driven training routine. i'd add, i generally like chestbeating - for fucks sake, what's the point of doing something if you can't get a crowd of nameless/faceless fucks to salute you for it? does anyone really think we've evolved away from our simian, primitive need to vindicate our preternatural excursions (our meaningless combats, far from the eyes of the world, as terray put it?)

Yes. I think Clyde Minaret should be probably be included on any definitive list of cool moderate climbs. Also, for diversity sake, some boulders. holy shit, is that in the green zone?

might explain why so many of my high-schoolers ain't in class this morning...

Well maybe he should stop doing that. and maybe the yappy fucking dog that lives next door to me oughta stop too, but that ain't gonna happen unless i throw a poisoned dog-treat over the fence, and john's too driven to eat snacks outside of regimented meal-times people are who they are, and rare it is that they ever change now seriously, did i hear somethign about pink climbing in california someplace?

wait...pink climbed el cap?

isn't that kinda like members of the pleasant valley family home for adults starting a blog?

No shit, John RULES! Awesome dude. DON'T BE HATIN Rudy, you need to get out with the guy, maybe his enthusiams can come off as chestbeating on paper, but in real life, his real persona with all that enthusiasm totally rules ! JF is #1 in my book, and I haven't been out a lot with him, but been out enough so thats what I know. BTW, 'nother side note to get off topic on all this bashing and hating, but on that El Cap thing and Pink: dude toped out on Zenyatta Mendotta on CHRISTMAS FUC*ING DAY YOU FU*KING PUSSIES. FULL ON CONDITIONS WINTER ASCENT. I get shrinkage thinkin' of it. wait...pink climbed el cap?

shit - take away all the barbells n' whatnot and that easily could be a picture of me on any average tuesday night in college...

john's bit was useful if for no other reason that moving forward the idea of what "moderate" means - so far i like dru's idea the most - moderate should still be, in the largest sense, the median type of climb defined as such - the whole "it's all relative" thing has of course been done to death, and so of course 5.12 is moderate to tommy caldwell, but he and his type are certainly big old outliers on the bell curve, no? today's moderate aint' that different from the moderate of 30 years ago...

well worth the wait

oh shit, well if that's all, that the abruzzi spur on k2 or sumsuchshit if a white boy can get there w/o his head being cut off by an evil-doer

maybe you haven't met john - like more than a few folks 'roudn here, he comes off on the board a lot different than in person - what you shouldn't misunderstand is his enthusiasm and good-naturedness- the kid really, really likes to climb and is guilty of little more than being too zealous - he also takes the training thing crazy serious (but not so much he disdains climbing w/ the smoking/ho-ho eating crowd) which i think leads to a natural desire to have #s and times n' shit, which in lihgt of the whole iconoclastic nature of the enterprise, does look a tad silly. still - i like having john on the board and he earns his keep by actually posting tr's on a pretty regular business, building community by helping organize ice-comps, etc. that said, if he badmouths beacon we might have to kill and eat him - i'm sure w/ all those burpees or whatevadafuck they're called, he'll make for good lean burgers

an exact # for the temp would be silly - expect it to be cold during your start in the darkness (long pants and shirt/shell layer oughta be fine - you'll want a fleece or down jacket for breaks- a balaclava and fleece mitts too). it'll be warm by mid morning and unless its blowing hard, you'll be able to walk down in tshirt. after cruising up the hill in bluebird spring conditions, be sure to come back in a winter storm to see what the mtn feels like when she's being a vindicative little bitch!

i called the helpdesk this mornign after they didnt' respond to any of the emails i sent last week - no answer - troubling message: "please leave your message at the tone. know that we here at the helpdesk never make predictions about anything, especially the future" (which seems kinda of superflous, no? do people make predictions about the past?) anyway, suprisingly, within an hour i'd gotten a call back and an hour after that they came and fixed the problem, so only like 2 hrs total...well, 2 hrs and 7 days. everything i know about dr johnson i learned from watching fear n' loathing i have the "he who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man" quote on the wall behind my desk even as i type

funny, i noticed the exact same thing after getting out here, and adopted the exact same response.