Off_White

Great detail Lance! On a flight down to San Diego I once lucked out by getting a commercial pilot with the soul of a tour guide. It was a gorgeous clear day with virtually no haze, and as we flew directly over Yosemite he banked the plane just so we could look out the windows and straight down into the valley. He also took pains to point out all the volcanoes and took a small detour over Lake Tahoe. Aerial identification is big fun. I've spotted my house and barn in Tenino while on a southern approach to SeaTac, and had a number of great runs through the Cascades. I think a tour with Mr. Scurlock would easily trump all that though...

Nice attempt Porter, but this is an older smear that's just getting current attention, not a present day smear. For those who read the article: Richard Scrushy (rich guy) donated $500,000 to a lobbying effort for lottery legislation that Siegelman (governor) favored. As this was not a donation to Siegelman's campaign, it was a legal donation. Siegelman appointed Scrushy, the CEO of a health care firm, to a hospital oversight board, and Siegelman's bribery conviction stems from an allegation that this was in repayment for the donation. Turns out that Scrushy had been appointed to this position by three prior governors. The position offers no financial compensation. Scrushy in sworn testimony stated that he doesn't even want the position. In addition, Scrushy is a devout Republican who supported Siegelman's opponent in the last election. As a capstone, the judge in the case, Bush appointee Mark Fuller, who had a grudge against Siegelman for a critical audit of Fuller's record as a district attorney, refused to recuse himself from the case, and after sentencing Fuller to 7 years in prison, refused to allow Siegelman his freedom pending appeal and had him hauled from the court in manacles. This entire investigation was done by a politicized justice department that was directed to try and defeat or defame democrats who can't be defeated in the electoral process. The justice department did not consider investigating the 146 individuals who donated $100,0000 each directly to Bush's campaign and in return received postings to far more desirable positions like ambassadors and cabinet members. Between 2001 and 2006, the justice department investigated 375 public officials, 298 of whom were Democrats. Even that wasn't enough, if you'll recall the firings of US Attorneys who hadn't been sufficiently partisan in their prosecutions. This kind of crap, which doesn't get much mainstream attention and causes the eyes of the average Joe to glaze over, is a prime example of why the Republicans need to be thrown out on their asses. My apologies for sullying this important thread with content.

Hah, I hadn't thought about that hullaballou in awhile. A little research turns up this tidbit: "Last month, Spink, 34, and Wesley Cornett, 28, a second drug runner, each received a three-year sentence from Martinez, who accepted joint recommendations for leniency from defense attorneys and the government because of their cooperation." in this article about the arrest and trial of the kingpin. It appears that d-dog played rat fink and sang like a canary. Jay, its better that you revived this spectacle in this thread than in the "how far would you go for your pet" thread.

I'm lucky in that my eldest now gets the hard pitches.

This info is from Kevin Pogue's website. His drive time is from Walla Walla, your time may vary. Name of area: Potholes Where: 10 miles northwest of Othello, WA How do I get there from Walla Walla?:Take Hwy. 12 west to Hwy. 395 at Pasco. Turn right and head north on 395 until you reach Mesa. Turn left on Hwy. 17 and head north to Othello. Turn left on Hwy. 26, go two miles and turn right and head north on McManamon Rd. Follow this road north for about 5 miles where it merges with Sutton Rd. Stay northbound on Sutton Road when you come to the Deadman Lake junction. Continue north on Sutton Road for 5 more miles until you come to the Upper Goose Lake turnoff. Park at this gated turnoff and walk one half mile up the road until you see an obvious basalt cliff (the "Hall of Frustration") a quarter mile north of the road. Cross a gully and hike 10 minutes on a trail to reach the cliff. How long of a drive is it? 2 hours What's there?: Fairly compact basalt cliffs 25 to 40 ft. high. The area is a maze of short cliffs, blind canyons and small lakes. The Tri-Cities mountaineering club teaches basic climbing techniques here and is supposedly rather territorial about the area. Word is that they will enforce a strict traditional ethic. All of the climbing is therefore traditional and/or top-rope. Land Ownership: Columbia Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Washington State Dept. of Wildlife Pros: Uncrowded, scenic, fairly solid rock. Can be climbable on sunny windless winter days. Great mountain biking. Cons:Short. Fairly long drive for minimal rock. No guidebook. 30 min. more driving puts you at Frenchman Coulee. Comments: Nice area to visit if you feel like a weekend of exploring, including a little climbing and mountain biking. Supposedly the fishing is pretty good in the many small lakes. Check it out on your way back from Frenchman Coulee sometime.

Did you say bunny crag?

What is that, some kind of wrestler code? TMI.

I figure I'll go pretty darn far. This one isn't so much about money, but let me tell you about Stranger... Thats as in, "Well, hello stranger" for the panache he showed as he happily moved himself into our home in Tucson in the mid eighties. The University of Arizona is the place where not-so-wealthy Californians send their not-so-bright children, and we assumed he was a college student cast off, showing up in May as the undergrads left town for the summer. Stranger strode right through the open window, not the least put off by the two other cats we already had, Ref and Trango. He quickly won us all over, by turns both affectionate and playful, and all three cats learned to share the double bed with Faith and I. Naturally, when it came time to move back home to Washington a year and a half later, Stranger came with us. I think the lush Northwest was intoxicating, the woods and meadows full of luscious and entertaining small mammals, and he really took to life in the country. One day towards the end of summer, while lounging in the grass out front of the house, I noticed Stranger sitting a little oddly over by the blueberry bushes. He didn't react when I tossed a bit of bark his way, and I realized his eyes were rolled back into his head. Concerned, I dashed over and picked him up. It turned out he couldn't move his back legs and was in a pretty bad state, so without hesitation we dashed off to our regular vet. He had a ghastly sore on one hip, but it appeared that this was due to abrasion from dragging himself home with his front legs, over who knows how much distance and time. X rays revealed no obvious damage, just a little shadow over his lower spine near where the tail starts. A best guess was some impact injury, falling from a tree, or some other mishap. The X ray also revealed a bladder swollen like a tennis ball, and when the vet inserted a catheter and the urine immediately arced across the room, she remarked, "You can imagine his discomfort." A neurological mystery, the best suggestion was to wait and see. It might merely be a pinched nerve, it might get better, it might get a little better, or it might not. It was clear though that he had no bowel control. Pooping was merely untidy, it just came out whenever it got pushed along, though it did result in more visits to the bathtub than a cat would normally choose. Urination was another matter though, and it fell to me to learn to express his bladder. It became a part of my life to squeeze the pee out of my cat several times a day. As you might expect, I became quite adept at this task. It was easy to locate and feel the organ, determining the volume of urine in the bladder. Over time, I learned the best method was to stand outside, grasp the scruff of the cat's neck in my teeth, much like a mother cat with her kitten, support the back end of the cat facing away from me with the left hand, and use the right to apply pressure and send a stream of pee off into the yard. I became quite accurate with my toxic super soaker, enough to dissuade mockery from any who chanced to observe this bizarre ritual. Later that fall, Faith and I made a trip to Squamish to go climbing for a few days. As you can imagine, what to do with Stranger was a bit of an issue. How do you ask someone to care for your partially paralyzed pet for four days, oh, and by the way, you have to squeeze the pee out of him? The obvious solution was to take him along with us. A vet certificate got him across the border, and Stranger rode around the Smoke Bluffs in a large Jrat fanny pack, zipped so that just his head stuck out. While climbing, we would have to tie him off to a bush, since he was quite fast with just his two front legs and could easily dash off into the woods. By and large, this was a successful motif, and a real conversation starter at the crags. In the evenings we would retire to our tent near the Bulletheads, Stranger dining outside until the inevitable turd slid out, a couple swipes with a baby wipe, and into the tent for the night. Back a home, fall wound on and Stranger only got a little better. He was living in a large barricaded section of the shop, with a heating pad to sleep on, and an easy to clean concrete floor. When you came up, he could stand up on all fours, but any attempt to move resulted in his hind end crashing to the floor and him scuttling along like a hermit crab. It was getting colder, and more and more apparent that recovery was not going to happen, and more importantly, this was really no life for a cat. I secured a tranquilizer from the vet, and after one last urination tango, administered it and snuggled with Stranger in the bed until he got drowsy, both of us revisiting the time when he was a favorite cat at the heart of the household, not a paralyzed feline exiled to the cold lonely shop. We made the short trip to the vet with him lolling in my lap, and I stroked his back while he died. He came home in a cardboard box, and we buried him in the front yard, under the huge multi topped fir tree near where Trango was buried the winter before. By the time we moved away from that land after 18 years, there were five cats under that tree, and four who never came home. There's a story for each one, and not a dime spent that I begrudge.

Sweet dude, check out the mountains!

Not that you have any sort of predetermined opinion about the person or anything.

Oh but ChucK, it's such a hateful use of the word "dick"! Are you a self-loathing penis person, or have you just got something against Mr. Cilley?

Klenke, I love that you'll still pop up when invoked. You're sort of like The Rooster that way. (uhm, that's a good thing to my way of thinking). Oh, nicely done Jay, that's pretty much exactly the thing I had in mind.

FW, we appear to have a composite stalker. Tvash snapped the photo, but it was Ivan's stream of consciousness Beowulf recitation and free associospeak that tweaked someone's creep detector. Simon, that you freely describe them as "weirdos" says a little more about you than it does about them, given that both individuals are well known around here. I think a nice little private note, something along the lines of "Tvash, my girlfriend is a little weirded out having her picture posted on the net, could you take it down?" would have gotten it done without the public foofraw, but this has been much more diverting for the cubicle monkeys that make up our core user group. Being as how this is the internet, it's best to not take things personally as a first reaction. If Glassgowkiss calls you a clownpuncher and tells you to fuck off, well that pretty much puts you on par with everyone else around here. Look on the bright side, you've more than doubled your post count with this micro fiasco.

Bob has a wife? Now that's some salacious gossip!

For those of you who have already done the triple couloirs and are contemplating this outing, you can finish the upper part of the Gerber-Sink route by following the top of the Hidden Couloir route up along the ledge at the bottom of the fin, across some ribs and and such, then up to the summit, making a completely separate outing rather than following the third couloir. Nice to see this TR, way to seize the moment.

You should hunt down Paul Klenke, nowadays a rare poster here, but a fabulous encyclopedia of peak identification.

Avoiding dying while climbing has always been a pretty high priority, so having kids didn't change much about that for me. It's not like all of a sudden I had a reason to live and needed to stop being a yahoo with a deathwish. Time constraints from the added complexity and responsibility layered onto life, now that's a different story...

Documentaries! the real dirt on farmer john the natural history of the chicken csa: confederate states of america cane toads: an unnatural history following sean rust never sleeps home movie pauly shore is dead trekkies the eyes of tammy faye murderball searching for the wrong eyed jesus devil's playground fog of war the gleaners and i bright leaves standing in the shadows of motown rivers and tides ghengis blues dig new york doll riding giants hype dogtown and z boys the true meaning of pictures spellbound the yes men lipstick & dynamite god grew tired of us confessions of a superhero air guitar nation

Kurt, Sky Valley is Darryl Cramer, while Leavenworth is Viktor Kramer. David Whitelaw's Rattle and Slime is a pretty comprehensive Darrington guide, available on disc. I do wish the topos were a little higher res though. Banks Lake, while still relatively obscure, curiously requires three guides to cover all the bases: Inland NW Rock by Marty Bland, Rock Climbs of Central Washington Rock by Rick LaBelle, and Whitelaw's Weekend Rock which covers boat accessible climbs overlooked by the other tomes.

Exactly, no offense intended towards my R friends out there. Demonizing with sensational labels is such a tardweb/talk radio cliche. Socialist here, Fascist there, then next thing you know someone's going to trot out the N word.

So what if the Fascists pick Lieberman as a VP? You know, cross the aisle to create a fully prowar pandemic ticket masquerading as "moderate", all-fear-all-the-time. Let's elect some more old guys who helped get us where we are today! Isn't that McCain's new ad campaign, "elect me because I'm old?" Really Woofy, I think it's time the Gay Old Party came out of the closet, don't you?

How do they keep their hair so light and fluffy? Shouldn't it turn into some damp and stringy sweat mop?

I guess that's how Furrys have group sex even when there's only two of them...

We're gonna start it with a positive jam, man sj1lKykVJzo