Off_White

Well, I'm sure you're aware that it's a form of metamorphic rock. Modern pad people lemming lingo substitutes it for the homonym "nice." Use it in a sentence: "Duuude, like that Marlet is so gneiss! I greased off that sloper on Buttknuckle, V11 eh, and he gave such an aggro spot I didn't even dab. I swear, that bitch is gonna be my crashpad4lyfe."

Rob, that spelling of the word "gay" suggests you're wearing frilly pink panties at this very moment. Go hang out on boldering.com if you wanna talk that way. Next thing you know you'll be saying "gneiss" and adding "4lyfe" after every other verb.

He lies less than Rush Limbaugh, who also claims to represent the "truth". Really, both are about entertainment for their respective constituents. I know, liberals are supposed to be all nice and meek so the rabid right can walk all over them, pisses them off to have the left bite back and play the same game. I know better than to quote Michael Moore as gospel, but Al Franken on the other hand is much more rigorous in his fact checking.

The suggestion to do the complete ridge has merit. If you do all those prep climbs, the lower difficulties will be no big deal, the notch bivy is very scenic (as are some of the higher ones), and given my druthers I think I'd rather come in Mountaineer Creek than over Goat pass. Still, the first time I did it I was impressed by how great just the upper ridge was, so anyway you decide to do it will be very rewarding.

Martlet said: Well, and isn't that the crux of the biscuit? The thing that makes arguing with the other conservatives around here enjoyable is not what we disagree about, but the points of commonality. Sure, it's fun to argue about the appropriate use of the military with Fairweather, but we're both writing letters to get the Dosewallips road open in the Olympics, don't want to see the Cloud Cap Inn turn into a mammoth ski area, and will have a great time together sometime in the future bagging some peak in the Olympics. Greg_W and I can wrestle over the assault weapons ban, but we've already had a good time together cragging in Leavenworth at a rope up, and we'll do it again sometime. Peter Puget and I disagree completely on the Israel/Palestinian situation, but we're both totally psyched by the new Darrington guidebook and want to mix it up out there. Do you see? It's the fact that most of these ideological opponents are real people, who I've either met or likely will meet, at a pub club or in the mountains, and we can find some common ground and respect for each other that makes this interesting to me. You're a non-climber who lives in Boston, that I will never meet, and your main interest in dialog is calling people moonbats and engaging in a middle brow game of "I know you are but what am I." What's the point?

Martlet, do you think the gendarme pitches on the N. Ridge of Stuart are overrated simply because of their spectacular position, or are they really bona fide 5.9?

Making fun of someone for climbing an easy route strikes me as a bit churlish, you're a better man than that Mr. Peru.

Burrito Heaven is okay, but it's a: a little too expensive, mexican food should be cheap and b: faux mexican, like Taco Del Mar, healthy stuff. That's not to say it's not tasty. Bear in mind I grew up in San Diego, so I'm pretty picky about that stuff. I never checked out the Evergreen gym, partly because I'd heard it was limited to 6 people at a time and top rope only, but maybe my info is wrong. Is there any trace of the outdoor wall on the swimming pool building? I started that one in 1979, using the lapidary shop on campus to drill holes in found rocks and using the Facilities shop's corded hammer drill to anchor them to the wall, as well as drilling pockets & edges. Pretty visionary, eh?

Ummm, yeah, what you said. Great set though.

Klenke said: I dunno, without this thread I never would have known that there even was such a thing as Organic Treacle, but it seems an ideal metaphor for dimwitted xenophobic dittohead spew. Next thing you know he'll start prattling on about how illegal immigrants are responsible for all that's bad in the economy or how wrong gay marriage is.

I like it around here (Tenino is 12 miles south of Olympia). It's a small town for sure, but that's part of what I like. I see people I know everywhere I go. Music - There's quite a bit of it in town, predominately indie rock, but a smattering of irish folk, blues, and even a pretty good chamber orchestra. Home to a number of record labels and hundreds of bands, Oly has more to offer than the low-fi naive punk it's most commonly associated with. Most recently I saw The Strangers, a local outfit I could only describe as a "power klezmer band" opening for Kristen Hersh's (ex throwing muses) new outfit 50 Foot Wave at the China Clipper aka The Crippler, a sleazy nauga-lounge that pours strong drinks for cheap. There are a number of venues in town that do things. Oh, and ticket prices are cheap, usually a $5 cover charge. Food - a variety of good eats: Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Meat & Ribs, Pizza, Indian, and Nouvelle Shi-shi are are well represented, though the town is mostly deficient in terms of really good mexican food. There's a very active and successful working member food co-op with two stores if you're into groovy food, and a kickass farmers market right downtown. Culture: It's not the big city, that's for sure. There is good local theater, Harlequin, that has renovated one of the old downtown movie theaters, and they have one "pay what you can" night for every play. The Washington Center does lots of performing arts, but I find their ticket prices frequently off-putting. There is a performance space for hire downtown, the Midnight Sun, where an assortment of things happen. The Olympia Film Society is just awesome, running an array of films the local mainstream theaters won't touch, and putting on a stellar festival every year. The Capitol Theater, operated by the Film Society, is an 800 seat hall that also features various special events and travelling hoopla. Hippies: The old joke goes "Why is Olympia like a bowl of granola? Because if you take out the nuts and fruits all that's left is a bunch of flakes." Truth be told, though the white boy rasta is still well represented, the town is now more hip than hippy. Still, if you wanna get your chakra's tuned and your cat rolfed, come talk to me, I know a guy. Four varieties of that special fungus growing locally, free for the picking. Climbing: Well, frankly, it sucks. New gym opens in July, and it looks to be good. There's my front yard, which is pretty stellar, but in the end it's only 30 some routes and quite seasonal. Travel times: Leavenworth 3 hours, Smith 5 hours, Squamish 5 hours, Tieton 2.5 hours, Index god-only-knows-cuz-you-gotta-go-through-Seattle. There's some stuff scattered around I don't know that much, in the hour away range: Lake Cushman, Wilkeson Quarry, Fossil Rock. Oooh oooh, and that outdoor rock near Spanaway. Bouldering is generally hopeless, though I did once write a guide to Buildering at Evergreen with 100 some odd problems in it. Paddling: Not my department. I had a carpenter who worked for me awhile back who was a whitewater canoe guy, olympic team level. He was unimpressed, by most of the state actually. There are a number of rivers and such nearby, Descutes, Nisqually, etc, but they're not super challenging. It's about an hour and a half to the coast if you're a surf type. If you're a flat water poke around type, there's lots of great saltwater and 100 some odd lakes in the county. Snow: That kind of sucks too. It's about 2 hours to anywhere: Crystal, Snowcrummy, White Pass, Paradise. More to Stevens Pass, Baker, or Hood. Locally, we tend to get one or two snowfalls a year, it never sticks around very long. We did get to sled on my driveway this year though. Mtn Biking: Lots around, good single track stuff. Nearby Capitol Forest offers some significant elevation gain possibilities. Weather: Wetter than Seattle, fewer ice storms than Portland. Synopsis: I think it's a great place to live, but it'll never be a sport mecca.

Is a cricket bat related to a moon bat?

maybe you're this?:

Asserting that Boston is below the Mason-Dixon line could get you in a spot of trouble in some places.

In the US these days wife beaters are generally unelectable if their behavior becomes common knowledge.

Excellent, objection withdrawn.

Martlet: Are you the "Geoffry" from that website, or are you a plagarist passing off his writing as your own? It's a sincere question, because if you're not that dude from Boston you need to attribute his work when you post it verbatim. Of course, if you are "Geoffry" then you would appear to be old enough to drive.

The US has snipers. Are you suggesting that it would appropriate for them to be mutilated and hung from a bridge, since you believe snipers wouldn't be protected under the Geneva Convention?

So, you're asserting that unless prisoners were captured in uniform we can do whatever we feel like to them? That's complete bullshit. Put aside your hollywood knowledge of the Geneva Convention and read the document: The people detained are either military or civilians, and either way they are protected. There is not a special class of "suspected terrorist" that abrogates all legal and moral protections.

Oh! And this from such a secretive avatar as yourself. I know, but as a private contractor for AmazingCo. I would have to place your naked body in embarassing positions with strangers and take pictures if I told you.

Here is a LINK to a recent trip report and discussion. It may be a relief to know you're not the only one to experience this problem.

No, that was a different quarry, which became active again several years ago. All those routes are gone. It's some bizarre granite variant, supposed to be the hardest stone quarried in the state. When you climbed on it, it hadn't been that long since it was worked, and the rock was more fractured. The quarry at my house is sandstone, and it was last blasted in 1912. There are a couple huge flakes that merit some caution though. Of course, that's true of most climbing areas. Yosemite has had some events in the last few years.