eternalX

I really don't see the need for the registers and I do find it pretty arrogant that the Mounties put them up there. I've signed some in the past, but it's always this sort of "oh...there's a summit register. i guess i'll sign." You probably don't need to remove them, but let's not put any more up there.

Two other things... 1. If all you want is an iBook for pleasure, they really aren't that much. 1100 bucks? 2. There's an apple store here in seattle. If you have any problems or questions you can just stop in. I want to point out that if you would've asked me this question 2-3 year ago, i never would've suggested a mac.

1) This is not true. In most cases from what I've seen you can't just reinstall the OS on Sony computers. They will not work because of all the proprietary crap in there. You have to install their version of the OS. And why oh why would you buy something with all this crap on it? I had a sony laptop and I didn't like it mainly for this reason. maybe it's gotten better, but Sony's aren't cheap either. 2)It's my personal opinion for sure, but the only one that i've seen come close is the new super thin one that's all black and still, it's not as attractive. 3)Yea i know how virtual memory works and i've built my fair share of computers (something that i won't do anymore) and my point is that you don't ever want to be using virtual memory. When you do you're going to get significant slowdown no matter if a drive is 20% faster or not (and in which case you sholud be looking more at seek times than throughput as normally your drive is jumping all over the place unless it's reading one continuous file...which is rare UNLESS you defrag alot AND you're working with large binaries LIKE uncompressed audio and video...none of which the average user does). I mean..if you want the geek solution, go PC (but i'd still stay away from sony). If you want a laptop that you'll love and it'll work all the time and is geared for what it says you want to do, go iBook. It's form over function for sure, but you have to ask yourself, what do you want to do with it? talk about hard drive throughputs or listen to music, make movies, and view pictures?

check the stats. i get over 4 hours on one battery pack with my monster of a laptop.

Well, I already told you why I'll vote for him (despite my earlier thoughts, i am not going to vote libertarian like i planned on only because i so want Bush out). His views on my three main issues are much more closely aligned with mine. I'm less concerned about history (which to be honest, don't seem all that differnt to me...6 of 1, half dozen of the other) or character. I'm an American and damnit, i'm selfish. Cheers

in regards to my brother, I think he just got annoyed with the whole "you're going home next month, no wait, next month, no wait, next month, <repeat for 1.5 years>". Complete lack of organization and communication according to him. I don't think he would have minded if they one, got the assignment correct (they shipped all their helis and whatnot to serve in iraq. Once unpacked they decided they should go to afghanistan instead), or they just would've been more transparent (obviously you know more than a month out that you aren't going to be sending your troops home) and honest with their soldiers and plans. It might have hurt him more because his first child was born about 2 months after he shipped out.

I grew up in the south as well. Alabama to be exact. Not that it matters, but i've lived here for about 4 years. The thing that's hard for me to understand is that even if Bush and Kerry did the exact same thing in Iraq and Kerry had a better plan for the domestic arena, i'm sure you and your friends will all still vote Bush. Would that be a correct assessment?

Dude, if you look back, the Democrats have controlled Congress for about 26 of the last 34 years. So, you might want to take another look at whether or not they "understand how you can't spend more than you take in." I, personally, don't think the Republican-led Congress has done much to be fiscally responsible, either, but don't think the Dems are budget-conscious spendthrifts. Greg_W Good point...Clinton somehow did it though.

I so love comments like this. Funny. I heard yesterday that homeland security was the biggest issue right now. Good thing you're on the pulse. Gotter - One thing you have to realize is that you live in a very skewed world. The things that are important to you, your buddies, and your family aren't the same as in other places. Living in Seattle, i can tell you that i'm totally skewed too. We live in such a liberal city it's sometimes hard to know where we fit in with the rest of the country. I mean when Bush brought up the gay rights ban i thought..."That's it. He's done. How would anybody believe that gays don't have the right to marry?!" Like 20% of prime time tv focuses on a gay man or woman. But turns out that like 75% of the country agrees with Bush (whereas probably 90% of Seattle does not). I was completly shocked. Anyway, my brother just got back from a year in Afghanistan and i'm pretty sure he's voting for "anyone other than Bush" so that seems to cancel your "everyone in the service will back Bush" thought.

Just look at the screens to tell the difference. Apple is known for quality screens and rendering fonts, which makes sense because they used to be THE standard for printing and design (and still are at most design firms). Having said that, the widescreen (1920x1600) on my DELL is brilliant. I combine it with a second 19" Sony Trinitron monitor at work to get a total resolution of 3520x2800. It rocks. Surprisngly, the 17" laptop screen looks better and is sharper than the 19" sony tube. LCD screens have come a long way!

Don't worry about hard drive speeds. Unless you are editing large amounts of digital video or running a database, it won't matter. RAM is 100 times faster than the hard drive so an increase in RAM would be much better than a faster hard drive. I would think the limiting factor wolud be more the size. If you want to store images and mp3s, bigger is better. I would think 40GB would be a good size. The differences with Pentium M is that it adjusts its speed (and threeby power) based on what you are doing. I get like 4 hours of life on one battery charge of my Dell. In the past, I was slightly weary of AMD, just because it wasn't the leader (and so might not be as compatible), but it's probably a fine choice nowadays. They tend to be a bit cheaper.

Ken - I'm a lifetime PC user and I use a DELL D800 for everything. As a developer and PM it's super fast, reliable, and has a huge screen. It also cost about 4k. Luckily work paid that. Having said all that, for what you want to do, get an iBook. They look better, they are smaller, and they do everythnig you want exceptionally well. My gf just bought the 14" one for like $1100 and it's perfect for her (ironically, she works at microsoft). If i was going to buy a laptop for myself, it's what i would get as well. I personally don't like Sony's because they load them with a bunch of crappy Sony programs and the design just doesn't compete with apple. I like Sony in other areas though (tv, stereo). Get an iBook.

I have to somewhat agree. Kerry's 4 purple hearts in four months and the whole swift vets thing has swayed my opinion on his character. I don't really care about his anti-war protests and actually respect him for that part (and his anti-war protests are surely playing a role in the minds of the swift vets, for example). At to people like gotterdamnrag or whatever his name is, this is the only thing that matters. My dad is career military and I think they have been so, well, I don't want to say brainwashed, but career military definitely place a large emphasis on the quality of character and they have somewhat narrowly defined vantage points of such traits (for example, I don't think my father would ever approve of disagreeing with the president as he's the current leader, especially during a war..it's all a chain of command thing, you do what you're told, etc). And then you get all the military types emailing each other about how bad Kerry is and some of it truth, some of it fiction, but it gets them angry and i imagine that's why we see such outlashes by gotterdamnrag. ANYWAY What it comes down to me in this election is selfishness though. I care most about three things and Kerry's more likely to deliver than Bush in all three. They are: 1. Defending the Constitution - When I think Bush, I think Ashcroft and it makes me sick. Trampling on civil rights and the Patriot Act...ugh. Gay rights is another thing. I mean if Bush is opposed to gay marriage, fine, but to even suggest that banning it belongs on the same level as freedom of speech clearly shows that he has no idea where I think our priorities lie. 2. War - I think Kerry will do whatever he can to keep us out of it. Pure and simple. Sorry but I don't have a strong belief that terrorists are as powerful as the media and the administration likes to portray and I think good intelligence and special ops will be better suited for that task. Our military is in something like 92 countries right now. It's time to start bringing them home. I don't mean pcik up and leave Iraq. We are there and we have to stay the course. I think Kerry and Bush agree on that. I just don't want to do the same thing again in another country. 3. Economy - Republicans always say we'll fix this later, but it's been 34 years since they've ever had a balanced budget and there are no signs that Bush will fix this. He's not even talking about it. I'm not a democrat, but at least they understand how you can't spend more than you take in. cheers

nice job!

You mean straight from Challenger to Luna lake? Well, yes, there is a route that goes that way, but it wouldn't be at all related to the ridge traverse we did, which we did on purpose. We weren't just lost on our way to Luna. Well right. I wasn't implying you were lost. I'm planning on doing a trip later this month to hit Challenger and Luna and I don't think I want to do that skethcy traverse. Just seeing what the options were.

psycho. There's nothing better than doing line after line off the Shuksan Arm in waist deep powder.

Do you think that you could skip the sketchy traverse if you skipped crooked thumb and went directly towards Luna Lake?

Was planning on doing a Challenger / Luna (via Big Beaver / Perfect Pass) trip during the last week of August. The book says that its season goes to October. Does it become impassable later in the year? Is there water at perfect pass?

Was planning on hiking in from snowflats trailhead.

IS there much snow up there right now? Thinking about taking the girl up there and she doens't have any boots. Any other advice/suggestions. It'll be her first quasi-alpine experience.

Opening an old thread. All this talk of purification and filters and nobody said which filter is their favorite. Looking to buy one (i'm cool with drops, but the gf, not so much). Is the MSR Sweetwater the one to go with? Seems less expensie than the others and it'll match my stove.

Climb: Mt Adams -S Climb / SW Chutes Descent Date of Climb: 7/18/2004 Trip Report: Hiked up to about 7800', about 1000' below lunch counter. Ate Brie, dehydrated food and drank beer (24s of Busch Light Draft:)) Got up at 6:30 and got hiking by 7:30. I was fine because I had a light pack but the group was slow. Hit the false summit at noon and the true about an hour later. By the time we started the traverse back there was a small creek forming between the summits. Headed down one of the SW Chutes at about 2:30? While nice and steep, the snow was crap, still faster than hiking down. GOt rained on towards the bottom. 25 minute bushwhack to the trail and then back to the car by 5:30. Gear Notes: ice axe (nice, but not necessary), crampons, snowboard, thin gloves, lightweight jacket, hiking pants. Forgot the gaiters but it wasn't a big deal. Approach Notes: Approach is fine. Next time I'd hike to at least lunch counter to make the summit day a bit easier. Route down sucks. Don't bother with it anymore this year.

Climbed to 1000' below lunch counter on saturday. Drank beer. Summited Adams on Sunday. Boarded down misreable SW Chutes. Got home late, didn't call gf early enough. Got in trouble.

We ended up stashing our boards in the low section between the false and true summits. A true 'maybe carrying our boards to the top isn't such a good idea considering it's already 1pm' reaction. The ride down wasn't so good

Agreed. Boarded it on Sunday and didn't have a whole lot of fun. Least i had a light pack.