billcoe

Ok, I looked it up. http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial-stability/reports/Pages/TARP-Tracker.aspx Bottom line today: Percent Recovered: 99.2%. Not that I agreed with it, but there it is. Maybe I'm not as lazy as I think.

Uhhh, where did you get your stats Bob? He's an article from 2012 titled : "AIG Bailout Leads to $17.7 Billion Government Profit After TARP" http://abcnews.go.com/Business/government-makes-177-billion-profit-aig-bailout/story?id=17074275 Memory says that the headline said GM had paid it back. I'm too lazy to look it up cause I don't give a rats ass either. ...and there is that bad memory thing I gots. Carry on.

LOL, ya got Maturin down cold man, but you really start hitting your stride at the bottom of it. Still laughing at this: Finish it, finish it! Good lord, probably a good thing to don't show up to those staff meetings armed:-)

GZACK IN DA HOUSE!!! WOOT! HOLA G! PS, on another unrelated note: I've sent you a couple emails Tim. PM me with your current one so I can communicate and update you on some things.

That seemed easy

Here's some recent shots of couple of other places while we wait for yours. I'm starting to get out again. Still some pain but what's a mother to do? 2nd pitch Bennie!!!!

Reasons: 1st) Beacon is closed. (not) 2nd) It seems cold, dark, damp, and foreboding. 3rd) Kenny breaking his back on P1. Agree with the rest of your words Steve, great job Ivan. (on fixing Pinks old route?) Impressive line. Any pictures?

I'm going to give the wrong answer here Ian. I just had a year off, getting back feels like it has all been muscle work. Tendons seem fine. I know. Wrong answer, but I still hurt from the last surgery and haven't been going even 80% yet, so there is that. Good luck!

Speaking of Tards (libtard or conservatards), did you see this one Fair(andbalanced) weather? http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/aaron-schock-resigns-116153.html http://news.yahoo.com/congressman-aaron-schock-to-resign--report-183223696.html

Just saw this: the gear shop is open and rolling full steam upstairs in the Stoneworks climbing gym! Right on!

Damn, times have changed. I'm no longer middle aged. --->

This recent one from Pat should be nestled between some Twain and Churchill'isms and cracked me up: Haha, good stuff Pat. 'Fraid to ask about the "Bofa" as I already have a strong visual. Must stand for "Boyfriends Sofa" or "Bitches Sofa"?

That's hilarious AlpineK. So your dad supplied the skis. Haha! Strong work sir!

The table for the WIN! Woot! Till you slide sideways into a tree and crash it of course. Love it. You make that Alpine?

Wow! World class badass. Astounding, thanks for the find Rad and congrats Marc.

I did that finish once. It was the last time, never wanted to go back. Once you get though the shit, the last pitch ended as an excellent sweet fingercrack. Unfortunately, ends right under a big fir, so there was like sweeping shovelfuls of pine needles off as you climb.

This started last month. I didn't realize the expense they were putting into it. They have crews all over the tracks, it would have been nice to have coordinated with the RR for climbers to be prying any loose rocks off now when the trains aren't running. No mo Slow Trains A Comin' until they finish, when ever that is.

Its may be that the West Face also had significant rockfall and as it wound up landing on the big scree at the base it looks the same as the other loose boulders and rocks piled up there so no one noticed it. The trail has been taken out twice by loose rock - no climbing routes anywhere near the location the crap is coming from, and if you look above the trail, there is still a big chunk of crap hanging up there waiting for the next stiff breeze or wayward puff of wind to push it off..... ...you can almost hear the ticking if you pause and look right at it. I understand that climbers offered to get up there and pry off any loose stuff when they all but closed the park when the trail was taken out by boulders last time, but were rebuffed. Too bad. Next time we need to press our case harder on that. We can get that loose stuff @ 100 feet above the trail off and increase the safety margin for hikers and tourists. Just like the per-opening assists the railroad and increases their safety margin in a huge way: by getting the loose stuff that's accumulated over the winter off at a time of everyone's choosing so that a train isn't accidentally derailed by a stray boulder (or group of them) rolling off naturally on it's (their) own.

Yup. The recent stuff off the North face was pretty sizable and scary close to the cars. Just feet from the water fountain. That might be some of that Barney Rubble. Crap is falling off on it's own everywhere recently. Was not that long ago @2 dump trucks of rock fell off from the top on the SE side when the wind blew over the largest fir tree on that side and the huge root system lifted everything up and then gravity took over. Did it during the closure so there was no humans anywhere near. Course, they would have been blown off in the wind if they'd been there, must have been one of those 100 MPH East winds that nuke the gorge on occasion. The scar after. In retrospect, looking at the picture, that's much more than 2 dump trucks full.

That's awesome Rudy. Congrats to Drew. Onsighting Dawn Wall in a year or 2? Stoke!

Double check with Timberline Lost and found? Good luck!

Thanks and good luck!

Somewhere in a 5 day timeframe you are saying a climber might have dislodged a rock? At the very tail end of the climbing season where there are a bunch of folks out there trying to get a last lap in? Not likely but it could have occurred I suppose a rock had already fallen half way off, landed on a route and was teetering. Start of the season there is always fresh rockfall here or there on the climbing routes that might get knocked off. End of the year, not so much at all for man made rockfall. There are 3 fresh and very huge recent rockfalls (multiple rocks) on the East Face from @ the last month where no climber or human ever treads. The rocks rolled all the way down from near the very top to the hiking trail on 2 of the falls, big stuff. All natural rockfall. Maybe it's just that time of the year that the natural rockfall occurs more frequently. Rocks fall off all the time, rarely off the climbing routes and rarely due to an active climber. (I've done a bunch of pre-openings where the park and Railroad folks co-ordinate us tossing rocks off before any climbers show up to help minimize those kinds of issues) Those times they do encounter it, climbers try not to knock off the loose stuff as they never know who is below you that you might kill. Thats why when rocks fall off from up high and land on ledges that climbers frequent, you'll often see loose rocks towards the cliff where they cannot be accidentally dislodged, climbers push they away from the edge. Climbers I know will only toss rocks there if they feel that not doing so will most likely cause an unplanned rockfall later that might do more damage. For example, if a rock is about ready to peel off, and it picks it's time, it might kill a couple hikers and hit the RR 10 seconds before the next train (a train full of 90 percent liquid sodium hydrochloride roaring towards PDX 20 feet from the river for instance). So in that instance I could see a climber nudging it after the train has cleared the area. You can see the fresh rocks that came off on there own on the East (not the RR side) side still, although climbers and hikers have been moving them back off the trail.

Wish you well on your quest. Not germaine to the conversation, but noticing your user name I have to ask - are you any relation to Dan Graff (from Ellensberg I think)? Expert skiier, I did some climbing and getting out with him in the 70's: good dude. Good times.

It's nice to see that Judges are still about justice. Congrats Ivan, but I suspect that tomorrow the bad actor Rangers at Beacon Rock will be picking on someone else for something equally dumb. I keep hearing these stories, and the judge tossing out these stupid tickets. Yet it appears that it in no way slows them down. It's probably about time we started getting political and get some of these bad actors, like Vivian and whomever the new guy who's suppose to be worse than she is, who consider their "work" at Beacon Rock to be harassment of ordinary citizens for the slightest provocation, fired. Park workers shouldn't be so acrimonious. Karl the head ranger is a good park steward and good person but doesn't seem to ride herd on the rest too well it appears. We repeatedly see and hear of these other screwballs dealing poorly with good people and doing stupid things. We pay for that more than just their salaries, as your court case which was tossed out demonstrates. It's the kind of stupidity that usually leads to million dollar lawsuits that the taxpayers get stuck with while these knuckleheads keep their jobs and keep acting poorly. It would be nice if Erik Plunkett the former head ranger would come back as he was so good at the job and so fair in his dealings with park users. To Erik, a criminal was someone breaking into a car, not a normal park user who got back to their car 10 min late or didn't hear her and didn't run over to Vivian to give up their cell phone on her alleged mumbled order. Erik helped keep workers like Vivian in check and elevated everyone else's professionalism: but sadly I don't think he'll give up his (well earned) promotion to come back and help out. Erik and I were once standing on the East trail talking, and he noted that the overhang on the East Face was closed. Having taken refuge there once during a heavy sudden spring rain, I didn't know this and was surprised. I asked him why there wasn't a sign indicating such. He shook his head and said: "if we put in too many signs and pretty soon nobody is paying attention to any of them and it's just not the way a park should be". He pointed out that it was a rare time that anyone ever went up there anyway. He had only ever seen one guy up there, a local Native lad, and he had walked up and had a nice conversation which included kindly letting the kid know of the closure. He indicated that the conversation was respectful both ways, and he said he learned a lot as well. There was a guy who knew what the parks mission was and why we have parks. [/shakes head, ends rant]