billcoe

Presidente for life? Where do people get such ideas? ___________________________________________________________________ Maybe we'll never know. Here's to the people of Venezuela.

Another non-story. I think that most of us don't care in the sense that ones sex life shouldn't or will not dictate the persons intelligence or public polices. Certainly many Christians voted for Clinton or he wouldn't have been elected, and there was allegations and strong evidence all through the primaries of his dilances so him doing the babysitter with a cigar should not have been a surprise to anyone. (Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers anyone?) The only part that bothers me is the lieing part. I don't care if Hilary is gay and doing her girlfriend hairdresser (you heard it here folks), just don't be a F*ing lieng hypocrite about it. Other than that, in my mind this is for his wife to worry about (can you say STD and Aids?) and maybe she knew and is OK with it? It's her call and her concern. _______________________________________________________________ Full story: "Cross-dressing state lawmaker blackmailed following late night tryst Rob Kauder Last updated: Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 08:38:59 AM Detectives investigating blackmail attempt against lawmaker State lawmaker blackmailed following gay tryst SPOKANE -- State Representative Richard Curtis says he's not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women's lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis' activities publicly. A search warrant unsealed Tuesday morning disclosed that State Representative Richard Curtis (R - La Center) had sex in his room at the Davenport Tower with a man identified as Cody Castagna, 26, of Medical Lake, who he met at the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on October 26th. Curtis, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday, went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague on October 26th at approximately 12:45 a.m. The store clerk, who had talked with Curtis, referred to him as "The Cross-Dresser" and said that during their conversations he confirmed he was gay and was married with children at home. During his visit to the video store Curtis was observed wearing women's lingerie while receiving oral sex from an unidentified man in one of the movie viewing booths inside the store. Afterward he met Cody Castagna, and they talked about getting together at Curtis' hotel room to have sex. Curtis left Castagna his cellphone number and went to Northern Quest Casino and receiving a call from him around 3 a.m., and planned to get together at the hotel a short while later. The two met at the Davenport Tower around 3:34 a.m. and police reports confirm Curtis and Castagna had anal intercourse after which Curtis fell asleep. Castagna, according to court records, then allegedly took Curtis' wallet out of his jacket pocket and left the room. Around 7 a.m. he called Curtis and told him he knew he was a member of the Washington State House of Representatives and was married, that he had taken pictures of Curtis with a camera on his cellphone and he offered to return the wallet in exchange for $1,000. In police reports it is claimed that Curtis offered Castagna that sum of money in exchange for having unprotected anal intercourse. Curtis, during an interview with a Spokane detective, claimed that he gave Castagna $100 for "gas money" and insisted that the money was not payment for sex. During that phone conversation he claimed he only had $200 and left the money in an envelope at the front desk at the Davenport Tower for Castagna in exchange for the return of his wallet. The attempt to get his wallet back proved unsuccessful as Castagna called Curtis back later on the 26th and demanded the remaining $800 from him. Unbeknownst to Castagna at the time Curtis had already contacted Spokane police and a detective was present with Curtis when Castagna called again. When he contacted police, Curtis told detectives he wanted to keep the incident quiet and didn't want to press charges against Castagna and that all he wanted was his wallet back. During the call Castagna not only demanded $800 for the return of Curtis' wallet but also said the money would buy his silence, implying that without the money he would expose Curtis' gay lifestyle to his wife. Curtis admitted to police that if details of the incident became public he would have to tell his wife and would need to hire a divorce attorney. Following the phone call arranging for the return of the wallet police officers set up surveillance of the location where Curtis' billfold was to be dropped and subsequently recovered it. Castagna offered a completely different view of the events that happened on October 26th in several interviews with detectives. Castagna claimed that Curtis had met him at the Hollywood Erotic Boutique and later at Curtis' hotel room offered him $1,000 in exchange for sex, adding that while he was in Curtis' room at the Davenport Tower Curtis rented two XXX-rated gay movies for the two to watch. After the two had sex, Castagna claimed that Curtis gave him his wallet as collateral to hold on to until he gave him the remainder of the $1,000. He also admitted to detectives he had threatening to publicly expose Curtis to his wife. According to his personal page on MySpace.com early Tuesday morning, Castagna claims he's a 26-year-old Wyoming native now living in Medical Lake and working locally as a server. His MySpace page has since been set to private. The Columbian newspaper in southwestern Washington where Rep. Curtis lives confirmed that Castagna has faced multiple charges in juvenile court in Spokane and King County involving assault, theft, burglary and malicious mischief and that in 2001 he pled guilty to a forgery charge as an adult and was sentenced to two months in jail followed by a year in community custody. Aside from his statements to the police, Rep. Curtis' only public statement about the incident on October 26th was to The Columbian. He told the newspaper Monday he did not solicit anyone for sex, that he is not gay and that he got into this mess just trying to help someone out. KXLY4's Jeff Humphrey and Melissa Luck contributed to this report."

Looks like an interesting device in that the size spread goes 7.5-10.5mm, a real good range, weighs 63 gms and can autoblock 2 seconds. today at Daily Climber Link $19.99/ea I bought 2 and in researching further saw that Climb Max has them as well. $24.95 list price.

I think it is more proper to use correct spelling in this application. Douchbag. bahahahaha bwahahahaaaaaaa! Link

JUDGING BY THE PIC ALONE, YOU MUST BE OUTCLIMBING EVERYONE ELSE ON THE SITE

I got bigger man boobs than Tvash Fairweather. What do I win?

I got a PM with a friendly reminder about watching out for loose rocks. I appreciate getting it privately so as not to see a flamefest sprout up and take over a pretty good thread. I thought it might be better to put the response here, for anyone else who wants to follow this route should be paying attention to this idea. We are being as careful as possible, given the fact that on the other side of this rock, the trail has been wiped out twice in a relatively recently time from naturally occurring rockfall (it's closed right now for either a treefall or rockfall for instance). Joseph is mostly doing what I use to do and heading out mid week to toss em off and clean when that needs to occur. Furthermore, he had told me his plans like last year, but put this off for most of the summer when it was crowded. For some reason when the wind hits 40-60 knots and the wind chill is negative like we sometimes see or have been having, JH is still out there, but he's pretty much alone. If any other hardy sole shows up (Ivan) they are usually in communication days in advance and aware of each others locations and plans. JH has a hard time even talkin a belayer into it in some of the conditions he wants to climb. The route location he's on now, an alert belayer can see the trail in advance and talk to folks if it is needed - and manage both the climber and the hikers before the confluence of a bad space is hit. The Volkswagon I mention pushing off on the thread was pushed off @ 23 or so years ago, I could see the trail at the time too and no one was out there back then - except my belayer, Bill Dyckstra and Neil Olsen: but Neil was way the hell up in the parking lot just getting out of his car when he heard the noise (coincidentally Neil was the very first technical rescue off El Cap in 1972 when a huge block - there use to be loose stuff all over up there) above camp 5 pryed off with Neil on it and snapped his leg, I think it was a compound fracture of the femur, very painful). Classic pic of Bridwell and Neils head here: Interesting enough, Bridwill was in town a few years back and recognized Neil at a party with a bunch of climbers. For those who know Neil, it's a reminder to stay in touch with people you like or love (and Neils a prince of a dude). Neil had a brain anurism a year ago which put him in intensive care and came a Red C* Hair from taking his life. The scar across the top of his head looks like a German Shepard had picked him up and shook him. But he's recovering and was out climbing at Beacon early this spring and is working on some memory issues. Now might be a good time to bluff him into "paying back" the $100" he borrowed from you! At another local crag where Kevbone just did a new fa addition, when cleaning I will put a sign on a tree with a bungee cord at the top of the trail asking people to yell up to me to establish communication when they get down to the base, the sign explains that there will be deadly shit raining down, and that I am by myself and it is difficult to watch both the trail and toss blocks. They get there and yell up, I stop, take a break, pay attention and loudly say "coast is clear": they pass and the tossfest continues. People are very happy with the sign BTW, but it takes off a lot of pressure of the cleaner too. Anyway, thank you for the PM reminder sir, it's good thing to keep on the top of the concern list. - For all of us. Edited to add: that reddish block just above the highpoint-rope in JH's pic looks like it wants to come right off in the picture. In real life, it looks wedged in and more solid.

I own all of them. #1 Cinch. #2 Eddy (unless you want t solo device, then reverse #1 and 2 and see Joseph who has figured it out) #3 and #3a is a tie -Gri-Gri and Faders Sum. I could go either way, the Sum has a potentially fatal lethal flaw but is a kick assed device otherwise if it dosn't kill ya, I'll let you figure what that is. #4 - Reverso is a different kind of device and shouldn't be included with this group. Best to get a mentor and ask directly. Fondle his tool. Try it out. If you really wanted my opinion, I'd recommend starting with a standard ATC style device and learning it till you can do it stoned, drunk and sleeping in the dark with either hand braking. Practice it practice it and practice it some more. My opinion anyway. Luck! BTW, the Cinch was redesigned and improved about 8 months ago. Some of that lip flapping above was totally dependant on what you want to do with it. My needs and wants probably are different than yours. What ever you choose learn it till you can do it stoned, drunk and sleeping in the dark with either hand braking and one hand is on your dick as you piss. Practice it practice it and practice it some more. Somebodies life will be in your hands and it's a damn sorry serious business. Except for the part about the dick if you are a chick, and then I'll just apologize now.

Hola Wayne. From this route which is close to pure SE corner, you are looking across the great East Face to the right at McGowns "Upside-Down Sylvania" route to the right. Was that you who did that with him? Although that area is closed, it stands as proud mute testament to somebodies very large cahones. I was thinking of him and wondering if that was you when we were up there. To answer your question, Joe's route is spicy but not too runout (although I doubt a gym climber would say that). Too runout...Yet. There's still mileage. The problem may be that some many of the pieces are in fracture planes of large blocks. Until you actually fall on them, you don't know if it will hold. Higher up, it looks like it's even more committing. Maybe I'm expoliating here. Steve Strauch told me a story once about this area once. He said he and Danny had come out here to what he called "The Arena of Terror", (he called the East Face that, not the south side overhang like Tim has in the book) and tried to find a line up through those overhanging blocks which are to the right of JH's line (must be somewhere in the left side-middle but I don't know exactly). He said he was way up there, barely hanging on and had to run it out a bit. He finally reached a stance that although it was a bit overhanging, he could just manage to let go with one hand, grab his hammer (this was in the days before nuts, so late 60's or so) and smack a knifeblade in. He clipped and went, but as he climbed, to his horror, found that he couldn't stop and pro again. It either was not there he was not able to stop. So he continued. Higher up a bit he thought he saw a spot for a handhold and pro. To his shock and dismay, immediately after he'd got there and grabbed right behind one of these blocks thinking he had that great "Thank God" lock and a chance at redemption and some pro, this entire big F*ing thing just pulled off. Down he and the block went straight at his belayer who, alerted by the screams of terror, jumped aside. With pretty much his life riding on that single knifeblade drivin' straight up into one of those other lower blocks, Steve and basalt block let gravity rule and plunged toards destiny and truth or dare knifeblade style. The blade held... held in spite of what one would think it should have done. He lived. Never went back to the East Side. Ever. He came back later and did a 2 day siege for the FA of Blownout in a classic massive gorge icestorm in January with Danny. (couldn't drive it was so bad but they stayed and climbed for 2 days waiting for it to meltoff so the roads would be clear) But never went back to the East Side..........ever. So part 2 of the question: grade, maybe 10+ or up, you'd pull it easy Wayne, but very strange technical climbing with few real straight forward jugs to grab on. It's a lot of interesting sidepulls, underclings, sequential hand swaps, leg stretches combined with a greasy smear and other strange bizarre stuff. Even more impressive is JH's rack which must be 20 lbs including pitons, hammer, every size nut ever made and a rack of quickdraws and slings that would have made Todd Skinner proud. Josephs pulling hard right now. The route is going in stages, with 100 percent of it being his effort. (This was my 2nd belay session) Pretty good for an old F*er. BTW, Joseph is looking at those upper roofs like a hungry salivating hound staring at a meaty bone laying in a bear trap. Hope no one goes for the poach and that everyone gives him some time to work on them as it may be spring till it gets good enough again. As an aside, and as we already had this heavy assed drill up there for the old bolt replacement, I advocated for a bolt on the top belay. Looking at the 2 small pins slammed into opposite sides of a solid block and a single tcu in the same fracture plane was almost causing sh*t to run down my leg. After I stopped peeing myself, did some deep breathing and calmed down, Joseph suggested to me that maybe we don't put one at that time, but we reflect and consider it. That anchor held BTW and we rapped on it. Actually, from the safety of the ground, the best belay point may actually be just above us, and it was a great call on Josephs part IMO, to put off drilling the bolt. It may be put in later...hard to say. Look carefully at the pic and you can see the fracture planes that has pieces of pro in them. Joseph chose the better places, typically closer to the main wall....but still, I was glad to be following. It was such a real pleasure to be out with him. Especially since I haven't pulled hard since my arm tweaked @ 1-1/2 months ago. Nice to have a ropegun. Pink: rapbolting may be better than dying from having a block pull, but depending where your rope hit as you descended, you'd be maybe 20-30 feet out in space, as you know: the side profile reveals a huge roof system.

Thought you folks would like to see some climbing pics. Maybe hear a story or 2. Put a log on the campfire and pull up a lawn chair. Spent part of Sunday belaying the indomitable Joseph Healy up a continuation of Rhythm Method. Ran into lots of people I know. Maybe I need to get out more. Saw my buddie Andrew, who I don't see enough and might have seen last in Yosemite, Thomas Miller, Ken from Walla Walla was there and he climbed with Ujahn, He and Ujahn did the first pitch and rapped. Here's Ken after fixing my anchor up. Ujahn had soled TR'ed the first pitch on that blue rope and brought Ken up. I don't see the rope I thought I was clipped too which was Josephs Supersafe and a green color. Thanks Ken! Good guy. (Truthfully, this is Ken just showing up at the belay with Ujahn and I and laughing his ass off at the clusterF*, somehow it made sense at the time and there really was a green rope clipped in somewhere along with my backpack, water, 2 rope sacks, etc etc). Right over Kens left shoulder is a gap where I had once pushed off with my feet, on lead, with my back on the wall, a block the size of a Volkswagon that had Neil Olsen come breathlessly running down at a hard sprint from the parking lot sure that a fatality had accompanied the earth shaking rumbling. (Bill Dykstra belaying on the FA of Boardwalk, "Hey Bill, take me off and move around the corner a moment." ) If any of you other gear whores wonder what a 10.2 x 70 meter dry rope that costs $97 looks like, here's a picture of a new one. As this is the well established pitch, note the lack of loose rock and excessive moss. Stewart got out for the first time since his foot healed, bumped into a few others: but the place was pretty empty for such great weather. Calm and maybe 60 was the high, cool in the shade still. The first, and formerly only, pitch of Rhythm Method was done over 20 years ago, and despite the fact that every climber who has climbed at Beacon since that time has walked right past this face and seen this "route yet to be", which logically would start @ 100' up and run up the obvious dihedral you can see from the ground, right after P1, none has taken up the gauntlet until now. In fact the original pitch is finally clean enough after 20 years to not make people think it's gonna be their final climb. The grade settled at a heady 5.7 after starting at maybe 5.10ish and gradually dropping just like the loose rocks and moss that use to populate the route. Jim Opdycke had named the route. The pitch was originally done ground up, essentially no pro with the usual tossed blocks, flying moss and choss. Rated a conservative X. Certainly no bolts. The best piece was a #4 Lost Arrow driven into an expanding flake. It's long gone, pulled something AFTER the 7 bolts which are thankfully there now, put in on a retrobolt by one of the FA party, who had forgotten he'd even done the route until the original belayer heard of the bolts from his buddie pumping the "new route" and clued him in that he had retrobolted his earlier FA. One often sees this kind of selective memory loss during a major tragic accident. Such may be the case here. Still, many think the first pitch of the route still runout and risky, and the 7 bolts too far apart. Putting in the piton would help a bit. If it stayed in this time that is. My advice to those who say that about the first pitch, and they are legion: is to buy some adult sized depends and wrap them tight if you choose to try Joseph's new recent additions up high. Double bag it fer sure. I'd once made the mistake of telling Bryan Schmidt this first pitch FA story (posts as Powderhound), so he was going to do it FA style with nuts.. only nuts (and a few small cams he had) Made the mistake of having me belay him. I was almost crying as he ascended, "please Bryan, please clip a bolt, just one. COMMMMEEEE ONNN! PLLLEEEAASSEEE WAhhhhhhh " I was scared just watching him. He finally couldn't take the wailing anymore and did clip one. He was probably climbing at least 10 grades harder than this route at the time. Sigh...I probably should climb with asswipes instead of great guys like Bryon. Then I won't care about them augering in and can say with a clear mind and glad heart: "Oh go fer it dude, ya got it in the bag", and if I lose a partner or 2, hey, who cares huh? -anyway- It seemed like the similarity of this route to the issues created from this form of birth control were striking. IE, failure rates are high, and it's easy to get F*ed up and have a life altering tragedy. JH has a couple of other names which he's added depending on which way you head, as he's done 2 versions. This is the version on the right. Joseph replacing my 20 year old hand drilled bolt which is almost rusted out. It was my high point and no human being is believed to have breached this height till Joseph blew past it in a blur of tossed blocks, flying moss and choss. Up the ramp 5.9-5.10 moves. 1st belay. Third pitch/highpoint, a knifeblade, a small LA and a small tcu. Side view is deceptive, as it is higher than the tree on SE Corner, the left most tree. Arrow points to location of rappel.

I have 3 (being a gearwhore and all). There's some positives and negatives with these. Trangos extended range cams work better in flares and Metolius Supercams just work better period: and almost everyone seems to carry Camalots. You do not get the OP range with any of those though. I think for people who don't get out a lot, it's just nice to have a go to piece as you're greasing off, instead of grabbing the wrong size and going: DOHHHH, then falling off as your arms burnout before you can put that incorrect size cam back and pluck the correct size off. They have some major downside in they get sticky and feel dirty fast, unlike about every other cam out there that recommends cleaning and oiling and we all just ignore that, with these, you have to do it or the cam will not work. Also, if the direction of pull is not correct, say the lil fella wiggles or moves like they love to do, I'd expect it to be more likely to break if it gets sideways and doesn't easily want to rotate when you fall on it. BUT, for couchmasters or couch potatos, having one and being able to just grab and get a guaranteed fit is worth something. I like the yellow better. But strangely, I find I don't routinely take them out and use them.

Direct start to the Mountaineers Route. I wonder how hard it is.

I stopped eating ice cream and lost 20 lbs! No kidding, I was a Haggen Daz addict. Ya just have to bear down and do it Muff. It's not easy. Good luck!

I stopped eating ice cream and lost 20 lbs! No kidding, I was a Haggen Daz addict.

Please say it ain't so. It's sooo, ...sooo...disturbing.

Damn, what did you do to Kevbone? Seriously, congratulations dude! Sorry to hear that your drill broke. You have a trip report with pics?

Well thats gona suk fer some of us. Fer damn sure......... Wish I was tall.

I got some of the Klean Kanteens recently, and enjoy the fact that the water still tastes good 5 days later. Probably just something else that you will learn is killing you 5 years from now....... They're costly, but one of CC.coms sponsors has them on sale right now cheaper than elsewhere and they're not ungodly expensive: OMC link They should last much longer than plastic.

Good call on staying on the east side. All the climbing and skiing is out that way (that is, if you don't head north to Washington Pass or Leavenworth). Where in Milwaukie Peter (Milwaukie has some big distances depending on which side you're on) ? Maybe we can give some specific recommendations. and what Joseph said: ring us when you get in and we'll pull some ligaments!

Nice. The other one that I get screwed on is OBO. As in $300 OBO. Which only means "Or Best Offer".

With the brown stuff do you look like Eddie Murphy?

Short version for Pope. (thinking of your needs here, see, I did read your post)

bill, i agree with most everything you've been saying which is why i stand to correct this one statement. while it's generally true that people were rapping in exclusively and pre-inspecting routes and equipping fixed pro; it is not true across the board. there was plenty of debate on the overuse and abuse of bolts... i'm not going to list my resume, but i will say: that's *generally* ( i rap bolted 1 route ) not my history out there and i was very vocal in opposition of rap bolting the crap out of this crag. i love that you're out finding gear routes - there is still plenty more. keep the adventure alive bill; you the man. I have nothing but respect for you Mark, and meant no critisim of you. In fact, I'm not even criticizing rap bolting or rapping down to clean the routes out there. The second route I tried, Jim kept asking, "don't you want to go rap it and knock that loose stuff off?" He asked me at least 3-4 times and everytime I said, "Nahh, more exciting this way". We'd seen a massive amount of loose stuff on it, mostly 1/2 way up. I thought I'd get up there and see if could find a place to plug some gear and if I could then just dance around it to the right. Barely made it @ 20 feet up, not even close to the obvious massive killer loose crap above, and the minor, near-overlooked, loose stack of blocks my feet were on decided that was the time they would co-operate with gravity and they plunged with me on it. The left arm was cranked in good and it tried to stay, but my body wasn't willing. The resolution of that conflict left blood everywhere when both my leg impaled a branch as I dropped and the arm scraped deep (but held) too. Quietly we called it a day. Came back and cleaned it on rap. I ain't too proud. My point, I think the debates like you had during that time about these issues were positive. I just want Pope and Dawg to lighten up a bit as this issue is so situational. There are some cliffs out there (as you of all folks know, I'm wondering how many FAs of those did you do last year anyway? I'll bet the count is over 80-100) that are crack after crack after crack. Conversely, there are crags with NO cracks, none. Dawg seems to think bolts in there for any reason are inappropriate. The question is, in that situation, is rappel bolting OK or not? It is done in many places. Not Yosemite, Not Tuolme and Not many other places. However, for some crags it may be a better thing. Somehow, for these guys, it's OK to build a massive new concrete bridge for a boat ramp and pave all over hell and back so that boating people can intermingle and use a park. Not a peep from them. It's OK to bulldoze a new rest area or campground for the campers. Not a peep. It's Ok, to build bathrooms and roads for that user base. Not a peep. But climbers do not get this respect from them. It pisses me off. F*ing hypocrites. Maybe I was playing too hard on the new drill thing, but I think it's a good name for a drill. Anyway, now I have to rap bolt something, anything, take some pics and name it "Squeezin' the Dawg" just to finish that idea and piss these guys off. I've never rap-bolted a line before too, so it will be steppin' off step a bit for me. BTW, the quote above was taken from the preface of one of Dawgs books. It's a very well done/well written book too. The guy's really not a total dunce, he just plays one on the internet. I've loaned it to Jimmy O and he's got it right now. The moral of the story is: I guess Dawg can write the stuff but cannot live it. Meantime, poor letsroll. He just wanted to do a lil trail work and look at where this went! At least they weren't giving him crap about trail maintenance. Maybe next time he'll offer to cure cancer instead, it would be interesting to chart where that thread goes off course on the road to hell:-) Warm regards Mark

Which is.....what? ....Fumunda cheese? OK, it's Fumunda cheese, there. Are you happy?

BTW, I don't disagree that we should exercise good judgment in our use of all technology in climbing. Pics of "Squeezing the Dawg" may demonstrate otherwise. I will admit I have not drawn a clear line in the sand myself and that line is changing. At this area here, I put up some early ground up gear only lines 25 or so years ago. It was dangerous and stupid and the routes have been lost to the sands of time and my bad memory. The place languished until some of these pups showed up and on rappel, cleaned it off, and put in bolts... where or if needed. The effect is great from a climbing viewpoint with lost of variety, predominatly mixed gear and bolt lines, with some pure gear only lines and some pure bolt only lines as well. Unfortunately this has drawn crowds, which usually causes bureaucrats to want to "manage" them. But the place IMO, despite the crowds, is better now than when it was first tripped over, and I was there for that too.