catbirdseat

You owe me one for supplying you with that phrase. Is it looting if you haven't eaten in days and you steal food? Is it looting if your wife and kids have been laying on hard concrete at the convention center and you take a mattress from the hotel nearby?

The route on Givler's immediately to the left of Givler's Crack looks pretty good. I once ran into the guys who put it up. Can't remember their names though.

Great answer, Joseph! It reminds me of the "What would you do if?" game my brother and I used to play as kids.

Long time no see. Congrats to your old man!

$32 Sizes #1- #5

I tried to hike the Taylor River trail a few months ago while it was raining. The trail had turned into a major stream and we gave it up. I think it is still in very poor condition. The Pratt River trail has always been there but never got any maintenance and there is always the issue of how to cross the river to get to it.

I've met Aiden on Givler's Crack which he soloed past us. He was polite enough to wait for us to clear the first pitch before he blew past us. We chatted for a while. He was on break from guiding in Alaska (this was early June). He's a really nice guy.

That was a bad time all around for the oil industry. My great uncle in Houston lost his shirt on oil investments.

It's easier to survive in a cool climate without electricity than it is in a hot climate. You have less problems with keeping food from spoiling and heat related stresses and less problems with diseases.

I heard that Dennis Hastert made some ill advised comments about bull dozing New Orleans and not rebuilding it that have put him in hot water. He's right, but of course his view will never prevail. They will rebuild.

Oh, so you are saying that true enlightenment is an enduring state, not just a transient experience? Way to take the wind out of guy's sails!

If you are indeed a black, woman climber, you are in a serious minority. You'd be a rare one.

I will vouch for sobo, having shared a beer or two at the Nickerson once. He holds his liquor. He tells a good story. He definitely doesn't drool, and I didn't see him pick his nose. Not even once. Quite obviously he's generous and motivated. And if you believe him, he climbs too. How can you pass up an offer like that?

I can sum it up in a short phrase: all news is local.

This sort of thing happens all the time. Dozens of people have gone over vernal falls. They don't always find the bodies. They can get lodged underwater and stay there for a long time. Why it happens is rather hard to fathom. I think that it is mostly all the improvements like railings and paths make it seem "civilized" and safe. I don't think it ever goes through their minds that they can actually die, that is until they are falling or being swept away by the current.

Don't knock 'em. They are clever little bastards.

Some of those "complaints" were meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I bet some of them were sincere.

This has been sprayed about before, to be sure. Gecko hairs are aid.

The question must be asked how to deal with the issue of contamination. Surely anything that adheres to surfaces would also attract particles and quicky lose its sticky qualities. One should ask how does the gecko manage this? Are the hairs shed regularly so as to renew the surface?

Think about all those rich people with the 8,000 sq ft homes build on sand spits up and down the East Coast who keep rebuilding with cheap Federal loan guarantees. Your tax dollars at work.

We have a group working on a new antibiotic. I can't talk much about it or I'd get fired, but the idea is to exploit a kill mechanism that is different from all medicines on the market and thereby avoid bacterial resistence for as long as possible.

It's just that it looks like Darrington in miniature, and Darrington is 90 minutes away.

All you 5.12 climbers, don't all chime in at once!

Actually it's what galvanized hardware is coated in. That too corrodes very quickly. The zinc coating is there to protect the steel it coats. It has a higher oxidation potential than iron and therefore acts as a sort of sacrificial anode. They used to coat cans with tin. The tin provided a non-corroding barrier. The only problem is if the slightest nick penetrated the layer, the steel would corrode at the expense of the tin, because unlike zinc, tin is more "noble" than iron, that is iron has the higher oxidation potential. So today "tin cans" are coated with epoxy not tin.