catbirdseat

Did he mention how close the place is to our favorite Pub Club venues? You can't beat it with a stick.

He was here, but you missed him. You are not fast enough.

Methinks it is better to not fall there and to climb a grade or two below your limit.

...when they keep forgetting your real name even after you told them for the tenth time.

I think that chickenshiite911 was JayB.

Dave, I see you are into phonetic spelling, but it is properly spelled "loozer".

People take it for granted that the studies are well run, but not all of them are. The conclusions can be totally worthless if the study design isn't sound. If you really wanted to get reliable results you would have to have one group employ a prescribed set of stretches so each person did the same with a test group that did not stretch. Any warm up would have to be identical in each group.

My powers can reach all the way into Canada and beyond, so you better be nice to me.

I get the impression that people confuse stretching with warming up. Warming up prevents injuries, stretching before a workout does not. A warm for a runner might be jogging a half mile at an easy pace, for a climber, some easy boulder problems before a climb. In my own opinion, stretching after a work out is more important that stretching before.

I belay with my right hand usually, but I don't think it was the rope. I think it was climbing in the gym. There was a route I did that had a series of two finger holds that might have been the cause.

Minx, I think you did well. On the first pitch of Lightning Crack, I arrived at the belay ledge to find a party of three tied into the bolts. I built a gear anchor with three small pieces that was "okay", but not as good as I would have liked, so when I brought up the second, I belayed from my harness and I used a sitting position with my feet braced solidly. Had my partner fallen, the anchor never would have to be tested, but I made sure I was up tight against it so there could be no shock loading if I couldn't hold the belay stance (little chance of that as my second was a lightweight).

My vote goes to Ray Jardine. He took an idea and refined it until it was practical and then he manufactured it and sold it and popularized it. I read that his first prototypes didn't have triggers. He'd place them on lead and then have to rap the route with tools to remove them. The trigger is the key along with selection of metal, and camming angle. Few, other than sport climbers, would be climbing above 5.10 today if it were not for Ray. Who knows, if Ray had met with an accident, we might all be clipping bolts today. More likely, some other clever person would have figured it out eventually, but Ray was the one.

I went to Peshastin yesterday with several friends and climbed Lightning Crack. My friend, NW, gave me a nice introduction as we walked up to it, "I was here when I saw this guy fell off the crux, pulled two cams out, fell to the base of the route and died. Then my other friend JH says, "yeah cams don't hold worth shit in sandstone. That's why I brought along tricams." So considering that I'm just starting to lead 5.9, and considering I just watched three of my friends thrash the hell out of the crux, that I have only the three smallest tricams, but a good selection of nuts, hexes, and cams, including Aliens, my belayer is inexperienced, do I go for it? I went for it. I figured, "I'll check out the pro below the crux, if it looks good I go for it, if not, I'll just bail." The corner leading to the crux couldn't have been harder than 5.5. I get to the overhanging crack and look underneath, and I see a tunnel through the stone with a pillar of at least 6 inches in diameter. Hot damn! I put a sling around that, using double opposed biners, and extended with another shoulder length sling and voila, totally bomber protection! Now I didn't care what happened on the crux, I could thrash all I wanted. There were a couple of burly moves, but then the rest of the route was a cruise and a lot of fun. If that crux is 5.8, then it is a 5.8++.

No, this is not about Al Gore. A Gore Point is the sharp angled point between the right lane and off or on ramp of a freeway. I've seen 3 gore point collisions in three days or 6 in two weeks, where people drive their cars into the end of the guard rail at off ramps. What's going on here? More drunks or more people falling asleep at the wheel? Why?

Bird, meet klenke. Klenke, meet bird. Stefan, meet bird...

When I was in college taking Organic Chemistry, our professor was a distinguished fellow, head of the department, H. Moore. He told a story about when he was himself a student and how his professor was talking about phenol. The prof. said to be careful with phenol because contact with skin will cause a blister. So what does our young Mr. Moore do? He puts some phenol in the palm of his hand to see what would happen. Sure enough, it raised a big, painful blister, just like his prof. said it would.

Woke up one morning and noticed there was a hard swollen area in the center of the palm of my right hand. It doesn't hurt or otherwise affect the mobility of the middle finger over which tendon the swelling is located. I was in the doctor's office for an unrelated complaint and asked him about it. He said as long as it doesn't hurt, don't worry about it. If it does start to hurt he would send me to a hand specialist. It is not a neuroma or a glial cyst. He thinks it might be a ruptured or torn tendon sheath, but is surprised that it doesn't hurt. Have any of you folks ever heard of this problem?

Since it's Friday, I say let's lift a glass to our fallen brethren.

If all the "insurgents" got what they wanted, which is presumably for the Americans to leave immediately, you would very quickly have a bloodbath that would make the US Civil War look like a picnic.

No, no, no, get with it. Greg's a D-cell in a sock sort of guy.

I have the Mistrals and like them a lot thus far. My only complaint is that the waist is fastened by a patch of Velcro. It works okay, but occasionally pulls loose. It would be easy enough to add a buttor or snap. Hey, Tom, what you need is a pair of suspenders. Here's a heavy duty pair for ya. http://www.cands.net/cands/SUSPENDERS.html

I heard on the radio that Chris Farney is a 250 lb prize fighter.

I was going to stick a phony bolt hanger with cut off bolt to the step across using chewing gum and watch people clip it and make the move with confidence.

I'd like to do some of the more moderate routes at Three O'Clock Rock on Sunday. Have wheels. PM me if interested.

Trask has successfully completed the new Spray Addiction Program at the Betty Ford Clinic. He has a new life now.