dryad

Seattle Times article

It should be possible to download Word viewer and Excel viewer from Microsoft to look at the files if you don't have MS office. Unfortunately you won't be able to edit anything. Other programs that may be useful: Word viewer http://www.download.com/icWord/3000-2149-10210647.html?tag=lst-0-3 Excel viewer http://www.download.com/icExcel/3000-2243-10208946.html?tag=lst-0-2

Rock on, darlin'!

For cheap used alpine gear check the sporting goods section of craigslist.com. People are selling off skis there all the time.

Sure what the hell

Unless you have a Metolius gear sling that's designed to only go 1 way.

The guy on the left has the coolest tights ever! I want those!

You may be thinking about THIS. The rope comes marked in the middle and 5m from either end.

No that particular one doesn't. It's also not a sport route. But I haven't climbed any of the sport routes on Sunshine so I don't know how they are set up. The length of the routes neighboring PiYP may also necessitate belaying from the top. This is all pretty much idle conjecture.

dtw, actually Sunshine Wall at Vantage isn't such a bad example. Some of the routes ("Party in your Pants" is one obvious example) are a too long to toprope with a 50m rope so lowering off is not always an option. People routinely lead, belay from the top, follow, then walk around back down to the base.

Say you're sitting on top of one of the Vantage columns with anchor bolts right below the lip of the column pretty much between your legs... would it be a crazy idea to just belay right off the anchor? It might not be comfortable and you'd have to lean pretty far over to pull in the rope, but if your second falls then the force will be on the anchor, not on you, so you wouldn't get yanked off the ledge. You would also attach yourself to the bolts with the rope or a daisy or slings or whatever, but that would be just for your own personal safety, completely independent of the belay. This is just an idea - I never tried it.

Example of #1: ancient Persia. The were able to peacefully control a huge empire because they basically left alone all the people they conquered. Everyone could maintain their customs and local self-government as long as they paid some taxes to Persia, and everyone felt safer than they were before with a single power in control of the whole area.

Tibetans have not put up a guerrilla resitance to the Chinese. Some in Tibet have suggested that they should, but the problem is that doing so goes against everything in their religion and culture. Even if they won a guerilla war and managed to get the Chinese out of Tibet, they would have to sacrifice their culture in the process and may as well have lost anyway. The few times a nonviolent protest resistance was attempted (a la Gandhi in India), the Chinese just shot everybody. Really sad situation there in Tibet.

Not me, unless you count climbing on some statues in front of the Asian Art Museum. I had friends visiting from back east so we were sightseeing around Seattle and hanging out at Bumbershoot. Hopefully I can make up for this lack of climbing next weekend. Anybody?

What can I say, it's a slow morning.

C'mon everybody, get real! Lying is as much an essential part of politics these days as blue suits with red ties. Sad but true. The goal isn't to pick the guy who doesn't lie, but the guy who lies less often, lies about less important things, mentions a real issue once in a while, and is less likely to fuck up America any more than it already is fucked up. Following these (granted, rather feeble) criteria, Kerry wins.

Similar earlier discussion here

Yeah the acoustics really did suck but it was fun anyway.

Ok, so this isn't climbing, but it turns out my friends are leaving town early and can't stay for the show, leaving me all alone to yell along with "Wave of Multilation". So if you're going to the show anyway or want to, meet me down there. I'm leaving home soon so call my cell at 206-409-6267. BTW, Built to Spill will be there too.

I have a nice whipper-induced dent in my helmet that would have been in my skull otherwise. That's all the convincing I need to wear one pretty much all the time no matter how big a dork I might look like.

You're Only Nice To Me When I Tie You Up

adidas. I once met a Brit who thought the American way of saying it (a-DI-das) was sexier than the British way (a-di-DAS).

On a related note, "data" is a collective plural, not singular, noun. One would correctly say "these data support the theory that..." rather than "this data supports the theory that..." A single piece of information is a "datum" or "data point", and all by itself doesn't support much of anything. "Datas" is not a word unless you're talking about these: In which case "Lieutenant Commanders Data" would be the more correct plural from. Does this post win the geek award of the day yet, or should I go on?

Goode - Good or Goo-dee ?

Hell, if we're drifting out of the climbing realm, there's the ever-popular "nucular" for "nuclear". GW should be tossed out of office just for that offense to the English language. Sorry for the shameless drift, just had to get that off my chest. Carry on.