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johndavidjr

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Everything posted by johndavidjr

  1. Ray Jardine writes that when he was summer "wilderness instructor" in Colorado, he & his kiddies used exclusively builder's plastic for months on end. This apparently included significant periods above tree line. Of course, the weather in Colorado is NOTHING like what they see in Wyoming......where the $600 tents are invariably required for mere survival..in August...due to truly savage conditions that must be endured......
  2. For probably 3/4 of the times these tents get are actually used by their various owners, the Wal-mart tent would have equal performance. I believe it was Chouinard who said his customers are mainly middle-aged men needing to loose thirty pounds.
  3. Little to compare with scholarly CAGs, though I've been impressed with Elaho Publishing in Canada. Never seen a guidebook I didn't want to read, thought some do insult one's intelligence. Not thrilled by "Scrambling Guide" to Washington, or whatever t'was called.... ("Who should scramble?"!!??!) nor actually, for related reasons, the "Potter" books. Something about a commercial mind-set of the authors, sub-concious or otherwise. Conversely, am liking the latest coffe-table guidebooks. Lots of nice photos where you can sometimes see acquaintences... and amusing completely adolescent design & editing values. There ought to be published a history of the blood actually drawn over guidebook publishing...
  4. Suggests various memories. Thanks
  5. "Such a lot of nonesense!" --Sir John Gielgud as Edward Ryder, BBC, 1981
  6. My implication is hopelessly subtle and impossible to parse, but concerns how this talk may be lame (please search fictional character "Anthony Blanche" and author "Waugh"). Paranoid guidebook author that I mentioned was subject to much nastly gossip; mostly well-founded but mostly now long forgotten. I've not checked the thirty-year-old Connecticut police reports, but given my experience with alleged assailant, I am credulous....& not entirely unsympathetic. "Literary" rather than personal values, are in my view, more interesting. Suck-up-to publisher books are far more common these days....Nichols at least, whatever his many and strange & objectionable faults, didn't do THAT. Assume current and future local authors have and will consult and correct his work........Perhaps one day there will be published "Seleted Classic Excellent Climbs of Connecticut." Actually there already is something like that in form of a chapter of "Classic and Selected Greatest & Most Exellent CLimbs of New England & New York" or something. Why NOT?? is home territory of Wiessner & Washburn, House etc. Etc........Gave it away..
  7. A comprehensive book published by the Am-m-m-erican Alpine Club in early 1980s for C-c-c-connecticut (long out of print) had the local FA crouwd quite upthet. Un-p-pleasant violenthe ensued, of the "punch-em-in-the-n-nose" variety, t'was claimed. Most unbecoming indeed! He of the Bloody Nose (author) was regarded in thome thircles at the time as just a t-tad unhinged. In my only p-p-personal encounter, I did find him v-v-erging on paranoia, and rather un-p-p-pleasant. Many years later, he was in any case, the subject of an actual court in-j-j-unction, related to his rather m-mad, b-b-bolt-chopping propenthities. The FA controversies of 30 years ago held for me, however, little personal interest, for reasons that sh-ould be obvious, and m-may have r-r-regardless, in some m-measure been subsequently corrected by more judicious authors in possession of a s-somewhat greater degree of m-m-mental stability. My particular dislike (mild & quite different) is for the countless & relatively recent guidebooks that take off in various ways, from template of "50 Classic Climbs," which is itself n-n-nonetheless a veddy nithe book, dethspite its g-g-g-genesis in the rather disolute m-m-moral and cultural character of C-c-c-alifornia. Problem in my view, is that these authors see their task as somewhat akin to selling soap. This genre seems to orid-ginate in the main from authors' strategy to get hith or her name in print, thuth puttting the cart, as it were, waay in front of horth.
  8. Beckey vs Potter: Serious vs. trivial. McDonald's vs. charcoal-grilled steak. State-college nit-wit careerist journalism, vs. a clear head. ("Best Route in the Range!" "The choice is yours!" "Sell me! Puke me!") Still, all guidebooks certainly have value. I like the series published for various BC areas in past few years (ten years). Nicely done. Canadians tend to be a bit less crassly commercial than current generation of U.S. authors/publishers. Still, actually, one can't fail to somewhat like the "coffee table" guidebooks modeled on "50 Classic Climbs," now decades old. But premise is mainly dumb crap.
  9. One of best trip reports in bit of a while here! Sperry was incredible. I hope to study wonderful photos repeatedly. Only downside is quote "some of the most solid, aesthetic rock in the range." Sounds like something straight from least favorite of the lesser Cascade guidebook writers. ...He must post here rarely....under what name I don't know.
  10. That a 120cm fall can break slings -- maybe I forgot? Vid doesn't claim to make/show new discoveries.
  11. Probably this made the rounds & I missed it. An engineer performs drop tests on nylon & dyneema slings & implies that clipping climber directly to anchor with sling is sometimes potentially fatal. http://www.dmmclimbing.com/video.asp?id=5 Raises other questions.
  12. About 15-20% will be less than what you'd like & a slightly higher proportion will be extra good. Problems are mostly arrogance & stupidity, & sometimes incompetence. Canadian guides are, in general, more highly trained and often a little cheaper.
  13. Yes Bibler-type tent is far preferable, but assuming biv sack is also used, the $19 Wenzel might be plausible substitute at similar weight in up to moderately poor conditions. Another $2.50
  14. Get a $19 Wal-Mart puptent, ditch the stakes and poles and take that along with your BD bivy. You'll only be a few pounds heavier, and if it doesn't work out, you can throw tent into a crevass. Concept is cheap version of MEC's guidesack thing. I get paid $2.50 for every time I say this.
  15. I'm doing solo laps on Willis Wall & ttxting y'all. F*xk the permits. Back in the 70s on Rainier, they were the "Ranger Dangers."
  16. Kanders gave me AIDS...When Palin came to Iraq that time, she paid me to have unprotected sex.............
  17. Okay I admit everything. My "wife" is cheating with Kanders and I want revenge. He's an eagle scout and 5.13d climber (in mountain boots) and best "friends" with Chouinard and Fred Becky. My cousin is now in prison, but he was at the Justice Department and got fired for saying mean and untrue things about Armor. You all should know, the DoJ later apologized for the whole thing. Kanders never signed off on that $30M fine, so it was never really paid.... because he knew it was just like, stupidness!! I am in the infantry in Afghanistan and I'm just lovin' my really cool Armor Zylon vest. Dnt ask, dnt tell, but am gonna sew a Patagonia label on...and sell it to this really weird junior Microsoft executive I've been "seeing" for the past couple of nights in the Hindu Kush .................he's like climbing something........whatever.....sometimes he posts here, but not often.
  18. The aroma of Tacoma...the Issaquah Alps. Dane actually buys the old corporate mumbo-jumbo. He's right. The U.S. Department of Justice was just bein' mean & prejudice & standin' in the way of progressy type of things when it said all that stuff to the lamestream media.....
  19. National Weather Service "Winter Storm Warning" posted for that area during past couple of days. Probably to expire Friday.
  20. If you want to give CEOs a pass on their actual responsibities, maybe that's just a "philosophical" question that can apply to CEOS and chairmen at quite small companies like Armor, as well as to the real gigantic ones you might hear about on the Tacoma TV news..... sometimes. Particularly in handling a simple quote, the Reuter's story should be pretty reliable. The Armor spokesperson told Reuters that Armor's DoJ fine related to products made by Armor during the period 2000-2005. The problem was making "zylon" bullet-proof vests while knowing the stuff was no good.... Armor was neither the only manufacturer of these products, nor the only company fined on this. There were at least several, including the giant Honeywell. Does that make sense to you? As Kanders said recently on the Black Diamond conference call, he sees "opportunities in the industry for consolidation" --- This is also how he made his killing with Armor.
  21. There is a difference between New Jersey and Connecticut. Answer to Lostcam's insightful question...is therefore yes. Factually challenged insight by JosepH is that: "The defective vest were made by Second Chance, inc. and Kanders' Armor Holdings scooped them up in August 2005 two months after the National Institute of Justice declared the vests defective in June 2005. Legal work on the issue and fines didn't wrap up for a couple more years" Incorrect view from Dane, aka "Mr. Reading Comprehedo": "...question is how all this (the entire topic and discussion) relates back to Clarus Chairman, Warren Kanders? The time line shows that it doesn't.....". Sad commentary on Tacoma public schools...
  22. Whether that's appropriate hyberbole, or recognizable as such, I don't know. My gut tells me something might go wrong at the last minute and I get sweaty palms.
  23. Genepires: Armor made the "zylon" vests in question from 2000 to 2005. Second Chance was their main competitor, and made a very similar vest. Armor explains most of this genererally on page 24 of the 2004 prospectus Just before the acquisition of Second Chance, Amor "voluntarily" stopped making the vests. That's in Reuters story. Fair to assume because the Feds were already breathing down their neck, and they were beset by various other lawsuits. Nate: I agree that the acquisition of BD was garden-variety business stuff, & probably BD equipment won't become unsafe. Irks me that a great manufacturer is now controlled by Wall Street and that the main actor/insider will be Kanders, whose company the DoJ says "violated the False Claims Act by knowingly manufacturing and selling defective Zylon bullet-proof vests." Might be now said that Kanders is known for pump and dump (in a good way) and BD's future is/may be unstable. Also, as your reading comprehension and knowledge of geography improves, you may find that Clarus is in Connecticut, rather than New Jersey. JosepH: I hope you're learning a little from this.
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