Double_E

yeah we toyed with that idea briefly (we did ski down to that road twice) but decided it'd be easier just to ski back up & then down to our own cars.

Yeah, good times fer sure!!! Wish I'd taken some pics of people skiing downhill, like thru the old growth maybe ... was kinna just having too much fun to bother stopping to do so. couple more pics here.

how 'bout cliche genres.... like the age-old habit of people blaming refs and umpires for their teams' misfortunes. I can't believe HOW MANY friends, coworkers and cosprayers have been doing that today. fuckin give it up people. they lost. big deal. be glad they made it to Superbowl, period.

HELL YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!!!

bump. my good news for the day... did my taxes last night and figured out that (get this) I'll be getting 666 dollars back from Uncle Sam! in other news... it's Friday!

fun times fer sure! good to meet some new peeps and reconnect w/ others.

Yeah, I was just a tad skeptical of the "working life" thing (figured it's probably like the expiration date on bottle of aspirin) ..... and of what they guys in store told me (of course they're gonna tell you that you gotta buy a new beacon!!)...But I still felt I should tell the guy what happened. And felt like I learned a couple lessons from it all.

Posted this recently in another thread (different forum), in response to someone's query about buying used beacons. Figured I'd post it here too. discuss. I guess another thing, almost implied, is: "4) make sure your ski buddies' beacons were not rented or bought used".... but I realize that's not entirely realistic.

State of the Union... now there's a potetial TV drinking game. Just drink every time Dubya says "nuke-yaler" or makes a reference to God. I might try to come join y'all, but if so not till like 8 or 9 pm.

I wouldn't recommend it, Archie. It's just too delicate of a device to trust your life to while wondering what happened to it with/from its previous owner. Anecdote... A couple months ago, a coworker loaned me his beacon while he was out of town so that I could loan it to a friend so that me & friend could go skiing. Well, about 16 hours after the ski trip ended, I realized that the beacon was still on, in receive mode. I wondered if this was a bad thing, so I checked the manual, which said that (ulp) the Ortovox M2 has a "working life" of 300 hours in transmit mode and 40 hours in receive mode. So I called a couple stores, who confirmed my suspicion that this had, in effect, used up 1/2 of the "working life" of the beacon. I felt like shit and told the coworker about it, and offered to pay him some $$ towards a new beacon. He thanked me but said it wouldn't be necessary (he makes way more than me -- probably 2x -- so he didn't care much about it). Anyway so the lessons I took from this were... 1) always make sure yer damn beacon is turned off when you don't need it!!!! 2) don't loan out yer beacon, unless you're sure the person is someone who'd tell you if something went wrong with it 3) don't rent (or buy used) beacons As far as classes... I took Gary Brill's class a few years ago, and thought it very good. I'm surprised no one's mentioned him yet.. Is he no longer teaching them?

apound -- check your email. ilookeddown -- something's wrong with your email account.. it bounced my email back at me..... 'course YahooMail (I have the same) has in general been suckin ass lately.

In my high school there was this chick named Liz Stoner. and yes, she did indeed live up to that name.

Many years ago, there was a period of a few weeks where I was trying to woo this one hippy chick named Aura. (apparently had been her name since birth). Anyway, she wasn't impressed when I asked her if she'd heard that one Frank Zappa song with the line "kiss my aura, Dora". She even said something like she thought Zappa sucked or something. That was when I started to realize we just weren't meant to be together.

Welcome to Seattle, bro. I'm definitely looking for more B/C partners. Let's talk. Also.... do you know about this site? Also.... do you know about this forum ?

Scott, Dave, et.al.... bummer about the weather you got. Hey it looks like both days this next weekend are open for me, after all. Let's go ski somewhere maybe!! Right now the weather outlook ain't looking great, but....we'll see.

I've always sort of at the old adage, heard so commonly from angry college student types: "If you're not a part of the solution, you're part of the problem". However, boredom would have to be one area where I think that it totally rings true.

Yeah I only helped briefly with the trailbreaking, and even that was only cuz at that one place where we regrouped I was getting cold and so I wanted to start moving soon. I woulda helped with it more if y'all had waited up for me more and actually allowed me to. As I observed to someone that day, who breaks trail and who doesn't is sort of decided by "natural selection" so to speak ... only the fastest members of the group have to break trail, cuz they're the only ones fast enuf to be in the front. :beergut:

Sounds like you've never put skis on, or else you'd know you can use them to side-step, or perhaps herringbone, uphill. Also, whether you're the rescuer, or the victim trying to self-rescue, it helps to have ski poles in hand (as opposed to strapped to yer backpack).

Yeah, fun times indeed!!! Here's some of my pics. Nic, ripping it up the uber-gaper, showing us how it's done. avy debris from a few days prior More pics here (lemme know if I got any names wrong.)

Ever thought of making it so that the "ignore" feature could be set according to forum? Like, ignore them in Spray but not elsewhere? I just recently started, for the FIRST time, ignoring this one user cuz of all the shit he said in spray which annoyed the fuck out of me. (there's VERY VERY FEW character traits which consistently annoy me ... but one of them is unfettered arrogance and hubris.) But then a few days later, I un-ignored this little shit to read what he had to say in another thread in a different forum... and it was in fact something meaningful and worthwhile.

Tentpole idea doesn't sound good AT ALL to me, cuz of them coming apart when you pull on them. As for probe-poles, I've been meaning to ask people's thoughts on, or do a search on, CC/TAY about this. I have em and think they're just fine. Some say they take longer to assemble than a real probe ....... I've always thought the opposite; would be very interested to test sometime. Some say the taper makes them harder to use than a real probe .... again, am skeptical and would like to test. Some say they aren't good cuz the probe you make isn't as long.... now this one I can sort of understand. But.... if they're buried more than SIX FEET .... it's probably gonna take so damn long to dig them out that it's doubtful whether they'll live anyway. Another thing I'm wondering how people feel about.... In the gear list in my copy of FOTH (6th ed., 1997) it actually calls the probe something that can potentially be shared by group. I don't think that's totally wise, but I've heard a lot of people say that, in a group of like 4 or more, it's OK to have only 1 probe per 2 people in the group. Reasons: (1) in many avalanches, the victim's only buried by 1-2 feet; (2) single-victim burials are way more common than multi-victim burials; (3) I forget reason #3, but I remember it sounding good. (4) ditto to #3 (I haven't seen actual stats to back this shit up, this is just what I've heard people say.) I mean, in theory,... if the Mounties think it's safe it's GOTTA be safe right?

we do.

Do one of you guys have an extra icetool I could borrow? I only have a glacier axe. Or maybe I'll use the ski binding traction technique.

I thought this was going to be another rant about how much you despise microwave popcorn.

A few years ago, I did a two-month temp job in the corporate offices of The Bon, and ate there a whole lot. there on average twice a week for the past couple years. Good all times of year, but esp. in winter... when it's all gloomy out, all the beach/tropical decor and reggae music can't help but cheer ya up. I could probably name 3/4 of the TDM locations in the Seattle area.