JosephH

Was just curious about this statement as I can't imagine using anything but offset nuts at Beacon.

What offsets have you been using...?

Kev - I was in Seattle for the weekend, but I very much appreciated your call letting me know Kevin had passed. I'm glad I got to meet him, but do wish I'd had a chance to get to climb with and get to know him. My principle 'getting to know' Kevin has basically been observing the fierce loyalty of all his partners and friends and on that basis alone I take it that he was quite a special human being. My condolences to all of you who were lucky enough count yourselves among his good friends...

Jake, glad to hear it - that generally works out down that way. Yeah, before JF and Drapers, Giant City was the locus of SI climbing and is where it got taken to the next level setting the stage for the major expansion that followed. All the original JF / Draper's crew earned their chops there and then went on to JF and Drapers adding high-level face climbing to the local repetiore after we had left town.

Oh, and there's also a bit of buildering around campus like this spicy problem called "Student Center South By the Column" on the south exit of the student center...

Try mountainproject.com, just go to Jackson Falls or Drapers Bluff, or ping Eric Ulner at Vertical Heartland. Giant City S.P. just south of town isn't popular anymore and so you can't count on anyone else being out there climbing, but it's good bouldering along the base.

Scaling up to your room | arons Gelauff & architects

Try calling the Seattle Symphony and see if you can find out what hand surgeon they recommend to their musicians... Or, Seattle top docs...

Tortured language use. You'd think a talented note setter and lefty like Kev would know a big part of the problem with the Bush administration was its sloppy use of language. Then again, I suppose someone has to be the route decider or we'd never get off the ground.

No route setting of any kind has ever occured at Beacon - a bit of bolting - but sorry, no route setting.

Kev, you are certainly free to keep using the word inappropriately. The issue there, and I suppose acounts for your affinity for it, is how it purposefully places the emphasis on the human versus the routes and loads it with ego. As in 'look at me' versus look at the routes. It also, implies you are responsible for the route's existence - a legitimate claim in a gym, an illegitimate one outdoors where you simply recognize, and in the case of sport climbing, equip, a route. Yes, I did place my first protection bolt last year and the day you lead it I'll be the first to call it a sport climb. Until then it's still a technical and spicy trad lead.

I disagree You're free to disagree, but you'd be wrong - unless you're bolting plastic holds on your outdoor routes now. More disagreement. You can also disagree with earth being round, too - people still do, but they, like you, are wrong. Uh….does “nature” trundle? Does “nature” clean moss off and dirt off? Does “nature” name a route? How about decide where the bolts go? Or if it needs bolts? No, but none of that beyond situating the bolts involves any 'setting' - you're 'setting' bolts on a climb that exists. If you can think of any other 'setting' that's happening, I'd love to hear it. I'm curious which part of the placing of plastic holds on a bunch of blank plywood to 'set' a route escapes you? You can certainly claim to be a 'route developer', but there are no route setters outdoors.

The 'setting' of routes, much like the 'setting' of pins in the bowling alleys of days gone by, only happens indoors. 'Setting' in the case of 'routes' means the setting of the plastic holds. You're confusing the 'setting' of holds indoors, with the 'setting' of bolts outdoors. As pointed out by Bill and Rob above, routes outdoors are 'set' by nature (remember her), not us. And one would hope it would be difficult to confuse jugging 'route setters' (indoors) and rapping 'route bolters' (outdoors) with onsight, groundup, first ascensionists of any persuasion. True, the latter is usually not a consumer-oriented or consumer-friendly activity, but I still hold out hope that risk-averse, consumer-oriented 'climbing', even if now pervasive, won't entirely wipe out ancient (if not prehistoric) notions of climbing as 'irresponsible' shadows of the past.

Road to The Nose - Checklist of learning to aid

That constitution-steamrolling hurricane which fostered this shitstorm is called the "Bush Administration" - the 'stimulus' response and all that follows can be laid at there feet for squandering three trillion we'd otherwise have to deal with this mess. There is no aspect of their wars which couldn't have been handled with a little patience and Predators.

It would have helped if we hadn't followed up an inadequate invasion with wave after wave of corporate carpetbaggers who never had the slightest intent of rebuilding Iraq.

I was just gonna ask if this means you'll be all growed up the next time I see you...

We've been beating ours into things pretty regularly over the past decade. And the French not only have a navy, they have neutron bombs as well... EDIT: Apparently they say they've destroyed all those weapons.

I'm all for it so long as they're restructured to fit on one side of single sheet of 8.5 x 11 copier paper.

So, you're more concerned with, and obsessing over, people with families making (god forbid) $50k as opposed to MBA's making $1-300m even when they fail. 2007 bonuses alone on Wall Street amounted to $33b - that's 660,000 $50k families worth. Or, the $15k necessary to bring 2,200,000 families up from $35k to $50k. Personally, I don't think we're getting our money's worth as a society.

Turns out that "outspending" the Soviet Union into defeat on the back of an artificial housing boom has downstream costs - particularly when you try region-building in the ME on the back of the very same plan and debt load...

Human Losses of World War Two by Continent Continent / Civilian deaths --------------------------- Asia / 24,203,300 Europe / 23,302,800 --------------------------- Brown people, by slightly under a million noses...

plantar fasciaitis does sound like a possibility along with a sprain or a less-than-obvious break. Nothing particularly dramatic at all has happened in the last few days? No black-and-blue areas? I'm guessing you need to have it looked at if you've tried stretching and walking it off. If that didn't work then probably something wrong and as much of a bummer as it is to hear, you should probably stay off of it and not hike the canyons or climb until you do know what's wrong.

Hmmm, a couple of trillion spent badly in the U.S. vs. a couple of trillion spent badly in a desert far away - I'll take my chances. The only way to get credit flowing immediately would be to absorb all the banks bad debts, nationalize them, and start extending credit. On the other hand, a significant contraction in consumer debt and expansion of savings is what's required in the long term. Like Afganistan and Iraq, the choices facing us and Obama aren't good vs. bad - they're bad vs. really bad. It's worth keeping front and center that there is absolutely no way out of our current financial situation without a terrible amount of pain all the way around for a significant period of time. Realistically, the 'stimulus' is simply an attempt to 'do something - anything' to keep the situation from free-falling into a further melt down further rather than 'getting us out of it'.

I would say for the moment the Kyrgs are prolonging all effects for cash on the barrelhead before handing anyone any sticks which also gives them time to hear counter-offers.