JosephH

The problem with the banks/economy is that no one, not the last administration, not this administration - no one - wants to mark the value of the 'toxic' assets to market, run a balance sheet, and publicly read the results out loud. If they did, all the banks would have to declare bankrupcy yesterday. The problem? Everyone is trying to pay lip service to 'capitalism' and the 'power of free markets' by trying - in any and all conceivable ways - to avoid nationalizing the banks and honestly acknowledging the complete and total failure of both our ideology and our regulatory system. The only way to avoid that is by the government buying toxic assets at above market prices thereby rewarding bad players and behavior - it's a lose-lose scenario however you look at it and has resulted in a bi-partisan paralysis.

"Corporations without appropriate government oversight are indistinguishable from organized crime" Conclusion from a friend's 1987 accounting / auditing dissertation...

Bill and I are going to be going in to siezures soon - where are those pics!!!!

If it's one of those old style wire plastic u-stem jobs I would instantly retire it and do whatever is required to insure it's never used again. Those were pretty notorious for collapsing and exploding.

Regardless of the quality of the design on certain products, they have good manufacturing processes - how bad can they screw up a set of nuts...? Hell, I'll even overlook the fact they're made in China if they're good.

Yeah, I definitely have more faith in their Crack 'N Ups than I do their cams - no badly designed and spec'd moving parts.

One who doesn't have historical faith in the history of the product's lineage or the design and implementation of the business end of the product.

Not at all, just their cams.

Like the idea of carrying complementary sets with deeper and shallower angles versus just the two sets of HB's I carry now. I mainly use the HB Alloys rather than the brassies - is BD going to be making the larger ones?

Tyler, I can tell you just don't know how dangerous rabid gearwhores can get if you don't feed them beta pics, otherwise they'd be up already...

Never seen those - got pics?

Was just curious about this statement as I can't imagine using anything but offset nuts at Beacon. I have climbed at Beacon for the past 13 years. I have never even seen an offset. Can't imagine. Maybe this is why I see a lot of folks trying to use cams for everything. I'd probably say that if you aren't racking at least one set of offsets out there then lots of placements are likely more hassle than they need to be.

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.