JosephH

How's it going on the 'click' access to the larger photo sizes? Also, it would be nice if the default sort was "Posted Date" / "Descending" versus what it is.

The big change from the 60's and 70's is a change in mentality relative to many people aspiring to wealth. In the 60's and 70's corporations were all about assembling conglomerates, but they turned out being unwieldy and more trouble than they were worth. The task of dismantling them went to a new class of rising legal and mba all-stars and in the 80's they became adroit at doing just that for their corporate masters. Then things went awry when a couple of these clowns got loose in the wild - they began raiding older corporations that were governed and managed with and for 'traditional' values for their pension funds and easily liquidated assets. The old guard didn't know what hit them and the go-go 80's was a boom of pirates and raiders with a newly honed instinct and intuition for less-than-well-guarded corporate assets and pensions. That initial period of corporate raiding wound down as management and boards of directors realigned to the 'new normal' of a more aggressive competitive, legal, and financial landscape. The raiders then looked around to see what other piles of unguarded cash might be laying around and in the 90's went after healthcare and airlines siphoning billions off of doctors and pilots who didn't have the wherewithal to even grasp what was happening as it was let alone do anything about it. Then during the late 90's the raiders were getting more politically savvy and pushed for 'banking and financial reforms' that would further erode the ability to protect cash and allow them to set up an unregulated shadow financial system. Once that was accomplished it was full-steam ahead on the course that led us to where we are today - the packaging of all principal forms of consumer debt into asset-backed securities that are sliced, diced, rated, and traded such that it is all but impossible to trace a piece of investment paper back to a specific home, auto, student, or credit card. The dotcom boom simply contributed to their success by cementing a 'bubble' investment mentality in the minds of consumers that played out in the real estate markets. In the 00's that same scenario played out in debt markets for nations with many governments acting no differently than Americans taking on mortgage debt. The debt crisis of nations like Greece and Portugal is just another facet of the overall ABS fiasco run amok. The reality is nothing substantial has changed and our world is still dominated by an unregulated shadow financial system. Don't kid yourselves, the fundamental change that took place in business in the 80's was we grew a generation of sharp lawyers and MBAs who changed the 'meaning' of business from one largely revolving around value creation [over time] to one where [instant] legal / financial piracy without value creation is half the new game. We, as a nation and as individuals, are all the poorer for it.

Well, I was just curious and that's exactly what I'll keep doing. In general, when I don't want to climb at Beacon I get on a plane and when I want to climb limestone (not a big fan, though), I'll invest those six hours (and a few martinis) into getting to Railay.

Nice to see some pictures of the place. Is that the bulk of it? And are these pics representative of the climbing out there? From the pics it doesn't really look quite worth a six hour drive from PDX unless you're a real limestone junkie or passing through anyway. Is there more to the place?

Easy, just drop your bag at the middle of the crag and climb anything from Dark Horse to Freak Freely.

Nope, basically nobody is ever at Dropzone, you can tell by the amazing rate that the west half of it is being reclaimed. All the most recent routes at the west end are already completely engulfed by blackberries to the point where it would now be as much work to clear them as it was to do them originally. But, that's sort of the deal out there. There may have been eighty routes done, but in another year or two there will only be the dozen routes folks deem worth climbing by doing just that - climbing them. And anyone who can lead those dozen routes in a day is doing pretty good. Oh, and of the routes I regularly climb out there, only three are mine (and Ryan's), the others are by Arndt, Mark, and Bryan - the best of them was put up by Arndt and Mark, but you better have your steel sack on for that one.

PM or show up...

UW tuition increases over the past few years have been solely about state funding...

Yeah, a lack of state funding which dropped by pretty much the same percentage points as tuition has been raised. It will take a decade to recover from the Bush wars and tax cuts - longer if those tax cuts are renewed (and good golly god dayymmnnn if those tax cuts haven't generated just a mess o' trickle down employment us common folk).

PM or show up...

I'm sure if you promised none of you would charge your drill for a year he'd cut you a deal...

Costs are going up for a variety of fucked up reasons... Yep, two and half wars that in direct, indirect, and replenishment costs will run three trillion and Bush's [unproductive] tax cuts at 2.35 trillion. The wars come to $60 billion per state and the tax cuts at $47 billion per state - basically $10.7 billion per year per state. As someone with a daughter with one more year at UW I suppose we'll go ahead and pay what will be 55% increases over the time she's been in college - but anyone who doesn't realize where the money went is blind, delusional, or both.

Better start gettin' after Opdycke to go get one of those free senior passes. It'll take him a while to get used to the idea and probably better to not to wait til the last minute and then expect him to suddenly warm up to an alien bureaucracy.

Thank the good lord for that. Hopefully they'll move on to other states now...

Jesus! What does an airline ticket like that cost...?

I think Bill was contemplating that as well...

Was he being punished for treating you shabbily on fathers day? My father once let us kids smoke his cigar when I was about ten - this will probably have about the same effect.

That American infrastructure projects are being done by the Chinese pretty much frames up the whole education / employers / economics debate quite nicely (and looks a lot like early railroad history being repeating after a fashion)...

Only one solution:

When you go come over the rise and get the first look at the average Australian town you often see a beautiful school building with sport fields, satellite dishes and well kept grounds. You think, "they're really doing education up right here." Only that's the town's sport club which is the HQ for all the town's sports, gambling, politics, and liquor distribution. You don't get elected or get a liquor license in town if you're not part of the sports club. The high school? Oh, that's a crumbling shamble over in the other part of town. And they're a solid point ahead of us? And that's ok? Good luck with that...

One of these cases is going to get to the Supreme Court and probably sooner than later. We'll then see if free speech extends to more than political contributions.

Just clean and lube it, should be completely fine.

Someone take Sarah with you if you could, thanks...!

That would mean you'll be debunking the republican's manufactured debt crisis and forecasts of disaster?