JosephH

Was a doctor involved, xrays / MRIs ? Any joint damage? Etc, etc...?

JayB, that one issue alone is a real drag on the system - our medical establishment has become expert at agressively keeping terminal patients alive for extended periods. Many, end up with more medical expenditures in their last two months then they did over the course of their lifetimes prior to those last two months. It's built into both our culture and legal system - no giving up. Crazy. My wife and I have end-of-life instructions and medical powers-of-attorney specifically so we don't end up in one of those situations (mine can basically be summed up in the phrase "the deader, the better"). Having just watched a relative die a lingering death in the ICU as her lungs died from smoking we're reviewing what we have again to be sure it's all good and still effective. Ugh!

Is there anywhere that this doesn't happen - outside of a ghetto anywhere in the world including the U.S.? Do you think our elder care system (languishing in nursing homes) is particularly humane for the individual involved or their families or one in which someone isn't making such decisions now?

- Inefficient delivery - Overhead of thousands of duplicate administrative systems - Profit-taking by insurance and hospital corps

DIY Splitboard

That would be better practice for crumbling desert towers. Just go to Rocky Butte and aid Blackberry Jam and any number of climbs out there or go to Smith.

Yep, talk to Ivan, Plaidman, Geoff, DenaliDave, or Lost Cam Kenny here...

I wasn't suggesting you get on it with me.

Better if you just came up this summer in enough shape to get on it. What the hell, you won't be climbing anything down there.

Not many folks are interested in climbing what I like to climb, and that's o.k. with me. And folks not liking me is cool too; I don't climb to socialize or socialize to climb. And I'm not really into the whole male bonding and dude scene. At the end of the day I'd personally rather solo moderates then take on folks who aren't into or up to the stuff I'm interested in. At least I climb when I can...

Which is more retarded, living in Portland and babbling about not being able to climb at Beacon because we can't. Or living in Denver surrounded by tons of climbable rock and still babbling about not being able to climb at Beacon?

Go climbing in Colorado...

I think a there's a few folks around here who fweel the same way about you.

I can only assume Maggie married you for comic relief after working hard days as a lawyer.

By making that your stated goal, then doing various stupid things like trashing the nest, Owl decoys, breaking the closure, etc. It fucks you just to have that as starting point in dealing with the issue. It's ignorantly self-centered and self-serving in the extreme and that's not lost on anyone involved trying to rationally deal with the issue. we are all ignorantly self centered just by living and breathing on this planet, u don't gt a special merit badge for acting like u care about a few birds that live on a hill you frequent. if you really cared you'd join the "peoples temple" and go TAKE THE HIGH VOLTAGE KOOLAIDE ACID TEST... and leave the A N I M A L S to their devices. go walk granny across the street and quit acting like you're something you are not . speaking of ignorantly self centred arent you the elitist prick who just wants it all to yourself like back when you used to top rope roofs with helen keller that blind little feller. Yep, I'd much prefer to have it all to myself people-wise. Elitist? I wouldn't want to give elitists a bad name and I don't care for them either. L E A V I N G T H E A N I M A L S T O T H E I R D E V I C E S is exactly what this is all about and something Kevin isn't really remotely interested in.

By making that your stated goal, then doing various stupid things like trashing the nest, Owl decoys, breaking the closure, etc. It fucks you just to have that as starting point in dealing with the issue. It's ignorantly self-centered and self-serving in the extreme and that's not lost on anyone involved trying to rationally deal with the issue.

there's a big old crack right behind the scrap (the upper part of dod's jam that NO ONE ever does (and for good reason) - i'm sure a motivated person could get a camera in/up there and it would be quite weatherproof Exactly, the crack behind the scrape would make the camera invisible and protect it from the weather. The cameras - even wifi ones - are quite small these days. The challenge is more how to power it, how to charge whatever battery, and how to deal with the distance to the boat launch. It may be possible to manage it with a pretty straightforward system with three pieces on the rock and a yagi directional wifi antenna with the laptop in the car. If the system were in any way intrusive it wouldn't happen. Reliability? Should work fine, but you never know.

As you know it was already tried by climbers as part of their overall "we don't want the Peregrines to nest at Beacon" campaign to fuck themselves.

It's interesting to hear your various takes on Ill. politics as they come up here or there. I guess most of us would be suspicious of anyone named Richard Daley, but give everyone else for Il a chance. I think if we could always chose the smartest candidate who has the most integrity we would be doing well. Sometimes it's not apparent at all what we are getting. Bill Clinton was smart as hell, but there were plenty of instances where his integrity was down the ladder. People voted for him anyway. I think in many folks own minds they questioned Hillarys integrity and that may have cost her the election. Barak came off as her intellectual equal (or more) yet much better in the integrity category in many folks eyes. Maybe not eh? In a nutshell, Chicago is Illinois politics and it's still a large patronage machine. The younger Mayor Daly has cleaned up some of the glaringly embarassing and overtly nasty aspects of that machine as he is more sophisticated than his father. And he physically cleaned up and redeveloped the place in a way almost no other large city in the US has managed. But everything there is a 'deal', and while they've become adept at planning, the leadership is not visionary. The city is too 'gritty' and mechanistic to make visionary leaps or entertain revolutions. From my perspective, in order to lead a divided contry you need to be capable of the 'deal', but you have to have the interpersonal skills and charisma of a Clinton, and the audacity, vision, and media-savvy of a Teddy Roosevelt. Without forceful, visionary leadership, the democrats will always be a party of the scared and ineffective. Relative to the insurance industry, it has always had a strong presence in Chicago and always been a powerful influence in politics there. No Chicago politician would make any really overt moves against them and even Obama's tepid attempts at reform are unlikely to succeed exactly because they are tepid and he leaves them so open to backroom dealing.

Been spec'ing out a wind/solar powered wifi cam for Big Ledge the last couple of years so that you could roll up to the boat launch and check out the live video with a laptop. Some issues around a directional antenna, battery drainage, solar panel/wind turbine placement, etc., but probably all doable and the tech/price is about there now for under $500 or so. Have broached the idea with David and Erik - maybe next year. Would make monitoring a shitload easier.

Warm winter - it'll be closer to mid-June the way it's going...

Did anyone run across an orange HB nut on the Corner this past weekend - would like to get it back if so. Would trade for another size HB nut, something else, or buy it back.

Thanks, that's evident everywhere I go.

That's the other half of the mechanism.