joel20

Just got here today and went boarding about 20 minutes after arriving. Yeah that's right I was on a slope within half an hour of getting into town. It's a great season for snow this year in the Alps compared to last years. Going ice climbing Friday, yeah there's still ice here. Oh, and did I mention that I also went boarding in Garmish a few days ago. Life is finally good for a time. I would here but I'll have to opt for Canada instead. There's just too many French people here but the place is awesome. I just feel freedom, haven't seen any army people nor any Iraqis and then of course I will wake up and find out that it's all just a dream. Well, I hope not. I would seriously skip meals, booze, and ride a bike as often as possible just to save enough money to do this again.

i'm still in the middle east and my rough day starts before I go to sleep the night before when I think to myself "please, don't be alive in the morning"

well he did do alot of sleeping with men

I would like nothing more than to see the same people who bitch about and exploit us have a major chunk of their income taken out and eventually have to pay us. Then again by that time where will their money come from? The middle east literally is the worst place that I have ever been to. The people there are interested in nothing but money and doing as little as possible for it. That's right they're into free stuff like bums and have never heard of doing something good for someone else free of charge. Well they're also pretty interested in molesting little boys. Not true for all arabs, but there is an alarming amount of lechery and money grubbing going on in this so called holy land.

Double exposure. The photogapher uses two different negatives on the same sheet of paper. For the first exposure he or she covers up the the intended area of the second exposure and doesn't expose the photo completely. On the second exposure he or she just uses the other negative to complete the photo. whickever negative would take the shortest exposure to show should be the second on to be used.

asshole... and yes that made me laugh

If the Army where to ever issue out rock shoes they would undoubtably suck. So I was in running shoes at the time whick weren't too bad and probably saved me from breaking my ass bone and other things as well. Then again if I were wearing rock shoes at the time I probably would have made it without falling at all. But, the drive the point home again. I am really stupid and prove it at times, that and I hate the army.

self explanatory

here's a photo

Well I decided to do some buildering for the last time in Saddam's old palace complex in Tikrit. For the first time this year I brought a spotter to both take photos and make me feel more secure. I climbed higher than I ever have before on any of these buildings this year until I was getting tired and only about 3 moves from the top. My bady wouldn't stop shaking and I yelled to my friend that I was going to drop. When I did he ran away like a little girl and I fell so hard that my knees knocked the wind out of me and I thought that I had broken my ass bone. Just like Joe dirt I tried not to move too much because of that stated fact. Just then I realized as I have many times in my life that I am really stupid. That was yesterday and I'm in pretty bad shape today, but I'm going to Kuwait tomorrow so why should I care.

One for alcohol! Hooray! I am convinced that drunkenness is a virtue.

Why does this site have an alpine slant? Well, look at where most of us are at guy. The mountains are far more gorgeous than some goddamned roadside crag. It's a great escape from the people that you don't like to see. And how many days out of the year are the crags dry enough for most people the enjoy? It's not that we don't like other types of climbing, it's usually just more worthwhile to focus on alpine in this place.

Then again what asshole would want to pick a fight with a guy like this?

That's it. I'm pissed, why can't people just settle arguments by simply kicking the other guys ass or having a shootout over it. I'm tired of the bitching that goes on in the world. I'm moving to Canada to be a dirtbagger there. That's right I'm going to live a Grizzly Adams type lifestyle. Only old Griz didn't climb but he would have had he had the cool shit that we have now. I'm going to live on land that I don't pay taxes on and if anyone tries to fuck with me I'm gonna shoot them with a lever action rifle and take their scalp for my collection. Just go ahead and try to bitch at me about anything.

Oh, and I also want to be able to smoke some weed and enjoy it. Who can enjoy a good bowl when they have to worry about persecution? I can't, and so I can't wait until the end of my next Iraq deployment when I will probably be able to part ways with the army. Then again they are getting in the habit of keeping people in past years after their ETS dates.

and of course i always find someway to look stupid. "I hate people who throw away garbage" I meant that I hate people who throw away food. I don't really hate fat people. I hate the fat that people carry around with them everywhere they go.

There's another guy wanting to stir the god damned pot again. Why did we invade? Because we where in the mood to pick a fight. What was the justification? Saddam was a bad man who in fact was allowing terrorists to use his country to train in(proof had been shown a while ago)in captured video, documents, and finding the abandoned camps themselves. Did he have weapons of mass destruction? All that we know is that guy had used them before. That he had buried them in the first war, we where blowing them up and now those guys have nerve damage from the exposure(yeah our guys). We know that he would go to anny length to hide his weapons from us(the fucker burried his own fighter jets in the desert). Have we been gassed yet? Yes, in fact there have been isolated incidents where we found bombs with nerve agents in them and soldiers nearly died because of them. 100,000 Iraqi dead? That very modest considering the fact that we can't even find all of them who's body parts are scattered and or burried in the process of us making craters. Why are we here? So that the bush twins can die insanely rich and powerful. Are we winning? Well the terrorists aren't and the Iraqis are making quite a pretty penny off of us. All and all America is losing and so are the terrorists. Who wins? The Iraqi people and The Bush twins(my god they're hot). Are we finding and or killing terrorists? Everyday Are there some really bad people in the wold that need to die? definitely Does Iraq have more than their fair share per capita? Yes, this place is a shithole. Are we creating more terrorists? Yes, but we are killing them much faster. Besides that's the only fun part about Iraq anyway. Do I hate my life? yes Is Seymour Hearsh likely to be a total douchebag who lives off of other's chaotic and misfortuned lives? Answer: Did Michael Moore make a profit off of Columbine and the World Trade Center being taken out? Does Michael Moore make profit off of making fun of stupid people like the president and preying on impressionable minds with his books and movies like college students and soldiers families? Of course. Would anyone else like to see a video making fun of fat, sloppy, over opinionated people like him. I got an idea. Why don't Seymour Hearsh and Michael Moore put their balls or fat asses on the line and do something about what they see wrong with the world? I bet you the only thing that's holding Mike and Seymour back is the fact that they can't part with their fridges and followers. Last but not least? 400 billion dollars? Who needs 400 billion dollars? Answer: Michael Moores' stomach But really this guy wants to spend 400 billion dollars and the lives of taxpayers (that's all that we are to these bastards anyway) on some bullshit. All that I really want is to finish school, removal of the lower 4 snake river dams, have the commercial salmon fishery take a break for a few years, and for us to stop heating up the world. All that I want in life is some goddamned booze, some goddamned women, some goddamned salmon, some goddamned woods, some goddamned clean water, some goddamned guns, some goddamned big assed rocks, and some goddamned snow and ice. Oh, and I almost for get some goddamned out of the army ,and some goddamned earth swallowing Iraq whole, people and all. Now is that so much to ask? I mean we spent all of that time, money, and effort getting rid of good people and guys who wanted to live a good life like the native americans. All because of our need for excess, our greed. Now just over a century later we spend an assload of money, time, and effort to save help what may possibly be the worst people currently existing in the world. I mean a nation of total shitbags. The longer I stay in Iraq the more I get pissed off. We kill salmon and the destroy the rest of the world all because people can't seem to live without their lights, blowdryers, microwaves, goddamned TVs that forcefeed you garbage, goddamned Xboxes and Playstations. In closing I hate fat people, I hate people who throw away garbage, I hate politicians, I hate army people, I hate army vehicles, and most of all I hate the most heavily worshipped god in the world. The TV

well it doesn't suck but i'm still pissed

and no photo of the mom? that story sucks

oh and yes the soles on RC shoes vary greatly, the sausilitos are thin and flexible, the voodoos are very thick and the toes and hitting the deck in them can hurt

Well, lately I've been leaning more towards LaSportiva myself especially since they treated me so well while I was on R&R to the states this last time around. I tend to agree with you on every point that you just made. I'm in the army and so my feet are very similar to leather at this time of writing. What I like about RC is that the leather that they are made out of is much more flexible and more comfortable to climb in all day. That's what I found in the sausilito, sometimes forgeting that I was wearing rock shoes. In the newer and more technical voodoo shoe with a hooked toe and more rigid sole I found less comfort but still the same type of leather on the upper. The leather that is used on the RC shoes is probably the reason for your discomfort in cracks. The soles and the entire shoes themselves are extremely durable which is probably the reason for the high price to performance ratio. With all that said I don't think that you can go wrong with la sportiva, but if you want something that you can train all day in the RC sausilito would be something to look into as well.

I appreciate all of the advice from everyone on this site. It looks as like I will spend the majority of my time in Chamonix while I have people with me. When and will have to decide where I will stay while I focus entirely on climbing. Probably Argentiere unless I hook up some girl in Chamonix that's willing to let me stay at her place. It will all depend on what kind of partner(s) that I find and where we decide to climb.

am i the only red chili fan here?

By the way, whats the nightlife like in Argentiere?

Oh yeah, I would have replied sooner but we just had another guy bite it recently. They shut off all civilian type lines until the next of kin has been contacted every time. Pisses me off, he only had a couple of weeks to go and this time there was someone waiting for him on the other side of that door. Then again something happened yesterday that someone will have to pay for down the road but I can't say anything about that. I can only say that our leadership is not on our side, and that our hands are tied in a web of politics. That because of it more of us will die than necessary. I feel for the ones who are replacing us in these next couple of weeks. For the hardship, heartache, sickening, and deterioration inside themselves that they will have to endure for the next year.