crackers

Sorry if i came on a bit strong about the meds, it's just some scary stuff. good luck with it!

First off, sorry, OP, I know nothing about the hypoxia tents in practice. From 1989 to 1992, I my Vo2 max was measured at least a dozen times. At that time, I was on the US junior development bike team. I wasn't very good to be honest, but this was my take away about volume of oxygen measurements. 1) They suck. 2) They're almost totally inaccurate for anybody not using them on a regular basis as a consistent, scientific and controlled method. My vo2 max could vary 15% based on how long I'd been awake. 3) vo2 max is under pretty constant flux as your training cycle progresses. You can vary 20% based on your training cycle. 4) There was almost nothing known at that time about how to improve your vo2 max successfully. On the other hand, improvements to your anerobic threshold and your areobic efficieny are another matter entirely.

zig-zachary!

Watch your ass with those meds...my gwife was up to 20-30 600mg vics a day before she went cold turkey. Hope your recovery is incident free. Good Luck.

reachy thin faces...my reach from flat foot up to jug is about 99 inches. But really, seeing how much spew came out of the world this weekend, let's say drinking beer.

That has nothing to do with it at all. The depth of the layers of material and the radius of the turns is the limiting factor. No jacket on the market comes close to matching the radius of the bottom of most packs. You can see this in the dead bird packs...they're totally different shapes because of the machines, not because of human considerations. Beyond that, laser cutting is far superior to die cutting, but there really isn't any gain from the cutting technique...it has more to do with production efficiency and the type of material more than assembly technique. As to my packs, well, they're lighter and better and i'm just so cool as a result... uh, yeah. it might be true, but everybody on the planet has a different set of needs, and no one pack is going to be right for everybody.

um. well. i disagree. I admit, that as a competitor, i'm not exactly a non concerned source. At the same time, as a competitor, I really looked at these bags very very closely. The first welded bag in wide release was berghaus' crag pack, which as been around for awhile. The primary problems with seam welding is price, pattern and strength. The strength bit is wierd: the bonded parts are so much stronger than the rest of the fabric, you tend to blow out the fabric rather than the seam. So, after it blows, you throw it out: the tears tend to go on the bias and get big. Since it's not just the seam, it means replacement. Seam tapers and seam welders--like the bemis stuff used in the dead bird packs--can't make the tight radius turns that characterize packs very well. So, you change the pattern to allow you to use the machine. Unfortunately, what i've seen so far results in either a very functional bag that sucks as a load carrier for hiking (ortlieb or river bags) or a bag thats okay for hiking but hard to load effectively. At the summer OR last year and at last year's winter OR, dead bird was showing off these packs. The prices are incredible. While the Berghaus crag costs only about $185 for a 40L bag, the 30L deadbird was projected to cost $225 and the 60L was going to be about $600. And I hate the trend towards non replaceable snap on buckle parts. Don't people break them? Am I the only person who breaks plastic?

I think that my experience in Turkey sounds really similar to y'all's experience in the great beyond. English teaching / translating work is always available, and pays premium wages. On the other side of the stick, most local companies pay crap and nobody seems to work properly: hours worked does not translate to productivity. If I may make three suggestions consider: 1) Translate financial documents. With a basic grounding (from the economist perhaps) or a biz dictionary, you can translate annual reports / propaganda. Any company interested in international business or receiving USAID money often has to produce something, and they've got a couple of thousand dollars budgeted for it. 2) If you're legal, see about running the language school. While it might seem strange to manage a biz for somebody else, it leads to my third point. Or work for a multi-national. Say coca-cola or pepsi. They're everywhere, they pay well, and they work. 3) Start your own business. This will require intense research into the optimal method. For example, I founded my company in NY instead of Turkey and then opened a 'branch office' in Turkey. That saved me about $1500, but I have just about all the legal rights of a similar company in Turkey. good luck! Can't you get a job tutoring rich parents in english for $20 an hour?

Well, no. In conversations with my IP lawyer, he believed that the issue of confusion was minimal between the prior art of layton and the prior art of the assh*les in SF. First of all, their trademark registration has a totally different layout and image and their trademark concerns that art in relationship to a tee shirt or other casual clothing. Second, it's a wholly different market. My IP lawyer was quite confident that he could and would kick their ass. Dirtbags, Dirtbagz, Dirt-Bag, and the use of Dirtbag on sweatshirts and other clothing are all open ground.

-- JosephH in the NYT. So what did you actually say J?

afaik, there has never been a dealer contract specifying what the company does with it's profits. You'd have to sell everything for retail, pay employees, and then send a big check out once or twice a year as a disbursal based on purchases. I think it'd be pretty simple to form. You'd just need to make sure that you sold at least some gear to people at a storefront...

ow. best wishes for a complication free recovery. congrats to all involved for such a skillful work.

del.icio.us/cilogear news.yahoo.com en.wikipedia.org

I don't really climb cracks (don't have any in the gunks and turkey is bolted limestone). with that caveat, 5.10 T-Rocks are great. They're super good for gunks style trad, and i've used them happily for longer days on Cannon in New Hampshire.

There is no way you're going to get a whole goat for that little in Istanbul. I doubt you could get that pricing anywhere in Turkey really. Last time I sacrificed, i think a sheep was about $130 or so...but I'm probably way off because it was three years ago.

i briefly used a prototype of the Exped Polaris tent in turkey(2 nights). It was really nice for me because i could actually fit inside of it in my winter sleeping bag--I'm 6'5"--without having the condensation crush thing go on... I'd be really interested in hearing how it works over more than 2 nights. edited for clarity...

f*ckers clearly DON'T have a trademark on stickers or any other printed materials! quick, trademark dirtbag on printed material and sue them!

go talk to a lawyer. did they send you a cease and desist? and btw, you could use the word 'dirtbagS'... their claim that the word was first used in 1995 is ridiculous, and that the word was first used commercially in 1997 is almost impossible to believe. I highly recommend that you mention this at that slide show and get some lawyer type to kick some ass for you pro bono. The abandoned claim for 'dirtbags' clothing says the first use of the marwas 1989...

Edelweiss makes ropes? I thought they made cables... A friend of mine who lives for epicing on desert towers swears by them. I can't stand them. The hand on all the edelweiss ropes i've ever seen or used is so stiff that you really have to see them to understand.

At least this crap is better than this sht. Turks make excellent turkish coffee. It's a real pity that they were ever allowed to think that nescafe is coffee though. btw luke, you made me coffee out my nose with your reference to the good old 3in1...

I can't get decent bacon in istanbul, but i can get great steak cut exactly how i want for like $4 a pound. The coffee is crapola too.

crackers: 50% Turkey (i know, i know, you thought i was a turkey...)

They are considerably more sophisticated, but I'm not sure how. I ordered a few to see if they'll work for a project,and when they show up i'll post photos and details.

For the past four years I've been doing a lot of new route activity in Turkey. I use a cheap $100 spotting scope to decide whether to walk over to a wall or not. To determine if a wall is decent rock, a spotting scope is great. I am told that you want binoculars for viewing things in stereo--like a tank when you're deciding whether or not to blow it up. I have a 60x spotting scope that I can see the glint of a bolt on limestone from about two kilometers on a clear dry day. That said, for "hitting the right spot" on a wall from miles away, I use a pair of cheap 'waterproof + fogproof' bushnells (bushnells) that I got at B&H. For this kind of thing, i like 8x30 or 8x42. Any higher than 10 hurts my eyes and takes me longer to acquire my target. Any more than $80 is imho way too much money. I figure that $10 per walk is well worth the money to avoid tramping down a wall for a kilometer in the sun when I'd rather be climbing. That means I have to make the binoculars last 8 trips to pay themselves off, which is pretty hard. I've wrecked two pairs, lost one in the past four years. (When I am in NYC, I live literally above B&H, so it's the easiest store to go to.)

backcountry.com is selling them. 40 Liter and 50 liter volumes, with the 40L weighing 3lbs 12 oz with frame & pad. They say the 50L is one ounce heavier.