crackers

The owner lost something like half his money between August and now. That couldn't help him choose to continue projects out of love...In August, they were talking about expanding and hired a bunch of new people. I don't think their website cost them $100k a year. I really don't. I'm not convinced their dead yet. Maybe I'm just hoping, but somehow, I'm thinking that they will get helped out by that bail out deal...

I think you've got a good point there.

sweet! was it harder climbing with all your CF muscle, or did the wind shirt make it easier? you guys all rock! congrats!

I'm still not here. But... Before Sunday's session, I mentioned to him that he used session and workout interchangeably on Saturday and it resulted in poor notes and recall for me. Rob's nomenclature was exact on Sunday. He said workout three times, all to explain aspects within a session...

taken care of...see you there.

yar! nice one!

My sister has a copy of that codex, or at least a good chunk of it. She spent something like three years wandering around the world to get all the pictures.

Uh, no. The reason the GG pad weighs less than the MEC pad is because they are totally different foams. The density on the GG pad is about 1/3 of that on the pads from MEC, and the manufacturer's rating on the "r-value" is substantially lower as well. Mike, by far the easiest place to get them in North America is from MEC. The foam in the "winter" and the "summer" thicknesses is the same, just thicker... I used one of "extra" tall MEC pads for years. It's fantastic. They're durable, hard to destroy, flexible in cold weather and cheap enough for me to have never worried about breaking it or chopping it up into bits. I bought the tall version because it was wider, and then cut off the end and duct taped it back on so it would compress better.

I would seriously consider reorganizing your trip plans... as Rob continues to gain notoriety within the strength/conditioning world his seminar prices will only increase... @ $450 this is a steal! The same seminar @ gym jones is $1500... a CF level 1 will set you back $1000 but its you and 40 other people (we are capping this one @ 10!) and a CF level 1 doesnt spend any time discussing how to blend xfit with training for your sport... something you need if you are serious about leveraging xfit for climbing. Send me a PM or email if you have more questions about it Well said, Frieh. Rob's seminar is exactly what I have been looking for to help "modify" CrossFit work-outs and to improve my climbing, among other things. It's the hot ticket in September boys and girls. werd. dude.

I'll plug the non neti pot neti pot that you can buy at any pharmacy. It's a giant squeeze bottle. It helps get good pressure in and really clear the damn area out. Neil Med Sinus Rinse or something...prescribed to me by my ENT incidentally.

Seriously, I hope your knee is okay. That sounds terrible. But, apparently, it was your crocs to blame! Croc's launches escalator safety campaign.

I think so. I find that my body needs about 10 minutes to recover from hard work before I don't want to ralph protein consumed in liquids. So I do a protein bar and a normal carb drink. But I still give myself a few minutes before eating any of the protein.

Talk about cool for guidebooks... Chugach Gigapan Cascades Everest / Nuptse in the fall

You might be better off posting this over in the "other climbing areas" section of the forum. That said, yeah, i've climbed a ton in Slovenia and Croatia. September is the perfect time. How hard, sport or gear?

Thanks for the tip Jay! I was dying for something 3/4 brained to read, yet not brave enough to revisit my spline smoothing homework (never did really understand those, and want to get a grip on them...no, not at all applicable to work, just for fun) in the heat of an east coast summer.

I'm late to all this vitriol, and I'm not a very competitive or argumentative person. It's kinda shocking really. Mr or Mrs or Ms or whatever GHSC, Could you please provide this community of very real people with your bona fides, including your supervisor's name and contact information? I'm sure that you and your supervisor would like to engage in a discussion about this very real issue in such a way that involves your most active user communities rather than creates a plethora of lawsuits, intense lobbying, and all of the administrative head aches that will come from this... In any event, GHSC is probably a troll. Why? I'm pretty sure that posting like GHSC has done above violates a large number of federal government regulations that pretty much cover all full time employees, and I'm certain that if done from a work computer it is totally illegal. It will be simple enough to subpoena cascadeclimbers and the ip of the poster to determine their identity in the litigation. If any of the above, extremely offensive to me, posting written by GHSC were done with a government computer, well...it sure as heck violates a ton of department of agriculture and interior regulations and guidelines for appropriate use of federally owned internet facilities.

bumpage. I've still got the 3 V2.5 45L Dyneema packs left, and two size large V2.5 45L WorkSacks... Dude. Dyneema Packs make you climb faster, harder and you'll be able to leap approaches in a single bound. Your climbs automatically get posted in Alpinist's Newswire! You get babes! or not.

Well, you dastardly spraylords, I just realized, after being at work for 12 hours, that today is the 1st. Which means I need to pay my rents. I've got 3 45L Dyneema worksacks that are on sale, two larges and a small. Check the cilogear blog if you want more details, but I'm selling them for $400. Nope, not negotiable. It's a steal...if you're into our packs. If not, well, you won't want one. I'm also selling a few of the older V2.5 45L packs that showed up in the bottom of the storage locker. thanks...

ooh ooh!! Pick ME! I KNOW THE ANSWER!!! and people ask me why i'm turning into a curmudgeon...

I'm sorry about the short notice, but I really really needed a bit of a vacation from packs and even from climbers. In any event, it was a pleasure to meet Bill and show him the packs really quick. A few points: Bill made a compelling case for the regular, old skool closure. Consider it done. We're making them, at least initially, in both the new super durable coated material and in what is more or less the same 1050 Ballistics Cordura as the original was made from...we'll see which sell better, and go with that material for the at least a little while. I was really surprised by how big the wally was. I thought it would be good to make one that was more of a cragging size than of a route-building size. At the same time, we've been testing a leader's pack made from the same material, and so we decided to do three or four more sizes: a 20L, a 30L with a zipper, and a 40L or so for cragging. Right now, I'm trying to figure out if we should make the 20L with a zipper or just leave it as a top loader...any thoughts?

FF has a shipment of alpine packs on the way to them. They do have some of the previous editions of the packs in the hands of their excellent staff, and they can special order anything you might like to have. It will be a few weeks till we get these packs out for selling. We've got to get the first edition out into the hands of some abuser -- i mean gear testers and then give it a few weeks to see if any obvious flaws crop up. We're working on pricing them right now, so if nothing adverse happens during the testing period, you can expect to order them from us or from FF around the end of July. We will be doing pre-orders on them starting July 14th.

As everybody should know, I own CiloGear. Shoot, I am CiloGear for the good and for the bad. And I really appreciate all the feedback we get; via email, phone calls, letters and post cards, I appreciate it and it makes our packs better. My first thought on reading this is that I'm very glad to hear that it carries very well and balanced with big loads. My second thought is that as Builder206 writes, I really don't think our packs are for everybody. There is some tinkering with these packs. At the risk of sounding pedantic and stupid, I will risk reiterating that the simple strap system works exactly like a climbing harness: the tail goes out the way it comes in. {obviously}I don't think it's all that complex. {/obviously} I recommend what others have already: find something that works for you and leave it that way for 90% of your trips. For 60% of my trips, I just use a quick release buckle straps on top, and maybe a simple strap on the bottom. I leave the straps at home the rest of the time. There are two points that I wanted to respond to: In the words of Mark Twight in an email to me a few years ago when we were working on a pack project: Leashless tools prevent the old way from being easily used. Even a Slider on a relatively straight alpine tool can be a hassle. I think most people put modern "deer antler" tools inside the pack because no one has provided a better solution. But I wouldn't say it is their first choice. We had the same experience as he did, and in conjunction with feedback from our users and most of those fancy climber studs who show up in magazines it seemed like an area that could use improvement. I will note that Jim has an ally in the loop discussion in Colin Haley, aka Superman. Our current design receives more accolades than brickbats. The Alpinist reviewer wrote "The pack held ice tools well: the picks were protected; the shafts attached securely to the pack; the tools were easily accessible—even with the pack on." While the review was of the Dyneema pack, it's the same system on all of the packs. Jim, we really thought long and hard about the strap versus bungee thing. On one hand straps can ostensibly last longer than bungees, on the other hand bungees are simpler and lighter. If we got a lot (call it 20) of interest in velcro straps for the shaft, we'd make them available. To date, we've had almost no interest in a strap. There have been one or two folks confused about how the bungee works, but that's been the minority. We might well put out a simple loop on one of the packs as an option this fall, and see how many folks actually want the pack like that. We heard a lot about this, and all of the lids now clip onto the pack in the middle to prevent the lid from slipping over the front. Replacement lids are of course available. Thanks for your feedback, and I'm sorry to hear that the pack didn't work out for you.

Whatcha KBR Mean? Anyway, closing the barn door after the horses, cows, sheep, and even mice have already left creates value how exactly? Where are The Keating Five these days? I'm sure they're not up to no good.

Bill. This is what you generally call "bullshit". McConnell is doing bullshit spin in order to try to build support for a strike. I'm trying to be calm about this. Urghek. The Russians completed testing the SA-20's in '07 and only deployed the first SA-20 battery to a unit near Moscow in June of '07. There is usually a two to three year period between the first deployment on home soil and actual installations overseas AT A BARE MINIMUM. Off the top of my head, I think the original Patriot missile battalion went on line in something like 1982, I think they went overseas in '85 or '88 or something and the first overseas *sales* were in 2007. It's total bull that the SA-20's will magically appear in the next two years in Iran. It's also generally assumed that current Israeli (cough cough ahem) avionics totally dominate Syrian / Iranian antiaircraft defenses. I predict a change of administration in Iran in their upcoming presidential elections and full on internecine conflict between the different conservative camps between now and the elections in '09. I predict a full peace between Syria and Israel signed by Bashar and the soon-to-go-to-jail-or-lose-his-job Olmert that doesn't get ratified by the Israeli parliament...and then a new US president.

Heh heh. Actually, NYC is one of the best places I can imagine to start a business: it's extremely simply to incorporate, the tax code is relatively simple and good to small manufacturers, and the services readily and cheaply available are quite good. Real estate is a problem, but hey, you can't have it all. Judging by craigslist though, I think my rent would drop in half. Which would make a teensy little bit of difference for the old company. Thanks to one and all for the comments. I'll ask more when we find out more, but I will be in portland around the 25th of june...beers?