mkporwit

So are you bitching 'cause it chugs gas or 'cause it is ugly? Check some of the hypermiling forums -- one guy claims he's getting 38 mpg out of his Corvette -- so it isn't the car, it's how you drive it. Oh, also, if you really want an ugly 'vette:

My reg date > your reg date... Just been lurking a long time.

Maybe put on some crampons first... then he'd get all 12 (14?) points...

Them's going to be some lucky kids

Yep. Wow. You don't see how reporting an article about France is an act of "intellectual laziness?" Nope. Both France and the US are first-world, developed, stable nations, so comparisons across those two societies are valid. There's nothing intellectually lazy about this. And in any case, this was just an example. Want numbers for California in the late 1990's instead? They're not that far off. Higher percentage of marijuana use and a lot more crack than the French numbers, but the cost per person per year in 2001 dollars was ~ $1000 The French abstract was text, which made for easy copy/paste into the forum. The california numbers were in a PDF which did not allow for copying. So there was laziness on my part, but it wasn't intellectual...

Yep.

Hey, I didn't argue that the cost of drug addicts is comparable to the cost of alcoholics. It is clearly greater. I'm just bashing the intelectual laziness that comes from pulling numbers out of thin air and then couching them in bullshit acknowledgements when 30 seconds with a search engine would produce whole pages of numbers such as these here from France, 1997: Findings: The use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs cost more than 200 billion francs (FF) in France in 1997, representing 3,714 FF per capita or 2.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Alcohol is the drug that gives rise to the greatest cost in France, i.e. 115,420.91 million FF (1.42% of GDP) or an expenditure per capita of 1,966 FF in 1997. Alcohol takes more than half of the social cost of drugs to society. The greatest share of the social cost of alcohol comes from the loss of productivity (57,555.66 million FF), due to premature death (53,168.60 million FF), morbidity (3,884.0 million FF) and imprisonment (503.06 million FF). Tobacco leads to a social cost of 89,256.90 million FF, that is an expenditure per capita of 1,520.56 FF or 1.1% of GDP. Productivity losses amount to 50,446.70 million FF, with losses of 42,765.80 million FF as a result of premature death and 7,680.90 million FF linked to morbidity. Health care costs for tobacco occupy second place at 26,973.70 million FF. Illicit drugs generate a social cost of 13,350.28 million FF, that is an expenditure per capita of 227.43 FF or 0.16% of GDP. Productivity losses reach 6,099.19 million FF, with 5,246.92 million FF linked to imprisonment and 852.27 million FF to premature death. The cost of enforcing the law for illicit drugs occupies second place at 3,911.46 million FF, followed by health care costs of 1,524.51 million FF.

And why the hell would you need aftershave? Last time I saw you you were as fuzzy as an Ewok...

Well, actually if you follow the link they claim that the reaction causes no thermal damage to the surrounding tissues.

Hell, if the whole point is not to open your eyes so you can go back to sleep you can just pee in your depends...

Mike, meth or heroin were probably not nearly as prevalent when you were an EMT. My time as an EMT had me attend to quite a few drug cases, mainly heroin overdoses. Probably on the same order of magnitude as alcohol... (about 4x less -- this is in Palo Alto in 2002/2003). Most of those heroin cases were not yuppie recreational users, but rather hard-core addicts. Also, you miss the real cost of alcoholism, one greatly exceeding the 3am on a Saturday night perspective that an EMT would be most familiar with. There's a lot of reasonably well functioning alcoholics that never get caught in the DUI checkpoints that simply make life a living hell for their families, bringing up another generation of dysfunctional members of society...

Mmmm, I hear the faint popping sound of facts being pulled out of the ass...

Well, hexes are tapered on the ends, so endwise placements could be used to protect slightly flaring, not-quite vertical cracks... maybe...

And what stores carry it? So far I'm 0 for 3 in trying to find it (Redmond REI, Marmot, PMS). None knew that a new edition was even available...

They also have a sweet deal on cosmetically blemished BD Neutrinos, if you need them a dozen at a time: BD Neutrino 12-pack

Looking at the product description: "Product Description The QuickWire pack from Black Diamond provides smooth clipping performance with straight gate and wire gate biners to get you out on the routes in style without breaking the bank With an impressively strong Dynex dogbone, you'll be able to rely on these Quickdraws season after season Features: 10 mm Dynex dogbone is incredibly strong and extremely durable Contains 6 Quickdraws Specifications: Weight: 1 lb 6 oz -set Closed strength: 25 kN Open strength: 9 kN Minor Axis Strength: 7 kN" So I'd say this has 6 draws... So yeah, awesome deal

What, you're getting out of the game and want to get rid of your gear?

So Mike, did you get out to Index on Sunday? Henry Leap and I played on GNS and on the first pitch of Lizard on Friday afternoon/evening. We had beautiful weather, except the bugs were kind of bad as the evening wore on.

I'll second that recommendation for the phoenix. Just be sure to have a belay device that works well with 8mm ropes.

Looks like a nice trip. Sounds like great conditions up there right now... hmmm, my weekend is free...

I'd venture that the icon and the "poo-bah" are probably both the results of the most recent software upgrade... The smiley face shows up when you're logged in to the forum and browsing. Otherwise it shows you as having a gray "sleeping" face. And the new software probably also trashed the custom title settings... I see for example that mattp is no longer an Alpine Buddy but merely a sprayer... Of course one of the forum admins can probably give a more definite answer.

Rob, Could have been that your CIO beat you to the punch...

I prefer an alternate version: Work like no one is watching Love like you don't need the money Dance like you've never been hurt

Others have mentioned Kirkwood, and I'd strongly back that idea. There's a decent amount of XC terrain nearby... not as much as Royal Gorge, but solid. The downside to Kirkwood is that it is ~20-30 minutes from South Lake Tahoe and most lodging.

Had fun leading all of R&D on Saturday under perfect skies. After the incident on the NF of Concord earlier this year, it was a little odd to be on something with this much exposure again... Drank a bunch of beer and enjoyed the "sausage fest". Great meeting all y'all.