jon

Congrats to hefeweizen, KaskadskyjKozak, and Otto. Message me for prizes.

12 years ago today we started cascadeclimbers.com. When we started this there wasn't a course you could take or a book to read on how to start and run a successful online community. It's been a lot of trial and error, driving by braille, and hoping you are doing the right thing. Big Thanks While we may have hatched the idea and put the foundation in place, the truth is we wouldn't be here today without three groups of people. The moderators. Our moderator group has changed little since we started, in fact I think we have close to half as many. Their presence is crucial to the health of our forum. They deserve a huge amount of gratitude. The sponsors. Two years into this we started offering advertising to our local retailers. It's their support that pays the server bills and pays for software licenses. It's a tough time to be in retail and they deserve your support. You. This all would just be a shell without you. We wouldn't have over 6000 trip reports without you. Some of you have been a part of this since the beginning, and we thank you for being part of the journey. We broke our trip report record in August which was a huge accomplishment. The Future of CascadeClimbers We've got some great stuff in the pipeline that we'd like to share with you. More Articles. We have a number of great articles and gear reviews in the finishing stages. We will be doing more of these in the coming year. New Server. We are in the final stages of negotiations on a new server located in Seattle. It's like going from a Corolla to a Bugatti. In fact that isn't even a good comparison. This server will probably be 100x faster and no more downtime. New Site Design. Site design is looking kinda stale, hey? In what turned out to be a much more drawn out process that any of us had imagined, we hired a designer and have a slick new design for cc.com. The design is responsive and will work well on any screen width or device. It's been a huge project. The design is done. Base code is done. Articles and blog posts are converted over. We just need to reskin the forum and gallery. This should be done by the end of the month. It will be awesome. New Forum Software. We have been with the current forum software (UBB) since we started cc.com. It has served us well. However, the development on it has pretty much come to a crawl. After evaluating the options we have decided to make a switch. The new software is really great and I think once everyone gets used to it we know you will love it. I'm in the process now of planning and testing conversions. It's a lot of work but it's the best product for the future. You guys are going to love it. New Gallery Software. Along with switching forum software we are also moving to a new gallery software that integrates better with the forum software. No more copying URLs. No more yelling at your screen because your upload isn't working; it will actually work. Along with the forum switch this is a big job, we have 15k posts with gallery images in it and we need to make sure it all converts correctly. Again, it will be a huge improvement that everyone is really going to love. New Trip Report System. After we migrate to the new board we will start making massive improvements to the TR system. Easier to post, easier to search. There is more as well that we will talk about as the above get's rolled out. How to support our cause There are a number of things you can do to support cc.com. * Continue to post great info and trip reports. * Get your friends to stop lurking and post. The more the merrier. * Join our Facebook page and consider liking your favorite content here. It helps get the word out about us. * Tell your local retailers that support us how much you appreciate their support of cc.com. * When buying online use our price tools to make your purchases. We get a bit of a kickback which helps us fund our projects. Over the course of the month we'll talk a bit more about the above more in detail. Thanks again everyone!

I don't even see the cheeseburger. Is it out of frame on top?

I was crossing at Lynden the other day and the guy was asking me all these questions about my roof box because he needed one because he had 4 german sheperds that didn't fit in his suburban. I almost blurted out "Mitt Romney can fit 2 shepards in this box", but decided that wasn't a good idear.

Well prejudice usually goes hand in hand with closed mindedness. You can blame the mexicans for coming here trying to make a better life for themselves, but they wouldn't come if farmers didn't give them jobs without a valid greencard. The problem is employers. It's no different then Indians coming to Redmond and Seattle to work (legally). You can jump up and down and say "they are stealing our jobs!", you can jump up and down at Amazon "you are giving our jobs away!". In reality our kids would rather play DS something and dream of being the next red bull guy then get smart, have some fucking foresight, and invest in themselves. So we are giving those jobs away. You can blame "the blacks", and opening this up to all races really in any poor region, what kind of expectations do you have of people that are offered a shit education where the parents aren't educated so they can help, shit jobs after their education if there is even a job. Do these people really see a future for themselves? Mr. Romney is for lower corporations taxes, and lowering the taxes of the beneficiaries of those companies (Bush tax cuts on dividends). In doing so, he says that will decrease unemployment. Well guess what? Corporations, especially public ones exist to make money for their shareholders, not create job. They employ as few people as they can to make money. If Amazon could run on 10 employees they would. The problem in this country is two fold. Our tax system is slanted towards helping corporations and the "1%" get richer, and at the same time is prohibiting the middle class entrepreneur of getting into the 5% (I call 5% Romney middle class, those making close to $250k) because not only of a large tax burden for operating a small business, but as I've stated before large risk. The biggest risk is health coverage. How many people over thirty with a family and mortgage are going to go out on their own knowing that if things don't go hell they will not be able to provide health coverage? If we had universal health coverage in this country you will see a huge increase in the number of people going into business for themselves and increasing innovation. You see the 5%'ers on the right stomping up and down and they should be they are paying an unfair amount of taxes compared to large corporations. Their corporate taxes aren't 18% they are closer to 35%. It's like this enormous speed bump for most middle class people, and any corporation you go up against whether it is a restaurant or a widget has a huge, huge advantage. But you never see this as part of the discussion with Republicans, the only thing you hear come out of their mouths is talking about tax holidays for large corporations and such. They don't give a shit about middle class business owners.

And is 4 for 30 in completions with 37 yards rushing and 60 yards total offense.

Hate is a strong word. We should keep using asbestos so that the miners aren't out of a job.

I'm enjoying watching all these choads jumping off the sinking ship. Never was on the boat asshat! The choads I'm referring to are all the party officials and nominees.

I'm enjoying watching all these choads jumping off the sinking ship.

This is what true 47 percenters do all day long, correct? While the hard working rich work tirelessly for us to jerk off on the intertubes so we don't have to pay taxes. They should be mad!

Yes I had dinner with one the other night.

Do you think W's reading the book upside down was a signal to the CIA terrorists to commence with the attack?

With all that is going on in the middle east now I can see why it is hard to imagine why they would want to fly planes into and blow up our buildings. The CIA, knowing how successful the iPhone 5 was going to be, thankfully had the foresight trick us into invading Afghanistan for their lithium supply.

Don't forget the stolen Migs. Buckaroo you spend too much time on infowars.

Just because he is a Colonel doesn't mean he is there to oppress you. BTW is that an f'ing Krispy Kreme donut sign? LOL!

Hey Everyone, Backcountry Gear, who is a long long time sponsor of cc.com is having a great sale right now which include a 15% one full priced item coupon code: "save15". Make sure to check it out. http://backcountrygear.com

A little late here, but yeah we are having another contest this month, random giveaway to 3 people. It should be a good month and we've got a few things up our sleeve soon. Rules? Pretty simple. - TR should have at least 2 cc.com hosted pictures, but we'll waive this if your TR is sufficient length. - Needs to have a fair amount of writing that provides sufficient beta. - Links to blogs etc do not count. - Trips don't have to be from September, they can be from any point in time.

Yo. I don't think I've heard from any of the above peeps. If you want your stuff drop me a PM.

I completely agree with you, but Chuck thinks that will lead to the destruction of America. Actually, I made that up, I have no idea why he thinks why the apocalypse is coming because he didn't say other then if Obama gets elected it will happen.

You should go visit Iraq or Afghanistan, Kevbone. I'm sure Chuck with go with you bone.

This is the epitome of republican fear mongering. The world is going to end. But never say why. I will never tell a Chuck Norris joke again.

Sorry about the downtime. Again. Our host is having some issues.

Lithium for iPads has to come from somewhere.