sobo

Screw that! Do what I do for getting through dense books/subjects: really good college level course lectures on tape/CD/DVD It's like going to college in your car. Just not quite that expensive (although some of these titles ain't cheap, neither). I've already been through: Military and Social History of WWII (Thomas Childers - this guy is GREAT!) History of Hitler's Empire (another Childers masterpiece) High Middle Ages The Era of the Crusades History of Ancient Rome (so thar ya go, DeC) From Yao to Mao: 5,000 Years of Chinese History History of Ancient Egypt History of the English Language Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution (modern physics for non-scientists - this is a great set if you ever wanted to know about this shit and you "didn't get it" in college) The American Civil War Robert E Lee and His High Command US Economy in the 20th Century Origins of the Universe Dark Matter, Dark Energy Human Pre-History and the First Civilizations ...plus a whole raft of others that I can't quite remember right now. My wife started me on these things when we were first dating, and she already had a bunch of them. Almost ten years later and I still can't quit the addiction.

People still have sex in their fifties? Damn, hope my shit's still working then... I'm only two years away from 50, and my shit's still workin' just fine. I think it'll keep running for a few more years after that. At least, I hope it does... After that, there's always Viagra. 8D

Wellllllll, there both cow colleges...

We used to have a saying at the VA Tech Cave Club: "You can't drink all day unless you start first thing in the morning." Truer words were never spoken... :brew:

Thanks, OJ, for that reminder... ... "Hey Honey, You're right! Love is the greatest of all! And I'm gonna last forever!" <...in-out, in-out, in-out...> I have to wonder, though, will her boyfriend/hubby be able to read that when he's banging her doggie-style thirty years from now...? Or maybe she'll have switched to the widescreen version: "This Bible verse has been formatted to fit your huge ass." BTW, second JayB's rec on Christopher Hitchens. The guys says what really needs to be said. "God is Not Great" is a must-read.

Have to agree with that rec. "Climb" was excellent, and "the rest of the story" that desperately needed to be told. Other climbing books that I liked... "The Boardman-Tasker Omnibus", authors are obvious "In the Zone", Potterfield "Addicted to Danger", Wickwire "Feeding the Rat" (story of Mo Anthoine of Joe Brown fame-a really good read), Al Alvarez "Big Wall Climbing", Doug Scott (it's almost 35 years old, but a really good history of BWC throughout the world's ranges from the English perspective) "Nanda Devi", Roskelley Anything climbing-related by David Roberts (I second the rec from above) Second the rec on "Challenge of Rainier" by Molenaar and wish to add "Challenge of the North Cascades", Beckey Non-climbing related books that I've read in the past year... "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism...", Ahmed Rashid (really really dense read, lots of Muslim/Islamic lineage to wade through, but really sets the stage for what is happening in the world today) "Infidel", Ayaan Hirsi Ali (a Muslim woman's, who becomes apostate, perspective - this is the same woman who was a Dutch Parliamentarian who had death threats/fatwas put out on her after she did a short movie with Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered as a result. She was to be next...) "From Baghdad, With Love", Lt. Col. Kopelman (really fast read) "Lone Survivor", Marcus Luttrell (really, really fast read) "The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell", John Crawford "Shooter", Coughlin, Kuhlman, and Davis "Three Cups of Tea", Greg Mortenson (starts out as a climbing story, but changes tack quickly - a really good read) "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time", Dava Sobel (really really really great read, if you like this sort of thing) "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage", Alfred Lansing (this is a really really really really great read - a truly magnificent story - and NOBODY DIES!) That oughta get ya through the winter, eh? Speaking of reading... what does it say on the tramp stamp on your avatar pic?

Oly, Glad to hear you're back home and in front of the interwebs again. Spray on!! ...sobo

Like this one? Or this one?

Wow, Oly, I just saw this. That is so suck. I hope you heal up well and quickly. We need yer luv spreading across the intertubez.

Pick Jamin. I'm sure he'll fit the bill... if he's still alive... And he can school ya on placing rap bolts to avoid heinous 5.1 downclimbs...

He fell out of a tree at work (he's an arborist). This is the original thread.

The sum total of all the truths that mankind has learned over the millenia cannot surpass that one statement.

:lmao: :lmao: Classic!

Doubt it, when it comes to my daughter - she's a lemming. She'd see all of you wankers getting pissed and she'd end up being the one to do keg-stands. She's not even 3 yet, but she's sure as shit gonna drive me to an early grave, I tell ya!

Goddammit! Hits my daughter's 3rd birthday right square in the middle of the weekend. I'm out again this year.

OK, fair enough. I concede. Neutering does indeed remove the testes, which would make it somewhat more difficult to fuck. But that's not to say that I haven't seen neutered cats, dogs, and even rabbits going at it like they were teenagers. Some things you just never outgrow...

Hmmmmmm, Bug... You can still fuck if you're neutered; you're just shootin' blanks.

One lucky fucker. Well, two, actually...

That's called a siphon. It resurfaces somewhere else across a draw or gulley. If there's water in it, you'll never make it out the other side alive, guaranteed. No one ever does... Anybody here remember the four divers who got killed in the Roza Irrigation District siphon near Zillah about 10 years ago? The irrigation district hired two commercial SCUBA divers to go into a 12-foot diameter siphon to rig up a stolen car that was dumped in the canal and eventually ended up down in the bottom of the siphon. It needed to be fished out so normal flow could be restored in the canal. Anyway, at the bottom of the draw which the siphon traverses, they were effectively in a 100-foot open water dive. It didn't occur to them that would be the case when they went in, as they most likely were thinking that they were diving in only 12 feet of water, even as they continued down in elevation. Two rescue divers went in after them, forgetting the very same principle! They died, too. Tragic, yet entirely preventable. Stick around with the living for a little while longer, nova, and stay out of irrigation canals until you understand them better.

Mebbe, but not by the end of this weekend if he sees this thread...

Over 20 years ago, my first year climbing, I went with my partner (Frank Gibson, RIP) down to Stone Mountain, Georgia for some granite slab goodness over Thanksgiving Break. We climbed hard 5.9s and .10s all day on severely run-out slab. To access these routes, we had to solo a long 5.4-ish pitch to get to the main ledge. We had also gone all the way down to the ground several times that day to eat, get more water, and do other routes not accessible from the main ledge. So I had been up and down this 5.4 thingy many times that day... So the end of the day comes up, it's getting dark, and the ranger comes out to bullhorn us off the rock before they lock the gate. Frank quickly soloed down to the ground so he could move the car before the ranger locked us in for the night. That left me to coil up the ropes and get down alone. I told him that I would be just fine getting down alone, and to go ahead and hustle on down to move the rig. I was going to be a Big Boy and solo it just like Frank did. As it was still a little twilight, I wasn't too worried. I packed up all the shit, put the pack on, and turned to face the "easy" 5.4 downclimb. Now it was dark, and my nerves of steel started to turn to Jell-O as I started slipping on dried pine needles on holds, ball-bearing style grit under my shoes, and getting cold with only a t-shirt and shorts. I downclibed only about 20 or 30 feet, then froze. I was stuck: I couldn't go back up, and I didn't want to go down. Now the ranger comes back and starts bullhorning *me* personally. This wasn't helping any... I tried to move again, and started to slide... I thought that it was my time, and I had only been climbing since the school year began less than 3 months earlier. I slid about 6 to 8 feet, burning up my palms, when my foot snagged on a nubbin just big enough to be called a hold. I don't know how I stopped, but I wasn't going any further. I called out to Frank, who by now had walked back into the park and over to the meadow. Frank had me drop the pack, and he took out the rope, trailed it, and soloed up past me to the rap station above, and set the rope. I was then able to clip in and rap down uneventfully. Needless to say I got an earful from the ranger, and I learned that what appears easy on the way up in the sun and warmth may not be so easy in the cold and dark. It was a long time before I soloed anything again.

Five year old son! Thats great.....I can only wait until my boy is five. Miles is 10 months and growing. He wants to walk right now......but will have to wait to get the balance just right......soon I tell you. Soon. Do you have pictures of your children to share? As requested: Sobo's kids Last update was February 2006, so Nick was 3.5 and we had just returned home from China with Elaina, so she is anywhere between 14 and 16 months old in these pics. The wife has it on her To Do list to update the site with newer pics.

Well, there goes his popularity with the ladies... I dunno about that... How so? He's getting them removed... Now, if he happens to have huge feet, too... you might be right.

I'm assuming that you didn't get a wink of sleep after that comment... for either of two possible reasons...

Well, there goes his popularity with the ladies...