sobo

Sorry for the buzzkill, ivan, but I've been experiencing a continued low pressure system lately. It looks like the barometric pressure is rising, tho... Besides, what's a Wayback Thread without a mention of those fine people and good friends that have passed through our lives? RE: your questions... From what the papers, my folks, and Frank's wife Patti has told me, there were two perps. One was apparently the "lookout", the other was the trigger man. It was all recorded on the overhead video camera at the cashier counter, but the creeps were never (to my knowledge) apprehended for this crime. I hope they are on the bottom of a bayou somewhere as I write this, although Frank would probably not approve of me saying that. The guy had too much class. Frank was the only store personnel (he managed the store) in the climbing/backpacking shop at the time of the shooting. Two African-American males entered the Fairfax store shortly after Frank opened it one Friday morning at the end of November, 1990. He helped the "shooter" try on several down coats. The other guy just sort of wandered the store, looking around and shit. After spending some time in the store (close to 45 minutes or so, according to the video camera), Frank and the shooter approached the cash register to ring the two out. Upon the cash drawer opening, the shooter pulled out a .44 caliber handgun and demanded all the money in the register. Frank backed away from the shooter and cash register, leaving the drawer open, and gestured to him to take the money. The guy grabs about $200 in cash or so, and then puts two in Frank's chest from across the check-out counter. The two run out of the store and jump into a beater 70s era piece of Detroit iron with Washington DC tags that was parked out front. A witness (or witnesses) outside the store noted the plate number; the vehicle turned out to be recently stolen. The authorities were alerted by the witness(es), and Frank was transported to a DC-area hospital, where he died more than three hours later on the OR table, never having regained consciousness. The police never found the two that killed Frank. He was a muscle-bound freak with an incredible will to live and a love for life, which is why I believe it took so long for him to die that day. Frank left behind the woman that I had introduced him to that became his wife and the mother of his son, his 10-month-old boy named Kyle (pictured above, named after the time-traveling character in the first Terminator movie - our favorite flick at the time). I still get all choked up every time I think about him, see that movie, or hear anything from the (now defunct) band Big Country, which was our favorite road trip music (Where the Rose is Sown and Just a Shadow were our favorite road tunes, especially the lengthy head-banging guitar and E-bow solos at the end of those songs). I will never forget my first climbing partner and my best friend, Frank Seth Gibson. OK, so I'm done for right now. Someone else can post something and hopefully brighten up this thread.

One last one of Frank. I've been looking for this pic a while now, and finally found it this morning. This pic was taken less than six months before Frank was murdered in his climbing store. His son Kyle is about 5 or 6 months old here. Kyle will graduate high school next year, never really knowing his father.

"Life is fine, fine here, Communism killed democracy, We will bury you, Life is fine, fine here."

good one. You're always so quick.

That's Walla Walla

yw

I don't get it.

Sweet! Hope you heal up soon.

And they owed NPR a favor. How you doing, oly?

Rudy, I c/p-ed this from the original "22 Killed in Virginia Tech Shooting" thread from yesterday. I saw GV on the list of the dead and was stunned. I'm a Hokie alum, too: '83-'88. Classes in Norris, and dated girls that lived in AJ. Sad. Have ya'll seen the news bits about his "disturbed writing" pieces and plays? CNN link Among the many killed was a person who I thought was my best professor ever during my tenure there. I never would have understood open channel flow and fluid mechanics were it not for this gentleman:

In order from then to now, near as I can remember this shite: Washington: Skykomish, Naches, Walla Walla Italy: Pisa Idaho: Idaho Falls Italy: Pisa Virginia: Front Royal Long motorcycle ride through the Atlantic Coasts states to Florida Florida: Daytona Beach City Jail, 3 days Followed by long motorcycle ride across Gulf Coast states Texas: Houston Long motorcycle ride across the desert SW to California California: Huntington Beach Long drive in a beater Volvo towing my bike back to Texas Texas: Houston Virginia: Blacksburg (VaTech) and Front Royal (folks' place for the summers) Long drive in the Volvo beater out west, climbing along the way Washington: Walla Walla, Kennewick, Yakima, Richland, Spokane Alaska: Anchorage Washington: Richland, Yakima, Kennewick Born and raised in Washington, I have come full circle, back here to stay for a bit. Whew! I'm done moving around for a while.

sobo confirmed. BSCE '88 Just so you know, I was just about to do the same post. wfinley got me thinkin' about it. Glad you got on it, as I have a meeting to get to now. Ring in here, all you Hokies out there!!!!!1 Didn't know TLG was a Hokie. I hear RobBob is too, altho he ain't been 'round these heah parts in a coon's age. ryland_moore, you went to VaTech, dincha?

I do sniff panties. Just my wife's tho... TMI??

As was mine. Frank sandbagged me into leading Zig as my first lead ever, "confirming" the grade at 5.6 (like I could tell after climbing only five or six weeks). My last piece was a #3 Coonyard stopper at the bottom of the lie-back. I stopped about 15 feet further up to place another piece, and peeled off the LB and took a 30+ footer, with one hand hitting the ground. Frank looked at me, shook his head, and asked, "You gonna finish that?" I got up, dusted off, realigned my karma, tried again, and fell again from the same spot. Two 30+ footers inside of five minutes on my first lead ever - yah, I gave up for the day. Two weeks later we returned, after I'd been practicing placing pro around campus and working out extra hard at the gym. Frank's philosophy was that you had to get your old monkeys off your back before you could add new ones, so up we trudged to the base of Zig one more time. I literally flew up it. Frank followed, and revealed the true grade as 5.9. I almost pushed him off the top of the route when he told me that. After much working at it, I was able to extricate the stopper that held those falls. It's hung from the rear view mirror in every vehicle I have owned since that day, a constant reminder to me of how fragile this life, and the lives of others close to us, really is. Yowzerz!!!1 Frank and I often contemplated when (and if) that roof would ever go free. Wow, 20 years. I wish he could know that.

I don't know how you reach the assumption that she has been dumped. At the most, you could postulate that the guy (or the chick) is contemplating dumpage. And I concur, chicks that look like the one on the bike by and large are in the driver's seat in terms of when and how the dumping occurs. Trust me, for I've been there. :snif:

Now WTF was that for, arch? I'm sure you have a nice ass, too, given the calendar shots you've submitted and that hottie shot in the formal red gown. Yowzerz! I'm just identifying the parameters that I use to define what works for me. Obviously, those parameters vary from person to person, and no one person has all the exact parameters to claim the Blue Ribbon. I mean, maybe that chica on the bike has a nice butt and all, but she might very well be a horrible bitch to be around. Like the bumper sticker say... "No matter how hot she looks, there's some guy out there who's damn tired of her shit."

I must inform you, sir, that you are sadly mistaken. The true events surrounding the installation of the HC shitter at Camp Muir are borne out of the angst of failure and search for blame by another paraplegic "climber", one Jeff Pagels. Pete and Pagels were on Mt. Rainier at the same time in June 1999, and it was sort of a competition among the two teams as to who would "win the honor" of being the first para to summit Rainier. Pagel's method of choice was to ride on a sit-ski and jug up fixed lines that his crew would stake out ahead of him, and we felt ourselves "above that" because, while both crews had "sherpa support" for gear/parts/camps, Pete's method of choice was an actual "under his own power" ascent. Pete chose his own route, cranked his own pod, and made all his own climbing decisions, while we (his support team) were nothing more than strong backs to haul loads and to provide a belay system for him, just as you would for any other able-bodied climber. Jugging up lines just wasn't the same in our eyes, as that required someone else to set them for you. Pagel aborted his attempt at Camp Muir, and then proceeded to complain to the NPS that he couldn't get into the shitter there. As a result of his complaint and threats of legal action against the Park for not meeting the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in regards the the Muir toilet, the NPS installed the ADA-compliant shitter. Check it out with Gator or read this article, and I think you'll find I speak the truth. While I respect your intelligence, enjoy reading your thoughtful posts, and often cringe at the beatings you take on this board, I charge you not to diss my friends without having all of the facts at hand. I consider the matter of the ADA shitter closed, and we need not speak of it again.

That is the indomitable (and niggardly weight-conscious) Pete Rieke himself. He was indeed on the Kautz in 1999, and I and many of the others pictured above were also with him (he was on the Igraham in 1998, didn't make it - he summitted Mt. Hood via standard south side in the spring of 1998). The 1999 Kautz attempt was aborted just below the top of the Kautz headwall (12,500' +/-) after a huge avalanche swept the face below Point Success, which as you know is the next glacier over (Van Trump??) and on the same aspect and slope angle. I called out after the roar died away, "We shouldn't be here!" And we skedaddled. Having determined in subsequent planning sessions that the Kautz was indeed the correct route to the top for Pete, we tried the Kautz again in June 2000, and he was successful. Read all about it here. Pete went on to build three more snowpods and he and three other paralyzed athletes summitted Mt. Shasta under their own power in 2002. Linky Pete's still a senior scientist at Battelle's PNNL here in Richland, WA. I see him from time to time to see what's coming up new in his life, and to reminisce about the old dayzzzz. I'll be drinking with him this weekend, and his new betrothed. He's getting married (again) next month.

Well, it's a jungle out there.

Jesse, Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou. And in case I didn't make myself perfectly clear... Thankyou!! You're top tier, man.

Roger is correct; that ain't no bunny lovin goin' on there. That was a territorial fight about to go bloody. We've got four bonded pairs of fixed bunnies that live in one of the bedrooms of our house (they're pets). When/if one of the other bunnies that's not bonded to the others gets loose, all @#$%ing hell breaks loose. They can gut each other with a single kick of their hind leg to the belly of the opponent. Rips out the entrails just like a velociraptor would. "That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!" apologies to the Monty Python players...

Standard Coonyard blue fiberglass piolet; the very same one being held up by yours truly in the Geranimals suit on the right (this shot was taken nine years later, in June 2000, at the time of Rieke's successful "paraplegic under his own power" summit of Rainier). FYI: The guy behind me (in orange hood) is another former climbing partner of mine that some of you may have heard of or climbed with at Vantage and other locales. It's Bill Robins. He's dead now, KIA by avalanche in Bolivia 5 years ago this coming July. RIP, Bill. The ice tool was a rubber bonded straight shaft BD X-15. Did I ever mention that I'm hopelessly old skewl?

I'm a Hokie alum, too: '83-'88. Classes in Norris, and dated girls that lived in AJ. Sad. Have ya'll seen the news bits about his "disturbed writing" pieces and plays? CNN link Among the many killed was a person who I thought was my best professor ever during my tenure there. I never would have understood open channel flow and fluid mechanics were it not for this gentleman:

Sweet, jmace, thanks! Yah, I noticed that "big white patch" meself. I think it's a fuck-up due to operator error while I was scanning the pics. D'oh!

The first time I did LR, our "leader", the indomitable (and niggardly weight-conscious) Pete Rieke insisted that each of us would take our own ice axe, and that the team of three would share the single 45cm ice tool, with only the leader of any given pitch allowed to have it. We were successful, and even short-roped two other teams of two to us and transported/led/guided them to the summit for later evac by CH-47 helo (June 1, 1991). Bottom line? I agree with CBS. If you know your stuff and how to work with the tools you have, you'll do pretty well most of the time. Take what you feel most comfortable with, Rob.