Your Car is Not a Television

Less so these days, but something that I still see is people locking/arming their car by pointing the keypad at the car, and of course the car (usually) dutifully responds, just like pointing the remote at the TV. But the thing is your car is not a television. TVs have infrared sensors that detect the signals from the remote. Your car has no such sensors and imagine how crazy it would make you if it did. Just think of the drama in your living room when something blocks that IR sensor, now out in the wilds of the average parking lot. Thanks I'll pass.

Car arming systems use a different technology that is not based on direction. You do no need to point it at the car. I remember in the 80s how much a friend enjoyed setting his car alarm by just reaching in his pocket. Except for the funny walk, there was no relationship to the car beeping and what he was doing. With work, he would have gotten subtly points.

Try it sometime. have the fob in your hand, but don't point it at the car when you press the lock button. It should work the same. The cool thing about this is that if you're in your house and you can't remember if you locked the car (I don't use the auto lock), then you can press the button from inside your house and if the car is within range it should respond. You don't need to open the door and do elaborate aiming gymnastics. I know Hollywood has gotten a lot of mileage out of this misconception (someone aims their remote at their new car and life), but it's been bogus for a long time.

Using an Avalanche Beacon to Locate another Beacon

Avalanche Tranceivers and their use.

As I do some research I'm noticing that specific details on avalanche rescue are a little scarce. That may be deliberate as you really need to take a class, and practice practice, practice. I'm going to focus specifically on exactly what I learned and am going to leave a lot of the other detail out.

Tome of basics are listed here:
http://beaconreviews.com/transceivers/Basics.asp

I think it really needs diagrams but I don't know when I'm going to have time to do them.

The basic gist is that when out on a trip everyone has their tranceiver in transmit mode. If someone is buried then everyone else puts their transceivers in search mode so they can locate the other person.

The methodology in how this happens is really important (such as there needs to be a leader coordinating the whole search.)

The search steps are Primary search for a signal, Secondary search one you find a signal, pinpoint search to locate the victim and dig them out.

The parts we spend the most time on were the secondary search and the pinpoint search. The secondary search happens when you get a signal and you bend down and lower the receiver down to the snow level and start following the arrows on the receiver. Because of the way the radio waves emanate, the approach will naturally be in an arc.

When you're close the numbers (distance away is in meters) will start dropping and the receiver starts beeping more. When you're numbers start to go up again you need to stop and do a pinpoint search. Tell your leader about this - yell!- you will need help with shoveling if that's necessary. For practice searches that are only 1/2 a meter down, it's pretty easy to get numbers down to 0.5 or 0.6, but people buried for real may be buried much further down.

At this point you stop looking at the directional arrows and just look at the numbers. Some people cover them up but I didn't need to.
Now you need to concentrate and focus and that is surprisingly difficult with the ensuing chaos - people often mess this part up, but it's my favorite.
- Note and mark the lowest number that when things were the lowest (say 0.6m)
- Note the place where you noticed the numbers going up and mark that place (say 1.0m - a ski pole is good marker
- back up to past the lowest number and back off to the same amount in the other direction and mark that
- then back to the center and mark the same amount left and right (in this example mark where it hits 1.0 both on the left and right)
- You should now have a search box.

If the number in the marked center is less than a meter then dig with your hands
If more than a meter then the beacon and whatever it is attached to (person, pack or whatever) needs further locating. Assemble your probe and probe the center and work out from the center in a spiral until you get a "strike:" (ouch - the probes are pointed.)
- IMPORTANT, when you have located something, leave the probe in place
- back up about a stride and a half and start digging.
- short strokes are best, stay low and work as fast as you can.
- if it's a person, uncover their face as quick as you can (bummer if the first thing you find is a boot - you can't yank them out as they are likely injured. Keep digging - try not to make it worse but if they live they will likely forgive you for shovel whacks.
- if they are conscious try and have a conversation with them to see if there are other victims (the likelihood of them being at all communicative is not great even if they are alive. Get them medical attention as apparently there's nothing quite like being buried in snow and this is according to first hand reports we were lucky enough to have. One video I saw describe it as like being in concrete.

This all needs to happen with it 15 minutes. The locators on the beacons are so good that when you know what you are doing, you usually can find another beacon with in 3-4 minutes which is good because it takes a while to dig out that much snow if they're 4 feet down (average), which can easily be a ton of snow. This is why calling for help is actually secondary. It's important if they're hurt, but if they are going to live you have to be the one to find them and get them an airway. Such a grim and fascinating topic.

My entire goal of the class was avalanche avoidance, but I must say I liked the search part. It's geocaching with consequences.

The Weirdness of Minor Emotional Trauma

I'm in a position I've never been in before, and it's pretty strange for me.

Because the blog entries are individually searchable some redundant information first:

I attended an avalanche class where to get to certain places I needed to ski on terrain that was beyond my skiing ability.
I was basically in the position of having to either snowplow or side-slip down to where I needed to be and I also had to traverse some very steep terrain that would have been no problem if I was on foot or on snowshoes, but with skis one made it completely different and the snow was too deep to just take the skis off and go on foot (I tried). I was sometimes in tears from the anxiety and frustration, but I never feared for my life and only a little for my safety. The situation was intensely anxiety producing, but on paper wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of possibilities.

But now days later I still have these odd things happening to me. I'll have these moments where I have to just go cry for a few minutes, and not just weeping, but serious crying jags. I have trouble sleeping sometimes and I rarely have sleep issues. Last night a bad dream (a man who I don't know came at me with intent to do harm) woke me up suddenly and keep me up for a couple of hours.

Bodies are funny. I recognize that my body is healing from what it considers an emotional trauma, what's weird is I've never been in this position from something as minor as getting dragged into something that I would not of chosen under normal circumstances. I have experience with emotional trauma, but more in the realm of real trauma (depression, breakups, sickness, death: the more usual kind of emotional trauma that takes months/years to really heal from), but this is different as I never could have anticipated it. For one I usually don't let other people push me into situations that are over my head. I push myself, but I, of course, respect my own limits. I have been in groups where the skill level was beyond me, but I always had the option to drop out. I've never been in the military or other groups where you have to keep up. This situation has made me swear off groups/tours if the potential for this exists.

What's also strange is how it manifests. After seeing how well snowboards could cope with the steep terrain and knowing that the reputation of snowboarding is that it's initially difficult, but you can get good at it in a much shorter time period, I've decided to take the step of starting learn it. This gives me no anxiety. I think because starting to learn snowboarding means spending a day or more on the bunny slope and right at this moment I'm all for bunny slopes.

There's also another very positive experience about this whole thing. The trip was there and back in two different chainsor 4wd only storms. While I do have 4wd envy I was very pleased with how the car did in the storm and how well I fared putting on the chains twice. I did it one with tighteners and once without and I didn't notice a difference. The manuf. says don't use them and everyone else says do. I split the difference.

The cool think about traveling in a storm on 80 is that at least going back the speed limit is 30mph and there were no accidents. I like it. Very slow going but not that stressful.

And I have finally pulled it together to make the beacon location entry.

Snow Grieving

Still reeling from my avalanche class. I loved it but was put on terrain that was above my skill level and that seems to have messed me up some (though the class itself was great and I still need to write more about it in time.)

Given how much trouble I had with skiing on difficult terrain and how I'm not willing to move to the mountains since my life is here and I like it and I pretty much emotionally need to be near the ocean as its nearness has always been a part of my life, I've decided to learn snowboarding. Snowboarding has a very steep learning curve BUT unlike skiing, if you stick with it you can get proficient in a much much shorter time period. I had avoided snowboarding since its use was limited in the backcountry, but that's changing with the invention of things like the Split Board (A snowboard cut in half and used like skis to climb and put together like a snowboard to go down.) i'm excited about this decision, but with this resolve to learn it comes an inertia about everything else.

[later]

I'm still grieving about how skiing went during the avy class. I feel as it I've lost something dear to me. I feel as though what I've been working towards is not attainable (being an expert skier while being a part time skier - and it's true - this might not be attainable) and it was just torn away, but that really doesn't cover it. I was placed in a position over my head and forced to cope and unlike common "wisdom," it didn't make me grow. Instead I've gotten worse and my confidence has been shook down deep. I don't want to even plan a trip at all as I'll just fail anyway (never mind that I learned a lot - that doesn't seem sink in). Fortunately, I don't think I'll fail at snowboarding (it is easier and eventually attainable even part time) though some part of me fears even that.

I was planning a Shasta trip. I don't want to.
I was going to apply to Whitney. I don't want to.
I was thinking about Yosemite trip. Not any more.
I was thinking maybe just Lassen, but not even that appeals.

I want to bail on the Sierra At Tahoe women's ski camp, but I'm going to make myself go. They say that it's run at whatever level you are at.

It's funny how this grieving (weird that that's exactly what it is) comes in cycles. Most of the time I'm fine and then suddenly I'm not.

Of course the dogs don't want me to go anywhere without them and it's tempting to just give into that.

Terri read this and mention that I'm letting my fears run away with things. She's right but I feel I have to let it run its course and not make any serious decisions right yet.

Avalanch Course Pt I: Basic Overview

I really do need to stop bemoaning my lack of skiing skills and start writing down what I actually learned which had nothing to do with skiing.

The class held by the most fabulous Babes in the Backcountry (http://babesinthebackcountry.com)

The instructor was actually one of the Avalanche Forecasters at Squaw which was quite the coup.

It was about

Why do we need to learn about avalanches?

In what terrain do avalanches occur?

What are the parts of an avalanche so we can talk about them and study them?

What are the classes of avalanches?
(The relative size or R scale)

How do we measure the destruction that an avalanche causes?
(The D scale)

What conditions make avalanches likely?

Weather and how it contributes

Snow types and how that contributes

Field work

Gather data from websites, and other sources.

Rescue equipment and how to use it
(transceiver, probe, shovel)

Rescue methodology (very important, and this is where the class become vital)

Terrain observation and applying what data we gathered beforehand

Explained some of Squaw's weather station instruments

Ran a lot of rescue scenarios and analysis and debrief.


Fri Kings Beach area near the cabin we were staying at.

Sat Squaw (http://www.squaw.com/):

Here's an annotated mountain map:



Top of East Broadway lift and Shirley Lake area

Then back to Snow study area near High Camp and introl to snow pit digging

Sun KT lift (oh my freakin' god)
Avalanche rescue demo at Squaw complete with one of the avalanche rescue dogs.

Solitude a difficult blue run very steep and soft at the top very frustrating for me to get around on. (I think I'm taking up snowboarding.)
More involved scenarios
More extensive snow pit which was really cool


I could be writing for days and I'd rather not recreate an acredited course, but the basics of this information is in the book Snow Sense: A Guide to Evaluating Snow Avalanche Hazard by Jill A. Fredston, and Doug Fesler

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Sense-Evaluating-Avalanche-Hazard/dp/0964399407
or
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Snow-Sense/Jill-A-Fredston/e/9780964399402


Instead I'm just going to focus on the fun stuff. More later.

Avalanche Class - Some Sketchy Details

I took a 4 day avalanche class in Tahoe and I'm still a bit reeling from it.

the vague details are:

I attended a 4 day avalanche course put on by Babes in the Backcountry (http://babesinthebackcountry.com) where the instructor is one of the Avalanche Forecasters at Squaw Ski resort. this is actually multiple blog entries but in short.
Drove to Tahoe in a storm (with chains)
Spent part lecture time in a sweet Kings Beach house (on the edge of Lake Tahoe) learning about what causes avalanches.
Learned how to use avalanche beacons (think geocaching, but you HAVE to locate it in 15 minutes or the person buried is likely dead - yikes).
Watched a Squaw rescue exercise complete with 7-8 crew members and an avalanche dog.
Got dragged onto ski slopes way above my ski skill level (they had one person showing me the easier ways - but still scary).
Dug a snow pit in a light storm at the top of Squaw and took a lot of readings and measurements. Yes this is total snow geek city.
Same day, drove back in a different chains-only storm with snow dumping around Blue Canyon.
Fell into bed after an 18 hour day.


Hopefully much more to follow when I get my head together.

Skiing: The Varying Shades of Blue

Ski resorts use a colored system to grade their runs

Easiest is a green circle
Intermediate is a blue square
Advanced is a black diamond
Expert is a double black diamond

I am an intermediate skier and I'm finding that there are many varying difficulties of blue. In fact I've often seen described "easy blues" and "harder blues." and the real trouble is that the degree of difficulty can vary on the run and the only way you have to learn about it is to try it or have a trusted person who knows your ability tell you about it. The net effect of this is that you find yourself on a run beyond your ability and you feel like a cat in a tree. Fortunately I know how to slide sideways down too steep sections but it's still very disconcerting.

Last friday when leaving Sugarbowl I had a great view of Mt Disney (Jerome Hill where I usually hang out wasn't as clearly visible) and spotted one such blue run that I've been stuck on more than once. I haven't worked up the courage to try it this season but probably will.

Here is a photo with the run on it (click on it to see the annotation). The really troublesome thing about this run is that you've been blissing out on a very nice gentle run and then you get dumped off a cliff. Allegedly there's an easier way down, but I haven't found it yet.

A Trader Joe's Quest

I went by Trader Joes on a mission. We have some Trader Joes gift cards and Terri wanted to know if there was something special we could get. Do you know how much fun it is to walk in looking for something expensive?

So right now
$11 gets you 2 Dungeness crabs
$13 gets you a large hunk of uncured ham (she's on her own there, but I dutifully reported it)
$11-12+ gets you a significant quantity of Alaskan Smoked Salmon
$13 gets you a foot tall container of free trade coffee
$23 gets you an even taller supply of protein powder (she passed on this :)
$8 gets you what appears to be a lifetime supply of Castle Soap
$7 gets you an enormous amount of olive oil

I now realize there were probably some great cheese wheels, but I must have overlooked it in self defense.

Dungeness crab immediately won - yum.

The Callanish Stones follow-up - the Quest for Callanish V

This is a follow up to my blog entry about the famous Callanish Stones
http://www.frap.org/Blog/2009/12/callanish-standing-stones.html

I mentioned that while the main attraction was amazing, it's a total blast to locate some of the more obscure standing stones in the area that are associated with the main one ("Callanish I"). There are over 10 and the quest for Callanish V had us having a grand time tromping all around a very large cow pasture.

Inspired, I scanned in the photos of our quest for Callanish V. there is a lot of mucking about for which there are no photos as well it was just mucking about (though just trying to follow the printed instructions is a challenge - this is pre-GPS).

First you find the marker stone. Given how burired it is in peat, I'm really surprised we found it. Some kind person or group partially dug it out.


The marker stone points out the row of stones that is up on the top of the rise.



Looking in the other direction:




We were looking and looking here. It actually isn't in this frame (if I remember correctly they were hiding just behind my left shoulder and further over - no doubt laughing at me), but gives the proper needle in a haystack feeling, and I spend a long time looking at this view.

One or more of these stones is not like the others...

This was around a 3 hour adventure I believe. Oh and note the crowds. It's basically you and history having a very personal chat.

It's Twenty Ten!

2010 is Twenty Ten, not Two Thousand Ten. (Someone alert They Might be Giants as we need a song like "Istanbul, not Constantinople") I don't know who decreed that (Emily Post Inc.?), but it's caught on and, if you think about it, it makes sense as it's how we always refer to dates in the past.

How do you say 1972? Nineteen Seventy Two.
When was the Norman Conquest? In One thousand Sixty Six? I think not. Ten-Sixty-Six is way catcher.
When was the War of Eighteen-Twelve? Sorry couldn't resist.

It's the Oughts (someone correct that spelling for me) that threw us off and the workaround in the past has been to use the handy, but ungrammatical "Oh." 1906 is Nineteen Oh Six.

I think the thing that make it not so obvious is that "Two thousand" and "Twenty" aren't that much different to say if you're used to saying "Two Thousand." "Twenty Oh Six" just never caught on, but it likely will in the future as the century moves forward (you heard it here probably not for the first time, but just the nth time.)

Happy Twenty Ten.

Inedible Bounty (of Oranges)

In Sept, I was agonizing about what to do with my thriving orange tree that produces some seriously sour oranges:

http://www.frap.org/Blog/2009/09/life-and-death-in-garden.html

I haven't done anything with the tree as it's honestly not high enough of a priority, but when it calls attention to itself by having a huge crop of oranges that not even the squirrels will eat (I found one on the thrown on the ground with one squirrel bite out of it), it does grate.

If I leave the oranges on the tree for a year, then they get to a state where I can eat a some if I leave them out in the sun for a few days, but that experience has lost its novelty. I've decided that my conclusion at the end of the first blog entry is probably correct, the original graft died and I'm left with bitter root stock that is really annoyingly thriving.

While this is a bummer, I must remind myself, it's not entirely bad news, The root stock part is very healthy so if I wanted to learn how to regraft a tree successfully (I've tried once with some cuttings from my family's grove trees and that failed), then I have an excellent candidate for a base.

So for now, I'll just cut it back to a manageable size and stop worrying about getting the oranges edible - they're not. Coming to that conclusion is very freeing. I can always take it out entirely if I feel it's a lost cause but as I was writing in the first entry, I do admire its tenacity and love for life even it I don't like what it produces. I wish there was a magic shot I could give it to make it start producing sweet oranges. Could I order that over the internet maybe? I'm sure I could. With guaranteed results too.

DIY Home Improvement Means Not Having Someone Else to Blame

Like a lot of people, I and my partner at the time wanted to buy a house, but the ones we could afford were not in areas that we liked, so we took the time honored route of buying a fixer, and trading sweat equity in order to get into a nicer area

That paid off handsomely, which was actually not the reason for this house purchase. It's one of those emotional decisions that, for once, worked in my favor. My area is rich in history and has no shortage of historic houses in nice areas that need love and attention. I just wanted to lavish love (and attention and money and time and money and anguish and money ... ) on a house that needed it. It's one area where you can really make a difference as a nicer house improves the neighborhood which helps everyone. (Well unless you're involved in gentrification, but we'll steer clear of that hot topic.)

The trouble is that when on a limited budget (that means just about everyone to some extent) there are always long lists of things to do and only one or two of you to do the work. So you save your pennies for the projects that you want someone else's expertise in - most recently for me is seismic reinforcements. After learning all about it I decided that I wanted someone else's help (and information about it changes so fast I'm glad I sought help.)

For the rest that you can conceivably do, you have a list of doable projects that you (ok, I) think about and think about and think some more about. Then I finally get tired of it and start on one until I hit a stopping point which leads to too many unfinished projects. Usually the reason is that you've discovered that some essential thing has to happen before you can proceed - I call this: going backwards in a project. Recently I decided that I really needed to finish a project, not just start one.

This particular project - a deadbolt - had actually taken some thought as I wanted to put said deadbolt on a door that had a window. I wanted to get around the problem of someone just breaking the window and undoing the deadbolt, so I found one that had a key on each side ("double cylinder" I think) and when we're home I leave a key in it on the inside (for fast exit in case of fire) and when we're gone on vacation I remove the inner key.

So first I did the easy part and replaced the same keyed door knob (didn't have to drill any new holes for that), then it sat for a couple of weeks until the above "I need to finish a house project" bug attacked and putting in the deadbolt was a natural target since I already had most of the hardware.

The thing about doing it yourself is that you have to accept that it's going to take you 4+ times as long as a professional who does this every day. I'm a computer professional and from time to time I'll help a friend out with a computer problem and I find that they've spent days on something that I can fix it 30 seconds. The reason is that I've already spent all those hours learning about the various ins and outs.

The other thing about fixer houses is that you had better really like tools

This job "required" a drill, a key hole drill bit, a spade drill bit, a 1/8 " drill bit, a wood chisel, a hammer, and a screwdriver. (Plus the usual: measuring tape, small T square level, and pencil) Simple huh?

The job actually took a drill, a different template kit from Home Depot which made lining things up easier, a key hole saw from the kit, a spade bit different from the one in the kit because the kit one wasn't lined up quite right. a 1/8" drill bit, the kit's nice wood chisel, a mallet (don't screw up your chisel with a hammer!), a utility knife (works better to use it to draw the outline to chisel out the mortise.

But nothing ever goes as planned and this is the problem with DIY. WHEN you mess it up there's no one else to blame (stupid locksmit - oh that would be me), you just have to be prepared for it.
So add to the above: small dowels and glue to help fill mis-aligned holes
a smaller spade bit for the dead bolt part that goes into the door jamb because they neglected to tell you that the one to put the dead bolt in the door is really too large for the other side of the jamb.
A Dremel to help make micro adjustments
A Die grinder for those not so micro adjustments.
A patient, but easily amused spouse or partner who is willing to help.
A headlamp because you don't have enough hands to hold a flash light.
Eye protection
Lipstick - this is not a joke. Lipstick put on the end of the dealbolt shows where it's striking the jamb. Rumor has it even the manly locksmith guys carry it, so feel free to look for it when they are working for you, so you can tease them about it.

Things that helped:
- patience - especially when chiseling the motises (those insets you have to make for the striker plates)
- sculpture experience for same motises - this helps you to avoid whacking your hands with the mallet
- upper arm endurance - you are drilling a very large hole in a door and the drill can catch so you need to be able to hold on tight.
- a good sense of touch as it requires putting in bolts where you can't see the screw hole
- a good eye for when things are mostly level - it's not precision work, but the closer you are the less rework you have to do.
- a sense of humor
- the knowledge (hopefully not misinformed) that you are not making things worse
- health insurance (not used this time but always good to have) - note the upper arm endurance section - drills that catch on things try to turn the body of the drill - often into you.

2 sessions later, I now have a working deadbolt and all my fingers, toes, eyes and dogs and sanity and marriage, and a sense of accomplishment. Besides it's fun to actually get something done with all of your toys.

When I first published this I typoed DIY as DYI. I wonder if that stands for Do Yourself In.

Treadmill Experiments

Happy New Year

Spent a couple of hours at the gym and surprisingly I recognized at lot of of the people there. Guess it's going to take a little while for the New Year's Resolution Crowd to get here.

I've been ill for the past few days so it was really nice to get out and moving. First did my favorite: RPM which is a stationary bike class and is an invitation to try to kill yourself while cool music plays and a super nice, super fit instructor encourages you in this pursuit. It is in RPM where I have hit my Maximum Heart Rate twice (this is hard to do - once), and one time I went past what I thought was my MHR which made me dubious enough that I replaced the heart rate monitor as it was acting slightly erratically. Fortunately since I'm coming off of a cold I just cruised. Rediscovering my actual MHR will be for another day.

After class I was pretty revved so I jumped on a treadmill and wasn't winding down at all so I just kept going and wound up staying on the treadmill an hour, so I took the time to verify something that I'd been suspecting.

At a rate of 3mph
At an incline of 5.0 (5 degrees maybe?), the calorie burn rate is 383/hr
At an incline of 10.0 the calorie burn rate leaps up to 529/hr!

This means that going uphill is just as calorically effective as jogging! Maybe not as fun when you're on a treadmill, but nice to have that alternative.

The Callanish Standing Stones

I have a thing for rocks, and I've been happy to discover that there are a lot of people throughout history who have also had a thing for rocks. And having a thing for rocks and art done with stone leads one on all sorts of fun adventures.

But it's not just rocks really. It's the people behind them. I love stone circles and other monuments and I love the things I learn along the way simply by following the stones.

I have been all around Scotland twice just looking at stones. It was fabulous because it took me to some fantastic places. I've been to Lewis Island in the Outer Herbrides. Which is so off the beaten patch but the (pictured) Callanish Stones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callanish_Stones) are there and I saw one photo of them and knew I had to see them in person

Journeying out to see them really brought home that it's so much more about the journey than the destination, but wow what a destination. Smaller that Stonehenge. Just as powerful and no big fences and far fewer crowds (who go away regularly). nothing like a few hour ferry ride to put a dent in the wandering tourists. We did run into some Americans but they were the nicest Americans you could wish for.

And the fantastic thing about Callanish is that Callanish I is only the beginning. On the wiki page skip down to "Other nearby sites" and you have the ultimate geocaching adventure listed. I was tromping about in a cow pasture, looking for one of the obscure marker stones, trying to parse out sort of vague instructions, and I realized that I was having a most excellent, outside the box, adventure. These days I have no doubt that all the sites have GPS coordinates, but I had no such thing and even if I did I would still have a fabulous time.

The bummer is that you can't do this on a tour bus. You need a car and one of you needs to know how to drive on the right side of the street (a pretty empowering skill I must say). A tour bus will take you to Callanish I and pause briefly at the very nearby Callanish II and III, but they are not about to drop you off by the side of the road with a basic map and say here's where you climb the fence (a "stile") and say go for it. I really must find and scan in some of that material as it left me with a thing for rocks and I'm a geocaching fan too, but I must say geo caching is nothing compared to this adventure.

Some googling on the other sites has shown me that others share this passion.
Here is Callanish IV standing appropriately in the middle of a sheep pasture.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/aburnham/scot/call4hi.htm
You have to love getting your feet wet (sometimes more than just feet) and your pants muddy.

And I tromped all around the place to locate Callanish V:
http://www.stonepages.com/ancient_scotland/sites/callan_5.htm

This obsession has inspired other trip such as driving all over Scotland looking at Pictish Stones and Castles and then a trip to Orkny to see Viking and Victorian graffiti (different sites) and Neolithic home furnishings in Skara Brae (seriously - do you have a bureau? I sure don't and they did. See here.), but this is all a different post(s) sometime.

I may have a climbing obsession, but when asked about my travels I talk about rocks and their breathern, and the human side of archaeology (e.g. the need to graffiti, and make a home). I need to keep this in mind.

My Name is Jump the Gun

I don't know about other people, but when I start working out possible plans I totally jump in with too many feet way too early before I've had a chance to really think about it. Then reality hits and those feet get cold. This is annoying as it makes me look like a flake though I usually make myself follow through unless I have a really good reason. This time I signed up for an avalanche evaluation course that has some serious skiing in it - it's not cheap either. Fortunately when I signed up they didn't have their visa system set up so I don't owe them any money but I feel bad for backing out as I really like the organization that's doing it and I want to do it in 2011. Instead I'm trying to get into a women's ski camp which will be much more at my level. The bummer is that I haven't heard from them and I can't get a confirmation either way.

Now I've discovered a 3 day glacier class on Mt. Baker in Washington.
http://aai.cc/ProgramDetail/glacierskills/

The nice thing is that it does not include a climb which should be a bummer, but I get left behind by groups especially on snow. What I can do is schedule a 1 day private climb right after the class. Then I can go at my pace AND Mt. Baker while heavily glaciated and skill demanding is not a tall mountain but is 10,781 feet (another source says 10,778' - maybe they're subtracting the snow) and well within my ability.

So I want to sign up right now. Wait a minute. That's 6 months away and it's not like it's an Everest or a popular Rainier climb (backed out of one of those too). I'm going back to Whitney in late July or any time August and I need to schedule around that and I'm going to Shasta a couple of times (late May and mid June). Whitney is the difficult one as I need to be flexible in my dates. I suppose I could not do Whitney and just aim for Baker which might be just fine. Baker would be an adventure. Whitney is just a bleepin' obsession. Oh and I wanted to check out Mt Ritter later in the year.

I also hate the idea of not having my car with me, but instead having for a rental car to just sit around and do nothing while I'm on the mountain. So I've talked myself into the 12-13 hour drive up to Seattle which will be an adventure all in itself. Then I can drop in on my parents to say hello briefly before making the 1.5 hour trip up to Bellingham where the class meets.

What I love about classes is that I learn something and I'm not struggling to keep up with a faster group. The class is not that much money so hiring a guide for one more day is doable. The only thing is that it's with the same group as before and classes are a great way to test out other organizations, but the last class I took with these guys I was under the weather and I wasn't that successful at it, and I want to show that I can do it well. It's really tempting to take their 7 day course again but I fear being completely miserable in paradise (again!) and it's quite a bit more money. Enough money that I could almost go to another country and have a fabulous time.

I had written out an inquiry about how far in advance I need to reserve the spot, but I made myself save it as a Draft (Daft?). Slow down a second. Yeesh.

I'm working on a separate blog entry about me questioning why I have this stupid obsession anyway.

[follow up and reality check]
I was watching some you tube videos of Mt Baker climbs and it shows them climbing roped, and it all came back to me. I really hate traveling over glaciated terrain where you have to be roped and spaced out at significant intervals. This is so that the others on the rope can catch you if you fall into a crevasse by throwing themselves on the snow and digging in their ice axes (this is not a joke). what I hate about is is how intrinsically lonely it is. Half the fun of climbing mountains is standing right beside someone that I'm climbing with and saying wow look over there is that cool? In glaciated terrain that has to wait until you're in a safe spot, so a lot of the spontaneity (and hence some of the experience) is lost.

If you try and do it all in a day it's a huge outing: 7000' of elevation gain as evidenced by this pretty amusing video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QusIqkV-J3E&NR=1

The AAI course ascends to 5600'-6000' and has class from there and if you were going to do a summit climb you would start from there which is easier, but it's still nearly 5000' climb which is no easy climb, and more than I've ever done.

Of course I could just do the class and not the climb, but much as I love hanging off the side of a crevasse, I'm questioning whether it's something I really want to relearn right now esp since I'm not doing much of this kind of climbing. I love all the snow skills I've learned beforehand as they are skills that I use (you use self arrest techniques to stop yourself when glissading, but crevasse rescue is not something you ever want to have to use, so I'll put this on hold and if I want more technical climbing practice I should work it out on rock.

In the meantime, I think I'll stick to non-glaciated terrain which is way more fun and less stressful - going to focus on longer climbs with a day pack with hopefully ski mountaineering in the future which brings me right back to that avalanche hazard evaluation class.

So cooler heads have prevailed this time and I've deleted the email inquiry that started this all.

How Not to Catch a Chicken

If you watched the most recent season of Survivor (I love the scenery and I love fantasizing about being one of their puzzle/game designers which means I get hooked into the drama and I've stopped worrying about any psychological damage that that might create. :)

ANYWAY, if you were watching this time you likely remember that a chicken escaped and there was much comedy of them trying to catch it until it flew up into a tree and they stood there slightly dumbfounded that a chicken could actually fly. (Please. They do. Only under the duress of a mad Survivor chasing them, but they do - if their wings aren't clipped.)

Well I, and no doubt a whole lot of other people, spent a lot of time pointlessly yelling at the TV.

I've never owned chickens, I've only taken care of my neighbors chickens when I was growing up, but even I know that CHICKENS SEE POORLY AT NIGHT.

You want to catch a chicken? Wait till dark - this is not rocket science - I could even pet the chickens after dark which as a kid is all I ever wanted to do anyway - other people on the internet say that if predators break into the hen house it's pretty much easy pickings.

Oh you've chased the chicken way up a tree? Well bummer for you (d'oh). What amazed me is that you'd think that with that many people, one would know this about chicken. And, of course, the one scary redneck guy who was guaranteed to know that was in the other tribe. So instead they let the chicken wander around until one of them couldn't take it anymore and devised a net which actually worked, but it would have been so much simpler to just wait.

One interesting tidbit is that Russell tried to let the chickens out one night to create chaos, but the story line ended there. I think we can fill in the rest. He opened the door and the chickens just stared blankly in his general direction. They couldn't really see what he was doing - so no drama resulted and it just turned into a teaser to put in a commercial and that's as far as it went.

Loma Linda a Blue Zone? More like a Smog Zone

There's a book out talking about the "Blue Zones" which are areas where the population stays active and often lives to be 100 years old.

Places like Okinawa, Japan and Sardinia, Italy are not surprising and they have been previously noted, but also mentioned is Loma Linda, California.

Really? I never could have predicted that.
Loma Linda is located here:

I've been there, it's not terribly notable except for being right beside the larger city of San Bernadino. In San Berdu and any city backed up to the San Bernadino Mountains the air is so thick and smoggy that it's oppressive esp. in summer. The air rams right against the mountains and settles down for a nice nap.

I guess air quality doesn't affect aging that much which I find completely remarkable. When I'm in smog I can tell that I'm doing my body some harm - not severe but it's not like fresh mountain or ocean air.

Refs:
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Zones-Lessons-Living-Longest/dp/1426202741
http://www.bluezones.com/about
http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/20/blue-zones-places-in-the-world-where-people-live-to-100-and-stay-healthy/

Mt Hood - One Man's Heroic Effort to Save His Friends

The thing that drives me nuts about accidents where everyone involved dies is that there's a huge story that is doomed not to be told except by conjecture.

There are enough clues in what we know so far about the most recent Mt. Hood tragedy to imply something dramatic happened. On Friday Katie Nolan, Luke Gullberg, and Anthony Vietti set off on a winter climb of Mt Hood in perfect conditions at 1am. When they didn't return that day at the expected 2pm, people began to worry. The next day Gullberg's body was discovered.

Halfway down this article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/15/oregon.mssing.hikers/
you get the intrigue - the one glove. Gullberg had ONE glove and it wasn't his - it was Nolan's, and it implies all sorts of drama and a very heroic effort to save his friend.

Current conjector is that Nolan was in an accident and lost a glove. Gullberg with minor injuries (or not - they may have happened later) decided to try get help and gave his gloves and pack to Nolan and took her one glove for some warmth. It appears he was then caught in an avalanche and later perished from hypothermia. But what a guy. He was doing everything he could to save his friend. This implies that Nolan was alive when he left her. He was found at 9100' so she is probably higher up, perhaps in a rudimentary snow cave (they have ice axes, but no shovel.)

We currently have no info about Vietti.

I do wish that Gullberg had taken photos after the accident, but that's the last thing you think about even though it's something that we all hang to. We know they were all smiles just beforehand so what happened happened quickly.

There is a publication called Accidents in North American mountaineering that comes out every year and is a litany of cautionary tales and some very well thought out scenarios. Their study of what might have happened to Karen McNeil and Sue Nott on Mt. Foraker is first rate.

http://www.americanalpineclub.org/pt/accidentsinnorthamericanmountaineering

Next year's issue should be interesting and we'll have to see if anything turned up in the following weeks. Meanwhile I'm leaving my Google Alert on the topic turned on.

Locator Devices - Maybe it's Time for a Mandate on Mt. Hood

[This is the second entry on this subject]

So a friend and I were discussing devices to locate someone. I was pointing out the limitations of Avalanche Transceivers, and she was suggesting the SPOT personal locator beacon (PLB) that uses GPS technology (http://findmespot.com others listed at:http://www.rei.com/category/40002203). to be fair it's a lot more than just a PLB and you pay for that fact as it's a great, but very pricey service.

Avalanche Transceivers have a range of less than a football field. PLBs have a world wide range, but don't work under cover - meaning inside buildings, caves, thick woods, and most relevantly under a huge pile of snow that's just dropped on you. It occurred to me this morning (but before doing the research below) that the well dressed mountaineer would have to carry both(!). The GPS to get your rescuers to the avalanche area and the transceiver to help recover the body. This is not a joke. If you get buried in snow you usually have 30 minutes max. There are devices to help you get more air such as the Avalung (and here is an account of a very brave person testing it: http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200506/buried-alive.html) but that doesn't stop your core body temperature from dropping or CO2 poisoning from starting to set in.

HOWEVER! Mt Hood has designed a device to address all of these issues. It has the innocuous name of Mountain Locator Unit and more info on it is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Locator_Unit.

MLUs are radio wave based, and have a line of sight range of 20 miles which covers Mt. Hood quite nicely and it goes through snow AND they can be rented for $5 from the outdoor shops or from the Mt Hood Inn at Government Camp which is open 24 hours a day. It transmits at 168.54 MHz and rescuers have to use their own sensors to find them. You could point out that the weather was so bad that this would not have saved the currently missing climbers, but the device was invented after the horrible May 1986 incident when seven students and two faculty of the Oregon Episcopal School froze to death during an annual school climb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hood_climbing_accidents) where rescuers walked right by their snow cave. For whatever reason (I am not speculating publicly on this one), Mt Hood likes to kill Christians as this is the 3rd well documented time.

So this availability is why the local Oregon public is particularly angry and I must say they do have a point. An MLU is not likely to save your life, but it would give your loved ones some peace. (If you are interested in saving your own butt your party will still need to carry your own Avalanche Transceivers unless they start making the MLU Receivers available to other people besides rescuers.) Unlike Mt Foraker where Sue Nott and Karen McNeil were lost, Mt. Hood is a popular, well trodden mountain, if the batteries lasted long enough, someone would find you ... eventually.

The mountaineering community opposes mandatory use of MLUs as it would increase the chances that someone might take. I'm not sure that's entirely valid though there are examples of people with Personal Locator Beacons doing dumb things (don't have a ready reference sorry). But you don't usually see people testing out their car's airbags just for fun, so I think it's certainly time to try a MLU mandate on Mt Hood, as the voluntary way just isn't working as well as we want it to. More info here: http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/01/the_technology_mountain_locato.html

Here is a video that describes how the MLU was used to rescue a climber in Oct 2007. It does a great job of showing just how ridiculous conditions can get on that mountain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJSN2IgKiJg and it also illustrates how zeroing in on it requires two teams of rescuers using triangulation (look it up) and some expertise. I'm hoping that new technology will help redesign it to include GPS as that would save time, and maybe something that members of the climbing party can also carry instead of having to rely on rescuers.

Maybe the well dressed climber needs to carry all three? Talk about a burden. Ok, maybe not. If I had to choose one, on Mt Hood it's obviously the MLU. When not on Mt Hood who knows probably a PLB and if they wanted to find my body in the football field of snow they narrowed it down to, they can then bring a dog and metal detectors.

So what am I going to do? Stick to popular areas during good weather. I am a fair weather climber and I still manage to have some pretty cool adventures. My first time on Mt. Hood I'll use a guide (it may be a short mountain - lower that the elevation of Mt Whitney's Trail Camp, but it is obviously treacherous.). I've been on Mt. Shasta, so many times that I'm knowledgeable about the lower elevations on the South routes (to the point I could guide them and do for friends) and I wouldn't go higher without a GPS and map/compass anyway.

Anyway it's going to be interesting to see what the future brings us in Locator Devices.

Avalanche Locator Beacons - Not a Perfect Solution

Currently there are 2 climbers missing on Mt. Hood. Now Mt. Hood is like Mt. Whitney in that it's near civilization and attracts all sort of people and thus is a major amateur hour. But there's a difference here - these are experienced climbers who chose to climb in winter and the conditions when they left at 1am were nearly perfect and they could have easily returned in the 13 hours they'd planned. But an accident has happened and one climber is dead and two others are missing and conditions do not look good for their rescue (Google: mt hood climbers - there are at least 100 matches right now). But they chose not to carry avalanche locator beacons/transceivers and again the debate of whether we should require climbers to carry them has sprung up again.

On paper it all sounds great. Require climbers to carry a locator beacon (aka transceiver) and in this case, there's a very (very!) remote chance it would have helped, but there are some major problems. Beacons are (1) expensive and (2) you have to activate them (but as I read more - you should activate them when you leave on your trip anyway) and (3) most important - they have a very limited range. The debate is raging here: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/12/mount_hood_another_tragedy_ano.html#postComment

I contend that the beacon prices need to come down for them to be more readily used - even rentals are pricey unless someone has started subsidizing them (need to check on that - yes, they have see next blog entry). You need one per person which drives the cost up. However that said, the frequency has been standardized (457kHz) so even random rescuers could find you if they were within range (BIG if - I give ranges below). REI has a great article on them here: http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/avalanche+transceiver.html

The climbers were also carrying a cell phone and rumor has it that there is cell service on the mountain (I haven't climbed Hood yet but will - ahem, during the spring climbing season - not winter.) If there is cell service and we haven't heard from them this has some very grim implications. The phone is either lost or they are not able to use it. While I very much hope they are holed up in a snow cave (which is a fantastic if slightly chilly shelter), the possibility of this is fading if it ever was a possibility at all.

It's likely that the accident that resulted in one of the climbers dying from hypothermia (the climber had a "long, slow fall" but did not die from it) happened before the weather turned bad. If they were up high when a fall happened (he was at 9100 feet on an 11,200 mountain - a great diagram is here: http://media.oregonlive.com/news_impact/photo/hoodgrfcjpg-fe5b745a63b3f0ed.jpg) they could have ended up most anywhere though an aerial search hasn't turned up anything. This implies that they are under snow either of their choosing or not.

Some transceivers from REI
Ortovox Patroller - range "up to" 70 meters (analog then digital when closer) - price $289 -
the cheapest
http://www.rei.com/product/792719

Backcountry Access - range up to 40 meters - price $289.50
http://www.rei.com/product/717163

Pieps - range 60 meters - price $450
http://www.rei.com/product/763559

Mammut - range up to 60 meters - price $450
http://www.rei.com/product/745470

Othovox S1 - 60 meters - price $499
http://www.rei.com/product/745206

What does more money buy you? Speed of searching, depth measurement, more graphics, and ability to mark a spot and continue on searching for other victims. It does not buy you more range. What you want is to be buried with the cheap Orthovox Patroller with the rudimentary locator tools and have the unburied person have the snazzy "look they're right here" version. Easy right?

So if you're off with other people and you get buried in an avalanche and they don't (which is one reason people traveling in a avalanche area are spread out - a surprisingly lonely feeling for me at least) then having transceivers, shovels and probes is a Very Good Idea. However as a general tool that Search and Rescue could use, it's not really all that useful unless they have a good idea of where you are, which is so not the case right now on Mt. Hood. To sum up, beacons are a great tool within a climbing party and not much use beyond that.

But just to avoid ridicule by an uneducated public, you probably should carry them anyway just so people can say you had them. Think of it as something you do for your loved ones left behind so they don't have to put up with the stupid implications that people always leap to. Such as filing a flight plan which is totally not required for most small plane trips, but is always the first things reporters ask about. Think of it as reputation insurance.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

My friend Holly and I have been having a conversation about an intriguing alternate that has recently become available. It's called a SPOT tracker. (http://findmespot.com), and it uses GPS technology to locate a beacon that you carry. There are even options where someone could track you online. It's not a cheap service at all $100-$200/year, plus the cost of the unit ($50-$150). This is not something the average poor mountaineer is going to be willing to pay for (mountaineers with money use guide services anyway), but you know right about now their families sure wish they had it.

Now if you have taken a GPS backpacking you know that there are limitations. In particular they work poorly in the woods, but even if a tree fell on you in the woods, rescuers could go to the last place that it was able to check in and that would be a heck of a lot closer than nothing.

About the only place it wouldn't work is with spelunking/caving (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caving), something that can be quite fun and really dangerous. They would be of questionable use in slot canyons which can be even more dangerous than caves (but are stunningly beautiful in places - stunningly beautiful as they have been recently carved by really violent water that may just be right around the corner.) A satellite has a better chance than anything of getting a signal in though usually you need multiple sats for triangulation and that may be hard to come by, but slot canyons and caves are limited in size so it comes back to telling someone in grand a glorious detail (on a map!) about where you are going.

I kind of wish the forest service in the more hazardous locations could have some SPOTs that people could rent. Wonder if there's a way to subsidize such a thing. That might make it more palatable since Hood is usually a very short hike (1-3 days tops), but unlike Shasta, there are many places to get lost there. Though as I type that I realize that you can get lost on Shasta but it's a lot harder and deaths on Shasta happen from falls not cold or crevasse cave-ins. Though even Shasta has major searches (I had a helicopter land near by last year looking for someone - my purist guide was totally offended, but I found it pretty fascinating), but usually they are found down at tree line walking in the wrong direction. SPOT would actually have helped locate those errant hikers and would have saved money as those lost (and poorly prepared) hikers actually walked out on their own unaware of all of the commotion they caused by one stupid "we're lost" 911 phone call.

AND In the next entry I discover that Mt. Hood has developed their own solution.

Rethinking: I Can't

More than a decade ago I had carpal tunnel release surgery on my left wrist. My wrists were sore enough that I was concerned that I might have to change jobs (till I realized that *everyone* types to some degree or another these days, and that I need to figure out how to heal them).

With lots of rest and time they healed, but to make sure I recovered as best I could, I made some choices as to how much I could use my hands, and ease up on the more wrist-stressful activities.

Things I stuck with were: computer work (it's my job and writing is a hobby). working around the house, painting, and working with the dogs. The activity that hurt the most to ease back on was music. In particular, I stopped playing guitar, and shelved the idea of doing more drumming.

I didn't have my parents piano at the time (that piano is another blog entry unto itself), so I was essential not playing an instrument at all and continued my musical education by working on singing and doing a lot of unstructured ear training by really learning how to listen to a song and pick out the individual elements - which has turned out to be enormously helpful.

But I find I do miss playing and taking part. Terri now uses my guitar and it gets the attention it deserves and it gets on-stage time even which is something it never got before. It's been long enough and I know a lot more about building of strength that I'm starting to wonder if I could start playing.

The trouble is that music just makes you want to keep playing and the risk of overdoing it is sky-high. The other trouble is that I get bored with the standard open chords (C-D-G-A-Em etc), and am fond of those slightly fancier higher up the neck bar chords, but it's those and wide chords that span 4 frets that just kill my hands. I'm toying with learning more lead guitar though that looks like it could hurt too and I'm thinking of buying an electric guitar again (I had sold my older electric) because electrics are usually easier to play. In fact I have an unpublished blog entry of all my electric guitar agonizing. Unpublished probably because I'm not quite so willing to tell the world how obsessed I can get. :) Though I did admit it to my Facebook friends.

But I need to start slowly with basic chords again and stop after a specified period of time. I guess to keep it interesting I should try to learn some new songs by ear. The cool thing about that is that it really works your brain and you stop a lot which is good for your hands. I noticed the other day that one of the Grammy award nominations is just done with open chords, so that might be worth starting with. If only I could remember what song it was. Guess that's project number one....

But before stopping I need to wrap back around to my original point (and I did have one at least then). This is difficult to summarize and even to put into words and it's likely to sound completely incoherent, but I was taught all about "I can't" at a young age. Now that's not entirely fair as I was given the opportunity to learn all sorts of things and the only reason I notice the "I can't" sneaking into there is that I was mostly taught "I can." The glaring exception to this is with respect to physical training and injury. Physical rehabilitation was not as well known nearly as much as it is now (Remember "Walk it off"? Oh please.) Most everything I've learned about physical therapy and healing from injury, I've learned as an adult. Now that I think about it: pointing out injury and minor disability and war wounds was prevalent all through my growing up particularly with respect to school athletics. "I can't" always got more attention than "I can." It set you apart in a really weird, unhelpful way (in my view) - I'm not talking about serious disability here, more the minor injury things.

So not playing guitar has become my "I can't" and now I'm not so sure I need to keep carrying it around (In fact I'm actually quite sure I don't need to). At the risk of sounding like an Obama campaign: the point is that I can. Probably in a limited way, but it's not all-or-nothing. I can, dammit, I can, and I need to stop being defeated by this. I am not my wrists.

Using Visualization to Oversolve a Problem

... and the resulting hazards.

We often hear that if you want to remember something that one technique is to visualize a picture of what you want to remember. The more absurd the better. Sounds innocent enough right?

In April of this year (8 months ago) I was just about to go in the store and needed/wanted three unusual items that I was going to have a hard time remembering (usually remembering three things is no problem so I'm not sure why I resorted to this). I wanted to pickup some goldfish crackers, the triangular "Reach" dental flossers, and some papertowels. I didn't have a piece of paper to make a list so I instead, for fun, made up this image:

And yes that's not a goldfish, but it doesn't matter for me to remember it right? The more absurd the better. And that is the problem. I only drew that picture a couple of days ago just for the purposes of this blog entry. In other words it's been in my head this entire time. This is a freakin' grocery list! I've made bunches of grocery lists since then and do I remember them? NO! Should I remember them? NO! Should I remember a list from April? I should think not. So I can personally say that using too large, too effective of a hammer to solve a problem has its hazards - until the time comes when I need goldfish, flossers and papertowels.

Klamath Falls - Not Exactly (Part II)

The Search for Klamath "Falls" - continued

So coming into town I figured I'd see giant signs telling me about how to go see the falls. I'm not seeing them and things are looking suspiciously flat - the geography is just not right. There are hills, but not near the river. The following bad photos that I actually dug out of the trash shows about how confused I was

Now i will ask for directions when I need to, but something's just not right. I pull over and ask the GPS to tell me about points of interest that are "falls." It cheerfully provides a list and the closest one is a hundred miles away. It even tells me about Bridalveil in Yosemite which is a long, long way away. This is not looking good. Now I have a puzzle and I can't resist most puzzles. And I sense a clever trap: "Oh look we got another one looking for "the falls."

I drive further up the lake looking for tourist info and I pull off at Hagelstein Park and look at a map on a board. It's a very helpful map and Klamath Falls is on it and I see they have tourist info back there and there is a symbol by the name. Looking at the legend I see that Klamath Falls has 3 museums, and nothing about any falls. I'm pretty sure I have my answer. If there was a falls, it went bye bye.

I finally got enough of a brain to realize that this big river-fed (as opposed to spring-fed) lake I'm beside is created by a barrier at the end of the lake (either natural or human-made) and any falls would be after that barrier and given that the water is flowing towards Klamath Falls then my driving further up the lake, albeit very pretty, is not going to help my quest.

I turn around, and I stop to gas the car up for the drive back.
As I pull up to the pump, I stop the car, open my door some to release the latch to the gas cap and while still looking down I see a pair of boots four feet away from me. I nearly jump out of my own shoes, but before crying out; aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, I have the presence of mind to look up and see that the boots are attached to an attendant. Remember those? Those were the people whose job it was to put the gas in your car before much of the world figured out you were bloody well capable of doing it yourself. Completely taken aback I ask: You are full service?" "Yes" he says in a friendly tone. As he's getting the pump going I work up the courage to tentatively ask "So are there any falls in Klamath Falls?" He says "Well there used to be, but it's a dam now." I then wander into the store, and when I have a bit of information I can't resist asking other people in the know about it as well to get their take on things. (Admittedly, this drove my ex crazy.) The woman behind the counter tells me that the falls went away a very long time ago, and it's a very common question. (See, I knew it was a trap.)

I then drive into town but don't readily find the tourist info until I come across a sign telling me the address, but I decide that I have my answer, the afternoon shadows are starting to get long, I need to drive back to California possibly through a storm, and that I'll do some reading on the internet about it.

What I saw was a common story though with some unique angles. I was looking at a depressed working class town that is past its heyday and is struggling to re-identify itself. The city's web site states that fact as the very first line of their web site (http://www.ci.klamath-falls.or.us/)

Welcome to the City of Klamath Falls. We are a City in transition and as such, we are welcoming many new businesses, homes and people into our community.

This cool train engine is in a park right at the water's edge. Reading at http://www.ci.klamath-falls.or.us/visitors/history tells me that when Southern Pacific Railroad came in 1909, the town was a boom town until the great Depression crashed down in 1929 and the lumber boom died.





But I still don't have any mention of a "falls." Do you know how had it is to find mention of something that everyone wants to pretend doesn't exist? Careful reading of the Wiki page for Klamath Falls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_Falls,_Oregon - Donate to Wikipedia while you're there.) says that the city (then named "Linkville") was basically dropped on top of the falls, and then completely shoved said falls out of the way when one of several dams were built circa 1907 by the "Klamath Reclamation Project" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_Reclamation_Project). Note the naming style and the date. My how things have changed. In 1907 "reclamation" was about draining marshes for farmland, now it more means restoring the wetlands to maintain bio-diversity. And thus we have tripped over the major political football of the area. Water rights (Go back to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klamath_Falls,_Oregon and page down, and we also have the completely biased Bucket Brigade: http://www.klamathbucketbrigade.org/), which boils down to the common theme of: farmer vs. wildlife preservation that comes up all over the place.

What I can't figure out is if the huge bucket in front of city hall has anything to do with the Bucket Brigade "we want our water" protests. It's labeled Bucket Brigade but it's more considered public art and is listed here: http://www.oregonartscommission.org/pdf/kfallspublicart.pdf



I take some more photos of the downtown area and then head back for Redding where my Mother-in-Law lives. Didn't get rained on too much. I didn't realize that Redding was so close to Klamath Falls, Oregon (about 2.5 hours on 97 and I5). All in all a fun adventure all inspired by a misconception. I think such places are inherent cautionary tales as its heyday lasted just 20 years. A lesson in non-sustainability that they are working on learning, they have beauty on their side, but the adaptation is clearly painful and hopefully they'll come out the other side wiser, despite the efforts of the Bucket Brigade. Oh and sorry: No falls. That was bulldozed by progress. Oops.

Downtown Klamath Falls.




Clouds over Butte Valley, CA on return.

Klamath Falls - Not Exactly (Part I)

My accidental Klamath Falls adventure. This occurred by driving to the back side of Mt. Shasta and neglecting to turn the car around. I'm from Southern Calif and grew up taking part in impromtu driving tours so this behavior is quite natural for me.

I WAS going to do my usual Black Friday Snowshoeing on Mt. Shasta, but the weather was so-so.

and I've done that trip a lot so I decided to stay in the car and go check out what the North Side of Mt Shasta looked like.

Well as you might guess, it looked a lot like this.

But looking the other direction on Hwy 97 looked downright inviting. Compare the view over the hill with the view in the mirror. So I continued on as I was curious about the roads that lead to the trail heads even though I knew they weren't passable and you could totally tell that me and my non-4WD were not going on them. So I just kept driving thinking that I'll turn around at any second.



So then I find myself coming into the tiny CA-OR border town of Dorris.

Dorris' whole purpose appears to be about getting in your way. It's like they used the border crossing (see photo) as a theme (see map). Zig. Zag. Zig. Zag. And don't you really want to stop at one of our fine dining establishments?

So after some zigging and zagging I find myself in Oregon and I see that Klamath Falls is just ahead even though I feel like I'm walking as the Oregonian speed limits for highways that aren't interstates is the glacial 55 mph. I've never seen Klamath Falls so I decide to check it out. Might be pretty, and I love water falls. Hold that thought for part II.

The Hazards of Driving While Listening

I love listening to audio books and podcasts, but they are not without their hazards especially when driving.

I've gotten somewhat used to avoiding the Drive off the Road While Laughing hazard that Wait Wait Don't Tell Me needs to disclose. Or the OMG Can You Believe That?!! one that often accompanies This American Life (and once in a while Fresh Air).

But the one I haven't quite gotten used to is the slow building, steaming, sex scene (of whatever genders involved) that, while not the abrupt laugh out loud hazard, has that steady attention derailment effect that can make you drive into a parked car without even realizing it. It's insidious too. I'll be fine and then I realize that my imagination has completely absconded with my brain (mmmmm) and then I jolt back to the reality of moving more than 5 mph in a vehicle larger than a bicycle and then I have to pause the book a moment. I'm getting better, but these things really need to have Use Caution When Operating Heavy Machinery While Listening to This Book. I mean really. This is something you REALLY don't want to have to explain. "I drove into the back that car because well you see... Oh, never mind."

My current hazard right now are the heavy petting incidents (of various genders) in James Baldwin's Another Country (at least it's a classic that's making me a driving hazard).

Less vaulted, but just as fun distraction material can be found in
Bitten by Kelley Armstrong - seriously, steamy, werewolf sex
and The Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher has some rather distracting interludes as well.

And I just noticed that Diana Gabaldon's sexy historical fiction series/romp Outlander is available in audio. That's amazing and I'm surprised that terrible crashes haven't been blamed on it.

Mortise and Tenon Who?

Dealing with my garage carriage doors is becoming quite the journey.

So I've been learning the hard way

1. Don't be more anal that the tradespeople you hire
2. If you can't afford more anal tradespeople then you have to
   (a) Get used to it
   (b) Learn how to do it yourself

For the most part I've done ok with (1) or (2a), but when it comes to intricate Victorian woodwork I'm really learning that's not the case. It's something I feel strongly about, and want to do the history right. The amount of artwork and craftsmanship in a Victorian Carriage Door (http://www.carriagedoor.com/), is just exquist, and I've inherited some that are just falling apart.

Up until recently, I've been totally intimidated by the doors - We have a more complicated version than shown here: http://www.carriagedoor.com/carriage_house_doors.php). Terri's been showing me how they were put together and that just intimidated me more, and I just couldn't fathom how mortise and tenon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortise_and_tenon and a page with a nice illustration: http://www.valleycustomdoor.com/mortisetenon.html) worked at all especially on something as large as a door. Carriage doors are amazing puzzles that hang together just so.

I had someone working on the doors and when i got them back I wasn't happy with the door that was the worse off (the other was ok and we had managed to do the other two ourselves). After staring at it for a while I decided that I needed to really commit to learning how they fit together and do it right as doing that meant that the money I spent would net me more skills (and more tools!).

So I undid the sloppy patch and am now contemplating what's really involved. The thing that was really getting to me was that I just couldn't visualize how routing really worked despite all the pictures I looked at. Enter: You Tube. What did I ever do before Google and You Tube? I watched 10 or more routing demonstrations of varying quality. My favorite was the slightly goofy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot6pfnDabAQ, but there were a whole bunch of other ones. As I watched, my imagination worked out how it could work on my doors and then I had it all in a flash (mostly).

The cool thing is that Terri inherited a router from her Dad. After my You Tube session we dug it out and I started seeing how it worked and what we needed. The hard thing about routers is their versatility and the fact that this weirdly shaped bits can carve out something beautiful.

So then it became what router bits will create the right shape so we can recreate the broken piece of the door that has to fit in just so - but not quite "just so" as the other side is kind thrashed too.

When you look for router bits you need to look at the profile that they carve. This site showed exactly what we needed: a Beading Bit : http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/cat/Site/0013.html The wood will have to have the beading bit pass over the edge on each side and a regular bit to carve a channel (clearly I'm going to need a picture here.)

Fortunately the beading bit has a little roller on it where it can roll along the wood. The tricky part is cutting a straight channel down the edge of the wood (that holds the interior panels in place). That took a lot more thought last night. This is going to require the application of money but not as much as I thought (and the router bits aren't that expensive fortunately.

The thing that we need to insure a very long straight channel is the same concept as putting a saw in a table (i.e. a table saw). Yes a "router table." Turns out that routers are built with the idea that it can be guided by hand or bolted into a table and they are not priced in the stratosphere at all and cost less than half a day of a craftsperson's time. Here's a basic one and I think it's all we need: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/s_10153_12605_Tools_Power%20Tool%20Accessories_Router%20Tables%20&%20Attachments
What I find amusing is that you can't even see the router in the pictures because it mounts upside down. They have these mounting holes in the router that allow you to do this to it (how very clever.)

So after staring at these doors for years and doing small piecemeal work on them like patching/puttying holes and replacing the windows, I can now better see the big picture and I'm actually excited about this. I'm sure reality will set me back a bit, but I'm enjoying this small euphoric, rose-colored, highly theoretically-based insight.

New development in MS research

An Italian Professor of Medicine Paolo Zamboni, after much research and re-research which included dusting off a lot of old medical text books, has developed a surgery that early evidence is suggesting that it might dramatically improve the lives of Multiple Sslerosis suffers.

Things are still in the early stages, but what has been written about so far is intriguing and leading to some annoying conspiracy theories (one is at the end).

The story has a great romantic side as Zamboni was motivated by his own wife's MS.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/researchers-labour-of-love-leads-to-ms-breakthrough/article1372414/

I can't help but wonder that since his specialty is Vascular areas that it's one of those "When you have a hammer, every problem is a nail" things, but maybe it really is a nail. All in all it's very intriguing and I will be watching it develop.

Oct article by the MS Society basically saying it's interesting, but more information/research is needed.
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=2206


Zamboni's own web site
http://www.unife.it/centro/malattie-vascolari

His linkedin page:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paolo-zamboni-md/11/911/673

One bordering on wacky conspiracy article is here

http://secretsofnaturalhealing.blogspot.com/2009/11/drug-companies-oppose-simple-surgical.html#comments

I left a comment that they'll never approve so here it is:

You need to have a citation for the "[Drug companies] in an uproar" comment as there's no obvious Google evidence for it at all. At this point it looks like you just made that up.

And there is no "unbelievable array of drugs prescribed for MS" There is only the ones you explicitly list: A.,B.,C.,R., and Tysabri and that's it. Everything else listed is just for secondary symptoms that someone may or may not get.... Read More

The MS Society in the US has said that if they get a solid research proposal they'll likely fund the research.
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=2206

My Berkeley Brick and Mortar Adventure

I don't get out to stores enough particularly ones where parking is a challenge like Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley a place I used to go to a lot. Fortunately UC Berkeley has opened up the Channing parking lot to the public for a $1 and hour which is more than reasonable. It's funny, it you give me parking then I will come as it's not like you see me not going to REI, and Mike's Bike's now has parking which helps a ton - though I mostly stay away from Mike's Bikes in financial self defense.

My mission was to go to Amoeba "Records" on Telegraph to order Philip Glass's ("'s" rule is here) opera Satyagraha (sa-TEE-a-gra-ha - and yes I had to ask someone how to say it). I'm not an opera fan, but I love Philip Glass's operas - especially that one. It's just been rereleased and the price has plummeted. The person helping me (whose name I have narrowed down to three possibilities and am afraid of committing the wrong one to memory - though I'm leaning towards Zachary) explained that the contract has expired and now it's just profit for the record company which explains why the price dropped from $50 to $18. The price of this particular Opera has gone completely all over the place since it went out of print. I have a whole separate entry called "That LP You're About to Replace? Check on It First" on the ridiculous prices I have found on Amazon Marketplace. But back to Amoeba... I asked about a different Glass opera called Einstein on the Beach but that's still in the earlier really expensive category. (Though I do think it's out of print so that may change in not too long of a time - I told them to keep an eye out for a used copy for me.) It's funny, I have been carrying around a $20 credit for Amoeba for the longest time and I just can't believe that I might have credit left over (that won't happen as I don't want another piece of paper to carry around for over a decade, but I do have some CDs I could sell them and then get more store credit - aaaaah!)

Order placing mission accomplished I then went across Telegraph to spend lots of money at Moe's books (http://www.moesbooks.com)
I'm really glad I finally got my butt out to that part of Telegraph as it's so good to see Moes. It's sad to see Cody's books all closed up. I asked Moe's how business was with them gone and the clerk said that it was ok since they have a difference clientele, but that they missed having Cody's around.

Telegraph is much the same in a way. Still has that dilapidated feel to it, but that's always been the case (maybe a touch more without Cody's). I am resolved to show up more. It's fun to actually go into stores these days. They seem very happy to see me.

The basement of Moe's is like having my own personal book buyer. I'm spoiled as I have the locally owned Books Inc in Alameda, but it's Moe's and Cody that really have the special place in my heart. I can walk into Moe's and always find something cool to read. From Moe's I got the new David Byrne book Bicycle Diaries (no link - go buy it a Moe's), Mort an older book by Terry Pratchett that I need to reread, and for Terri: Stephen Colbert's I am America and So can You. She's thrilled at the surprise.

I really also need to get over to 4th Street in Berkeley also but I don't have quite the same romantic attachment there except for Bette's Diner (bliss.) Oh and Builder's Booksource and the Pasta Shop and I hear that Title Nine is moving there (risky move hope that works for them.

Opting out of Valassis Advertising Mail

I make a career out of getting off of junk mail lists, purely for the challenge and also because it's so irksome having a large pile of pointless newsprint come in. Unfortunately, my postal carrier doesn't know that and thinks that everyone gets one (I keep trying to explain about opting out, but he doesn't get it). But if I can make it so that there isn't one there to deliver, it's ok. It used to be that there was a card that had to accompany the advertising, but that appears to have changed. This is for the better as the card was always getting separated from the rest, and I would be bestowed a pile of paper with no identifying marks on it.

Now there has to be a return address on the advertising which means that opting out should be easier. On this one I'm looking at the first page shows who it's from in teeny tiny print, but it's there. and it is from a company called Valassis.

The cool thing is that if you can figure out the company name then they always provide a way to remove yourself from the mailing list. A quick Google reveals the contact page:

http://www.valassis.com/1024/Contact/contact_home.aspx

and the opt out is right there on the menu:

Select: I am a: Consumer
Select: I would like to go green and be removed from your mailing list
Enter your mailing address and click Submit

Hopefully that will be it. They say it takes 5-6 weeks but we'll see if it that works after that.
Certainly when I opted out of ValuPak it worked though I had to write them then.

[Update 11/25] Got another pile. I'll have to keep track to see how long this takes.

That LP you're about to Replace? Check on it first

I was waxing on to Terri about the incredible beauty of Philip Glass's 1980 opera Satyagraha, and how I only had an LP of it and wanted to get a electronic copy. I took a glance at iTunes and was mystified that out of 100's of listings for Philip Glass I wasn't finding it except on a really expensive retrospective and that didn't even have the full work.

So I went back to Google and Amazon has an entire Philip Glass store (wow) and I found it there. Prices for the CD set start at $40 and I noticed that it wasn't listed on the main site which means it's out of print (sees like a crime personally). Scanning down the list I see the prices hovering around $40-$50 (expected - it's a 3 disc set) and then suddenly they jump to 89, 90. 100, 120, 159 ?? What is going on? On closer look I see words like "slipcover," "libretto booklet," and "disks appear unplayed" Huh? When's the last time you could tell if something was played? OH! When it was made of vinyl! They're talking about LPs. It starts to slowly sink in and I go find my copy just to make sure it's still there. There it is gathering dust. Something I was thinking of replacing is actually worth several times what I paid for it. That's a nice surprise. And I do have that "libretto booklet" which is a thorough description of the opera. I'm wondering if I can get that $15 price tag off the front without messing it up.

The weird thing is now what do I do? I guess I should put a post it on it saying that it is worth money and shouldn't just be tossed out (unlike say the other LPs). We are going to be digitizing some of the out of print LPs but now I think I should probably just get the CD rather than play it again. Fortunately the price of the CD hasn't changed that much save for the fact that the price of the used one is pretty close to the price when it was new 10 years ago.

Just out of curiosity I check on another Glass opera Akhnaten which I have on CD. Similar story. Out of print average price is around $35 with a weird sudden price jump to 65 for a couple of CD sets and then up to 90 and 115 for what must be LPs, though I'm not sure as Akhnaten was released in 1987 and CDs were becoming the norm then.

For fun I also checked on Laurie Anderson's 4 CD set United States which is also out of print on CD though you can order it in MP3 format new (because she's nothing if not high tech :). Prices for the CD Box are even more insanely variable. 40 to over 400(?!)

Strange that something that just sits around becomes more valuable simply because they're not making more of them, though it's little weird with the CD getting more valuable since it can easily be copied. Guess I'll at least dust them now. Maybe CD box sets are an investment of sorts. Now I'm trying to figure out what will be the next big thing. Actually that sounds like a money trap so I should pass, and just stick with what I'm passionate about which is plenty.

Gyms: Strangely Similar to Parallel Play

This has been occurring to me for a while and is now really sinking in. My gym is very much like adults doing parallel play. That type of play that very young children do when they're able to play with toys in the presence of other kids but don't want to interact with them.

Now that's not entirely fair. People do interact with each other esp if the already know each other and I know some folks in class, but it's not the default. I'm so used to dog and team sports where you have to interact, and it's part of the fun. I think I'm feeling this acutely right now because I took a month off to heal from some tendonitis and I hadn't been doing the RPM class as much any way. Now that should be nothing for regulars, but it's just long enough for some shifting around and the people I usually see there aren't there, and I never knew them that well. Compare that to dog agility where I know people very well esp. if they're in a class of mine or in my club. Even in herding or obedience I have plenty of time to talk to people, and I used to that and miss it.

Now my gym membership is due and I think I need a break from it, but it's a great way to get wintertime exercise. However it cuts into my dog walking time and I don't like that and I can run with Trek at noon if I like. Not to mention (that's a weird phrase as I'm about to mention it), it's expensive. If you have no other way to get exercise it's an excellent choice, but I think I can keep up with it and there are running, biking, hiking clubs a plenty so I'd get my social outlet too.) And I can't help but look at the price and think that's 11 lift tickets or 1/2 a bike. I'm also at risk of my depression coming back if I don't exercise, but I actually feel more depressed after the last two gym visits, so maybe it's not helping with that at all. I like the dog walks as I spend the a lot of the time talking to the dog, and they actually listen too. I think they're easily amused. I also talk to people whose houses I often pass by on the walk.

Though I will certainly miss the over the top nature of the RPM class. I just love it. I think I have to wait long enough to miss it.

Because it's so Much Easier Running Somone Else's Life

A few days ago I took a four day working vacation to my parents. I caught the bills up, did 2 years of filing (and cleared off a buried table in the process), arranged for automatic payment of some bills, took them to tour a very nice retirement facility (that I sure wouldn't mind living in in 20 years), took them to various places, joined in a nice dinner that my brother prepared and excellent and frank conversation afterward.

And then I go home. I too have a slightly missing table and too much paper. At least my bills are caught up (thanks to automatic payment), but there's still this pile of paper that drives me nuts. Why is it that I can totally organize their lives, but then I come back to my own stuff that's just starting back at me?

I think because when I'm somewhere else I'm not being distracted by the dogs who want to go out and in and them fed and walked and trained and entertained. And I'm all to happy to oblige them as I love them and that's why I have them. Then there's the 101 home maintenance things starting at me, and the dirty dishes and the floor that needs to be swept, and last night it was doing major lamp readjustment including taking two torchiere's apart to be recycled and pulling down a heavy light fixture to replace the bulbs. Oh and I had to go get the bulbs and be impressed that Home Depot actually has nice lamps and marveling at how much influence Boomers are wielding against normally tacky hardware store selection. But that's another blog entry...

So the pile still stares at me. One reason there's a pile is that I've gotten tired of burgeoning file cabinets and have started scanning bills and other things in and then shredding them. This is really, really cool except that each piece of paper takes more time because it has to be scanned and then named and electronically filed. Not much time, but enough that it's easy to fall behind.

Also paper can be a real problem of mine and it's just too easy to just set it down (i've learned to sort of cope by not allowing myself to set anything down unless it's in its designated "home." The problem is that bills and statements get mixed up with agility course maps, and other information that I kinda want to keep, stray photos that someone has given me, cards, letters, and the endless little notes I keep. Fortunately I'm good at sorting so instead of walking a dog at lunch today, I kicked them out into the yard and brought the pile out and sorted it. Also fortunately a good part of it got dumped into the recycle bin, but there still is a sizeable scan pile and there's this annoying nebulous stuff I don't quite know what to do with 9which got placed in a different pile and someday maybe I'll look at them within a year (yes, I have a couple of 2+ year old piles just like that - pathetic I know), and the course maps got stuck in a file folder, and I paper-clipped all my little notes together.

It's the curse of the almost, but not quite organized. It's vaguely tempting to just stop worrying about it, but not doing it would cost me a lot of money because Health Net needs a surprising amount of management for a huge company, and it would drive me nuts anyway, even if it feels like an unobtainable goal. Being organized is a goal worth striving for because even if you never achieve it even just doing it some means you've put thought into it and likely have SOME idea of where something is. Though I don't have quite the amazing skill that some disorganized people of being able to find one piece of paper 5 inches down in a pile.

I'm still mixed on the scanning solution. I really like it, but I don't like the extra time. I'm thinking of going back to paper and then scanning a pile of the same bills in at once. Then I wouldn't have the hassle of changing directories and each name would only need minor changes. Of course to do that I need to clear some space out of the file cabinent but with Google a log of that save paper can go away. Ok some of it, not all of it is on the web. Maybe I should scan it. Argh.

Then there's the unscanned 1000s of photos (which are at least date organized), but that's another angst ridden blog entry as well.

The Power of The Help

I never blog about work, but this is not really about work anyway...

I hate blaming the underpaid, hardworking hired help when things go awry. I really, really hate it. It's the first thing my mother thinks of and it drives me nuts. My mother says some of her jewelry went missing after she went to the skilled nursing facility to recover from knee surgery, it must have been the help. The bonded, carefully screened help. I don't think so - I carefully stayed out of it as I didn't have anything useful to say besides "You are such an elitist." which I have told her since and will probably say it again for what it's worth and "Keep looking" (it was in the safe deposit box of course).

But sometimes the evidence is incontrovertible. I set up a home network for our company's president and it would be working and work fine for a week and go down. I would come back and find it unplugged. Plugged it back in, things working again. In a week it would go down. And repeat. It turns out, the maid comes in to vacuum and lacking a plug, unplugs the router. It actually would sort of be fine if she were to plug it back in, but that doesn't happen. This time an employee was house-sitting and she's quite bright so I went over the situation with her and we devised a plan to leave a plug for the blasted vacuum and make the other cords less tempting and she's going to leave her a note. I also went over the basic layout of the very simple network with her so I now have another pair of eyes who does go over there from time to time (more often than I do.)

The entire situation makes me laugh. One maid with little to no understanding of little boxes with leds on them, armed with one vacuum in search of a power outlet wields an awful lot of power. The power to halt an entire network, and bring out what in this case is an over paid plug-in technician (I made that up) out to patch it all back together.

Nepal: So who do you believe?

It's funny the vastly different views you get of countries depending on the source.

This all started when I casually looked into possibly doing a short term volunteer vacation.
I was looking on the Global Aware site (http://www.globeaware.org/) and saw a Nepal section. Nepal is where Mt Everest is and the Sherpa culture is pretty intriguing.

Well.

They suspended their Nepal trips in 2006. Looking at
http://www.globeaware.org/Content/trips/nepal/nepalprogram.php
Shows a very long explanation as to why.
"The political situation in Nepal remains tense and unpredictable and levels of violence remain high across Nepal ." (Go to the site for the rest, it's pretty interesting)

Noting that this was dated in 2006 I looked for more current info. Wish granted, and I now have two vastly different takes the US State Dept and Lonely Planet.

The US State Dept in their typically paranoid way says STAY AWAY
This is published today (Oct 27):
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_927.html

The May 4, 2009 resignation of the Prime Minister and the resulting caretaker government has created an environment of increased political instability and the potential for demonstrations to be called without advance notice.

Political violence remains a problem in Nepal. The Young Communist League (YCL), a Maoist Party subgroup, continues to engage in extortion, abuse, and threats of violence, particularly in rural areas. Youth groups from the other two main political parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the United Marxist-Leninist Party (UML), have also formed and clashes continue among these political rivals. Violent actions by multiple armed splinter groups in the Terai region along the southern border with India remain a significant concern.

Curfews can be announced with little or no advance notice.

In contrast Lonely planet (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/nepal dated Sept 30) talks about what a wonderful place it is and here are the cool places you can go. So I did some digging, major digging and it doesn't seem quite right to bury this information no matter what you think of it:

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/nepal/practical-information/health

Page down down down and you will find:

Dangers & annoyances

Annoyances?
First sentence of this section says:

"Despite the continual stream of bad news headlines that flows out of Kathmandu, the most touristed areas of Nepal remain remarkably safe. "


Fair enough but what follows are pretty much the same facts as before just in a more moderate ton. Mostly.

[quoting]

• Register with your embassy in Kathmandu.
• Keep an eye on the local press to find out about impending strikes, demonstrations and curfews.
• Don't ever break curfews - instructions have been given to shoot those who are found breaking curfew.

What? This is just an annoyance? Lonely planet's tolerance is pretty high I must day

[more quoting]

• Don't travel during bandhs (strikes) or blockades. Get very nervous if you notice that you are the only car on the streets of Kathmandu!
• Be flexible with your travel arrangements in case your transport is affected by a bandh or security situation.
• Avoid marches, demonstrations or disturbances, as they can quickly turn violent.
• Don't trek alone, even on a day hike. Lone women should avoid traveling alone with a male guide.
• Consider flying to destinations outside Kathmandu to avoid traveling through areas where there have been disturbances.
• Avoid traveling by night buses and keep bus travel in general to a minimum.
• Be prepared to pay the Maoists a 'tax' if approached while trekking and budget the cash for that eventuality. Trekkers have on occasion been beaten up for not paying this tax. It's just not worth arguing with these guys.

Ok I am clearly a travel wuss and I have traveled during terrorism scares (1986 in Europe and it was fine). But the odds of you being hit by terrorists are usually remote. The odds of you being robbed or assaulted are much more likely.

Of course, I live right beside a violent area (though ironically my area is very safe) and so obviously you just have to be aware and know where to go and where not to and when not to. I'd love to see the travel advisory for Oakland, Calif. I'm sure it would be scary.

I have an acquaintence in Israel and when bombs were being lobbed in from Palestine on a regular rate I check in with him. This most recent time he said that the bombs weren't quite reaching him so life was going on as usual. I think this is a lesson here. Even in war zones ordinary life does happen.

So what does this mean? Is it safe or not? I think the answer is probably, but maybe not and do I want to deal with knowing that. I think if I want to go to Nepal I should do it with a highly organized group which kinda cuts into getting to know people on a volunteer stint though I'm sure it's possible.

Could Nepal be the next thing you hear about on the news? Well if depends on if some Americans get into something they shouldn't. Right now the focus is on Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan with brief forays into Cuba and Pakistan and India, so the headlines are a little full. We'll just have to see if the Maoists or their rivals decide to start doing large scale bombings. General strikes and petty thefts don't get much press attention even if it gets the US Dept of State's attention.

I don't get much thrill about traveling in potentially dangerous areas. I'd rather see it in a movie like a favorite of mine "The Year of Living Dangerously." When I travel I like to focus on learning about the area and talking and connecting with people. If I was there are a news correspondent I wouldn't mind the danger as much as it would be my job and that would be ok. But in my oridinary life when traveling, even though I'm good about taking ordinary precautions, I really don't want to be on guard as I find it pretty tiring and takes away from the experience. The performers on the George Pompidou Museum's plaza in Paris are really cool, but the place is so rife with pickpockets that you really can't relax which is a huge bummer. You walk out there are you can feel the eyes of a hundred predators. Weird and not fun.

My New Role

I used to be so good about giving my parents the freedom to live their own lives. No longer.

One big change is that I've had enough of bills getting buried, not read, and ignored and a utility nearly getting shut off. My brother has saved the day more than once and he's sick of it so now I have most of the access information so I can monitor what's going on. My brother was nice enough to set up Bill Payer so I can pay something that needs paying as long as there's money there. My new role as a power hungry money manager (ha).

One thing I regret not taking a copy of is the increasingly snotty letters that one company was sending them. When I saw the letters long after the issue was resolved, they had a completely opposite effect on me - they were really, really funny. When I get a hold of them I will blog a generic version of the whole sequence as John Cleese would be proud. Think "Since you have apparent disegard for our previous ..." Fortunately that company has been paid off and is out of business anyway (trash companies - yeesh).

I shopped the Ludowici property to Habitat for Humanity, but haven't heard back yet. It will be really sad if they say no - can't even give it away. Oh yeah that's my other role as minor league land baron. .

Want to buy land in Ludowici?

I've been so good about not complaining about my struggles with my parents, but that's going to change because I am not alone here by a long shot.

First things first. Does anyone want to buy property in Ludowici GA? As you might guess this is not a joke. Someone that I so need to write about (should be a book actually), is my freewheeling businessman grandfather (NOT the farm agent that's the other one). In no particular order this guy

• brought electricity to Jesup GA
• ran a theatre there
• made all sorts of questionable loans through said theatre
  
• had a stormy, but working marriage with my very strong grandmother
• was dearly loved by his community and had 200 or so people at his funeral - where I saw my first Mason or Moose or Elk or something funeral rite
  
• had one of the few gasoline stations
• during prohibition, was into all sorts of illegal or at least dicey things that we have no proof of (darn it)
  
• taught me shuffleboard at a young age
• sort of taught me pool at a young age
• and finally bought property that he thought might prove to be profitable

It's this last one where he has left a strange legacy. As with most speculation much of the property didn't turn out to be the score it was (though he certainly had his share of jackpots too.) My parents have been gradually selling off what they inherited, save for one that I have yet to learn much about but will be very soon.

Ludowici (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludowici,_Georgia) is a teeny town of 1400 that is adjacent to the slightly larger Jesup, GA. It's named after a German with an Italian sounding name. I'm sure my grandfather thought it had great growth potential since it's right by a highway where a lot of traffic passes by. Emphasis on passes by. The town has gone pretty much no where. How many towns do you know where IGA Grocery and Dollar Tree appear on the town's Wiki page? And within the first few sentences? As of 2000 the median income is around $27,000, which is skating just above the poverty line. If you want to see it, Google Street views has been there. I was there when I was 16. It hasn't changed much at all.

So we're stuck with what is basically a strangely shaped white elephant property. There are other lots in the area that are listed with Century 21 and it's tempting to try to sell it but I'm thinking we'd be much better off donating it to a non-profit (there are some in the area.) So I need to sell the idea of Hey let's give it away. Which might just work. We'll have to see.

Perhaps not that: Off The Grid

I'm seeing what appears to be a reactionary (the literal sense, not the right wing kind) trend with some people wanting to withdraw from modern life and not be so plugged in. Some even want to live completely off the grid meaning as self sufficiently as possible.

While in some senses I find that admirable I find it a bit of an over reaction, and probably a new implementation of Futureshock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock) which the author Alvin Toffler in 1970 defined as: a personal perception of "too much change
in too short a period of time."

Sometime ago I wondered if we were now impervious to Futureshock since we come to expect change especially when it comes to technology. I think I am wrong. While we are pretty impervious to the things that Toffler was writing about, some of us still appear to get a bit touchy
about not feeling as in control of our circumstances as we'd like.
These days I've been reading about people now trying to live "off the
grid." This means many different things to people.
Ones I've seen are
The Slow Food groups
- grow your own food
- go to the farmers market and organic food market more, grocery store less
- raise your own livestock
The chop wood, carry water Firefox (not the web browser) types
- build you own home/shelter
- make your own clothes
The types on overload
- not be so internet/cell phone/tv dependent
And the alternative energy/tell PGE to go away
- create your own power (who tend to be a different group - they literally mean the electrical grid)

What's fascinating to me is that all these groups are not the same though they have a lot in common.

I'm very much a slow food type, but while I grow a little food, I more spend a lot of time in food tores figuring out how to make it a nutritious, usable experience.. And I don't have livestock.

Also many of those wanting theiir own solar power are not really interested in withdrawing, they ust think that they can generate power by themselves than PGE could ever do it for them and hey even give some of it back. (Show offs. Hats off to them.)

I think some of the off the grid movement (for lack of a better phrase) is over reaction. Walking away from such things as phones and email and social networking internet sites, robs you of a global village that you could have and make excellent use of. And this is yielding some very wacky contradictory scenarios like those people who blog about living off the grid (no citation as I don't want to single anyone out). What they have to say is useful information perhaps, but I think they have to be a skoch more honest with themselves that just maybe perhaps they are not really "off the grid." :)

How I got Tennis Elbow from a Treadmill

I managed to injure a tendon in my forearm (the "tennis elbow" tendon) while on a treadmill(!). How? Well you put it on max incline and set it just a little faster than you can keep up and hang on to the siderails tightly. Endorphins make sure that you really don't notice that something is being injured until later. Oops.

Then it was: oh let's just rest it a couple of days and it should be fine (it really wasn't) and I have a hiking trip scheduled (where I'm going to make heavy use of Trekking Poles) and I want to do that since I talked someone else into going. So now it's really hurt. Drat.

A few years ago on a different injury, I had a Physical Therapist read me the riot act and I remember it: Tissue takes 6-8 weeks to heal and you have to be patient, and start back gradually. What a favor that was. I looked at the calendar and realized that besides dog walking I was taking Sept off in terms of exercise, because I can't seem to exercise without using my arm that way. The cool and dangerous thing is that it's now Oct and it's starting to hurt less. Dangerous because even though it's hurting less, I could easily reinjure it, and even using it some (like say for ahem: typing) make it unhappy. So I really need to wait till mid October.

A friend who plays tennis posted this link that shows that a very simple exercise using a rubber bar (a Thera-Band Flexibar) is showing to be very effective at helping tennis elbow: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/phys-ed-an-easy-fix-for-tennis-elbow/ I've been trying the exercise that the video details and it does make it feel better. I don't use a rubber bar but just a towel rolled up.

But rereading the article shows that actually having the rubber bar will make a different and it's under $20 so I've ordered it via Amazon. In the video they were using the Red "light" version, so that's the one I chose:

http://www.amazon.com/Thera-Band-Flexbar-Hand-Exerciser-Resistance/dp/B00067E4YU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1254418713&sr=8-1

They were doing 3 sets of 15 repetitions a day, but started out with 3 sets of 5 repetitions.
[update 10/8
It came in and the exercise detailed was in a handout in the box.
I'm now dutifully doing the exercises.]

This is killing me some as there's a trip I want to do in Yosemite off Tioga Road before it closes for the winter. Historically it closes in Nov (see: http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/seasonal.htm), but it could close as early as mid October. Sigh. Patience Patience Patience.

Of course since I've been off for a month I'll be out of shape but I really have no real goals besides maybe checking out the approach to Mt Dana, which means driving to 10,000' and walking around and trying not to fall over.

Why in Such a Hurry to Grow Old?

Many of my peers seem to be fond of saying that they're getting old. While I'm sure it's very freeing to say that, I've always feel a bit odd, especially when the person is younger than me. I never knew what to say, but the words were finally given to me when I heard or read that some people who are in their 70s and 80s take great exception to someone in their 50s or even 40s claiming to be old.

Now I have something to say: "You know those who are in their 70s and 80s really hate it when someone your age says that." That does take the wind out of things and probably is a bit of a kill joy, so I need to use it judiciously. It appears that some really like to acknowledge that they are getting older and I must admit that I find it really mysterious as I'm in my late 40s and I've never felt better. I used to worry that I was approaching 50 until I started consistently running into people on mountains in their 50s and 60s (met a dentist who is 68 and who had just summited Mt. Whitney) and have heard of those in their 70s who consistently climb mountains. I've resolved to stop worrying about it entirely. Age is clearly attitude. Well ok, taking care of yourself counts too.

I still have to figure out a proper response to some youngster complaining about being old. Likely the best response is none at all. I think maybe what's going on is that your body does start to change when you hit your 40s (like your eyes stop working as well as they used to, and your hair starts to gray, and healing takes longer which is pretty frustrating) and that does take some adjustment and that's probably what's going on.

Maybe I should just agree with the and say "Yeah, YOU'RE old," but I believe in Karma so I think I'll refrain.

Killers in the Snow: Tree Wells

Ski Season approaches and I really want to be a backcountry skier, however...

Not too many things scare me. Mostly it has to do with not looking like a complete idiot which I guess is what this one is sort of related to.

There are some risks in mountaineering that are not avoidable like going through avalanche areas. I want to be more educated about avalanches so I'm thinking about taking this course:

http://www.babesinthebackcountry.com/products.php?catID=10
(I do love the Babes classes)

or IMG's
http://mountainguides.com/avalanche.shtml

Which looks totally cool though as always I do worry about not being a good enough skier.

However, going over the course particulars I spy something that has actually keep my up at night worrying about. I actually don't fear avalanches, so much as with avalanches I feel at least I have a chance. What I DO fear is: Tree Wells.

Tree Wells are collections of very soft powdery snow that collect underneath trees. The good thing is that a Tree Well is marked by a (surprise) tree. So if you avoid trees while skiing away from the groomed sloped of the ski resort you'll be fine. And if you want to be sure, then stay above tree line.

But there's a problem. To get above treeline you have to go through trees. AND also I am an intermediate skier who is getting better, but short on confidence, and have run into things (no trees) before on a kayak (for more info see my really long entry about my kayak class). It's called Object Fixation: where you run smack into what you're trying to avoid because you're, well. staring at it. (Look where you WANT to go, not where you don't).

The scary thing about Tree Wells is that they are almost impossible to get out of on your own. You run into the tree and suddenly upend into the super soft quicksand-like powder. Don't believe me? This set of web pages really scares me:

http://www.treewelldeepsnowsafety.com/

During a test 90% of people (and these are experienced skiers) could not get out on their own. Heebeejeebee.

They even have a clever acronym for it.
NARSID - Non-Avalanche Related Snow Immersion Death

It mostly occurs with trees that have a lot of lower limbs, so for a while I was reassuring myself that most of our trees don't have a lot of lower limbs. Then I read page 3. The number one region for NARSIDs is of course British Columbia. #2 is NOT Colorado or Washington State, it's California (eek), then followed by Colorado, then Washington, then Montana, then Oregon, Utah, Idaho, and finally Alaska.

I feel so reassured (not). I really do want to learn to backcountry ski, but NARSIDs usually occur on the ungroomed slopes. of the backcountry.

But the prevention pages give me some hope:
http://www.treewelldeepsnowsafety.com/prevention1.php

1. Avoid Deep Snow and Tree Areas

My response was: good luck with that, but the text clarified things for me.

"Remember, most of these accidents happen in treed areas during or right after deep snowfalls. Resisting the urge to ski or snowboard through the trees during deep powder conditions, no matter how inviting the untracked powder looks, is the easiest deep snow accident prevention."

Really? That's not so bad. Most of the time I want to backcountry ski is during the climbing season of May and June, which is after ski season. Tons of fresh snow is a rarity (new snow here and there is very common), Most of the snow is in a: warm during the day / refreeze at night cycle. There is not a lot of unconsolidated powder. So it turns out those "powder days" of the winter ski season that advanced skiers worship are the real killers, and during that time I'm at a ski resort or I'm snowshoeing.

The other tips are pretty common sense;
- ski with a partner and check in with them very often
- avoid trees (well duh)
- if you do fall in a Tree Well, clear some airspace by rocking your body gently and not thrashing
- "if you are sliding toward a tree well or a deep snow bank, do everything you can to avoid going inverted into the snow. Grab branches, hug the tree, or roll your body to get your feet below you. Do anything you can to keep your head above the surface or at least your feet below you."
- "carry a transceiver, shovel, probe, and whistle. This is the same personal rescue gear carried by backcountry skiers or snowboarders."

So maybe my fears are unfounded as I'm not a good enough skier to get myself killed that way. (I hope.)

Text Message Scam (And a Do Not Call List update)

(I love it when scams find me - make things all the more fun to check out.)

So scammers are branching out this year. I just received a text message (unusual because I don't text since it costs me extra - note to self to make sure I don't get charged for it.) allegedly from 36245 8888146669@communitybank.com saying "card blocked" for more information call 888-814-6669

Googling the phone number told me nothing.

Calling the phone number from a different phone and entering nothing says

Union Card Services
Our records indicate your account is restricted
please enter your card number

Evil little subterranean rodents.

A coworker dug up this missive from Commuity Bank from Feb 17, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS262762+17-Feb-2009+BW20090217

Googling for "text message scam" yields tons of references

The Community Bank web site encouraged me to call the FTC (877-382-4357) and out of curiosity I did. Within just a few key presses I was talking to Martin (I'm sure you know him - think he's from Texas though I didn't ask).

I wasn't sure if the FTC even wanted to hear about it, but they did and he filed a complaint for me. Took my information and noted the 888 number and the text of the scam message (and the message that the 888 number was saying.)

He also suggested adding my phone number to the Do Not Call List. Surprised, I said "But it's a cell phone."

He said that if it's registered on the DNCL that they can file it as a double violation
(I refrained from asking "You mean running a scam isn't enough?")

The number of the DNCL is 888-382-1222
or
http://donotcall.gov

On the website you can also verify that they have your phone numbers listed correctly and can even tell you the date that you added it.
The DNCL listings do not expire.

Life and Death in the Garden

I grew up helping my Farm Agent grandfather in the garden. I have fond memories of throwing fertilizer (which I don't touch these days), and digging trenches (I now use a drip system). Ah yes gardening in the 70s. My family also had a substantial (1.5 acre) orange grove, and as tradition dictates, I was conscripted child labor for it which I, of course, hated at the time and only after leaving did I realize what an unique experience that was.

So because it's in my blood, I do garden a little. I think of myself as the most non-serious of gardeners. just a few plants in the planters and a few herbs and others off of the edges of the yard. Ok, I did put in a drip system (who wants to have to remember to water?) and, well, I do mix my own soils, but that's because I read a Martha Steward book while on disability with carpal tunnel years ago (my mother gave it to me and she seemed totally surprised that I actually read it) and realized just how simple it is and just how much the plants love it. And I did rearrange and add to the tomato cage so it would actually support a 6' tall tomato plant. But I'm so not serious. Really. And I'm digressing (I think). This is where my namesake Degeneres says "My point, and I do have one ..."

There is a certain element of playing God when you garden. What gets put in and where, and more to this point, when to take something out. For the most part, I let plants I put in live their lives in peace save for necessary pruning and trimming. (Invading plants I have no problem being vicious with - especially vines which can be really evil.) With annuals that's easy. What prompted this entry is that I just took out most of one of the basil plants and made pesto - yum. With perennials that can present some difficulty and now that I've been a home owner for a while the time does come where it makes sense to end the life of something you helped give life to.

In the case where a plant is injured and isn't recovering it's a pretty easy decision. I had a lavender plant out in the sidewalk area that a kid rode a bicycle through and left it in a V form and after nursing it for a year (unfortunately you can't just cut them all the way back like you can with other plants) I gave up and took it out. Also, when my neighbors tree shaded my oregano the taste went away since it needs the sun to bring out the oil, so I pulled it out. Enough sun is an issue here. I plant Early Girl Tomatoes. It's Sept and only now are they ripening. Real early huh? Fortunately they're worth the wait.

But I now have a dilemma. I have this Orange tree (of course I do - How could I not?), a Washington Navel that I got at Orchard Supply. I've had it since 1993. I bought it as a dwarf and had it in a pot, but after I bought this house, I got tired of episodes of nearly killing it (because I'm bad about regular watering). So I put it in the ground and within a year, it completely forgot that it was a dwarf and is a very cheerfully happy full size orange tree. There's just one catch and this is my dilemma. It's appearing that it's not really hot enough in Alameda to make sweet oranges. Or at least where it's located. It gets plenty of sunshine, but it doesn't get the super direct, cook-the-brain sun for enough hours to bring out the sweetness. So I have an abundance of not very sweet oranges. After I pick them I leave them out in the sun for a few days and there is more sweetness but not as much as I (or anyone else) would like, and honestly I'm getting tired of the taste and I'm the only one who will eat them.

I've been doing this mucking about for a few years and now the tree is large enough to be really in the way. It just occurred to me that maybe I should consider taking it out, but deliberately killing a healthy tree (especially a tree as opposed to a relatively small plant) is so against my nature even though I have no attachment to its origin (like I would have if I'd smuggled one in from Southern California - yes, it's not legal because of a disease the oranges can get there). This tree came from OSH, nothing terribly special. I've given it quite a happy life for 16 years and now I want some payback, and I'm not getting it and we could really use the space these days.

The failure of this tree to produce sweet oranges is giving me pause in my other plan to put a tangerine in the front lawn. Tangerines have to be sweet. The front gets a lot more sun, but I don't know if it's enough. I suppose I could leave it in a pot for a couple of years and just move it around. As long as I put a watering system on it that should be ok. The only bummer is that I was going to put a full size one in and that won't work in a pot, but even a full size tree can live in a pot for a couple years.

But of course this doesn't help me to decide about the other tree. It's funny, as a tree it's perfectly happy it's just me putting my "publish or perish" "earn your keep" values on it. I suck at this God playing.

Reference that totally backs up my experience:
http://www.pinnaclenews.com/life/contentview.asp?c=189978

I leave the fruit on for as long as possible which helps - some.

For those feeling guilty about taking out a tree and they can't replace it they can support Plant A Tree:
https://www.plantatreeusa.com/individual/myweb.php?hls=42


UPDATE!
Just doing some more googling for references and I came across:
http://www.city-data.com/forum/georgia/97212-orange-tree-question-floridiot.html

Down a ways you see someone named Prichard say:

In Central Florida, I've lost a couple of trees to freezes. Even if they don't totally die, disease sets in and within a couple of years, the tree dies back to it's "sour-root" origins, i.e. the good graftings are killed off. When you start to get those long shoots with big thorns on them, that's sour-root. It produces some beautiful looking oranges, that are so sour and bitter, you'd think they were poison.

It's just sinking in. Maybe that's what happened to my tree. The sweet grafting died and all that was left was the full size sour-root stock. I don't see the big thorns that often though, but everything else totally fits. I'll see if I can talk to Four Winds in Fremont who was referenced in the first url. Four Winds were the people who told me about it not being legal to import cuttings from Southern California. I admitedly tried it anyway, but it never took and the oranges down south were allowed to pass away under a bulldozer (and 4831 N. Ohio, Yorba Linda, CA is the one place in the world that I won't go - though I do peek with Google maps once in a while.)

More confirmation here:
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf92622115.tip.html
The tree froze, recovered but the fruit is "nasty" and they're asking about grafting.

I see grafting in my future.

At noon today I walked up to the trees and said
"You've been fooling me all this time."
I pick an orange and say
"You see this? It doesn't taste good."
It didn't see remotely intimidated.

Where I was on 9/11 - Endings and Beginnings

Because everyone has one here's mine, and it's actually slightly unique:

On 9/11/2001 I was at home (SF Bay Area) working at home on our company website because at the time I had better software tools at home (I forget why - something to do with a Mac no doubt.)

The phone rings and it's Catherine at work.
C: "Are you watching TV?"
Me (totally taken aback by the weird question): "Of course not, what do you think I do here?"
C: "No really, go turn on the TV. Someone has crashed planes into the trade center towers and one has fallen down. This is bad."
Me: "OMG"

The rest of the day was spent exactly like everyone else's. Glued to the TV in shock.

That evening I get a phone call from my friend Pierre whose wife Betsy is pregnant with twins.
P: "We have news."
I pretty much cry out "No! No! Please no more news. I can't take any more."
P: "No, we have NEWS"
Finally getting that he means the twins were born, I reply "Wow congratulations, how did you get anyone to pay attention to you at all?"
He joked about the doctors keeping half an eye on the TV screen.

The poignancy of getting that news at the end of that day really brought home to me that there is a future. And I will always know James and Katie's birthdays. Happy birthday. And happy birthday to my (unrelated) friends Celia and Cheri who also share this birthday with them.

The Nevada Nuclear Test Site - Gradual Declassification

A Very Long Time Ago in a Place Relatively Close By. I worked at EG&G. While the projects I worked on were not Top Secret they were used in Secret places so the information was sensitive. One project I was working on was the Weather Stations at the Nevada [Nuclear] Test Site. Working on Weather Stations is pretty peaceful especially because I was nowhere near Nevada, but I should have known that eventually during the installation the engineer would have trouble and ask me to come help. I was not happy about it, but I went to help him and while I was there I got a personalized tour of the place. Pretty unremarkable at the time and in retrospect quite a coup from a historical perspective.

The Test Site is no longer conducting Nuclear tests and much of the information about the site is now declassified, and there is a great Wiki page on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site

In the Really Bad Idea that wouldn't go away for a while Dept. was Operation Plowshare (which I like to call Operation F*ck Up). The idea was to place nuclear bombs in shallower positions in hopes the could be used to dig trenches. This is not a joke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

Nice try. It created radioactive mountains, and that area was fenced off when I was there - my normally level headed brave engineer coworker advised not to get too close - if he's says that then he means it. What's surprising is the radioactive level at a lot of the test site area not that high (that same coworker of mine measured it in several places - EG&G made the measuring devices so it was our business to know. )

Although there is no bomb testing going on the site is still very much being studied which to my amusement leads to all sorts of paranoia and conspiracy theories such as this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mrqeWSuxPM

Artifact? Dude take a breath, they're just measuring devices and yes it's likely they're still collecting data.

Given how much information has been declassified I may as well finally tell the one really tiny, but really important factoid that I couldn't part with until testing ceased and things began to be declassified.

Protestors would often sneak into the site to get to ground zero in an attempt to stop the test. What fascinated me was that our weather stations were in little silver trailers all over the site. They would measure wind direction and speed as well as temperature and a host of other items. If the weather stations weren't reporting in then there could be no test. Yes that's right. No weather data, no test. Period.

It was so difficult not to let the protesters (fortunately I don't know who they are) know that if they really wanted to stop a test (instead of getting on TV), all they had to do was break off the antennae's on those silver trailers scattered unprotected all over the place - it was a weak link. I never did anything about it as (a) I didn't want to go to jail (b) I do take having a security clearance ("Q") seriously and may someday need one again though I hope not (c) support for testing was waning quickly and likely would stop and (d) the protesters actual goals might not be to quietly stop the test, but to be visible to show disapproval for testing.

If I were to run into those who did the protests, I'd love to ask. If you knew how to quietly stop a test would you do it or would you prefer the march to Ground Zero to get arrested and on TV approach. I wonder what they'd do? Probably both is my guess, but what would they do if they had to choose? I honestly don't know the answer.

Bulwer-Lytton - the toilet roll that goes bumpity bumpity

NPR was talking about first lines of novels which reminded me to check if the 2009 Bulwer-Lytton results were out - they are. Bulwer-Lytton is that contest that "challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels." In all fairness NPR was talking seriously, but I don't know if after Bulwer-Lytton if it's even possible to have a serious conversation about first lines of novels without descending into silliness.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm

Honestly I think I like the runner up better, but neither compares to the ones from year's past where are listed here:

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm

Which contains my all time favorite from 2002. Whenever I think of Bulwer-Lytton I think of toilet rolls going bumpity bumpity.

On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.

--Rephah Berg, Oakland CA (2002 Winner)

And in case you haven't seen the inspiration for all this fun:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Who had a hyphenated name long before it was fashionable. Such a trend setter in so many ways.

I keep thinking I should try to think of some entries, but the idea of trying to keep to one sentence is more than a little daunting though I dearly love all the weird imagery and bad metaphoric language and I'm realizing that I haven't ended this sentence yet - hmmmmm.

Pissy iPod

Pissy in the American sense (Picky Prima Dona) but the alcohol related British version is not far off.

My 16GB iPod Nano has been having odd fits of "can not be written to or read from" messages while syncing. Even though whatever I was trying to load on it played fine on my Mac. The last straw was today when it wouldn't load an Audible.com book I wanted to listen to this weekend. It wouldn't load it, even though it looked like it mostly worked it wouldn't show up in the menus. This weekend I'm going to be on the road for at least six hours so I was willing to spend some time to fix it.

First of all there are some podcasts that just won't load and I have to uncheck them, but the book was appearing to work. This problem is not completely fixed, but I did get a lot further by doing what they suggest on the Apple web site (figuring out the url is an exercise left to the reader.) I may have left out a step but this is the gist.

• update iTunes on the Mac
• attach the iPod
  
• select Restore
  
• let it wipe its brain (you will need your administrator password for this)
  
• check: Sync only checked songs and video
• in each ipod tab uncheck: Sync Music, Movies, and Podcasts (and click Apply)
• you should have a mostly empty iPod
  
• then selectively add things back
• if a non-essential item doesn't load then uncheck it

If you're not sure which one is not loading when you get the can't read message then click ok and try the sync again and watch the top to see what it's trying to load. When you find out what it is then go back into your library and uncheck it. Then try syncing again - it should pick up where it left off.

My book has loaded. Other items have not like Sasha Baron Cohen's (Borat et al) Fresh Air interview but I just listened to that now on the Mac. It also doesn't like half of Fareed Zakaria's videos which make's me think it's suspicious of those with funny names but it's full of World Music and lots and lots of funny names. Only podcasts and videos. It's balked at the occasional Stephanie Miller too. Maybe it's just a critic.
,
I have two iPod Nanos which I love but they are the more recalcitrant pieces of Apple hardware I have ever owned. Sort of similar to my dysfunctional relationship with my Canon Camera but no whacking is required.

Twitterese - messing with convention (mini rant)

I'm not on Twitter, since I have no shortage of places to express myself and since bits don't weight anything and since I don't make a habit of texting (it's not free for me) I don't feel remotely obligated to limit my musings to 140 character "Tweets" or less (in fact I think I'm past that already).

What's weird to me is Twitter trying to usurp commonly understood email nomenclature and it's messing with my head.

Quoting from the help (http://help.twitter.com/portal)

What are @Replies?
An @reply is a public message sent from one person to another, distinguished from normal updates by the @username prefix. If a message begins with @username, we collect it as a reply. Reply publicly to any update on Twitter by using the @username format.
-------

So someone from Twitter talking to me on Facebook will address me at @ellen. Now I speak email and internet nomenclature pretty well, so to me, the name comes BEFORE the @ and the domain comes after. @ellen means you're turning me into a domain name and it's jarring every single time. There are so many other design approaches they could have taken. Mucking with the well understood @ symbol, smacks of laziness to me especially since a # or a $ or % or & or <> or + heck even a ~ or -- would have worked fine.

I'm not a domain name.

Too Many Cooks

I'm working on this much longer entry that's taking forever so I'm just going to go with short attention span entries for the moment.

Dog people are notoriously not cooks to the point that I worry about them.
But every so often I find someone who is and in fact in the last week I've found two dog people who cook and not just because they have to but because they enjoy it. I don't know why I'm so thrilled by that. May be it's because I know there's a section of the dog community who won't have to resort to stealing food from their dog.

While washing dishes I had this idea for an amusing small party, but I'm realizing it actually could be a fun TV show. It's called Too Many Cooks. Put 4 experienced cooks in a small kitchen with the task of making a meal. Would every one work together or would it devolve into Survivor like tactics? (And unlike Survivor, everyone is armed.)

On second thought maybe this isn't something I should do with my friends. :)

The Callanish Stones

I have a thing for rocks, and I've been happy to discover that there are a lot of people throughout history who have also had a thing for rocks. And having a thing for rocks and art done with stone leads one on all sorts of fun adventures.

But it's not just rocks really. It's the people behind them. I love stone circles and other monuments and I love the things I learn along the way simply by following the stones.

I have been all around Scotland twice just looking at stones. It was fabulous because it took me to some fantastic places. I've been to Lewis Island in the Outer Herbrides. Which is so off the beaten patch but the (pictured) Callanish Stones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callanish_Stones) are there and I saw one photo of them and knew I had to see them in person

Journeying out to see them really brought home that it's so much more about the journey than the destination, but wow what a destination. Smaller that Stonehenge. Just as powerful and no big fences and far fewer crowds (who go away regularly). nothing like a few hour ferry ride to put a dent in the wandering tourists. We did run into some Americans but they were the nicest Americans you could wish for.

And the fantastic thing about Callanish is that Callanish I is only the beginning. On the wiki page skip down to "Other nearby sites" and you have the ultimate geocaching adventure listed. I was tromping about in a cow pasture, looking for one of the obscure marker stones, trying to parse out sort of vague instructions, and I realized that I was having a most excellent, outside the box, adventure. These days I have no doubt that all the sites have GPS coordinates, but I had no such thing and even if I did I would still have a fabulous time.

The bummer is that you can't do this on a tour bus. You need a car and one of you needs to know how to drive on the right side of the street (a pretty empowering skill I must say). A tour bus will take you to Callanish I and pause briefly at the very nearby Callanish II and III, but they are not about to drop you off by the side of the road with a basic map and say go for it. I really must find and scan in some of that material as it left me with a thing for rocks and I'm a geocaching fan too, but I must say geo caching is nothing compared to this adventure.

Yosemite 4 Mile Trail to Glacer Point

Elf has done such an excellent job of detailing our Yosemite trip on 4 Mile Trail here:

http://www.finchester.org/dogs/dog_diary/2009/08/mission-accomplished.html

Her Photos are here:

http://elf1.smugmug.com/Hiking/Yosemite-Valley-to-Glacier-Pt/

And my photos with my Canon Point and Shoot are here:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/574291472BCvdam

And let's have a photo geek moment...

Calling my Canon a Point and Shoot is a little unfair as I had it set in Program mode with the lens stopped down by a stop and a half or so. For those who had or have the old classic film camera the Canon AE-1 the top dial looks remarkably similar and you can find the exact same features (Program mode and also Aperture or Shutter Preferred modes) with some added goodies like Video of and of course there's the Auto mode which is usually a guarantee of mediocre photos.

You can get remarkably fantastic photos out of the small Canons. That said I'm really hard on mine and in turn it is cranky and unreliable and has been sent to the factory once for repair though the next time it breaks that's it. There's a short somewhere in the electronics and it will start taking black pictures. If I notice, I can twist the body some or give it the time honored whack and it will come back (This is not a joke.), but if I'm not paying attention I have a series of nothing, but grey streaks. Elf took of photo of me taking a photo of Yosemite Falls. That lovely photo never happened as I went for 10 shots until I noticed the series of nothing being stored by the camera which was irksome, but ok since I knew that Elf was checking every one of her shots. I should get another camera and will but for now my camera and I will continue our slightly dysfunctional relationship.

One more photo geek observation. I've gotten so used to preview on a digital camera that I was surprised that Elf's nice camera didn't have it. Took me a while to realize that the reason that it didn't have a preview is IT'S AN SLR. What you see in the viewfinder is what you're gonna get. Duh.

I've forgotten how fun it is to have someone else along stopping to take photos (unless it's raining or I'm hungry :). It means I don't have to feel guilty about stopping to take my own. The potential trouble is that for every photo buff along there's a time added factor. We knew this so weren't terribly concerned but it easily added over an hour to our ascent.


The trail hasn't changed much since I last hiked it 10 or so years ago (that long? Maybe not.) As Elf explained the remnants of asphalt that were originally put there are being left to decompose. In my experience, that means they'll always be little pieces left though it's already reverting quite nicely.

The squirrels are WAY too tame. The squirrels outside my backdoor are wilder. I think we should let dogs on the trail just to make the squirrels afraid again though dogs are allowed up at Glacier Point and the squirrels there are too tame. I even saw someone feeding them some of a popsicle. I just stared and didn't have the energy to confront her.

As this site: http://www.yosemitehikes.com/yosemite-valley/four-mile-trail/four-mile-trail.htm talks about there really is no better way to see so much of Yosemite from a trail than on this trail, especially if you want to see all of Yosemite falls instead of being drenched by it (which is also a total blast). The trail is carefully constructed not to be too steep, which means that it's considerably easier than Yosemite Falls and has less giant steps than the Vernal Falls trail.

Plus there's ice cream and sandwiches at the end so what's not to like? Unless you're a wilderness purist, but a purist wouldn't go anywhere near Glacier Point anyway. Plus you get to feel superior to those that drove up. (For the SF Bay Areaites this is true of Mt Diablo as well - though no ice cream there.)

And the fun of Yosemite is hearing all the different languages. I get so used to just hearing English, Spanish and a smattering of Asian languages, so it's nice to hear other languages wafting by. The only hazard is if they pass you on the trail and you understand a word or two, turn your head to listen more and fall over a rock. Oops.

And on the way down we were happily surprised to have a woman who we saw earlier catch up to us and ask to join us as she didn't have a light source and it was starting to get dark. Her name is Fides, and she's a 3rd year German medical student working/observing for a summer in Sacramento.

We talked about places she'd seen, places she might consider going to. She told me me that this week she's going to be in SF doing the touristy things and she is definitely going to Alacatraz and we made sure that she was going to be taking the audio tour where they have you walk in a cell and you hear the sound of the cell closing (heebeejeebee), she assured us she was. She also mention that she was going to be staying in the youth hostel there. Slightly alarmed, I asked "Er, which one?" "Not sure, it's north of that main street [which is Market Street]." Ok, I'm not a parent of human children, but believe me I can worry with the best of them as I'm realizing that the area she's describing is the high crime Tenderlion and they're just going to love having a sweet young German woman appear. I tell her about the area and she assures me she'll be careful and hopes she doesn't have to use her Jujitsu skills. [Via email later she gives me the address which is at Ellis and Larkin - Egad.]

Since I had a willing expert at my disposal and we still had an hour of downhill to go I asked her when I finally get to Germany what should I see? She then descibed the Rhine river and how you can take a trip down it and then get off and see some of the surrounding towns. I fortunately had her write these places down when we got back to the car and I need to find that piece of paper and get them written into my Google Docs area.

Elf asked what other places in the US she'd been and the most amusing one was her being taken to Dollywood in Tenn. which of course led to finding common ground being utterly baffled by the far too easy targets of US Southerrn accents and the Swiss German language.

Somewhere I found myself giving the routine reality check that Hollywood is oh so not glitzy, but more gritty and grimmy and the real Hollywood is not in Hollywood at all. That the studios are in Burbank, and the stars live in Berverly Hills, Bel Air, Hollywood HILLS, Malibu, and Santa Barbara. She had heard correctly that you can't actually see most stars homes anyway, and I added in that you'd have a much more fun time going to the UCLA college town of Westwood and I'm realizing now that I should have said go to West Hollywood which is a totally fun place regardless of your sexual orientation (which didn't come up in our brief 2 hour conversation.)

As dark descends on us Elf wisely requests that we get out lights. I blissfully had not brought a headlamp (note to self - always bring one) but of late I've been putting small Princeton LED lights on all of my jackets and I use them all the time including right then and it worked great.

Fortunately in the growing dusk the only wild animals we saw were quail and it was just light enough for us to be able to show them and their cool crests to Fides.

We gave Fides a ride back to her car and Elf and I headed back to the Bay Area, and we managed to get back to the Fremont Bart station without winding up at either of our houses first (Elf was driving so the risk was me ending up in San Jose though I think I might have noticed that "Hey, Hwy 101 is not on the way." or something like that.) This is Elf's story to tell, but driving my manual transmission for just over an hour (Oakdale to Fremont BART) was enough to completely undo 8 years of only driving an automatic and learning not to stomp on the brake thinking it's a clutch. She is recovering, but it wasn't immediate as she drove only stickshifts for years and when she started to drive it was like she'd been driving then exclusively all this time.

All in all a marvelous trip and I'm hoping that we manage to find more time for such adventures.

Yosemite Glacier Point - The Prequel

So one of my agility friends (also named) Ellen, (I'll call her by her nickname Elf), has been doing more hiking of late and has been enjoying it and had told me that she's interested in doing more.

From time to time I do these slightly outrageous day hikes (or ski trips) where I drive a fair distance to an incredibly gorgeous place and do a hike and then drive back. We all seem to have this internal gauge that you're supposed to spend more time doing your chosen activity than driving. When I started letting go of that assumption, I started having these totally fun mini adventures. The idea for it was planted when a friend in college told me that her and a friend drove from New England to Florida to go dancing. Ok, that's a little much, but then I noticed that places like REI's Outdoor Schoool and Bay Area Ski Bus do day trips, and those are great and I do them, but they don't always follow MY schedule (hmph), and also my Southern California family did long day trips for fun, so I then got the maps out and figured out what was possible.

I live in the Bay Area and if you draw a half circle around it that approximates things that are under 4 hours away, you find that you cover quite a lot of territory. Yosemite and Tahoe and even Lassen (sort of) are in that semi circle. And it's really not a circle as things that are near a (semi) major highway can be further away because you can go at higher speeds. And yes, this is not very ecological and I'm leasing my dog/ski mobile Scion in hopes that an affordable (well one can hope) hybrid version of it comes out - in the meantime, it gets 28 mpg.

ANYWAY, I asked Elf if she wanted to join me on a trip I'd been thinking of to go just past Tuolome Meadows out Tioga Road and climb Mt Dana. Elf being Elf, looked up the altitudes (10,000' up to 13,000') and politely (and smartly) declined. (That may prove to be a bit much for me as well though I'll probably try it one day.) Not being dead set on Tioga but knowing that she wanted to hike in Yosemite as she hadn't been in a while, I asked about starting out of Yosemite Valley which would move the starting altitude to a considerably lower 4000'. She liked that, and suggested maybe up to Nevada Falls or hey look we could take the 4 Mile Trail and climb 3200' up to Glacier Point ha ha ha. Now Elf is also a blogger and I'm sure she'll let us know whether she knew she was deliberately dangling bait or not. I then tell her that I've done the 4 Mile Trail though it's been a while and that the trail is well within her ability, and I'd love to do it if she was up for it or we could just go up part way as it's just an out and back trip.

To my happy surprise, she said yes. I was prepared to tell her that the trail was carefully designed not to be horribly steep and that it wasn't a race and we could take our time (I did tell her that part). Turns out she'd already read that the trail wasn't as steep as Upper Yosemite Falls Trail (a steep, but highly rewarding trail.) We agreed on a date a couple of weeks out that we both miraculously had available and worked out rendezvous details and that was that for a while. Being a much better blog writer than a reader I didn't realize until later that she was stressing about it some here and here, and she made this great apples/oranges comparison to climbing the trail and climbing the Empire State Building here. (During that time I did comparatively dull climb on an inclined treadmill sessions.)

Somewhere along the way I realized just how much it broadens my experience to have someone else there experiencing it with you. The other person notices things that you didn't and it really makes a huge difference. I love it and need to do it more.

I set out to write about the trail and haven't even gotten there yet. I'll make that a separate entry.

Demos need to Control the Healthcare Message Better

(Dragged back into political blogging as there's something I'm not hearing much yet.)

One thing the more out there Republicans are really good at doing is boomeranging political conversations into complete side shows.

The healthcare "debates" being the latest shining example.

Obama presents his heathcase proposal and is called Hitler. The last thing Demos should do is respond in any variation of "He is not." Stay focused on your message.

What I'm not hearing much and what I'd like to hear more of is Demos being more confrontational.

If someone with insurance opposes the public option then they should be directly asked

Why do you think the uninsured don't deserve insurance?

I think they owe us all an explanation and shouldn't be allowed to hide behind rhetoric.
I think they should be properly called Heartless and Despicable as I'm pretty sure they haven't thought it through.

Why is this such an issue? How have insurance companies gotten people to fight for them???
We have more than 5 working models of other countries insurance systems (Canada, France, Sweden, England, and, yes, the very non-Hilteresque Germany - my source is NPR On Health).

I Hate My Wired Phone Until ...

I hate paying for my wired phone service.
It's expensive, those phones mostly just sit around so we can ignore sales calls (oh yeah, we also pay for caller id) and we don't even use it to dial long distance since it's cheaper to use the cell phone.

Until...

- the power goes out (and I even have to keep a non-powered, non-portable phone so that will work)
- I need to dial 911 and don't want to have to explain exactly where I am
- the cell phone isn't working which happens more than I like

Guess I'll keep it. I know if I were in college a cell phone is all I would have but I can afford it and I know what I'd be missing if I didn't have it, so I'll just complain about it instead.

Home Maintenance Misadventures

First of all all parties are fine.

I was in the house working on a web page and Terri was outside working on the garage, and I heard this loud CRASH. Shit. I grab the wired phone that happens to be beside the door and run outside. I grabbed that phone so I could call 911 and they would know exactly where I was without having to explain much. My criteria for whether to call was: is she on the ground. She was, so I dialed as I ran up to her. 911 and I reach her at the exact same time and she's got dirt all over her and telling me she's ok. Not yet believing her, I tell 911 that my wife has just fallen off a ladder (turns out she was climbing over the short fence and her foot caught. "Do you need medical attention?" I relay that. Terri tells me: "No, it's just my knee." This time I mostly believe her as I've had a chance to see she's not bleeding. I tell her and the operator that I'll take her to Kaiser and grateful that she wasn't hurt worse, rang off from 911.

She tries to get up, I tell her not to move. She says something like: "No really I'm ok." and I tell her to stay still, she asks something very much like "Why?" and I respond mostly because it's still novel to me "Because I'm your wife. Stay still." To my somewhat surprise, she actually relented momentarily. She had bashed her knee quite nicely, and it was swelling fast so we decide that we need to get her pants off and she says that she really would much rather do that in the house. She's not dying, and we have a little time so I agree. The shortest way in is via the back door and that's locked, so I leave her a second and go in the side door and out the back door so that it's open and unlocked. She's standing up, I indicate in some fashion that I'm a little less than thrilled about this, but she's then uses it to say that she's not dead yet. I open the fence (which is what she should have done in the first place, but we often don't bother since it's a Corgi sized fence which is actually a modified trellis turned sideways and with extra slats added), and I help her up the steps and get to the bedroom where she can take the pants off and we can get a good look at balloon knee. Then get her to lay down on the hide-a-bed, elevate it and I put an ice pack on it and hand her the phone to call Kaiser to ask what to do next.

After asking questions about what happened and what the knee looks like, the Kaiser Nurse has her go through some basic self tests (for lack of a better phrase) and it appears that nothing needs to happen today (Sunday), but she should consider coming in on Monday. Despite her blood pressure medication frowning on it, she was ok'd to take anti-inflamatories (in the non-prescription realm we had Aleve and Ascriptin - she chose Aleve).
While this is proceeding Trek is being very clingy and concerned looking. It's all very sweet until I realize that it's 5:30pm and all she wants is dinner and Terri usually does their meals, so it was more worry about the food dispenser being broken. I fed them and the dogs went away for a little while, but to their credit they did reappear.

I have a trekking pole with a right angle grip that with a tip added doubles very nicely as a really cool cane (I found this out after opening my knee up on Mt Tam some while back), so I dug it out and adjusted it for her (another thing that makes it a really cool cane - much lighter than a cane too). So now she's hobbling around and scaring the dogs and in general doing ok though I have yet to find out how she's getting to Kaiser or if I'm driving her there.

I'm just glad she didn't fall off a ladder as part of the project she's working on does require being on a ladder part of the time.

Update: her knee is looking better and she's delaying going to Kaiser until the swelling goes down so they can evaluate it.

580 Bridge Murders

The suspect in the 580 bridge murders has been caught and the mixed messages continue thus proving that we're all still messed up humans.

Here's the SF Gate article

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/14/BAQS198PDH.DTL

in which Nathaniel Burris kept interrupting the judge saying "I did it ... Just give me the death penalty,"

Which brings up all sorts of observations the first is that you are guaranteed the right to a fair trial - whether you want it or not. Now you can screw it up by representing yourself as he seems to intend to but I get you this ain't gonna last.

This guy is obviously not stable (the family of the victim didn't think he was even before this happened) and most certainly deserves to be put on trial and have the rule of law work out to whatever it's going to be.

But I'm really struck by the I want to live / I want to die mixed messages.
- he ran - for hours - yet didn't really try to evade the police
- he did not shoot himself, yet he currently says he wants to be executed. He lives in Richmond. Point a gun at a gang banger if you don't believe in suicide, they'll be happy to take care of you.

This story has just started to come out.

Murder on 580:The Understatement of a Freeway Sign

It's funny in that unusual way just how much import you can get from a Freeway status sign. It's more what it doesn't say.

Tuesday we were driving North on Interstate 80 (technically it is 80 West but it was on that weirdo area where you are simultaneously on 80 West and 580 East, but you're actually going North.

Wait stop, it was before that on 880 North, and the Highway status sign just simply said

Richmond Bridge / 580 Westbound Closed
Use Alternate Bridges

[Fortunately we weren't going to be going as far as the bridge but...]

WHAT?! It's 6pm rush hour what are they doing construction for? Wait it said nothing about construction. Uh oh. Dive for the radio and put it on KCBS News.

As if it was answering my direct question (which felt completely spooky), it immediately said that someone using a shotgun has shot two people at the Richmond Bridge toll plaza, at least one of them a toll taker and the other waiting in a parked nearby truck. The suspect has fled in a Western Eagle shuttle van. The police do not think this was random. They then make brief mention of the systematic brutality of the crime.

I said to Terri that this is about Love (well its darker side). My theory was that this was an estranged lover angry at his ex and her new beau. I was half right. The breakup was correct, though there is no new beau. Given that the article says that the guy was shot first and then the shooter tracked down his ex-girlfriend, I'm pretty convinced that the shooter thought they were an item.

Here's one reference to this distressing news:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/12/BAOS197I28.DTL

The video has an interview with an eyewitness. I'm glad I'm not her though it makes me want to travel all the time with a video camera with a long zoom.

The shooter is clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He fled in an easily identifiable van and never changed cars. The highway patrol found him over in the Sierras still on the highway.

But I'm brought back by how much that freeway sign told me. It basically said in so many words, there is some very unusual, serious sh*t going down.

Undermining Your Message With Ad Words

While it's always tempting to add Google Ad Words to this and other blogs, giving up control of the message you want to send is honestly too much for me to let go of and I keep collecting very good examples of why.

Here's my latest. Recently, there is real research that finally determines what a lot of positive reinforcement dog trainers have known for over a decade. The strangely romanticized dominance theory is a pile of dog doo that someone made up from reading 1950's research of unrelated captive wolves thrown together (in my mind 10,000+ generations says that dogs are so not wolves despite being related genetically. Also a family of wolves in the wild don't act like captive unrelated wolves either).

One of the articles is here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521112711.htm

But what caught my eye is that the site uses Google Ad Words.

This is what the site looked liked when I saw it:



(Click to actually see the image and my annotations.)

Right there in Google Ad Words is an ad talking about Dog Whispering which is code for Cesar Milan's own odd style of bullying dogs which he claims to be based on Dominance Theory. I'm quite sure that the authors of the article would rather that link not be on the same page as their article.

AND here is the exact same issue again at a different site:



So to me it's not worth the few pennies here and there that a semi randomly chosen Ad word may make you.

My Email is Down and It's Driving me Nuts, but There's Always Facebook

I am email deprived and it's driving me nuts. Fortunately I have other email accounts besides frap, but frap is my domain and email via frap is what everyone uses for me. At least frap.org is up, it's just the promised glorious email upgrade that was going to take 4-12 hours has now taken 23 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds but who is counting anyway.

I called them at 18 hours and they were very apologetic and said they were hoping it would be done in 2 hours more. So off to a delicious dinner at a new blissfully delicious local Greek place called Troy located in Alameda on Central Ave near Park. I had a Chicken Shawarma Wrap and also a Baklava that was so good I would have paid $10 for. (It's around $2). Came back and no email. I have a dog seminar that I'm hosting tomorrow and I need to contact people. Fortunately, I have access to my address book, so I was able to reconfigure my gmail account to retain email and was able to send from there.

23 hours, 53 minutes 14 seconds ...

Amazing how dependent we are on email. If I choose not to be near it (like when out in the wilderness) that's completely fine and I don't miss it, but if I didn't choose it then it's surprisingly hard.

Fortunately I have Facebook and am liberally complaining about it.
I also sent email to support@verio-hosting.com just saying hello this is getting a bit much.

I'm just glad I'm not on their IT staff particularly right now.

--------------
A FB Friend is complaining about all the FB cuteness your "friends" can assault you with. She has employed a FB purity program to keep throw sheep and tossed cows off her status, but honestly I find it all kind a part of FB's charm. It reminds me of the fun Usenet groups like soc.bi which was a group for bisexual folks and their friends and it all got very silly at times and Google has actually preserved it for posterity which is just hilarious since on soc.bi I learned al about such terms as snogging, slagging, and of course tosser, but I digress... All of the quiz and games results and tossing of farm animals is a part of FBs charm and for some reason I don't find it nealy as annoying as say the old highly overwrought Usenet newsgroup alt.support.depression, that us alt.suicide.holiday people made fun of (long story - I have a much older blog entry about it somewhere around here...).

On the fly in a FB conversation I decided that FB is Permission-Based Voyeurism so why cut yourself out of such amusement? After all you did join FB - what did you expect? Besides it gives you ammunition to tease your friends with later.

24 hours 12 minutes 49 seconds ...

...

24 hours, 21 minutes, and 26 seconds later I have email. Phew.

Altitude Problem Solved (on paper)

I always say that if you do something wrong just enough times then you can't help, but get it right eventually.

I now have enough information to go up to at least some altitude.

The problem for me always comes back to running out of oxygen and getting sick from it.
This is caused by
- overexertion - particularly with carrying a backpack
- sleeping too high since my breathing slows down when asleep
- not enough time for a gradual assent - there never is

In the gradual ascent realm is: The one time we went through the Mitre Basin I did not get sick. I was at 13k and fine.

I have been sick at Outpost (10k') several times but at that low altitude was able to recover although oddly enough I have been at Lower Boy Scout Lake (also 10k') twice and one time was fine and one time was ill and didn't recover till I descended, but getting to LBSL is much, much harder than the Whitney Main Trail.

I have been sick at Trail Camp (12k') more times than I have been well.
This most recent time at Trail Camp I was fine when we got there and I was fine until I went to sleep. When I went to sleep my breathing slowed down and when I work up I had a headache, was nauseated and couldn't walk more than a few steps at a time. This is a real live example of the adage Climb High, Sleep Low.

One time I was fine at Trail Camp was when I had come up from Outpost with a day pack. I was able to continue on to Trail Crest and ran out of water and decided to descend (back in those days I was afraid to drink unfiltered water - now I see that there isn't enough evidence to support the claim that the water has Giardia - yes a little, and so does a public swimming pool which actually has more risk.)

I have been saying that the problem with Climb High, Sleep Low was that I could only get so high. Yesterday I looked up the elevation of Trail Crest. It's 13,600'.

Pause. Really? That high huh?

I had been saying it was 13k', but 600 feet higher is a Big Difference at that elevation. That day I climbed with a day pack from 10,400' to 13,600 which is a gain of 3200' which is not something to just write off with pat on the head saying "nice effort." The summit of Whitney is only 900' more in elevation gain. I have been past Trail Crest once, but was crawling and stopped at maybe 13,700'. In that case, I had slept at 12k' which I realize now, probably put me at a disadvantage.

So the take away lesson from last trip is clear: Don't sleep at 12,000', unless you are well acclimated to it. Sleep where there is more oxygen. Sleep with the trees. Thank them for the oxygen by exhaling on them.

And if I have trouble on a day climb with not getting enough oxygen there are the personal oxygen solutions which do well in a pinch. Though I need to mess around more with them.

I have tried Oxia and really didn't like the fact that a lot of it seemed to go out into the air. Plus I also had two canisters leak.

So if I'm going to make use of it while climbing. I need to find another source.

Some choices are still listed from the last time I did this search - others seem to have disappeared.

http://www.truo2.com/
http://www.alpineaccessories.com/Personal-Portable-Oxygen/products/105/
http://store.oxygenpod.com/POD_p/pod.htm


Now, of course, I want to go back to Whitney. The only issue is when? My time is pretty booked and the trail quotas are booked for this year till Oct 15th (though cancellations do occur because of party size reduction). While it's tempting to go in late October (I can deal with snow - however snow really does slow you down, plus it's a lot colder then too), my time might be better spent testing out my theories on the higher peaks of Yosemite (Dana, Gibbs, Lyell), though those are only in the low 13's, but that's not bad as a testing ground.

Whitney Portal Fire Drama 7/14/09

Before I forget I really must post about this last Mt. Whitney story from our trip.

I do have some photos that I need to upload, but this is the gist.

We spent the night at Whitney Portal Campground to help some with acclimatization and because it's beautiful and sometimes I like to go up to the store to say hello to Earline and Doug Sr.

Because we wanted to get a really early start the next day I decided to forgot my store visit till when we got back from our trip, so having already eaten dinner down at Lone Pine we put stuff in the bear locker, cleaned the truck out of scented items, put the tent up and settled down to get some rest while it was still light.

After the sun went down, I was half asleep when I heard sirens. Now I live in a city, so while still asleep I convinced myself that it was several blocks away and nothing to worry about, but then a voice in my head chimed in going: "Hello? You are at Whitney Portal. There is no "several blocks away" there is one road. Period." I wake up and peer out the tent since we haven't put the rain fly on. I see flashing lights out at the road (we're on a small access road back to our campsite.) Then we see another set of lights up on the other access road. Uh oh.

Terri who is starting to wake up innocently asks: think I should put a shirt on? I reply: Umm yeah. That's starting to sound like a Good Idea.

Less than a minute later we can now make out a flashlight moving from camp to camp. Uh oh again. This is starting to resemble watching something on TV and the person comes out of the TV to talk to you. - I hate it when that happens.

The flashlight approaches. We say hello to the flashlight and ask what's going on. Now a sad commentary on the state of things is that I'm explecting Flashlight to tell me that a prowler is on the loose (In the wilderness? Oh please).

Flashlight says "[his name] Highway Patrol. We have a fire just down the hill and you need to pack up and evacute." Terri asks if we have time to pack everything up and Flashlight says yes. I ask where it is and he says it's just East of the creek.

We start to pack stuff up and Flashlight moves on. We pack for about 5 minutes and the tension in the air noticibly increases (sirens are getting numerous and loud, people are starting to shout), we start to hurry as we can now make out where the fire is. Terri who hasn't been through a fire before is starting to stress some, but is holding it together. We get everything stuffed in the truck and we have a brief disagreement about my taking a moment to close the bear locker. There is stuff in there (trash) a bear shouldn't have, so I ignore her entreaties for a moment. I have told her that I'm pretty good in an emergency and she is resolutely remaining unconvinced. "You're not good. you're terrible in an emergency. We need to go." (She took it back later. :)

We exit the campground and there to our right is the fire with a couple of trees a blaze and being doused with water. We pull over and watch for a little while and I take some mostly unusable video and trade stories with the other folks in the campground. This is all turning out not to be the typical restful Whitney Portal experience. The fire subsides and comes back and subsides again. A whole bunch of fire equipment is arriving and you can hear more coming in. For what appears to be a relatively small fire this is a Very Big Deal. Mostly because the area has houses. If it was in the wilderness area it would have not been treated this way.

After a while it becomes clear that this will go on for a while and all these people are going to be looking for hotel rooms and the thought of a bed is sounding really good right now, so we head down to Lone Pine. Neither Terri or I has been an evacuee before so it didn't occur to us that since we were displaced that they would have found a place for us (there was a meeting hall commandeered for the purpose).

Going back down to Lone Pine we pass many fire crews coming up. Then we come to where the incoming road is blocked by a fire truck. It is at one of the lower campgrounds and it's full of Badwater Marathon vans (my blog entry on the Badwater Ultramarathon is here). I had forgotten about them. They moved the finish line down here since the road was now blocked. This also had another meaning that was slowly sinking in. On the very busy day of Tuesday, in the ever so hopping town of Lone Pine (not), every hotel room was booked. Eek. The woman at the desk found us a room in Bishop and we took it. Bishop is one hour away. As we drove up we were still being passed by fire crews coming in the other direction.

The next morning I called the Whitney visitor's center to see if the road was open. It had opened at 7am, which is a huge bummer for the day climbers who need to start around 2 or 3 am to finish in one day.

We drove back to our abandoned campsite and cleaned out the trash in the bear locker and found a couple of small forgotten items including a great flat Victorinox knife set that is so small I lose repeatedly and then find again months later.

We then looked at where the fire had been. Six trees had been chopped down and several others charred. While it was a small fire, it was a sobering thing to realize that our campsite was about 500' away from it. Fortunately for all concerned, there was no wind and perfect weather.

The fact that the fire was small is a credit to the Calif Dept of Forestry. the Whitney Portal is full of connifers that just so want to burn, but really can't be allowed to in that area. Fires here can get out of control in a huge hurry so they hit fires with everything they have, hence all of last night's drama.

Cause is still under investigation. We did talk to one firefighter who said the investigator was down there right then. Now that would be a cool job. Kinda high pressure but how fascinating. I later did talk to a ranger who said that he saw a military plane in the area fire off an antiaircraft flare right about the same time.

All in all this misadventure only put us 4 hours behind schedule for hitting the trail.

When we came out of the wilderness, intermitent thunderstorms were ongoing and the firewatch crews were out. We went to the portal store for one of their delicious lunches and I find Earline monitoring the radio for fire updates. On the night of the 14th they had already left, but this was now in the middle of the day. One road access makes getting out of there in a hurry difficult (though I must say on the 14th it was pretty easy) We had an enjoyable lunch amongst the fat chipmunks and while lightning did strike close enough to hear the alarming initial cracking (as opposed to just a distant rumbling), nothing struck close enough to make us want to run though I was glad that both Terri and I were off the mountain. On the drive down, we passed a couple of the firemonitoring crews and could see a fireburning in the mountains that I think they just let burn out, but keep a careful eye on.

So all in all, not your typical Whitney trip.

The Bummer of the Maximum Heart Rate

I'm only realizing now that someone my gym instructors are half my age. (The ones that are actually older are very impressive I must say.) Keeping up with the younger instructors is a challenge and is pretty empowering. Then every so often I am reminded what a disadvantage that I am at and this is why they put athletes in different age groups.

The disadvantage that older athletes face is the Maximum Heart Rate (I usually refuse to call myself older, but in this case, it's pretty inescapable). As you get older, the tissue stiffens and the maximum rate that the heart can go decreases. The bummer about this is that a younger person's heart can pump a significant more blood than an older person's and man I'm jealous - sometimes I wish I'd appreciated it then.

I overheard one of my gym instructors say that her near max heart rate was 195. Mine is about 174 or 175. The standard formula (220-your age) would put it at 173, but fit people usually can go slightly higher. This means that on demand her heart is able to move around that much more oxygen than mine. Because she exercises just about every day her resting heart rate is 38 (I asked one day) and mine remains at 58 despite exercising four times a week plus dog walks. That means that her heart is that much more efficient as well.

Because I can't get my heart to beat as fast as hers, efficiency and being comfortable at higher heart rates is the only way I can keep up. The standard text books are fond of telling you that you want to work out at 60-80% of your max HR. If you're no longer 20-something and training for anaerobic things like mountain climbing (or just trying to keep up with the 20-somethings), then you have to get comfortable working much harder. you get to learn all about how to work at that "anaerobic threshold" where your body is no longer processing oxygen. It's that leg burn phase and you can push that threshold up further.

My anaerobic threshold used to be around 160 bpm. Now it's 163-165 bpm. Yes it hurts - but only briefly. ;) The way through that is usually by doing intervals where you vary the intensity of what you're doing, while there are a whole bunch of different ones, right now I just use the ones in the RPM Spin classes I go to.

If you'd like a decent book on this subject there are 100's (mostly all pointing in different directions), but one good, albeit humbling, one (I'm lucky to match their fitness minimums and I often don't) is:

The Outdoor Athlete
by Courtenay and Doug Schurman of Body Results
http://www.bodyresults.com/p1outdoor-athlete-book.asp

So it turns out there is an honorable reason to (ahem) chase 20 year olds.

I want to take Sarah Palin's guns away from her

Let's just be forthwith about this and just justify all of Palin's terrible fears

I am a Hollywood Starlet (ok, that's so not true) and I want to take Sarah Palin's guns away from her - particularly her guns.

Yes I'm being flip. Sort of.
My British friends find our country's gun fascination pretty scary. Actually I do to. Especially after doing the research.

Having a gun in the house is a very good predictor of gun violence. It is so not a protection.

I though getting the stats would be difficult since there's so much opinion but the Brady Campaign came through for me very nicely though they are certainly not above categorically stating opinions without stats, but here are the ones where there are solid numbers:

- The risk of homicide in the home is three times greater in households with guns.(2)

- The risk of suicide is five times greater in households with guns.(3)

2. Kellermann, AL, Rivara, FP, Rushforth NB, et al. "Gun ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home." New England Journal of Medicine. 1993; 329: 1084-1091.
3. Kellermann, AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. "Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership." New England Journal of Medicine. 1992; 327: 467-472.

More info
http://www.bradycampaign.org/issues/gvstats/


My opinion is that anyone who wants to possess a handgun (since handguns are much more the issue than rifles - Sarah Palin aside) must go through the same amount of training as a police officer. I don't want the Wild West days back again. I really don't want a whole bunch of untrained, armed vigilantes running around.

Palin quoted that hairbrained "We eat therefore We hunt."
Hello? Last time I was in a grocery store I didn't need to be armed with anything more than a debit card. Next wolf she shoots she has to eat. Whole.

I just heard her resignation speech. I must admit it has a certain strange poetic brilliance to it. What I really love is that Conan O'Brien had William Shatner read it on the air.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/william-shatner-makes-pal_n_246034.html

But of course all I can really say is what I've already said before: RUN SARAH RUN

Ripening Tomatoes Through Careful Neglect

2 weeks ago I had a tomato plant died suddenly of Southern Blight (the previous blog entries are here and here.) I picked the orphaned tomatoes and stuck them in a container while I waited till I had time to make that Green Tomato Relish that Jan C. told me about.

Then a funny thing happened. One tomato ripened. It was delicious. Probably would have been better if I'd ignored it some more. Then another did the same thing. Now it's happening to two more. Not sure how long I can take ignoring it as it looks really good. While the tomatoes are small, for some reason it's still gratifying to see what should have been a complete failure of a plant still give me something yummy during its short life.

The other plant is doing fine and is 6 feet tall. Perhaps due to swift removal of the sick one or just because of complete happenstance.

Badwater Ultramarathon

Because of our Mt. Whitney permit reservation, unbeknownst to us, our trip coincided with the Badwater Ultramarathon which is a 135 mile foot race (I never saw them run) from Badwater in Death Valley to Whitney Portal trailhead which is the start of the Whitney Main Trail. The promoters kinda like to let it be implied that the race involves Mount Whitney which it doesn't except for going up to Whitney Portal, but let's give them a break given this is basic insanity.

The main page of their web site is here: http://badwater.com/
The map of the route is here: http://badwater.com/route/index.html
A recap of this race is here: http://www.badwater.com/2009web/

The recap refers to a fire that I will give much more personal detail in a later entry as it was only 500 feet away from my campsite.

It's 5pm and we're hanging out in Lone Pine eating an early dinner before going up to portal to camp and aclimate, it's around 90 degrees or so and obviously had been much hotter. Every so otten, I'd see someone dressed as a runner with one or two other people walk by with an obvious purpose in mind and clearly looking in pain - pain that they had signed up for, trained for, and paid for. Each racer had a support van with the competitor's name on it and signs like "Caution Runner." There was someone else in the restaurant and I worked up the nerve to ask him if he was associated with it (it also took me a while to figure out a polite way to ask if he was involved in this mascocistic quest.) He was and said that his daughter would be along soon. He said that they had started yesterday and ran all day and into the night. I asked him if they slept and he said they have the option to if they want (she slept about 30 minutes or so), but the clock doesn't stop. They didn't even stop the clock for the 10pm-7am road closure of Whitney portal access road bedcause of the fire.

Temps where they started the race in Death Valley can get in the 120s. This time it was considerably over 100 degrees, but I don't know how hot it got. Given that my body stops functioning at all around 110 degrees, the thought of running in such temps is pretty unimaginable. The winner of the women (who came in 5th over all) didn't even get any blisters. Her crew made her stop every 20 miles (!) to make her change her socks. 20 miles. The only way I've done 20 miles in a day outside of a car is on a bike. The idea that 20 miles is just a marker to take a break is so unfathomable to me. Not only did she not get any blisters (which means that she did far better off than the average adventure racer), she also didn't get sick from the heat which is another common problem.

Our first day on the Whitney trail was the day after the race had ended. Every so often I'd look up and see a very lean person with great legs and a Badwater shirt. I'd ask "So Badwater wasn't enough for you?" which garnered a variety of reponses. The best which was

"Yes we're card carrying mascocists"

I'm on the Whitney trail with a full backpack (obviously not a couch potato) and I believe I said something like "Yes, you're making us all look like wusses."

What was amazing was that the support people often run along with them. One did 45 miles and another ran 50. That's nearly TWO marathons. And you did it just as a support person. This makes me pause and marvel every time I mention it.

Another thing is that this race is very difficult to qualify for. You have to have a history of running in these types of races. they only let 90 people in. Yes, more than 90 people want to do this and you have to assemble a crew of people to chase you around in a van so that you don't die out there.

So given how hard this is to get into and to prepare for there must be some pretty sweet rewards right? This is the awards list quoted from the web site:

AWARDS: All racers who begin the event will receive a Badwater Ultramarathon t-shirt, hat, Race Magazine, and a goodie bag. All racers who officially complete the event within 60 hours will receive a finisher’s medal and a finisher's t-shirt. All racers who officially complete the course within 48 hours will also receive a commemorative Badwater Ultramarathon buckle.

- So if you start the race you get a t-shirt, a hat, a magazine and a swag bag.
- If you finish the race you get a medal and a finisher's t-shirt
- If you finish under 48 hours you also get a commemorative buckle.

Sign me up (not). Note the lack of anything monetary. Someone told me that if you win you also get free entry for life. They also told me that there really isn't much sponsorship money in it. One very accomplished racer gets free hats and socks. That is amazing. Racers may incure $6000 of expenses plus airfare if they're international. I thought us dog agility people were nuts. Not a chance.

I wonder what attracts people to this? The ultimate challenge? An accomplished runner or triathelete can make some of their expenses back in race wins. Certainly not in this case.

A google of: why ultramarathon
is surprisingly not coming up with much save for this little gem here:

On the insanity meter, this is second only to the running of the bulls.

There is an additional recap here:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705317132/Utahns-compete-in-Badwater-Ultramarathon.html

The winners finished in under 24 hours. Which means they were doing an average of 5.63 mph, and given that I personally never saw them run, it means that when they were running they were going faster.

Of course I can't help, but notice in what great shape they are and how lean they are.
I'm in good shape, but I have elevated triglycerides. Aspiring to be as lean as they are or even just close would likely do me a world of good though my knees and feet might not like it. But my knees are fine right now so it's likely worth working on more. Even just shedding that extra 10 pounds I carry world likely be a boon. I have started back to treadmill running since I got back from Whitney and if I have anything startling to report I may put it here, but for now it will reside in my boring Training Diary.

But while someday I may enter a 5k, it's pretty much a guarantee that I'm never doing a marathon and it is a guarantee that you'll never see me in an ultramarathon. For them, I'll be happy to be an impressed bystander.

Whitney Marmots

At the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada you will often see Marmots who are described as basically being really large squirrels or groundhogs. However the very same page says that they typically eat "many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots and flowers." Let me assure you that around Mt. Whitney's Trail Camp that is so not the case. They will eat anything they can get their mitts on and are accomplished thieves, and will rip right into things they think contain food (including tents).

Through out a lot of the Sierra, backpackers are required to place their food and any scented items like toothpaste in a bear proof container. While you are not terribly likely to encounter a bear, you will come across marmots and the container is pretty essential at keeping them and chipmonks and jays at bay. And along with their Ursian brethren, if you underestimate their skill you will pay for it in food.

So we're at Trail Camp and I'm trying to recover enough from altitude sickness so we can move to a lower altitude. I am just starting to feel a little better when I hear a suspicious noise just outside the tent. I look up to see that one of two marmots has just nosed the lid off of one of the bear canisters that we hadn't fully engaged. I yell HEY! and throw a boot (Terri's) at them and they run off, but not before one of then graps a ziploc bag of something.

Without even thinking about it, I shift into determined "I will catch you" dog owner mode and take off after then, but Terri says "Hey what about my boot?" in which I of course pick up and throw back at her on my way after them. The "Ow!" at my back tells me I should have paid more attention to where I was throwing said boot. I call "Sorry!" over my shoulder. "What do they have any way?" "Cheese" she replies.

We are camped beside a lake surrounded by boulders. Now if you're a non-human animal the odds of you ripping into a ziploc bag quietly are pretty much nil, so it was actually pretty easy to find said marmot who was pretty darn startled at having a human pursuing him or her. So I'm facing off with Ms Marmot and her cheesy contraband which I know isn't good for her anyway, and finally a voice in my head gets loud enough for me to hear. "Helloooo? This is not your dog. You have just cornered a wild animal who has a very valued resource. They have teeth and claws and you really have no idea what she will do if you push further." I am on a rock above her hiding place and if I had a trekking pole I could have stabbed the bag and anchored it in hopes she'd leave it. She is clearly considering what to do and I decide to try to let up a little to see if she will leave it. I give a foot and call out mostly for my own amusment "Step away from the cheese." She thinks about it grabs the package and retreats further into the rocks. Terri by this time has handed me a trekking pole, but I have decided that I've pushed things as far as I'm comfortable, so I leave her be and go back to the tent to collapse as I'm still not well and have used up my energy.

Anyway the lids to the bear containers then got completely screwed down. It wasn't long after till Terri saw another one testing the lid. She's sure that they are going to evolve a nose that jutes out just long enough to test bear containers.

One enouraging thing is that while said marmot was initially ripping into the package, the ripping and rustling sounds stopped pretty quickly after our face-off. I'm hoping it's because she didn't like what she found.

Anyway the startled look on the marmot's face was pretty funny. I should say that in this area particularly, being unfriendly and scary to wildlife is tacitly encouraged. The animals are getting tamer, bolder, and losing their fear of people. With the smaller animals this is a mere annoyance albeit bad for their diet, but it's deadly to bears. A bear that starts harrassing people for food is usually shot because they're too dangerous. As the rangers like to say: A fed bear is a dead bear.

Mt. Whitney - last time (well maybe not)

[Apologies in advance, I copied and pasted this from my training diary and there are some spaces missing and I don't know if I caught them all.]

I knew it would likely work out this way. That I would go to Mt. Whitney and I would get sick, but I have to try one last time. [of course I take this all back in a later post.]

The crushing thing was that things looked so good the day before the scheduled summit day. I did everything right. I am in great physical shape (training for Shasta makes a mountain with a trail look easy). We went up slowly (which I really don't like as I'm an adrenalin junkie and like all the over-exertion and heavy breathing and completely underscores that this really isn't the activity for me), we took multiple days (stopped at 10,400' then on to 12,000' the next day), took medication (Diamox) when I started having some trouble keeping my respiration deeper than normal, took aspirin as well to thin my blood some, was able to help set up camp at 12,000' - in fact did a lot of it, cooked dinner and was able to eat no problem. I was even fine in the middle of the night, but after I fell asleep (instead of just dozing), my breathing slowed down (hence taking in less O2, and I woke up ill. I now have a hard limit - I should never sleep at 12,000' or above. I've done it before but only successfully once or twice. Even though I was ok when awake, when asleep my body degraded when asleep. There's a reason for the Climb High, Sleep Low mantra.

When I woke up, my head was splitting and I couldn't move hardly at all. Took the altitude medication and some aspirin. The headache gradually got better, but I felt nauseated, and still couldn't move more than about 10 steps without having to lay down. I stayed hopeful for about an hour and a half, but the window in which we could leave and get back down was closing and then it became get better enough to get down while carrying a pack.

Once you are ill, there are three things that are recommended that you do: Descend. Descend. Descend. Getting better on the mountain (past doing things like taking aspirin, orDiamox . Oxygen if you have it) is very difficult In my case, if I had oxygen I may have gotten better as I wasn't violently ill, but the thing is that while O2 will help you feel better, it will not help you aclimate and for me one time when I brought some, completely prevented me from aclimating to even 10k'. Over then next few hours I was able to move around enough, and even chased a marmot who had stolen food (that will be a later entry), and eventually was able to carry a pack back down to Outpost (10,400'), in which I nearly kissed the first tree I saw since there's a very noticeable difference in the oxygen level when you come to that first tree, but I never felt good again though was able to eat at Outpost (couldn't eat at all at Trail Camp after I got ill. Would I eventually have gotten better? Maybe since I wasn't violently ill, but it would have meant another day there and I didn't have it, and when you're ill, you're not very happy about choosing to stay ill. Would I have gotten better enough to summit - not likely. It's Monday, and I don't think I've fully recovered. Which is ironic as I could have run up that mountain if it were at sealevel (ok maybe not all of it but summitting would not have been hard.)

If I had another day the best choice would have been to descend to 10k' or 11k' or 11.5k' and sleep there and try to recover enough to climb from there (I knew I said this above - worth reapeating - once you're sick it's very tough to recover at that altitude). In our case, the weather was degrading and we were all too happy to hike out on Sat (7/18/09) as it had rained on and off all night at Outpost and a thunderstorm rolled in and stayed for the day, which is a bummer for those wanting to summit - not that day.

Ironically, Terri didn't have any trouble with the altitude this time. She has in the past, but other times has been great and has summitted (I have not). That's what's so funny about altitude sickness/sensitivity, there are so many factors that it's difficult or impossible to predict it. You can see obvious potentials: Terri gave a water bottle to a kid struggling up the trail, and she told him to drink it and fill it at every stream. But preventing it from happening is not much of a reality.

I think I'm done with my Whitney obsession (I made sure to stop in at the Portal Store just to chat with Earline and a staff member a little and say hi to Doug Sr. who was busy).

At the east side of the park off Tioga Road, Yosemite has mountains that are 12k and 13k - if I want to play with day hikes, I can do it there and Yosemite is way closer (and I bought a yearly pass again (only $40) so it's already paid for). The problem of not being able to sleep at 12k or higher is that there's a limit to how far past my sleep altitude I can go. I have gone from Outpost (10.4k') to Trail Crest (13k'), but I didn't feel that great at Trail Crest and the summit is another 1500' and the odds of getting that far are poor for me.

We're going to focus on kayaking for a while now (we're at sealevel and by the water - duh). We've done some before but it's in abundance here, and we would never run out of adventures. and of course there are our dogs and my dog sports obsessions which take up most of my time and attention.

The trouble is I like to climb thing and the mountains are so beautiful, alluring, and downright seductive. I can't help but want to climb them, when I see them.

The cool thing that I've written about before is that in the process of not attaining my goals I get to see some beautiful country that you don't get to see unless you go. Plus I have picked up a lot of skills having to do with camping, hiking, mountaineering, climbing. I can scamper around with trekking poles, glissade with an ice axe, and cook when it's windy using the tent vestibule as a wind block (one of those "don't try this at home" things that most every backcountry camper has to do at some point in time.)

But that doesn't change just how disappointed I am and it's just sinking in. It's supposed to be that if you train for something that you should be able to do it. Not in the case of altitude. There are ways to work with it but there isn't a way to condition for it. You are what you are. It's funny though. According to textbooks I'm more typical and everyone else is just getting away with breaking the rules. Textbook aclimatization is 1000' gain per day with 2 days at the same elevation every few days (I'm forgetting the number). No one does that - not even on Everest. I think the textbooks would say they are not aclimatizing. On Whitney that's true. On Everest that can't be true as if they didn't aclimatize some they'd be dead. But this is a disgression from just how profoundly sad I am about this. It's a loss and one that I'm still processing.

Other topics for later

Marmots

Fire / Whitney Portal evacuation

Badwater Ultramarathon - "card carrying masochists"

Depressed appetite in the mountains and the inability to eat enough - (I lost 3% body fat in 4 days). This one is not yet written as I don't have enough information.

And where I take it all back:
Altitude Problem Solved (on paper)

Michael Jackson - His Effect on Others

While I am of the opinion that Michael Jackson, systematically killed himself, probably unintentionally, through the things that he repeatedly put his body through trying to make himself into something he wasn't instead of celebrating the incredible gifts that he had. He really was quite honestly one seriously messed up dude. HOWEVER!

I'm watching his memorial service on msnbc.com (thanks for allowing us to see it) and have been following the story over the past few days. He continues to have the most incredible effect on others - maybe even more so now. The anguish and the outpouring of grief - seeing what he meant to them. He was very much a symbol. It's been pointed out over and over just how many color barriers he brought down.

Every one who spoke, clearly never, ever expected to be in the position they were in now. They obviously wanted to do it, but not something they would have anticipated.

Speakers and Performers (I have missed some):
Stevie Wonder (spoke), Kobe Bryant (spoke), Smokey Robinson (spoke), Rev. Al Sharpton (spoke), John Mayer (guitar), Brooke Shields (spoke), Jermaine Jackson (sang), Martin Luther King III (spoke), Bernice King (spoke), Sheila Jackson Lee (Rep D-Tx) (spoke). Usher (sang), [right around now the feed has gone down drat] Finally got it restarted - everyone who spoke plus a lot of others is on stage (Jesse Jackson is there) and I don't know who is on stage but she's singing Heal the World (make the world a better place for you and for me), and I have never seen Usher and Brooke Shields standing together. The brothers Jermaine and Marlin are making parting comments. What's different is they are now talking directly to Michael, then shifting to talking about him. Marlin made the pointed comment of "You had to take so much pain. .. Maybe now they will leave you alone" he also requested Michael give Brandon (who has passed away) a hug. His daughter, Paris, came on to tell me he was the best Dad and thanked him and cried (if nothing else gets you this will). Then Marlin said goodbye and the casket was wheeled out.

The entire Jackson family was there with the men all wearing one glove.

Stevie Wonder was of course amazing, Sharpton was moving and talked about all the color barriers that Jackson brought down and how he never quit [to his detriment I think], Lee spoke of politics and making a difference like MJ did, and couldn't resist throwing in "innocent until proven guilty," and she and many others talked about his good works, and hospital visits, and charity work, and that MJ will be honored as a world humanitarian by the House. But no one seemed to see as incredibly genuine as Brooke Shields. I have never seen Shields really stop and appear to really really connect with her experience and relate it so well. Just watching her in a completely different context is fascinating. I never expected to be teary eyed watching Brooke Shields (?!)

Some friends are saying that they're avoiding watching the service. I do such things as cultural literacy but I was completely sucked in as it's really moving and I realized I was watching something much much larger than a simple memorial service.

More info: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31772026

Tomato Plant II

Consider this a post mortem, alas there will be no sequel at least for this plant.
It's basically a drying stick with green tomatoes on it. Its death was dramatically fast (days).

After thinking about all the ways I could have caused it (here), I realize now that, not only did I not do anything much wrong, I was missing the obvious one to point the finger at: Home Depot. The one thing I didn't have control over was the soil the plant was planted in and the Southern Blight could have easily slipped in that way (ok I didn't control the seed or it's initial "upbringing" (if you will) either or what it was fed which come to think of it if you're growing something to eat is very much a concern.)

This time I didn't grow plants from seed (actually only have done that once - quite rewarding, but takes more time). Usually when I buy started plants it's from a local nursery who gets them from local growers. This time I was at Home Depot anyway so I decided to try their tomatoes and basil. So far we're 3 for 4. I made the mistake of tossing the tag so I don't know where the plants came from. I know that Home Depot would replace the plant if I asked them to but after thinking about it for about a second I decided no thanks. I don't want to bring in any more "gifts" from them. I'm just glad they're in a planter and not in the soil.

So my local nurseries (Encinal Nursery, East Bay Nursery, Grand Lake Nursery, also Thompson's and Berkeley Hort though I've never bought tomatoes there) will be happy to know that I'll be back and am very sorry I strayed.

So now it's what to do with green tomatoes besides frying them. IF I want to eat them at all as Southern Blight eventually affects the tomato as well. I'm keeping a careful eye on the other plant which while not sick is not looking spectacular either.

Sarah Palin Stepping Down as Alaska Governor

CNN Breaking News tells me that Sarah Palin is resigning as Alaska's governor, and already there is speculation that she's considering a run for the presidency in 2012.

If I stop and listen, I can hear a the murmur of liberal pundits, writers, humorists and bloggers throughout the land saying with one voice:

. Run Sarah Run

Her running as the running mate of a competent contender is what was worrisome in this past election as having her one step away from the presidency almost by accident was more than a nightmare.

But she, herself, running for president? How perfect is that? We get two years of entertainment and slightly appalling flashes of being presented with Too Much Information, and get to watch the Republican Party try to manage her and not be able to. I really want to see her debate Obama though I know she won't get that far. As Stephanie Miller said: I miss the [Palin] word salad. I'm sure Rachel Maddow will be thrilled also.

Oh this should be fun or a train wreck or both.

Ill Tomato Plant

I am so bummed. One of my tomato plants is clearly dying and I have to decide whether to take it out to save the other one or try and nurse it till the tomatoes ripen (more than a month to go).

Here are my two plants. They've been doing well for the entire time:

Then right after a heat wave it started showing wilted leaves, so I thought it needed more water (many of the plants showed some stress after that), Extra watering perked them all up except this one. On further examination I see that things are not looking good at all. It's dying from the root up and there are bumps all over the "trunk."

What makes things hard is the tomatoes on the ill plant are looking good.

So now it's off to do tomato research.

As I feared this is bad. Southern Blight is what matches the description:
http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetablepatch/a/TomatoProblems.htm

Southern Blight is a disease that can hang out in the soil and comes out when it's hot and wet. (Drat.)

There are similar distressing photos here:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/publications/tomatoproblemsolver/root/south_blight.html
and here:
http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/our_offices/departments/Plant_Pathology_Crop_Physiology/Plant_Disease_Clinic/Disease_Image_Gallery/Herbs_Vegetables/Tomatoes/Tomato+Southern+Blight.htm

This site:
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/blight1.htm

says I need to remove the plant and burn it (good luck with that in my city), and don't compost it. My recycling company uses a high temperature composting method that you can even put rotting meat into, so I don't think composting is a problem.

Here's one novel solution:
http://gardeningtoybox.bloghi.com/2009/01/20/how-to-get-rid-of-tomato-blight.html

But I don't think I need to do that. I have complete control over the soil in that planter and had completely changed it out this year. My planting mix is a simplification of Martha Stewart's (make fun of her all you like, but she knows her stuff)
http://www.marthastewart.com/article/all-purpose-soil-recipe?autonomy_kw=soil&rsc=header_3
I notice that her mix keeps changing, bit by bit - didn't used to have bonemeal or charcol.
The dirt is actually optional and I don't use it as it's too much of an unknown.
It used to be: peat moss, compost: sand, dirt (optional), vericulte and perlite
I'm a little suspicious of soil with pure white things in it (perlite) so for a while I haven't used it or vermiculite. Being lazy this year, I didn't add sand in and only used peatmoss and organic compost (chicken shit actually). Now it would be easy to suspect the virus hanging out in the poulet merde (the google spell checker must know french though I don't know how to turn it on) but I think the fatal mistake was not having enough things in the soil that didn't retain water (sand, perlite, even gravel) - apologies for the double negative, so even though it was on a drip system it was still retaining too much water and it would get occasional hand watering as well.

So depending on how much work I want to do today I may be able to make a difference here.

First take the ill plant out and put it in a separate planter - it's probably doomed, but I can give it a hospice bed if it's quarantined and not sharing soil. For the healthy-appearing plant it would really help it to get sand in its soil, but I'm not sure how to do that without traumatizing it. With the ill plant gone it might be able to dry out on its own. I'll have to go see how difficult this is going to be. It's a bummer as I'm so proud of the elaborate tomato cages I created this year with bamboo stakes and tie wraps but I can always do it again.

[time passes]
And that's exactly what I did. The ill plant is in a large pot that I had sitting around waiting for another job besides holding agility PVC. I lined the bottom with play sand which I had left over from a stepping stone project. Why I didn't use it in the soil mix escapes me, unless I did and just didn't use enough of it. Put the sick plant in and filled in the rest with sandy Alameda dirt which I usually never do as these houses didn't have trash service for a long time so all sorts of rubbish is literally in it (though the plants I put in the ground have done well - what does that mean?

The remaining plant I aerated some with a pole and poured a bunch of sand all over it and tried to work it in also leaving the hole where the other one was mostly open. There is signs of blight on the remaining one's tomatoes so all may be lost, but I'll give it my best shot. I don't know if my Farm Agent grandfather woutl be proud or appalled. Farm people take the heavy handed approach and quickly. Both plants would have been destroyed immediately and the soil scattered to dry or let fallow for a couple of years. But I am a not a farmer, but a namby pamby home organic gardener (that would completely puzzle him as he passed away before any of us could spell organic.) Maybe I should talk to one of my cousins who did a stint as an organic farmer.

Perhaps Some Lessons in Marketing to Americans are in Order

New restaurants in Alameda are fond of littering our doorway with menus. One that just appeared is a new combination Chinese-Vietnmese place. Now I love a lot of the non-beef Vietnamese food as they often use very fresh vegtables and the noodles are delicious. Having it be combined with Chinese food which is so often famously bad for you in that high fat often tasty way gives me some pause and I wonder if we have a literally mixed marriage here.

I open the menu and look at the noodle soups (a favorite), and I realize I am looking at a few 100 items none of which are veggie. Now I eat poultry and seafood, but I often eat veggie and tend to use the precense of veggie items as a mark of at least some sort of awareness of healthier choices and what a lot of people want (some alledgedly fine dining places are equally guilty of no veggie choices which is pretty inexcusable given that the don't have any cultural barriers to deal with). I find a couple of accidentally veggie items on the very last page, and ONE veggie and tofu rice plate. Not a good sign, not a place I'm going to bring veggie friends to.

Going back to the top of the menu I see Pho Ga which is Chicken Noodle Soup and decidedly not your mother's Cambell's Soup, and is often delicious. The very next item is "Pho Ga Long Trung Non" which in the points for honesty category is Chicken Noodle Soup with Intestines added. Pause. Now I was taught how to cut up a chicken, I know that even though I find them off putting, they're ok to eat. Though we would remove the intestines, my Farm Agent grandfather ate them and he lived to be 86 back in the day when it was still unusual for a guy with heart disease to live that long (the 70's), so it clearly wasn't harmful to at least him. But still, a lot of Americans of European descent aren't going to want to hear about Chicken intestines, especially things like Combination Chicken & Intestine Porridge (ok, that made me shudder a bit) and Pork Blood Porridge.

Ok enough of the menu. I close it and put in on the desk. I can't resist looking down at it. The reason? There is a picture of (a) a bowl of Pho (b) a dead plucked hanging duck and (c) a complete and very dead pig with one ear pointing up. Eeeek. OMG, can you say cultural divide? This is why you see ducks hanging in the front window in China town. They consider it truth in advertising. Someone needs to explain to them that perhaps that's a bit much truth.

So even though I've completely lost my appetite right now I will probably give their Pho Ga a try someday when I've worked my courage back up.

GPS pondering

Part I

So after having driven off the map multiple times and having no inclination to stop doing so, I need to either go back to maintaining a great set of maps (might still so that), or buy a GPS.

Unlike backpacking GPSs, where they keep the price the same and just keep piling more features in - though in all fairness they're not that much money, in-car ones have come down in price and have gotten quite affordable as long as you're talking portable and not the specialized in-dash variety.

Just for fun, I checked to see how much that in dash Navigation System is for my Scion (which I turned down at the time.) $1800. Eeeeegads. That's enough to buy two top of the line portables and still have considerable lunch money, and I don't even need a top of the line one.

I'm a Garmin fan and I don't have any need to change so I started there first:

On the road-Automotive:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&ra=true

After some time with the Comparison feature I decided that I wanted Widescreen and something I could update (they all can do that it turns out), and having the street names read outloud to you sounded like a nice touch "Turn Right on Elm St" (rather that just Turn Right)

So the nuvi 1300 looked like a good choice:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=30950

Great - where do i get one? Well since I've never used an automotive GPS, going to look and touch one at a brick and mortar store sounded like a good idea. Garmin tells me that Sears and Best Buy and another one I'm forgetting have them. Well I like Best Buy over Sears, so I checked out their site to get an idea of their stock and they talk about a 1300T which the Garmin site doesn't even mention. The difference is that instead of just having the maps to the 48 states preloaded it also has ones for Hawaii and Puerto Rico. I pause a moment to consider this. I've driven in Hawaii - all around Oahu. One single map was just fine thank you. Ok 2 if you include the trail map. A GPS was most certainly not necessary. The idea of paying extra for such a feature amuses me, but sends me back to look further.

I probably should of just stuck with the 1300T. On checking the Garmin comparisons further (they highlight the differences with a slightly different color) I see that the nuvi 1350 has a feature that tells you what the correct lane you need to be in. Oooo that's a feature worth paying for since most of my misadventures start with being in the wrong lane. However is that worth $50? Hmmmm.

I think it's time to backtrack to the cheapest Widescreen and go from there.

Part II
Fortunately Garmin allows you to limit the blizzard of choices by selecting features on the left.

I selected Widescreen and the choices shrank down to just a couple of pages. Glancing down to the cheaper ones I see there's a different family of the nuvi that is the 200 series: 205W, 255W and the 265WT. So I compared those and the 1300.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?cID=134&compareProduct=30950&compareProduct=13432&compareProduct=13431&compareProduct=13430

The 205W doesn't have the street name announcements, and a friend said her experience was that the street names helped a lot. The difference between the 255W and 265WT seems to be Bluetooth and the stated advantage is that you can use your phone hands free which doesn't sound like an advantage at all.

To quote:

For hands-free calling, nüvi 265WT integrates Bluetooth® wireless technology with a built-in microphone and speaker. Just pair it with your compatible Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free through the 265WT while staying focused on the road. Simply dial numbers with nüvi's touchscreen keypad to make a call. To answer calls, just tap the screen and speak into its built-in microphone. Enjoy convenient one-touch dialing for contacts and points of interest.

I don't think that's worth $50 more than what the 265WT is to the 255W.

So the 255W's page is here:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=&pID=13431
List price is $219.

Checking Best Buy ...
As luck would have it it's on sale for $169.99

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcat17005&type=page&_requestid=152721

Sold. Cool.

An Honest Man - The Gabriel Method for Weightloss

I keep an ear/eye out for scams, frauds, come ons and general bad deals. (I am also a fan of mixed metaphors which is why the one in the title is still there - I swear it was an accident - they make the best ones). When the bottom fell out of the housing market, my favorite one, and how this all got started, the predatory house lending offer, has pretty much disappeared fortunately and I have to look elsewhere.

What gives me hope for humanity are the ones that hold up to scrutiny. The ones that accidentally made themselves look like scams by their choice of advertising such as AM Radio commercials and Facebook advertising. (Examples are Laurel Langmeyer's The Millionaire Maker, and James Lehman’s Total Transformation Program for dealing with your kids - use Google to learn more - this isn't about them)

What this is about is Jon Gabriel and The Gabriel Method.

In 2001, Jon Gabriel weighed over 400 pounds and in his words had tried every weightloss method there was and got a handy dandy wake up call by being scheduled on the ill fated, and famous 9/11/2001 United Airlines flight 93 to San Francisco - a flight he actually didn't make, and which lit a major motivational fire under him (funny how nearly dying does that to us mortals - never mind that if we're dead it doesn't matter anymore). So he set off to figure it out himself and things started to click. Fast forward to 2004. Garbriel now weighs 184 pounds and is maintaining that loss. We're talking a 220 pound weight loss and he has no extra skin (http://www.gabrielmethod.com/about-jon-gabriel). What he describes is convincing his body that it wanted to be thin. This is very much in the "the mind is a powerful thing" category.

The fact that his mind could influence the cell programming of his fat cells to reset to a lower preferred level is what is catching my attention. As many know (I should get a ref but well, I know you know :) your body has a preferred size, making weigh loss difficult. If you try to starve it off, when you stop paying attention, your body will shift into a super efficeint mode to horde every calorie and you could well gain more weight. This happened to me. I carry an extra 10 pounds got sick of it and got impatient and decided to just starve it off (it's only 10 pounds for heaven's sake). I got half way there and then the holidays happened and I stopped paying careful attention. Shazam. I regained the weight plus another 3-5. Boy was I peeved. I'm now back to my usual weight and am wondering whether Mr. Gabriel's approach might be perfect, but I digress.

Full disclosure I don't own the book though I may get it since his methodolgy is very intriguing, but what I really find interesting about him is what he's not doing, and he's showing incredible restraint in doing so.

Here's the deal. For $25 you can buy his book (I'll skip the link since it's certainly not benefiting me :) which describes his story and approach. Fair enough. And after you read the book you can get a CD of his with visualizations (Sounds to me like self hypnosis). Right. And how much is that? Zero. It's free with the purchase of the book. It's what? What kind of guru is this guy?
Oh wait I see a "limited time offer" in fine print so he may not be the complete financial golden child, either that or a business advisor had given him a talking to about giving out free advice that could easily make him more money.

And according to this website: http://www.womens-health.com/boards/weight-loss/7103-gabriel-method.html he's been giving free advice over the phone and there is a whole bunch of him on You Tube (I can see his business manager slapping him around right now). I have some You Tube links below.

Doing the research on this amused me. The cons to his method were listed as (my comments in []):
- holistic, not specific [because I need to be told exactly what to do]
- gradual, too slow [I think it's been proven over and over again that successful, non-surgical weightloss is gradual, and look at the dates on the pictures on his site - it was pretty dramatic.]

Refs:
http://www.gabrielmethod.com/
http://www.dietsinreview.com/diets/the-gabriel-method/
http://redesignedmom.com/2009/04/11/the-gabriel-method-new-article-series/
http://www.womens-health.com/boards/weight-loss/7103-gabriel-method.html

Gabriel has over 10 videos on You Tube. Here are just 2.

Visualizing Your Ideal Body:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYBtzirD3Q
The Mind-Body Commection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knc8Qzf6COs&feature=related

Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett; Change of Heart, The Lion's Game

While I'm still miffed that Jackson's death has overshadowed Farrah Fawcett's, it is understandable. Fawcett was a little older (62) and has been battling anal cancer for 3 years, her death was very sad, but not a complete surprise. Jackson's death, while on some level not a surprise at all (kinda frail, subjected himself to a whole bunch of medical procedures, though a great dancer and still in ok physical shape), did seem to take a whole bunch of folks unawares. Jackson was only 50 and was working on a new show. People were really hoping he could grow up (dammit) and get past some of the drama that has plagued him, and to summarize: just shut up and dance. It will be interesting to hear what the autopsy results show.

Taking a break from the book Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult.
I'm halfway through listening to Change of Heart and I desparately need a break from all the angsting. So I decide to get a highly rated spy thriller The Lion's Game by Nelson Demille. While it doesn't have quite the same moral angsting that Change of Heart does, it's not like it's relaxing. In Change of Heart 2 people die, Lion's Game is up to a few hundred and I'm only 1/4 of the way through it. There's just less dwelling on the deaths. Change of Heart has characters reliving their guilt trips over and over again, and agonizing about how to make decisions in light of what's happened, Lion's Game is the much more simple: chase those bad guys.

Farrah Fawcett, Health Net, The book: Change of Heart, Michael Jackson

Going to try to treat this a little more like Twitter since I've seen other bloggers do it, though here I get to use as many lines as I like. I could also do Facebook updates, but am conscious of overwhelming my friends news feeds, so I try to keep that down to two a day or so.

Farrah Fawcett
CNN breaking news tells me that Farrah Fawcett has died at 62 of cancer. Details aren't out yet, but will be soon. I grew up watching Charlie's Angels and while I'm not at all like her (I'm more the Kate Jackson type) I did admire her being out there hair and all. However what is giving me the more pause is realizing that Fawcett had the world's best medical care and also took care of herself. She's been diagnosed for a while and was in remission but it came back and didn't let go. I find this sobering. It's easy to kill yourself over time by not taking care of yourself, and not getting good medical care, but for this to happen to someone who's done probably everything right and to be so relatively young is sobering. These days you have to financially plan on living to 90, and people of both genders routinely make it to 80 these days (my own parents are 83 and 86), but it doesn't always happen that way, despite all of our efforts.

The Health Net Dance
My own annual Health Net dance is entering what I hope is the final act. Each year because they way, way jacked up the cost of my copayment for my M.S. medicine I meet my max out of pocket expenses for the year in about February and then I start the 3-4 month process of telling them that I've met it and to please tell all the providers that. This time the part that I've met me maximum happened in record time (2-3 weeks) the problem is they left out the part that involves giving me my overpayment back. Plus there's also this part about having to file an additional claim to cover the part that I had to pay while they were taking their time processing the original part (which sometimes isn't necessary if they're paying attention).

It's now the end of June and I've now received my reimbursement check now it's time to get that last copayment overpayment back. I was hoping that this part wouldn't be necessary but this year it appears to be - sigh. Trouble is I have to keep reminding Health Net what they're job is without knowing what their job is unles they think to tell me. I've started keeping careful notes (thanks Google Docs) and can look up the pitfalls year to year. It's getting better, but it's still a pain in the rear each and every year.

The novel Change of Heart by Joli Picoult
http://www.amazon.com/Change-Heart-Novel-Jodi-Picoult/dp/0743496744
My book club is reading this and let's just say it's not light reading or listening (I'm going through the audio book). It's about the death penalty and several perspectives on it, plus some apparent magical reality showing up just when I was about to give up just to really complicate things. Other fluffy topics are freedom of religion, what exactly is religion, what compromises will you make to save your child, revenge, letting go of revenge. It's from multiple perspectives and all of the characters are 3 dimensional - even the secondary characters. It makes me cry (multiple times), yell, laugh, argue. It's just exausting. I'm nearing half way through and I think I'll stop and listen to a spy novel or a light comedy.

Michael Jackson Cardiac Arrest
I'm just ever so slightly offended that Michael Jackson is having heart problems the day that Farrah Fawcett passes away.

http://www.bestweekever.tv/2009/06/25/open-thread-michael-jackson-cardiac-arrest/

Now I read that he fell into a coma and died. I've removed the stuff of the history of his face.
Now the superstitious "these things go in threes" speculation begins. Trouble is that has been my experience so I am waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

Denali dreams

It's funny what one's mind does when you read about things that are incredibly hard (sometimes impossible), but still sound fun. Ah, romanticizing. I wonder why we do it. It's like the opposite of a survival mechanism. It serves no obvious purpose yet we clearly need flights of fancy as we have been telling each other stories since the time when we figured out how to talk. (Ok, I don't know that, but neither does anyone else and it's something we all seem to mostly agree on.)

Denali (AKA Mt McKinley) is a gorgeous mountain that I have spent most of a week looking at while taking a class on the Ruth Glacier in Denali National Park in Alaska. Here's a photo of it that I can proudly say that I took:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenclary/668251238/in/set-72157600562308186/?addedcomment=1#comment72157619790543347

I've also written before (and many others have also) that it's one seriously bad ass mountain (I have at least two books about that very subject). It's 20,320 feet, but at its high latitude apparently the effective altitude is much higher and it's cold, cold, cold (there are a lot of references for this which I should probably put here when I dig them up). The wind can howl for days - if you like being stuck in a small very battered tent for days, you will be in heaven (not I). Some people (heresay) say that Everest is actually easier (probably because they have the invaluable Sherpas). I don't know about that, but let's just say it's not Disneyland.

I write all that to remind myself of the reality, and in a valiant effort to not feel whistful when I read that American Alpine Institute has just had their 4th summit this season:
http://alpineinstitute.blogspot.com/2009/06/denali-summit-is-reached.html

Sigh. Now for more reality.
4 people have died on Denali this season and we're not talking amateur hour like you get on Mt. Whitney and Mt. Hood:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iL2d-SYDkcdlkzagLN4ThFBmKHowD98PHE982

Mountaineering is a fabulous way to get yourself killed, but I now have a family (a wife and 2 dogs :) and even though I do carry life insurance which is designed to cover the mortgage and would make a decent apology: "Sorry I died, but how about a nice paid for house?" For some reason, I don't think I'd be very easily forgiven.

Going with an excellent guide service like AAI certainly makes a huge difference and one of the best ways to increase your odds of coming home safely, but that's no guarantee. It's also the hardest climb they do (this is from one of their employees). You have to be able to carry a 60 pound pack and tow a 100 pound sled using snow shoes, not skis.

And there's the altitude thing which is what really kills it for me. You can't train for altitude really. Sure you can be in really good shape so at least you're not distracted by that aspect, but altitude can take you down even so. The one good thing about big mountains that you don't get with the smaller mountains like Rainier, and Shasta is that they build in a lot of aclimatization time and you can get pinned down which forces you to spend time at that elevation (or go down). But then I'd just get lonely and miss my family. I swear I'm just so not cut out for this. Fortunately my other obsession is dog sports is highly social and I'm going to be starting to learn group road biking which should be fun.

But I still get whistful and I think that's just going to be the way it is. I'm sure I'll come up with some compromise solution, but for now the only thing I have planned is Mt. Whitney and even though that's pretty high, I'm pretty sure I can succeed at it since I've done most of the route (and know it very well - I could guide it easily), we are going up gradually, and I've since gotten really good at pressure breathing (put a ref in here), and it's a silly, well used trail (you're not route finding - which is sort of a bummer since that's the fun part), and I've been sick often enough to know that so far, what I get is Acute Mountain Sickness (not HACE or HAPE) and I can cope with that for a day.

But Denali. Sigh.

Check Fraud - Wrap up and Lessons Learned

I've been delaying writing the end of my check fraud misadventure as the final details had not wrapped themselves up, but I'm going to take a chance and say they are.

As I detail here, someone(s) created and wrote fraudulent checks against my checking account.
The bank asked me to speculate who I thought it was and I cheerfully did so as the obvious suspect was a large, busy Doctors' office who I had no history with and written a check to.

After I sent that off I started receiving nasty grams from Telecheck, who does the electronic check handling for Wal Mart. They had their undies in a twist about Wells Fargo stopping payment on the 2 Wal-Mart checks, and they wanted their money. By that time Wells Fargo had sent me a letter about the Wal-Mart checks saying that they obviously weren't mine and that the money had been refunded to me. Tele-check wanted a full notarized affidavit, but that was if I didn't have the bank behind me (in other words, if I was just reporting it to them), so I just sent them the bank report. The Wal-Mart charges were resolved just by a phone call to Wells Fargo, the 4 figure Nordstrom Rack nonsense is the one where I had to do the written affidavit (but never needed to notarize it - since it wasn't my signature that was in question.)

Some days pass, and I nervously watch my checking account get clobbered by late fees. Even though the account is frozen, electronic and pre-authorized transactions (both electronic and paper check that I've told them about) still go through. This is great as it protects me from further fraud but other things are not impacted. However there is a catch. I had forgotten about two rather large monthly preauthorized payments that went through overdrew the dwindelling funds (Tired of being ripped off, I had removed most of the funds except what I needed) and incurred still more overdraft fees. Peeved I called Wells Fargo and ran into a wall I'd never run into before. Customer Service said they'd be happy to help but they can't since the account is frozen and under investigation. Escalating to a supervisor got me the same exact story. Frustrated I printed out the details and wrote a letter to the fraud people supplying the case number. The fees disappeared a few days later. They might of anyway if I'd done nothing but I felt better. WF did charge me $2 for the phone call even though it did me no good - I was not charged for reporting the fraud.

A few days later the Nordstrom Rack money reappears and all the service charge fees disappear, and I mean "disappear" they don't refund the fees like customer Service does, they make them completely vanish. Now that's power. Now I'm just waiting for one last check to clear (the Forest Service for Mt. Whitney)

Now you have to assume with these things that you're never going to hear back if anything happed from any investigation, but I got in the mail a letter from the merchant I pointed the finger at. It's written to all of the patients in the practice (not to me specifically) saying that they have received information that it's posible that some patient check or credit card information may have been compromised. GOTCHA! It's like you want to ask the person(s) responsible: "Was that really worth it?" You likely don't have a job now. You definitely are being investigated. You may be arrested. You may be sent to jail. You are or will be considerably poorer that you were before you decided to take this risk. You probably did this to get out of some severe money problems. Now those problems are worse. If you have a family things for them just got worse also, unless having you out of the picture helped.

This all appears to be winding down and guess who reappears again. It's TRS - Telecheck and the letter is mostly in CAPITAL LETTERS demanding payment (i think I saw them jumping up and down in it) saying that a collector will be contacting me (I'd welcome that, but they never did). It's like you want to sit them down and gently say: I'm so sorry, but there are bad people out there and sometimes bad people steal from you. (Especially if you're a large company dealing with a lot of money - probably why the letters get so strident.) I call the Wells Fargo check fraud people and the person helping me asked if they've sent me a "Merchant Letter." "Er, no."' I repond. After confirming which transactions we're talking about she says: Ok, we'll send you one out and you can just make copies of it and that should take care of it.

A few days letter as promised Wells Fargo send me an official letter saying that this transaction was fraudulent and this "in no way should reflect poorly on [me]." I send a copy of that letter off to TRS. Some days after I hear back from TRS acknowledging that they've received information that I may (ha) have been a fraud victim and could I help them out by doing this and this and this oh and this also, and please have it all notarized. Now normally I love helping out with investigations as I find the process completely fascinating, but I really have had enough of Telecheck, and after a careful reading of the letter to make sure that it's a request and not a requirement, I just file the whole thing with everything else.

I'm hoping I'm done with Telecheck. I must admit fearing I'm not. The thing is that I rarely use their service so how am I supposed to know if I'm still on this blacklist? The only way is to write a check to my regular Dr. who uses them which I guess I should do just to test it out, but I'm just not sure I care enough - but for completeness I should.

Lessons learned
- The first one is obvious. Don't write a check to someone you don't know. Use cash (I hate cash so this is an adjustment - I now record cash spent in my register which makes me feel better about it). If it's a business then use a debit or credit card. The problem with this is with tradespeople, but tradespeople don't have large offices so there's less cracks for a check to fall through.

- The other one was much less obvious. Whilw you shouldn't use that checking account again, don't be in a hurry to close the account until you have downloaded all the information you want from it. After I closed that account I immediately lost my online access to it. Calling up to complain about it repeatedly did no good. Asking to reopen the account did no good. My only access to it now is to ask Customer Service to mail me the statements. I know they keep them for seven years so I'm just leaving it be for now but I'm out about a year and a half of statements since I was a bit lazy about downloading them. I have switched all my accounts back to online and paper. This is ironic as I usually scan and shred most of my autopaid bills now, but this will cover me if I don't do it right away.

So I have emerged from this more educated and only about a few small dollars in small service fees (less than $10) poorer. I got all my money back. Wells Fargo did an excellent job handling it even with the stumbling blocks.

And let's hope I'm done with Telecheck.

Lassen Peak: Let's Hear It for Plan B

I am semi-bummed because we were rained out of our Shasta trip, but I admit to being kinda relieved too. It rained HARD all night long at Treva's in Redding on Wed night and we were supposed to leave Thur morning, but consulting the weather channel that morning showed the entire Western States under a cloud of rain and predicted to not lift until Sat.

More sobering were the thunderstorm predictions. If there is some place you do NOT want to be during a thunderstorm it would be on a mountain, especially when hanging on to an ice axe or trekking poles: "Here lightning lightning lightning, I have your favorite target right here." Well ok I could have been playing Golf on a mostly flat golf course, but still... I also decided that I didn't want to hang around in a wet 3 season tent as I like to climb in near perfect conditions (light snow falling is great, rain is not great at all). A 3 season tent is fine in the rain, but needs time to dry out - eventually it's going to soak through. I'll pass.

So it turned into a day trip to Lassen which was fun as the whole time we were in at least part of a cloud. Since it was a day trip and we were dressed for Shasta the weather just didn't matter (save for thunderstorms and there weren't any) and the rain became snow in just a few feet of elevation gain. that's right in June, snowing on Lassen at at just under 9000'. How cool is that? Patricia took a photo of me and since I was completely bundled up I was completely unrecognizable. She said I looked like a muppet.

We didn't get all the way up as, my friend, Patricia's knee started to catch (she has some torn cartilage in it that she needs to address), but we'll go back in Summer so she can see the mountain. Though she's been on it, she's actually never seen the mountain in person.

So it's time to focus on Whitney where Terri and I will be going in mid July. I'm pretty confident about it and I like that very much. The best thing going for us is that it's a well used TRAIL and not cross country. The other good thing is that there won't be much snow. Trouble is I love snow. You can fall in it and usually be ok, and you stay a lot cleaner, but snow progress is much slower than dirt when you're on foot unless you're glissading or skiing or sometimes snowshoeing. But dirt it is for now. Will keep training in the gym on an inclined tread mill 5 deg 15 min; 10 deg 15 min; 15 deg 30 min, and working in elements of my Shasta training plan that Courtenay at Body Results designed for me.

Predicting Trends and Getting it [Mostly] Wrong

I am pretty bad at predicting what will last and what won't.

While I'm not as bad as the person who quit his job at a start up because he was completely convinced that what they were involved with was completely ludicrous. They were working on something where someone would actually "log in" to a computer network and talk to other people - who would do that? What they were working on was related to the internet which as we know was a complete failure.

I at least had the fortune to see how powerful the internet and email was because I was thrust into the middle of it in grad school. I saw how useful it already was because we were using it. I didn't have to use my imagination.

But I've sure gotten other things wrong. I wish I had the email where a friend emailed me about this research project they were working on in Europe. It was called the World Wide Web and everyone would have a website where other people could come and check out what they had on their server. I was sending out an email newsletter at the time and would I be interesting in converting the newsletter to a special language they used called HyperText Markup Language (HTML)? Now I was in grad school. I routinely heard about lots of different research projects. I politely declined, though I at least knew to keep at ear out for such things, so I could tune back in when I saw "www.blah.com" show up on business cards and some really geeky magazine ads.

Ok so the Web I got semi-wrong. I got another one completely wrong. During the beginning of the DotCom boom there were a lot of online communities that were petering out. Things like AOL, and eWorld, and several others. Everything was becoming a fad and would have very brief but bright times in the spot light and 1000s of suddenly wealthy companies were trying to turn just about any idea into money. Everything was trying to move online including some people who tried to live their entire lives online (remember that?). So it was another time to be dubious of things even during that wildly optimistic time where nothing can go wrong (Can It?).

Someone (actually more than one) had come up with this idea of having auctions online. Where people could bid real money in an attempt to buy something they'd never seen before. Now if you've been to a real auction, you know there is a time before the auction where you can inspect what you're going to be bidding on. I bought my now vintage guitar at auction and I had a chance to play it before bidding on it. The idea of having auctions without an inspection period was completely nuts. Who on earth would do that? Really now. Come on. Oops. Yeah well I've bought many things on eBay since then - good thing I didn't go very public with that opinion.

If I was asked to guess how long people would put up with the chore of texting I'd get that wrong too.

So now we have Facebook, My Space, Twitter and a ton of other social networking sites. I don't see My Space lasting forever as Facebook does such a better job of it. Facebook is an obvious juggernaut and while I delayed getting involved in it for a long time, the phenomina of having people from 10, 20, 30 years ago plus some folks I didn't even know existed (an unknown cousin in my case) is most definitely a jaw dropping one.

But what's going to happen to the short attention span specialist Twitter? Facebook has a Twitter like function where you can say what you're doing right now, but Twitter is more set up for having your own page of updates without overwhelming your friends' news feeds. I don't know though. They really need to find a niche and they're certainly trying to. It's great for someone who is really busy and really interesting, and who has a fan base who wants to know what they're doing. Rachel Maddow has one which is great but wouldn't it be great if Obama had one (maybe he does I haven't checked.)

So I don't know what is going to happen to Twitter, but there is one prediction that I'm willing to put in print. Facebook will kill Classmates.com. I've complained quite a bit about the Social Extortion tactics of Classmates (will put a link in for that entry) where they will encourage you to contact someone you went to school with and then won't show them the message until that person pays them money. Apalling extortion. Even dating sites have higher class. In dating sites, the person who wants to send a message pays money, not the recipient. Because of Facebook, I have come into contact with many, many more people than I have with Classmates. Classmates.com will die it's only a matter of time.

A Legal Same-Sex Marriage: California's Version of "Honorary White"

Those of you who either remember or have studied the bad old days of apartheid in South Africa may have heard that a status sometimes awarded to those of a different race traveling to S. Africa was "Honorary White." I had heard of the term in 1982 from a friend who was from there and it made such an impression that I remember the conversation clearly. Now that I'm researching it I find the specific details a a little different according to this 1962 Time Magazine article, as it was used for Japanese who traveled there because, well, money talks - at least then it did.

What relevance does this have now? Well none I wish, but the analogy keeps occurring to me.
According to the Calif Supreme Court, my same-sex marriage is legal. My marriage is one of 18,000, which lands us all in this really strange position. We have been granted admission to a country club that has shut the door on all the other riff raff just like us. The law of the land is that sames-sex marriage is not legal - oh except for you. What does that make me? An honorary heterosexual? You've got to be kidding. While I'll take it as I very much want to be married, that's equally as ludicrous as Honorary White. This will not last and it appears the court is of that opinion too and the court has requested the legislature fix the equal protection fubar that this leaves us in.

So we will vote on this in 2010 and possibly again in 2012. The cool thing is that while I'm annoyed at how much money this past election and the future ones will cost me in donations, I did not spend my life savings on it like some completely short sighted Yes on 8 morons let their church talk them into. If they spent their life savings on this past election, then they don't have it for this one or the next one and it also means they are completely illiterate when it comes to reading the writing on the wall. They're still stuck on "But we voted on it. Aren't we done?" (As if you can vote on someone's civil rights.) Um, remember prohibition? That was a US constitutional amendment and so was the undoing of it. The California constitution is much easier to amend (look it up).

And it means they're not noticing that children don't care nearly as much as they do about who marries who, save for maybe their children that they've succeeded in brainwashing.

So we continue to live in interesting times.

Rattlesnake Canyon

This week's Car Talk Puzzler is about Rattlesnake Canyon in Santa Barbara a place that I've hiked in many times, while I was thrilled to hear about it, I find the timing ironic as parts of the area just burned in the Jesusita Fire in early May. (Yes, like 3 weeks ago.)

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/44397807.html

http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/12/jesusita-fire-nears-containment-new-phase-begins/

The puzzler is why is the water level higher in August than in the beginning of summer even though the rainy season doesn't start till Nov or so. I could swear there's a hot spring on the trail and was sure that it had something to do with that (the summer heat maybe bringing the water out more), but I can't find a reference to a hot spring, just a description of the pool that people would play in created by a very old filled in dam (this part i remember well). There are also a lot of very cool small falls on the trail. The water is clearly from a spring, so it's possible that the fact it's from a spring has something to do with it. Though I can't figure it out as the spring on Shasta stops running late in summer so it's probably not from a normal spring which brings me back to there must be a hot spring in there somewhere. My memory of the area just isn't clear enough - guess I spent too much time playing around the water (it was a great obstacle course) and didn't soak in the water much. There are worse fates.

Anyway I'm sad about the area burning. I know it's intended to burn, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Shasta Prep

I have a mountain of food in the living room and I'm just not really up to organizing it, so I've asked for Patricia's help. I'm getting less and less thrilled with playing house in the mountains. I like to climb things, but the mechanics of going on a trip into the mountains I am not fond of. If I could keep up with groups, I could just always go on group trips. Problem is that I like to do my own trips and itineraries as I'm pretty good at route finding. Maybe I should just hire someone to help me prep for a trip (menu creation and organizing). I don't know who does that, but someone must. There are plenty of underemployed guides who cook. While I'm dreaming I could just have my own sherpa and a cook too.

It's likely going to be wet and rainy at Shasta. I don't know whether I'm disappointed about that or relieved. given that my goal is just to get above Helen Lake (hopefully up to the Red Banks), that should be completely doable in the wet, but if the temperature doesn't drop enough at night to refreeze the snow, it would mean being in soft snow the whole time and that just won't work and I would not be inclined to leave at midnight which is what it would take for me to get that far as I climb slower than average. Mountaineers leave at night because frozen snow is much easier to climb (using crampons), and mountain weather in the afternoon is unstable so it's best to head down at noon. I can climb to Helen in the dark as I've done that part of the trip more than twice. I've been as far as 50-50 Flat (which is not flat just not as steep) around 4 times, as far as Spring Hill more than 6 as I can reach it during a day trip from the Bunny Flat trailhead. So the lower part of the route I know well - well enough to know that the trail to Horse Camp is actually harder than just staying in Avalanche Gulch proper and then traversing left at the treeline.

However past Helen is where things get really steep and really tough (though no crevasses fortunately). The slope on the part of the route just below the Red Banks is over 30 degrees. It's that part that I want to try just to see how it is. Fortunately I have good ice axe skills (I'm a glissading queen) and am good at self arresting (using an ice ax to stop yourself when you fall on a snow slope), however a 30 degree slope is usually not where you want to test your skills as simply hanging on to the ice ax in that scenario is really hard and if the snow is firm you may not be able to get the pick into the snow and you may find yourself taking a fast trip back down to Helen. This happens to a Shasta climber one or twice a year though deaths aren't common fortunately (there's a dangling modifier in there but it's too awkward to fix - I'll assume you understand that it's not just one Shasta climber that this happens to.)

For the most part we're going to be hanging out at the Sierra Club's beautiful "Horse" Camp. There are no longer any horses there, in fact you can't even have dogs there, though you can outside of the Sierra Club property. In fact you can take your dog as far as Helen. Which dog would be a fun question as Yoshi is in better shape and there are hardly any dogs there but he's such a nervous boy. Trek is more resilient about the outdoors, in the snow there would be no poop to find and eat or roll in, and she'd love the quiet though she's currently not in as good of shape but we're working on that. I'm supposed to be writing about a snow trip and I'm again writing about my dogs - what does this mean?

Star Trek: Sylar as Spock

Google tells me that I'm about a year and a half behind on this, but I like the fact that I didn't know this going into the film as then I got to experience the unsettling realization firsthand.

Sylar, the serial killer in Heros season 1 (played by Zachary Quinto) is now Spock in the new Star Trek film. Ok, Sylar isn't there but those Quinto eyes have an intensity that both Sylar and Spock share, and underscore the uncomfortable fact that the characters are two sides of the proverbial coin. An ambiguity that the always brilliant J. J. Abrams seems to thrive in.

According to this article
http://www.tvguide.com/news/Heroes-Baddie-Logical-13093.aspx
Heros creator Tim Kring thought it was cool too. It is a fun circularity as Sulu shows up in Heros.

Check Fraud

I've been waiting to post about this until I had some resolution, and now I do.

In early April, I received an email from the bank saying that they'd transferred money to cover an overdraft. I knew there was enough money in the account so I immediately checked and saw two charges totaling $800 to two different Walmarts. I never go to Walmart so I called the bank and we went through the process of filing a report which involved answering a series of questions that basically said I had nothing to do with the charges and I was not involved in some elaborate, impressive sounding theft conspiracy involving buying things and then walking away with the merchandice while claiming fraud (people do this? yeesh.)

That all completed I had two incident numbers and a promise of 10 days to resolve it.
(though it all worked out in the end.) Since they weren't sure if it was just a mistake or actual fraud, they suggested leaving the account as it is for now while they check. To cover some real checks I had coming in I transferred money to cover it. That was a mistake

The next day I checked the account and the balance looked similar except there was a minus sign in front of it. Hmmm. Checking further showed that evil check kiter had written 1300+ to Nordstrom Rack on two different visits. I didn't even know it was possible to spend that much at Nordstrom Rack. The reason the account balance looked similar was a coincidence. They had sent it into the red to nearly the same amount it was in the black yesterday. $#@%@#!!! I could see the check images and they were completely different, but had my name and address on them and my account number. I had the actual blank checks of the check numbers they had chosen. Peeved I called the bank again and this time they said I should freeze the account and go to the branch and open a new account. I told them all the checks that were outstanding. They told me that electronic access would still work but only those checks would go through.

So I went and opened a new account, and told the 5 parties who had the checks. All but the Forest Service said they'd destroy them and I wrote them new ones - the Forest Service had already been sent off and later cleared.

Wells Fargo sent me an affadaviat to fill out. I did and on form they asked my who I thought might be responsible. They're actually asking me to speculate? Wahoo, because I sure had a very good idea who it might be. You see I usually only write checks to friends and dog agility orgs. I have a long history with all these folks and I trust them. The only unknowns were the out of town Forest Service, and a relatively large local Dr's office who I had never been to before. Given that our steroidal shopper was very local and the Forest Service is in Bishop, I had a nice big target to point to and I did so and said why.

Also in my report, just to make things plainly obvious, I included printouts of the cashed checks and my completely different looking blank checks with the exact same number.

To be continued...

Self Sabotage

I keep having to remind myself how much I dislike hiking by myself. I forget. I start thinking about how fun it will be to climb something and someone else isn't around who wants to go, and when I go and do it I find myself pretty much instantly now saying "I hate this" It's the weirdest thing - a complete cognitive disconnect. I wonder if this is what childbirth is like? No, this isn't even close, but the crave/hate phenomena seems to come up in a lot of ways. Addiction comes to mind but I don't have an overpowering urge to hike, I just like to explore, but don't like to feel like I *have* to do it alone.

One issue is that after snow, dirt just isn't any fun at all. Climbing snow is much more work, but snow is much more fun. It's prettier, and it often doesn't hurt when you fall on it. (Though granted it can be cold, and it can be hazardous in different ways than dirt and rock.) My last snowshoeing day trip I was fine, my last time on dirt at Mt Diablo (Eagle Peak) I was miserable even though everything went well.

I'm also setting myself up to fail on Shasta and I'm not sure what's going on. I'm not getting enough time to train and am unwilling to make more time. I even paid a trainer to design a perfect strength workout for me, but the best I can do is once a week instead of twice. At least I am exercising in some fashion pretty much every day, but it's not likely to be enough. My goal at Shasta is pretty modest. Get further than Lake Helen as that's the furthest I've been so far. This is totally within my grasp as I've been up to Helen at least twice and could have gone further, but wanted to glissade. Now that I've spent a couple of winters skiing I can probably resist the perfect glissade and continue on.

But I'm having a major attitude struggle and after this climbing season I really do need to take a break from it. (It really is time to get that road bike and deal with my hip injury). Though I fear pausing climbing as I will be 50 in a few years and while people climb well into their 70s, it's harder, and I fear my MS symptoms coming back and interfering with things like walking. Of course, this worry and stress doesn't help preventing my MS symptoms. They say that MS really isn't stress related (an old disproven theory was that MS was stress related), but the more stressed I am the worse my symptoms are. Within 3 hours of learning that my beloved dog Cali had a spleen full of tumors and had to have it removed right then, I went half blind in one eye. This wasn't psychosomatic, a later MRI showed damage to the optic nerve. Fortunately, I recovered from that, but the lesson for me is pretty clear. Beat up on yourself at your peril. Of course, then I start beating up on myself for beating up on myself. I'm so good at this. Sigh.

Beware of Trial by Media

The distressing case of the murder of Tracy girl Sandra Cantu, is getting more distressing by all the media coverage, speculation, and the invitations by Kron 4 and others for people to share their views. I'm obviously a huge free speech advocate, but I also believe in our judicial process. The more we stir up a lynch mob, the less and less chance that her accused killer (look it up if you must) is going to get a fair trial anywhere outside of a mountaintop monastery in Tibet.

We all have a right to our opinion, but we do not have the right to try and convict her accused killer especially even before the wheels of justice have even started to turn. Take a breath, slow down and let those in charge do their jobs. Rushing to judgment is not going to bring Sandra Cantu back, nor is her killer any less guilty, and if it turns out the wrong person has been arrested then the real killer might get away with it.

Maybe we have been watching too many cop shows and want it all tied up within the hour.

Perhaps Not the Safest Place to Be on the High Seas

So just to stay semi-current on geo-political events I looked up where Somalia's location is. They are the eastern-most tip of Africa located on the Gulf of Aden right near where the Suez Canal lets out, which is seriously prime real estate if you're in the business of commandeering loaded merchant ships.

And who is on the other side of this not so quiet body of water? The nice calm (not), and nearly completely lawless country of Yemen. Yikes - Can you say shooting gallery? Trouble is, if you need to go from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean then the Suez Canal is just about the only practical way to go which makes the whole adventure a not so welcome crap shoot.

This newscast says that a 10th of the world's cargo travels through there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjAhAJVSgLM

What's really surprising to me is the size of the ships especially the ones described here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSp9OGK69oA

I was thinking that the best defense is not to stop and some have out run them, but some how they are able to catch the ships. And now the pirates have rocket launchers. Eek.

Dealing with Fraudulent Charges - Getting Worse

(this is Part 2 - Part 1 is below)

The day I discovered the Wal Mart charges. I checked pretty much everything financial having to do with me. I looked at all my bank accounts, and pulled all of my credit reports. Everything looked fine so it appears that the problem is isolated to a stolen checking account number.

That same day because I wanted to cover some outstanding checks and I didn't want my friends to have to deal with returned checks (my fees will be refunded but I can't say the same thing about there's), I transferred $ to cover those checks. Today I took a look and the number looked similar but there was a minus sign in front of it. Uh oh, that'll teach me to put more money in a questionable account. Looking at the account detail reveals that two more checks have come in and these are actual checks:

[I will put the images here once I edit them]

Looking at them shows the person didn't even try to match my signature and a coworker tells me that what the store is looking for is a match to a drivers license signature. That implies that they have a driver's license with my name on it which is a little scary and makes me wonder if I should get a new one - however they're using a different number so that won't help. And I just love the high end places they're going. $800 and $400 at Nordstrom Rack? How the heck do you spend $1200 at Nordstrom Rack? What kind of clothes horse are we dealling with here? A not very bright one or a desperate one as the checks are stamped with the time, date, and cash register number and these places have cameras. Maybe she (let's be sexist and assume she - there's a large home depot just down the street from that store) is wearing a large hat or something. And she is able to print off new checks (I really wish that wasn't possible), and get a hold of a fake driver's license.

So the recommendation now is to close and freeze the account, and open a new one. I've done that, but now I'm in a 2 week poor house holding pattern while I wait for them to return the $2000+ to me. I do have some money in the house account that I can use and there's Bank of Terri and my work has graciously offered to help out if I need it.

So the question is how did this happen and what can I do to avoid it in the future. It's clear that I need to use cash and avoid checks for lower amounts to buisinesses I don't know which is a royal pain, I hate cash more as it disappears so easily, so I'm going to have to treat cash like a check and write it down in the register. As far as what happened to the check, number one suspect is a large dr's office where I'm not a regular customer. Most of my checks are to friends and to well known agility organizations who I trust. I almost always use my debit card for retail situations. Ironically it's the house accout that's more vulnerable since more large checks go through it, but so far it's been ok.

It would be cool to have an account that stipulates the checks have to look a certain way and only that way. I'd put my photo on a check if it would help.

I sent email to those folks that had outstanding checks, saying that while I had told the bank about their checks that it would probably be better if they destroyed that check and I could write them new one.

So I wait.... (tick tick tick)

Dealing with Fraudulent Charges - the Start of the Story

(Good grief, this is the 301st entry of this blog - how'd that happen?)

I logged in this morning to find an overdraft alert email from my bank. First concern is - is it a legit email, but the language looked correct and more importantly they quote the correct last 3-4 digits of the account number.

I log into the account online (what did we ever do before the internet?), and what do I find? Two different charges from Wal Mart (where I never shop fortunately) totaling over $800. Yikes, to the phone I go to call my bank (after grabbing the checkbook so I have the account number).

The person helping said that these were ACH "checks" which is a paper check converted to an electronic check. She also pointed out that the check number of the original check is listed there. The number was just a little ahead of my current check number, and she asked if I had that check number with me. Fortunately I did and assured her I was looking at my own version of that check number.

She explained to me that they were going to investigate to see whether or not it was a simple mistake (like a digit transposition), or actual fraud. I had to answer some formal questions and got an incident number. Because there were two charges we had to do it twice and I noticed that the second number was 13 above the first. I asked "you mean that it's possible that 12 other cases were filed in the last 2 minutes?" She assured me that given the call center size that it was more than possible. Yikes.

Because it's not clear if it's fraud or not they weren't suggesting closing the account just yet, so we're leaving it open for now.

The plot thickens in the next entry...

That One Missing Set of Photos

Likes a lot of folks I take a lot of photos, and like for many folks they are a challenge to organize but I had a reasonably working system where I file them by date in drawers that can hold photo envelopes. (Digital photos now actually make this a while lot easier, but I digress.)

And like most everyone else there are always some photos that don't quite make it into the drawer or at least right away. I know this because I come across them from time to time, flip through them, "ha ha look at that," and often as not, instead of filing them, just put them back down right where they were. This can go on for years.

Then some knucklehead invented Facebook, and friends from 28 years ago are now gathering and trying to figure out who is in what photo. A set of the pick up and set down photos I have are of these folks. Some really funny ones. And guess what? I CAN'T FIND THEM!!! These photos have an audience awaiting - how often does that happen? They want to see them right now and the moment will lose its relevancy in a few weeks or months. The time for these very silly photos is NOW. #@!#@!$!!! Sigh. It just figures. I've gone through 100s of photos and they're not there. This means that they are sitting around somewhere. Somewhere close like within 20 feet of where the rest of the photos live. I have seen the photos in my house even though the photos are older than the time I've owned my house. They exist as I'm not the type to toss photos. If they could only talk. Well I guess it's just as well they can't.

This calls for major unearthing of long standing stacks of paper which is a small mountain of distractions so staying focused on the original goal is a challenge. I'm fairly organized except for paper which is my downfalling and I struggle with it. I'm shifting over to paperless which helps with the incoming things, but I'm not going backwards on that so I'm just going to have to do it. In my spare time of course.

Later...
I did find the photos. In a photo album. The rest are still missing, but the best ones are of course in the album and I've scanned them and posted them to Facebook much to my friends' delight and horror.

Sorting out the "G"s

Pretty much ever time you hear the news you hear something about G-some-number. I finally couldn't take it anymore as they were all running together in my head, so I had to at least try to parse it out some.

G stands for "Group" - they really need to think of something more original.

There are
G7 (formerly G6)
G8
G20

The G7 ("Group of 7" Yes, really.) are the finance ministers of seven industrialized nations:
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, and now Canada

The G8 (you can just guess what that stand for) also includes Russia and particularly focuses on the Northern Hemisphere and is a more general "heads of state" and has several subgroupings.

With the G20 we're back to finance ministers and government banker types of these governments:

• Argentina
• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Indonesia
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• South Africa
• South Korea
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States
• European Union

The current G20 meeting is in London and the UK is also suffering a major recession which is why they're getting some very angry protesters.

Ref:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102592516

Meal Creation by Wandering the Supermarket Aisles

First of all, full disclosure, I cook for fun. I do not have to do the amazing feat of feeding people on a day in day out basis. In fact, I'm not sure I could or if I did I would have no energy for anything remotely creative wrt cooking. Terri and I both cook and we don't have human children.

Just for fun today I was standing in the grocery store and was pondering lunch and my imagination got carried away and found myself dreaming up something that was a dinner not a lunch (for lunch I think I just had something simple like take out chicken wings and a salad.

So first I picked up some salad stuff and grabbed an onion and a head of garlic, then wandered past the meats but was still in lunch mode and thought that was too much trouble, but then I took a right into the canned/packaged fish/chicken and a small package of Wild Caught Salmon called out to me.While holding it I imagined onions, garlic, tomatoes, and capers all simmering with the salmon over a nice pasta.

The trick is remembering what you did. I'm not sure I have it all yet.

Salmon, Tomatoes and Klamata Olives over Pasta

olive oil
1/2 small white onion chopped (could have used more)
2 cloves garlic smashed and chopped (could have used more)
1 3 oz pkg Chicken of the Sea Wild Caught Smoked Salmon
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
some water (approx 4 oz)
salt
pepper
pinch of coriander powder
some dried basil (1 tsp?)
some dried oregano (1/2 tsp?)
5-6 klamata olives pitted and chopped - pit them like you smash the garlic - press down with the side of a knife the olive will separate from the pit.
red wine vinegar - I have no idea the amount, try 5 seconds of sounding like the Muppet Swedish Chef while shaking the bottle over the pan

What I wished I had
Italian Parsley
capers - forgot to buy them

and of course pasta - I used thin spaghetti but penne or bow tie would be nice

saute onion and garlic in olive oil till soft and delicious smelling, add salmon and let it heat through for a minute or so (it's already cooked). [Right around here put the pasta water on to boil] Add tomatoes and water (optional) bring to boil then as sauce reduces, add salt pepper, coriander powder, basil, oregano (and whatever herbs strike your fancy) reduce heat, [you should have the pasta in the water by now] let cook till sauce is further reduced and then add olives and sprinkle liberally with red wine vinegar, let cook for another few (I dunno 3-5?) minutes until it looks and tastes right.

Optional: Serve with salad and a baguette.

Ref: http://frap.org/Cooking/

Interest Rate Free Fall

I have a semi high interest savings account that I pay house expenses out of.

This is from a reputable bank fortunately, but the interest rates have recently been readjusting at a startling rate: Here it is from late 2007 on:

Nov 1, 2007 Interest Rate Change to 4.121% (4.20% APY)
Dec 13, 2007 Interest Rate Change to 4.025% (4.10% APY)
Jan 23, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.590% (3.65% APY)
Feb 1, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.348% (3.40% APY)
Mar 11, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 3.057% (3.10% APY)
Mar 19, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.960% (3.00% APY)
Oct 9, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.716% (2.75% APY)
Dec 30, 2008 Interest Rate Change to 2.472% (2.50% APY)
Jan 20, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 2.374% (2.40% APY)
Feb 3, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 2.178% (2.20% APY)
Mar 3, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 1.638% (1.65% APY)
Mar 21, 2009 Interest Rate Change to 1.490% (1.50% APY)

In 2007 it hardly changed at all, then went through a spate of changes in 2008, then it stabilized and now in 2009 it's jumped off the building. Wow. A friend jokes that soon we'll be paying them. i just saw Hero's for the first time (the first DVD). Maybe the interest rates will suddenly figure out how to fly just before hitting the ground.

Gimo Investigations - And So It Begins

Well we can't say we weren't warned. In this post:

http://www.frap.org/Blog/2009/01/bye-bye-gitmo-investions-next.html

I did a summary/rehash of the information contained in a Phillipe Sands interview on Fresh Air mostly just so I would have the names of the major players we were likely to see again within easy reach, and sure enough what he said is prophetic. The Spanish are considering opening an inquiry into Gitmo and funny if a lot of the same names crop up again:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/28/international/i150618D86.DTL&tsp=1

And funny how we're hearing all the players protest their innocence even though we all knew the potential for this to happen was all too real.

This may get nowhere, but it is amusing to watch even this much transpire.

Roche vs Genetech - An Agreement is Reached

I got my latest black plastic encased mail from Sharebuilder. I've started looking forward to them. This one tells me that they actually have reached an agreement. The letter is from Genetech and not Roche and the offer is for $95/share and they recommend I take it. Given that the current value is around $81 that's probably a good idea.

So the Genetech board suggests "tendering" the shares. And what happens if I don't? Pretty much the exact same thing if I did though I would be "paid" later.

Ok fine, I'll tender my glorious 1.5 shares. But just trying to follow instructions is proving to be a challenge as the site isn't responding.

I enter the site and enter my control number and it says that the site isn't working please try again later (I've tried at 2 different times). Oh and when does this offer expire? In 3 days. Thanks guys for yanking me around. You ask me to do something, say it's urgent, and then things don't work. I do believe the proper response is sod off.







I will try one more time on Monday then will just let them do whatever they are going to do. I did send Sharebuilder email about it though have not heard back

A Jacket to Help You Feel the Movies? I'm not so sure about that

I'm a member of IEEE an engineering professional association mostly so I can qualify for their life insurance (which for me is mortgage insurance). I normally don't pay too much attention to their newsletter, but once in a while I take a look as it's often quite fascinating to see what people are working on.

This time one of the articles talks about a jacket you can wear that helps you experience the emotions that a character might be experiencing: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/8287

While it sounds intriguing, I thought it through, and started to shudder.
You see I have much too good of an imagination. Visual images (especially violent ones) stick with me for a very long time especially if there is some emotional impact associated with it. I actually had to learn to get more, not less, emotional distance from what I was watching just so I could watch things like CSI, and enjoy the eye-candy of certain NCIS characters (of both genders) without freaking out about the open chest on the table. I watched Blair Witch Project on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I would take the time to stop and look out the window and say to myself "What a nice DAY it is. Such a beautiful, peaceful DAY" (and breathe :) Can you imagine something designed to help you experience the same stress level of the BWP characters? Heebe-jeebe-jeebe.

AIG: Finally a Consensus

After all these years, it was starting to look the Left and the Right were were never going to agree on anything ever again. Then AIG had to come along and try to pull off probably the most openly egregious and audacious (and shockingly oblivious) abuse of government funding ever attempted, and suddenly we have unity. Nothing like a good public flogging to bring people together. Fortunately, AIG isn't even a scapegoat, they completely deserve it. I can hear the fires being lit right now that certain executive feet will be held to. I wonder if a lot of AIG execs (and ex-execs) have fled the country.

Songs for Riding a Bike to Nowhere

I've been taking RPM/Spin classes at my gym for over a year now and am pretty used to what makes good music for it and have been working on my own sets for when I can't make it to class but want to go in and use the Spin Bike on my own.

RPM classes feature a lot of cadence changes, but lack in maintaining a pace for an extended period of time, so I tend to do that more when working on my own.

Here's my current list:

Songs for Spinning

• Sheryl Crowe - Everyday is a Winding Road
• K T Tunstall - Suddenly I See
• Sneakerpimps - Walking on the Sun
• Offspring - Come Out and Play

Stand in the pedals for the choruses of all 4, the songs build in intensity - do the same.

• Oingo Boingo - Weird Science

Now to crank the heartbeat- do 1/3 of the song anaerobically, standing in the pedals, the song seems slow but is excellent at getting you to work harder.

• Oingo Boingo - Dead Men's Party

Mixed terrain recovery - lots of ups and down, just like Oingo Boingo. I've also used "No One Lives Forever" but got tired of hearing about my doggy getting old in 10 years so swapped it out.

• Prince - Take Me with You

Recovery - cruise like the song does, or since it's a short song, double your pace and stay at 110-120 rpm.

• Sheryl Crowe - My Favorite Mistake

Everybody's got one (I have around three :) - sit down, add resistance and grind your way through the metaphor like you know you can.

• Alanis Morrisette - Thank U

Do whatever you need to do to recover from the last one.

Tons of other options
Sheryl Crowe - All I Wanna Do (yes, the silly bar and car wash song)
Garbage - just about anything, but it's really easy to get caught up and completely overdo it.
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus or Enjoy the Silence
New Order - Blue Monday, or Bizarre Love Triangle, or Perfect Kiss (haven't tried them in a workout yet)
k. d. lang - Constant Craving works nicely as a recovery track or even a drive home track
The Police - Murder by Numbers is a great recovery track
Romeo Void - I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together - actually kinda long and I took it out.
Midnight Oil - Power and the Passion - also long
The The - Uncertain Smile extended mix - one of my all time favorite songs but still quite long
RPM - Losing My Religion

Things I haven't tried yet but might be fun are
The Go Gos
B-52s (same overdoing it caution as with Garbage :)
English Beat
any of the 80's haircut bands
Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself - worked nicely when an instructor played it just for fun

I have an RPM instructor who occasionally tries to kill me with doing intervals to Cheap Trick (I'm blocking out which track :)

Squaw Ski Lesson

Apoligies, but this is a bit dry and techie, but it's what I learned and I don't want to forget it.

I just blew the rest of the season's ski budget on a 2 hour private lesson with an instructor I like at Squaw Valley. "Blew" implies wasted, it wasn't. It was very effective and I'm not likely to forget it though I want to get it all down here as best I can.

My instructor was Greg Rosenthal, and Greg is very good at deconstructing the mechanics of skiing and what makes a ski turn smooth and effective. (Those classic S shaped turns.)

Sadly, it now is completely evident to me that I'm not going to become good enough of a skier this season to feel comfortable on Shasta with its ungroomed slopes and little details like steepness and these things called trees that inhabit the less steep parts. I think for me to feel comfortable off piste, I'm going to have to be able to ski without thinking about the mechanics of turning and that's going to take another season. Right now, there's about a month left in the season and I certainly could spend it skiing, but I'm going to Shasta to climb it in May so my time is probably better spent training to go up the mountain instead of down. :) though it would be so nice to just ski up on skins as that is easier than walking. Ah well, some day.

Back to the ski lesson. First bad, but important, news is that I'm working too hard on my right turns and overusing my left quad instead of shin pressure on the boots to cut the turn too short and slow myself down. I've always struggled on the right turns, but never realized that it was the over-braking that was exhausting my quad (it's been two days and it's still tired). I need to learn to stay in the turn longer and not put so much effort in my quad, but instead use skletal force from my shins to the front of the boot to weight the ski. In other words, bend at the knees, and lean more forward. Like really lean forward. I actually tried falling forward (slightly terrifying - what a trust exercise) and suddenly I had a lot more control because the front part of the ski is widest and the easiest to steer. I tend to lean backwards even after stopping carrying a pack.

Greg taught me another way to learn to shift forward by showing me how to ski backwards. Skiing backwards resembles a silly terrain park trick, but you simply can not do it unless you shift your weight forward and this helps you to learn that positition which is what you need going forward as well. What was fun, that skiing backwards involved overturning all the way around which is something I do by accident all the time when I forget to look down the mountain and turn my hips up the slope. So now I feel I have a touch more things I can do when that happens and I feel a bit less of a dork.

Steps to turning
- stand up (out of any bent position)
- with your weight evenly balanced between the skis, steer your feet, meaning turn your feet in the direction you want to go. Many ski lessons now only empasize putting the weight on the outside ski, but on anything but a green run that's actually not quite enough (In my head, I'm saying "point your feet" - in the direction where you want to go). The skis will turn and start to head down the hill (eek - don't panic)
- now just before it starts down the hill, weight the outside ski and bend your knees applying forward pressure from your shins to the front of the outside boot (make sure your weight is forward). By bending your knees you can put more than body weight pressure on the ski.
- hang in there and let the ski turn (this is where trying to fall forward really helps). If your inside ski's inside edge seems stuck, roll your inside knee out some which should let the ski slide over.
- if you feel you're going too fast turn up the hill .

You can see how well you're going by examining your tracks. Mine generally look like backwards number 2's :) which shows me cutting my right turn too short.

Other Notes
You can learn a lot by watching others while you're hanging out on the ski lift. It's disheartening to see how poorly people ski when you're looking at an intermediate run. One day, I should take a video camera and film the expert runs. The trouble is that the expert skiiers are not always easy to see or get to, unlike us amatuers who are everywhere. :)

Also I had just bought a really nice North Face Ski Jacket from REI (on sale - $120.00 off!) and was really glad I did, because at Squaw, I was being pelted by blowing snow while sitting on a chair lift at 8000'. Which was pretty funny since it was a gorgeous snowless day.

Anyway I got to spend the afternoon practicing what I'd learned so it could set into my muscles, but have decided to say good by to the rest of the ski season and spend the rest of winter snowshoeing and training with a pack. Thank you to the weather gods for providing us snow to have fun on and to give us water for the rest of the year. More snow is very much welcome as we really need it here in California.

Humor: The Prejudices of Healthy People

This was meant to be a silly thing that a friend (not in my dog circles) sent me. However it belies some assumptions that I can't stop thinking about. First of all here is the platitude. The punch line is at the end:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How Enlightened Are You? A Test:

If you can live without caffeine or nicotine;
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains;
If you can resist complaining;
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you any time;
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment;
If you can ignore friends' limited educations and never correct them;
If you can treat the rich and poor alike;
If you can face the world without lies or deceit;
If you can conquer tension without medical help;
If you can relax without liquor;
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs;
If you can have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender, sexual preference, or politics

— then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog.

ANONYMOUS
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Cute. However it reveals some really interesting prejudices of some who consider themselves striving to enlightenment. The key is what does spirtitual enlightenment have to do with your level of health. Ok, some Kudalini Yoga people would say everything, but personally I see them as separate which is totally non-holistic of me but I think a great stride towards sanity and less self-judgement, because honestly what does caffiene have to do with spiritual development. Really??

Despite my MS, I am one of those healthy people. I try not to be an annoying healthy person. I do not scold or cajole or convince anyone (well besides Terri, who needs no such convincing), unless they ask me to about diet or exercise or other healthy habits. I am not in the health gestapo and I think that people should make there own choices. Not to mention our idea of what is healthy changes as our knowledge changes. Some al