Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Monday, July 25, 2005
Walpole
According to Wikipedia, Walpole, NH has a population of 3,594 people spread out over 36.6 square miles (giving a population density of 101 people per square mile, or one person for every 500 ft x 500 ft square). The population's also 98.3% white. I think Walpole needs an affirmative action plan, because that's kind of sad. Probably could use some sky scrapers too, in order to up the population density a bit.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Our Girl Tyrona
Tyson, what gives? You haven't said a peep about how your triathlon went? Did you survive? Also, what's the job hunt/school thing looking like? Shed some light on my dark and boring life.
Sit back and enjoy the ride
I was reading an article recently about China. Apparently they have been slowly but surely scaling up their military recently, although they still lack the ability to project their military much beyond their own borders. No one knows why they're doing this, but some think that one day they will threaten the U.S. as a world super power - others fear for the independence of Taiwan. Of course, no one in China would admit that they're thinking of taking Taiwan back, but recently a Chinese general was quoted as threatening nuclear war if the US attempted to protect Taiwan in such a situation saying, "The Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of their cities will be destroyed by the Chinese." Think of that next time you shop at Walmart.
Does anyone else feel like we're totally screwed - spiraling uncontrollably toward disaster? It's just a question of from which direction the deadly blow will come. I used to think this was a unique point in history, and then I realized I think it's always like this, it's just that I only recently started paying attention.
Does anyone else feel like we're totally screwed - spiraling uncontrollably toward disaster? It's just a question of from which direction the deadly blow will come. I used to think this was a unique point in history, and then I realized I think it's always like this, it's just that I only recently started paying attention.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Thursday, July 21, 2005
The Crestone Needle
The Crestone Needle is a 14,197 thousand peek with a technical rout that goes directly up a 2000 foot rock face. It begins with a 5.7 for 200 feet and then a 5.5-5.7 for maybe 100 feet, then there is 1000 feet of 4 class(not much more difficult than a ladder at about 80 degrees), then 4 pitches of 5.5-5.7. So besides the length and the elevation I thought it would not be very difficult.
Hands, legs trembling, breathing quickly and lifting my foot up to my shoulder hight on a fucking 4th class. What the fuck?
With the threat of afternoon thunderstorms that always threaten 14ers in the Colorado summer, we had to begin at day break and simultaneously climb the 4 class 1000 feet. One must do this to make the summit quickly and descend before the afternoon in order to avoid lightening even more than the rain. I have never really done high elevation exposed (that means open air beneath you and if you slip without a rope you could bounce a very very long way) climbing. We had a rope, but we did not have the time to place anchors, so if one of us slipped or if a part of the rock broke the other would have to arrest his fall without any aid. So I'm in the lead and there is this hump of rock. I feel like my chest is up against the front of a school buss, not the flat faced grayhounds but the old yellow ones with hoods. I put my hands on the hood and see no holds betweeen my hands and feet. Alex says "hurry up man, it's only 4th class." So I look down and see a the ground 600 feet bellow. Only small ledges and no anchors between Alex and my harness. I put both hands on the hood and push and hump and slide up on it like a beached whale. I am breathing thin air hard with my feet in mid air and my chest laid out on the hood of a buss and saying "fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking sport."
After that I insisted we drop an anchor at least during difficult pulls; but there weren't many cracks to use with the anchors. Two or three times we simply put a sling around a little rock horn as we simul climbed an exposed wave of rock.
A few times I thought he or I was going to slip and we would drag the other to our demise. needless to say, once we got to the last four pitches (the last 500 feet) where we placed anchors I felt much more at ease. By then we were at about 13600 feet and we could very easily discern rain heading our way. So the last few pitches I pulled through the thin air to the summit. Luckily the rain kept to the East of us and we descended without too much difficulty (the book's description of the descent begins with "The descent is complicated". True enough we began in the wrong rock gully for the the first 500 feet and we had some difficulty finding a way to traverse to the trail). It was wild and thank that fucking old son of a bitch in the clouds that the rain and lightening stayed to the East of us.
Hands, legs trembling, breathing quickly and lifting my foot up to my shoulder hight on a fucking 4th class. What the fuck?
With the threat of afternoon thunderstorms that always threaten 14ers in the Colorado summer, we had to begin at day break and simultaneously climb the 4 class 1000 feet. One must do this to make the summit quickly and descend before the afternoon in order to avoid lightening even more than the rain. I have never really done high elevation exposed (that means open air beneath you and if you slip without a rope you could bounce a very very long way) climbing. We had a rope, but we did not have the time to place anchors, so if one of us slipped or if a part of the rock broke the other would have to arrest his fall without any aid. So I'm in the lead and there is this hump of rock. I feel like my chest is up against the front of a school buss, not the flat faced grayhounds but the old yellow ones with hoods. I put my hands on the hood and see no holds betweeen my hands and feet. Alex says "hurry up man, it's only 4th class." So I look down and see a the ground 600 feet bellow. Only small ledges and no anchors between Alex and my harness. I put both hands on the hood and push and hump and slide up on it like a beached whale. I am breathing thin air hard with my feet in mid air and my chest laid out on the hood of a buss and saying "fuck, fuck, fuck this fucking sport."
After that I insisted we drop an anchor at least during difficult pulls; but there weren't many cracks to use with the anchors. Two or three times we simply put a sling around a little rock horn as we simul climbed an exposed wave of rock.
A few times I thought he or I was going to slip and we would drag the other to our demise. needless to say, once we got to the last four pitches (the last 500 feet) where we placed anchors I felt much more at ease. By then we were at about 13600 feet and we could very easily discern rain heading our way. So the last few pitches I pulled through the thin air to the summit. Luckily the rain kept to the East of us and we descended without too much difficulty (the book's description of the descent begins with "The descent is complicated". True enough we began in the wrong rock gully for the the first 500 feet and we had some difficulty finding a way to traverse to the trail). It was wild and thank that fucking old son of a bitch in the clouds that the rain and lightening stayed to the East of us.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
One Hundred Years of Solitude
“Jose Arcadio Buendia was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room"(Marquez 375).
Certainly the magical realism of Marquez may be scoffed by the scientific minds of 130 Linden, but on a psychological plain this quote beautifully portrays our nostalgia. In the text the quotation explains how a room does not decay, it remains the same temperature and atmosphere for a hundred years. Matt and AJ would laugh at such fantasy, but when applied to our mind’s tendency to dwell on a certain event, a certain afternoon, or certain game of chess these two logical minds must concede to the axiomatic power of the quotation.
Hey AJ, remember when I beat you in chess three times in a row! You suck. We are always in the dark kitchen of Dan’s old apartment on Buff. ave.
Dan, remember that giant canvass we painted in Jaden; it’s still on my wall. I love booze and paint.
Next line of thought:
So I finished Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude last night. Have any of you read this brilliant dragging epic? I recommend you read it. I know you all would enjoy parts of the novel, if for nothing but an enchanting escape to an old world Columbia. The book beautifully flows through time slightly like Faulkner but in a much less cryptic and cynical fashion. Marquez dashes in small amounts of fantasy (a trail of blood flowing a very specific path through a house to someone’s door) as if he were simply describing the flow of a creek. He handles everything with a very dead pan voice. The characters pass the same name to their kids again and again and the cycles of repetition all mesh together like a slow roasted stew. Is this Buendia the great grandfather or the uncle or the grandson?
With fresh beautiful descriptions of sex, war, and fucking god damn pride the book enchants.
If any of you pick up the book, I warn you that it drags a bit, but is certainly worth the effort. I found it best to just keep reading and try to feel each experience and not worry which character is which.
First line:
“Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
Colonel Aureliano is the motherfucker with the pride to inspire any space monkey to fucking go into space even if almost all space monkeys die during, if not immediately after the flight. Damn Matt, I went to the “monkeys in space” web site and was physched when I saw how many of my kindred were martyrs.
Certainly the magical realism of Marquez may be scoffed by the scientific minds of 130 Linden, but on a psychological plain this quote beautifully portrays our nostalgia. In the text the quotation explains how a room does not decay, it remains the same temperature and atmosphere for a hundred years. Matt and AJ would laugh at such fantasy, but when applied to our mind’s tendency to dwell on a certain event, a certain afternoon, or certain game of chess these two logical minds must concede to the axiomatic power of the quotation.
Hey AJ, remember when I beat you in chess three times in a row! You suck. We are always in the dark kitchen of Dan’s old apartment on Buff. ave.
Dan, remember that giant canvass we painted in Jaden; it’s still on my wall. I love booze and paint.
Next line of thought:
So I finished Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude last night. Have any of you read this brilliant dragging epic? I recommend you read it. I know you all would enjoy parts of the novel, if for nothing but an enchanting escape to an old world Columbia. The book beautifully flows through time slightly like Faulkner but in a much less cryptic and cynical fashion. Marquez dashes in small amounts of fantasy (a trail of blood flowing a very specific path through a house to someone’s door) as if he were simply describing the flow of a creek. He handles everything with a very dead pan voice. The characters pass the same name to their kids again and again and the cycles of repetition all mesh together like a slow roasted stew. Is this Buendia the great grandfather or the uncle or the grandson?
With fresh beautiful descriptions of sex, war, and fucking god damn pride the book enchants.
If any of you pick up the book, I warn you that it drags a bit, but is certainly worth the effort. I found it best to just keep reading and try to feel each experience and not worry which character is which.
First line:
“Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
Colonel Aureliano is the motherfucker with the pride to inspire any space monkey to fucking go into space even if almost all space monkeys die during, if not immediately after the flight. Damn Matt, I went to the “monkeys in space” web site and was physched when I saw how many of my kindred were martyrs.
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