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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2016 - 04:15am PT
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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/colombia-makes-biggest-seizure-drugs-8-tons-cocaine-found-n574501
http://www.newstalk.com/Columbia-drugs-bust-Usuga-Clan-Turbo-arrests-cocaine
8.8 tons / 487 tons = 1.8% of Colombia's total production of cocaine
I don't know that there is a moral to this story of drug intrigue, for only three criminals were "netted."
"Mi corazon, I'll be back tonight late after I have to help El Jefe net his criminales."
"Say Hola to El Guapo for me, bebe? And thank heem for the new washing machine."
I cannot imagine the space 8.8 tons of coke takes up. I suspect it's more than what is offered by the Lodestar Lightning.
It's good that the one which ditched in Lowered Merc Pass Lake was loaded with weed or no one would have made out, coke being soluble and all.
But who knows and who now cares? This is only idle speculation, idle peculation, at 4 a.m. Why am I up? There is no money in it. Contact high, maybe?
Spotlight on Juarez, Mexico, now. And the "paternal" El Chapo Guzman.
Una videoteca sobre El Chapo
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/05/15/el-chapo-returns-to-juarez-pkg-nick-valencia.cnn
Dogs are specially trained to El Chapo's personal scent. He now has @ 400 security cameras aimed at him.
"I mythed you, too, bebe. Now, let's conjugate. They only agreed to two hours."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2016 - 07:22am PT
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Two more from last night.
And from this morning's dawn, more evidence of smoke in the air.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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May 16, 2016 - 09:01am PT
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Man Receives First Penis Transplant in the United States New York Times
Dr. Feelgood? In all fairness, they had about a 50% chance to begin with.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Could have turned out for the worse.
‘It wasn’t letting go’: Woman rushed to hospital with a shark attached to her arm Washington Post
Trump hits 'nice piece' out of the park? Her head was spinning. The Locusts sang off in the distance. Fox News
Model featured in Trump 'hit piece' slams NY Times, says her story was 'spun'
Opioid-addicted doctor gets five years of probation SD Reader
While working at the University of California San Diego Hillcrest Medical Center, Hirst practices family medicine and psychiatry, specializing in treatment of anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and schizophrenia.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2016 - 11:27am PT
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Report on big ideas for UC Merced campus.
Check out the freak who's the Dean of Social Sciences.[Click to View YouTube Video]
Please cut down some date palms during construction...I won't mind a bit. Really. They serve only to obstruct the (my) view and to house starlings and to feed pigeons, both of which are hateful birds that love to visit your car's paint while parked in the broiling sun so that it bakes on and then you need to wash it but it just won't come out because it's bonded and WOW, would you look at that bill for the new paint~~
And if that paint job approach won't fly, that's because there are acres of free parking under roofs in the two now-virtually-unused parking structures built fifteen years ago or longer in anticipation of something of this sort; but, at that time, they didn't know for what, really, because UC hadn't decided where to build the new campus #10 and so the construction of the parking facilities was excused as a lure while they also dangled the bait of free land for the campus in front of the regents.
Really, if that downtown center is higher than two stories, then the view from my window as seen in my last post before zBrown's Chula Vista promo will likely become history. But at least I'll have all these pictures stored in my files to look at and to weep over.
Too much drama? Too much coffee!
ALMOST FORGOT!! Nice flames, Gnome. ^^^
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 16, 2016 - 04:18pm PT
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Bad Skunk Texting in the Middle of the Phone
I have a skunk on my wireless phone
Or it could be some tireless drone
From some pre-programmed zone
And I wish it would leave me alone
While I'm sleeping or taking my shower
It texts me at any old hour
It's turning my attitude sour
I feel like I have no power
Yeah, I'm a victim of some petty and vindictive (but what have I done to him/her) person with some need to keep others awake and ill-at-ease.
I've taken the obvious step, to call the wireless service to have the number blocked. Cricket phone they sold me, a basic one, has no provision for this service. I must call an 877 number to speak with the makers of the phone to see if it has the capability, according to the useless "service representative." Have a nice day, miss, and thanks for nothing.
I could rant, say how the old phone services would have responded with intent to keep me happy and keep the dollars rolling in. All it took was a call to the business office. Today...sheesh!
I have the phone number of the offending party and the texts are carefully preserved on sheets of TP (a cheap Venezuelan brand) placed in a jar of cooking oil and brandy.
And, at some point, after I've found the perp-a-derp, I'm going to lie in wait, then soak him down somehow and set him aflame.
I've no use for humane traps.
If they really made a fart gun, like in Despicable Me 2, then I'd love to blast the offending skunk in the face full-choke, full-auto. THEN light him up.
And I'd watch calmly as the cameras rolled and the cops hauled me away.
I need a way to match the phone number of the turd to an address.
"Can U help? I'd be gr8ful."
Thomas banalter edux tepus rerum - Thomas bagalter rectum - Ghiblli I'm looking for you/Tuxedomooon blind - Andre ncktina tears of a clown/andre nicktina nasty like college chicks...
and on and on in that vein.
I can take a joke, but only if it's not carried on this long. This has been ongoing since last Thursday or Friday. I'm sick of it and pray that something comes up to deal with the problem, because I REALLY DON'T EVEN WANT A PHONE!
I should righteously be assigned an empty cave or falling-down hovel in Tierra del Fuego, away from any "Venise playboys" or "Soft-cell sex dwarfs," to prevent murder-so-heinous.
But I won't bother with a thread on ST to complain. Never seems to do any good and you just end up with little piranha bites all over. And I'd probably just get a headache and don't need another one of those.
Will keep posting about it here, though.
On the other hand, I could learn texting. I did learn norwegian in a short time.
Or I wish I had a Dr. Nefario to help deal with this creep.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
In my dream I was almost there
And you pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere
They say we are the chosen few
But we're wasted
And that's why we're still waiting
On a number from the modern man
--Arcade Fire, Modern Man
Edit: I just spoke to the person from whose phone those texts came. He's a former neighbor who has a nefarious nephew who's a little punk and who has a history of this sort of thing. I asked him to slap him in the chops for me. The bad water is now gone under the bridge of sighs, flushing into the toilet bowl of unfinished dreams. Someday it will be a part of the Ocean of Thoughts, diluted, transmuted into random Clouds of Joy.
On second thought, why slap him? That's violent and crude and what would THAT teach him? A stern warning and a finger dipped in excrement shaken in his face ought to do the job.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 12:37am PT
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Perusing Fossil Climber's thread titled "What has become of people you trained?" brought on some thoughts. I don't necessarily want to put anything in that thread at the moment. These are really random thoughts, potential fodder for a descent poem about climbing.
My own training in the practice of climbing rocks was pretty much by hook and crook.
I remember I took an old book, a thick old tome, and tried to climb Tehipite Dome.
I stepped on the book, then by casting a grappling hook (twenty-three throws it took) I grappled the branch that I sought [sic].
I climbed the rope and had a good look, took a nice pic with my trusty Nook, and that limb I promptly forsook when it began to be shook by a rather large earthquake.
License, please, sir.
Ain't got no stinkin' lichens, man.
Dumb de dumb dumb...dumb!
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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May 17, 2016 - 12:56am PT
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 01:28am PT
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Big Bill Broonzy - Sun Gonna Shine in My Backdoor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSILeYaCDaQ
The sun shines on me rain or shine. Sometimes I just can't see it.
Every cloud doesn't cry himself to death.
Some get banned. Others just fade away.
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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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May 17, 2016 - 01:39am PT
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somebody's granny living life electricallyfuel tank shields the radiator, which warms the knees, reverse tilt jug. muffler dries the fanny & flung mudframe is full of four stroke fuel, license plate screwed to the air boxsure, why not. nothing's the way it was ... then: now:may as well evoke the alhambra with catalonian hip-hop from some lebanese guy in france:
[Click to View YouTube Video]and let 'em do it their wayand be glad i'm not allergic
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 02:00am PT
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HA! Little old lady from Chino Valley! Go granny!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 02:22am PT
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Just Yogi at the crux, p2, on Reed's Direct, aka Triple Direct, on occasion."Let us eat cake, Walter."
Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith and His Cracker - Jacks Three D Boogie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ySxdzfd60
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 04:33am PT
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Hey there Little Dittle, did you see Jack?
Yeah, Big Dog--he was getting ready to jump over the moon.
I'd get a big laugh out of that. By the way, have you seen the cow?
Nope. Jack traded her for some beans.
What kind of beans?
Magic beans.
M. Ward "Bean Vine Blues #2" - Tribute to John Fahey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FW5RF5Tnxw
Or maybe it was coffee beans.
I remembered just in time that the moon was gonna set just about 3:50 a.m. and got set up like fifteen minutes before that.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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May 17, 2016 - 04:38am PT
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I got some sleep! YEAH
Now that is a topic that careens around my head all the time.
I put well over 100 people on their 1st climb.
Where are they all NOW?
So I tried, and the poem is better,
but this is the memory of seeing the way that you gods of the Ditch got it done. . .
Well Im not sure if this will make you feel good or bad, but my dad who had climbed in Austria in the 30's paid for me to get taken climbing in the Valley. As a tourist while Rv,camping on a road trip down the coast in 1970s ( there is some family debate as to when ? 73 or 74).
If It is as I think it was, you looked across at my dad and said some thing like 'He is to young,(small) to go out alone , one on one with one of my guides, who aren't here yet.
We would be glad to take the family or the sister and said 'munchkin', ...
Im not entirely sure but the way it was told for years was that I picked up a short rack of Knife blades and Kim S saw me and said hey thats not a toy , who owns this boy?
I was fingering a stubby beaten blade, that I had worked free from the 'biner and wanted to keep it. Schmitz, looking for all the world, like a god to me, took me by the shoulder then the pin from my hand and marched me back to the counter.
What went on next? A moment later it seemed all set. The Guide was him, was there & we had met.
I got to do an hour of top ropeing (Swan Slab?) & follow a two pitch climb ( Manure Pile? )
I had with dad already been climbing and belaying if anchored. So when my guide, who was sour and did not want me holding the rope went off at nearly a run I was shocked. To me at that time climbing was slow and gear was always worth stoping & placing. I don't think that KS was happy to be working.
But I had fun and remember the hand shake, at the back of the shop the smell of spilled coffee and (uh hum) Jet Fuel?
For me there were mothers and daughters, and fathers & sons .
There were groups of up to three,
I always was willing to sneak mom on to a rope too,
for 'free' Just don't tell Jimmy. . .
There were five of us Guides but really only the three of us worked every day,
There were sisters and Brothers and Lots of cops and firemen
Jar heads went with the dishonorably discharged ex-military guy,
Jimmy kept all the single ladies for himself,
I got the divorced couples, with there shut down kids, on a family outing
Or the gay couples from NYC.
some times I got lucky, A cool person, that I clicked with.
Or two? but more in a one on one,
I could break the rules and go off and have fun.
I had some regulars from the broken family thing,
a counselor thought it the best to help a traumatized little girl find herself and she did ,
always wonder what has become of that kid I hope she can smile and has kept climbing.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 17, 2016 - 05:32am PT
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I don't need to feel good about nothin' except it's nice to hear you are up.
That was a nicely written vignette, Gnome.
I was saddened by DMT's short, bittersweet tale in Fossil Climber's thread. When you tell me how lucky I am to be still friends with my early mates on the rock, I kinda blow it off, but it still gets me thinking of how it may be for me some day.
We tell ourselves that we are okay, but sometimes it takes a lifetime to actually get that way, while some simply cannot. No judgment calls on grief and loss allowed. Personal business. Thanks for sharing, DMT, if you are there.
It's been a while since you visited. Your thing, man. Cheers!
Climbing With the In-Laws
The in-laws of which I write are dearly beloved. One was like a brother, the other like a son.
I was married to a sister of each of them. When we met, she was all of thirteen, and when I got interested in her she was seventeen, while I was twenty. (nothing happened) Long distances and all, it went the way those things do.
Two years later, a spontaneous spark began a fire in me once more and a job in the park for her, and shortly after, a wedding ring from White Front in Fresno and a brief legal ceremony in Merced, followed by a room in Tecoyah dorm in the Village..
I met Ike, married to Shari, the older sister to Dolores, my new wife. Ike had two or three years on me. He operated a water well pump service and drilling rig with his dad in Oxnard He was into surfing while I was into climbing--we two bonded and I immediately began teaching him the ropes, while he took me wave-hunting.
He got E.B.s and a rope and some other gear. Clean climbing was the way and so he invested in Stoppers and Hexcentrics and a Chouinard crag hammer. We climbed a bit in Yosemite, but our time as employees in the Valley ran out in early 1972. We moved south to be near her kin and I got employment in the oilfields with a contracting service. She worked for the local DISCO store.
Well, Ike was a natural for climbing, to put it mildly. And he was cautious and safe by nature. By the time I left SoCal, the beginning of 1973, we had been to Tahquitz several times, once to Joshua Tree for a weekend, and to Sespe Gorge. We were a very good team and never got in any predicaments. Things always seemed to run smoother with Ike than anyone, even Jim Shirley, who I helped to train.
We two even found time for a trip to Yosemite around Labor Day (a better trip than the normal crowd-ridden holiday, but that’s its own tale) to climb the EB/MCR—less than six hours car to car and we weren’t really trying...it simply flowed. We were studs at our peaks, climbing-wise. I still could not ride a short board worth a damn, though. In Berkeley, Jim Shirley eventually took his place as my most favored partner, mainly cuz he let me drive the Beemer and he had really stony weed.
Dolores and I moved away from Ike and Shari after I found a job (through Randy Hamm’s influence and by using Wayne Merry as a reference) with The North Face’s Telegraph store. Oilfield contracting is seasonal work and unemployment was not cutting it, so we made that move due to financial reasons. But it was a good one. I really missed not having Ike to climb with on a regular basis, though.
We did the odd climb together, on vacations or the odd holiday, but never anything to approach what we’d done that Labor Day. Another memorable climb was to the Oasis, or a pitch short of it, due to imminent heavy rain. That was rather gripping, but we were busting our asses to rap the route as quick as we could and it worked out perfectly. We didn’t get wet till we hit the talus running and pulling rope as we ran.
A trip to Lovers Leap was the best of all those later climbs, though. Back when NOBODY was ahead of you on ANY ROUTE up there. Thank you for letting me experience that pristine place before the hordes arrived, O bountiful one.
As to the other in-law, this is Marc, youngest of the Irwins. He was allowed to stay in the custody of his father when the Irwins divorced. Three girls remained in California with the mother. Marc had to accompany his dad to Canada when he was deported. In 1972 Marc came to SoCal, no longer able to live with his dad. He lived with Ike and Shari and their daughter.
He was thirteen and took up tennis in high school and got VERY GOOD and VERY STRONG. I gave him his first tennis racquet, in fact. He never forgot. Years later I got him a gig with The North Face and I was touched deeply when he sent me a fathers’ day card. He lived with me for a time just after his sister walked out the door.
I did a minimal amount of work training Marc in SoCal, mostly because I left soon after he became proficient enough to be trusted to belay and follow. He and Ike started climbing together then.
He did these basic things well, so far as I am concerned, though Marc tended to be brash and sometimes surly, hot when you expected cold...it was hard being around him, but he was family and I really liked him. He’d had it rough with the alkie father and the abuse. But Marc did well on the boulders at Stoney, out on the coast highway at Mugu, and at Sespe. He was along on the trip to Joshua Tree—we NEVER called it Josh because that was Ike’s son’s name (Josh lived with his mother, not Ike) and later on his dog’s name.
Ikie thought it would be fun to name a climb at Josh for his boy, though. Ike’s dad was also Ike. He loved calling Ike Jr. “Ikie.”
But there I go digressing again. I’m almost done.
Ike lost interest in climbing sometime. I became divorced, he was a newly-minted Catholic and born-again, and he melted away, as did Marc, after a time. Marc stayed with climbing until the early eighties, so far as I know. He spent lots of time living in Tahoe, but I think he was far more interested in clay court tennis than climbing.
Jim Shirley is employed by JPL in Pasadena and has all this going for him. His knees are trashed and he’s in nearly as bad a shape as I. He’s trained his twin girls, too, in this new-fangled trad thing. What in hell is “trad,” anyway. Someone should post a thread to answer that question.
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Shirley/
I’m very thankful that I had Ike as a companion on the rope. He and I were extra careful because neither of us wanted to catch hell from the other bother’s spouse should we screw up! Same with brother Marc.
Ike’s a deacon in the Catholic church now, and Marc is or was a stock broker in NYC, last I heard. And he’s real tubby, too.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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May 17, 2016 - 05:36am PT
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well hey now can i probe a bit?
where does Mills , come in then? (EDIT; OH YOUT KEPT A YEJOB)
and the forced move out?
from some hovel that has left this Kat piss cloud,
that still hovers, rangers and long hairs, ? stuff of drunken property management?
I have an Idea that if it were all to be told the rules would change back to climbing is fun, not that it isn't but the crowd that has come in ,
into climbing from gyms & forums,
have spun the activity to where Im not happy hanging at the crag like we did.
I now go away from the populace, to cloud out
when I used to share and make a party happen, . .
I can not understand why or what I might have done to hear from NO ONE?!
Not the Gay couples, Not the kids with the trauma, not a one?
I was fun and energetic,
I took moms off the ground to the scweels of delight from the 'chillrun'
made one ma' pee herself, sorry about that. . .
We were a real Guide service
I was not the 1st gunkie to have gone on to get paid to take people climbing'
The world was changing then so , a more professional organization was deemed to be needed.
In fact the Jolley's of the game just needed to grow up & get paid - more - be more Professional.
but for me it was a pain in the rear, Insurance , brochures, with pictures.. . and the waiver thingy gotta' get that signed to
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