Summer Time Fun

We are all now or shortly to be 40 years + old. We have all had our fair share of physical problems. Blood pressure, cancer, colitis, pile driving off mountain bikes, cart wheeling down glaciers, and falling off scooters. So lets work the old bodies out and get them really buff for this coming summer attraction! Dragon Tail Peak via Asgard Pass.

The enormous north face of the peak, as it soars up 3000 feet above Colchuck lake looks daunting. However this is not the face we will be doing since that is for real climbers with real gear and hopefully real climbers insurance. No my fellow oldlings we will scramble to the summit via the southeast ridge. This is a non-technical climb. Sort of like South Sister but not as high and better rock.

Expeditioin itineary:

Day 1: Leave from PDX and head to Leavenworth WA. Car camp there for one night.

Day 2: Early we drive up a dirt road for about six miles then park. Thus begins the hiking. We hike up to Colchuck lake. About 2500 feet elevation gain over 4 miles. Sort of like the hike up Eagle Creek. We hike around tothe south west side of the lake and camp. CAMP 1

Day 3: We eat our dehydrated gunk then boot up for the slog up Asgard Pass. This is steep and gains about 2500 feet of elevation in short order. For Mike and John, this is about like that hike we did to Munra Point. Same elevation gain in about the same distance. Camp atop the Pass finding some sheltered spot. Beyond the pass is The Enchantments, a spectacular alpine valley with lakes and glaciers a plenty.

Day 4: We scramble to the summit of Dragon Tail Peak 8840ft. Then go back down. Pack up and go down to Colchuck. We either stay a night there or head back to the car. Probably the latter. If we hit the car then we drive back to PDX in one long slogging drive.

Gear: Ten Essentials
Boots
Clothing for various weather
Treking poles or ice axe
Tent (lets try to keep it to one or two.)
Sleeping Bag and pad.
Food and water with filteration
gas burner

Q: Where is this peak located?
A: In the heart of the North Cascades National Park.

Q: Do we need permits?
A: Yes and we should get them early since they only allow a limited number of people up there per day.

Q: Will we have to cross snow?
A: Have no idea.

G&G Rail is on the move

I sent out a story of the G&G Railroad and would like to ad it here. But it would take up a lot of blog space so forget it. Here is a photo of an EMD (electro magnetic desiel) SW7 (Switcher 7) These beasts started running back in the 1930's. They continued on in service until well into the 1980's This SW7 is the one and only desiel switcher locomotive that the Gregg & Gregg railroad has. It is going to be used to haul tourists up to glacier lake and picking up cuts of cars in the east. It was purchased from Southern Pacific.

Currently the roster of loco's for the ficticious G&G railroad is as follows:

EMD SW7 #100
EMD GP9 #150
Steam 4-8-4 Northern #300
Steam 0-4-0 #200

Construction Zone

I am not sure why the construction of small scale things is as facsinating as it is. I have been working diligently on the G&G railroad for weeks now and things are progressing. But I look at it and conclude that there is not a single inch of it that serves a rational purpose. I am not facsinated with trains. I am not a trainspotter. I am not really much into industrial junk. However this is very very large part of the layout. along with the mountains. I like the mountains too.

The above photo is the portion of a town called Gregg Junction that is mythically located south of Portland on the Willamette River. You can see some of PDX in the background. The mainline train station is not present in this photo since it was not finished as of the date of the photo.

Gregg Junction is struggling to keep its urban look while alowing some gentrification. Some of the buildings above have been turned into lofts. The river front is still pretty poor and the spaces directly becide the traks are squalid.
The hotdog stand to the right is The Lunch Box.

In Response to W's mumblings...

Time Magazine - Friday, Jul. 14, 1967

"North Viet Nam is paying a tremendous price with nothing to show for it in return. The war is not a stalemate. We are winning, slowly but steadily." So said General William Westmoreland last week in Saigon as he briefed Robert McNamara at the outset of the Defense Secretary's ninth visit to Viet Nam. If his tone was uncharacteristically defensive, that was understandable. In recent months, it has become apparent that the war in Viet Nam is not going entirely according to the U.S. scenario for 1967. McNamara's trip will help to determine whether Westmoreland gets some or all of the additional 100,000 fighting men he now says he needs beyond the 480,000 scheduled for the end of this year. Perhaps significantly, one of McNamara's first questions was: How can more results be got with the 464,000 American soldiers now in Viet Nam?

Me: Ugh!

The End of Dictators

Shock in viewing the disturbing images of the execution of Saddam is natural. The outrage over the violent nature is also natural. However the end of Saddam is prototypical of many dictators.

Czar Nicholas: Whole family led to basement and gunned down.
Hitler: Shot himself after poisoning his wife
Mussolini: Hanged then disembowled along with his wife
Tojo: Hanged
Chowchesku: led into field and shot along with his wife

So the ending of Husain's life was about what you would expect. I am sure it came as no surprise to him.

FYI to all right wing idiots

1: It is against the law to administer ANY form of religious test to gain access to the halls of power in the US of A.

Article VI section III of the United States Constitution says it quite clearly:

"no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

For people claim to follow the Federalists, or are "strict constructionists" this is great for you since Article VI isn't even an amendment. It was part of the law of the land that we could all agree on prior to any of the first 10 great admendments.

So if a man or woman wishes to take an oath on a Bible, or the Quran, or a Superman comic book, they can do so. But as far as the law is concerned they owe their duty to the people, in whos name they hold their office. Mr. Virgil Goode, for what I am not quite sure, is dead wrong in his assertion that a Muslim in Congress is a sign of the end. As far as I can recall President Jefferson, a Virginian, a slave owner, the author of the Declaration of Independance, did not believe that Jesus was God. I guess Jefferson, the veritable creator of American democracy, is un American or not in keeping in with some cock and bull tradition that never was.

As a Christian I am continually appauled by the shallow headed stupidity of those claiming to speak for me. Jesus Christ, GOD, is unconcerned about what piece of paper you hold in your hand or do not. He cares about how you interact with His borthers and sisters. So Virgil Goode can put his hood back on a go stand in front of a burning cross, and pretend that he serves God too, just like the empty headed idiots who thought they were serving God by burning Joan of Arc, or those that thought they were serving God by flying plains in buildings, or serving God by killing their families with shotguns before killing themselves. Yes by all means Mr. Goode, you and the rest of your Taliban please go and serve God. Just don't do it anywhere near me because flaming this or exploding that is not what I am into. Peace be with you brother, reform you life and return to God.

Words of Saint James.

"If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?"

From me: Our faith provides us a way to constantly renew our comitment to civil rights, and the upholding of the dignity of all the people. This is what, as people of Christ, we are called to do.

"Your gonna do what with that rope!?"

Well this goes to show all middle eastern dictators that about 20 years afer shaking the hands of US diplomats you end up getting strung up by your own people.

It would be really cool if this execution would stop all the warring but I don't think it will accomplish much more than ending the life of a scumbag. So long Saddam, we hardly knew ya. Though what we did know about you really made us think little of you. Now I know that the muslim clerics in your country are all asking God to take vengence upon you. However I, as a Christian, would ask God to have mercy on your soul.

Lets Ban Gay Marriage! And waste more time!

I urge the Democratic majority in both House and Senate to ignore the bigoted, homophobic, crack-heads, on the right an not pay any attention to that non-issue. We have a nation to nurture and wasting time on non-issues such as gay marriage would not only be...well...a waste of time, but also it would really piss off the ghosts of these guys. Their spirit is still with us and it gives us the courage to belive that we can govern ourselves with wisdom.

Of course we can argure about if it is wise to let gay people marry. But it would be a stupid argument. If a gay person wishes to marry somebody who am I to tell them no. Marriage is as tough a business as there is in the field of interpersonal relationships. So if two gay guys or gals want to try to make a go of it then heck yes I am all for it.

Now onto making a nation where workers don't have to worry about having their jobs leave for Peru!

Goodbye Ford

I liked Jerry Ford. He was the perfect President for years 1974-1976. What was America like back in those days?

Unemployment was whopping 8.5%
The Budget Deficit: A poultry 550 billion

He had the luck to be the President to actually see the end of the Vietnam War in all its ugly failure. He pardoned Nixon and I think he probably did the right thing. Most all the scumbags that hungout with Nixon ended up going to jail and Nixon was destroyed politically anyway so I think Ford didn't really keep America from getting much more justice out of Watergate.

He also was President during Apollo~Soyuz. This may not sound like much now but back then it was HUGE. Two nations with 10,000 nukes pointed at each other and sworn to kill each other, went up to space to shake hands.

I would certainly take him over the turdsandwich in the White House now. However lots of scummy people who ill advise Bush got their false starts with Ford such as Rummy and Chenny. What killed Ford politically was Regan. Regan's upstart neo-con push for the Presidency in 1976 killed off the tremendously centerist, and potentially progressive, Republican party. That failure in 1976 was to bring to fruition the assinine policies of the Shrub of today. Ford ended up being good freinds with Jimmy Çarter. Both men have taken a beating from the press and their parties, but in the long run both men may shine brighter than, Regan, Clinton or the Bushes.

So long Jerry Ford! Thanks for helping out while you could.

Mom in Iraq

It was touchingto hear about the mother who went to Iraq to see the place where her son died. And it was touching to her words about how the media only reports "the bomb of the day" but unfortunately she is seeing the conflict through eyes stained with tears from a lost son. As an American I thank her son for his service and am sorry that he died. And I wish that the people who brought this war on be sent to prison for murder. This is a war that never needed to happen. While those who sought to kill us and hurt our nation are still at large, we are stuck in Iraq between violent factions bent on killing each other. There are lots of good things happening in Iraq, just like there were lots of good things happening in the 1860's in the USA, but they did not change the fact that the nation was ripping itself apart.

The reasons for being in Iraq or not are, in the long run, academic anyway. There is a huge cost to this war. The balance sheet will determine when this war, for America, ends. Remember WWII? The balance sheet was just as responsible for the dropping of the atom bomb as any other reason. Remember Vietnam? What tipped the balance? Money.

Politically Incorrect Santa III

Ho Ho Ho!

Merry Christmas!

Yes it is Christ's Birthday, again, and no it is not his actual birthday but a date that at least most of us can agree on and not shoot each other over. Not like that whole Easter thing. Anyway so it is the holidays again and time for me, Samta, to give you that ol' fire side chat. I know that FDR did it first but am one to take good ideas of others and run with it.

So here goes for 2006:

I was going to post a really nose-bleeder of a incorrect santa letter but I have had a Dickensian change of heart. You all live in won magnificently adorned and screwed up world. You live in the best and worst of times and have done so since he begining of your meteoric rise from monkey-ville, past Jericho with its problematic walls, and Rome with its good and bad emperors, and those miserable kings of soggy Europe, and the grand and ridiculous emperors of China, all the way to moon landings and asian wars a plenty. So I guess if you can still bother to come together and celebrate a 2000 year old event I outta respect that and not beat up on you all.

Merry Christmas

Santa

The Big Stories and hard issues of today

Should Miss Nevada be stripped of her title because of lewd photos? Should Miss USA keep her title? And what about Miss Teen USA? There is a lot of snow on the ground in Colorado, and its winter! Should we get to have a nativity scene in downtown USA? Well all these stories are good for something. What I am not sure. I guess they keep our little minds of other things like the brake out of civil war in the Palestinian Territories, or the chaos in Iraq.

Or the 60 million Americans that suffer from malnutrition and hunger. This photo is of an American Citizen. This child was born in the richest nation in the history of man. This is not an old photo from the 50's or 60's. This is from 1996 Alabama. We have all the money we need to stop this kind of terrorism. But instead we waste our money killing people on the other side of the globe. To live in hunger, with no job, and no home, and no way out, is terrorism.

Merry Christmas :)

Good News! Freightliner to build new plant!

After the doom and gloom around Freightliner having to lay off 4000 workers due to poor sales, the company has anounced that a brand new sparkling plant will be built to add to its capacity to meet the growing demand for their great trucks. Unfortunately the 4000 workers who got layed off in the US would have to move to Mexico if they wanted to work in that new plant.

Are we (The United States of America) insane?

More Chair Straighting

Lets see if I get the analogy correct:

The RMS Titanic has struck an iceberg and is sinking. There are too few life boats. So the White Star line decides to fire the captain and hire a new guy. Captain Rumsfeld smiles and walks off the bridge. Captain Gates takes his place. Outside, underneath Captain Gates, the dark cold ocean is getting ever closer, the ship is sinking. The physics of water, and bouancy are relentlessly closing off options for the good captain. He decides to visit the ships interior, yep it is sinking. He goes to the bridge and sure enough things are looking bad. His staff decide that perhaps more people should bail water. But Gates is no fool. Bilge will work as long as electrical systems and the boilers are functioning, but the ship is displacing 47 thousand tons of water, there is a gash below the water line, the force of water rushing in must be tremendous. Worse than those awful statistics is the 20 life boats that are rated as holding 1179 people. There are 3,500 people on board.

I hate that the Titanic scenario is matching our situation in Iraq but it does. The situation is not in the control of Washington, it is way beyond that. No new people are going to save this ship. Whatever is going to happen in Iraq, probably bad, is going to happen regardlesss of the "decider" or his minions. Come up with plans, talk to people, launch a study group, but the problem is that the situation is terminal. All the potential happy endings were written out of the equation before the ship was built. The RMS Iraq is sinking precisely because it was designed the way it was.

Prozac Problems

I listened to some really freaked out people talk about how Prozac ruined their lives. I do not doubt that they have had bad experiences. However in my experience Prozac has been a huge help. It is not a panacea for all that is wrong with your life and there are loads of warnings from Eli Lilly about how it works.

First of all like any such drug, it can effect different people in different ways. One side effect of begining taking a regem of Prozac is that your symptoms of nervousness or anxiety can get worse. This, for me, lasted a couple weeks then went away. Prozac does not instantly level out your illness. It takes about a month for it to really start to work correctly. It is also vital to take the med as perscribed. Do not take more or less as you think you need it. It is not asprin, it alters the way your brain cells communicate with each other. Also you should not simply stop taking it. Follow the directions for the medication and your doctor. Also make sure that you stay under the care of a qualified mental health professional.

For those whol like to self medicate:
Prozac is not a narcotic. If you are feeling a little blue and somebody offers you a Prozac it will not act on you like taking Codine for a sprained ankle. It does not act on you like Ativan either. The best idea is just DO NOT SELF MEDICATE.

Just my two cents worth regarding Prozac

Climbing on Mt Hood

10,000 people a year attempt to summit Mount Hood. And a heck of a lot of them make it. So in climbing circles Hood is not very impressive. At least until you have been on it in a storm. I have been up on it in a storm and it sucks. Bad weather on Hood can be really bad, arctic bad, antarctic bad, himalayan bad. When you go from Portland to the summit in a single push, and that wis what most people do, you gain 11,000 feet of elevation. This is like climbing from base camp on Everest to the summit in a day. True almost half the climb is in a car on a highway, but the body is still effected. Another thing about Hood is that the upper section of the peak can stink to high heaven, litterally. Just when your wacked from slogging up snow slopes for five hours you get assaulted by sulfor dioxide from active fumerals.

Mountains and nature allow us to summit or not as they decide. If our desires and the cold, unfeeling, calculations of nature run against each other, nature always wins. Climbers are keenly aware of their smallness and fragility, the mountains and high places of the Earth make us aware. It is one reason why so many people go up to the hills. In the city it is all too easy to think ourselves important and in control, superior to the lower lifeforms of the wild. Mt Hood, and its rocky and ice-scared brothers and sisters, is a reminder that we are basically bacteria living on the skin of an apple.

The West and Middleast Working Together!

Who says that east and west has nothing in common? At least one pro-western group can work with the Iranians.

Today the Iranians are having a "conference" on whether or not the holocaust happened. As if it didn't happen unless the Iranians say it happened. They "liberally" say that if the evidence is there then they will agree that it happened. This is pathetic and I would really wish the world would rise up and shout these scumbags down. To allow this regime to gain the high ground is the best reason I can think of to impeach Bush. Thats right Bush. Bush's mishandling of the post 9-11 world has allowed this pimply little scumbag to claim leadership. Our heavey handed treatment in Iraq spearheaded Nenajad's rise to power in Iran. Our actions helped him solidify his own power base.

It is a pitty that even though both the Palestinians and the Jews have so much in common they cannot see each other. The conditions of Palestine are attrocious and it is made that way in no small part by Isreali actions as well as Hamas. But trying to say that the holocaust never happened is like Isreal saying that there is no problem in the occupied territories. Just because you say something is so doesn't make it so. Look at the mess in Iraq that was brought by believing dubious claims. The Iranians are going down the same bad path with their dunderheaded leadership.

I hope that the Iranian people, who have millenia of civilization to stand on, will not fall prey to this revisionist clap-trap.

Remember Pearl Harbor!?

I read a pathetic Neo-con diatribe about how Iraq is a failure because we used half measures. How we are too timid. What a load of crap. Watching a father cary his dead daughter out of his bombed house screaming "WHY WHY WHY" one wonders what, to a neo-con, would be full measures? They also brought up Pearl Harbor, like we forgot it or something. Well there is a big leasson in Pearl Harbor. Here it is:

The lesson is that Pearl Harbor shows the utter stupidity of premptive attacks. America did not attack Japan. Japan, wishing to teach America a lesson, and disaude it from getting in Japans way in the far east, launched a spectacularly successful series of strikes accross the Pacific, I guess the Neo Cons forgot about the Phillipines, Shanghi, etc, since they only bring up one of the multiple attacks. Anyway the Japanese, after all their initial success ended up getting creamed. They, like Bush, were little boys pushing stones down a hillside. Easily starting what quickly got out of their control.

The real enemy that hit us on 911 is still alive and doing fine. We have not really done much to the real enemy. Extremism, even in the good ol US is alive and well.

As long as we try to fight a war against terrorism we will never win! This is not being defeatist just smart. Fighting a war on terror is like fighting a war against mean people, or "bad guys" there will always be plenty of them to go around. We did not fight a war against facism in WWII. We faught against Germany and Japan. We had no problem allying ourselves with other totalitarians in WWII.

The biggest lesson of Pearl Harbor is "Let's not commit one!"

But this is all wasted on most of the knuckle walkers out there. To them the rules never seem to apply to them. Like Hitler and Tojo, or Stalin and Kruschev, the American Neo Con is blind to the reality of power. Power, real power, never comes out of a gun. Nations that base their greatness on force of arms are quickly vaporized.

All the Air Craft Carriers and tanks, fighter jets, and missles are a made possible by our power, they are not our power. Have we used them to get rid of Bin Laden? NO We have squandered the benifits of our power in Iraq. So our image is less than it was. That sin falls upon the heads of the American Neo Con. If the goal for the New American Century was to rid the world of American power then, I guess, they have done a good job. Like idiots who talked of new world orders, and thousand year reichs, and how they would burry this nation or that, the Neo Cons are only burrying themselves.

So what are we left with? Well throw the turd sandwiches out and get to work fashioning a pragmatic solution to this problem with the full understanding that there will be lots more problems coming, such is life i nthe big wide wonderful world.

Americans should really get to know Iraq

The image here is just a small section of Baghdad. This section is what is refered to as Sadr City. I noticed that Google Earth updated their imagery to 2006 images of the city. I wish they would give us the opportunity to layer the years. In so doing you could see the transformation of Baghdad from a city of parks, soccer fields, pools, golf courses, and jammed city streets, to a wasteland of bombed out buildings, acres of single-wide moble homes for contractors, and zig-zag paterned streets around the Green Zone. If you spent time flying over the city early on in Google Earth it wasn't a shining city by any means, but now it looks more and more like Mogadishu