Thursday, September 29, 2005

Business Opportunity: Hoegaarden

For the second time in a month, the distributor for my favorite beer Hoegaarden, has gone dry... You can not find it anywhere in the city of Seattle. I checked.
Stellar pizza got so fed up that they will no longer carry it.. Which is a real loss.
Mashiko, Peoples, Barca, are all out.
This is a business opportunity people.
http://www.liq.wa.gov/licensing/license_fees.asp
Honestly, I imagine there are some real ugly monoplolies/exclusivity deals that prevent someone from moving in.. but I can dream.
http://www.inbev.com/

Monday, September 26, 2005

Jump Log: Cleared to Solo!

Well, I did it. I have completed all seven jumps of the AFF course at Kapowsin. I am now cleared to solo dive, and work up to jump 25 and my A-class license.
http://www.skydivekapowsin.com/aff1.htm
Which is good, cause I got to tell ya, being evaluated while performing very specific tasks falling at 120 mph is just a little bit of added stress I don't really need. Repeating a class also means more $$$. I did it in seven, and couldn't be happier.

Jump six was the front flip, back flip, barrel roll class. The goal is not to execute a perfect set of flips, but to make sure you can regain control if you end up tumbling through the sky for some reason. Honestly I thought if there was any class I would have to repeat, that this would be it. Up until this point the tasks were various turning and control exercises.. Flips really turn the volume to eleven and then some. My Front flip was perfect. I was a bit aggressive on my backflip and ended up with a double. And the barrel roll was decent.
I really can't put in words how intense it was to do flips in the sky at 120mph. It was another case where the stimulation was so great that my brain started to narrow my awareness. My eyes were open during the flips, but I didn't really _perceive_ anything except the change in light intensity. Dark, Light, Dark time to stop.. oops, Light again, and back to Dark. OK.

Jump seven was an exercise in tracking, which is basically moving forward toward a destination. I did a dive exit on this one, and I haven't quite got the hang of that yet. Basically you dive out of the plane and try to present your body to the prop wash of the airplane which is the relative wind until you start falling. I can't quite describe the feeling of jumping out, and unexpectedly going end over end backwards... This is not good. Relax do an arch, get control..ok. I rotate around and watch the plane fly away and wait for my instructor to jump out.. She was still up there and was evaluating my stellar exit I'm sure. Everything goes well, I pull my chute at 4K, and land on my own without a radio.
I am ready to solo. Booya!

another highlight for jump seven was being the first out of the plane. Which also means I'm one of two people opening the door. You are sitting on your knees, looking through basically a clear plastic garage door, waiting for the jump light to go on and looking for any _other_ airplanes that might be below us (that would be bad)... Jessie (my instructor) says this:
~Ok, the door takes two people to open, we wait for the light, open the door, and check for clouds or other planes below us. If you accidentally fall out while opening the door, that's ok, because that's what we are here to do anyways.~ [evil grin]
Let me tell you, when you open a large door on the side of a moving airplane at 13,500 feet, suddenly there is a roaring wind, and It really hits you: "Dude, I'm going to jump out of a Fucking airplane, right NOW" and you are completely in that single moment. I'll admit I day dream and zone out on a lot of things, but my god, immanent departure has my full attention. Believe that.


Friday, September 23, 2005

W: Big Pimpin

Anyone else notice that even the conservative publications are starting to turn on W?

http://www.reason.com/links/links092105.shtml

Those figures come by way of the American Enterprise Institute's Veronique de Rugy, who has calculated that George W. Bush has boosted total inflation-adjusted discretionary spending in his first term by 35.1 percent. To put that in context, chew on this: LBJ—the Texas legend who created the Great Society and, for all intents and purposes, the Vietnam War—only boosted discretionary spending 33.4 percent. What's more, the gap between Bush and LBJ will only grow.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

GCC / C++ oddity

We started using a newer version of GCC (3.4), which is apparently more strict, but something really really weird came up... This code compiles and runs up to GCC 3.3.

Here is part of the actual .h file:

template
class CBContainer
{
protected:
struct Container
{
Container *pNextContainer;
T *pObjects;
int lastSlot;

Container(Container *pPrevContainer, int numObjects)
{
pNextContainer = 0;

if (pPrevContainer)
pPrevContainer->pNextContainer = this;

pObjects = new T[numObjects];
lastSlot = 1;
}
~Container(){ delete [] pObjects; delete pNextContainer; }
int GetSize() const{ return nextSlot + (pNextContainer ? pNextContainer->GetSize() : 0);}
};

.....snip
}

Notice that GetSize() uses 'nextSlot', which is not defined _anywhere_. I tried to simplify it but just a .h with 'int foo() { return undefArg + };' does make the compiler choke.. Maybe the template has something to do with it?

Monday, September 19, 2005

Looking Down (for Tom)

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Climbing Journal: Static Point


First of all, let me get right to the belly aching. The person that wrote the section on Static Point in the "Washington Climbing Guide" is seriously on my shit list.
"hike down the trail .6(Point Six) miles, at which point you will cross a gully and travel 1 mile up the gully to the rock face." WRONG! So wrong. We only crossed, oh maybe two dozen gullies/creeks/whatever.. And man it was easily 4 miles in before we found the trail up to the face.. Which they neglected to mention was a serious kick in the butt. Where's the sherpa? I think it was 20 minutes to the uphil, and then an hour of solid up hill hike. Forget driving up, and walking a few minutes to the crags.. This was a sweaty aproach made worse by a bad choice of footwear..Next time hiking boots! But we made it, and my shirt was soaked.


Man, it was worth it. A sea of granite, very few holds, slab climbing, friction time, Just smear those hands and feat and keep trucking to the next bolt. Try not to think about the fact you are hundreds of feat up and you have absolutely nothing to hold on to. NO HOLDS. I'll admit the fear kicked in a couple of times. Even the tiniest little crack provides you with a sense of security because you can squeeze it hard, the harder the better, it won't hold you on the wall if your feet slip, but just the act of gripping something is so reassuring after swimming across the ocean of granite.
The routes were a bit run out... but refreshing in comparison to something like exit 38, where you clip every five feet. We went up four pitches of 5.8(about 200 meters or so). The fifth pitch:
was 5.10a and while it definitely seemed within our reach, we decided not to push it and rapelled down. We got there at 11, and got back to the car at 5, way way tired. Mostly from the hike.

Did I mention the view?




What do you guys use to charge your hair?

Gelatine for huge ones, hair spray works ok. But gelatine (unflavoured uncoloured gelly) works the best for big ones.

1/2 cup boiling water,
2 table spoons gelatine,
stir until its saturated,
let it cool some,
smear, comb in, squeeze excess out,
pull up tight and blow dry

http://www.livejournal.com/community/_mohawkssss/112281.html?#cutid1

The suffering begins, when the barometer falls!

"The old timers say that when a big storm comes, you can feal it in your bones.... I'm here to tell you... they are right!"
[SMASH!]

Friday, September 16, 2005

Right Wing Talking Points

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Soylent Diesel is Cats!!!

I just watched Soylent Green yesterday...
He denies it now, but common, he's German, of course he turned dead cats into diesel.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/09/14/germany.catfuel.reut/index.html

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Windows Vista comes in 7 flavors

Sorry guys,
Since I've managed so far to avoid upgrading to 2K3, or XP, I think it's a safe bet I'm not going to be installing Vista any time soon.
Look: Vista comes in 7 delightful flavors:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050910-5298.html

Starter Edition, Home Basic Edition, Home Premium Edition, Professional Edition, Small Business Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Ultimate Edition.

How about Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet?
Seriously people. Seven versions? Why stop there? How about a series of drop downs and check boxes with a price calculator at the bottom?.... Ahh, I see you have chosen "TCP/IP Stack", +$6.99.. And I never print anything, so I'll uncheck printer spooler -$0.99



Monday, September 05, 2005

That's some bomber pro!

So, today I went to Index and did my first traditional climb. So So good. All those months in the gym finally pay some serious dividends.
First route was Aries, a three pitch climb, (my first trad and first multi pitch)

A great introduction to trad climbing, pitch 2 was this amazing diverging chimney, that I wiggled up.. Serious full body climbing. pitch 3 was a great finger crack followed by an undercling. At the end of pitch 3 Simone and I met up with 5 other climbers that I knew from Stone Gardens.. What a small world.

Second route of the day was Sagittarius, a challenging 5.9+ with a serious 40 foot crack up followed by a gorgeous horizontal undercling/handjam. Simone was doing all the leading and had some serious problems with the start of this route. In retrospect a little lie back would have made things go much easier. Simone ended up setting up a top rope at the end of the route, because he was seriously pooped from the approach.

My turn:
I blaze up the 40 foot crack with a lieback, start to traverse the undercling and start to get really tired about 20 feet from the bolts.
About 10 feet out... Fading.. fading.. fading... I can see salvation in the form of a huge foot hold ..just.. ..too.. far. So time is running out on my arms, and I make the decision to lunge for the foot..
In retrospect, I should have just jammed my hands up the crack, and had a rest.. but those techniques are all pretty new to me, so I stuck with the undercling and made the desperation move.

Lunge! (My eyes were probably closed) Miss! Big swing. Flip upside down. hit my head.
Simone was sure it was time for the stretcher.
"No, I'm fine!" Hang there upside down a bit, then finish and clean the route.

In the end, an amazing day, definitely going to go back asap.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

End of aging

Mice with the ability to regenerate any tissue or organ but the brain:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16417002%255E30417,00.html
As an added bonus, injecting the fetal cells into other mice also gives them this ability.

For the last couple years I've held the position that in 50, and no more than 100 years, humans will just not get any older.

Also, I think it's about time someone invented "The Human Gene Expression Kit --Home Edition" Don't like your eye color? Too fat? Too thin? Busted kidney? etc etc.. This will of course have to be something that you piece together from instructions on the internet.. Liability and medical licensure issues would be too heinous otherwise. I'm optimistic it will be done though... The non monetary motivation is definitely there..

When you see that people today are injecting themselves with silicone they bought at the hardware store for $10, you must believe that eventually people will take it on themselves to alter their own genetic code... I can't wait.