Most of the new writing will be over there, so get going with the bookmarks and such.

Then I read a story that is spits in the face of all that is wonderful and is proving that instead of soaring like eagles, we are only headed for the dustbin of history, but straight to Hell. While on my lunch break today, I clicked over to Drudge to see if there was any news on the latest developments in Pakistan, when I saw this article:

Britney Spears' 'Blackout' at No. 1

It's just a little bright light in Britney Spears' otherwise dim world. Her new album, "Blackout," will finish at No. 1 this week, according to all the chartmakers.

"Blackout" sold between 325,000 and 350,000 copies depending on whom you believe, but it's enough to put Spears ahead of Carrie Underwood — at least this week.

Read that again. This week, over three-hundred thousand people pulled out their wallets, threw down anywhere from $10 - $20 and purchased an album by a person who couldn't even manage to lip-synch properly at the spectacle of all things unholy: the MTV Music Awards.

I listen to a lot of music, but most of it includes people and bands you probably have never heard of. I feel quite aweful for these people because they've spent countless hours of their lives learning their instruments, honing they lyrical prowess, creating a unique voice and learning to play with other musicians of like calibur to create a product that will someday result in a record deal and, hopefully, a long-term career that will transcend playing in dingy bars, friends' backyard birthday parties and State Fairs.

Unfortunately, silly fools, you were mistaken in thinking that talent and musical skills are actually marketable items in today's culture. Apparently, the equation for success is flipped entirely on its head.

Whose fault is this? I used to blame the music industry. Seeing it from the inside during my days working in the industry, music was not driven by the talent (aka the producers and musicians themselves) as much as by the A&R people. These are the people who are supposidly hip towards what is "cool" and what should "sell." So, good songs get whittled down to three minute hooks that can be interchangable as either radio singles or jingles to sell Chevy trucks or Doritos. I used to go home depressed hearing written songs that took time to develop, set a mood and eventually took you soaring and dizzying heights with spectacular musicianship, only to literally be spiced apart and torn to shreds so they'd make more for a more palatable end product to the listening public. At the time, I must have been a naive 18 year-old, because I believed there was no way people were that stupid in that they'd chose to digest this gruel over proficient musicianship, right?

I didn't think the bar could possibly be set lower. I thought we reached the bottom when grown adults and college graduates began book clubs dedicated to discussing Harry Potter (This week, we'll discuss whether Dumbledore is gay!). No, we had to sink even further. We've collectively purchased enough albums to make her new album #1.

Our crowning diva has had her flashes of bad behavior, which are well documented and while thus not be discussed here, but that isn't the reason this is so troubling. After all, music history is littered with bratty and psychotic behavior that didn't just begin with the birth of rock and roll. Beethoven was undoubtably the biggest world class a-hole to reside this side of France. But, the difference between him and Ms. Spears is that he wrote music that still gives you the chills. People in music schools are still studying every note he wrote because it was prolific, inspiring, intelligent and mind blowing, whereas the only thing Ms. Spears is blowing is her...um bank account (Ok, maybe that's two things I was thinking of).

Redneck wannabe gangsta rappers getting Hummers aside, this speaks of an even greater evil. Namely, the only people that I can blame for this disaster are the very people whom I once had such great faith in. Forget it. Our civilization is burning and I no longer care to aid in putting out the fire.

Someone get me a stick and a bag of marshmellows.

The front page is here.

The blog is here.

Ten Fingers 6 Strings will stay alive, but honestly, I'm not sure what will be written here and how often. It is safe to presume that most updates are going to be over at the new place. If you like what you see, please send Kyle and me an email or give us a link on your site. If you are interested in contributing in some way as well, please contact us and we'll see what we can do.

I do know of one specific thing I'll be posting here: I'll have some thoughts about the general state of the "blogosphere," if you can really even call it that anymore. Many of my blog friends have, or will be hanging it up, and there are only a handful of sites that I really read anymore. It really is a time for a new start for me and Continuous Wonder isn't a blog. It has a blog, but it will be a full site dedicated to a way of life.

Thanks to everyone that supported me here the last three years!

A better description of this psychological phenomenon came from a guy named Jeremy Smyczek, who a few years ago, wrote a semi-fictional blog called "The Gas Guy." In his Dead for a Ducat, post, Smyczek wrote the following:

The principal idea that this dead insect is conveying is that if people are going to notice and correct a change for the worse in the general state of cleanliness, they’re going to do so almost immediately. Once material objects go unnoticed and unaddressed for a sufficient chronological span, the tendency seems that they become part of the furniture—part of the landscape, even. It is hardly revolutionary psychology to note how the human brain has a curious method of assimilating objects once they cease to be novel, stuffing them into the vast mnemonic file called, “well, it was there yesterday.” This is why people can drive from home to work and back on the freeway and later be able to tell you almost nothing about the experience: the interstate, after the third or fourth time one has driven it, simply becomes a chapter from memory and no longer a new, interesting, or vital experience. There exists little likelihood that it will be much different today or tomorrow from how it was yesterday, so people simply react to it from memory, with just enough awareness fixed at the level of immediate consciousness to avoid crashing into the other cars. From a practical and utilitarian point of view, this type of activity is really pretty benign, but from a philosophical or spiritual perspective, the implications are somewhat more troubling: in doing so, one misses out on an awful lot of the minutiae that makes life interesting.

The intellectual negligence that I’m describing, regarding a thing as small and unseemly as a former social insect, certainly doesn’t end with wee and dismissible bits of matter. This is the phenomenon by which citizens of Switzerland and Nepal find nothing noteworthy or spectacular about the Alps or the Himalayas, how Londoners ride the bus to work past Big Ben and see a large clock telling them that they’re late, or go to church at St. Paul’s and find it the most pedestrian church in the world, wonder what the gawking tourists see in it, and sit through service as bored as anyone in the most truly uninspired of newer Episcopal buildings. It’s how fishermen on trawlers find nothing at all grandiose or inspiring about the pitch and yaw of a ship on the ocean, or indeed the sprawl of the ocean itself: while the witnessed phenomena are unchanged, the person receiving sensory input has changed. It is as if wonder and novelty are inextricably entwined.

In a perplexing way, the human brain seem to be offended by the concept of wonder, as if it is a cutting intellectual insult to be presented with something beyond its ability to effectively name and categorize, define and comprehend—something to simply admire rather than master. So as a gesture of spite it simply blinds itself to things that are beyond its grasp or outside the scope of what it deems compelling, as a means to isolate itself from the sensory overload that is the concept of amazement. We call things death, or ocean, or mountain, or God, or universe, so that we now have a working concept much more comfortably functional and infinitely less complex than the named thing itself.

Jeremy wonderfully articulates the philisophical and psychological concept of entropy: the inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society. The system that is in play here is your brain and how it processes the interactions one has with the outside world. Through several examples, he demonstrates just how the human being can unconsciously shut itself off, allowing it to drift and, as it drifts, it increasingly becomes disordered as all the factors that held it together at one point are competing against one another and pulling the unconscious subject's psyche in several different directions.

The outside world can be specific things or it can be packaged in experiences (which are combinations of actions and interactions with human and non-human things). Sometimes the brain is passive, absorbing information, and sometimes it's active making conscious choices and interacting with the outside world. However, the combination of initiatives the brain takes, after processing the results of these experiences, they become future autoresponses for like situations in the future. The brain is developing reactions based on what it learned in the past. Pavlov's dog, whose mouth waters at the sound of the bell, shows just how this whole system works in real life.

Now, this is just strict mechanics, and many have falsely concluded that this demonstrates that we are completely or mostly at the mercy of our neurons pulsing and firing at will. But what is it that seperates us from collective biological functions that create our physical being, to the human being who we really are? The human element is how man consciously takes initiative and expresses himself into the world. Bruce Lee describes this balance between man and machine:

...so what I'm saying, actually, you see, it's a combination of both. I mean here is natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony, not--if you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific. If you have another to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man--no longer a human being. So it is a successful combination of both, so therefore, it's not pure naturalness, or unnaturalness. The ideal is unnatural naturalness, or natural unnaturalness.

Bruce Lee's form of self-expression was Martial Arts. He'd spend 10 hours a day training so that all his movements would come unconsciously. Blocking, kicking, punching. Iteration after iteration he mechanically trained to the point where in a split second, his body was responding in complete symmetry with itself toward its desired end, without a thought other than the one to trigger the response. However, the end goal wasn't a punch, a kick or combination thereof, it was how those elements were used together to express who Bruce Lee saw when he meditated on himself; it was ultimately an extension of his morality.

It has to go beyond just mechanics. Science is ultimately limited because it is doesn't provide much forward looking guidance. My good friend Kevin used his linguistic wizardry to describe the false paradox many have set up in a wedding toast this past weekend: there is a great reason "why science and spirituality needn't compete." My morality, that I choose to follow, is simple and based on an external source found in the Bible. Bruce Lee found his in Buddhism. Whereas my ability to reason and form understanding from the outside world is based on science, what I ultimately do with that knowledge comes from my spiritual relationship upwards to God. I then express my understanding of this relationship through self-expression. Some examples of my self-expression come through exploration and music, Bruce Lee's was martial arts and acting. Other examples of self-expresion play out in personal relationships with friend, family and others.

Throughout my meditations on who I am, I've come to the ultimate realization that my humanity is wonderful, yet horribly flawed: I'm a human being capable of great things, while at the same time, I can be awefully cruel in the preservation of myself. I need an external source who has communicated to me who I am and where I belong, so that I can actively take steps to keep my being from falling apart due to entropy. The process with my God is an active process, not a passive one.

One's particular religion doesn't really matter here. I'm not talking about theological concepts such as redemption from sin; that is a whole other topic that I refuse to get into here on any level ever. In fact, affilation with a particular religion--in this case Christianity--is mutually exclusive to avoiding entropy. A man who is a not an active participant in his life and does not take active steps to repair and strengthen his relationship with the outside world, yet claims to be a Christian, is passive and subjected to mechanics tending towards disorder. This explains why I am quoting a Buddist, Martial Artist rather than someone within my theological tent. Theology aside, Bruce understood something critical about our humanity and how one can consciously choose to live to overcome that which is pulling him apart when he becomes passive participant.

Without this consciousness, man drifts towards disorder. This entropy is capable of ripping him apart as well as his relationship with the outside world. The unconscious man wanders while these forces continue to pull him apart; often times in the late 20th and early 21 century, he medicates to relieve the pain that is just a symptom of the things that are pulling his soul apart. Medicine has it place, but it is not a substitute for active participation and keen awareness of the effort and courage it takes to live in freedom.

Why am I talking about this here on my site? First, I need to write it down because it helps me think. Second, I want to publically acknowledge this to the person who brought this up to me how much it really meant. Lastly, though, this is the foundation and the basis for the new website that Kyle and I are designing: Continuous Wonder.

Smyczek demonstrated and concluded that the human mind is fundamentally offended by the concept of wonder through his examples above. The very concept of continous wonder is the cornerstone ideology that guides me as a human being: an individual consciously engaging the outside world. Sometimes my self-expression will take on the form of travelling to the tallest mountain the world, sometimes it will be a walk down my hill sipping coffee and reading a paper, sometimes it'll be creating a video with music that I wrote (unfortunate for all the cats out there who still have their hearing). The what isn't as important as the why. Continuous Wonder will be a place that will explore the why and I invite all who want to participate in this journey to do so in their own way.

Glad you are back with your family, my friend.

How many flipping times do I have to tell you people? The Eagles need to fire Andy Reid and make Donavan McNabb jump off the Walt Witman Bridge. Maybe they should drain the water in the Deleware River before he does it. I want him to feel the pain of fifty thousand linebackers hitting his blindside, because that is what every Eagles fan feels in their hearts when we see our beloved team lose another game they should win. Booooooooo!!!

Dear readers, you must understand the level of sweetness that Kyle is. He is designing a slick, cool and classy site, which will most likely be dymetrically opposed to all the content that will go in it. Lipstick and rouge on a pig and so forth. If Kyle wasn't such a loyal friend, he'd be off making friends with people who could write something sellable with the ability to generate actual traffic. I think maybe he still feels bad for setting my esaphogus on fire with 120-proof whiskey back in college.

At its launch, there will be topical sections you can navigate through. In particular, there will be a dedicated section to all things Everest/Tibet/Nepal with video, audio (maybe) and more stories. I'm reluctant to post much additional here in the meantime due to the fact that I want to have some fresh content at the new site when it is ready. It might not be good content, mind you, but it will be new and I know that is what you people demand.

More later.

Anyway, I'm deeply passionate about following the behavioral oddities of our fellow man, so look no further than the latest bastion of primitivism trying to pose itself as populist, yet communalistic; bourgeois, yet bohemian; black, yet white. It seems that many of the granola hippies of Vermont are so free lovin', they are heading down to meet and embrace their newly found brothers in arms, the neo-Confederates, to "discuss" secession from the Union:

In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.

That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.

My analysts have given me some great insight about the potential responses by the U.S. Government in the event of such an uprising and we have concluded the following:

The League of the South may find comforting rhetorical cover for their anti-federalist platform by the Second Republic of Vermont, however, the last time a large group of people decided to pull away from the Union, they could comforably rely on Lee, Jackson and Longstreet to provide the muscle needed to wiggle away. We all know how that turned out for them and I think it would be naive for them to think that void will be filled by a bunch of smelly people throwing Ben & Jerry's ice cream cones while beating Djembes.

In fact, I recommend that we keep the National Guard at home in the event of such an uprising and send in a team of Cub Scouts looking for their civic duty badge. If the Second Republic of Vermont's resolve is stronger than anticated, a regiment of Brownies held in reserve can be sent in to crush their rebellion once and for all. Of course, accusations by human rights groups could be of concern by taking these actions, but they would be a small price to pay for restoration of the Union and to ensure that generations to come will remember the humiliation delivered to them by a tightly knit group of ruthless, giggling, 3rd grade girls.

• I just got back from spending three days on a houseboat on Lake Shasta. I had a fabulous time, but there will be no details here since it I was there for a bachelor party. I mean, do you really want to read about how we got a donkey, seven midgets and twenty hookers on a boat in the middle of the lake in the rain?

• I don't want anything to do with baseball for a long time. My lovable loser Mets demonstrated what it looks like to bleed to death from a thousand papercuts. The clear favorite in the National League at the All Star Break utterly collapsed and compiling one of the worst records in baseball over the last two months, yet somehow, they still managed to hang in there until the last day of the regular season. The Mets lost the East, the Phillies didn't win it.

  I'm not overly dramatic about baseball and really just love watching the game regardless of the participants. However, the absolute sickening display of atrocity that was the 2007 Mets just makes me want to bury baseball until next year. Thanks Mets, you made me hate baseball, which is a damn hard thing to do.

• I got my Van Halen tickets and am incredibly excited to see Eddie and Dave on stage again. I saw the first videos that leaked out a few weeks ago showing Eddie Van Halen ripping it up with renewed vigor and passion. After seeing him in 2004, not only did he play like he only had two-and-a-half fingers, he looked like he was a five step drop from falling into the grave. He's clean, sober, smiling and actually having fun again. I can't wait to see this show and the set list produces drool everytime I think about it (I'm not going to waste space posting it in here, so email me if you really want it).

• While the Mets ruined baseball, I can't believe that I actually have something to route for in college football now. The Indiana Hoosiers have come off an impressive 38 - 20 win at Iowa to improve to 4 - 1. Kellen Lewis and James Hardy are two guys that are going to give opposing defenses fits all season long, but we'll see how they respond playing the likes of Wisconsin and Penn State. Both of those teams are vulnerable, but I'm just hoping we can pull off three more wins so we can go bowling for the first time in 13 years.

  What kind of vortex do we live in where Indiana is 4 - 1, but our Golden Domer neighbors to the north are 0 - 5? At least my friend The Colossus has the Red Sox and Pats to cheer for.

Incredible.

The team consisted of Eddie, Rich and me. Rich is passionate climber with many peaks notched onto his Sierra belt and he gained rock solid credibility with me last year when he suggested that I climb Point Powell--that climb became one of the single greatest outdoor moments in my life. Under no circumstance could this trip have been completed without the presence of one of my dearest friends and frequent climbing partner: Eddie.

Our goal of climbing Mt. Humphreys on the second day would require Eddie and me to sack up and attempt our first Class 4 climb. Rich pacified our apprehension (and whining) by bringing his rope, nuts and some rappel slings in case we freaked out. I felt good enough in the planning stages to volunteer to lead the climb, but we'd have to wait to see if the strength of my spine matched the width of volume of my mouth when we got there.

Equipment Check

Eddie has been a bit of a vagabond the last few years with all of his personal belongings stretched out in three different, personally convenient, yet not very strategic, locations in and around San Francisco. Just before leaving, he searched and searched and could not find his sleeping bag, thus requiring him to make a last minute purchase: the Slumberjack.

The revelation of the Slumberjack (which at one point in its life-cycle served as a parachute in the gay pride parade) caused Rich and I to wake up the entire campground* with our hysterical laughter. I even managed to shoot a sunflower seed out of my nose causing it to rub raw for the next few days.

Morning came early enough and we got a nice casual start onto the trail headed to Piute Pass. It was a gorgeous morning: still, clear, very warm and the sky was cobalt blue. This serenity was enough to make me forget that I'd committed to leading the class four pitch on Humphreys--however the serenity was quickly and thoroughly destroyed by the barrage of methane bombs released from our climbing group due to taco chomping that was done at La Villa in Tracy the afternoon before.

It didn't take long for our eager climbing party to reach Piute Pass, which was one of the easiest passes I've ever experienced; long, gradual slopes with a very clear trail. It even had steps carved into the granite set at perfect intervals, that is, if you were either a midget or eight-foot tall sasquatch. Unfortunately for us normal sized bipeds, they continually broke our stride causing us to mumble short-terse obsenities at the National Parks brainchild who came up with the idea.

Upon reaching the Piute Pass, a large, expansive basin was revealed, flanked by Humphrey's on the right and Muriel Peak on the left. We sat down to admire Humphrey's only to shift our curses from the National Parks step-child to the previous occupants who, like us, probably sat there to rest and eat a snack, but who, not like us, decided to crap on the rocks creating a giant eyesore.

While taking a break and soaking in the gorgeous views, we decided it was time to do some strategizing. We'd managed to cruise up to the pass by noon and had the whole afternoon to either sit around or come up with a short adventure. During the initial planning stages, Rich had come up with the idea of trying to bag Goethe--a nice Class 4--that was located in the basin behind Muriel to the West. I looked up at all the scree and loose rock that was visable from the South (see above pic) and suggested that we try to attack the mountain from the North through the basin (which was not visable) with hopes that the rock quality would be better. This would be what I'd like to call erroneous decision number one or, the beginning of three idiots wandering the Sierras.

We hiked up to lake just below the Goethe Basin. In my life, I have never seen such blue lakes. Not green-blue, or blue-green, or if you live in the delta, brown-not-at-all-blue, but blue-blue. I took a couple of pictures of this as we began hopping across the beginning of what would be seven continuous hours of talus hopping.

Slogging across talus is like trench warfare without all the tanks, dying, blood and Germans in funny helmets. It is analogous because you put forth maximum individual as well as collective effort to make forward progress which can only be measured in inches and feet. Just when you think you are getting the hang of it, swarms of mosquitos sitting in wet pockets waiting for warm flesh attack you with fury. The sad thing is, in spite of this sneak attack, you find hope that at least some living creature is alive out there amongst the talus.

After two solid hours of talus slogging, we looked up at, you guessed it, more talus to the top of Alpine Col. Rich guessed that we were not going to make it to Goethe in time, but that we could climb up the Col, summit Murriel, then head down the other side to our camp. The thought of retreating over the talus was much too disturbing to contemplate, so naturally we slogged on. Eddie and Rich bombed up the class 2 climbing to the top of the Col, while I lagged behind.

Rich asked, "Dude, where were you?"

"I had to stop to take some pictures. I got a sweet picture of the talus."

"Yes! Let me take some pictures of you and Eddie standing on top of the sweet talus."

At the top of the Col, our spirits were regenerated. We stood overlooking Evolution Valley with Mt Darwin and Mendall towering above. Further to the East, Mt Goddard loomed in the background. I reminded myself that Goddard has to move towards the top of my list of trips with its unique geology, bold presence and the fact that there are no mountains around it blocking its views. I assumed the view from the top must be spectacular.

Noting that we were getting short on time, we climbed up a soft, but very fun class 2 ridge to the summit crest of Murriel. It was the most fun we had all day, which wasn't saying much because prior to that point we were in talus hell, but I think would have made a fun scramble on any trip. Rich took pics of Ed and me climbing up pretending like we were doing some really hard technical climbing, when in reality, has probably been done by eight-year olds. However, the pics turned out to be pretty money.

We bagged the summit and took a few pics. Looking down across the broad shoulder of Muriel, we high-fived and mocked the talus below us, assuming we'd never see it again. We trotted down, laughing and smiling, only to grow large frowns once we found that we had cliffed out. There was no access or relief in sight, so to our only choices at that point were a retrace over the talus or to do a sketchy, cliffed-out, downclimb. I think the second choice could have been gang beating with billy-clubs while eating yak turds and we still would have refused to turnaround and go across the talus.

Rich started to downclimb something that put a lump in my throat. Eddie and I looked at each other and decided that we'd find another way down, but that we should go far enough away that we'd be out of shouting distance.

I spied a vein that looked like it would head down. Ed and I went down, with me in the lead. Each step was super scary and, although I didn't realize it at the time, was probably about the scariest thing I had done. The rock quality was incredibly bad and I had to go about 100 feet in front of Ed in fears that the rocks would come down on my head. About this time, I thanked God that we'd brought our ropes and helmets...oh, wait, nevermind, they were strategically sitting back at camp.

About halfway, we ran into Rich as he was looking equally nervous and perplexed. I saw two potential routes down where I knew they'd reach the flat without cliffing out. Rich slowly treversed a giant slab across while I scoped the bottom claiming I'd found the way. Ed and I conferred and he didn't like the first choice at all, which was littered with gravel on top of the granite. It would be like climbing a 50-degree slope on top of marbles. Rich came over and I pointed at the route.

"There it is. Once you get down that part, you..."

"F--k you!"

"I guess we'll go the other way then."

I looked down and although a huge boulder was blocking my view, the granite was firm and clean. I told them that I'd go down and scope it out.

I made it down about 100 feet of tricky, but clean down-climbing, and finished the first part by treversing the big boulder that was blocking our view. From there I saw that we'd have a sketchy, but doable down climb along a ledge whose south side dropped off 300 feet to the deck. After each pitch, I'd climb down, turn around and talk Eddie down, then he'd dow the same for Rich as I began the next pitch. We did this until the final pitch, which included an airy ballet move where you swung across a deep crack reach a nice juggy hand hold over a 20-degree slab that would take you to the bottom. This is what most of the route looked like from the bottom:

Standing at the bottom in relative safety, Eddie asked in all seriousness, "If you do a route for the first time, can you name it?"

"Yeah."

"How 'bout we called it 'Bullshit Route?'"

Rich, "How 'bout we call it 'Three Dumb-F--ks in Over Their Head Route?'"

Both labels were apropos and stuck. If you climb this route in the future, it has been christened for you for all eternity.

We started our hike back to camp when Fate came across and pimp-slapped us again. We had no choice, but to slog across another hour and a half of talus to get back to camp. I think all of us would have sold our souls to the devil just to avoid that part, but alas, the three idiots in over their head would have to pay for their hubris in the mountains. Physically, we all had felt fine just after the down-climb, however, with each successive step on the talus, we rapidly started fading.

We were within ten minutes of camp, most of us holding back vomit from the over-exertion, when we came to a fork where we could walk to the left or right around a lake to get back to camp. We chose left, walked about fifty feet and Rich let out a howl realizing that the lake led right to a cliffed out area. We'd have to climb up to the top of this ledge, which under normal circumstances would have been easy for Paris Hilton in four-inch heels carrying both chiwawas, but hard for three guys that were just about at the end of their respective ropes.

Rich plodded up the hill and I looked back and saw that Ed was totally dejected. I forced my way up, reached deep inside my gut to put on half-a-smile and said, "Hey Ed, it's not so bad."

"Bullshit, it isn't, it sucks!"

"Thanks, Rich."

Ed laughed, but mostly cried plodding up the hill.

Anyway, we wandered around, found camp with our ropes sitting unused and mocking us. Rich passed out within minutes and Ed and I tried to put up the tent, but instead laughed ourselves silly "singing" more Too Short songs. The tent eventually got up and we were fast asleep dreaming of three-egg omlettes at Jack's when we'd reach Bishop ten hours from then.

The allusive Mount Humphreys will have to wait until next year. It's funny how you can be in the worst of circumstances, but end up being all good when you are with the right people.

Lots of class 4 climbing on sticky, slabby granite with huge jugs. All of you who know me well know what a big fan I am of grabbing the latter.

You'll see two "towers" on the ridge before the summit. Each of those requires rappelling instead of a 5.6 - 5.8 downclimb. The second tower will require two rappels.

The weather has been clear since Sunday, so it looks like we'll get one more day of money climbing in before winter hits. I don't think I'll take Ian's advice and climb under the influence of gin.

Thanks to everyone that donated. I just went to the bank at lunch today and wired $750 to Chandra for help his family rebuild after the big floods. I cannot tell you how grateful that I am that people who've never met him before would dig into their pockets to shell out their own hard earned cash to help him out.

Anyway, the $750 came from five donors including me, so although the amount of givers was small, the amount per person was very large. However, I think that is more a function of how many people are reading my non-updating site than anything. I told you I only had five readers!

I will post an email from Chandra once he receives the cash. Maybe I can get him to take some pictures of his home and send them to me so you can see where the money has gone.

If you haven't contacted me and you still would like to send something, please do so.

There hasn't been any posting here due to lots of life stuff that has kept me off the blog for a while. As of July, work has shifted dramatically to the negative, so I've been seeking other opportunities, but in the meantime, I've had to work with a staff that has been reduced by 1/3 although there is twice the work, etc, etc. I'm sure that anyone who has been involved in the corporate world understands this, but it sucks nonetheless.

I'm realizing that writing gives me an outlet, so I have about six Tibet/Nepal posts brewing, but I haven't had time to edit and work them through. I like the approach I have been taking in writing about the adventure, so you'll see that "theme" furthered and improved upon.

Lastely, I am hoping to get into the mountains one last time before season is over. I'll play hooky from work during the week. More details later.

In the meantime, thanks again for all those who have and are donating to Chandra.