"Edge pretended to be Chrome, and Chrome pretended to be Safari, and Safari pretended to be Mozilla. And Edge used EdgeHTML but revealed it not, and Chrome used Blink, but revealed it not, but Chrome pretended to use WebKit. And Webkit pretended to be KHTML, and KHTML pretended to be Gecko. And confusion abounded excessively on the face of the web."
A quote from a post on a web master forum about the structural source code behind various popular web browsers many people use today.
Did anyone every tell you that vehicles can sometimes be a literal "money pit"? Well, it is true....
Long ago when I was fresh out of high school and a mere young punk I managed to save up a dollars worth of $ to purchase a 1966 Mustang convertible with a 6-cylinder engine. The exterior was totally black, with specialized chrome-plated side pipes, and chrome rims, and big wide tires on the back end — all jacked up fancy like a roaring beast muscle car betting on first place — that is, until you glanced under the hood and realize it had a very old well-used oil-leaking junkyard acquired V-6 engine that could barely handle normal driving range functionality.
Well, I think I may have owned it for all of about nine months, and the continuous stream of maintenance issues and $$$ costs hit me financially again and again — from a constant stream of vehicle repairs that ranged from minor mechanical engine problems, to carburetor issues, to brakes issues, to something else — you know — car things that just kept going wonky on an old well used auto.
Eventually at the end of that summer I finally reach the utter low point where my lowly first career choice income could not match the steep near constant vehicle maintenance costs — none of my frustrated youthful finagling's linked to that Mustang car equaled a positive sign of anything, so later at the end of that summer I took the well used car to the nearest used car dealer and sold it "As Is", to let someone else be consumed by the burden of maintenance factors that surrounded that vehicle.
Done — gone. Nowadays, being well situated in a reasonable residential zone in a small town with a plethora of nearby stores to suit all my wants and needs, I am convinced that bicycles are a much better mode of transportation for locale commuting purposes.
Holiday season was upon us, and Christmas Day was a mere seven days away. The Christmas tree was in place in the front room with its tip literally touching the low ceiling of the tiny tiny rental home in inner Sailweed District in the inner parts of southeast X-land. Sailweed District is of course, noted for being the somewhat poorer persons part of town (amongst other things), where the working class proletariat dwell.
All round the base of the Xmas tree lay a fine knee-deep selection of gift wrapped packages awaiting that special day to be opened by the two lovers who live at the residence.
The rental home stood just a mere few yards from the paved sidewalk, and its big front window seemingly advertised our Xmas tree and its colorfully wrapped packages to the entire passing world.
Saturday arrived sunny, bright and cold, so we opted to take a short drive over to a local city park and enjoy a short midwinter day's walk.
A few hours later, upon return to our rental home, we arrive to discover that we've had unknown visitors, and the front door has been quite literally — kicked completely off from its hinges and was laying flat on the living room floor!
Much to our dismay the front room was a messy shamble of strewn items. Yep, ALL of our Xmas gifts were stolen, and the bedroom was ransacked in a hasty search and grab for minor things like jewelry.
And when asking our immediate neighbors (think 100'x200' sized city lots) — who were all at home on both sides of our residence, and who literally live mere feet away from us — neither of our neighbors had heard any sound, nor saw anything!?! Really!
The only nice thing we could ever find to say about Sailweed District is just how quickly we moved out of of there!
Yet our departure was not quite fast enough for we also had our Honda Accord's ignition switch busted off in a random thief's nightly attempt to steal our vehicle too . . . .
At just the exact right hour of the afternoon during mid summer, while we were standing at the Rock Creek crag, chatting about climbing just after doing an ascent of a route, we peered far off to the west, and on the far side of the valley, perched high on a forested hill slope, both of us instantly realized — that a minor rocky looking prominence protruding from the hillside actually IS a small rock pinnacle! The late afternoon sunlight shafts sideways, at just the right hour to reveal the true shape of the little pinnacle from afar.
So, a few weekends later, the team congealed a 'must-do-it' plan, and went out on the hunt for ir, and found it, and done did it — a ground-up ascent of the infamous Skookum Pinnacle.
It's quite rare to find such little odd pinnacle summits anywhere near Portland these days, as the pickin's are mighty slim (most of these types of little climbing treasures have long since been discovered and ascended).
Life's an Adventure
A friend and I were going after the prize, and long untapped first ascent of a 150' tall dihedral system that looked totally stellar perched high above the forested slope. The proposed route was a series of thin seams and cracks all the way up the corner system.
Our journey would be a 2-day outing with an under-the-stars bivvy in the wooded forest below the Lamberson Butte crag. When we reached the bivvy site, unloaded both backpacks, we suddenly realized just how much heavy iron we both had brought. We both abruptly broke into hearty laughter.
Somehow, we both had, without consulting the other about certain pre-chosen rock climbing hardware that might be needed for doing the first ascent of the route, we had somehow managed to bring a total of over 30+ heavy metal pitons.
Talk about overload !!
So that's how the routes name was struck: The Great Pig Iron Dihedral
Did you know that tree fir needs follow a harmonious pattern on the water surface of a slow moving creek or river.
The wind that gently blows across the surface of the water tends to control the pattern of how each fir need lines up (with each other nearby fir needle) by effecting the lighter higher stem end of the needle.
The heavier dark root base of the fir needle sinks slightly below the surface of the water and is controlled by the gently flowing creek water current.
Thus each fir need tends to line up and follow the one before it - all in a slowly curling orderly procession of fir needles, each following its lil' bro' across the water surface, guided by the movement of water and by the gentle touch of a slight breeze disturbing the water surface - kind of like a series of boxcars on a railroad train - or like a string of pearls.
Payne's Ford, New Zealand
The climber's campground there has a sign similar to Forest Service signs, the fire danger ones with the arrow pointing to the fire danger level. The difference is that this sign has, "Low Gravity, Medium Gravity and High Gravity."
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Payne's Ford, New Zealand
I arrive early, park the rental car and decide to hike to the cliffs and check them out. There's nobody else around as I hike alongside the small river and finally get to some of the limestone. A while later I hike back alongside the water . . . and a young, very naked woman pops up out of the water alongside me. Resolutely keeping eye-contact I say:
"Oh Hi, that water must be cold."
And I continue on back to the campground.
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Arapiles, Australia
I arrive at the campsite and as I'm putting up my tent a young woman asks me if I want to climb. Of course! We climb for a couple of days, then I have to go into town for food. I get back late with supplies, and as I'm putting them into the tent another young woman asks me if I want to climb. I'm promised away for tomorrow, but we arrange to meet the day after. We climb together for the next three weeks. Obviously Arapiles is climbing heaven!
While climbing at Broughton Bluff one day with a friend . . .
Gary R. says to me after attempting a new route that he was projecting:
"I would have on-sighted that if I hadn't fallen off!"
While At The Feathers (Vantage WA)
Two guys, on the climb to the right, take their brand new rope out of it's plastic bag and throw it down onto a tarp. One of them grabs an end and ties in. I turn to Jennifer and say:
"Remember I told you what to do with a new rope? And you asked me if that was necessary? Well just watch this and you'll see why. I'm guessing the 3rd bolt."
Sure enough by the time the climber had reached the 3rd bolt the rope was a tangled mess.
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Another moment at the Feathers:
We're rock climbing all the routes one by one from right to left and I'm 2 bolts into one of them when a young woman looks over to me and asks:
"What climb are you on?"
Having no idea, I quietly look at her, glance briefly to my right, then briefly to my left and say:
"This one?"
"Good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from poor judgment."
Quote Conrad Kain