Date: December 22nd, 2007
I think I’m going to order one and check it out, could be really good for paragliding in remote areas, backcountry skiing, etc. I’m a firm believer in doing my absolute best to self-rescue, but sometimes it’s not going to work out. A satellite text message could be just the trick, and a lot simpler and lighter than a satellite phone for sure. In the Canadian Rockies we don’t normally have cell phone coverage, this could be just the ticket. The same service is used to track shipping containers and other cargo, it works well for that, although Globalstar phone service is reportedly imploding.
And a big, Happy Solstice! This is the darkest day of the year, from here on out we’re all (those of us in the North anyhow) going to find a little more light in our lives, yeah! Most cultures in the northern hemisphere have a huge party around this time of year, some sort of “festival of lights” to mark the fact that the days are finally growing in length and the nights shrinking–hence all the lights on houses, trees, etc. Christmas is great and all, but all the commercialism makes it a bit difficult for me to get very fired up about. I’m also unimpressed with the whole god/supernatural/psychic thing, but more light is a great thing for sure! Less headlamp juice required from here on out for all our adventures.
Posted in: Blog
Date: December 17th, 2007
A comment on my recent anti-PDF screed (and I still hate ’em as they’re designed around using paper) got me thinking. The question was, “Does anyone else find it amusing that a PDF topic has generated so many comments on a blog dedicated to outdoor fun & adventure? Are all outdoorsy people really just closet tech nerds?!?!”
I don’t know about all outdoorsy people being tech nerds, but I am willing to bet a dual-layer DVD of my recent films that most of us are pretty into our tech, be it analog (cams, shoes, packs, tents) or digital. Most of my garage is devoted not to storing cars but more important stuff–gear. Most of my office is laden not with printed PDFs but with scanners, a dozen or so hard drives, two computers, a printer (which doesn’t get much use), editing gear, cameras, GPS units, radio bits, etc. Who among us “outdoorsy” types doesn’t have at least a half-dozen weather forecasts bookmarked? Plus various road condition reports, blogs, outdoor forums (for several sports), and of course five or six mailboxes devoted to upcoming trips? Plus various folders on our hard drives devoted to the same, and maybe a map program or four…
Paragliding is even worse than climbing; GPS programs, flight analysis software, digital aviation maps, etc. The truly nerdy paraglider or hang glider pilots will have a minimum of two GPS units plus two flight computers, which they fly with and then download and geek out for hours before uploading the tracks to various forums where other pilots geek out on tracks for hours… I’m sure I’m missing some stuff here but gear, be it analog or digital, is for sure a HUGE part of the outdoor game. The phrase “gear junkie” no longer applies to just outdoor gear from footwear (who among us doesn’t have far more outdoor footwear than “dress” footwear?) to tents but also our digital bits.
I also suspect there are a lot of “tech” types who are outdoor junkies of one kind or another. It’s certainly true in paragliding, where the stereotypical pilot is an IT guy living in a major west-coast city. Some of the responses to my, “F the PDF” post were very solid from a tech perspective (as well as grammar, sorry about that, this stuff gets written straight off the top of my head–which is likely obvious to anyone who works with words professionally). There are likely still outdoorsy people who don’t spend a good chunk of each day in front of a monitor, but they’re not the sort likely to post comments on a blog.
So get your tech on, yeah!
PS–someone just emailed me to explain that PDF really stands for, “Print this Damn thing and Fax back.” Yep, PDFs sure are great for two-way communication in the digital age. I think I’m going to set my email up to just flat-our reject any email with a .pdf attachment along with a message that says, “You recently sent me a PDF. This shows that you really don’t want a response from me, nor do you want me to be able to actually work with the data. I’m going to save us both some hassle and just ignore it.”
PPS–my travel agent just sent me an itinerary in, yep, PDF format. It’s a five-page document that’s near-useless, although it has very nice proportions and scales well (full sarcasm). This isn’t two-way communication, but it also doesn’t work as I can’t drop the info into my calendar, phone, etc. I think I was sort of used to the hassle of PDFs before but all this discussion has made me realize just exactly how retro and bass-ackwards they are for just about anything.
Posted in: Blog
Date: December 16th, 2007
Whoever invented the PDF file format should be sent to the same sort of hell reserved for whoever took the auto-fill thingamabob off of gas pumps. In this hell, Mr. PDF and Mr. “Stand there and pump gas instead of doing something useful like checking the oil” will argue endlessly about exactly who has wasted more of modern humanity’s time–while the guy who invented internet blogs looks on. Here’s why:
I send a lot of films out to mountain film festivals, of which there are now hundreds. I receive three or four emails a week asking for my films, which is a really nice compliment in a way, and I usually take the time to send each one a DVD. Unfortunately, most film festival entry forms now require either a convoluted on-line system (total waste of time, usually resets on page 7 of 11) or PDF documents, which are the single greatest waste of time, paper and energy ever invented. PDFs must be good for something, but they are totally worthless as a form of two-way communication in the digital age. You can’t fill them out electronically–unless you pay extra for some sort of Adobe secret de-coder ring to open ’em up and actually work with them, instead of just admire the pretty layout some frustrated art-school dropout produced.
I hate it every time I see that file extension on a document; unless it’s really important, like a film festival entry form, I’ll usually just ignore it. In fact, I’ve started ignoring even film festival PDFs and just sending back a plain email with the info they want. Seems to work, who would have thought?
Anyone who sends someone else a PDF is obviously either plain clueless or actively dislikes the recipient, perhaps both. The sender is asking the recipient to print it, fill it out by hand (anyone who has seen my writing knows that this is a further waste of time as far as any actual communication goes) and then scan it and email it or fax it back. Twenty years ago this process would have seemed kinda high tech and cool; now it’s like a brick-sized cell phone or a voicemail instead of a text: a total waste of time. Lawyers also seem to love PDFs; “Here’s a 27-page contract, mind finding a printer while in some no-star budget hotel and faxing that back tonight? We know we’ve got you by the short hairs on this one, so don’t even try to use something modern like a digital signature.” Send me a Word document, a text file, a simple email with questions, an “Open Office” form, a Keynote form, even an ancient Quark file and I’ll fill it out. But the next person who sends me a PDF? I’m going to do what my mother used to do with those “postage guaranteed” solicitation forms: attach a brick to it and send it back “postage due.”
PDFs suck, BAN THE PDF! PDF stands for, “Pretty Damn Fecking Useless,” they just forgot the U.
In other news, climbing sure has been fun lately. Fully analog, all physical, no computers, no PDFs, what a great sport. I had so much fun yesterday I ripped a stomach muscle, so today I can’t really sit up. Kinda cool to have a new injury. On the left side of my body I have the following problems: Elbow tendinitis, jacked knee, strained oblique, infected cut from the Whistler rock gym’s hand crack, and a some sort of pustilence where a spider bit me. I’m really not making this up; my right side is totally fine, but my left side appears to be about age 75 right now. Which is why I’m surly and writing about PDFs. I hope your day was PDF-free and outside.
Posted in: Blog
Date: December 10th, 2007
Haffner is a small canyon near my home. Really small-about 40 feet high, but with at least 20 mixed routes worth doing. I’ve been hitting it for almost ten years; it’s close, has a lot of fun routes, it’s close, etc…
Yesterday was my first time in there for a long time. Last year I didn’t climb much between the fall rock season and the spring ice season as my elbow was tweaked; no new mixed routes, no 50 days or more of scrabbling on the rock and dangling icicles I so love. Yesterday reminded me of exactly why I love mixed climbing. It’s brutal, aggressive, mental, tenuous, annoying, satisfying and downright engaging. No other form of climbing combines so much emotional response in such a short period of time for me. I’ve done some more alpine climbing this fall, and love that too, but mixed climbing just distills all that I like about climbing into one rope length of giving it.
It’s so hard at first; every season I’m definitely a novice for the first few climbs. I don’t trust my tools, get super pumped on “easy” terrain, my feet blow and it takes everything I have to not melt down into a quivering pile of mental mush. Then it gets a bit better by the second or third pitch, and usually by the end of the first day I forget about all the mechanics at least for a few moves and simply climb. I find mixed climbing requires a much stronger mind than rock climbing, at least for me. On rock I just climb, but on mixed I’ve got to get through this mental barrier before I can truly move. I’ve got to get over the fear of the tools, rock, my feet don’t work naturally. But when I finally get that mental boulder off my shoulders it just feels so good…
Then there’s just being outside in winter. We had to break trail up to the Haffner Cave, which was a bit arduous for me as I tweaked my knee kite-skiing the other day (not a good idea to launch big when you don’t really know what you’re doing). I always like hiking through that burned but still standing stark black forest, watching the big peaks, and just being out there with friends. I can get the same experience ski touring in a way, but ski touring doesn’t have the same mental “ambush” for me as mixed climbing. I know I can ski, I’m never sure I can mixed climb, and often can’t until things get moving again… All climbing is mental, but mixed climbing is definitely more mental than any other form of climbing for me.
Yesterday I flailed on routes I used to do laps on with a weight belt. But by my last go I was linking big sections, and climbing with the pump instead of pumping out instantly. My hands were suddenly warm and my body relaxed instead of frozen and tight. I’m back on the curve, and can’t wait for tomorrow, when we’ll do it all again. Game on
As always, there’s no point to this but damn is mixed climbing fun! I hope everyone is getting out…
Posted in: Blog
Date: December 7th, 2007
About a month ago I got rid of my epic collection of hard plastic Nalgene bottles. I’d read enough stories suggesting that they likely weren’t all that good for me or my family. MEC just did the same thing…
The risk of developing fatal cancer (or breasts or whatever) from these bottles is probably pretty low. But we’ve got so many “minor” nasty things in our environment today that I’m trying to cut out the “easy” potential problems such as these bottles.
We’re all obviously gonna die, I’d just prefer to die while reasonably healthy and from something other than a lingering nasty health issue if I can…
A few other links:
Wiki article If babies can reach 13 µg/kg/day, and research in mice suggests exposure of 0.025µg/kg/day can cause serious issues (see article), well, I don’t think I wanna be drinking out of these bottles when there are good alternatives…
Posted in: Blog
Date: December 4th, 2007
I’ve just spent two full days trying to drive from Whistler back home to Canmore. Road conditions have been abysmal–ice, snow, freezing rain, truly the worst roads I’ve seen in years. We left Whistler reasonably early yesterday after the Mountaineer’s Soiree the night before (thanks to the organizers and crowd, good fun!), only to encounter crawling traffic on the Sea to Sky. No big deal, just slow, avoid the accidents waiting to happen. In Vancouver the roads were OK, just wet and a bit slushy, but by about Langley we were back to crawl mode with people orbiting off into the ditches regularly. I was feeling pretty good about the Subaru and the four new studded snow tires I’d just picked up in Portland on the way home from England and Scotland–studded snow tires seem like overkill until you’re driving for hours and hours on ice and snow… Finally stopped in Kamloops after 11 hours (about a six hour drive normally) figuring that the roads would get better in the morning, and they were initially this morning. Then it was back to rut surfing and powder driving, which is a lot like powder skiing somehow. I was feeling pretty confident with the Subaru and the good tires despite the poor conditions, but you can only drive as fast as the other traffic really… After waiting for an hour outside of Revelstoke for avi control we got back at it, pounding through increasingly rutted roads. I was passing occasionally when I could see well enough, but not driving flat-out in the poor conditions. After a while I noticed a couple of white vans keeping pace with me, and eventually working up until they were behind me. Not surprisingly, I recognized the vans as belonging to the Canadian National Nordic team. Nordic teams have a long history of all-out winter driving–motivated coaches, skiers and a lot of experience on bad roads. My windshield wipers started dying, and I was passed by a white van then two. It happens. I’d been passed a few times on the drive, often by a yahoo with bad control of his vehicle. The National Team passed me with style and solidity, so right on–I’d put the Canadian Ski Team drivers up against anyone else in the world, may their athletes do as well this year!
By Golden we had been on the road for another six hours for a three-hour drive. The Trans-Can was closed over to Lake Louise, so we started toward Radium. About 1oK out of Radium we came over a hill to see green a car sideways in our lane at the bottom of the hill. The temperature gauge had been spiking, from -8C in Golden to +4C, and it had started to actually rain, all in less than 15 minutes. I had tested the traction a couple of times since Golden, and it had been good. But with the rain and rapid temperature rise the brakes did very little… It was like a skating rink with a layer of water on it. Even with the new tires and studs we barely had enough traction to slow down. The money spent on the tires suddenly seemed like a really, really good investment. Studs kick ass on any studless tire, I’ve tried a few and they all suck in comparison.
It was pretty clear that Mr. Green Car was going to get pasted by the next vehicle to come along, so I pulled up behind and asked the driver if he wanted a push. The camber of the road was enough to keep him from starting again, that’s how slick it was. A brief push with the bumper was all it took to get him moving again. At this point my adult passenger fully lost it, she’d had enough. Fair enough, it was horrendous. It was back to Golden, where we are now. All the roads out of Golden are closed, it’s raining pretty hard on the snowpack, things are going to get wild up high and on the roads tonight. We hope to make it home to Canmore tomorrow, two and a half days after leaving Whistler. This should normally be a one-day drive.
Winter driving sure is fun!
Posted in: Blog
