Check this story out (courtesy of [Daddy Types](http://daddytypes.com/)): [Couple Cleared of Sex Charges](http://www.nbc17.com/news/4773243/detail.html).
A new father was **jailed** for kissing his **infant** son’s belly and getting “caught” on camera.
Who has time for something like this? (From Apple’s latest eNews email.)
If one life’s not enough for you, try on a Second Life by participating in Linden Lab’s massive multiplayer online role-playing game. A virtual community, Second Life offers “a virtual world—a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. WIthin this vast and rapidly expanding place,” say the games developers, “you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine.”
Can I get a virtual family and raise another child?
Shula has her own blog.
This is a long post, but day 3 was a long day… There are photos towards the end.
“It’s 12:30, gentlemen!” That was our wakeup call. Too bad I was already awake. The wind had blown continuously all night, sometimes shaking our tent so hard I thought God Himself was trying to get our attention.
Between the wind and noisy neighbours (didn’t they have an alpine start, too?!) I don’t think I got more than 10 minutes of sleep at a stretch. I felt awful. I had a headache and felt even less motivated than the previous evening. My tent companions felt the same way and we considered calling it quits and going back to sleep.
Day 2 started at 5 am. I could tell from the light coming through the window that the weather was good. I shot out of bed and got dressed. We then had breakfast and prepared to leave. Our packs felt very light as we started up Skyline trail at 6:30. We started at approximately 5600′ of elevation.
(more…)
I woke up on Sunday just before 6 am to get ready for my ride at 7. It looked like Vancouver was in for a beautiful, clear day so I had high hopes for our climb.
Our plan was to climb up to 9,000′ or 10,000′ on the first day and camp. The second day would take us over glacier to a second camp at 11,100′. We’d then climb to the summit on the third day followed by a descent all the way back to the parking lot. This three day plan would give us some extra time to acclimate to the altitude.
The drive south was uneventful, but the weather turned overcast as we drove through Seattle. It didn’t improve the rest of the way to Mt. Rainier.
We arrived at the visitors’ centre around 12:30, commented on the poor visibility and rain, had lunch, and looked for our two guides, Brian and Keith. We found them after 15 minutes or so and proceeded to bring all our gear up to the centre to distribute the food and the technical equipment Brian and Keith had brought for us. The centre is ringed by a covered area which was perfect for this sort of activity.
At the same time, the guides checked the forcast and came back with some bad news. It appeared the weather had deteriorated since the morning’s 5:30 am weather report and we were in for a very wet evening. They suggested we spend the night at the nearby lodge since slogging up the mountain and pitching a wet camp wasn’t going to be fun.
This was very disheartening news. I had watched the weather forcast improve over the last few days and I was very disappointed at this delay. It could easily turn into an outright cancellation and the thought left me dejected after all the preparation (in the form of money and time).
We got a room at the Paradise Inn and went for a walk through beautiful sub-alpine meadows. We saw an amazing variety of flowers, water falls (both close and far), and deer. We also got rained on a bit.
Afterwards, we cooked up our first night’s camp-food dinner with the aid of some hot water from the snack bar. After dinner 3 of us went out to daven minchah. God must have heard us because the sky opened up and Rainier showed itself. (OK, OK, so it was either God or an incorrect weather man.)
I went inside to grab my camera, snapped some shots, and headed back to go to bed. We agreed on a 5 am wakeup followed by breakfast and a climb to Camp Muir at 10,000′. My disappointment turned to excitement and I had trouble sleeping.
Stay tuned for part 2.
We all made it off the mountain in one piece. We reached the top of Disappointment Cleaver at 12,200 feet where we decided to turn around. A few of the team had altitude sickness and weren’t up to continuing for another 4-5 hours to the summit (hard to do when you can’t stomach food).
Even though we didn’t “summit”, it was an incredible trip and experience. I am sore, tired, and sunburnt but I don’t mind.
More pictures and details to follow.
Off to touch the sky. See you in a few days.
I think the ability to force ourselves to sit in a dentist’s chair for an hour is what separates us from animals.
There it is. I’m using the LiveCommentPreview plugin. It does not recognize Markdown syntax, though, so just use HTML tags.
I don’t have a lot of time to blog this week. I’m climbing Mt. Rainier next week and am preparing for the trip. Wish me luck. Pictures to follow.
