Picture My World

Finally, the car is sold! Having it on the market for almost 5 months changes one’s expectations, so the buyer got it at a great price and I hope he enjoys it.

There’s a new blog post describing day 3 of the Mt. Rainier climb below. I dated it back to July to keep it with the other 2 posts.

The news out of the south is very disturbing. Today I read that [the Houston Astrodome is full](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_re_us/katrina_refugees_hk4) after accepting about half of the expected refugees. Officials are scrambling to find shelter for the remaining thousands that are arriving by the busload.

Why haven’t I read any stories about families in unaffected areas offering to take in those displaced by the storm? [Instapundit](http://instapundit.com) points out that there are posts on [Craigslist](http://neworleans.craigslist.org/hhh/) offering shelter. Nice but I wonder how the people who need it are supposed to read them. Is this an example of individual efforts getting lost in the scope of the disaster? There should be an agency of some sort coordinating these types of efforts, but I doubt anyone is at this point, which is why they are using huge shelters that can accommodate thousands of people.

What we are seeing is that anyone struck by a disaster is really at the mercy of the existing emergency plans and organizations for the first week. After that, things will get better.

Watching this disaster unfold has motivated me to finally put together an emergency supply kit.

**Update:** Instapundit is now linking to [MoveOn.org's Hurricane Housing site](http://www.hurricanehousing.org/) listing over 110,000 beds. That’s great and I just hope someone is funneling people to those homes.

Oh, this is cool. [Guess-the-Google](http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/) is a fun game where you are shown a collection of images and have to guess the Google search keyword that generated them. As the site says, it’s surpisingly addictive.

Don’t believe everything you think.

It struck me as a very appropriate catch phrase for blogs…

This is one of those sites with a curl on its forehead. [Rate My Teachers](http://www.ratemyteachers.ca/) enables you to, well, rate your teachers. Schools from all over North America are in the database. I found my high school, along with a number of familiar names.

Problem
———-
Cell phone can no longer connect to voicemail. The phone is programmed to dial *789 to access voicemail and before Sprint was bought by Rogers, this worked fine. Now it doesn’t.

(more…)

I just rediscovered an old note to myself in my wallet. It says:

> Super-human computer intelligence
> Is there a God?
> Does this [computer intelligence] invalidate God?
> What if computers believed??

As I read this, I realize these are some of the themes that [Battlestar Galactica](http://scifi.com/battlestar) is covering.

Note to self: Always date your notes to self. I can’t remember when I wrote the note. I recall reading something at the time and not watching BSG, though.

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.

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.

(more…)

A deer wishes us a good climb

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…)

Mt. Rainier

Originally uploaded by JZip.

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.

Crampons-1

Originally uploaded by JZip.

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.

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.

Today in History (from this site)

1635 The French colony of Guadeloupe is established in the Caribbean.
1675 Frederick William of Brandenburg crushes the Swedes.
1709 Russians defeat the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava.
1776 Colonists repulse a British sea attack on Charleston, South Carolina.
1778 Mary “Molly Pitcher” Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carries water to the soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth.
1839 Cinque and other Africans are kidnapped and sold into slavery in Cuba.
1862 Fighting continues between Union and Confederate forces during the Seven Days’ campaign.
1863 General Meade replaces General Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg.
1874 The Freedmen’s Bank, created to assist former slaves in the United States, closes. Customers of the bank lose $3 million.
1884 Congress declares Labor Day a legal holiday.
1902 Congress passes the Spooner bill, authorizing a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama.
1911 Samuel J. Battle becomes the first African-American policeman in New York City.
1914 Austria’s Archduke Francis Ferdinand is assassinated at Sarajevo, Serbia.
1919 Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles under protest.
1921 A coal strike in Britain is settled after three months.
1930 More than 1,000 communists are routed during an assault on the British consulate in London.
1938 Congress creates the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure construction loans.
1942 German troops launch an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.
1945 General Douglas MacArthur announces the end of Japanese resistance in the Philippines.
1949 The last U.S. combat troops are called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.
1950 General Douglas MacArthur arrives in South Korea as Seoul falls to the North.
1954 French troops begin to pull out of Vietnam’s Tonkin province.
1964 Malcolm X founds the Organization for Afro-American Unity to seek independence for blacks in the Western Hemisphere.
1967 14 people are shot during race riots in Buffalo, New York.
1970 Muhammed Ali [Cassius Clay] stands before the Supreme Court regarding his refusal of induction into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.
1971 The Supreme Court overturns the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.
1972 Nixon announces that no new draftees will be sent to Vietnam.
1976 The first women enter the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Born on June 28
1491 Henry VIII, King of England (1509-1547), founder of the Church of England.
1577 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter.
1712 Jean Jacques Rousseau, French social philosopher (The Social Contract).
1867 Luigi Pirandello, Italian playwright (Six Characters in Search of an Author).
1873 Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon and biologist.
1891 Esther Forbes, author (Johnny Tremain).
1902 Richard Rodgers, American composer.
1906 Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
1909 Eric Ambler, British mystery writer (The Dark Frontier, Uncommon Danger).
1926 Mel Brooks, comedian, actor, and director (The Producers, Blazing Saddles).
1947 Mark Helprin, novelist (Winter’s Tale).

…but an exciting event occurred today.

Shula was napping just before lunch and we heard some shouts and running right outside the house heading into the front yard. When I got to the front door to look, I saw a firefighter pinning a skinny guy in a track suit to the ground. There was another firefighter exchanging words with him and a civilian who took part in the chase. A few minutes later there were two police officers, then 4, then 6, and finally 8.

A fire truck and an ambulance also made an appearance before it was all over.

Apparently, the guy on the ground had broken into a house near the firehall. There was a 12 year old girl home alone and she ran to the firehall and the two firefighters chased the thief 2 blocks to our house. We think the thief was trying to get through our yard but was foiled since we have no back lane and there’s only a fence back there.

The thief (I won’t call him a suspect since he had a stolen camcorder on him) was a drug addict. The police pulled a needle and crack out of his pockets. He was recently paroled so I hope he finds himself back in prison. I think they were outside for about an hour. It’s a little surprising it takes so long to arrest someone.

No pictures as it was Shabbat.