do yourself a favor and check out: http://www.survivalblog.com/

"Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again." - Henry Ford. February 11, 1934

dr. doom

"Beware of those who say we've hit the bottom." - Nouriel Roubini

THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV - Fydor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

"Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their happiness, do not work against God's intent.

Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to animals: they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you."

mark twain on congress

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain

great quotes on travel, from rick steves' blog

The value of travel is nothing new.

Nearly 1,500 years ago, Muhammad said, "Don't tell me how educated you are. Tell me how much you've traveled."

Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Travel makes a person wiser, if less happy."

Mark Twain wrote: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."

the nice thing about being a cynic is that you are either right or pleasantly surprised

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who do not possess it - George Bernard Shaw"

“But If Not” MLK

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

mahabone

socialize the risks, privatize the rewards

from "eiger dreams" by jon krakauer

John Menlove Edwards....had been one of the preeminent British rock climbers of his day.

Dr. Edwards regarded climbing as a "psycho-neurotic tendency" rather than sport; he climbed not for fun but to find refuge from the inner torment which characterized his existence. I remember, that spring of 1977, being especially taken by a passage from an Edwards short story titled "Letter From a Man":

So, as you would imagine, I grew up exuberant in body but with a nervy, craving mind. It was wanting something more, something tangible. It sought for reality intensely, always if it were not there...
But you see at once what I do.
I climb.

parting shot of beauty

resting in peace on the gateway between two worlds

land of the lost

exposure

slopes & shadows

beginning the descent

on the way down, looking back to the summit, wishing I was still up there

whats going on back there?

panorama

is the diff still alive?

looking west

mount russell center, east ridge leads to Mt. Carillon on the far left

taking it in

gassed

recording the view

the summit

spangler

The Diff

stu looking down

arctic lake

getting hotter and brighter

rocky road

alpenglow

Stu & the Diff

jason

morning light

Stu & I getting chilly sitting around

Jason & the Diff take a breather

moonset/sunrise from trailcrest

my bivvy with waterfall in background

arriving at outpost camp

crossing the logs

Owens valley and White Mtns in the distance

The Diff and Stu heading up the trail

the start - looking back into the whitney zone

vertigo

"What is vertigo? Is it the fear of falling? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptyness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."
Milan Kundera

done with the first two...

Secor claims Split is the easiest 14er after Whitney, but that claim is hard to justify unless only considering Sierra peaks (White Mtn in the Inyos, 14 mi roundtrip on a dirt road is the easiest 14er) and further considering only technical difficulty (Mt. Muir, just off the Mt. Whitney Trail is far easier, but has a class 3 rating for the portion just below the summit). And Mt. Langley via Old Army Pass (or New Army Pass) and the SW Slope is also much easier than an ascent of Split Mtn.

hot wife

wife needs no rope

no rope for a second

fishing is a family affair

non serviam

The Latin phrase "non serviam" was spoken by Satan as he refused to serve God. It translates into "I will not serve." Lucifer chose to reign in hell than submit in heaven. Stephen Daedalus in James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", said it after his decision to follow the life of an artist, rather than that prescribed to him by the Roman Catholic Church. Who are you serving?

blind samurai

granada cathedral

streetlight

toad

estatua

entrar

blue spanish skies

moorish arch

god is victorious

afternoon vase