Click images for desktop size: "Church and God" by Unknown I discovered something rather surprising this morning. Reconstituted powdered milk can go sour!
I guess it makes sense but hardly.
I use powdered milk in my morning coffee in one of my byzantine money saving schemes. Everyone complains about the price of gasoline but no one is complaining about the price of milk. Here, and this is a rural area with dairy farms not to far away, milk is about five bucks a gallon.
Seems incredibly dear for a staple, a staple that impacts the health of our children. With osteoporosis on the rise and with America's domination of world sports seriously declining (we didn't even make the finals in the World Championship!) and with McDonald's posting a 4% increase in business this quarter I think we have a pretty clear view that we're still not focusing enough attention on nutrition and the needs of our kids.

Yesterday was a sort of lost day. Nothing of note accomplished at all. I realized that today is an anniversary of sorts. It was in 2003 that I entered my second remission. The doc's then said that if
Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Clarence Holbrook Carter all things went well I'd live another six years. A few years later they said the exact same thing. Six years seems to be the time frame they work on.
I'm still going. Maybe a bit slower but still going. I've no idea if this is due to excellent medical care or the fact that I'm incredibly stubborn.

My friend successfully completed her quarter end madness which leaves her open for the ponderous meetings for budgeting this week.
Budgeting is always a big deal especially in not for profits, and more especially for not for profits that's only focus is conserving nature. And most especially in the run up to an economic depression. People look at unspoiled land and think of the beauty of a strip mine, how nice a flock of condo's would look on that majestic bluff. I understand that impulse even as they don't understand my impulse to leave it as it is.
When I got dragged into rock climbing we used nuts, aluminum chocks developed by Yvonne Chounaird (The Great Coonyard). These chocks didn't harm the rock, once you removed them it was as if they'd never been there. Properly used they're as secure as a piton.
Pitons were never cool but they were all that you had.
Climbs are rated by difficulty. I forget what 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class climbs are, probably hikes. Fourth class climbs are scrambles
Click images for desktop size: "Dusty Springfield" where you need yo use your hands to go up but no technical climbing or equipment is needed. Fifth class is when you start to need gear. It gets crazy from then on going all decimal on you. From 5.0 all the way up to 5.10 (five ten not five one 5.1 Told you it got crazy.) When I was at the tail end of my climbing period there was a movement to add 5.11 (five eleven) or 6th class to the rankings. This was mainly to classify climbs that were probably considered impossible 5 years before.
The fellow who does the first ascent of a route gets to record it in the campground book and report it to Ascent Magazine. They also get to rate the route.
The ratings cause a lot of debate at night. I have to admit that in a sport that's primary enticements are pain and fear the bickering about how difficult a climb actually was safely on the ground was one of my favorite parts of the sport.
Thing is that there was a climb on Sentinel in Yosemite that was rated at 5.9, problem was that so many people had done the climb with pitons instead of nuts that the constant placing and removal of
Click images for desktop size: "Ensnared" by Shadowness the pitons had scarred the crack the route followed so severely that there was now a rock ladder leading to the summit. The piton scars were so deep it was possible to stick the toe of your boot into them and a 5.9 climb was degraded to a 5.2.
It was worse on desert climbs. Yosemite is granite, the desert is sandstone.
That's always my biggest fear. That a 5.11 planet is gradually being degraded to a 5.2
Surfers all have our stories. Sitting out at your favorite point break and suddenly realizing your sitting in the middle of a 200 yard wide pool of raw sewage. Or that time down south when the ocean was suddenly thick with empty used hypodermic needles, needles you saw stuck in the thick hides of the harbor seals. Harbor seals can be aggravating but never to the point where I wanted to stick needles in them.
Every surfer knows at least one guy who caught hepatitis from stuff that we've dumped in the ocean. And we've all had days where the beach was black balled not because of outrageously high surf but because some George Bush supporting company had dumped mega tons of toxic chemicals in the ocean that would kill, blind or skin you.
This was going on for a long time before Al Gore "invented" global warming. Anyone who's stood on top of a rock in Joshua Tree and looked out at the Salton Sea has watched the clouds of yellow pollution drift in from L.A. Clouds that ring and touch the stones and ground as nastily as a leaky pen in your shirt pocket.
Now the Arctic caps are melting, by miles now instead of feet and it keeps happening.
Today is Earth Day. I feel about that the same way about that as I do about "Be Kind To Animals Week". I mean, who would ever be mean to animals? Who would be stupid enough to throw litter out of cars and destroy the place where you have to live the rest of your life? Why do we need to remind ourselves to not be cruel heartless jerks? It does not speak well for us.
It does make me even prouder of my friend that she's sacrificing in her paycheck to help us not be so stupid.

Just got a call from the team manager making sure I'd be at the meeting tonight. Its nice to be wanted.
I've got my list of equipments and my questions all ready. I'm mildly excited. I still don't really want to be an HC but it will pay off for the team and for me, I'm certain.