New and Experienced climbers over 50 ##24

S. Neohwrote:

Man, ol man, you were already quite slim the last time I saw you (2 months ago?).  Don't waste away!  I admire your dedication.  Wish I could come close to that.

My best to the family. And Smitty too if you see him.
I will report back on the softies, and my (lack of) progress on them.  A little part of me have the feeeling that I am about to get sandbagged.  :) 

I have been a lot of thing,  but I have never been a sandbagger.  I hate sandbagging and super softies equally.  These are softies, trust me. 

I have given due consideration to Russ’ solution to varmints. But since I don’t have the same LATENT HOMICIDAL TENDENCIES I have decided to go with rubber snakes. My squirrels may die of heart failure, and if they’re too deeply troubled, I will get them some counseling. But I think they’ll stay out of my plants. 

I love softies ;)  hard to beat easy positive climbing in great location with decent gear.. 

It’s a beautiful day, it’s a climbing day, and so far the squirrels seem not to like my rubber snakes, or Tony’s car alarm and so that makes everything about perfect.

This has nothing to do with Climbing or anything we’ve ever discussed, but I leave it here because it’s on my mind this morning. I’ve been watching the story of Elizabeth, Holmes, founder, and CEO of the company called Theranos, who is about to start serving 123 months in a prison for wire fraud. I started watching the story a little late, so I’m sure I missed important points. She’s youngish, blonde, a Stanford graduate, and she has had two children since her prosecution began. All any of us have are a few pictures and whatever is in the news about her. (I believe there’s also a documentary which I will 

What interests me about this story is the general sentiment about her which is negative and full of outrage. The public sees her as a privileged and arrogant white elite who has attempted to sway public opinion by having babies, all to avoid going to prison. Also, it’s not clear to me whether she may have truly believed in her product, which was a little “alternative“. And maybe Allen will have some thoughts on this but I’m just surprised to read through hundreds of comments on the last Washington post article which have zero sympathy.  I am surprised there hasn’t been a lynching. I can look at her face and see a scared and frightened mother who made some mistakes, and someone else can look at her and see an arrogant elite who thought she was getting away with something and has the means to hire a great attorney and ask for a swanky federal prison location. And so it goes with, so many of the stories we get – – we judge quickly based upon our own experience.

^^^^^

Sounds like you're sympathetic to a con artist. This woman is a convicted scammer who knew her testing product was bogus.

FrankPSwrote:

^^^^^

Sounds like you're sympathetic to a con artist. This woman is a convicted scammer who knew her testing product was bogus.

Not sympathetic at all, Frank. Just noticing the general knee-jerk reaction to news articles, including my own. And I would extend that to our political figures as well. Tony and I can look at the same person giving the same interview on TV and have opposite reactions and convictions. So maybe I am just commenting more on human psychology. 

Lori Milaswrote:

She'll go to Club Fed like the rest of them and be out in 30 months tops.  Pretty major scam she was running.

Edit:  since this flaccid place is not WideFetish and we can't get into the weeds on this one, here is a climbing pic.

Russ Wallingwrote:

She'll go to Club Fed like the rest of them and be out in 30 months tops.  Pretty major scam she was running.

For sure she is a major scam artist.  She knew she was going to serve time but had two children, totally irresponsible action. IMHO she had those children in the hope that being a mother would result in sympathy from the jury or judge.

Lori Milaswrote:

 I’ve been watching the story of Elizabeth, Holmes, founder, and CEO of the company called Theranos, who is about to start serving 123 months in a prison for wire fraud. I started watching the story a little late, so I’m sure I missed important points. She’s youngish, blonde, a Stanford graduate,

She is not a Stanford grad. She withdrew (dropped out) before earning a degree.

Ward Smithwrote:

I have been a lot of thing,  but I have never been a sandbagger.  I hate sandbagging and super softies equally.  These are softies, trust me. 

Yup, you 're right - both softies.  In fact, I thought 3/4 of the 20 routes I led today are soft by 0.5 to 2 number grades.  But that worked to my favor for a "volume" day.  Great workout; 100+ clips for 600+ feet of lead climbing.  I hope ot be able to sleep for 10 hr tonight!

Cherry on top was able to chat with Paula and in-town-for-a-visit Hillary between climbs.  Hope you got in a productive morning session before the rain arrived. 

Lori Milaswrote:

I started watching the story a little late, so I’m sure I missed important points. She’s youngish, blonde, a Stanford graduate, and she has had two children since her prosecution began. All any of us have are a few pictures and whatever is in the news about her. (I believe there’s also a documentary which I will 

It sounds like you've missed a lot of important points. I would recommend listening to "The Dropout" podcast from 2019 if you would like to learn more about her. It's a lot more informative than the recent NYT puff piece attempting to revamp her image or whatever you're reading in the Washington Post.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1-myth-making/id1449500734?i=1000468717858

Lori, You asked if I had any insights on this. I really don’t, as I haven’t followed this story at all closely—there are many others that have more interest/sympathy in my opinion. But it is those very characteristics that you mentioned—young, blonde, middle class, good educational background, that made her fraud so successful. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, if initially she did in fact believe in the ‘product’, but it is when she kept pushing it—and getting money from people, even when it was clear to those in the know that it wasn’t effective, that her ‘advocacy’ became criminal. I have seen situations like that, though on a much smaller scale, in my own practice. As I also have, the circumstance of young female clients facing significant punitive consequences, becoming pregnant. Perhaps it was purely coincidental, but as an attorney, I was then being asked to present the situation as a reason that my client should not be required to serve time. It was never a successful argument. I personally think, however, that the sentence in this case is far too ‘stiff’ ( as I do for many sentences for non-violent crimes), 

Alan Rubinwrote:

Lori, You asked if I had any insights on this. I really don’t, as I haven’t followed this story at all closely—there are many others that have more interest/sympathy in my opinion. But it is those very characteristics that you mentioned—young, blonde, middle class, good educational background, that made her fraud so successful. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, if initially she did in fact believe in the ‘product’, but it is when she kept pushing it—and getting money from people, even when it was clear to those in the know that it wasn’t effective, that her ‘advocacy’ became criminal. I have seen situations like that, though on a much smaller scale, in my own practice. As I also have, the circumstance of young female clients facing significant punitive consequences, becoming pregnant. Perhaps it was purely coincidental, but as an attorney, I was then being asked to present the situation as a reason that my client should not be required to serve time. It was never a successful argument. I personally think, however, that the sentence in this case is far too ‘stiff’ ( as I do for many sentences for non-violent crimes), 

But people died as a result of her fraud and submission of what she knew to be inaccurate test results, so perhaps non-violent, but certainly deadly. 

Lorie. Like your rubber snake. I was babysitting Isa's daughter once when she was 7 or 8.. I took her to the dollar store and we bought some rubber snakes. we got so much mileage out of them. we planted one in her moms bed. took them climbing etc, etc.   Put one by our packs at Rumny watched people scream and jump off the trail when they walked by or be super cool and simple state. Nice rubber snake..  I hid one in my shirt and planted it on a multi pitch climb. When my  visiting desert rat friend Alex

  got to the rubber snake he was totally chill. "nice rubber snake".. then he started performing.  grabs the rubber snake by the tail and starts whipping it against the cliff while screaming OMG a SNAKE! then he flings it down at a gaggel of  Boston college sport yuppies who scream and scatter like cockroaches when the lights get turned on.  A few days later we were canoeing with his parents. Alex produces the rubber snake, screams and throws it out of our canoe into the lake where it floated. unplanned but Alex rolls with it and gives the rubber snake a vicious whack with his paddle and then flips it with the paddle into his parents canoe. His mom Susan freaks out and is standing on top of  her seat screaming while  Dad Andrew tries desperately to keep the canoe from flipping into the ice cold late October lake.  Seeing that things have gone too far and not wanting Susan and Andrew to go in the drink and get hypothermic on us I  use me best calm but firm Sensei voice to tell Susan that its a fake snake.  She declares in her thick British accent. " No it's not! I know my son!" 

  Eventually the fake snake ended up semi permantly on a shelf right after  a dyno on one of our sport climbs. you would huck the dyno and if you stuck it the rubber snake was stareing you right in the face. We even put in the guide description to be wary of snakes.  Quite a few folks screamed and jumpped on to the bolt over that one.

Gout out to Mt wishicouldtellya with Isa and Bernie this afternoon. bernie looks like he is not quite sure about this climbing stuff... 

 we did one of our climbs that we had called 8+  9-?? OMG did I get spanked. it felt like 10c...  out of shape for steep rock climbing... 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Gout out to Mt wishicouldtellya with Isa and Bernie this afternoon. bernie looks like he is not quite sure about this climbing stuff... 

 we did one of our climbs that we had called 8+  9-?? OMG did I get spanked. it felt like 10c...  out of shape for steep rock climbing... 

Perhaps it’s the new moon, Nick. I, too, couldn’t climb for shit today…  I was clumsy and awkward and out of breath. Nothing worked and I even shredded a couple of finger nails—very painful, probably will loose them.  

But damn it was the most beautiful rock!  It’s astonishing to walk a ways across the desert and round a corner to see this massive wall of perfect granite (Little Hunk) One of Randy’s routes is on that rock (Zzzzz 5.9) which I intended to climb but didn’t attempt today.  I would have made a mess of it.

Scott Cosgrove did a route right around the corner from where we climbed called New Deal, 5.14.  I asked Bob to show it to me.  It looked impossible.  I just discovered a lengthy discussion of this route by Scott in 2013 (on MP under New Deal comments).  

But to the right of that is a Gaines route called The Big Apple that I would love to climb.  It grabbed me right away.  

Walking back to the car at sunset Bob pointed out a Houser route I had not heard about (and will have to go on my to-do list).  It’s a slab route on the backside of Echo Rock.  I don’t see the name under a query of Houser Routes on MP.  

The sunset was magnificent, warm wind, storm coming in—these are the best times of day.  Happy.

I got home to discover that a squirrel got to one of my sunflowers and shredded off some leaves. So.. now to Russ’ plan. Murder.   

I’ve been kept awake by a little visitor (I’ve named him ‘Neville’) the last few nights. I saw him by torch light a few night ago as he tried to get in my open window. I think he’s a antechinus, an endangered native mouse.  

Today I found out the cause of the noise, he’s been sitting in an old bird’s nest in the rose bush hedge snacking on rose hips…

Nick - I must inform you that due to my intense snake-phobia: I WILL NEVER CLIMB WITH YOU!!!!!

I've been thinking about taking a full stop... from everything.  A week or two away, a time for total rest.  The longer I have waited to do this, the more this desire has expanded.  

I studied and practiced Ayurveda (healing science from ancient India) for almost 30 years.  There is a seasonal retreat called Pancha Karma (5 therapies), long restful days in nature, heapings of rainbow vegetables, ghee, rice, herbal treatments, yoga, yoga-nidra.  No cell phones. Stillness.  In particular, long herbalized oil massages tailored to the constitution of the patient. 

While it's great to go to an ashram and dive into intense restoration... you can also do a version of pancha karma any time, anywhere.  You can create your own. (Mine would include a float down the American River). 

I spent an hour with my favorite Ayurvedic practitioner a month ago, and she was kind of astonished at my rock climbing and move to Joshua Tree. (not in a good way).  "Lori, why are you doing this now... you know 70 is that pivot time when your whole body/soul begins to turn inward.  What you are doing is extremely depleting." Ok, she is a forward-thinking professional, daughter of an Army officer, with a college education.  She's not being sexist or ageist.  She's just saying what I am already experiencing... that life changes.  It has a progression.  Go with it.  But I don't know that it's an all or nothing proposition.  

So... I've had my suitcase packed for a month, just waiting for the right time to take off.  I thought that day might be tomorrow, but there is a cooling trend here and the opportunity for a little more climbing before the weather pretty much shuts it down.    

I've also been watching some younger athletes and wondering if they are ever required to take some total down-time, maybe due to injuries or overtraining.  If so, what does that look like?  I wonder if there is a science to it... if things can heal and strengthen with complete and total R&R.  Can you come back stronger?  Might this apply even moreso to those of us over-50's as we age if we build in times of therapeutic rest?  This will be a curious experiment, when/if I can make the time for such an adventure. 

Anyone else build in times of rest/restoration into your lives?  If so, what do you do?

Interesting that just as I was turning off my computer this morning, this meme popped up.  So...

Brandt. in my defense that was a really long time ago. it was a rubber snake and Alex the desert rat was not fazed at all by the rubber snake.  Alex's mom is most certainly still suffering from PTSD because as she said She KNOWS her son. that same young man (almost 60 now)  who as a child once picked up a live Black mamba while they were vacationing in some exotic part of the British empire. The same fellow who when sent to school in America turned into a desert rat who knows most of the obscure towers and is quite comfortable with all the creepy crawly things associated with the American south west. I have seen him pick up tarantulas to get them safely out of the roadway.  one of our more interesting interactions was the time he found a roadkill rattle snake and naturally picked it up thinking it might be useful. Knowing that I am a north easterner and posses the usual snake phobias of that geographic region Alex assumed that the best use of his dead rattle snake was to coil it up in the seat of my Honda civic..   made sleeping on the desert floor with no tent a bit unnerving for me for the following week or so...