New and Experienced Climbers over 50 #32

Winter hasn't arrived here yet at Joshua Tree. Here's a shot I took yesterday of two climbers on EBGB's. 65 degrees today and no wind.

Nick, I don’t know what to do with you! You are finding all kinds of mischief. How’s your shoulder? Maybe you should settle down for a few days before you go finding another near death experience.  

I must’ve been roaming around where Bob was today. I’ve been pretty sick all week, but just getting out for some sunshine. That Knockout route must be popular because I saw Climbers on it again today.  I got to see a couple climbers climb Swept Away bottom to top.

What I don’t understand is why I’ve never seen a single person on trespassers wall.  It’s such a stunning wall and who could resist?  Desperate slab—my thing. 

This crack caught my eye… It must be a thing. Don’t know what thing it is.

I really miss Russ. No one could heckle and fling insults like he can. While checking out sources for native American tribes I am being introduced to Jenna, a woman who “ channels messages of earth energy from caves and ancient temples“. Jenna‘s friend, Linda, is an artist/astrologer/cranial sacral therapist/intuitive who walks labyrinths and medicine wheels. we were supposed to meet over coffee tomorrow however Linda has hayfever and allergies suddenly. So we have to channel earth energy another time.   

Lori, is Tony out of the woods yet? 

When you are focused on survival you don't have time to worry about all the problems of the world...   Adventures are my time out. In order for it to be an adventure the outcome needs to be at least a little bit uncertain. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Lori, is Tony out of the woods yet? 

When you are focused on survival you don't have time to worry about all the problems of the world...   Adventures are my time out. In order for it to be an adventure the outcome needs to be at least a little bit uncertain. 

Nick, fortunately I don’t have to go to such extremes to get an adrenaline rush.  4-5 hours on a route at my limit takes my mind off of all non-essentials. I don’t need to get lost in a blinding snowstorm. I’m glad you’re safe.  

The situation with Tony – – thanks for asking. I’ve been fairly calm and confident this whole time and suddenly yesterday I went into a panic, and I’m still in a panic. This house is very empty without him. He’s been three weeks on his back in the nursing home in a room with the door shut.  A nurse wanders in and out every few hours. They cannot seem to get his diet right— last night was “Rice and 2 tablespoons of ground beef”. We’ve had three talks about this with the dietitian.
The whole game plan for him was to heal up the wounds from the botched surgery, rebuild his blood from all the blood loss, and get him up and moving. In order to get moving, he needed an ultrasound to verify that he had no blood clots. That was ordered two weeks ago as a STAT and the results are still not in. So PT does not want to have him move around at all. When he sits up, he's lightheaded. When he stands up his legs turn to Jell-O. The longer he lays there the worse he gets.

Today I’m feeling real urgency bordering on hysteria. He’s an hour away. I want to get him up and in a wheelchair and out in the sunshine. I haven’t found the calzone yet but he inhaled a huge Italian beef sandwich so I’ll bring another one. He asked for protein bars, I’ll bring him his shaver so he can feel human again.

But him laying there in a darkened room is business as usual there at the nursing home. We have had a number of team meetings, but very little transpires. 

BTW… I just feel the need to clarify, Tony is not with Kaiser. He kept his PPO. I am with Kaiser and I love it within what it is set up to do. I have never had to wait longer than five minutes for an appointment. If I need a specialist, it’s there. I can call anytime of day or night and get a doctor on the phone.  My gripe is with the way western medicine thinks and handles health. 

Lori Milaswrote:

This crack caught my eye… It must be a thing. Don’t know what thing it is.

The crack that is channeling energy out of the left side of the big tree is Bambi Meets Godzilla, 5.8 (or 5.9 for me).

ed esmondwrote:

Hate to say it, but you forced me…

Ok, comrade….

The Ukraine gave up their nukes with a treaty that promised protection by both the West and Russia…

ed esmond, you have a good memory and have memorized talking points of the US States Department quite well.

It's not a war between Ukraine and Russia.
It's a war between the US and Russia where Zelensky volunteered Ukrainians to fight on behalf of the US.

Ukraine gave up their nukes because US/NATO already planned expansion into Ukraine, and having nukes in Ukraine was too dangerous.
I do not believe that I need to provide more information here.
I already shared a couple of links in my original comment.

Brandt Allenwrote:

The crack that is channeling energy out of the left side of the big tree is Bambi meets Godzilla, 5.8 (or 5.9 for me).

Ah, Bambi meets Godzilla--don't know anything about the climb, but one of the best very short films ever---at least if you're stoned and haven't seen or heard about it before!!!

Lori Milaswrote:

I really miss Russ. No one could heckle and fling insults like he can. 

If I had to guess, people are banned from this site  for their own protection. A couple Google searches and someone he potentially pissed off may end up at his front door.  

MP doesn’t appear to randomly ban people for disagreeing with the Admins here.

It’s better to be civil and respectful of others on this or any other site and heckling and flinging insults doesn’t make for very meaningful conversation.  

Lori Milas wrote:

My gripe is with the way western medicine thinks and handles health.

I agree, modern medicine hasn’t really advanced as much as I’d like to see given how much it costs us!

A few years back a friend of mine looked into administrative costs versus actual care costs and it was nearly 2:1. 1/3 of all the money we spend upon healthcare is going to actual healthcare.

If I had to guess, if we at least swapped the amounts to 1:2 administrative to care costs, we’d be much better off now. It really bugs me too.

It’s not just Western medicine, it’s greed.

Lori, the situation with Tony sounds intolerable. Is there someone he (you) can reach out to to find a better nursing home closer to JT? His doctors (sometimes it's a helpful PA) or someone from his insurance company might be able to help with that. Lacking that, or in the meantime, I'd stock him up with both ensure and protein bars as well as those sandwiches with every visit.  

Bb Cc wrote:

Ludwigsburg American HS?

I was a Stallion.

Lived at Patch Barracks.

Before that I went to Paris American High School.

You know of it? 

Lori Milaswrote:

Nick, fortunately I don’t have to go to such extremes to get an adrenaline rush.  4-5 hours on a route at my limit takes my mind off of all non-essentials. I don’t need to get lost in a blinding snowstorm. I’m glad you’re safe.  

The situation with Tony – – thanks for asking. I’ve been fairly calm and confident this whole time and suddenly yesterday I went into a panic, and I’m still in a panic. This house is very empty without him. He’s been three weeks on his back in the nursing home in a room with the door shut.  A nurse wanders in and out every few hours. They cannot seem to get his diet right— last night was “Rice and 2 tablespoons of ground beef”. We’ve had three talks about this with the dietitian.
The whole game plan for him was to heal up the wounds from the botched surgery, rebuild his blood from all the blood loss, and get him up and moving. In order to get moving, he needed an ultrasound to verify that he had no blood clots. That was ordered two weeks ago as a STAT and the results are still not in. So PT does not want to have him move around at all. When he sits up, he's lightheaded. When he stands up his legs turn to Jell-O. The longer he lays there the worse he gets.

Today I’m feeling real urgency bordering on hysteria. He’s an hour away. I want to get him up and in a wheelchair and out in the sunshine. I haven’t found the calzone yet but he inhaled a huge Italian beef sandwich so I’ll bring another one. He asked for protein bars, I’ll bring him his shaver so he can feel human again.

But him laying there in a darkened room is business as usual there at the nursing home. We have had a number of team meetings, but very little transpires. 

BTW… I just feel the need to clarify, Tony is not with Kaiser. He kept his PPO. I am with Kaiser and I love it within what it is set up to do. I have never had to wait longer than five minutes for an appointment. If I need a specialist, it’s there. I can call anytime of day or night and get a doctor on the phone.  My gripe is with the way western medicine thinks and handles health. 

Lori,

Sorry to hear that things are moving so slowly regarding Tony's care. I mentioned this a couple of days ago but maybe you missed it. Does the facility have a patient advocate? They(the good ones at least) can be helpful in addressing Tony's needs and getting stuff done. Either way, I would go directly to whoever is running that facility and talk directly to them. And if they are part of a larger conglomerate, then keep going up the food chain until Tony gets the care he deserves. Also, you may want to look into getting him into another facility since the current place seems to be dropping the ball big time.

Alan Rubinwrote:

Ah, Bambi meets Godzilla--don't know anything about the climb, but one of the best very short films ever---at least if you're stoned and haven't seen or heard about it before!!!

This was the standard preview at the Fairhaven movie theater in Bellingham sometime in the 1970’s. Hilarious. Thanks for the memory bump.

Guy Keeseewrote:

I was a Stallion.

Lived at Patch Barracks.

Before that I went to Paris American High School.

You know of it? 

Also a Stallion. Lived at RB. 74-80.

Lori Milaswrote:

I really miss Russ. No one could heckle and fling insults like he can.

I'm sorry Lori, it looks like there are a few hotties in line before you on the fish worship train

fossilwrote:

I'm sorry Lori, it looks like there are a few hotties in line before you on the fish worship train

Having never met Russ face-to-face I probably wouldn’t recognize him if we met on the street.  However, I have had more fun imagining bringing Russ along to my coffee meeting with the two earth channelers.  I’m guessing he wouldn’t be outright rude but there would be significant eye rolling, and maybe some choking.  You tell me, is he capable of behaving himself?   

Small town to not know your neighbors at the grocery store, might be time to meet 

Russ behave?

LOL,  he probably could, but then ya wouldn't be getting the real deal.

Carry on...

Yurywrote:

ed esmond, you have a good memory and have memorized talking points of the US States Department quite well.

It's not a war between Ukraine and Russia.
It's a war between the US and Russia where Zelensky volunteered Ukrainians to fight on behalf of the US.

Ukraine gave up their nukes because US/NATO already planned expansion into Ukraine, and having nukes in Ukraine was too dangerous.
I do not believe that I need to provide more information here.
I already shared a couple of links in my original comment.

I hope that recommending an author is not too controversial here. But the discussion of Ukraine persists as an undercurrent on the thread, and I expect this book will become a valuable contribution to the subject.

Published about a week ago, Scott Horton’s book “Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine” does a deep dive into how US and NATO have piled one bad decision on top of another since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union fell. It is not a book of Putin talking points. Horton shows us that we can study the causalities of this catastrophe without letting Putin off the hook.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read it, but I just watched a very informative in-depth interview with Horton about the book, and have read lots of reviews. I have it on order and will devour it upon arrival. I am a serious amateur student of cold war and post cold war history. I’ve read a lot, and I’ve been following Horton’s antiwar, anti-neocon work for years. Horton is a true historian/journalist.

One reviewer of Horton’s book hit the nail on the head: “In case anyone else is wondering how the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock went from 17 minutes in 1991 to 90 seconds today, and how a lame duck president could authorize strikes into the worlds largest nuclear power without consulting Congress, or the American people, please start here.

 A good 1/3 of the book is footnotes to the source documents. Scott Horton brings the receipts.”

On another note, last week in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a neocon think tank put on the map by Henry Kissinger and whose ranks have been populated by the likes of Iraq war hawk Anthony Blinken and NATO expansionist Madeline Albright), US Strategic Command spokesman Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan conjured George C Scott in Dr. Strangelove in a bizarre and terrifying set of remarks, saying “If we have to have an exchange then we want to do it in terms that are most acceptable to the United States, which are namely to maintain a position where the US is largely viewed as a world leader. We’d have to have reserve capacity. You wouldn’t expend all of your resources to gain winning, right? Because then you would have nothing to deter from at that point.” He appears to be advocating a first strike, unless you can tell me how we can have an exchange on our terms after we’re attacked.

Kris. Taking a deep breath here… Do I want to dive in? This is a Climbing forum.   And yet, we climbers have a lot of investment in this world.

Before the election you wrote something along the lines of there was no higher priority for you then avoiding World War III. I checked out the book you were referencing above and I see where you’re coming from.

I am kind of curious what this group is thinking now that the election is over. I have taken some wild turns. Looking back just a few short weeks ago I feel that we Democrats were completely tone deaf. A lot of feel good, joyful rah rahs signifying nothing.  

The first thing that shifted for me was taking a hard look at RFK Jr.  i’ve been watching him for years but now he’s destined to actually have some influence. His call to emphasize public health over disease, to review vaccines – – and he’s not against vaccines – – to dislodge the medical establishment from big Pharma, to look at obesity and chronic disease in a focused, and serious way… Man! That just threw the windows wide-open for me.  That rattles the jewelry of all the controlling establishments. Was any of this mentioned in all the Democratic campaigning?

What passes for healthcare these days is so ingrained and so routine most of us can’t conceive of doing it another way.

A few days ago, I saw this picture. You’re talking about avoiding World War III. I think World War III is here.  This was a “moderate“ day of air pollution in New Delhi. But we are having environmental impact worldwide on a massive scale.  Was this mentioned on the campaign Trail?  I know it’s a non-issue for Republicans. It’s THE issue for me. 

at the moment, I’m thinking much less about who to vote for and much more about what to care about. Maybe if we had all hands on deck and the willingness to step outside all the boxes and get fresh vision the heartache of politics can recede.  

Lori Milaswrote:

 I’m thinking much less about who to vote for and much more about what to care about.  

I like that! Thank you, Lori.