roscoe

I got to the mountain in my hardboots for the first time this season, and after a few runs, realized that im pretty heavily weighted towards my left (front) foot - probably about 70-75% of my weight is on that foot (when im just standing on a relatively flat surface). instead of messing around with the bindings too much (i have cateks), i just left it for the day. what exactly should i change (lift/cant on front/rear binding?) so my weight is more evenly distributed across both bindings? My left leg got SORE pretty quickly, so I'd like to correct that asap, but dont feel like going by the trial and error method if possible. Thanks for any help!

I'm definitely nothing near a pro at hardbooting, but i also prefer softies in powder (or crappy conditions) and for general riding I find that in powder, my nose bends too much and i just go over the handlebars, so to say. when i correct for that and lean back and switch the angles up, its just not that comfortable on the legs. with softboots tho, it doesnt hurt nearly as much. and for just general riding (this is probably b/c i've only been hardbooting for a year) I prefer softies, usually b/c im trying to keep up with friends who aren't taking their time carving down the mountain, but are going all over the place, blasting into the woods for a bit or doing a run with moguls ( ) or who knows what, so the softies just give me a lot more versatility after a few good days of powder last year, i ended up buying a 4807 from blueb, hope to get a bunch of chances this year to try it out and see what its like, both with HB and SB

but it would be .... he has TOO much dirt on me, he knew i went TO the store, TO buy TWO, which was TWO, TOO many. it turns out, he went there TOO. k im done

actually, I'd say that the current issue in palestine/israel is pretty much the same as the ireland/britain issue - it has much less to do with religion than people think. Really, its all about land -- yes, for religious reasons/history -- but its still all about a land conflict. the current fight is not that jews want to wipe out muslims and the muslims want to wipe out the jews, its about how the 3 major religions of the world have been fighting over the same piece of land for the last 2000 years. I'm not saying this has nothing to do with religion, obviously the basic motivation to control the land is each group's religious history, but not in terms of a jihad to wipe out the opposition.

actually, the majority in terrorism in spain is NOT muslim-led (nor immigrant led at all). Rather, its done by the ETA, who are 'fighting' for the basque country's independence. I doubt that their immigration policy has much to do with the [muslim] terrorism seen in Spain anyways - You'd have to show me some actual data that the majority of islamic extremists are a. recent immigrants to begin with, and b. illegals. Furthermore, if they want to commit terrorism, they'll find a way in. I think we learned that 6 years ago... about the muslim extremists influencing the elections - welcome to democracy.

Spain also has huge problems with illegals coming into the country, mostly from Africa or Latin America. One of the ways they deal with it is 'allow' illegals to stay in the country for 3 months, after those 3 months, the illegals have a chance to prove that they have found a job and are working - at that point they can apply for citizenship or a permit that will allow them to stay and work. Those that do not find jobs (and probably some before the 3 month period is up, I'm not sure), are deported. this same system could work here, we would just have to make a system of work permits that is more flexible than what we have now. Lot cheaper than a fence and they can still provide economically

the original wide turns sticker i like this one (mom suggestion is good) and dshacks.... Long and Hard..... .....get your flaccid jib-stick off my tail. I just did a real quick search on the internet, here's what i came up with... http://www.timsbumperstickers.com/vinylbumperstickers.html http://www.customprintedbumperstickers.com/ http://www.makestickers.com/

I have an REI jacket that combines hard shell and soft shell - it works well. the shoulders, hood, and upper parts of the sleaves are hard shell, while the body is soft shell. the soft shell is pretty water resistant, while the hard shell parts are fully waterproof. nice and lightweight. I'd recommend it. I'm usually not on my back too much, more so on my ass , so i'm more worried about my pants being fully waterproof

but I practiced a few times in powder on my coiler am (19 cm), and had a tough time. you really have make sure you're leaning back, b/c i kept experiencing nose dive; going head over heels was only fun the first time you can do it, but in order to get thru the pow you end up having to lean back or change your stance, and in doing so you dont really end up carving at all. I also found that after doing this for a full day, my feet were quite sore, b/c I was moving in unnatural ways that the boots werent really made for... I know a lot of guys here will ride with their HB in the morning and then switch to SB in the afternoon when it gets crappy - carving is fun, but it gets really hard in the "wrong" conditions (especially for beginners like me)

I might possibly be heading into boston and then stopping off at home, but not sure yet. Why, what's in Gloucester this weekend?

haha probably no such luck in the heating bill either - i was reading the boston globe this morning and then government was saying that people are going to end up spending something around 20% this winter in heating costs. sweet.

I hope they're wrong, I just sent in my check for a season pass at sunday river/sugarloaf...

I feel you Gleb, I have been going non-stop all semester, and even more so this past week. As a matter of fact, I'm working on a paper right now. My brain is about to shut down though... BUT, this weekend is fall break, so I'm going up to Montreal with a bunch of guys from the rugby team, to "relax." I'm pumped, to say the least

why would he keep it in a smoker??

i'm drinking bud light right now as I revise an anthro paper. not bad for 14 bucks for a 30 rack...

mindless????? haha ok fine maybe. michael crichton is always a fun read too

are you reading it in spanish or english? reading marquez in spanish adds a lot to it

So i just read the abstract to the article - they dont say anything about larger system changes that are causing the changes on mars and therefore also on earth. Instead, they found that its due to changes in albedo and weather patterns specific to Mars. here's the abstract ... Fenton et al. Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on mars ... For hundreds of years, scientists have tracked the changing appearance of Mars, first by hand drawings and later by photographs1, 2. Because of this historical record, many classical albedo patterns have long been known to shift in appearance over time. Decadal variations of the martian surface albedo are generally attributed to removal and deposition of small amounts of relatively bright dust on the surface. Large swaths of the surface (up to 56 million km2) have been observed to darken or brighten by 10 per cent or more3, 4, 5. It is unknown, however, how these albedo changes affect wind circulation, dust transport and the feedback between these processes and the martian climate. Here we present predictions from a Mars general circulation model, indicating that the observed interannual albedo alterations strongly influence the martian environment. Results indicate enhanced wind stress in recently darkened areas and decreased wind stress in brightened areas, producing a positive feedback system in which the albedo changes strengthen the winds that generate the changes. The simulations also predict a net annual global warming of surface air temperatures by 0.65 K, enhancing dust lifting by increasing the likelihood of dust devil generation. The increase in global dust lifting by both wind stress and dust devils may affect the mechanisms that trigger large dust storm initiation, a poorly understood phenomenon, unique to Mars. In addition, predicted increases in summertime air temperatures at high southern latitudes would contribute to the rapid and steady scarp retreat that has been observed in the south polar residual ice for the past four Mars years6, 7, 8. Our results suggest that documented albedo changes affect recent climate change and large-scale weather patterns on Mars, and thus albedo variations are a necessary component of future atmospheric and climate studies.

DrD - sorry to bring this up again after its been a while - havent been on the computer at all today. For your climate change argument - you should look into a paper by Mann et al - I think it was done in 99? - anyways, it takes tree ring data (which tells tree growth), which correlates exactly to temperature (they were able to figure out the conversion based on recent, recorded data). From this data they figured out that yes, in fact, earth is warming, and there is a direct correlation to increased CO2 data ... so what i'm disagreeing with you about is, yes, yet again, data. We know a LOT about historical climate - tree rings and ice cores tell us what the temperature and CO2 concentrations were. However, I hadnt heard about the mars idea, I'll email my professor right now about that and see what he says. and for the northern spotted owl - it is actually still in great danger today. I dont remember the exact data, but certain states/territories in canada there are something like 8 mating pairs. the biggest issue that the guys from the ESA found wasnt even the destruction of spotted owl habitat (still AN issue), but was actually another owl species (i think bard) that was being driven northwest b/c its own habitat is being destroyed by us. these owls can outcompete the spotted owl, and spotted owls are therefore dying off again. One interesting method of control was just shooting the bard owls - within 2-3 weeks of shooting a good number of bard owls, a few spotted owls returned to their habitat - owls that the scientists had thought had migrated elsewhere b/c they had been silent for years. I thought it was interesting to see how we intially destroyed Spotted Owls habitat, and then their demise was furthered by the destruction of the Bard owl habitat - who are habitat generalists and can migrate/take over Spotted owls' habitat.

hahaha Good One! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I was in texas over spring break with visiting my uncle, and next door to him is this geologist that works for the government, consulting with oil companies. Needless to say, we got into the climate change argument. He claims everything is due to natural cyles - which is b*ll sh**. If it were all part of a natural cycle (which do occur, every 10,000 years), we SHOULD be heading back into the next ice age. I think it was about in about 1960 when we reached the peak of the inter-glacial period, and at that point scientists were expecting the earth to start cooling, not warming.

i dont know anything about the sea lion - but from what it sounds like I agree with you -- there needs to be some kind of control on populations we are trying to protect, so they dont go and endanger another species (including ourselves). when i was asking what you thought about natural environments, I was thinking more about the wolf part of your original statement - b/c to me, wolves/other species which are either reintroduced to their original habitat or are protected by the ESA in their natural habitat should be protected (but also managed in such a way so that human life can continue, with hopefully only minor changes in doing so). So by saying "the people who want them" I thought (wrongfully) that you didnt want them/agree with reintroducing species to natural environments (granted that sea lions are not in their natural environment...) a few weeks ago I was listening to a lecture about owls on the west coast, which are protected by the ESA. it was interesting to hear about the different management plans - all of which will have an effect on the logging industry. at what point do we limit our protection of natural species to allow progress? I think policy is probably the hardest part about ecology - because almost everything we do to help the environment ends up hurting the economy. g'gnight all...

so would you rather have a "natural" environment like what Dr D is talking about, where we masters and everything else can get out of our way, or a natural environment that is as close to natural as we can get it? I guess it comes down to how you value nature and the "rights" of others species. Is it OK for us to come in and trample them, kill them all, and then just not worry about the effects it has on the overall ecosystem? what about global warming? is that only an issue because it will effect us (if you think it is an issue)? Personally, I of course dont value wolves as much as humans. if a cougar is attacking your family, shoot it. But I do feel we should try to keep nature natural. I also think we should do something about global warming not only because it effects us, but because of the damage it will eventually do every other living organism. (I hope i didnt just open up an even bigger global warming debate )

thank you carvedog, I'll use that next time. I have no idea what most of those little icons mean so i just ignore them and dr d, I completely disagree about humans being "natural" predators of the other predators. we might be hunters, but not their natural predators. Skategoat is right about having to eat the cougar/wolf. Natural predator populations dont explode because other predators stop killing them/eating them, they explode b/c their competition is no longer there. In the past, they competed with some other predator for a food source (I thought it was wolves, you say wolves dont kill deer so ok we'll assume its some other natural predator we've killed off). Now that the competing natural predator is no longer there, cougar population can increase. EDIT --- You're right, we are part of the natural environment, we are a species like any other. however, our brain allows us to do a lot of stuff that screws over other species, and eventually ourselves. no other species has this capacity, and all others are therefore (more) dependent upon natural laws of the environment. Instead, using our brains we can overcome natural obstacles like food/shelter and keep increasing our population rapidly, while destroying every other species/habitat, as we virtually have no natural predators/competition - or at least none that truly keep our population in check. since we have the capacity to think and make moral judgements, we should actually use our brain, and not destroy the natural environment. ---EDIT I've been wondering about this - has the cougar population actually increased DRAMATICALLY, or is it just that humans have been encroaching further and further into their territory so they therefore seem more prevalent, as they get used to humans being around and figure out that we make a good dinner (as C5 pointed out earlier)? I'm jw if you know data on # of cougars in the area (I know you have a problem with traditional counting methods, but that aside, any ideas?) and ok, I just did some research online - wolves do hunt deer - they prefer elk, but they definitely hunt deer. Also talks about how they radio-collared a wolf pack and cougars, analyzing what they ate. They found that wolves DID kill the weak/old. Also, they radio collared a couple of packs and followed the wolves during predation, and found that the elk population was decreasing by 13% annually, 10% due to HUNTERS. when reading about their methods, they ARE able to follow the wolves b/c they use helicopters if necessary. Also, radio collars are often more advanced now so that they dont have be within a short range to pinpoint where the wolf is ---meaning i disagree about your earlier statement about scientists inability to track them ALSO, new rules about killing wolves ... "But until now, private individuals needed special permission to kill wolves that had developed a taste for domestic animals. Under the new rules, they may shoot wolves that are harassing livestock or other domestic animals. In addition, the federal government will relinquish responsibility to states and Indian tribes that develop approved wolf-management plans. At the moment, Idaho and Montana fit that category. The general idea, officials say, is to increase opportunities to remove problem wolves while still protecting the majority of wolves that are not causing conflicts with people."

I definitely agree with that for urban areas. Lack of wolves has somewhat of an effect on cougars in urban areas (as less wolves means more food so more cougars, so we'll see them more often in urban places) ... but I agree that as we expand towns into cougars areas, we're going to encounter them more often regardless of wolves can you tell I'm bored? responses within 4 minutes of the post - yeahh class is awesome right now

agreed. Lots of prey + not that many wolves (except in certain areas where they have enough territory for a full pack to roam/hunt) means lots of other predators, since most of those other predators dont live in packs and dont have territory ranges that are as big as wolves example - cougar's close cousin, fishercats, can live in my town because they need almost no land for their range. Same with coyotes in the 1-2 acres of woods behind my house.