Vestas Sailrocket 2 light wind practice...

Tentativi di record.

Awesome Pictures of the Alps on Website Gallery

This website was just posted on Personal Websites on Summitpost (narration in French)

http://www.lumieresdaltitude.com/gallery.php?lang=en&gallery_id=3

Colin Haley is back in Patagonia
http://colinhaley.blogspot.com

The world's most dangerous terrain
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bic/the-most-dangerous-terrains-in-the-world

http://news.alpine-photography.com/2012/10/long-exposure-night-photography-across-mont-blanc-let-there-be-light.html

Arete des Cosmiques

Please visit my website
http://www.hiking4health.com

Why we're excited for the holidays!

Seeing as how it's December tomorrow (crazy!) we thought we would dedicate this Friday's post to things that we're looking forward to this holiday season!

1. Trying out some new recipes to give as gifts this season.

This caramel peanut butter fudge is one recipe we're going to have to try.

2. Curling up with a favorite holiday movie. These are some of our favorites!

3. Decorating! We love Rachel from Smile & Wave's collection of vintage ornaments, and can't wait to pull ours up from our basements and decorate our trees as well as the rest of our homes!

4. Doing some holiday baking and trying not to eat it all along the way!

These sugar cookies look picture perfect!

5. After the tree is up, and the cookies are out of the oven, there's nothing like getting cozy!

We love throwing on a favorite hoodie, some sweats and a trusty old pair of slippers!

What are you guys most looking forward to in December?

Silent Running (1972)

          Special-effects mastermind Douglas Trumbull has only directed two features in his long career, and they’re both fascinating. His first picture, Silent Running, is one of the most deeply felt statements within the small but noteworthy genre of ecology-themed sci-fi dramas, and his sophomore effort, Brainstorm (1983), is a problematic but provocative examination of what might happen if technology allowed us to experience other people’s thoughts. Obviously, the fact that both films are rooted in man’s complicated relationship with machines means that Trumbull didn’t stray far from his strong suit of special effects and technological themes—but there’s a lot to be said for any artist operating within the idiom he or she finds most comfortable.

          Silent Running takes place entirely in space, specifically aboard the scientific vessel Valley Forge. The setting is a future date when plant life has disappeared from the surface of the Earth, so the Valley Forge tugs geodesic domes in which the planet’s last forests are lovingly maintained by botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern). Lowell has a tough time getting along with the other humans aboard the Valley Forge, partially because of his antisocial nature and partially because they don’t share his passion for preserving plant life. Instead, his main companions are three robots, whom he dubs Huey, Duey, and Louie (borrowing the names of Disney cartoon character Scrooge McDuck’s nephews). When the Valley Forgereceives orders to destroy the geodesic domes (including their precious cargo) and then return to Earth—a decision’s been made that greenery isn’t worth sustaining anymore—Lowell takes extreme measures to protect as many of the plants as he can.

          Some viewers might find this storyline bizarre, either because they can’t imagine anyone prioritizing plants over people or because the film’s conservation message is too overt, but the perfect casting of Dern in the lead role both accentuates and justifies the strange premise. On the most obvious level, Dern built his career playing unstable characters, so it’s not hard to accept his drift into idiosyncratic behavior. And yet on a deeper level, Dern’s intensity underscores Freeman Lowell’s self-perception as a reluctant savior—he sees the prevention of plant extinction as a higher calling. This aspect of the film pays off wonderfully in the finale, which has a strong emotional hit that’s grounded in the offbeat colorations of Dern’s exceptional performance. And though the most memorable quality of Silent Running is the humane nature of Dern’s acting—ironic, given Trumbull’s background and directorial inexperience—the special effects don’t disappoint. Using some of the same technology he brought to bear on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Trumbull creates outer-space environments with genuine dimension, all the while ensuring that visual gimmicks never overwhelm the offbeat story.

Silent Running: RIGHT ON

SPLIT OF A SECOND - A film about wingsuit flying

Fantastico.

Living in One Dimension

I like big holds.  I like deep cut crimp rails.  I like power problems that consist of caveman-style, simplistic, grunting, chest-thumping, me tarzan you jane style moves.  I think there is nothing wrong that.  Which is why I'm so in love with this latest send from Bishop, the vapid, dumb-blonde, lonely in a deserted corner, puke stained shirt boulder, Solitaire.  I don't really care what anyone else thinks (which is why I'm a dirt bag climber), but this is probably my favorite climb in Bishop.  It's beautiful.  It puts the lotion on the skin.  It's everything I look for in a straightforward interaction between man and monzonite. 

STORE LOCATOR - FRANS BOONE, SLUIS

Tucked away at the border between Belgium and The Netherlands you can find Frans Boone, Sluis

Frans wasn't in today, he was in Italy on a business trip selecting some products and brands which can fine tune the collection for Fall 2013. I was welcomed by Menno with a hot coffee and a nice chat. The store is separated by a big red cabinet into two different rooms. At the entrance you feel the rough outdoors with collections like RRL, Pendleton blankets, Red Wing, Gitman Vintage,  & Howlin'. The other room has a yellow sofa as a great eye-catcher, here you find a Salvatore Picolo shirts, Boglioli, Alden, Tricker's just to name a few brands. Frans Boone is cherry picking in every collection, and create special editions as well. You may call it "Very Frans Boone"

My Closet/Work Room was featured on A Beautiful Mess!

I was so honored when A Beautiful Mess contacted me to share one of the rooms in my home with their readers! To see all of the photos, and to read the interview, go and check it out over at A Beautiful Mess!

A big thanks to Tristan Fast for taking these photos!

Underground (1970)

          While the prospect of a tough World War II thriller starring velvet-voiced Broadway and TV star Robert Goulet might not be enticing in the abstract, Underground is actually quite palatable. Featuring a clear story, a handful of decent surprises, and a steady stream of effective suspense scenes, the picture gives Goulet all the ammunition he needs to deliver a respectable performance, and while it’s true he does a bit of preening here and there, he makes an okay (if somewhat wooden) action hero. When the story begins, mysterious American commando Lt. Dawson (Goulet) breaks into an airbase and slips onto a plane that’s departing for a secret mission. He then subdues the man who’s supposed to jump from the plane into enemy territory and makes the jump himself, joining up with a group of French resistance fighters led by the chrome-domed Boule (Lawrence Dobkin). It seems the American whose place Dawson took was slated to attack a convoy delivering Nazi Gen. Stryker (Carl Deuring) through France. Further, not only does Dawson have history with Stryker, but Dawson’s task is to kidnap rather than kill the German officer.

          While executing his mission, Dawson engages in a battle of wills with Boule, who doubts the American’s credibility from the moment they meet, and has a steamy tryst with Yvonne (Danièle Gaubert), a member of Boule’s team. Although the basic story of Underground is uncomplicated, a few unexpected dimensions give the film texture. For instance, Stryker is in disgrace following a major strategic error, so he’s on a de facto suicide watch by his fellow members of the Third Reich; similarly, Dawson’s haunted by nightmares stemming from a past episode of imprisonment and torture. Since Goulet is the definition of a whitebread entertainer, it’s a kick to see him playing rough, though another actor could have done more with the role. (Dobkin and Gaubert are well-cast and efficient.) Still, TV-trained hack director Arhtur H. Nadel presents the story without adornment, giving the movie a grungy edge even though the production values are slick, and reliable composer Stanley Myers puts some blood in the flick’s veins. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Underground: FUNKY

XCmag's XC360: Dream With Us

Da: xcmag

Vintage boots.

We are both on the hunt for new boots for Winter. It's hard to find boots for our extreme Winters. We do have actual practical Winter boots covered, but we are in the market for everyday boots that we can just slip on, that won't get destroyed by our crazy salted streets. Naturally we turn to vintage boots because they are already worn in and aren't all new and shiny.

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Climbing News on Personal Websites at Summitpost

Here are the latest mountaineering events

http://vertical-unlimited.blogspot.com/ -- Gery Unterasinger -- Canada -- Updated

http://www.planetmountain.com/english/home.html --Kilian Jornet -- France -- Chardonnet Magot Spur - first ski descent
http://www.kilianjornet.cat/

http://chamconditions.blogspot.com/ -- Charlie Boscoe -- UK and France -- Updated in the Alps

---

Re: Personal Websites

by Cy Kaicener » Wed Nov 28, 2012 4:36 pm

http://patdeavoll.co.nz -- Patricia Deavoll -- New Zealand -- Updated

http://www.globalalpine.com -- Andrew Wexler -- Canada -- Updated in Turkey

http://theadventureblog.blogspot.com/ -- Kraig Backer -- Texas -- Updates every few hours -- Lots of mountaineering news

http://mtsanjacinto.info/viewtopic.php?t=3893  --  Doreen on Skyline - more than 270 ascents

Turkey rock climbing

Pat Deavoll from New Zealand

Doreen on Skyline

Cy on Skyline

Please visit my website

http://www.hiking4health.com

Hester Street (1975)

          Although Hollywood films including The Fixer (1968) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971) explored the experience of European Jews, Joan Micklin Silver’s debut feature, the independently made Hester Street, was among the first mainstream pictures to explore the experience of Jewish immigrants in America. For that reason alone, the movie is noteworthy, and it was added to the National Film Registry in 2011. Yet instead of being the stuffy museum piece one might expect, Hester Street is a tonally varied movie featuring comedy, drama, romance, and sociopolitical commentary. It’s not the smoothest film, since Silver was still finding her way as a storyteller and since she was hemmed in by a tight budget, but it’s quite rewarding.

          Based on a novel from 1896 and set in that year, the movie re-creates the economically challenged milieu of European Jews who relocated to lower Manhattan and formed a tight community in and around Hester Street (which is now part of Chinatown). The film’s lead character is Yankel Bogovnik (Steven Keats), a Russian immigrant so thoroughly Americanized he calls himself Jake and conducts many of his conversations in English. Jake is a smooth-talking striver, even though he’s got a nowhere job in a sweatshop, and he has romantic designs on the beautiful and comparatively well-off Mamie (Dorrie Kavanaugh). The other figure in Jake’s world at the beginning of the story is Mr. Bernstein (Mel Howard), a kind-hearted boarder in Jake’s apartment who spends his time consumed in Talmudic study. Although Jake has accepted a significant sum of money from Mamie as a premarital dowry, he failed to tell her that he’s already got a wife and child back in the old country. So, when Jake’s wife Gitl (Carol Kane) and their son arrive on Ellis Island, Jake’s got some explaining to do.

          Once this fraught situation is established, Silver explores the complicated ways that Jake and the people in his life try to balance their obligations to traditional Jewish orthodoxy with their aspirations to U.S. modernism. Some of the best scenes feature Gitl emerging from her shell, because when she arrives in America, she’s a mousy foreigner afraid to speak her mind; later, after exposure to progressive ideas, she endeavors to escape a bad situation.

          The look of the movie is appropriate and interesting, since Silver shot the picture in hazy black-and-white images that recall turn-of-the-century photographs, and Silver’s tonal missteps are relatively minor. (The montage sequences that evoke silent-cinema comedy, for instance, are an acquired taste.) Keats is hard to take, committing to his character so wholeheartedly that he becomes repulsive, and it takes a bit too long for Kane’s character to find her strength. Still,  the last 40 minutes or so of the picture are delicately orchestrated, and Kane’s characterization gains subtle power. No surprise, then, that Kane received an Oscar nomination.

Hester Street: GROOVY

SQUEEZE ME, PLEASE!

Wow can somebody squeeze me, please!

Filson teams up with Harris Tweed for a couple of stylish (and by the looks of it, tough as nails) new briefcases. Featuring the classic Filson finishings — bridle leather, brass hardware — that the all-American company is known for, but with a bit of Scottish charm thrown into the mix. Call it a geo-sartorial meeting of the minds (that you can carry to work with you).

2010 Hang Gliding Spectacular

Creepy Bucket of Lotion

Yes, as the title suggests I do retreat every night to my small apartment and my creepy bucket of lotion.  However, it does keep me stocked in fresh skin which has been key in the last weeks sending spree. 

Jesse

After a couple of weeks of getting settled in, meeting a virtual 'shit-load' of new friends (most of which are 'drifting' through, picking the low fruit, the classics, and sampling the terrifyingly high monoliths of climbing cataclysms), I have finally found a rhythm.  It feels good.  So many mental barriers have been broken.  Fuck that, they have been shattered!! 

Today was another good day of overcoming those previously erected mental barriers that stood in the way of success.  But, yesterday wasn't too shabby either. 

Daniel

I've always felt like I climb like shit coming off a rest day and yesterday morning was no exception.  I hiked into the Happy's and did my usual warm up routine.  Then headed to Morning Dove White, which I have been working for the last couple of days (luckily with some good friends who have provided much psych and good new beta). 

Me

Seleena

The session went as usual, climb, climb, climb, fall (at the usual place).  I finally decided to try new beta, which is an unusual phenomenon for me since I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to beta.  But, this worked, surprisingly.  Subtlefoot adjustments can make or break a climb, and in this case, moving my foot (literally) 8 inches in and down kept my core strong and kept me from swinging off the rock.  Still, I needed a rest.  I wandered the boulder field and eventually ran into my friend Jesse, a visiting Canuck whose lengthy frame and philosophical insight to climbing had me overlaying Dave Grahams face onto his every time I watch  him climb.  Jesse had been working MDW as well, in fact we met under the iconic boulder, and he convinced me to come hang out and work it with him once more.  I had to shake off my failure and join him, which turned out to be a very good thing.

Mr. Happy

Mary

Josh

SIN

SIN

Clapper evening sesh.

This brings me to my point of breaking through mental barriers.  Its definitely easier to never develop them, but when you're climbing at your limit they are bound to materialize and uncomfortably supplant a positive mentality in lieu of a glass ceiling of failure.  All I can say, is that I've had three instances lately where the seemingly impossible has become quite possible.  Today was no different, and having a great crew in the Sads was key to success for me today.  It's so refreshing to be surrounded by climbers who share beta, stories, jokes, ribbing each other, and encouragement.  Paying attention to the details, taking breaks, and BREATHING (or meditating) is what I reccomend.  Of course, some things are just too out of reach...for the moment. 

Savage Sisters (1974)

          Narrative dissonance is often a hallmark of sloppily made grindhouse flicks, thanks to producers’ capricious melding of incompatible genre elements, but Savage Sisters is especially discombobulated. Part part heist movie, part military adventure, part prison picture, and part sexploitation, Savage Sisters has everything except coherence. The movie is strangely watchable simply because there’s no way to guess which direction the story might take in any given scene, but it’s not a satisfying viewing experience. However, the movie isn’t exactly traffic-accident horrible, either, since it sometimes seems as if director Eddie Romero and his collaborators are trying for intentional humor. So the best way to classify the movie’s appeal is to say that if watching semi-attractive women seduce and slaughter their way through South America while delivering lame one-liners sounds like fun to you, then you belong to Savage Sisters’ intended audience.

          The story, which is far too convoluted to describe in detail here, follows revolutionaries Mei Ling (Rosanna Ortiz), an Asian, and Jo Turner (Cheri Caffaro), a Nordic glamazon, as they battle an oppressive military regime represented by the comically preening Captain Morales (Eddie Garcia). When Morales’ men capture Jo and Mei, the women are entrusted to Lynn Jackson (Gloria Hendry), a black stripper-turned-warden who digs torturing people. Then, when the three women hear that an evil bandito named Malavel (Sid Haig) has purloined a briefcase filled with $1 million in U.S. currency, the multi-culti ladies join forces to bust out of jail and seek their fortune. Also thrown into the mix is an American hustler named W.P. Billingsley (John Ashley), who ends up becoming lovers with all three women. Oh, and lest we forget, there’s a scene in which a prison guard threatens to rape Jo with a giant wind-up dildo, a running gag involving a sidekick named Punjab who only speaks in grunts, and a “comedy” scene in which two men are buried neck deep in a beach just before high tide.

          Savage Sisters packs a whole lot of nonsense in to 86 fast-moving minutes, and the tone of the movie is all over the place—Haig plays all of his scenes so broadly that it seems as if he’s acting in a farce, while Caffaro and Hendry strut around like they’re in an action picture. And then there’s Ashley, the workaday feature and TV supporting player who also co-produced the movie. One can almost understand the vanity of Ashley wanting to repeatedly appear on camera while exercising, slipping into bed with women, and wearing bikini briefs, but, still, Ashley’s casting as a second-tier supporting schmuck represents a strange exercise in behind-the-camera power. Yet that’s the meager fascination something like Savage Sisters provides—every decision that went into making the movie seems so loopy that half the fun of watching the thing is imagining what went through the filmmakers’ heads during production. Okay, make that more than half the fun, because genuine audience enjoyment is not something Savage Sisters provides in abundance. (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Savage Sisters: FREAKY

It's navy, baby!

This cozy navy heart sweater is perfect for fall!

How amazing is this photograph of  boy scouts in navy uniforms found in the New York Times in 1964? It looks like the original cast of Moonrise Kingdom!

This adorable navy caravan makes us miss our Olive!

Such a cute combination of navy stripes with a headscarf wrapped around a bun!

What a beautiful 1940's navy WWII nurses cape!

And last but certainly not least, we are head-over-heels for this gorgeous navy scalloped dress.

XO