Sometimes the little things trip you up....

Good fun yesterday up at the Animal World crag in Boulder Canyon... went up after lunch to rope solo my favorite 5.8, and maybe look around for some other stuff to do after warming up. The wind was quite a factor, though, and after the 5.8 I wound up toproping on something nearby with a couple of friends from the BRC I happened to run into, and wearing a windbreaker to do it. I didn't check in advance how my foul weather clothing would work with a harness (gear loops, etc.), and wound up trying to clip hardware to fabric, fumbing around, and so on. Not really a problem on a toprope, but as fall arrives I'll be needing to get this little part of my act together.... this is the time of year when the climbing around CO and UT is at it's best; the weather doesn't change quite as suddenly as it can in summer, and the insect factor is minimal- enjoy it wherever you are!

Canadian health care

I'm posting a letter to the Boulder Daily Camera from someone else today, because I think it could be useful in the health care discussion we're having in the US these days....

While visiting Boulder, I’ve read the recent letters concerning health care. I moved to Canada in 1989 to attend graduate school. After three months I was allowed to join the BC Medical Services Plan, at $33/month. Now I pay $113/month for myself, my wife and my daughter, but we are never billed for visits to the doctor. We chose our physician and can visit a “walk-in” clinic if we are unable to get an appointment in a timely manner. There is no co-pay or deductible. All “pre-existing” health conditions are covered. Hospitalization is covered 100%. If requested by a physician, all lab costs, X-rays, etc. are paid for by MSP, but physicians must justify such requests in order to reduce unnecessary expenses. There is a co-pay for medications, the amount varies according to one’s income. It is true that there are wait lists for non-life threatening surgeries and there are fewer MRI instruments, however in an emergency whatever care is needed, is available. Our taxes may be more, but I have read that per capita, Canadians receive better health care at lower cost, than do Americans. No one in Canada keeps a job they don’t like just to hold on to health insurance benefits. No one loses their home because they cannot pay their medical bills and all residents (citizens and non-citizens) receive the same quality of medical care. Certainly the system is not perfect, and there are stresses. However the Canadian system does come closer than the current US system in providing health care to all, which, after all is a human right.

Ken Marr (Fairview class of 1976)

Victoria, BC Canada

Smart grid?

Recently, Boulder (as well as many other towns) has been getting "smart grid" utility hardware on poles and electric meters around town; the pitch is that automated meters and two-way power consumption data can be used to improve the efficiency of the grid's power distribution. Over the long term, we may be able to save quite a bit of energy this way, but in the near term it looks a bit like the wierd setup our local power company uses to bill for wind energy- customers wanting to support wind power pay a higher price for electricity that comes from the exact same grid as it does for the rest of us; same wires, same mix of wind, gas and coal burning plants (the "smart grid" isn't smart enough to allow one household to buy power from a different plant than the house next door). I'm not really against the idea, but some restraint might be in order here- when large amounts of stuff is run by computer from far away, well, things don't always go as planned..... this link is to a story about hacking smart grids

Spreadin' the pain

For a long time now, we've paid for roads and bridges in this country by taxing the sale of motor fuel; it's been a more or less fair way of spreading the cost- larger vehicles damage roads more than smaller ones, and also happen to use more fuel. Vehicles that are driven a lot cause more damage than ones that are parked, and happen to use more fuel as well. Farm equipment (that rarely goes on the highway) uses fuel that's taxed at a lower rate. Simple enough, right? Well, now that vehicles are being driven less and/or getting parked, fuel tax revenues are down to the point where many needed repairs are in jeopardy (or so we're told; Boulder is about to spend $500,000.00 on one traffic light at the end of North Broadway- with prices like that it's no wonder we're out of highway money). Among the solutions proposed recently is the idea of transponders installed in every vehicle to track and charge a tax for miles driven. Now, this might seem like an even better way to spread infrastructure costs fairly, until you look a bit closer...... many of these devices also track (and store) everywhere the vehicle has gone, along with information about how it was operated. Some of the people here in Boulder promoting these things are the same ones who (rightly) have decried the Bush administration's privacy rights violations, so.....? Human nature being what it is, these devices can (or will) likely be hacked into, removed and/or disconnected part of the time, etc. Nobody I know can hack into a fuel tax (or an electric rate surcharge)- if you want to buy gas (or electricity) you have to pay the tax. I suspect at least some of the pressure for tracking devices is coming from people who stand to benefit from their widespread implementation- manufacturers and installers. Wouldn't it be cheaper and more practical to just raise the fuel tax?

Grub, etc....

As more and more businesses struggle, I can't help but wonder about some of them around here- I used to eat at Dot's Diner on 28th street in Boulder, and several of my friends and customers have worked there over the years; I've never once had any problems with the staff, and the owner has always treated me as well as I treat my own customers..... I have, however, witnessed a lot of questionable behavior on the part of the staff, including making fun of a customer's clothing in front of the other customers after she had left. Since I have a sense of humor (and not much fashion sense), I wasn't personally uncomfortable with that, but I think it points to a larger picture of a place in decline- staff morale low from poor revenue, poor revenue from low staff morale, etc. (becomes a vicious cycle) I stopped eating there myself because I started getting stomach pain afterward. For a while I figured it was just my body having lots of miles on it and being less forgiving these days, but I've been hearing the same thing from others who've eaten there as well. We're heading pretty quickly toward a society that, for better or worse, has a surplus of qualified people who'd be happy to take over from folks who've forgotten how the service industry works. I've shifted my business to the Walnut Cafe (Walnut & 30th st. and Table Mesa center), where I've never had trouble with the food, and the staff is friendly and professional. As a business owner myself, I don't like this economy any more than anyone else- there may not be enough room for well run shops, let alone people making avoidable mistakes.....

Job well done?

So, here we are with a lousy economy, sick people with no health care, a rising homeless population (next to empty foreclosed houses), a changing climate, etc. etc. (not to mention a new Denver Broncos head coach) I hear the so called "stimulus plan" will cost about $9,700 for each taxpayer in the country........ have you noticed that whenever the politicos want a tax cut for the rich they always say "the people know how to spend money better than the government"? Well? How about it? I don't know about you, but I could put $9,700 to work pretty quickly........oh, wait a minute; my plan doesn't give fat bonuses to CEOs for doing a bad job....... never mind (what was I thinking?). As for climate change, well, I'm not sold on Every Little Thing the Sierra Club might want me to be, but so what? What's the worst thing that'll happen if we build solar and wind power plants and drive electric cars? Cleaner air, cleaner water and towns we actually like living in sure would suck, huh? Here's a link to a friend of mine in Seattle who's found some interesting stuff to try out...... http://www.debgoesgreen.com/

Life's a twitch

For some time now, I've noticed that performing tends to bring on more intense Tourette symptoms than it did when I started out in music back in the 1970s.... I usually let the symptoms show more when I'm at relative ease, and I was less relaxed during shows earlier in my career. The trouble these days is that I'm relaxed enough not to bother scheduling any shows........ climbing tends to calm the symptoms, though my "loosen up" dance between routes might get interesting. When the winter sets in, as it has for the past few days, I sometimes go web surfing for other climber's blog posts- Jason Kehl has gained quite a reputation for high level bouldering, photo manipulation, and some great recipes! Point your browser to some of his stuff at http://www.deadpointmag.com/blogs/7-jason-kehl (check out his post from Hueco Tanks). For some interesting writing on climbing, travel, life, etc. try Majka Burhardt's blog at http://www.majkaburhardt.com/liminal-line-blog/ or Jonathan Siegrist's blog at http://www.jstarinorbit.com/