Here’s an interesting website: Mt Everest History and facts – just all the basic stats for Mt. Everest climbs. It’s amazing what human beings do and can do once someone proves it’s possible, like the 4-minute mile that everyone thought was impossible, and now is practically expected.
| Everest was ‘summitted’ for the first time in recorded history in May of 1953, and since then, we’ve gotten to where there’s close to 200 people a year making it up there, including a blind guy, and a guy with one arm! Some people have skied or snowboarded down now, and one guy came down in 11 minutes on a hang glider. All of this is just further evidence for why I frequently say, ‘what won’t these pathetic, crazy, hairless monkey-creatures think of to do next?’
I’ve actually become aware of this page only because we publish a tape by the blind guy, Eric Weihenmayer, called Touch the Top of the World, available on our website at Audio Editions. |
Don’t let these stats fool you though – in the best year, fully 1/16th of the people who tried to summit died on the mountain.
| So I managed all my compost issues on Sunday. I took the good, finished compost and spread it on the garden, then I turned the half-done compost into that bin and filled the other bin with the weed piles from all the weeding I’ve done over the last two weekends.
When I was doing all this, I ran across a family of slugs, and here’s a couple of pics of the one I brought in to show Emily. (Impressive, no?) By the way, I’ve had a major insight into frustration: you can only feel frustrated about something that you care about. Sounds obvious, but it’s all so personal. For instance, it’s impossible for me to become upset about ‘missing the game,’ but I know some people who just lose it completely. I, on the other hand, am feeling all bonkers because I’ve gotten the garden cleaned up and I have great compost, but my plants are turning yellow and drying up in their six-packs up on the deck, because I don’t have time to work in the compost and plant them. (Hmm… six-packs.) |
| I’ve just spent about 20 minutes doing intensive research to figure out who has won the six Survivors so far, so I’ll present them here as a list for your convenience: |
- Richard Hatch
- Tina Wesson
- Ethan Zohn
- Vecepia Towery
- Brian Heidik
- Jenna Morasca
Here’s another good personality type analysis page. The Enneagram and the MBTI: an electronic journal on the relationship between the two personality typing systems.
Just a quick follow up on Dick and Mary:
Carl Reiner is writing a script for a CBS special that will show what Rob and Laurie Petrie have been doing since THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW went off the air in 1966. Reiner isn’t worried about tampering with a classic, or how viewers will react to seeing Rob and Laura much older. Van Dyke will concede one thing to age, though. Reiner said they won’t make him trip over the ottoman at the beginning of the show, which debuted in 1961. “No, he’s too old. He’d kill himself, if he trips over the ottoman,” Reiner said with a laugh.
Source: Yahoo News
| George Wyle, the guy who wrote the theme song for Gilligan’s Island died a few days ago at the ripe old age of 87. He also wrote the Christmas song The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, among other things, and was an Emmy nominated producer for things like the Brady Bunch Special and The Captain and Tenille. Here’s the whole enchilada: ZENtertainment.
By the way, we’ve talked quite a bit about personality types like cat and dog people, shower and bath people, etc. Whenever I’m asked the infamous question, “Ginger or Mary Ann?” it’s like, duh… Mary Ann! By the way, if you click her pic, you can go to the official Mary Ann website. |
On a sadder note, it’s hard to find George Wyle on Google if you don’t put quotes around it, because it keeps trying to show results for ‘George Clooney’ and ‘Noah Wyle’ – I think I’m ready for Z-Gen.
I clipped this and carried it around for almost a month. Bad news, though. I got fooled by my watch into thinking that yesterday was April 31 (I’m kinda dumb about some [arbitrary] stuff, you see), so I missed the boat, though I did figure out what’s what in time to post the announcement below. Any-who, here’s the scoop on trading up to a clean, quiet mower this year:
Mow Down Pollution 2003: All 600 of the electric mowers we had available for trade were claimed within the first hour on a first-come, first-served basis. No further registrations will be accepted. Thank you for your interest in the Mow Down!
Isn’t that great!? (I’m serious – I love that it only takes an hour for good people in SMUD’s service area to try to do the right thing.)
On the other hand, if they had the option to get more than 600 from Black & Decker, here are some interesting stats:
SMUD services 1.2 Million people in a 900 square mile area, and Auburn isn’t even serviced by SMUD, so why have they made me think and talk about this for the last month?