(no subject)
Dec. 6th, 2019 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Difficult week. And a cold one. Been wearing my winter jacket all week long. Along with the wool hat, and warm furry knitted scarf, and booties. It's been in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. My commute -- requires me to be walking and standing outside for about 15-30 minutes. With about a mile walk each way. So, I feel the cold, even though the trains are heated. The subway isn't so bad nor is Atlantic Avenue Terminal, but Jamaica is outside with a brisk wind, and a fifteen minute wait.
Also, I'm worried that I'm allergic to my coat -- it's a feather down coat, but my mother begs to differ. I'm not rubbing up against it, just wearing to stay warm.
Really don't want to fork over the money to buy a new coat right now.
Debating buying a new iphone for myself for Christmas, which looks like a possible necessity, current one's battery is getting old and can only hold an 88% charge. Also it has limited storage capacity and can no longer be updated. (It's an iphone 6, about five behind the latest version. I'm not into gadgetry. I'm also cheap.)
Envying brother who is taking a two week vacation to Hawaii at the end of the month.
(I'm going to Hilton Head, SC, but not quite the same. Albeit not as a long a plane flight.)
2. Chaos at the Top of the World
What happened when thirteen climbers got stuck on Mount Everest during an epic snowstorm?
In Katmandu in August, long after the last mountaineers had returned home, I found the local climbing community consumed by a debate about what had gone wrong. At least four climbers died in the 24 hours that followed Grubhofer's moment at the top—casualties of interminable lines and tragic miscalculations, victims of one of the deadliest seasons the mountain has ever seen. In all, 11 would die on Everest in May. By the time I visited, the Nepalese government had proposed a new set of rules requiring, among other things, that prospective climbers provide proof of high-altitude experience. But skeptics doubted that the government would seriously enforce such reforms and risk reducing its millions of dollars in permit-generated revenues. “At the end of the day, the changes that Nepal talks about never happen,” Rolfe Oostra tells me. “At the end of the day, money talks.”
Reinhard Grubhofer shares the assessment that something has to change. When I meet him in Vienna, it has been three months since he scaled the mountain and he is still basking in the achievement. “I cannot go anywhere without being the one who has just done Everest,” he says with a smile.
Sure, more people were climbing the mountain than ever before, but reaching the top of the world continues to offer unique bragging rights, he tells me. That will never go away, he thinks. “If I would meet you here and tell you I climbed, say, Annapurna, knowledgeable guys would say, ‘Wow,’ but 99.9 percent don't know what you're talking about,” he says. “Mount Everest is such a fascinating mountain, this huge monster. It is still one of the biggest adventures on the planet. It is a prestigious place.”
And yet the disasters that struck on the day he reached the summit cast a shadow. Nirmal Purja's infamous photo of the traffic jam on the summit ridge, he admits, has diminished the achievement in some people's eyes. “I was asked about the photo when I came back,” he tells me. “People said, ‘Oh, you've also been queuing up there,’ like it was the supermarket.” New rules have to be implemented, he says, to weed out the incompetent and the inexperienced, to reduce the crowds, to remove the Disneyland illusion and bring Everest back to something approximating its pristine state. Too many people, he says, have died needlessly because of sliding standards. “Let's not make it a tourist mountain,” he says. “Let's not spoil it even more [and] reduce it to dead people and tourists.”
Of course, Grubhofer also knows that the high stakes are part of the mountain's attraction. A note of humility creeps into his voice when he acknowledges how close he had come to asphyxiating in his tent—and how a single slip had been enough to end the life of his climbing partner, Ernst Landgraf.
Two days after Landgraf perished, Grubhofer tells me, a small team from Kobler & Partner returned to the site and gently removed the body, which was still hanging from the line. Grubhofer says they pushed and dragged it away from the trail and then found a niche in the rocks where they laid Landgraf's remains to rest—another haunting reminder of Everest's fatal allure.
3. Found a Lost TV Version of Wuthering Heights Starring Richard Burton and Rosemary Harris
4. These Whisky Filled Ornaments Are Exactly What You Need to Make it Through the Holidays
Okay, what happens if they fall and break? That's going to be a major mess. Or fall and the top comes off? Or maybe a fire hazard? The lights get too close to the whisky...the whisky ignites...the tree blows up?
Yes, this is how my mind works.
5. Today's Mediation Quote:
"Our peace of mind is inherent. It transcends people, places, and things."
Also, I'm worried that I'm allergic to my coat -- it's a feather down coat, but my mother begs to differ. I'm not rubbing up against it, just wearing to stay warm.
Really don't want to fork over the money to buy a new coat right now.
Debating buying a new iphone for myself for Christmas, which looks like a possible necessity, current one's battery is getting old and can only hold an 88% charge. Also it has limited storage capacity and can no longer be updated. (It's an iphone 6, about five behind the latest version. I'm not into gadgetry. I'm also cheap.)
Envying brother who is taking a two week vacation to Hawaii at the end of the month.
(I'm going to Hilton Head, SC, but not quite the same. Albeit not as a long a plane flight.)
2. Chaos at the Top of the World
What happened when thirteen climbers got stuck on Mount Everest during an epic snowstorm?
In Katmandu in August, long after the last mountaineers had returned home, I found the local climbing community consumed by a debate about what had gone wrong. At least four climbers died in the 24 hours that followed Grubhofer's moment at the top—casualties of interminable lines and tragic miscalculations, victims of one of the deadliest seasons the mountain has ever seen. In all, 11 would die on Everest in May. By the time I visited, the Nepalese government had proposed a new set of rules requiring, among other things, that prospective climbers provide proof of high-altitude experience. But skeptics doubted that the government would seriously enforce such reforms and risk reducing its millions of dollars in permit-generated revenues. “At the end of the day, the changes that Nepal talks about never happen,” Rolfe Oostra tells me. “At the end of the day, money talks.”
Reinhard Grubhofer shares the assessment that something has to change. When I meet him in Vienna, it has been three months since he scaled the mountain and he is still basking in the achievement. “I cannot go anywhere without being the one who has just done Everest,” he says with a smile.
Sure, more people were climbing the mountain than ever before, but reaching the top of the world continues to offer unique bragging rights, he tells me. That will never go away, he thinks. “If I would meet you here and tell you I climbed, say, Annapurna, knowledgeable guys would say, ‘Wow,’ but 99.9 percent don't know what you're talking about,” he says. “Mount Everest is such a fascinating mountain, this huge monster. It is still one of the biggest adventures on the planet. It is a prestigious place.”
And yet the disasters that struck on the day he reached the summit cast a shadow. Nirmal Purja's infamous photo of the traffic jam on the summit ridge, he admits, has diminished the achievement in some people's eyes. “I was asked about the photo when I came back,” he tells me. “People said, ‘Oh, you've also been queuing up there,’ like it was the supermarket.” New rules have to be implemented, he says, to weed out the incompetent and the inexperienced, to reduce the crowds, to remove the Disneyland illusion and bring Everest back to something approximating its pristine state. Too many people, he says, have died needlessly because of sliding standards. “Let's not make it a tourist mountain,” he says. “Let's not spoil it even more [and] reduce it to dead people and tourists.”
Of course, Grubhofer also knows that the high stakes are part of the mountain's attraction. A note of humility creeps into his voice when he acknowledges how close he had come to asphyxiating in his tent—and how a single slip had been enough to end the life of his climbing partner, Ernst Landgraf.
Two days after Landgraf perished, Grubhofer tells me, a small team from Kobler & Partner returned to the site and gently removed the body, which was still hanging from the line. Grubhofer says they pushed and dragged it away from the trail and then found a niche in the rocks where they laid Landgraf's remains to rest—another haunting reminder of Everest's fatal allure.
3. Found a Lost TV Version of Wuthering Heights Starring Richard Burton and Rosemary Harris
4. These Whisky Filled Ornaments Are Exactly What You Need to Make it Through the Holidays
Okay, what happens if they fall and break? That's going to be a major mess. Or fall and the top comes off? Or maybe a fire hazard? The lights get too close to the whisky...the whisky ignites...the tree blows up?
Yes, this is how my mind works.
5. Today's Mediation Quote:
"Our peace of mind is inherent. It transcends people, places, and things."
no subject
Date: 2019-12-07 09:22 pm (UTC)Part of that is the learning curve for using the dang thing. I don't want to go through that again with another phone until absolutely necessary.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-07 11:26 pm (UTC)Yeah I bought my first one around 2010 (I think) -- mainly because I had a friend who would only text me and do face book messenger -- and the other phone did not have that capability.
And it was a Samsung, and it died within two years. I got another Samsung, it also died within two years. If you charge them all day, it burns out their battery apparently. Also if you don't charge enough -- the battery didn't last. And I couldn't get any music apps or anything on it.
So same friend talked me into buying the Iphone, which my brother kept telling me to buy. So I bought it -- in 2012, I think. And it has lasted until pretty much now -- and I can keep going. It keeps up to 88% and has a cracked screen...but other than that?
Based on my experience? Iphone's age better than Samsungs. Mainly because I've owned various types of Samsungs since about 2005 (I think) -- that was my first cell phone, which was a Samsung (before the smartphone really existed). And none of them lasted more than 2-3 years if that.
Also, weirdly iPhones are easier to use. My brother was right about that.
Brother: Get an iPhone, it's more intutitive and easier to use..
Me: You don't know anything about the Android.
Brother: Yes, I do. I wrote the handbook on it. That was one of my gig's to write a user guide based on their specifications. And figure it out. It's impossible -- and really hard to use. If you are into techie stuff - sure.
If you aren't - ugh. Trust me, the iPhone is set up better.
I didn't believe him until my techie friend, who convinced to get a Smartphone and had used various Androids over the years...showed me her new iphone and how much easier it was. So I got one, and I'm never getting a Samsung or Android again.
Added bonus? iPhone's can't get viruses. Androids can.