Archive for March 18th, 2024

Obit watch: March 18, 2024.

Monday, March 18th, 2024

David Breashears passed away on March 14th. I haven’t seen much coverage of this, but I was able to find an obit from Outside.

I think most Everest fans are familiar with him. He did several climbing documentaries, including the IMAX “Everest”.

Breashears shot Everest during 1996 climbing season, and witnessed the deadly blizzard that killed eight climbers and was later chronicled by author Jon Krakauer in the Outside feature and best-selling book Into Thin Air. Breashears helped with the rescue and recovery of climbers after the incident, and his experience led to another Everest film, the 2008 Frontline documentary Storm Over Everest. The film included interviews with survivors, video from the 1996 expedition, and recreated scenes of the storm and rescue efforts.
Speaking to Frontline, Breashears said he felt it was necessary to retell the story via film and not just words to try and help viewers understand the tragedy. “For me, to see and hear direct testimony from a person who has overcome such adversity, has survived such a difficult and stressful event, is very powerful,” he said. “There is something so much more poignant about seeing a person’s face and looking into their eyes and hearing their voice than just reading about them on a written page.”

…

Breashears grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and was a great rock and ice climber, turning heads early as a youth in Eldorado Canyon. As told in a 2022 story in Climbing, Breashears earned the nickname “Kloeberdanz Kid” after a speedy ascent of the challenging route Kloeberdanz, 5.11c R in Eldorado Canyon at just 18 years old. His visionary 1975 first ascents of the difficult and committing routes Krystal Klyr and Perilous Journey, both 5.11b X, with the X for great danger in the event of a fall, remain legend. Among their other mountaineering feats, in winter 1982 Breashears and Jeff Lowe made the first ascent of the 4500-foot north face of Kwangde Lho (6011 meters) via a hard and technical route on extremely steep rock and ice. The face was unrepeated until 2001.

According to Wikipedia, he also did the climbing shots for David Lee Roth’s “Just Like Paradise” video.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits | No Comments »

My latest batch of million dollar ideas.

Monday, March 18th, 2024

1. I figure this one will hold up until the estate of Frank Herbert sues me. But then again, with a sufficiently good lawyer, I’m sure we can argue a parody exemption on this one:

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fremen.

So far, I’ve got three. I’m thinking of recruiting a collaborator to help me flesh out the book a little.

  1. Walk without rhythm, to avoid attracting the worm.
  2. Never turn your back to the opposition.
  3. Don’t get high on your own (spice) supply.

(Yes, I did see “Dune Part 2” yesterday. Why do you ask?)

2. This one may be more of a $100,000 idea than a million dollar one, as there may be geographic limitations:

Vicious Australian Animal as a Service. (VAAaaS).

For s small fee to cover animal wrangling, packaging, shipping, and our profit, we’ll send a vicious Australian animal to your “favorite” person in the world. Message optional. We’ll maintain anonymity, and you can pay in cryptocurrency.

Let’s face it. Wouldn’t you love to send that “special person” who’s been acting like a rude (word that rhymes with “glass bowl”) a box jellyfish? Or a Sydney funnel-web spider? It sends a pretty clear message, and seems to me to be much more effective than a box of fecal matter.

There may be some issues with shipping marine life, like the box jellyfish or blue-ringed octopus, but spiders should be relatively easy. It would just be a small matter of finding animal wranglers and appropriate packaging. And lawyers.

We’d probably operate on a sliding scale, based on the size of the animal. Spiders and snakes should be small and easy to ship, while koalas and drop bears would be more expensive, as they would require special handling and packaging.

(I do have some morals. For that reason, VAAaaS will not ship Tasmanian devils, as they are endangered.)

Posted in Bagatelle, Books, Leadership, Movies, Sarcasm | 1 Comment »

Gonzaga!

Monday, March 18th, 2024

It has been a while since I’ve done this. And, as y’all know, I have almost zero interest in basketball. But I do love saying “Gonzaga!”.

There was a lot of talk about Gonzaga being on the bubble, and possibly not even making it in to the NCAA tournament. But it looks like they’ve pulled things together, have been on kind of a tear, and are in as a lower seed.

I actually think this is good. In past years, they’ve been a top seed, which put a lot of pressure on them. The combination of them being a lower seed (less pressure) and having some momentum going makes me think this could be their year to Go. All. The. Way.

We shall see.

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