Friday! [DOT 7/5/21]

7/5/21 MegMegMcGee 37

Did this week feel really long or was it just me?

Maybe it is Zoom overload. Anyhow, it’s Friday, which means the weekend is here and hopefully we can all relax a bit.

Just a regular Thursday in ‘Merica

Sixth-grade girl shoots three at Idaho middle school
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/idaho-middle-school-shooting

Wait people are going to Everest rn?

Covid reached Everest base camp. Now climbers are trying to prevent its spread amid a record season.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/mount-everest-basecamp-coronavirus-nepal/

After the 2020 climbing season was canceled, this year a record number of 408 expedition permits have been issued for the peak, leaving climbers to work out rules to contain the spread of the virus. Now growing concerns of a coronavirus outbreak at the mountain cast doubt on the safety of climbers and locals after multiple people were evacuated from base camp and later tested positive for the virus.

Thanks to anti-vaxxers the CDC has to spend time on this:

Sprots! [This is really sad, and I don’t even know anything about any of these people.]

Austin police: Texas LB Jake Ehlinger, younger brother of Sam Ehlinger, found dead
https://www.hookem.com/story/sports/football/2021/05/06/police-texas-linebacker-jake-ehlinger-found-dead-near-campus/4978568001/

Stonks!

Biden open to 25% corporate tax rate as part of an infrastructure bill compromise
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/06/biden-says-corporate-tax-rate-should-be-between-25percent-and-28percent.htm

Are you freaking kidding me? “It’s fine”?

This is 17 minutes long, but it’s Friday what else do you have to do?

Have a great day!

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37 Comments

      • Cheeto is reading this thinking why can’t the gubmint work like the NHL?
        Off topic: I’m a Rangers fan but hanging on to Lundqvist way past his sell by date annoyed me. That and the shabby way Rick Nash was treated. I love Rick Nash and NY fans wanted 40 goals a season and couldn’t see any of the good things he did on the ice. Yankee fans are doing the same thing with Stanton, he’s leading the team in RBI’s but they only care about the long ball.

  4. Sharks are VERY common. Years ago a friend dated a guy at Embry Riddle Aeronautical School (or whatever it is now) and one of his housemates flew banner planes over Daytona Beach (you know, the ones that would pull signs saying “Eat at Joe’s Crabshack” or whatever). He said the number of sharks in the water was horrifying, and people had no idea. Mostly because sharks truly do not give a fuck about us unless it’s a very unusual situation or mistaken identity (they think you’re a seal or something).  

  5. Literally everything I’ve ever read or heard about mountaineers, particularly Everest climbers, suggests that they are more than a little crazy. Y’know, to use the proper medical term.

    • My friend and I will read anything about mountaineers, we joke that sitting by the fire sipping tea reading about people dying on Everest is our favorite sport. Yes, it’s very macabre, but summit fever is a real thing, and whether it is diminished capacity because of lack of oxygen or ego, people keep going long after they should have turned back. Most modern Everest climbers aren’t even mountaineers, they are just people rich enough to afford a guide, the sherpas do all the work, sometimes even hauling people up the mountain [sandy pittman].
      Oh, and don’t ever go climbing with Joe Simpson, that’s our life motto.

      • I’ve always thought it would be fun to look at Everest, from a nice warm lodge or something while sipping bourbon, but I have no desire to start trudging up it. Or to pay sherpas to drag me up it. 
         
        Plus all the dead bodies along the slopes would be freaky as hell. Last count I saw there was something like 150 bodies scattered around, and I think like twice that many have died. Sure, sign me up. 

        • When I used to work in AK, I was able to see Denali from 30 miles away.  It was so massive that it took up the entire horizon from that point.  Professional climbers die on that mountain every year, and it’s not famous enough for rich assholes to just buy their way up there.  Seeing it from a relatively close distance was good enough for me.

          • I knew a guy who spent a month on Denali [and two weeks in a tent with some other guys] waiting for a summit window. I think he stuck to the Whites after that.
            I used to hike alot until my body had other ideas but was always content with a 4,000 footer. It always took way longer than the mountain guide predicted because we would stop to id plants and birds. That’s what is lacking I think, an appreciation of the whole experience not just bagging a summit and checking it off a list.

            • I had a friend that also tried to summit Denali and spent a week waiting for a window before turning around and snowboarding down.  My wife and her brother were going to summit Rainier for her 40th birthday, they trained for months but never did it.  Both are afraid of heights so not sure how the crevasse crossing was going to happen.  The whole mountain is full of sketchy crossings that people die in every year.
              https://www.rmiguides.com/blog/2018/05/31/mt._rainier_expedition_skills_seminar_crevasse_rescue_and_ice_climbing_bona
              Yeah, fuck that!  I made it about 1/3 up Rainier with no intention of summiting just to snowboard back down to say I did it.  I was much younger and stupider back then. 

              • Yeah, the weather at Denali is notoriously unpredictable.  It’s so massive that it essentially creates its own weather.  Only about 30% of the visitors to Denali ever get to see the mountain clearly–the rest of the time it is surrounded by clouds.  I worked there every summer for four years and I only saw it a handful of times.

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