Climbing is rad

I'm on Orcas Island with Brett and Nicole, well Nicole is at camp right now--boring. It just started raining, we're going to boil a duck. I found these pictures on Brett's computer.


On the Grand Wall (5.11a/A0). Brett and I basically came off the couch to do this. We didn't make it look pretty but we got up it.


Illusion Dweller (5.10c). Brett being a badass in Joshua Tree in 2006.


Coming off Bellygood Ledge after The Grand Wall in Squamish. This is one of the three sketchy traverses across the face of the Chief. Luckily this one was bolted, but it's still terrifying traversing across a ledge that's no wider than your shoulders and a 1000 feet off the deck.


I think this is on top of the Split Pillar on the Grand Wall.


This is our beautiful rack. The Grand Wall took us a good many hours, lots of blood, and sore feet.


Probably one of the last trips with my van. It'll be hard to part.

Nous parlons en Bambara avec plaisir. An ka bamanankan kalan. A ka nyi kosebe.

= I ni ce.
= Nba, I ni ce.
= Here sira wa?
= Owo, here doron.
= Sogomow ka kenna wa?
= Tooro t’u la.
= E Coulibaly.
= Nba, Sidibe.
= Nba.
= Mun don?
= Nin ye ne negeso ye.
= A be min?
= A be jirisun koro.
= I be ta min?
= Ne ta Wassoulou sisan. Wassoulou sira be min?
= A be kofe doni.
= I ni ce, ne ta sisan.
= Nba, k’an b’u fo.
= U n’a men.
= Allah ka here tile.
= Amina. Kamben sogoma.

Wax

CD4, CD8, Killer Cells, and Philly Soul

After a small investigation I found out that CD4 cells--helper cells--regulate other immune responses by secreting growth hormones and cytokines to give our immune system directions on how best to act. Cytokines are proteins that act like hormones and tell our Killer Cells--their actual name, not a substitution for ease of explanations--that a pathogen is in our blood. CD8 cells are responsible for killing virally infected cells, among other things, by secreting toxins that cause cells to lyse; basically, pop open and die. So Helen is wondering why the Long-Term Non-Progressors' CD8's are able to remain HIV intolerant and kill infected cells, while the Patients' cannot. If you have no idea why I'm writing this you should read my first post.

Philly soul looks exciting. The Delfonics are sweet but pretty heavily orchestrated with lots of strings, which I'm not necessarily so into. Nevertheless, they do well like the Four Mints off of the Capsoul label in Ohio, with tight arrangements. They are all about the early 70's slow jam. While the Delfonics don't have slightly over-weight men in blue leisure suits hanging out in a forest on their album cover like the Four Mints do, I like their use of the sitar in the track The Delfonics Theme (How Could You). It sounds like Frank Zappa's guitar in Peaches En Regalia and Stinkfoot. Funny Feeling is an awesome shuffle, rolling and rollicking, kind of the feel of Bernard Purdie's drumming, though this album didn't have a personnel listing for the tracks so I don't know who their drummer is--probably the studio band of the label. I want to get a few releases from Funkadelphia Records that look good and whose website is so basic and low-key that I feel obligated to support them, but these are obligations I can hang with. Just more Philly Soul.

Motown parties are rad and so are Tequila Saturdays.

The Werwie Archives

Werwie Archives Vol. 1 = 100% Soul
Werwie Archives Vol. 2 = Letters From the Pleasure Palace

Werwie Archives Vol. 3 = Honey In the Rock

Werwie Archives Vol. 4 = 100% Made for PDX

Pelleted red blood cells lysed in bleach, then poured down the drain looks like Sprecher Root Beer. It even has foam.

When people take action

I received an enthusiastic request for comment capabilities, and who am I to deny?

Elvin Jones is a Jazz Machine.

Seattle

A lot of you probably have spent more time in Seattle than I have so this might not be as interesting or new to you as it is to me. There's the one woman in the morning who stumbles with straight knees up to the bus stop on 19th and Thomas. Her thoughts run into each other, dealing with anything from her qualms with heroine to her dissatisfaction with Tom Cruise and Mariah Carey, and then seamlessly to her mom's friend Michelle who used to drive around with a large man in her blue Toyota that, apparently, neither this woman nor Michelle knew very well. I don't get anymore details before she segues beautifully into some of her past medical history that I think, because of confidentiality issues, I shouldn't repeat. Some mornings she's already beaten me to the stop and is sleeping curled up under the awning in her faded but not ragged black sweatpants and an oversized blue hooded jacket. I don't mind so much about the bench because she's there again in the evening, ranting, symbolically wrapping up my day as I pass on the opposite side of the street, walking back from Seattle Biomedical, twenty-five blocks west. People are already asking me about Safeway locations in the Capitol Hill area and I know of two to which I can direct them: 15th and E John, or 23rd and Madison. I prefer 23rd and Madison.