Purple Rose

Foxton Locks - Lubenham - Foxton

Led by Barrie E. With Terry, Barry, Maureen, Norma, Kate and Sue. 5 and a half miles. Very warm, but no sun until we'd almost finished the walk. Dry underfoot.





Pleasant walk with no hard climbing. We parked at the lower car park, near the pub etc. We walked up to the Top Lock crossed the Canal bridge and made our way across the fields towards Lubenham.

Through the playground in Lubenham. I was interested to see what the garmin did with the stint on the swings and a couple of shots at the net/basket-ball goal. Anyway after a short snack break we pressed on. Across a couple of wheat fields with clear wide paths, we passed Gartree Prison way over on the left. We finally rejoined the canal where a footbridge crosses. We turned left and followed the tow path, past the swing bridge for the road, and finally back to Foxton Locks. Lunch at the pub.

Picture from

More details later.





- click here

It's a School Night Matt.

The force is strong in this one.

Even before meeting him he had bugged the hell out of us all on qurank.com







"I turn my back for 5 minutes and these little Tinny (Mt. Tinbeerwah)kids are running around qurank and theCrag, posting like they're on red cordial and pixie sticks. Between posts from Sister Matt and Chester 2000, I'm finding it hard to catch some shut-eye.



We can blame JJ for encouraging them. "

Lee Cujes





It's true. I figuredthis precocioustweenager wasn't going to go away, so we had to take him in and show him the craft. Now he's my coach.











Within a few years Matt is working some of the hardest routes around. He is the onlyclimber to seriously take on the Lee Cujes test piece "Bite the Hand that Feeds" Coolum's hardest and as yet unrepeated.

























Sensational flexibility gained from previous years of gymnastics have given Matt a crazy range of moves.His years of pianoaccordian training haven't shown anyusefulness yet though. Mercifully.















Here's an example of whatputs schoolboy Matt Schimkein the top handful of Queenslands sport climbers.A wirey strength and explosive energy.

















Here's the kooky thing about Matt: He has a savant like memory for beta.He can tell you the sequence for any route that he has ever seen.Not just his beta but the exact sequence that each individual climber has used for each route.Spooky, I know.

I often say "Hey Matt how do I do this bit again?"



Thanks to Matt's Mum for all the yummy cookies.

Phend-Fisher Family Reunion Ledger (1935)

The 26th Anual Reunion of the Phend & fisher families was held at Nappanee Park in the Pavillion Sunday Aug. 25th 1935

The Presideing Officers were
President Henry Phend.
Vice President Reuben Pletcher
Sec. & Treas. Cecil Phend.

The day was a nice sunshine day. The noonday Prayer was offered by Reuben Pletcher. Then we all enjoyed a good dinner, after which the buissness meeting was called to order by the President Henry Phend.

A song was sung by the group. The Sec Report was read and Approved. Offisers elected for following year were.
Pres. Henry Phend.
Vice Pres. Will Phend.
Sect. & Treas. Reuben Pletcher
Enterainment committee Chairman Evelyn Werely Bechtol

Death Report.
John Earnest - Elkhart
Sam Rinkenberger - North Webster
James Shaw - Elkhart

[page 2]
The History of the Phend & Fisher families was given by Fred Earnest giving a compleat History traced back to Switzerland.

A Special talk was given by Henry Phend.

It was moved and second that we have the Reunion at the same place next year on the last Sunday of Aug.

Treasure report.
Expence cards 1.60
Parks Building 2.50
Bal. In treasure 2.17
Collection 3.93
[balance] $6.10
[expenses] 4.10
Bal on hand. $2.00

Closing song God be with you till we meet again.

Reuben Pletcher Sec & treas



Notes:
John Ernest died March 12, 1935. He was the husband of Sophia Phend Ernest.
I do not yet have a date of death for Sam Ringgenberg/Rinkenberger (son of Christian and Caroline Fisher Ringgenberg).
James Shaw died July 1, 1935. He was the husband of Sophia Ringgenberg Shaw (sister of Sam Ringgenberg).

The Phend-Fisher families gathered for a reunion in Northern Indiana almost annually from 1909 until 1943. The events of the day were recorded in an old ledger book. Spelling has been retained as it was in the original though some punctuation and paragraph breaks have been added. To view all articles in this series click on the "Phend-Fisher Reunion Ledger" label at the bottom of this post.

Anastasia State Park

I didn't quite make it down to the beach for the sunrise, but the sun was playing hide and seek through the clouds when I got there.

It was a chilly morning, but that is sand, not snow.

Surf and Sea Foam.

Sand and Sea Shells.

Wind-blown patterns in the sand.

Tuffee

How CT works?

These sticks I actually bought!


I post this kind of thing once every few months so the new readers get an idea of how Cold Thistle works.



At one time Iboughteverything I wrote about. I now buy some of what I write about. Black Diamond was the first gear company to give me gear. It didn't "buy" them a review however. Check out the stainless crampon threads to see how that relation worked out long term. Nor will giving me gear now "buy" a review. Not uncommonI am given gear I won't use (or write about) and will buyanother brand I actually will use.



Free gear is actually pretty easy to find. Good gear is much more difficult. I find it easier (and cheaper in the long run) to buy good gear than waste time and energy dicking around with the...........lets say, "less than good gear".



But I also no longer keep track of what I buy and what is free. I do try to mention the "freebees"in the reviews however. As I remind some of my co-authors, nothing is ever free. You have to use it. Which is some times easier said than done. You don't have to write about it.



What you get here is simply opinions. Our opinions. They may not match your opinions. What works for me or any of the other authors may not work for you. Pays to keep that in mind when reading our reviews.



I still use everything I write about. I am pretty picky about the other authors that post here or do reviews. All of them areclimbers I'd climb with and I trust their judgement on gear. But I may not always agree with them. Some times I bite my tongue and don't comment. Sometimes I'll disagree in public. That is how it works here. You need to make your own decisions based on your own experience level. If you have little experience don'tbe afraid to ask a question. I'll certainly try to find you an answer that I would trust.



It is a blog people. One I do for free and intentionally without ads to distract you. My reviews are bad enough if ads annoy you.Ads annoy me! Everyone has a voice if they want it on the Internet. I've been climbing awhile now. I don't like the institutional memory of our tribe to disappear piece by piece, body by body every year. So I decided to make my own voice heard and hopefully others of the tribe. But it issimply my voice in the end.



I enjoy writing and hopefully others get some enjoyment from the effort. Either way thanks to all for dropping by.



If you want to know more about me or how I come to my opinions this may help a little:



http://coldthistle.blogspot.com//01/where-did-i-come-from.html



If you need more just ask.






The freebeehere is anold pair of Grivel umbilicals.

I generally find it easier to just buy what you actually trust for gear.

Vantage The Feathers ..

Joined Ken, Sabrina and others to lend a hand with an "intro to rock climbing" seminar. Against the advice I normally give of not going to the desert in the summer, we went out to Vantage. We climbed at the Feathers on the north side, so we were not in direct sun. Temps remained moderate and climbing was enjoyable. The novices seemed to have fun, and I as a leader had a good time and got to climb plenty. Learned how to self-belay with a GriGri as well. Finally climbed the Beckey Route (5.7) there as well. In the early afternoon we had enough climbing and drove down to the Columbia for a swim.

The Feathers.

High desert.

Columbia River boat ramp.

Pony Play

Both ponies playing together and talking to one of the other horses, Star.

Phend-Fisher Family Reunion Ledger (1928)

Phend-Fisher Family Reunion Ledger (1928)

The 19th Family Reunion of the Phend - Fisher Families was held on Sunday Aug. 26th at McNaughton Park.

The time before dinner was spent in getting acquainted and greeting old friends. At noon all gathered around the table and after grace, pronounced by Rev. Oberholser, all began eating and talking.

After dinner a meeting was called by the President Claude Poole, and following officers elected.
President Claude Poole
Vice President Harold Phend
Sec. R. H. Phend
Treasurer John Ernest.
Memorial Committee Surelda Thornton
Arrangement Com.
J. J. Phend
Fred Ernest
Iva Wherley

[page 2]
Entertainment Committee
Fred Ernest, Chairman to elect two others to serve with him.

It was voted to hold the next meeting the last Sunday in August the place to be decided later by the Arrangement Committee.

We were then favored with two duets by Rev. & Mrs. Oberholser and a duet by Mrs. John Ernest and Mrs. Shaw. Fred Ernest then presented the Family Tree in a very interesting manner and the meeting was then closed with a prayer.

R. H. Phend, Sec.

The Attendence was 75.

[in a different handwriting] Births
Virginia Rose Phend Daughter of Victor Phend.

Mt. Adams, South Climb

One group at the start of a good climb on Adams.



Chris on the steepest part of the climb.




More climbers heading up Widowmaker.




Mt. St. Helens and sunset as seen from our camp at 9,300'.




Climbers starting up the south face early in the morning.







The true summit as seen from the false summit. There were a lot of threatening clouds and even some wind-driven 1/4" hail, but it did not last long.



One group on the summit...



and another...



and another...



and another.




What a great climb. The road was clear, the weather was good and the snow was excellent. The guides were awesome, the sherpas were strong and the climbers were determined. What more could you ask for?

Valor Award for Climbing Ranger and Guide!

The National Park Service has finally decided to recognize Chris Olson and Dave Hahn with a valor award and citizen's award for bravery, respectively.

In 2002, Nick Giguere and I had been lowered in on a jungle penetrator from a Chinook helicopter to a serac just below Liberty Wall. We hiked up to just below Thumb Rock where the injured climber and their party were waiting for us.

The second helicopter brought in RMI guide Dave Hahn and Chris Olson, an NPS climbing ranger, to assist us with the lowering from Thumb Rock. As the helicopter was trying to land, it slid back on the snow, lifted off the ground for a short period while it spun around 540 degrees and crashed into the snow. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen in 20 years of working for the park service.

The helicopter nosed in and lurched foreward. From 1500 feet above, the snow looked like it was spraying in all directions in slow motion. The main rotor bent down, touched the snow at mach speed, then broke with pieces flying off at 300 miles per hour in opposite directions. Finally the tail rotor broke off and swung around crashing into the main cabin of the helicopter.

Within two minutes, drenched in jet-A, and almost crushed by the transmission that came through the roof of the cabin, out jumped Chris, Dave, and eventually the pilot, unhurt.

There were no other helicopters available for a long time. Chris and Dave gave themselves a once over, and hiked up to our location. Since Dave was a guide, he took care of getting the rest of the party down the mountain. Chris's specialty is high angle rescue, so he took the position of litter attendant. Nick and I lowered Chris and the injured person in one long 1000 foot lowering.

Not often does someone crash in a helicopter, get out un-injured, and then take on a crucial role in a technically demanding high-angle rescue situation. It was truly amazing.

Chris and Dave will be honored in Washington, D.C. this week. Finally.

Nita

Pleasanton Family History Expo

By all accounts, the recent Family History Expo in Pleasanton, California was a success. I'll add my kudos to all of the reports with one exception...

The speakers were good. The topics presented were varied and interesting. Visiting with geneabloggers previously met was wonderful. The exception? In plain and simple terms, the venue was awful. Two classrooms in each building separated by fabric curtains certainly did not enhance the learning experience. To give her credit, Holly Hanson (president of Family History Expos) apologized for the classroom environment in her end of the Expo presentation, saying that the Expo will return to the area next year but in different and hopefully better facilities. That's good news for everyone! All in all, the Expo was well worth the time and money.

The first session I attended was with Arlene Eackle. And even though I have few ancestors in the south (a couple in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky), I learned a great deal about locating the “right” ancestor through property records.

At 11:30 I learned what was new in RootsMagic4 with Bruce Buzbee. RootsMagic has some interesting features. I'm almost convinced that I should switch from Legacy! Almost.

The lines for getting lunch were quite long and I missed the 1:30 session with Lisa Alzo that I had planned on attending. Her talk was on Websites You Might Be Missing - a review of some cool tools and useful web sites for genealogists. I'll be able to get some of that information from the Syllabus but I'm sure more information was given in the lecture.

At three o'clock I sat in on Tim Cox's presentation on Hard Drive Organization and learned about how he files his genealogy documents and images. I'm always looking at how other people do that since I have several thousand documents and photos that I scanned before leaving home last September and have yet to organize them. I want to devise a system that will not need to be changed sometime in the future! Probably an impossible dream.

The final classroom session for the day was with Jean Wilcox Hibben on Shaking the Myth: Proving/Disproving Family Legends. Jean has devised a method of evaluating evidence by asking a series of questions to help determine if the legend could be true. It was fascinating to “step through” one of her family legends using this process.

The first day wasn't quite over when the last session finished. I, along with most of the geneabloggers and quite a few other people, attended the live Genealogy Gems Podcast with Lisa Louise Cooke. Her guests were Craig Manson and Sheri Fenley. They discussed writing for the online magazine Shades of the Departed which was created by footnoteMaven. Both Craig and Sheri were fantastic guests, and the dessert bar was pretty good too!

Lisa Louise Cooke and Craig Manson
Day two of the Expo, I was a slacker. It was noon before I made my way to where the Expo was being held. I went in to a session at 1:30 but left after 10 minutes. I couldn't hear the speaker due to the noise from the neighboring session... I went to a 3:00 session but left soon after it started because the subject wasn't what I thought it would be. At 4:30 Holly Hanson gave the final presentation on breaking down brick walls on those troublesome ancestors providing several inspiring examples. And then, it was over... a few days respite and I'm back on the road!

Refurbishing Vintage Bicycles: Different Perspectives

[Manfred Dittler collection, image via waffenrad.at]

It has been so nice to see more and more people revamping vintage bicycles over the past several years, riding them, and sharing pictures with others. Seeing vintage bikes actively ridden and lovingly cared for feels as if history is "interacting" with our contemporary lives - reestablishing a sense of continuity that has been ruptured in many ways over the past several decades. But as the use of vintage bicycles grows more popular, it is worth noting that not everybody holds the same views on refurbishing them. For me, discovering these differences has been educational, and I will try to describe some of the approaches I have come across:



[Panther Damenrad, image via waffenrad.at]

The Full Restoration Approach

To "restore" a bicycle typically implies bringing it back to its former glory inasmuch as possible. If the bicycle is not in great cosmetic shape, then this may include re-painting the frame in a colour painstakingly matched to the original, finding new-old-stock original decals or replicas, and taking the trouble to locate well-preserved versions of the components and accessories, if the original ones cannot be cleaned up sufficiently well. The end goal is for the bicycle to resemble as closely as possible what it looked like when it was sold as new - be it the 1970s or the 1910s.



[Manufrance Hirondelle, image via collectvelo]

The All-Original Approach

In direct opposition to those who restore bicycles, are those who prefer to keep them all-original - meaning in whatever condition the bicycle was found. The reasoning behind this approach, is that a vintage bicycle is a piece of history and should be preserved in its found state. Some who adhere to this method will clean up the components and frame as much as possible - as long as it does not involve repainting or replacing anything on the bike. Others will take things to the extreme and literally leave the bicycle as is - including any dirt or rust that has accumulated on it. Somewill perform repairs, as long as the components remain original; while others believe that if the bicycle is not ridable without repairs, then that is how it should stay.



[somervillain's Shogun touring bike, image via lovely bicycle]

The Period-Appropriate Approach

This approach is somewhat similar to restoration, but is considerably more relaxed and is done with the intent for the bicycle to be ridden, not collected or exhibited. Those who prefer this method, typically clean up and refurbish the bicycle in a way that keeps its appearance period-appropriate without going so far as to replicate the original components, accessories and colour scheme. For example, the bicycle above has been repainted a soft blue - a traditional colour choice for vintage touring bikes, but not the original frame colour. The components selected are also traditional for the time period the owner wanted to evoke, but they are not the components that originally came with this bike. The period-appropriate approach is popular among those who want the bicycle to suit their tastes and riding style, while still paying homage to the era from which it came.



[Motobecane Super Mirage, imagevialovely bicycle]

The Updated Remix Approach

Some cyclists prefer to fit vintage frames with modern components - either in part or entirely. The reasoning behind this, is that while they may prefer the looks, ride quality, craftsmanship and other aspects of the older frames, newer components tend to be more comfortable and more convenient. This can include anything from using a modern style of handlebars, brake levers and cranks, to fitting the bicycle with clipless pedals and new high-tech lights. While the newer components are not even remotely original or period-correct, some owners will attempt to make the overall look of the bicycle harmonious. To others this does not matter so much, and they regard the vintage and modern mix as purely utilitarian. If I had to classify the current fixed gear modification trend (whereby parts of the frame are filed off and the bike is fitted with super-modern wheels and colourful components), it would go in this category as well. The degree of consideration that is given to the original frame is up to the owner.



[Jeunet porteur, image viasomervillain]

Over the past two years, I have spoken with vintage bicycle owners whose approaches run the full spectrum of these categories, and have at times been amazed by how strong views on this topic can be. Restorers are criticised for recklessly altering pieces of history. Those who keep vintage bikes original are criticised for not giving the bicycle a chance to "live again". Those who take the trouble to set up their bicycle in a period-appropriate manner are perceived as obsessive "retrogrouches." And those who put modern components on vintage frames are accused of butchering or "not caring enough" about vintage bikes. Personally, I can see the benefit in all methods, and I think that quite a lot depends on the bicycle itself - how rare and historically significant it is.The Co-Habitant and I have used the "updated remix" approach at least to some extent on most of our vintage bikes - but none so far have been historically valuable. What is your take on this, and what approaches have you used on your own bikes?

Stage 04

My tropical garden in September of 2006, very different from its start in July. It has seen the addition of four plumerias, a colocasia plant, a peace lily, a king palm, elephant ears, and alpine strawberries. When the banana was purchased in July, it was about two feet tall, and is now at least twice that height.

Catch the Feather

This and the next two photos are of Wiley playing his favorite game of Catch the Feather. You can see a chicken feather floating down a little bit above his nose, looking like it is almost part of the plant.

Red Rocks