I called Dell customer support and complained. They upgraded my 2nd day shipping to next-day-shipping-that-still-takes-2-full-days for free! Then they asked about calling me with up dates. I said no. They said, “We’ll make a note in your file to not call you.” Then they very politely called me three times to give me the updates that I asked to not get. Dell hired the best outsourced phone team possible to ignore my preference.

Still though, touchscreen laptop!

This year’s contest is basically basketball, with robots. Here’s the quick animation showing how to play:

It’s about 1h15m from Albany to exit 29A off I-90.

View Climbing Little Falls in a larger map

I hope you don’t mind steel decked bridges where you can see through down to the water. This isn’t required, you can also climb some steel decked stairs that look down 20 feet to some solid ground.

This shot is just to show the elevation that we’re working with.

One climbable cliff face

There are two anchor styles, these old iron “U” in the rock style. (By the way, hello Lock 17 on the Erie Canal.)

And there are the new style steal plate bolted to the rock. Notice that we’re up above the lamp post. You can walk up to the anchor points then go down and climb up with the relaxed safety of a top-rope.

It does look like there are some climbs that are not protect-able. There’s one piece of cliff that doesn’t have any trees and doesn’t have any very trustworthy rock. This is most of the nook that people climb in. There are lots of picnic tables and benches. Hopefully that doesn’t mean the place gets swamped with climbers in the summer. That’s the city of Little Falls in the background.

I added a hose clamp to the hanger rod in the laundry nook. This will prevent the rod from getting bumped the quarter inch that lets it drop all my hangers and clothes on the floor.

It’s picture day

Appearing in the news has risks if really judgmental people see it and decide that you need to be hurt. Letting yourself be seen also shows the people who are terribly afraid and lonely that life can be different, better. There can be a lot of pressure on kids that don’t fit in to be normal, to be what strangers expect. Some people think that LGBT brain wiring is a choice. Somehow that makes it okay to be really, evil-mean to people. Her dad is very eloquent on the subject of choices, “To go through that kind of pain shows me she had no choice,” her dad said. “This was Drew’s essence all along. She absolutely had to be a woman.”

(article 1, article 2)