text: January 15, 2014 SHARE Location for First Smackdown After WrestleMania The first Smackdown taping after WrestleMania 30 will be held on April 8th, 2014 at the Cajun Dome in Lafayette, Louisiana. Tickets go on sale January 18th. Visit http://wherewrestlinghappens.tk for info about future events. Daniel Bryan's Concussion Reportedly Serious According to F4WOnline.com, the word going around at the Smackdown tapings last night was that Daniel Bryan couldn't remember much about what happened during his steel cage match on Raw and that the concussion appears to be serious. WWE confirmed Bryan's concussion last night, but did not provide any other details other than his diagnosis. SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE ON TWITTER VIDEO: Steve Austin Talks Footage to Check Out on the WWE Network, Could His Podcast Become a Network Show? What Happened After Last Night's SD! Taping, Cleveland Cavaliers Hosting "WWE Night", Ziggler & Miz Appearing Daniel BryanWrestlemania 30WWEWWE RawWWE Smackdown Have a news tip? Attended an event and want to send a live report? Submit it now!


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Translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody
There's an important message I want to give our women readers: maybe you eat Kosher food, observe Shabbat and live a basically decent life. But there's such a scenario that you finish you're 120 years on earth and the Heavenly Court throws the book at you. You're accused of destroying dozens of marriages. You caused hundreds of children to grow up in tense and even broken homes. Do you know why? You deliberately flaunted yourself. You attracted other men. You literally forced them to look at you. Maybe the length of your clothes was satisfactory, but you deliberately chose tight and provocative clothes so that the men would turn their heads and look at you. The same goes for the makeup you chose. And even if you did cover your hair, did you choose a modest hair covering or the most enticing wig you can find? And then BOOM - as soon as a man looked at you, he desired you and harbored lust in his heart for you. After looking at you, he no longer had 100% love for his wife. You took part of that love away.
Now let's suppose that the Torah never commanded a woman to be modest. Anyone with basic intelligence and a sense of ethical fairness wouldn't do to another person what he would not want them to do to him. So let me ask you: are you willing to have your husband look at another woman? Of course, not! Then why do you make other men look at you? Is that fair to their wives? There are certainly more enticing women around than you are. Would you like if they pranced around your husband? No way - you'd be furious! So why do you do to other women what you'd hate them to do to you? Do you have such a negative image of yourself that you need people to make compliments about your face, your hair, or your body? Meanwhile, in fishing for those compliments, you'll be breaking up other people's marriages and stealing other women's husbands. Not only is that not fair, it's immoral.
So even if modesty were not in the Torah, to preserve social justice and a sane society, we'd have to invent laws of modesty! Society is so chaotic because it turns its back on the Torah's laws of modesty. It's amazing to see how heads of state will risk their entire career and future for one of the evil inclination's cheap thrills. Dearest women, don't play into the hands of the evil inclination. Remember who you are - a princess and a daughter of the King. By preserving the modesty of your appearance and speech, you'll assure that Hashem will always be with you.
Hashem runs the world measure-for-measure. If a woman is immodest and she makes other men look at her, she'll never have marital peace. That's the way Hashem does things. You can't make any woman's life miserable by taking away her husband's love for her and then expect Hashem to reward you with shalom bayit. It doesn't work that way. That's why personal holiness and modesty are absolute requirements for marital peace.
King Solomon describes the aishet chayil, the woman of valor, and says, "the lie of charm and the vanity of beauty." Then he says, "The G-d fearing woman shall be praised!" King Solomon, the wisest of all men that ever walked the face of the earth is telling us that beauty is a lie, and lies certainly have nothing to do with the fear of G-d. A woman who has true yir'at Shamayim, the awe and fear of G-d, doesn't care about beauty. Her focus is on doing Hashem's bidding and not on attracting anyone other than her husband. She cares about truth, not about beauty. She knows that Hashem created her beautiful just the way she is. She doesn't spend hours on picking out clothes, picking out wigs, standing in front of the mirror and making herself up. She doesn't need to paint herself with Cleopatra eyes to feel good about herself. In fact, she has a lot more inner peace. The women that are always prancing in front of mirrors never feel truly good about themselves, because they're always fidgeting and adjusting things.
The fortunate women who don't chase after all the makeup and the costuming save tons of time and money. Some woman take an hour to dress and put on makeup in the morning; you could be using that hour to to talk to Hashem or to do some charitable deed.
Modesty doesn't mean being a slouch - we all must maintain a clean and respectable appearance. But when a woman knows that Hashem created her beautiful just the way she is, she can truly feel inner peace. On the contrary, all those women who masquerade in make-up and fantasy are scared stiff for their husbands to see them when they wake up in the morning. What kind of inner peace is that?
Any emphasis on physical beauty is in King Solomon's words, the lie of charm and the vanity of beauty. You're beautiful just the way you are, the way Hashem created you. At any rate, a woman can't be conceited about something that she didn't do; Hashem made you beautiful, so why flaunt it. It's really stupid that a woman shows off her long blond hair; most of the time anyway, either the hair is dyed or it's a wig. So what are you proud of, that you spent a couple thousand dollars on a natural-hair wig? Or are you proud that you had a pint of hydrogen peroxide poured on your head? I know it doesn't sound nice, but it's true. I'm not trying to win a popularity contest; I just want you to be truly happy and have lasting marital peace. Sometimes we have to stop and take an objective look at ourselves to establish what the truth really is. The whole world of fashion and cosmetics lead people astray to this world of lies, and ridiculous lies at that.

subset: commoncrawl


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Literature in a Hurry: Citizens deserve better from their elected officials
Stevens County Auditor/Treasurer Neil Wiese has, in the past, characterized himself as a champion of the taxpayers of Stevens County. But his actions since submitting a letter of resignation to the Stevens County Board of Commissioners last week tell a different story.
There are two aspects of Wiese's resignation that raise questions for me. The first is his decision to take two weeks of vacation at the end of his employment.
It's not usual for employees to try and use outstanding vacation time after giving notice at a job. Under many employment contracts, those days disappear if they are unused or have unpleasant tax implications when simply paid out.
But elected officials in Stevens County – the auditor/treasurer, attorney, recorder and sheriff – don't accrue vacation time or sick leave. According to Minnesota State Statute, this is true for all county elected officials.
With this in mind, I can see no pressing reason for Wiese to take two weeks of vacation, effectively giving Stevens County only one week of notice that he was resigning.
Asking the taxpayers of the county to pay for two weeks of work that he won't complete is at best, questionable. At worst, it's unethical, and certainly not the action of a person who was elected to serve the people of the community as a fiscal steward.
The second issue is the timing of Wiese's resignation. His final day of work is just days before Minnesota's primary election on Aug. 12 – one of the major responsibilities of the auditor/treasurer's office. The auditor/treasurer's office, which Wiese has frequently argued is understaffed, will now be even more short-handed going into the election season.
While I have no doubt that the staff that remain in the office will oversee a smooth primary election, if Wiese remained as auditor/treasurer for just a few more days he could have put the county in a better position to appoint someone to fill the remaining five months of his term.
Bowing out of a job you were elected to do just days before one of the most important functions of that job is a betrayal of the trust the voters put in you in the first place.
Wiese seems to believe that his decision to resign will serve as some kind of wake up call to members of the board of commissioners. While it's true that Wiese and some county commissioners have butted heads, their conflict has not appeared to me – as an observer at nearly every county board meeting for the last three years – as much more than posturing.
As a citizen of Stevens County, I'm dismayed that an elected official would abandon his statutory responsibilities in a misguided attempt to teach other elected officials a lesson.
It is also true that Wiese has seen his workload increase over the last month, following the resignation of the county coordinator. But the basics of those jobs, overseeing the budget and clerking for the board, are functions that his office is obligated, by state law, to complete.
Members of the board have also been clear that they plan to hire a new coordinator or administrator. Having Wiese take on these additional responsibilities has always been a temporary measure.
Given those concerns about how Wiese has behaved in his resignation, what concerns me the most is Wiese's cavalier attitude about the election in November. Wiese's name is the only name on the ballot for auditor/treasurer, a fact he believes makes it "extremely unlikely" that he will lose – despite quitting the very job he is running for just a few months earlier.
By not stating unequivocally that he will not return to the position of auditor/treasurer, even if elected, Wiese is using his unique privilege of being an elected official running in an election unopposed to take a five month vacation.
The only reason Wiese has the option to quit his elected position with so little grace and while demanding payment for work he won't be doing is because he believes that he can take the job back on a whim. He expects the voters of Stevens County – the people ultimately tasked with deciding whether he should hold this office – to re-elect him despite his questionable behavior.
This is a benefit only people who have an elected office can possibly expect. But it is exactly the benefit that public-minded individuals would never use to their own advantage.
I hope a qualified candidate will launch a write-in campaign for auditor/treasurer. I also hope that a future auditor/treasurer and the board of commissioners will have a serious discussion about whether this position should be appointed rather than elected. Other counties have made this switch to ensure that the position is held by someone qualified to oversee the fiscal health of the county. It's worth consideration here too.
Wiese may have, in the past, been a strong advocate for the people of Stevens County, but his excuses for resigning and behavior while doing so raise serious questions. We as citizens deserve better from our elected officials.


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By Bill Tamburrino
The Ramona High School girls golf team ended its season by finishing fourth in the Valley League golf finals at Twin Oaks Golf Club in San Marcos. The Lady Dawgs shot 1,014 in the two-day, 36-hole event.
High school golfers usually play nine-hole matches. In the league finals they shoot 18 holes. On day one, only one Lady Bulldog broke 100. Caitlyn Doulgeropoulos carded a 98. Cheyenne Hawkin fired a 101, while Bre Hirsh was one stroke behind with a 102. Shannon Curristan carded a 106, and Amanda Raines shot 111.
Coach John Rathbun challenged his team to do better in the second day of the tourney and they responded.
"Congratulations on your performance during the two-day tournament. I was very proud of your accomplishments towards our goal for the second day," Rathbun wrote in an e-mail to his team.
The Lady Dawgs shaved 22 strokes off their first day total. Doulgeropoulos shot 12 strokes lower by carding an 86. Hawkin dropped from 101 to 97. Hirsh dropped nine strokes to a 93, Rachel Costan shot 104, and Curristan recorded a 116.


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If you're starving for gardening and have all the back issues of the gardening magazines memorized by now, don't despair. Several upcoming gardening events should help you pull through this month, including a talk by Linda Copeland.
My gardening hero Sharyn Altman was her typical gracious self and let me borrow her treasured copy of Legends in the Garden that Copeland wrote with Allan Armitage, one of the leading horticulture authors in the country.
Copeland will speak at 10 a.m. Feb. 26 in Augusta, thanks to the Nolan M. Falcone speaker series of the Sacred Heart Garden Festival.
The subtitle to the book Copeland and Armitage wrote is Who in the World is Nellie Stevens?, a question overheard one day at a nursery.
Thanks to Copeland and Armitage, Stevens and many others will not remain strangers or be forgotten. The book, as the title says, tells the stories of the real people behind the names attached to certain plants.
It's fascinating reading if you're crazy about plants, besides easing your guilt over your own collection.
Those hydrangeas with the giant, gorgeous white blooms that will stop you in your tracks – the Annabelle hydrangeas – are named after a town, Anna, Ill. It was Joseph C. McDaniel, bless him, who introduced the plant to the International Plant Propagators Society in 1962. He traced it back to Anna, Ill., and the woman who spotted it growing in the woods in 1910 and knew a special plant when she saw it in bloom.
Although there are several Northerners featured in the book, it is especially interesting reading because of the local connections. Like Kim Hawks whose name graces Echinacea purpurea, Kim's Knee-High, or for some of us – the shorter coneflowers that you don't have to stake. She found a version of the flower growing in Decatur and took seeds back to her nursery, Niche Gardens. If you look at the small ads in Georgia's State by State Gardening magazine you'll find rather intriguing ads for her nursery.
Goodness Grows nursery over in Crawford comes up in a couple of the stories. Owners Marc Richardson and Rick Berry are due much credit for making native plants of the southeast available through propagation. Veronica Goodness Grows is their baby, and thank you very much.
Copeland will talk about the stories and hopefully bring copies of the book, too. Copeland went back to school to indulge her passion for plants in 1992 when she studied horticulture at the University of Georgia. She lives in the Atlanta area where she is on the board of trustees for the Southeastern Flower Show, and the Gardens for Peace (what a great name and idea.)
Tickets are $30 per person. Call (706) 826-4700 for reservations. You can read more about Copeland and all about the upcoming Sacred Heart Garden Festival, which is one of my favorite volunteer activities, at sacredheartgardenfestival.com.


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ORMOND BEACH, Fla. - The U.S. Coast Guard has called of its search for a possible missing plane in Volusia County.
A couple had called 911 claiming they saw a plane lose power and crash near the 100 block of South Atlantic Avenue in Ormond Beach.
Coast Guard crews spent part of Monday night searching for the possible plane by helicopter and by boat, but crews have been unable to recover anything indicating plane debris.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
Copyright 2012 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Diverse push for salal permits on Peninsula
Joe Smillie/Peninsula Daily News
Ty Bingham, foreground, of the U.S. Forest Service processes a salal permit in the Forest Service's Forks office Wednesday.
By Joe Smillie
Peninsula Daily News
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The Forks office had to turn people away. More than 40 people showed up to get one of the office's 25 permits.
"There just weren't enough for everybody," Ty Bingman at the Forks office said. "We directed them to the Quinault office."
Pete Erben, recreation planner and special-use administrator at the Lake Quinault office, said it had sold just five of its 25 salal permits early Wednesday afternoon, though he expected some of those who could not get permits in Forks would have showed up later in the afternoon.
The Quilcene office issued just 12 of its allotment of 50 permits.
Peggy Dressler, visitor information specialist at the Quilcene office, said confusion over this round of permits likely held down the number of applicants there.
"We typically have a line here, too. That's why I was surprised when I drove in and there wasn't anybody," Dressler said.
Wednesday was one of four days the U.S. Forest Service issues the $150 harvest permits, with an earlier session in September and two more upcoming Jan. 8 and March 5.
Date change a factor
Typically, the Forest Service issues salal permits the first Wednesday in November after September permits expire, Dressler said.
This year, though, the date was moved up to Oct. 30, though the expiration date on September permits was still Nov. 5.
"I'm sure people were just looking at their permits and saw they expired Nov. 5 and assumed the next issue day would be Nov. 6," Dressler said.
Because of that confusion, she said, the Forest Service will issue permits again Wednesday at the Quilcene office, 295142 S. U.S. Highway 101. The office opens at 8 a.m. The phone number is 360-765-2200.
A cash crop
Salal, or gaultheria shallon, is an understory shrub commonly used in the floral industry. It grows in dense thickets throughout Western Washington and Oregon.
Those with permits are allowed to pick up to 200 hands per day, a measurement that equates to about three-fourths of a pound of long salal and about a pound and a quarter for standard salal, Erben said.
The salal industry attracts a lot of migrant workers who pick salal to sell to commercial florists, he said.
"It's an important permit for some people. It's a means of survival," Erben said. "They work awful hard out there."
Permits from Quilcene are valid for harvest areas located on the east side of Clallam and Jefferson counties and within Mason County.
Permits from the Forks office are valid for the west side of Clallam County.
Permits from Lake Quinault allow picking within Grays Harbor County and the west side of Jefferson County.
Maps of approved harvest areas are distributed with the sale of each permit.
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Last modified: October 30. 2013 5:55PM


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May 4, 2012
Editor's update: a post from Geshe Michael Roach describing his education.
Editor's update: a rebuttal to the below, by John Stillwell, is offered here. As a reader-created open forum, we welcome all views: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Author's update: I have since published a followup piece to this post, which attempts to collate and analyze the 660+ comments, opinions, and concerns generated in the thread below by both supporters and critics of Diamond Mountain and Michael Roach. MRreporting and opinion by Matthew Remski
Special thanks to Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad, and Michael Stone
for their help in the preparation of this article.
Ian Thorson, 38, died on the morning of 4/22/12 of apparent dehydration in a cave in southeastern Arizona, after having been banished by the administration of nearby Diamond Mountain University, which is under the leadership of "Geshe" Michael Roach. Thorson's wife, "Lama" Christie McNally, was rescued from the death scene by helicopter. Thorson had for years exhibited signs of mental illness and violence towards others, including McNally, who had recently stabbed him, presumably in self-defense. The failure to fully report the couple's violence to local authorities, along with the subsequent banishment of the couple from Diamond Mountain property without adequate psychiatric, medical, and community care, all raise stark questions about the competency of this secretive and autocratic organization, and call into doubt whether its Board is qualified to protect the safety of the remaining residents of Diamond Mountain.
The Story and My Intention
A tragedy has occurred, and is continuing to unfold, amidst the mountains of southeastern Arizona. Thirty-eight year-old Ian Thorson died on Sunday, April 22nd, in a mountain cave at 6000 feet of elevation. The Cochise County Sheriff's spokesperson has ruled out foul play so far, but the investigation is ongoing. The coroner's report has yet to be released. The immediate cause of Thorson's death is most likely exposure and dehydration. But I believe that a full investigation will show that the deeper causes involve cultish religious fanaticism, untreated psychosis, and the gross negligence, incompetence, and obstructionism of the Board of Directors of a neo-Buddhist retreat centre called Diamond Mountain University, headed by its founder and spiritual director, Michael Roach. This full legal and medical investigation is warranted immediately, because there are still 35 people in retreat on Diamond Mountain property who may well be in as much physical and mental danger as Thorson was.
Thorson was found dead in a 6-by-8 foot cave on federal reserve land, attended by his dehydrated wife, Christie McNally, 39, a former lover of Roach, known to the Diamond Mountain Community, and globally, as "Lama Christie." She is recovering from her loss and exposure symptoms in an undisclosed location.
My intention in breaking this terrible story to the meditation and yoga community, and the public at large, is fourfold, and without malice. Firstly, I wish to encourage an immediate investigation into the physical and mental safety of the remaining Diamond Mountain residents. Secondly, I wish to amplify our ongoing discussion of what constitutes grounded, empathetic, and useful spirituality – as opposed to narcissistic and dissociative delusions of grandeur that may be harmful not only to practitioners, but to the larger culture. Thirdly, I want to put pressure (and encourage others to put pressure) on the Board of Directors of Diamond Mountain University to curb the obvious whitewashing of events that has already begun (characterized by Roach's recent open letter). The events at Diamond Mountain evoke core questions of responsible leadership, democratic accountability and therapeutic qualifications that the directors should answer to, not only for the sake of their own students, but for the wider Buddhist community, and for spiritual seekers in general, many of whom come to ashrams and retreat centres with deep psychological wounds that are tragically salted by robes and prayers and authoritarian power structures. Lastly, I'm writing in the hope of softening the grip that I believe Roach has upon his followers, many of whom, including Thorson, were friends and acquaintances of mine, long ago, when I myself (full disclosure) was also in Roach's considerable thrall. I acknowledge that many people around the world feel that their lives have been enriched by Roach's enthusiastic idealism, and I do not wish to demean this. But my long-view concern is that the power structure that Roach has consciously or unconsciously fostered around his charisma depresses independent thought and growth, and is now protecting itself by flinging Thorson's corpse, and the personhood of Christie McNally, into the outer dark of spiritual rationalization.
I have gathered as much information as I've been able to in the push to publish this story in time to mediate the danger to the remaining retreatants. Unfortunately, my attempts over the last few days to engage with my old community acquaintances about the events have been dead-ends, because, I believe, of the secrecy endemic to cults. Nonetheless, I do have a considered view on the documents that everyone can plainly access, and I hope my thoughts on these will encourage more skilled inquiry—both journalistic and legal—to follow. I will be careful to qualify my perceptions with the words "seem" and "presumably," and my opinions with the phrase "I believe."
My analysis of these events is in some areas speculative. I am quite sure that I will unintentionally render certain details incorrectly, and I hope that knowledgeable respondents to this post help me with factual errors, which I will correct in the text itself, in real time, as evidence is presented. I intend for this to be an open document, evolving towards greater clarity through the input of many. I will not let factual errors linger online, and will notify readers through social media of the edits I make.
There are two accounts of the events leading up to Thorson's death. Neither come from disinterested parties, and the details of each have not be independently confirmed. One account is written by Roach himself, in this open letter that was "reviewed and approved by the Board of Directors of the University." The other account is incomplete, published on April 19th by Christie McNally, three days before Thorson's death. McNally's letter is profoundly disturbing in many ways, showing what I believe to be the depth of her spirituality-induced delusions of grandeur, magical thinking, denial, and Stockholm Syndrome symptoms. The idea that this person in this state was teaching Buddhism or leading anyone through anything as extreme as a medieval-style three-year meditation retreat is absurd to me.
I'll reconstruct the general history according to the available accounts, but also by drawing on my personal knowledge of this group, which is informed by my understanding of cult dynamics. This will involve my reading of incompetence, negligence, and buck-passing in Roach's letter. I'll end with a call for full disclosure from the Directors of Diamond Mountain University, and an appeal to the more grounded leaders of Western Buddhist culture to intervene on behalf of this community with the grace of good mentorship. Though I am admittedly antagonistic to extremist religious belief and behaviour, this article is not an anti-religious crusade. I repeat: there are about 35 people at this moment in deep seclusion in the Arizona desert under the influence of a woman who appears to have gone insane, and their guardians—the administration of Diamond Mountain—have shown themselves to be, I believe, unequal to the task of protecting and nurturing them.
Background to the Tragedy
McNally has been a student of Roach since 1996. Roach himself had been a student of the late Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tharchin, of Howell, New Jersey, since the mid 70s. In the mid-80s he took monk's robes, and attained the Tibetan monastic degree of "Geshe." By the time I became Roach's student in 1998, McNally was at his side continually, ostensibly as a personal assistant to his extensive teaching appearances, and also as a co-worker in the translation of ritual Tibetan texts for Roach's growing population of American and European students. Roach's closeness to McNally raised eyebrows in more conservative wings of the westernizing Tibetan Buddhist community, and there were rumours that they were lovers, something that Roach's monastic vows would have forbidden. It was utterly obvious to me that they were lovers, and this was confirmed in 1999 on a trip to India during which many community members expressed dismay at seeing McNally slink out of Roach's cell before dawn every day. Because by nature I care little for tradition or propriety, the sexuality of their relationship didn't bother me personally, until I became aware of the acute power imbalances that it projected into the social sphere of the group, and later, how the closeness seemed to contribute to the distortion McNally's self-image and mental health. I also believed that their boundary-less merging stripped her of interpersonal presence, giving her the same vacant gaze with which Roach seemed to mesmerize his acolytes. It seemed that she took on the social dysfunction of all charismatics: brilliant in a group, but insufferable in person. Soon she began to parrot his speech: a strange mixture of English nouns and choppy Tibetan syntax. "Tiblish," I used to call it. An essential skill, I believe, in her later rapid ascent as Diamond Mountain teaching star. I believe she quite literally lost her own voice as she became host to his.
It's hard to remember Christy as-she-was. I suppose it's because I never saw her except in Roach's shadow, walking a few steps behind him always, carrying his shoulderbag with his 30-lb late 90′s laptop bumping on her tiny hip, fetching food for him at every communal meal, waiting outside the men's room while he took a leak. She was my age, an English major like myself, someone I should have been able to talk to. But for Christy to even say hello to anyone besides Roach seemed to involve an intense effort to demagnetize herself from his gaze. I wondered if she was lonely with this strange man, twenty years her senior. I remember wishing a private life for her, of libraries and dance classes, graduate school and study carrels. A life not overdetermined by the dreams of a giant. Alone, but with autonomy, integrity. Perhaps this is a solitude she can can finally experience now, shorn of merging, shorn of fantasy, shorn of romantic violence. This would be my hope for Christy, once she recovers from this terrible amputation: a bright solitude. A room of her own.
In 2000, Roach, McNally, and five of his other female students entered a closed 3-year retreat on desert land close to the 960 acres of what has become Diamond Mountain University. While marketing the retreat during its fundraising period as "traditional," "authentic," and "ancient," Roach neglected to disclose to his thousands of sponsors that he would be cohabiting with McNally in a shared desert yurt, a fact that became apparent to many during the several open teaching periods of the retreat, during which hundreds of students traveled to the desert to hear Roach teach blindfolded. Many were confused, some disappointed, and a few were outraged. The broader western Tibetan Buddhist community began shunning both Roach and his community, not only for his unconventional behaviour and lack of transparency, but also increasingly for his shoddy scholarship and new-age-thin interpretations of Middle-Way philosophy – the bedrock of Gelukpa metaphysics. It was primarily this latter weakness that prompted me to leave his instruction at that time, although I also had grave misgivings about how he seemed to manipulate his students, including myself, with make-work projects and student rivalries designed to stratify his power through grievances he would both provoke and resolve.
Roach and McNally emerged from retreat in 2003 as openly committed spiritual partners who engaged in "celibate intimacy," a claim that mystified their married students, and outraged the pious. By virtue of her retreat completion, but also, I believe, to professionalize their relationship, Roach elevated McNally to teacherly status with the title of "Lama." Luminaries in the Buddhist world as prominent as Robert Thurman implored Roach to renounce his monk's vows if he wanted to continue in open relationship. Roach refused by publicly claiming saintly status through his constant verbal allusions to private revelatory experience, and by claiming he was beyond supervision, as he does in this 2003 interview. The relationship exposed their multiple challenges to Tibetan orthodoxy to full and tawdry view, and concretized the boundaries of their growing cult by forcing their devotees to separate themselves from the broader Western Buddhist culture, which now firmly rejected and criticized Roach's titles and authority. By association, his rebellion separated his followers from the Dalai Lama, the head of their own lineage, who through his Public Office, censured Roach in 2006. In what I presume to have been an attempt to heal the rift the Public Office left the door open for Roach's followers to attend teachings of the Dalai Lama, and many did and still do. Many remain convinced that Roach's teachings and those of the Dalai Lama are part of a coherent cloth, but there is much debate on the matter.
I hope that Diamond Mountain residents and Roach's students around the world fully understand what this rupture means. It matters little that he had doctrinal differences with Tibetan hierarchy: Tibetan Buddhism has been invigorated by doctrinal debate for centuries. What matters is that Roach effectively extracted himself from the cultural oversight of the larger tradition. Over the years he has made many justifications for establishing himself beyond the pale: he's a realized being, the old schools don't understand the contemporary zeitgeist, etc., etc. But whatever the justification is, he has found a niche for himself with no supervision. And there is no human organizational structure in existence that remains functional and resists authoritarianism without its highest members being subject to the oversight of peers.
Not every rupture in Roach's world is political or theological. McNally separated herself from Roach in 2008 or 2009, who was shortly thereafter seen swanked up in Armani and hitting the Manhattan clubs with Russian models. McNally soon partnered with Thorson, and began making charismatic inroads into the New York yoga scene, teaming up to teach wholly fictional "ancient Tibetan asana practices for reaching spiritual goals using a partner."
I remember Ian Thorson from perhaps two hundred classes and lectures across America, Europe, and India between 1998 and 2000. He was thin and wispy, underfed and protein deficient, perhaps anemic, with impeccable lotus posture, and distant, unfocussed, entranced eyes. He'd sit right up at the front of any teaching, his eyes rolled back, clothes unwashed, hair tousled, by turns elated and catatonic in his trance. I ate rice and dal with him at the same table at Sera Mey monastery in Bylakuppe for a month in 1999. We talked philosophy and the esoteric for the short spurts in which he could hold conversational attention. He complained that his family could never understand him. I had the impression he came from wealth—he graduated Stanford—but he was always bumming money and rides. I don't remember him asking me a single question about my life, or lifting a finger to help any of the hordes of women devotees setting up the lecture halls or tea or whatnot. Altogether he seemed tragically self-absorbed. He had a girlfriend named Beatrice in those days. By the end of the India trip she was pregnant. I don't know what happened to her. I think she ended up returning to Germany with the baby. Baby must be about twelve now, and I wonder if he or she has substantial knowledge of daddy, and whether and how his death will be known to them.
There was something strange going on with Ian. During every teaching he displayed severe and rattling kriyas—spontaneous bursts of internal energy that jagged up his spine, snapped his head back sharply, and made him gasp or hiccup or yelp or bark. At the time I took these tremors to be signs of kundalini openness, but now I see them as bursts of neurological misfiring induced by zealous meditative abstraction and cognitive self-referentiality. There were always a bunch of kriya-kids at Roach's feet, with Ian at the centre. Roach seemed to pay them no mind, which normalized their jitterbugging to the rest of us, who I believe felt vaguely insecure that our own evolutionary prowess failed to bestow such outward signs. The kriya-kids all sat up front, and Roach looked over them to the more mundane sea of the hoi polloi, as if to say: Do you see the power I have over those who truly surrender to me? I occasionally felt my own mirror neurology shudder in Ian's presence. But I put a lid on it, preferring to enjoy the conductivity of my inner body alone in the forests of Vermont, where I lived in between Manhattan or California or Galway intensives.
Apparently Ian's tremors weren't all light and grooviness. As Roach states in his open letter:
Ian was incredibly sensitive to outside stimulus—an accomplished poet, linguist, and spiritual practitioner who could "hear" the world in a way that most of us cannot. Sometimes those of us who spent time around him would see him get overwhelmed by this sensitivity and fly into windmills of unintended physical outbursts, which at times caused potentially serious physical harm to those close by.
This unqualified diagnosis by Roach is actually a crafty validation of his own spiritual power and authority. For if Ian is a sensitive jitterbugging waif under the power of the Holy Ghost, the teachings are working. But if Ian is actually suffering from psycho-somatic dystonia or neuropathy, or histrionic or somatization disorders resulting in aggression and assault, he's in the wrong damned place, and Roach is out of his league as mentor. Further, Roach's charisma may be provoking him towards deeper confusion, perhaps rage. Further still: the students around Ian would be neglectfully endangered by a colleague's unfortunate mental illness, instead of witnesses to some magical and incomprehensible transformation. In my opinion, Roach has negligently misdiagnosed a profoundly disturbed man, perhaps dissuading him and others from seeking proper treatment. But this is no surprise. The first rule of a cult is: turn everything oppressive or dysfunctional into a sign of the Greater Plan. The sick person is "spiritually sensitive." A violent outburst is a "purification." An assault is the "result of the victim's karma." Enduring an assault defenselessly is a high virtue.
There's an old adage: "The devil quotes scripture." A self-validating metaphysics will twist anything to its purposes. I remember Shantideva's Bodhisattva's Way of Life being one of Roach's favourite texts. In it the sage writes (as per Stephen Batchelor's translation of 6:43):
Both the weapon and my body
Are the causes of my suffering.
Since the other gave rise to the weapon,
and I to the body,
With whom should I be angry?
I remember being enthralled by Shantideva's breathtaking and poetic subject/object blurring: it taught me a lot about consciousness and the stickiness of private perspective. But now now I have to wonder whether Roach's usage of this and similar passages, distorted by his solipsism, has been gasoline to his dangerous fire.
A Stabbing in the Desert
In 2010, after several years of increasingly grandiose claims and proselytizing around the globe on subjects as diverse as "Spiritual Marriage," "Creating Your Own Buddha Paradise," "The Secrets of Jesus and the Buddha," and "Enlightened Business," McNally was appointed Retreat Director for the second three-year retreat, and went into desert silence with Thorson and 39 of her own disciples on the University property. She was appointed by Board members that she herself had chosen, as she recounts in her letter of April 19th. But at some point (we won't be sure until the Board does a thorough public inquiry) episodes of domestic violence erupted within the secluded house she shared with Thorson. Retreatants are sworn to silence by retreat protocol, so if any of them were aware of trouble, there would be pressure against reporting. But then, McNally reached out, consciously or not, for help.
Every six months or so, the Retreat Director and selected retreatants, and non-retreatant teachers gather publicly to give teachings. These are strange and austere events, as the retreatants are either blindfolded or separated from the public by a scrim. In early February of this year, McNally spoke at one of these events, attended by students and acolytes from around the world. As Roach reports:
During her public talk on the evening of Saturday, February 4, which I also attended, Lama Christie told a story which appeared to describe serious incidents of mutual spousal abuse between herself and her husband, Ian Thorson, on campus during the retreat.
Lama Christie described what sounded like repeated physical abuse of herself by her husband, and also an incident in which she had stabbed Ian with a knife, under what she described as a spiritual influence.
Roach and the Board were of course deeply concerned, and they met the next day to deliberate. And this is where, I believe, we can begin to see years of authoritarian control, solipsistic philosophy, psychological shadow suppression, overt whitewashing, and subliminal scapegoating begin to snowball. It is important to know that most if not all of the Board members have been long-term students of both Roach and McNally, and that most have donated vast amounts of time and money to his vision. I believe that this power dynamic alone would suppress the democratic functions of such a body. The question to keep in mind as the story rolls onward is: "What would an independent and peer-reviewed process have looked like, in place of unanimous decisions being reached by those within a matrix of social control?" A simpler question for the lawyers might be: "With Roach in control of the Board, does Diamond Mountain forfeit its 501(c)(3) status?"
Roach reports that local police were made aware of the contents of McNally's talk, but chose to take no further action. I hope further investigation reveals why. If the police reviewed a transcript or audio recording of the talk, I would be concerned that they might not have derived enough context from this alone to be sufficiently alerted to the potential for danger. I don't imagine that anyone internal to the group would have been able to provide police with the full spectrum of concern, including Thorson's history, the history of internal power dynamics, the philosophical zeitgeist of the group, and the violence-laden meditation visualizations of their Tantric practice.
McNally's letter of 4/19 describes months of battery at the hands of Thorson (complete with delusional justifications). At Roach's admission, this battery was coherent with a pattern that the staff at Diamond Mountain was well aware of for some time, from different contexts:
Members of the Board had previously received multiple formal and informal reports of partner abuse and assault of students and staff by Ian, including a written complaint of an incident which took place off campus, and another incident at the University which led to Ian being asked to leave the campus for a period of time.
Multiple formal and informal reports. And yes, McNally had indeed stabbed Thorson with a knife three times, I imagine in self-defense, as attested to by the retreatant who was a medical doctor. The doctor stitched him up and then was bound to silence not only by the rule of the retreat but also, I believe, by his spiritual suordination to the couple. One of the stab wounds was "deep enough to threaten vital organs."
It comes as no surprise to me that knife-violence would characterize the psychosis of a deranged couple in this context. Why? Because the central tantric meditation practice of this group involves the fantastical visualization of oneself as a sexually aroused goddess, armed with a chop-knife, who dances on the corpses of foreign deities, and then ritually dismembers herself limb by limb for an auto-cannibalistic feast meant to represent egoic dissolution. The Vajrayogini Tantra reveals a horrific yet strangely beautiful poetics of embodied sacrifice to the present moment. When I practiced it I found it compelling for many reasons, but nobody asked me at the initiation: "Have you ever had suicidal mentation or violent thoughts or outbursts?" And no-one asked Thorson and McNally, either. What have we done in our new-age, neo-colonial appropriation of these arcane wisdom traditions, that we blithely overlook the potential for psychiatric trauma that they obviously contain? How can we play with fragile people in this way?
Tragically, McNally's letter describes the events through a thick pall of what seems like Stockholm Syndrome confusion. She writes: "My Love's temporary aggression in those first few months of the retreat didn't ripen for me as a negative karma in the slightest. I saw the whole thing as a divine play. He taught me so much." And in a stunning whitewash of her armed self-defense, she writes: "Well, there is this big knife we got as a wedding present… thus began our rather dangerous play. If I had had any training at all, the accident never would have happened. I simply did not understand that the knife could actually cut someone. Neither of us even realized he was cut when it happened."
A Board of Directors, Blinded by Dogma
From the discovery of the battery and stabbing onwards, I believe every decision the Board made has been (most likely unconsciously) designed to protect the hierarchy of the University and the sanctity of its dogma, rather than to nurture the physical and emotional health of these two critically troubled people, or anyone lower on the ladder of power.
The State of Arizona has a very liberal involuntary commitment law (Revised Title 36) which allows virtually anyone who had suspected that Thorson or McNally had mental problems and needed help could have filed an application to a state-licensed healthcare agency for a court-ordered evaluation. This point is crucial to remember. Because by not taking advantage of this power, the Board has protected itself from any outside intervention that might have questioned the competence of the entire University. In so doing, I believe they also actively presumed training and jurisdiction where they had none: deciding to treat two mutual batterers – one of whom was a stabbing victim – not as people in dire mental danger in need of assessment and perhaps medication, but as free-thinking, upright citizens who had made a few errors in moral judgment that they could correct, perhaps, with a change in philosophy.
The decision to not immediately invite outside law enforcement or mental health services to the property to examine the situation and interview the principles is, I believe, coherent with group's general resistance to outside influence. On site, the sheriff or the shrink would be, I believe, as invasive to Diamond Moutain property as other Buddhist teachings or teachers would be to Diamond Mountain cosmology and lineage. The stakes in resolving the issue internally are very high for the Diamond Mountain infrastructure.
Instead of taking advantage of Title 36 or appealing to law enforcement for direct help, the Diamond Mountain Board, according to Roach's own account, came up with what in my opinion was an incompetent, secretive, and punitive plan to oust the offending dyad from their Eden. This plan consisted of $3600 in cash, a rental car, two prepaid cell phones, a hotel booking by the nearest airport, and two flight tickets to the US destination of their choice: all to be made available to them once they had been served with a notice from the Board to vacate their residence. The plan did not provide for psychiatric assessment or support, nor qualified chaperoning, nor contacts for shelter services. It appears that not one single piece of help was offered to the couple from outside of the worldview and power dynamic of the cult. Not one mediating influence was allowed to intervene. Roach writes that he made attempts to persuade McNally to seek guidance, but the encouragement was towards guidance from other spiritual teachers – most probably also unqualified in the realms of psychiatric health. Most disturbing, perhaps, is that this plan did not consider the possibility that Thorson and McNally should at the very least be restrained from each other's presence until it was verifiably clear that they posed no danger to each other. Let's let this sink in: on some level, the entire Board felt that it was within Thorson and McNally's personal rights as responsible adults to batter each other. But please—not on the University property!
In essence, I believe the Diamond Mountain Board and Roach unsafely banished two mentally ill and mutually violent people for whom they held communal (if not legal) responsibility to the mercy of their psychosis and the terrifying isolation of not only the surrounding desert, but also what they would have perceived as the closed door of the broader Buddhist and spiritual community. We have to remember that to follow an excommunicant like Roach is a self-isolating act. If Buddhism shuns Roach—okay: stick to Roach. But when Roach banishes you: where do you go? The stakes of banishment rise algorithmically for those who are incapable of self-authorization because of cultic influence. The cult leader is a life-raft in a stormy sea. Residents of Diamond Mountain routinely describe their acreage as "the end of the world," in harmony with Roach's my-way-or-the-highway metaphysics. So where do you go when you've been banished not only from the last place on earth, but also from the grace of the leader you depend on for your self-worth?
The Veil of Secrecy
The secrecy that kept the Board from reaching out for qualified help soon metastasized into confusion and uncertainty as Diamond Mountain carried out their decision to banish the couple. The Board hand-delivered letters to the couple's tent, demanding they leave within the hour, to meet their assistant who would be standing by with the rented car. There was no answer, and the messengers failed to find the couple. After several days of uncertainty, the assistant e-mailed the message that the couple had left the grounds, but would refuse to disclose their location. Further requests for information from the assistant were ignored. The Board and Roach, according to Roach's account, remain ignorant of the couple's whereabouts between the date they deliver the letter (Roach doesn't specify but it is before February 20th, which is when the assistant's e-mail was received by the Board) and the day of Thorson's death.
For sixty-one days, Roach and the Board claim that they had no knowledge of the couple's whereabouts. What did they do in their uncertainty and professed worry? Roach sent emails to the assistant that went ignored. Roach asked other "spiritual teachers" of McNally to try to communicate with her as well. The requests were ignored. And what did they fail to do? File a Missing Persons Report. And why didn't they? Because drawing law enforcement attention to the case would implicitly criminalize the events. I also believe that there would have been a strong motivation to avoid the public humiliation of the police finding them, and taking statements describing their experience. A cult cannot appeal to outside authority, as this would disrupt the self-generated logic and legitimacy of the group.
In perhaps the most cultish decision of all, Roach and the Board thought it best not to contact the couple's families directly when it was clear that they had gone missing. Roach explains: "We felt that the decision of contacting relatives about the recent events and situation was only the couple's to make." I believe the likelihood that Thorson and McNally would have contacted their families of their own accord in this state of hiding and humiliation would be very low. I remember, somewhere back around 1999, asking McNally and Roach outright over lunch one day what her parents thought about her travelling the world on the arm of this weird monk. She laughed and said: "O they think I'm in a cult." Roach smiled somewhat ironically and said "Well you are in a cult." She giggled, I believe, nervously.
Secrecy is endemic to both the structure and the metaphysics of Roach's organization. Buddhist knowledge was secret. His relationship with McNally was secret. Whether or not it involved intercourse was secret. The instructions for rituals were secret. The nature of his realizations was secret. The locations and identities of many of his teachers were secret. Tantric practices were secret. In the absence of physical coercion, secrecy was the key currency of Roach's power.
And how's this for secrecy? As of this writing, there are close to 7000 reads of the letter from the Venerables Chandra and Akasha, who are reportedly taking care of McNally in her seclusion, and close to 5000 reads of the letter from McNally. Only the first letter has been left open to comments, and after one week of exposure there are only 16 comments. This is akin to a blackout in social media culture. My personal social media network connects me to several old Diamond Mountain affiliated friends. None to my knowledge have shared these two letters. I have only seen four shares of Roach's letter, and only a handful of comments upon it, all expressing condolence to McNally and the assistants, and none with any questions. I have reached out to several of these old friends to express my dismay at the events, to ask how they are handling the news, to ask about the health of the community, and to ask if there is any more to share, and I receive eerily similar responses: "Geshe Michael's letter tells it all, dear," and "Anything more I would have to say about it would be gossip, dear." Everybody's calling me "dear."
Two things to note here: as an ex-member of this cult, I will not likely be a trusted confidante in a time of trauma and loss, unless it is to those who crave the empathy of an outsider. I understand this. But my friend's comment about "gossip" reveals something deeper than any social exclusion. All students of Roach have taken initiation into the Bodhisattva Vows, one of which explicitly forbids criticism of the clergy. The Brahma Net Sutra gives a definition of this major vow. Stalinist bureaucrats would be proud:
A disciple of the Buddha must not himself broadcast the misdeeds or infractions of Bodhisattva-clerics or Bodhisattva-laypersons, or of [ordinary] monks and nuns—nor encourage others to do so. He must not create the causes, conditions, methods, or karma of discussing the offenses of the assembly. As a Buddha's disciple, whenever he hears evil persons, externalists or followers of the Two Vehicles speak of practices contrary to the Dharma or contrary to the precepts within the Buddhist community, he should instruct them with a compassionate mind and lead them to develop wholesome faith in the Mahayana. If instead, he discusses the faults and misdeeds that occur within the assembly, he commits a Parajika offense.
It is now Friday. Last Saturday, when I came across the news, I thought that surely it would be widely known by now. But as the days have dragged on and I have pounded together these thoughts and memories, it has become clear that nobody from within the Diamond Mountain community, or perhaps those sympathetic to them, would be broadcasting these events, along with the cascade of questions they raise. So here I am, and here we are.
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My Nonprofit Reviews
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Review for Best Answer for Cancer Foundation, Austin, TX, USA
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Find your Alice in Chains tickets today! The alternative metal band is headlining a North American tour, which will span the month of July as well as a single date set for September. This band has been rocking the stage since the mid-90s and is definitely music that needs to be heard live to experience all the band has to offer. Take a look at the Alice in Chains schedule below and find your tickets today on TicketNetwork.com!
|Current Tour:
|2016 North American Tour
| Facelift (1990)
Dirt (1992)
Alice in Chains (1995)
Black Gives Way to Blue (2009)
The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here (2013)
In May 2016, Alice in Chains announced a headlining North American tour, which will take place primarily in July 2016. The circuit is set to kick off at Schnitzer Hall in Portland, OR on July 6. After, the tour will stop in venues across the country, including Paramount Theatre in Denver, Freedom Hill in Detroit, and the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The tour's last show will be performed at Rock Allegiance in Chester, PA on September 17.
Get your Alice in Chains tickets while you still can!
Alice in Chains was formed in 1987 when lead guitarist Jerry Cantrell formed a band with drummer Bobby Nesbitt, bassist Mike Starr, and vocalist Layne Staley. Nesbitt was quickly replaced by drummer Sean Kinney. Alice in Chains began playing in clubs throughout the Pacific Northwest and eventually caught the attention of a local promoter who offered to pay for demo recordings. Completed in 1988, the demo, The Treehouse Tapes found its way to the music managers of Soundgarden, who passed the demo to Columbia Records. The following year, Alice in Chains signed a recording contract with Columbia.
Alice in Chains released their debut album, Facelift in 1990. Featuring the singles "We Die Young," "Man in the Box," "Bleed the Freak," and "Sea of Sorrow," the album went on to be certified double-platinum by the RIAA.
Although Facelift was extremely successful, their sophomore album, Dirt was even more so. It was certified four-times platinum by the RIAA, selling 5 million copies worldwide.
Alice in Chains' self-titled album in 1995 would be the group's final album until 2009, and would be the final album to feature Layne Staley. Staley fell into a deep depression following the death of his ex-fiancee and he developed a serious drug issue. In 2002 he was found dead of an overdose at the age of 34.
In 2005, the remaining members of Alice in Chains joined together to perform a benefit concert for victims of the 2004 tsunami disaster in Asia. This eventually led to the group putting on a string of reunion shows with the help of vocalist William DuVall, who replaced Staley.
In 2009, Alice in Chains released their fourth studio album, Black Gives Way to Blue. The band's most recent album, The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here was released in 2013.


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Onkyo's New HDMI HTiB's with 1080i Upscaling
Onkyo has just introduced two new home theater systems with HDMI connectivity up the wazoo, plus 1080i video upscaling.
Both systems have 7.1-channel speakers, complete with a powered subwoofer. Both systems have 130-watt-per-channel A/V receivers, and both have four - yup -four HDMI inputs. In addition to these inputs for high-resolution audio, they have a low-resolution input too - they both have an iPod dock.
More features shared by the HTIB's include the Audyssey automatic calibration system and support for 1080p video and DeepColor capability on the video side. Audio processing supports Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD Master Audio, and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio for full support of Blu-ray sources.
Alas, these systems do not include a source unit. No Blu-ray player, DVD, or CD. However, with the HDMI inputs, just pick your own favorite and you're good to go.
What's the difference between the two new systems?
Not much. The HT-S7100 and the HT-R6100 both have Onkyo's exclusive iPod dock/charging unit, but only the HT-S7100 has the A/V capable dock, while the HT-R6100 has the audio-only version. Plus, the HT-S7100 is Sirius Satellite Radio-Ready and comes with a pair of speaker stands.
Both systems have seven satellite speakers and a 10-inch subwoofer powered by an internal 290-watt amplifier. The front and center satellites use two 3-1/8 inch woofers and a 1-inch tweeter, while the surround satellites have just one woofer with the same tweeter.
Both integrate with other brands of equipment through the HDMI connection, and both have Onkyo's Music Optimizer software that's said to improve the sound quality of MP3 and AAC files.
The Onkyo HT-S7100 will retail for $799 beginning in August, and the HT-S6100 is currently selling for $699.
Systems like these are what's needed to begin to appreciate the benefits of Blu-ray. -Leslie Shapiro


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MontaVista Reveals Vision Embedded Linux Developers Conference Speakers
MontaVista(R) Software, Inc., the leading provider of Linux(R) for intelligent devices and communications infrastructure, announced the lineup of industry experts and special events for the upcoming Vision 2007 Embedded Linux Developers Conference. Speakers will include experts from MontaVista, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Intel, and Texas Instruments. Special events will include an interactive multiplayer gaming competition sponsored by Sun Microsystems, and a display of the 250-horsepower Intel Chopper motorcycle, built by Intel and Orange County Choppers to showcase Intel embedded technology. Attendees for Vision 2007 can save $100, receive a $25 Starbucks card, and get a chance to win an 8GB iPhone by registering early.
Sun Microsystems Launches UltraSPARC T2 Commodity Microprocessor
Sun Microsystems, Inc., (NASDAQ: SUNW) announced the world's fastest commodity microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T2, as the cornerstone of its merchant portfolio of microelectronics. Available for sale separate from Sun's own systems, this new processor is the industry's first volume processor with eight cores and eight threads per core. Formerly known as the "Niagara 2″ project, the UltraSPARC T2′s world-record performance raises the bar on commodity processors while boasting the industry's highest energy efficiency per thread. With each thread capable of running its own operating system, the chip delivers a whopping 64-way system on a single chip. Sun will provide the UltraSPARC T2 processor design to the free and open source community via the GPL license.
TI Debuts ADS5474 14-bit 400 MSPS Analog-to-Digital Converter
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) introduced the industry's fastest monolithic 14-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) at 400 mega samples per second (MSPS). The new ADC provides unmatched performance of 11.1 effective number of bits (ENOB) at this speed, enabling high-bandwidth applications such as test and measurement instrumentation, software-defined radio, radar systems and communication instrumentation that were previously confined to lesser resolution ADCs.
Hitachi Communication, Alvarion to Develop Mobile WiMAX System
Hitachi Communication Technologies Ltd. (headquartered in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan) President & CEO Eiji Aoki ("Hitachi Com") and Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR) (headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel) President & CEO Tzvika Friedman ("Alvarion") have agreed to develop Broadband Mobile Wireless Access System using Mobile WiMAX technology jointly in Japan and overseas market.
PGI Compilers Target Quad-Core AMD Barcelona Opteron Processors
The Portland Group(R), a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and leading supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), announced that PGI compilers and development tools now generate code targeted at Quad-Core AMD Opteron(TM) processors, code-named "Barcelona". PGI and AMD are cooperating to provide these compilers to independent software vendors and customers interested in migrating and tuning applications for AMD's upcoming native quad-core processor.
Arria GX FPGA Development Kit Receives PCI-SIG Compliant Certification
Altera Corporation (NASDAQ: ALTR) announced that its low-cost Arria(TM) GX FPGA Development Kit has passed PCI-SIG's compliance tests on its first submission. Altera(R) Arria GX FPGAs, combined with Altera's PCI Express x4 MegaCore(R) intellectual property (IP) function, are an integral part of the lowest-cost, PCI-SIG-compliant development kit in the industry. The kit provides designers with an ideal platform for developing PCI Express (PCIe), Serial RapidIO(TM) (SRIO) and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) solutions for communications, storage, computing, industrial, medical and consumer applications. Built on a PCIe form-factor card, the low-cost Arria GX FPGA Development Kit delivers a complete environment for developing and testing designs that implement high-speed serial interfaces in Arria GX FPGAs.
Bustronic Introduces MicroTCA Cube-Format Backplane
Elma Bustronic Corporation, an industry leading designer and manufacturer of high performance backplanes has announced a new MicroTCA backplane in the Cube style format. The backplane features 6 AdvancedMC, 1 MicroTCA Carrier Hub, and 1 Power Module slot.
Global Unichip Selects Apache RedHawk for 65nm Signoff Flow
Apache Design Solutions, the technology leader in power signoff and a provider of complete silicon integrity platform solutions for system-on-chip (SoC), analog, and system designs, announced that Global Unichip Corp. (GUC; TW:3443), a leading SoC design foundry, has added RedHawk power integrity solution as part of their signoff requirements for all designs at 65nm and below. Over the past two years, RedHawk helped GUC perform dynamic IR prevention prior to tape-out, which resulted in very few yield losses due to IR drop.


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Emotions -- and tempers -- can't get much higher between the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators.
J.P. Dumont scored an unassisted shorthanded goal, then added a power-play goal 2 1/2 minutes later, and the Predators evened their Western Conference quarterfinal by beating San Jose, 5-2, last night in a penalty- and fight-filled game in Nashville.
After 32 combined penalties for 141 minutes and six game misconducts in the final minute, the NHL issued a statement not to expect any disciplinary decisions until today. League vice president Colin Campbell will study the incidents.
"I think Colin Campbell has a job, and his job is to review these plays," San Jose center Joe Thornton said. "I'm sure if he wants us to play this way, we can play this way. It's in his hands, and we'll see what happens."
Peter Forsberg scored his first two goals this postseason, rookie Alexander Radulov had a goal and an assist in the first period, and Marek Zidlicky had two assists as the Predators made sure this series will return to Nashville for Game 5. Craig Rivet and Ryane Clowe scored for San Jose.
Tempers began flaring in Game 1 Wednesday night. San Jose's Jonathan Cheechoo was knocked out of that game with a sprained knee. The Sharks keep calling it a dirty hit, which the Predators called an unfortunate collision that should not have gotten Scott Hartnell ejected.
When Forsberg clinched it last night with an empty-netter with 65 seconds left, things disintegrated with three fights off the ensuing faceoff and five players ejected.
The worst of the rugged play came much earlier. Radulov skated up and elbowed Steve Bernier into the boards at 4:44 of the second period, snapping Bernier's head back before the Sharks forward fell facefirst onto the ice.
Officials gave Radulov a five-minute major and game misconduct. But San Jose could not score, not even when the Sharks got a five-on-three for 61 seconds at the end of that major.
Cheechoo played and assisted on Clowe's third-period goal.
Stars 2, Canucks 0 -- Jeff Halpern and Joel Lundqvist scored on the opening shift in each of the first two periods, and Marty Turco made 35 saves for his first shutout in 24 career playoff appearance as visiting Dallas evened its first-round series with Vancouver.
Ducks 3, Wild 2 -- Defenseman Francois Beauchemin scored two power-play goals and Ilya Bryzgalov made 30 saves, leading host Anaheim to the win and a 2-0 lead in its series with Minnesota.


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Siemens and Mekorot, Israel's national water company, signed an agreement to jointly develop water treatment technologies that will help solve some of the world's most difficult water challenges, including the supply of high-quality water in arid regions.
The agreement joins the two companies in a strategic partnership to develop and market globally technologies specifically for wastewater treatment and reuse, desalination and water treatment security techniques and solutions. Siemens will have the opportunity to use Mekorot as a beta site for new technology, partial funding of R, and exposure to new technology development under Israel's water technology incubator program.
"Water is an extremely precious commodity in Israel. The landscape there provides the perfect environment for researching and developing water technologies in 'real-world' conditions and then marketing and selling them globally," said Dr. Roger Radke, CEO of the Water Technologies Div. of Siemens Group I.
"Nearly 2 billion people in the world today do not have access to clean drinking water, and in the next 20 years, one-third of the population may be facing a serious water crisis," Radke added. "People are now only beginning to respond to the issues of clean water though investment and research, which will be critical to solving the world's water dilemma."
Siemens estimates demand for new water treatment, reuse and recycle technologies, estimated at $40 billion, will double in the next eight to ten years.
According to both companies, Mekorot will benefit from early exposure to new technologies under development, assistance with technical issues specific to Mekorot, potential market channels for Mekorot-developed technologies and support in analyzing applicability of incubator-developed products to the global water market.
"We welcome the participation of a global water treatment leader like Siemens as we continue to develop solutions to problems caused by water scarcity and increased consumption," said Mekorot Chairman Booky (Baruch) Oren. "Mekorot is leading Israel to leverage its proven experience in advanced water solutions (for example: sewage reclamation, desalination, rain enhancement, etc.) to global activities. In order to accelerate the process, we were looking for a global water leader and Siemens is the ideal partner in the ideal time."


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Winged Lion and Knight
3" Scale
by: Fisher Price
IMAGINEXT toys get more and more of my attention every time I visit Target or Wal-mart. It's a combination of a lack of new product I actually want to buy and a desire to find new, neat things to play with and take pictures of for this site. This tendency was only magnified when good ol' Wesitron reviewed the IMAGINEXT Motorized Robot Villain (Reviewed Here), a toy that I'd just spent 10 minutes admiring at Target the day before. Then a little while later Newton checked out the Green Lantern Jet!
I won't repeat what Wes and Newt said, suffice it to say that I agree with their love of the seamless melding of many different genres and the primary goal of fun over all. This little 2 pack of IMAGINEXT figures falls under the medieval knight theme. I picked it up on clearance for under $2 at K-Mart a couple of weeks ago but I just got around to opening them up. Let's take a closer look at what makes these guys so interesting!
There's not a whole lot to the package for most IMAGINEXT toys, it seems the philosophy behind this is that people need to be able to touch and feel what they're buying before they leave the store. I like this a lot, it's almost refreshing that Fisher Price has enough confidence in the public to leave only a couple of strands of plastic between their toys and theft. Interestingly enough, I have never seen any of these toys ripped off in the stores.
The back shows a nice little setup of lots of different sets from the Knights sub-line including lots of neat looking dragons. There's a little write-up about IMAGINEXT and the knights as well as a few pictures of specific sets you can pick up. It's a brightly colored, eye-catching little box and it serves it's purpose very well.
The sculpt of the knight himself is just about exactly the same basic, core shape used by the majority of the little men in the toy line. He's got a nice smooth look that makes room for the color to bring out the details of the character, it's a good thing that the paint and color is done well too because there is literally zero sculpted detail to be found.
The knight's got a nice sneery look on his face with on upraised eyebrow. He's got a lot of character, right down to his wispy looking hairdo that actually looks sweaty as if he just took off a huge metal helmet post-battle.
The Gryphon, though, is the real star of the pair. He towers over the knight, his mouth right at head-eating height, his huge yellow wings making him look even taller. His face carries just enough menace for him play the part of an enemy or a fierce ally to his package mate. The cartoony style matches the general aesthetic of the IMAGINEXT world, it's instantly recognizable that he's a part of the line.
The paint, what little of it is present, is done very well. The gryphon's eyes and teeth really pop and the lines on the knight's chest are very clean.
The knight has a swivel head, swivel wrists, swivel hinge shoulders (they act like a ball) and linked swivel hips. The arms do the bulk of the heavy lifting and, along with the wrists, let you achieve lots of different action poses with his sword. The linked legs are a little annoying at first but once you realize that his knees don't bend you realize that the only purpose of the legs is to allow him to sit down which they do nicely.
The Gryphon has a bit less going on in this department than the knight with only 4 swivel hips, 1 for each leg. Some kind of joint on the head (or the jaw!) would have been really neat to add a little more emotional range for the big fella. You could also count his flapping wings, since they move up and down, but thanks to the action feature you can't really use them to hold any poses. The feature works nicely with the wings moving smoothly with light pressure on the button at the base of his tail.
You get 2 accessories with this set, a nice lion helmet and a cool sword. Both pieces are for the knight and they fit him like a glove, you know, assuming that the glove is the right size. They're both molded in a very light red that's almost pink, although don't use the word "pink" in front of your kid or he may want nothing to do with it!
The sword and helm are both sculpted very nicely with quite a lot of detail for such small pieces in a kid's toy line. The helm in particular has a lot of individual points that give is a lot of character and personality that I really wasn't expecting. The sword reminds me more of an eastern weapon than one that a medieval knight would have carried into battle, but then again we've got Gryphons and Dragons so accuracy probably isn't Job #1. THIS. IS. IMAGINEXT!
The retail price on this set is $5.99, a good buy for 2 figures and a couple of accessories to go with one of them. I don't have any kids of my own but I can definitely see this pair being entertaining for a good little while to any kid who's into this fantasy magic and monsters world. For an adult like myself you'd probably be better off spending your $6 on something like a GI Joe or a smaller Transformer but this is more a question of taste than the quality of the toys.
At closeout prices, on the other hand, I'd find it very tough to pass up any of the similarly sized sets if I saw them. A good sized monster and a cool looking little guy can provide lots of fun either by themselves or mixed in with your Playmobil, Mighty World or other kid's toy lines. IMAGINEXT seems to come out with new releases in all sizes on a regular basis so there are older ones being discounted all the time.
The knight and the gryphon both feel very sturdy and solid while posing them and I think they'd stand up to quite a lot of punishment from even the least careful hands. Any parent who scoops these up shouldn't have to worry about them breaking for a very long time and the limited paint applications will keep them looking mostly new for a long time.
In the end this is clearly not a toy designed to appeal to me or anyone else my age. It's intended to be a somewhat generically styled pair of fantasy characters that can integrate with all of the other themes in the IMAGINEXT world. It reaches and far exceeds this goal. The IMAGINEXT toys have such a neat look to them that they have caught the eye of not just myself but of Newt and Wesitron as well!
I don't know how much of a better recommendation you can get than 3 separate adult toy reviewers (people who are known for nit-picking $10 chunks of plastic!) picking up sets of kid's toys of their own accord. While I, personally, like the Mighty World figures I've bought a bit more than this IMAGINEXT set I'd see no reason a kid couldn't have both toy lines working side by side to built their own universe.
The Winged Lion and Knight set is a spiffy way to test the waters of the IMAGINEXT world to see if it's something that you or a kid in your life will enjoy. There's a good chance that if this one is enjoyable then you won't be disappointed by any of the other sets in the line. If you get a chance to pick one up for a reasonable price I highly recommend that you do.
2 Responses to Figure Review: Imaginext Winged Lion and Knight
Awesome! He'd be even cooler if he could ride the Gryphon but hey who's complainin for 2 bucks! Nice work, the knights always remind me of that 80s cartoon where all the knights had holograms on their chests and removable helmets. Can't ever remember the name of it. Top notch!
You're absolutely right that a saddle of some sort would be sweet.
Thanks for the love Wes!


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Makeup Look at Monique Lhuillier at 2011 Spring New York Fashion Week
Fashion Week Spring 2011: High-Society Makeup
We're happy to present this article from one of our favorite sites, Daily Makeover!
It was a classy affair backstage at Monique Lhuillier where models were made to look like high-society, Irving Penn debutantes. Bumble and bumble lead stylist Rudi Lewis wanted to create an updo that was timeless, but not retro. "We wanted the girls to look done and be true to Monique's client base. You buy a Monique piece because you're going some place," he said. Find out how the look was achieved when you read more.
He started off with a very sleek high ponytail, leaving the top section out. He then gathered the loose hair up and pulled it back with a thick gold barrette, joining that hair with the original ponytail and rolling it under to create a high, sleek roll.
Makeup artist Val Garland for MAC also riffed on the posh vibe by creating a winged, lilac eye. She used a matte periwinkle cream shadow on the lids and a shimmery gold in the inner corners. On the eye socket she applied a new product by MAC called Mega Metal Shadow in Dalliance — a silvery lilac — and Paint Pot in Dangerous Curves to enhance the cat-eye effect. Brows were slightly elongated to get that "aerodynamic feel" and mascara and corner lashes were also used.
Skin was subtly contoured with a bit of blush and the finishing touch was soft pink, rosy stain on lips that was created using Kissable Lip Color in Vanity Fair.
More stories from Daily Makeover:
Snooki replaces pouf with a more adult hairstyle
Fergie's high maintenance hair


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Andy Walker
Football Expert & Columnist
Scotland: Andy Walker says his country can thrive at Hampden Park
Gordon Strachan's improving Scotland could turn Hampden Park into a fortress, says Andy Walker.
Last Updated: 16/10/13 1:05pm
Our 2-0 victory over a strong Croatia side at Hampden certainly gave us exactly what we were looking for: hope for the future.
After winning a couple of games away from home to Croatia and Macedonia, it was important for Gordon Strachan to show a home crowd that we could compete and match up against technically superior players.
I thought Strachan was bold and adventurous in opting for two strikers in the shape of Steven Naismith and Robert Snodgrass.
Playing with a striking partnership meant Croatia immediately had an advantage in midfield and with Luka Modric always likely to be pulling the strings, we very quickly realised that by putting Croatia under pressure high up the pitch we could force them into the occasional mistake.
That's exactly what happened for the first goal as first Scott Brown, then Charlie Mulgrew forced their immediate opponent to play a quick pass.
Mulgrew's determination to then make the overlapping run for Naismith was great to see and yet again his cross on the run - a difficult skill - was perfect for Snodgrass to go and attack.
Naturally we had to defend well as Croatia enjoyed a fair bit of possession and in Grant Hanley and Russell Martin, we have found a very decent centre-half partnership that goalkeeper Alan McGregor can have confidence in.
More than two years without a home win was beginning to wear us all down and this victory sent the Tartan Army away with some hope that we can make Hampden a difficult place for the away side to collect points.
The second goal gave us plenty of breathing space and in Ikechi Anya, we have discovered a Scot with pace to burn, a huge asset on the international stage.
His drive to continually get to the by-line is a godsend for strikers and attacking midfield players and he got his reward again last night by taking on right-back Domagoj Vida inside the box and drawing a late tackle from his more experienced opponent.
Pace will always frighten the very best of defenders and Anya looks as though he'll be a regular fixture in our strongest side.
We shouldn't forget, though, that all we've achieved in the campaign is to finish exactly where our seeding suggested, fourth in a group of six.
And as we look back on how the group took shape, our early draws at home to Serbia and Macedonia gave us very little to work on and drained our confidence, putting previous manager Craig Levein on the back foot.
Realistically, if we are to have any chance of qualifying for Euro 2016 in France, our home form has to improve greatly. In recent years we have beaten France and Holland, as well as drawing with Italy and Germany.
We now have to believe that whoever we draw when competitive international football returns in just under 12 months' time in the qualifying process for France 2016, that we can start well, earn notable victories and compete in a group from the very first match.
It is not beyond us to finally reach a major tournament in 2016 after what will have been an agonising 18-year wait.


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Editor: Look around your downtown. Think about what it looked like 10 years ago, what it looks like today and what it might look like 10 years from now.
Thriving businesses and local shops, new housing units, restaurants, events, entertainment, life and overall growth are a reflection of the health of our downtowns.
Now, think about all that disappearing.
Many of our downtowns are created and sustained by community redevelopment agencies (CRAs).
Funding for CRAs and their redevelopment projects are provided by tax increment financing (TIF). TIF funds are generated by a percentage of the property tax revenues of a community redevelopment area. The goal of TIF is to provide funds for a community's redevelopment and to sustain the quality of life in urban areas.
Statewide, 178 CRAs are dedicated to reinvigorating their communities and eliminating blight. Tax increment financing allows CRAs to preserve and revitalize communities.
The Florida Legislature is considering property tax cuts. You may think this is a great idea. Lower taxes make happy citizens, right? But, if property taxes are cut, the results could be potentially devastating for CRAs and Florida's communities.
CRAs and their redevelopment efforts enable communities to experience increased commerce and investments, affordable housing, crime reduction and culture and entertainment. Without tax increment financing, redevelopment efforts may not be possible.
Some of Florida's citizens are vaguely aware that CRAs are the mechanism through which job opportunities, beautifully renovated buildings, trees, parks, sidewalks, street lighting, open outdoor venues and festivals are funded. Redevelopment beautifies a community and engages its citizenry.
Sufficient property tax revenues are necessary for the sustainability and life of Florida's CRAs.
Our citizens and elected officials need to make sure that the quality of life in our communities is not threatened by the property tax reforms.
Jeff Oris, President, Florida Redevelopment Association
Deerfield Beach
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. Contact Us


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-25% on all stock exclusive for steepster users, for a few days only!
We have added a -25% discount to all our stock for steepster users only!
Voucher code : steepster (expires monday 8th of April)
8 Replies
Anyanka said
I think I would just eat your fruit teas.
Actually, it's quite hard to resist not to do so :)
totally forgot about this with all the issues at work. ah well, will keep an eye out for others
Thank you all for your orders!


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It's the kind of advice we've heard so many times that by now it causes our eyes to roll, teenager-like, each time we are forced to endure the investing cliché again: "Timing the market is suicide. All you'll do is lose money. You're better to buy and hold."
Well, roll your eyes and pay attention, because we've found someone who believes you can actually do quite well timing the market. And he's not some fly-by-night yahoo with a complicated, secretive "system" to sell you. He's Standard & Poor's chief investment strategist and his strategy uses a simple, well-established market tool: moving averages.
Moving with the moving averages
S&P's Sam Stovall recently examined the S&P 500 over the past four decades to see how well investors would have done if they had employed moving averages as market-timing devices, versus simply buying the entire index and holding it.
He considered single moving averages (50-, 65- or 200-day, taking both the simple moving average and the "exponential" moving average, which places more weight on the more recent days), using the moving average to mark the buying and selling point: The investor is fully invested whenever the index is above the moving average, and fully on the sidelines whenever it is below the moving average.
He also looked at pairs of these moving averages – in which the point where the two averages cross each other marks the buying and selling point. (The investor would be fully invested whenever the 50-day or 65-day moving average was above the 200-day average, and fully out of the market when the shorter average was below the 200-day.)
While the results were mixed for strategies that simply tracked the shorter-term moving averages, Mr. Stovall found that investors using the 200-day average and the average-crossover strategies would have generated appreciably higher returns over the past four decades.
Longer term better, cheaper
Mr. Stovall found that while none of his moving-average strategies had a particularly high frequency of beating the index on an annual basis (all were in the 30- to 40-per-cent range), they were all quite effective at protecting investors from the deepest market downturns while still capturing most of the market rallies. "What really makes following a longer-term moving average system desirable, in my opinion, is that it forces you to stay in the market for as long as possible, but then gets out of the way before any real damage is done to your portfolio," he wrote.
The longer-term and crossover strategies have an added benefit: lower transaction costs to managing your strategy. Because the 200-day average and the crossovers are hit much less frequently than the shorter-term averages, the investor isn't buying and selling nearly as often; in the case of the crossover strategies, buy/sell events occurred, on average, less than once a year.Report Typo/Error
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Mauna Kea in the winter
We awoke early and I was anxious to get going. As we headed back up the Saddle Road we could see the huge peak covered in white. It was beautiful. We made it back up to the VIS without needing the 4wd. The road was closed so they could clear the snow and no one really knew when it would open.
We selected a scenic parking spot since it looked like it would be quite a wait. They block the road with a ranger vehicle which is their procedure. Then they let certain vehicles from the astronomy community pass, but not the general public until the snow plowing is finished. It was very cold and windy this morning and I was discouraged at my chances. The ranger on duty speculated that the road might open in the mid afternoon. Since my plan is to hike up to the summit and hitch a ride back down, I didn't want to venture out if the road remained closed for the day.
At about 9:30 I went out to chat with the new ranger on duty, it was Shane. He remembered talking to me on the phone on Monday. After he appologized for the weather, he enouraged me to go for it. He said even if the road didn't officially open there would be vehicles decending the road in the afternoon. That's all I needed to hear. I put five layers on plus several gloves, thermal hat and face warmer. The wind speed was about 30 and the temperature 27. Just above the VIS the paved road becomes gravel and the Humu'ula Trail leaves the road toward the south. Some hikers prefer to hike to the summit on the road. It isn't as steep and has switchbacks which the trail doesn't have, but you need to watch out for vehicles traveling on the icy narrow road.
The trail was blanketed with six inches to a foot of fresh snow. It made route finding interesting. The snow covered the volcanic rocks which cover the trail and you don't see the usual indentation typical of a dirt trail covered in snow. So I had to rely on the ocassional cairn or iron pole to mark the way. The scarcity of markers made this hike more of an adventure than I had anticipated. Most of the time I was able to keep moving while searching for the route. It got colder and windier as I ascended and I needed to keep my face covered, but I was able to remove my down jacket. My picture would have resembled someone in the Himalayas not Hawaii. I stopped just long enough to take a short video panorama about half way up when I had a nice view of neighboring Mauna Loa. I had been ascending for four hours when I sunk below knee level in the snow and for a moment began to feel discouraged. Within a minute I was elated as I rounded a hill and several small observatories came into view.
At this point the trail ends and hikers rejoin the road. My pace quickened as I hiked clockwise up the circular summit road. It was another mile and a half of very cold, windy, icy travel. My poles were a great help when a gust would hit and send me sliding. The summit road was closed to vehicles other than the rangers and I came upon one parked near the last spur trail to the true summit. The wind was now fierce and Dan, the ranger, told me he'd take me down the mountain if I made it to the top. I needed no incentive to head for the top. The trail went downhill for a moment then began to circle around the crater rim with the top in view about ten minutes away. As I approached the narrow edge I was hit by very high winds. I could see the top, less than a hundred yards away and kept at it. The wind battered me back and forth and I'd stoop down for relief. I finally got to a point where I couldn't take another step.
Dan said later it was at least 50 mph with higher gusts and the weather center reported the top wind speed for Saturday and Sunday at 70 mph. I'm not sure if I've ever been more frightened. I hunkered down for a moment and regained a little strength and composure. Then very carefully took a step downhill, then another until I could connect a few steps without being blown over. I slowly worked my way down to a more sheltered section and said a little prayer. When I got back to where Dan was parked I was simultaneously happy to be out of danger and significantly dissappointed. He was sympathetic and said I could watch the forecast and try again. Tomorrow would be worse than today, but mid week it should be better. He dropped me at the VIS and Jean and I drove a few hours to Ho'okena Beach Park south of Kona. We arrived in the dark about 9:00 and I fell fast asleep.
For two days we toured the island and today we drove through Waimea where I was able to get the Mauna Kea forecast for the next few days. Tomorrow was my best chance to try again. We drove back up the saddle road and up to the VIS, where again I hoped to spend the night. And again the wind speed was up and the temperature was down and snow was expected. So we went back to the State Park for another night. Just before dark we were visited by 7 large black wild pigs with tusks. You would not want to hit one of these while driving. It poured most of the night and I thought with the over night snow at higher elevation my chances of getting another chance at the summit were slim.
Jan. 11, 2011, this morning we drove back up to the VIS for the fourth time. The road was still blocked and we pulled in the lot. According to the rangers, today will have the best weather for the rest of the week. We decide to wait it out. After my first attempt we returned our $150/day 4wd vehicle. So today if the road opens I'll need to find a ride up as far as I can get. Around noon I was talking with a woman who was also waiting for a chance to hike to the summit. Cheryl from Maine, her daughter Mary and their friend Adrian were all hoping to hike today. They volunteered to give us a ride up in their jeep if the road opened. I related the story about my Saturday attempt. Mary shared that in her highpointers manual they state that hiking Mauna Kea is great every month, except January. I had not read that.
Cheryl and Mary have done all the 4,000' peaks in New Hampshire and know a bit about wind. Finally at 2:30 we joined a line of cars heading up the road. They opened it up to the six mile mark leaving us a two and a half mile hike up the road and summit trail. We parked around 12,000' and left the car in Jean's hands. The four of us took off up the road. The wind was supposed to be around 30-40 mph at the summit. I was very motivated and moved quickly up to the summit trailhead. No one had been on the track yet and I broke trail in about a foot of snow. The wind picked up again, but it wasn't as fierce as Saturday. When I got to the spot where I had to turn around before, I was shocked to see how close I had been. It took one minute from there to the summit.
Words cannot express how happy I was to reach the top. Even though the wind was significant on top, I took a minute to take a panorama video. I was so happy that I actually enjoyed the 2 1/2 mile downhill back to the car. It was dusk when we got back down to the VIS. Cheryl thought the wind on top today was about 45 mph. So with that in mind I know it must have been well over 50 on my first attempt. We bid farewell to our new friends and drove down the mountain for the last time.