I'm confused. That looks like fun! If only I had $600 to pay to go do labor for them.....
I just thought it was amusing that the specifically mention Tevas and not sandals generally.
The Sierra Club has a whole bunch of service trips like this all over the place. I've wanted to do one for a while.
Also, I need new Tevas. I lost mine tubing on the Shenandoah last year.
I just thought it was amusing that the specifically mention Tevas and not sandals generally.
What's the term for a brand name that becomes a generic description? Like Kleenex, Xerox, etc. They're referring to sandals with velcro (hey, there's another one) straps that don't fall off easily.
Various members of my family pretty regularly do these trips. Always good reports on the fun. And I totally missed the mention of Tevas...I hope they'd accept my Chaco's! (Even more swipple).
My dad has been after me to go on a service trip but it turned out he forgot that you have to pay—he got to go for free, the slime.
It does sound like fun. Meetup in the Marble Mountain Wilderness!
Yes, I have friends who actually get paid to do this - but then again, they work a hell of a lot harder and have to keep at it all summer long. Trail maintenance crews are hardy.
Every once in awhile, I dream about working a summer job up at Lassen, where my uncle works.
They're referring to sandals with velcro (hey, there's another one) straps that don't fall off easily.
Much better off with the original buckle style ones if you're actually using them in and out of water though. Some of those have better soles too (not for concrete).
How come, soup? (About the buckles, not concrete.)
10 - I did stuff like that during the summers of second grad school. Dropped into my bed at night. Got nice and thin and brown in a few weeks.
I want to send my baby brother (14, ten miles tall, slouchy) to something like this for the summer, especially now that LAUSD has cancelled all summer school. (When you live in a failed state, you don't need education.) Any suggestions for an outdoorsy/workcamp type atmosphere for kids? It doesn't really have to be a workcamp, but it'd be good if he weren't playing videogames. Sports would be good too.
Why do they have a picture of a border collie running around a designated wilderness? I suppose it could be a service animal -- helping a blind shepherd cross through the region -- but I kind of doubt it. Just one more reason to hate the Sierra Club.
Being in and out of water and in hot sun tends to degrade the velcro, IME, and really water logged velcro also tends to come apart. Most of my friends who are rafting guides and the like tend to wear Chacos, the sort with the buckles.
13: Fake a birth certificate and enlist him in the army. Afghanistan will make a man out of him. And it really does feel like a failed state around here, doesn't it? The cognitive dissonance between my read of the trajectory of national vs. state politics is making my head hurt.
California, we'd love to help you, but, frankly, your attitude has been off-putting. So good luck!
This was my favorite failed-state article of the day. The state wants to keep gas-tax money instead of dispersing it to local public works departments for road repair.
California roads already rate as the most dilapidated in the nation, with more than two-thirds in poor to mediocre condition, according to a recent national report. The San Jose area has the second-worst roads in the nation, with 90 percent of its pavement rated poor to mediocre. Potholes in 11 California cities cost drivers more than $700 annually in car repairs, about $150 higher than the national average.
Among the hardest-hit jurisdictions could be the roads division in Santa Clara County, which could see its funding drop from $23.8 million to $3 million -- about 10 percent of what it has budgeted for road repairs for the next fiscal year.
How come, soup? (About the buckles, not concrete.)
15 is most of it. Although all the original teva's were buckled too, and I'd be surprised if you couldn't still get some oriented for outdoor use that buckle.
On top of the water (especially seawater) and sun, velcro picks up grit and bits of seaweed etc, and becomes less effective. If you're in really moving water, you can have a pair pulled off by it if they aren't very secure. Brand new velcro is probably comparably solid, but after not much time it really isn't.
Our legislature being what it is, it's deeply depressing to watch California make our lot look really good.
Huh. Thread has soup's and my comments ordered differently than the "Latest Comments" sidebar.
21 I've noticed that before. Different precision on the sort, I suppose.
If you're in really moving water, you can have a pair pulled off by it if they aren't very secure.
Yep. This is why I need new sandals.
going to buy some with buckles this time?
California roads already rate as the most dilapidated in the nation, with more than two-thirds in poor to mediocre condition
Just imagine if you had winter!
I mean, I'm sure the grass turning brown and the quality of light in the sky being slightly different is tough on the asphalt, but I meant freeze/thaw cycles and the like.
Different precision on the sort, I suppose
Suspect it's a race condition. One sorts by "id", one by "time_created", and transactions don't always commit in the order in which they were started. Or something.
California... well... people don't like paying taxes, and so they get the government they deserve.
with more than two-thirds in poor to mediocre condition
Discounting freeways, only 2/3 sounds luxurious to me.
One city does not a state statistic make, granted.
27.1 ah, that's probably it.
I was suspecting one sorted by minute then something else, the other down to seconds or something, but a race is likely.
25-26: Keep laughing, JRoth, if we go down, you're coming with us.
I rather enjoyed walking around Thailand in my Keens.
31: IME those sorts of things are comfy but hopless longterm in water. Maybe they're building them better these days (I used to kayak a lot)
I stand by my commitment (at three comments and building) to the Chaco's. They are durable, easy to maintain, and not even all that ugly.
From this point forward, nobody will be allowed to speak ill of Keens.
You're being silly, JRoth. Grass is green in the winter and brown in the summer. You can see how that would buckle the asphalt.
It takes a friend to utter hard truths, ari.
I did not submerge them. 33 is not wrong; indeed, they have undermined my moral high ground in criticizing my wife's entirely lesbionic taste in footwear.
35: No more expensive than Keens and you can get them on sale easily. I spent $55 on them two years ago and I imagine I'll still have them in five years.
… so I said, I'll buckle your asphalt.
39: Your wife wears Subarus on her feet? Now that's expensive.
If you buckle my asphalt, I'll chuggle your frosty malt.
42: lesbionic, Ari. My wife's feet turn into Subarus.
What's the term for a brand name that becomes a generic description?
"Brandnomer."
In my experience, the general consensus in off-topic threads on baseball message boards, career advice message boards, [hobby] message boards, etc. is that the reasons for California's budget problems is
A) pensions given to firefighters
B) illegal immigrants flocking there to enjoy the luxurious public services, like emergency rooms and schools
Well, we won't be offering schools any more, so (B) is going to lose its drawing power. That'll help.
Except that B is mostly bullshit, I suspect.
illegal immigrants flocking there to enjoy the luxurious public services, like emergency rooms and schools
Holy shit, for serious. I've been having these bizarre conversations with people of my acquaintance who are convinced that the reason for California's budgetary crisis -- and perhaps even the economic crisis at large -- is the fact that poor people go to the emergency room and then don't pay their medical bills. At first, I thought that it was just an off-hand, not-very-well-thought-out remark, but no, over subsequent months it's become clear that this is a deep-seated conviction of theirs, one that they think about daily, that rankles them and makes them furious. Where does this even come from?
Hmmm. Megans "(B)" formulation was probably better, here.
Wasn't some blogger saying recently that libertarians? conservatives? have a blinding fear of false positives? That the dangerous event that should never ever happen was that someone might get something unearned?
52: Someone non-swipple, you mean.
I just thought it was amusing that the specifically mention Tevas and not sandals generally.
What's the term for a brand name that becomes a generic description? Like Kleenex, Xerox, etc. They're referring to sandals with velcro (hey, there's another one) straps that don't fall off easily.
Genericide.
Right now we've got the situation where it is theoretically possible that a bill could pass under which some federal employees would have a small fraction of the amount of paid maternity leave that all federal-, and non-federal, employees have in every other country.
Any online debate on this issue is basically a bunch of people saying "Really? You think someone would have a baby just to get two months of unpaid vacation?", and one person saying "I know a woman who is so lazy, stupid and selfish that she would DEFINITELY do that, and I cannot bear to live in a country where the government takes her side against mine."
53: no, the swipple deserve their good fortune.
56: Deserve, yes, but entitlement isn't necessarily always based on earning. The power of connections, for example, is just the way the world is, unlike spending My Tax Dollars on Those People.
Where does this even come from?
Well, for starters, they've been told it over and over. Generally by Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly:
O'Reilly has argued: "Low-skilled immigrant labor costs the taxpayers today $19,000," he said in May. "[E]ach of us pay $19,000 to supplement people who are using the hospitals, the education system." When one of his guests, a UCLA professor, began to shake his head, O'Reilly said, "Don't shake your head. These are rock-solid stats." (In fact, O'Reilly was wildly distorting a study that was itself extremely tendentious. The study, from a conservative think tank, charged that each undocumented immigrant cost taxpayers $19,000, not that each American taxpayer pays $19,000 to support undocumented immigrants.)
I happen to own Teva-brand sandals which do not look much at all like the kind of sandals you would wear hiking.
Right now we've got the situation where it is theoretically possible that a bill could pass under which some federal employees would have a small fraction of the amount of paid maternity leave that all federal-, and non-federal, employees have in every other country.
Any online debate on this issue is basically a bunch of people saying "Really? You think someone would have a baby just to get two months of unpaid vacation?", and one person saying "I know a woman who is so lazy, stupid and selfish that she would DEFINITELY do that, and I cannot bear to live in a country where the government takes her side against mine."
My Canadian boyfriend's father was going on about how hard maternity leave could be on companies in Canada, where women get a full-year of paid maternity leave.
He'd known girls [sic] who had really maneuvered it well. They'd had 3 kids in 3 years, then come back and quit after 2 months. They have to find a temporary person to do the job for all that time, and they can't offer them permanent work. My suspicion is that people realize that working with 3 kids is hard and they scale back afterwards, but I can't discount the possibility that some people do game the system by looking for a new job while on leave and only coming back so that they can assert that they were on leave and not quitting.
Still, I tried to convince him otherwise, but the whole family ganged up on me.
I've been having these bizarre conversations with people of my acquaintance who are convinced that the reason for California's budgetary crisis -- and perhaps even the economic crisis at large -- is the fact that poor people go to the emergency room and then don't pay their medical bills.
It has nothing at all to do with the fact that the state's constitution was designed at the annual clown college convention!
Wait, are you saying that not all Californians are DFHs?
I have heard that is not in fact the case.
Of course. Many are illegal immigrants.
There are also surfer dudes and valley girls.
71: WHO ILLEGALLY FUCKED UP THE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT1111!!!
But surely at least the clown-shoed business executives must be DFHs?
I can't discount the possibility that some people do game the system by looking for a new job while on leave
While this may be true, I think we can safely discount the possibility that anyone's forming a plan that starts with, "OK, so what I'll do is, I'll have three kids in three years..."
Why can we safely discount that? People may or may not be able to carry out such a plan, but they can sure try.
Just imagine if you had winter!
They do.
Presumably Truckee is not in "The San Jose area[, which] has the second-worst roads in the nation, with 90 percent of its pavement rated poor to mediocre"
My Canadian boyfriend's father was going on about how hard maternity leave could be on companies in Canada, where women get a full-year of paid maternity leave.
Someone gaming the system would be doing so at 65% of pay, and planning to game the system by first working for a year at one job.
I'm sure some people "game the system" by looking for a different job while on leave, but I'm not sure it's that harmful. The business itself isn't on the hook for the extra pay directly, plus, there's nothing saying that they can't hire the temp worker once the mom gives notice..
All I know is that I have a very hard time explaining to my mother-in-law that we can't have kids because I won't have health insurance or maternity leave by the time the hypothetical child would be born.
It isn't, but the line you were responding to was referring to California as a whole.
And the streets in Truckee were not in good shape. You can get a glimpse of this here.
The change in pavement quality of I-80 when you cross into California from Reno is dramatic and for the worse. Some of that may be due to the overenthusiastic requirement of tire chains, but surely not all of it.
In the beach town I grew up in in California, between lack of money and the ever encroaching sands of the dunes, the roads were worse than most. You could lose a Humvee in some of the potholes on my street alone.
79: I was just joking, but the line said that 2/3 of the state's roads are in bad shape; I think it's safe to say that Truckee doesn't represent the weather that 2/3 of Californian roads experience.
Mostly this is just Schadenfreude after decades of hearing how bad PA's roads are, when at least we have a good excuse (months of freeze-thaw and wintry precipitation on every square inch of pavement in the state).
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In other PA highway news, Holy shit.
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I think it's safe to say that Truckee doesn't represent the weather that 2/3 of Californian roads experience.
True enough, but I think it's equally safe to say that the 1/3 of Californian roads that are in decent shape are not in the area of Truckee.
I think it's safe to say that my dinner is yummy!
76: Eh, because I think the number of people who would come up with such a plan is small enough to discount, and the subset of people who would succeed is even smaller.
Growing up I always heard about how there was an annual survey of truckers, and they always said PA had the country's worst roads. And they'd know, too, because they're truckers! Then around age 14 the consensus was that PA was now second worst, behind Arkansas. This had to have been based on some sort of facts. Maybe it was entirely true.
All right you assholes, this weekend I lost a Teva (as well as my dignity, but not my life, glasses, hat, or beer can) in an ill-advised adventure involving inner tubes and the Bear River.
On my next trip to REI I'll get some non-Teva water shoes just so I don't have to listen to your snobbery in the future.
91: I dunno, people tend to be pretty good at working the angles to obtain things they value, even if that involves arguably exploiting their employers (employees, friends, family, etc.). That doesn't mean paid family leave isn't a good thing, but I think you have to deal with it, and I think it works better to acknowledge that there's always going to be some unfairness but argue that we shouldn't be screwing always and only employees to protect employers.
93: It's probably with my almost-new sunglasses and beat-up rubber slippers on a beach somewhere. Fucking wave wasn't supposed to break there.
At least two of my cousins have taken maternity leave with the full intention of never returning to the job.
JM, since you're here: what are the odds that a young Utah Mormon woman who's being a total nut about wedding-related stuff will settle down and be a regular human being once the receptions are over? Because otherwise I may need to set up some kind of advance payment plan with Will for my nephew.
LDS weddings are usually really, really cheap. The ceremony itself takes place in the Temple, and then the reception is usually held in the local church for free, with the local community chipping in to bake food and whatnot. No alcohol and no fun keep the costs down.
If she's marrying a non-LDS boy, maybe she's taking the occasion to insist on a picture-perfect occasion? It's not typical. Even the people I knew who've left the church don't tend to want expensive weddings, which really aren't part of the culture.
I...I'm not terribly optimistic?
Huh. That would be pretty typical here, too, from my limited experience, but local Mormons think Utah Mormons are nuts, so I thought maybe that was the problem. They're both LDS, both still in school and will be for a while, and she wanted a large rock and insisted that he must wear a black suit (not, God forbid, the much nicer blue suit Aunty and Uncle were willing to buy) to his reception here. She seemed nice enough and reasonably sensible before, and the groom's siblings and the (non-LDS) cousin with whom the groom has been staying think she's cool, but we're nervous.
There really ought to be an easier way to get the kid laid.
95: The best part was that, a few hours before, one of my coc-ampers had made a heroic leap into the river to rescue one of his wife's flip-flops after she slipped in a slower, shallower, safer part of the river.
While most of my mind was occupied with "huh, I really can't slow myself down at all and I have no idea how exciting this gets further downstream" and "hey I'm kind of in actual danger here" and such, when I lost the Teva I did think to myself "where's J and why isn't he diving in to recover my sandal?"
Does anyone else keep reading the post title as "Texas watch"?
I get why some women want big lumps of carbon, even though it's not much of an LDS tradition. What's the rationale for the black suit?
And what are they, twenty years old? Or did they manage to make it to 22 or 23?
I get why some women want big lumps of carbon
Quoth Rasputina: "What other way can you make four months of your measly salary last a lifetime? And what other thing have I ever asked you for besides the ability to read my mind? And I didn't get that either, yet."
NPH, it sounds like she has a typical case of wedding-industrial complex swine flu. It usually goes away on its own.
Wait, it's four months now? Christ on a crutch.
What are you having, neb?
Farro! Beets! With rhubarb/red onion/thyme jam (completely unsweetened so it was a lot more sour than I expected; lesson learned but it was still good).
What's the rationale for the black suit?
Because That's How It's Done. If it's not customary in Utah, I have no idea where it's coming from.
He's 23, she's maybe a year or two younger. He's a good kid and has been going on 40 since he was 12, so I was expecting a little more practicality.
Black suits, hah! Lumps of carbon! Hah!
Oh, she should be fine. At least she's not making crazy demands on her guests at the wedding---or is she?
I don't know from black suits, but then I haven't been to very many of my very many cousins' weddings.
Black suits, hah!
Getting married in your fursuit, are you?
Lumps of carbon! Hah!
When I propose marriage, it'll be with the biggest hunk of anthracite she's ever seen.
100+ comments and no mention of Crocs? (Admittedly, the rubber shoes mentioned above may have been Crocs or Croc-like.) I love 'em! Also: they're absolutely useless outside if your feet sweat at all or if you plan to keep your shoes on for long stretches. Still: comfy!
As for river/hiking shoes, I've always used an old pair of tennis shoes (Saucony Jazz is the current flavor); same as I use for cutting the grass.
I've always used an old pair of tennis shoes (Saucony Jazz is the current flavor); same as I use for cutting the grass.
Have you considered some sort of blade? It might be more efficient.
they're absolutely useless outside if your feet sweat at all or if you plan to keep your shoes on for long stretches
So why would anyone have mentioned them in the context of this thread?
113: zing!
114: zing!
You know, teo, I've had a very stressful day already. Maybe ease up on me. It's...too zingy.
I hate hate hate the feeling of wet old tennis shoes. It's like your feet are living in those nasty dank lockers in public pools.
I've had a very stressful day already. Maybe ease up on me.
Sure thing. Stressful days suck; I've had a few of them myself lately.
117: I wasn't really protesting as much as kicking dirt and harumphing. I don't usually have strict deadlines except self-imposed ones, and I got some translation work with a very imminent deadline. Whoa, not fun and quick to turn my brain into mush.
Anyhow: shoes! I agree that the wet tennis shoe thing is bad. I wouldn't rock the Sauconies for an extended hike, but Walk in the Wilderness Featuring Some Possible Water or Float Down a River in a Tube Drinking Beer and Then Getting Driven Home: yeah, they're fine for me.
Anyhow: shoes!
New mouseover?
but really, my cows
121 suggests the middle lines of a haiku. Perhaps:
Anyhow: shoes! Yeah.
The most unwearable shit.
But really, my cows.
My BF has a pair of crocs (so ugly) that he wears to rowing. (You take your shoes off in the boat, but you need to wear something while you're carrying the boat. He doesn't want Charles River water* getting on any of his other shoes.
*The Charles River is vastly cleaner than it was in the 70's and 80's, but it's still not exactly pristine.