Product Development

Have you ever wondered how a great piece of gear is brought into being?

For one week last month I was invited to participate in the Outdoor Research sales/ marketing/ product development retreat at Valhalla Mountain Touring right here on my home turf in the West Kootenays. Our guide for the week was Evan Stevens, who besides doing a great job of finding us the best skiing in the area has put up a great post at the Outdoor Research Verticulture website.

The verticulture site is a wonderful resource for anyone wanting to stay on top of all things outdoors. Check out my own posts on the site HERE.

Happy Spring!
Margo

Adventures in Hair Care

I keep hearing people talk about how busy they are, and I thought I’d share one of my time-saving secrets with my blog readers:

Don’t brush your hair. I mean never, except as a gesture of respect right before you go to your hair stylist. Not only is brushing your hair time consuming (the average woman brushes her hair at least twice each day) it is completely unnecessary. The only potential problem is that your hair could start to mat up and be difficult to untangle. I recently had this problem when I returned from two weeks of ice climbing in Ouray, but I discovered that I could quickly take care of it by cutting out all of the offending dreadlocks with a pair of travel scissors.

Give it a go, you might never look back.

Margo

Ouray Ice Festival Demo climb video

New YouTube Channel and Glitter Girls on Ice deadline

Things are winding down in the tiny mountain town of Ouray, Colorado as the 2010 Ouray Ice Festival comes to a close. We had a fun weekend filled with clinics, demos, competitions, and climbing. Many people are walking away having accomplished their goals, including Will Gadd who finished his 24 hours of non-stop ice climbing at noon on Sunday, completing 194 laps of the 145ft pitch “Pick of the Vic”. His was a project to raise money for the DZI Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Ridgeway, Colorado.

You can view a short clip from my women’s lead clinic on Saturday on my *NEW* YouTube Channel. My demo climb with Cheryl Wallace will be up shortly, and you can check back for more clips in the weeks to come. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on anything!

I just got a new pair of Black Diamond Cobra ice tools and am more psyched than ever to get on some big climbs in the Canadian Rockies next month. Stay tuned for a review of these coming soon…

If you haven’t signed up already for Glitter Girls on Ice, time is running out! You’ve got until January 21st to sign up HERE.
Happy Swinging,
Margo

Blurred Edges

I think the biggest thing we can all learn from the past year is that nothing should be taken for granted. I know things look like business as usual right now, with the economy seemingly back on track. But beneath the surface of things huge shifts have taken place that will not be felt for months, if not a year or two, to come.

When and how these shifts came about is beyond the scope of this blog, but I would like to address a few things that you can do to mitigate the potential off-balancing of a world in transition in 2010.

Choose local quality over cheap imports. Do not support slave labor anywhere in the world, and the best way to do this is to buy home grown goods, the closer to home the better. Not only does this insure that you are not financing sweat shops in China, it also ensures that the money you spend stays in your own local economy.

Stay, or get, in the best possible physical shape that you can. If you don’t like regimented exercise like going for a run or lifting weights, do something different like gardening, chopping firewood, or playing soccer with a child. The rewards will be manifold, from a general feeling of well being to increased stamina and self-esteem. When we look good and feel great, we exude more of that energy commonly referred to as ‘charisma’. We also tackle stress better.

Reinvent yourself. There’s nothing like a period of uncertainty to blur the edges of who we think we are. What are your hidden talents, and what could you do with these if you decided to become an entrepreneur instead of a wage earner (not that there is anything wrong with earning a wage, just that one day your employer may not be able to keep paying you that wage and it will be a lot less stressful if you have already laid some groundwork).

We saw many changes in 2009, and I would argue that the biggest changes went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media and hence the population at large. Big Media have not earned our trust; in fact they have failed miserably at this. So why finance them with your money and energy when there are some great websites out there that are committed to ferreting out the truth.

Below are three of my favorites.

www.zerohedge.com
www.globalresearch.ca
www.solari.com

Happy Transition!

Margo

Dirtbag Mystique

I finally consulted with Freddie regarding the aforementioned scenario, and he told me that we are now venturing into the realm of “dirtbag mystique”.

The Banff Book and Film Festivals went by in a blur. I didn’t manage to see any films, but I did manage to make it from one cocktail party to the next without a glitch. The highlight was busting in on the OR sales meeting and watching Christian model the Banff Bodysuit on the makeshift runway. I think you had to be there, and you definitely had to be a woman.

Throughout all of this my editors aren’t letting me stray from the facts of my story. I am finding it quite interesting that my biggest core weakness in my writing is the same one I struggle with in my life, namely that I tend to generalize and philosophize and be judgmental about things rather than just tell the story. This tendency gets me into trouble with people because I am trying to interpret my stories for them instead of letting them come up with their own interpretations.

What all of this means is that I am not only going to exit this program a better writer, but hopefully a better person as well.

Banff Landing

I arrived two nights ago after my seven-hour drive from my home in the West Kootenays. I was worried about feeling distracted being in Banff; after all I spent two decades living and climbing here in the Canadian Rockies. But luckily my friends are busy and the ice is slow in coming in. I have been running up Tunnel Mountain and going to the rock gym at the Sally Borden Centre to get my daily training fix. Sarah Hueniken told me about the new “Playground” for mixed climbing that is just outside of Canmore, and we’ll get out there as soon as we can both clear our schedules.

The writing is going well. I came here with a lot of existing material, in need of a lot of editing. Tony Whittome is my main editor, and he has given me quite a lot of feedback on how to structure my story. As you can imagine, it is a chaotic affair sorting though the contents of one’s psyche, so there’s nothing better than an objective mind throwing in their professional perspective.

The Banff Centre is taking on a whole new slant for me. I have been coming to the mountain film festival here every year without fail since 1992, and I can say that being here on campus as an 'artist' has a completely different feel. I have a wonderful room; complete with king-sized bed and balcony, and a little writing studio in the basement of a different building. There is no view in this room, and it is dead quiet. The only distraction is the piano against the wall, where I can practice my scales and arpeggios whenever I need a break from putting thoughts down in writing.

I started having trouble sleeping about one week prior to coming here, and my insomnia is still in full swing. This gives me lots of extra time to write, especially late at night. I feel like I am running on some sort of adrenaline high, but I hope it wears off soon so I can go back to my normal sleep patterns.

Dirtbag Chic

I learned a new phrase today from Freddie Wilkinson, another course participant, and it’s called “dirtbag chic”. We were sitting around the writers’ lounge when he downloaded the idea to me.

“It’s the Yuppie who wears ratty outdoor clothing and drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon at the bar to fit in with the other lifestylers.”

I meant to ask him if being a money-flush drug dealer while living and climbing out of your truck fell under this category, but Franki chimed in and the conversation quickly turned to politics. Luckily Tony walked in and broke up the meeting, which will convene again this afternoon at the climbing gym.

It’s pretty easy staying up at the Banff Centre around the clock and delving into our projects, but Freddie and I are running low on stores and will be making our first trip into town tonight. Christian Folk from Outdoor Research arrives in a few hours and I want to have some good beer on hand to celebrate his first Banff Mountain Film Festival.

As for my writing, it’s going really well. My strength is volume; I have absolutely no trouble coming up with content. I am working on structure and flow, focusing on telling the story in concrete detail instead of theory, rhetoric, and abstraction. I am so ready for feedback, both from the program editors and the other participants.

Glitter Girls - On Ice (Update)

Here is an update for all of you Ice Maidens. After your feedback on airport transfers and outdoor hot tubs (mandatory apparently) we've dropped the former and acquired the latter, which means a price drop from $1250 down to $1050 (all CAD of course).

There is more information at: www.glitter-girls.ca

Or you can sign up HERE

Glitter Girls - On Ice

The Glitter Girls is proud to present their first event in the Canadian Rockies. We are hosting an ice climbing extravaganza the week of February 5th to 12th, 2010. We have found luxury accommodations, in our former hometown of Canmore, Alberta, just 20 minutes from the entrance to Banff National Park and the gateway to some of the best ice climbing in the world. The weekend kicks off with the Canmore Ice Climbing Festival, where you can sign up for clinics by day and choose from a host of festivities each evening. For more details click here. If you plan on signing up for any of the climbing clinics I recommend you do so as soon as possible because they will fill quickly.

Monday to Thursday are your own personal climbing days, where you can go out as a group, in pairs, and have the option of going with a guide. As your logistics coordinator I will make sure that you know where you are going and how you will be getting there. I will also help you find the best guides if that is what you choose to do. There will be organized dinners out on the town, as well as nights where we stay in and cook for ourselves. Each person has the option of creating their tailor-made dream ice climbing vacation, using the Solara condos as our Base Camp.

Cost is $1250 CDN (including tax) and includes one week accomodation, airport transportation (of course you might prefer to rent a car), breakfasts and lunches, and logistical support.

To book your place or for further information email me at margo@glitter-girls.ca

Training for Life

Autumn is upon us and so are thoughts of dangling from ice tools on the frozen sculptures of nature. Those of us who were lucky enough to rock climb all summer might feel well prepared, but those of us who had commitments of work and family might well be wondering how best to train for the upcoming season.

When I was working on a cruise ship in the Antarctic a few years back a passenger asked me how I stayed in shape given the fact that most passengers would be leaving the boat weighing an average of twelve pounds more than when they boarded.

“It’s simple”, I told her, “I don’t allow myself to gain weight. Then when I do get back on shore and into a regular exercise routine, all I need to work on is strength and cardio, not weight loss.”

It’s easier to stay in shape than it is to get in shape. Lucky for me I love doing physical things. I have a weight training bench not ten feet from my computer desk, and beautiful running trails within a kilometer of my home. I recently started doing yoga and after making fun of the activity for decades find that it increases my flexibility and balance as well as has many internal benefits like cleansing the lymphatic system.
Physical exercise is one part of a two part system, the other being food. We literally are what we eat, and as such I eat fresh organic food whenever possible, eat a whole foods diet, and cut out all chemicals and refined sugar. I also drink well water that contains no fluoride or chlorine. I originally went on this diet at the behest of my naturopathic doctor to clear up a liver/ skin problem, and I saw so many benefits that I never went off of it.
Someone once described duty as’ love under will’. I encourage you to learn to love giving your body the exercise it needs and to keep it in shape for everything that you encounter in life, whether that is an ice climbing clinic or carrying food home from the grocery store. The benefits are many, especially the underlying feeling of well-being that you will have from moment to moment in your everyday world.

Financial Coup d'Etat

We are currently witnessing a highly-engineered restructuring of the world’s capital system right before our very eyes. The world will never be the same once the process has been completed. But because we don’t understand what is happening we have trouble connecting the dots of this ingenious form of economic warfare. In the United States there is a merger going on between the highest levels of the banking industry and the government. What we will end up with could arguably be a more communist system than China currently has. There is nothing free market about government intervention, in fact it is the opposite and could also be called socialism. Anywhere in the world that we are seeing the banks being bailed out by government, we are witnessing this phenomenon.
This scenario has been building for decades under the banner of globalization. And because the citizenry has no understanding of even the most basic economic principles it has gone on largely uncontested and I would dare say has even been embraced.

Free Market Rhetoric

You hear a lot of talk about the free market these days, but I can’t find a vestige of it left when I look at the big players on the scene today, and the recent bailout of the U.S. banks is the best example there is. What they call “free market” is synonymous with privatizing the profits while socializing the losses of the major banks and corporations. In a truly free market these players would sink or swim according to their bottom lines, not some taxpayer bailout. If these companies cannot make it in the real world they should fail, and we should be glad of it. We want the world to be populated with healthy companies and banks, not virally infected ones. I do not consider this deal to be a bailout at all, it is a parting gift from George Bush to the people who helped him to get and maintain power. The looting of the treasury and the attacks on the trade centers will go down in history as the greatest acts of piracy in the history of the world.

Crime of the Century - Reprise

Despite the fact that the so-called experts and high-ranking politicians are acting surprised by the recent events regarding the economy, there really is no mystery as to how we arrived at this station. There are investigative journalists who have been telling us what is going on for decades. The real question is: why did they go unheeded? We all knew the football scores, we all knew the latest celebrity faux pas’, but we did not know one thing about the economy. In fact, before the patsy called the sub-prime mortgage meltdown arrived on the scene, you couldn’t find anybody who was even remotely interested in the topic. Now you can’t escape the opinions of every pundit and armchair economist in the world.
Below is a list of brilliantly researched books that I highly recommend if you are at all interested in following the marriage of politics and economics in the past century.

Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
Rogue Economics by Loretta Napoletani
The Rise of the Fourth Reich by Jim Marrs
And the Truth Shall Set You Free by David Icke

Watch the movie Zeitgeist



...and Zeitgeist Addendum

Black Elk

Centuries ago a Native Indian leader told his people of his vision: that a threat so huge was going to come from the outside and that the only way they were going to keep from being overtaken was to unite against it. His people laughed, for they had enjoyed dominion over the land for a very long time. What could possibly come now, and where would it come from?
The Europeans did come not long after this vision, but the Natives had paid no heed to the warning and had not united. Everywhere there were warring tribes. They were a divided group, and as such were the more easily conquered. For sure there were people who saw this threat and worked together to keep it at bay, but there were also people who saw opportunity in aligning themselves with these newcomers, and this alliance did not bode well for the Native American population. The rest, as they say, is history.
I believe that we are now perched on the promontory of a similar situation, one in which we are only going to succeed in overcoming if we become one united force in every sense of the term. I alone am not going to single-handedly change the path humanity is currently on, nor are you, but that shouldn’t stop us from acting in alignment with our integrity for one moment. The human race stands at a precipice where it must put forth a Herculean effort to get itself out of a mess that it has become deeply entrenched in. It is also at a time of incredible opportunity, for how better to learn a lesson than out of the sheer necessity to survive. The outcome of our future is not guaranteed, and there is much work to be done on each individual’s part. But it is far from impossible for us to learn the lesson from the Native American elder whose vision need not go unheeded.

Questions to ponder:

Are you open to hearing what you need to hear, as opposed to what you want to hear?
What are you doing to strengthen your community, as opposed to separating yourself from it?
If the global, or even national economies, totally collapse, which they very well could, what contribution can you make to your community for remuneration? If you don’t have any skills to contribute, when will you begin work on learning or acquiring these?

Crime of the Century

There is a lot of finger pointing going on right now over the state of the economy. Governments blame the financial industry, banks blame the defaulted citizenry, and the citizens blame both. But the actual truth is that we all participated in this mess that we are now finding ourselves in. While it is true that investment banks never could have gone this far astray without government deregulation, it is also true that Wall Street could never have propagated these highly leveraged instruments without the money coming in from Main Street. That’s you, and that’s me.

When you deposit your money with one of the big banks, you are financing everything that they then do with that money. When you buy a stock on Wall Street, you are personally financing that company. If you have a pension or a mutual fund, even if you do not know what it is invested in, you are financing all of those companies with your energy.

The bottom line is that we, the folks on Main Street have been financing Wall Street, its brokers and investment banks, all along. And we need to take responsibility for that. We also need to help our leaders make the changes that they need to make if we expect them to withdraw power from Wall Street. If we are to make a difference in these times and do our part, we must begin to align our actions with our beliefs, and we must reengineer how the money works so that the criminal enterprises don’t get the vote of the people with their hard-earned dollars.

Things you can do:

-Take your money out of the big banks and put it into a credit union or a small local bank.
-Invest in your own community.
-Do not buy stock in a company whose agenda is not in alignment with your beliefs.

Voting Rights

Now that it has become obvious that our corporations are running our world, including our elected politicians, the only sane way to vote is with your dollar. Every choice you make matters to those companies, who spend millions upon millions to manipulate you into buying their products. If you do your research you will find out which companies are operating in accordance with your ethics, and there probably aren’t many. Chief among your most important purchases is your food. Processed food is at best alien and at worst poison to the human body. If there’s something in the ingredients list that you cannot pronounce or understand, then you probably don’t want to ingest it into your body. If you are tired of box stores crowding out the view, don’t shop there no matter how much you think you are saving. If you are opposed to the war in Iraq, lower your fuel consumption so that we don’t have to invade oil-producing countries under the guise of democracy and freedom. You do not live in a democracy, you live in a corporatocracy (a corporate run state) where any elected politician you put into power is merely a front man of these same corporations. It is time we woke up and called a spade a spade.
Know where every one of your investment dollars is, because you are financing whatever companies you find in your portfolio. Support your local economy, build local community, and take back your power from these institutions that care nothing about you or your family. Women make the bulk of domestic purchases for our homes. We shop for most of the clothing, food, and household items. We hold the power in our wallets to let these companies know that we are not interested in supporting them, or in supporting what they are doing to the quality of our earth, air, water, government, and economy. Say NO to what you have been giving lip service to for decades. Spend wisely; put thought into every outgoing cent from your purse. Take back your power as a human being. Make your stand: live your beliefs. It is time for you to become the role model you rarely see in the world. Become that empowered woman you have always suspected yourself to be. Throw off that cloak of decency and buck the status quo. You have seen what the status quo brings to your earth and to your loved ones. It is nothing short of insanity to keep on financing it with your money, and more importantly, your energy.
Below is a list of suggestions on where to begin. How far you then take it is up to you.

Buy organically grown food that is produced in harmony with the earth
Buy unbleached post-consumer recycled toilet paper
Shop at locally owned and operated stores whenever feasible
Use earth- friendly cleaning products for your home and body
Conserve resources
Minimize garbage
Educate yourself and others

But most of all, have fun knowing that every choice you make, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, is moving your world back into alignment with who you truly are.

The Federal Reserve

While Canada might not be going down in the sub-prime fiasco that plagues our southerly neighbour, we do share one thing in common that is as detrimental to us as it is to them: A Central Bank. Our forebears sought to warn us of the dangers of these institutions, but in modern times we have forgotten to learn from history.
It is important to have a look the Federal Reserve as a model that can instruct us in the concept of central banks in general. There is nothing Federal about this institution, it is 100% privately owned and the owners’ names are kept secret. And it has no real reserves, unless you call a printing press or the click of a mouse, with the capability to make money out of nothing, reserves.

Most people think that these matters have nothing to do with their everyday lives, when in reality there is no other institution that affects them more directly in their everyday lives. The Federal Reserve, in conjunction with Wall Street (or what I like to call the speculative market), act as a siphon in the pockets of the productive. Your wealth is vacuumed up by these institutions, and it is nothing less than the fleecing of the productive by the unproductive.

"The American people are crazy to think that a privately owned institution like the Federal Reserve will ever function in the public interest. The Fed operates behind an iron-curtain of secrecy to protect the interests of its primary constituents; the parasite class... This explains what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." Mike Whitney

Forget the war in Iraq, study the only thing that matters to corporate heads and politicians: money. If you know how it works, you will understand every political intrigue in the history of the world.

Read The Creature from Jekyll Island by G.Edward Griffin

Read Obama's Speech on Wall Street on Monday

Watch The Dow Jones Illusion

Get a copy of In Debt We Trust by director Danny Schechter

Spellcasters

Beware of spellcasters infiltrating your consciousness and causing you to long for things
that just may not be in your best interest. Currently the largest spell on the planet is
called "The Capitalist Consumer Economy", and you have been programmed into it from birth. It is a valid reality, but so are all others, and you will never know who you are and what you
truly desire until you take a look at your deepest social programming and decide for
yourself.

"If you are trying to find a needle in a haystack, you will fail. If you become the needle,
the haystack disappears."

Happy Trails,

Margo

How Money Works

Many women think that they don't understand money and finances, when in fact they have never been encouraged to do so. Understanding the ecomony is easier than most people think, but it is not easy if you intend to learn about it from mainstream media. Here, there is a
disconnect between the dots, unspoken truths that only someone educated in economic-speak
could read from between the lines.
The good news is that there are some very good books out there that get to the bottom of how
the money works, while reading like mystery thrillers that you cannot put down. I know that
after decades of believing that economists are almost as boring as accountants you are
having your doubts. But as someone educated in economics as well as an avid Agatha Christie
reader, I can assure you that there is no greater topic that deserves your attention in a
world that has elevated fiat currency to the status of God.

The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G.Edward Griffin
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Visit www.solari.com

Happy Reading!

Margo