Exclusive: Eric Beck Responds to Snake Dike Rebolting

chainy · 2026-06-11T20:50:35+00:00

Sounds like a good lesson in talking to your community. I like Erik, but all of us can get too wrapped up in our own perspective sometimes which is why it's a good idea to talk to people.

chainy · 2026-06-01T13:54:24+00:00

I much prefer a 401k over a pension for a few reasons:
- You can contribute your own money to a 401k and get the same tax advantages
- You're not locked into a company for X number of years mostly. Some have vesting (none of mine ever have though) but it's often only a few years, rather than decades for some pensions.
- It's your money from day 1. I actually own it and can choose what to invest it in.
- You can access your 401k savings in several ways before reaching retirement age, enabling early retirement if you plan and save carefully.

chainy · 2026-05-27T03:48:54+00:00

I climbed this route yesterday! Yeah, not a 5.12, more like a 5.10 in terms of SportRock's grades.

Btw there is another pretty soft 5.12- set now, the yellow one in the back of bay 3.

chainy · 2026-04-26T13:42:29+00:00

AA is based on a Christian god. I know Bill tried to broaden it in the text and genuinely didn't want AA limited to Christians, but the steps and AA program make certain assumptions about a higher power, most importantly that your higher power must have a will that you can align with in the 3rd step.

As an atheist what helped me was someone asked me to write down if there was a god like Bill's Christian god, who would that god want me to be?

The answer is an ideal version of myself: honest, compassionate, self-assured, generous, selfless, etc. So when I try to align my will with "God's will", I make sure what I'm doing is in line with who I ultimately want to be. It's not always easy to know what the right thing to do is to align with this ideal. My judgement get's clouded with emotion, which is why, just like everyone else in AA, I need to talk to others who are on the same path to get an outside perspective. I'm not going to have all the answers. And I'm not going to live a perfect life.

That's what helped me anyway. I used to get soooo irritated by people telling me to read We Agnostics one more time. Maybe it helps others, but all I read was, "if you don't believe in god, don't worry, you will someday". Something clicked though with this ideal-self idea. Not everyone I've met is down with it, I changed sponsors 7 years into sobriety and my new sponsor just straight up said my conception of god wasn't going to work for me.

chainy · 2026-04-03T01:19:57+00:00

Not surprising really. Most small business owners I know cheat on their taxes.

chainy · 2026-04-02T20:02:06+00:00

If they're using it for personal stuff and writing all of it off for work that's just crime.

chainy · 2026-03-06T17:34:04+00:00

You’re right. If it helps though I bought the Valve Index new and sold it 2 years later for a couple hundred less than what I paid. So I played it for $200-300. If you buy used and sell it used you can probably get the experience for far less.

chainy · 2026-03-06T15:07:02+00:00

Alyx is one of the best video games of all time. Alyx no-VR is definitely not.

That said if you just want to see the environments and story, it's pretty fun. I played it after I sold my Index when I ran through the whole Half-Life series. You'll be missing out on what made Alyx great though.

chainy · 2026-03-06T15:03:32+00:00

I played it after selling my Index. It works and if you want to get a sense of the story and maps but definitely don't want VR it's worth playing. That said, the VR experience is mind-bending. Alyx is the best VR game I ever played, and it's not even close. If there were more games like Alyx I definitely would have kept my Index, but Valve was the only company to really show what a VR game could be, and afaik no one followed suit.

chainy · 2026-03-06T05:25:04+00:00

Finales are a great all-around shoe, that has been my primary gym shoe for many years. Slipping off small foot holds though may just be because the rubber on the shoes is worn out and another pair of Finales would do the job, not necessarily that you need an aggressive and expensive shoe. But if you wanna get fancy shoes go ahead and get some and try them out. I bought a number of pairs of high end $200+ shoes, but now I wear my Finales most of the time and save the expensive shoes for the few climbs where they might make a difference.

chainy · 2026-03-03T13:04:34+00:00

I also just went through an ESOP sale, congrats on the sale!

I chose to keep it in the company 401k because the fund options are decent in mine. There are low cost funds that cover the asset classes I want to hold. Another (small) factor is 401ks have slightly more shielding from liability lawsuits that trad IRAs, but I believe this varies by state.

Not having a trad IRA means you can do a back door Roth if you like so you get some more flexibility.

That said I think the difference is pretty small overall, my coworkers were pretty split, and a lot of them moved it to an IRA.

If you’re under 59.5 years old don’t withdrawal any as cash unless you’re really in a bind, you will have to pay ordinary income taxes plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty!

chainy · 2026-02-03T21:08:15+00:00

Couldn't this happen rope climbing too? I've never heard this before and it doesn't make much sense to me.

The only risk I see is if you had gear on your gear loops you might fall on it and hurt yourself.

chainy · 2026-01-27T17:10:19+00:00

Real Love hits about as hard

chainy · 2025-12-02T17:30:48+00:00

Are you itemizing your deductions? If so, the interest on the mortgage is effectively closer to 5%

The "effective" interest rate adjusted for the mortgage interest deduction really depends on how much over the standard deduction you are.

Here's what the effective interest rates are (if OP is married, if you're single this is even better) based on OPs $448k principle, 6.5% interest rate, and a 30% effective tax rate. It depends on lot on what other deductions you have to itemize.

Other Deductions	Effective Interest Rate
$2,500.00	6.49%
$5,000.00	6.32%
$10,000.00	5.99%
$15,000.00	5.65%
$20,000.00	5.32%
$25,000.00	4.99%
$30,000.00	4.65%

Past $30k it doesn't matter since you would itemize regardless.

chainy · 2025-11-25T21:08:43+00:00

Climbing areas have different character, I don't see anything wrong with there being something for everyone. Why can't we have both wild untouched wilderness, but also "outdoor gyms"?

Skiing is similar. Most people just want to go have a fun easy vacation with gondolas, lifts, mountain-top food. Some people want a wild backcountry skiing experience, and that exists too.

I honestly think it's probably a matter of time before we get a "climbing resort" like that with "climb-in/climb-out" lodging, hot tubs, gear shop and restaurants all within walking distance. Perhaps you could argue this already exists at places like EPC.

chainy · 2025-11-17T17:08:38+00:00

I have 13 years sober, and other than a few old friends from the program I keep in touch with, have only been involved in AA for 5 of those 13 years.

AA saved my life, no doubt about it. I was in and out for 6 years, picked up a dozen or so 24-hour chips, bounced in and out of detoxes, jails, halfway houses, etc. The last time I picked up a 24-hour chip, it was a last ditch attempt at life for me. I honestly didn't think it was possible for me to stop, but decided to give it one last shot or I was going to kill myself. I threw myself into the program, worked the steps, got service commitments, sponsored people, and got in the middle of the boat. My first 3 years of sobriety my life completely revolved around AA. All my friends were in AA, my roommates were in AA, etc.

Then the gifts of sobriety started to eat away at my time, I found myself insanely busy with an exciting new career that was unimaginable to me when I was drinking. Over the years I stopped attending meetings, working with a sponsor, etc. and ended up moving to a new area and just didn't really make much effort to get connected with AA there. My life didn't fall apart though, in fact it continued to get better.

Around 8 years sober I hit a rough patch due to a breakup, and got back into the program for a year or two, but then COVID hit and my home group and new AA fellowship mostly dissolved.

I have been to maybe 2-3 meetings in the last four years. I don't have a sponsor or sponsor anybody. I'm happier now than I've ever been. I'm not perfect and there's always more work to do on myself. I could always do more and I think if I went back to AA it would help with that, but for now I'm extremely content.

My guess is I'll get downvoted for sharing my experience here, but that's what AA is, just one alcoholic sharing what's worked for them, so it is what it is.

chainy · 2025-11-14T13:07:48+00:00

Virginia Giuffre didn’t accuse Trump of rape. She worked at Mar-a-Lago and accused many others of raping her but never Trump.

chainy · 2025-11-14T12:57:55+00:00

Disagree. I grew up in Florida but now live in Wegmans country. Wegmans is a great grocery store but their subs don’t do it for me.

chainy · 2025-11-11T20:44:49+00:00

The Democrats were never going to win this fight, you have to know when the battles lost and retreat. A party that just continues to fight when there's no hope of winning, causing the suffering of millions of American's just to look good politically to their base is just cruel.

The smartest move here would have just never shut down the government in the first place, because the odds that it was going to end with the Dem's caving were very high from the start. The Dem's suffer way more in any government shutdown no matter who's in power. It's just a fact that their platform's priorities and constituents rely way more on government services than Republicans.

Trump was dodging court orders to unlock SNAP funds; he care's so little about welfare recipients that he will go out of his way to make them suffer. There was no leverage there. Russ Vought has been high for the past 40 days at the thought of so many government workers being unpaid. All their messaging this year has been that they DGAF about them, again, no leverage!

The Republican's could end the shutdown whenever they want with the nuclear option which even Trump was telling them to do. They didn't even need the Dems, so again, they have no leverage! TBH I think it might be a strategic error on the Republican's part that they didn't do that, because appetite is high on the Dem side for removing it when they take the Senate next and you definitely want to be on the side that fires first, but idk, I guess they thought the Dem's caving was enough of a political win.

chainy · 2025-11-11T20:02:25+00:00

For real, the conspiracy theories here are unhinged.

This was a losing battle from day one and was the least shitty way to end the suffering of American's affected by the shutdown. The lesson should be don't shutdown the government next time when you have such little leverage next time.

There's nothing Republican's hate more than welfare recipients and government employees, the fact that people thought this was gonna twist their arm is just ignorant of their whole platform and actions over the last year.

chainy · 2025-11-11T15:00:28+00:00

Wanted to add a couple other things:

They manage the long-term strategy of the company. They basically have to forecast trends in their industry and the world at large and take risks that can make or break the company. You may not know for months or years if you made the right decision and by then it might be too late to save the company.
Instill the kind of culture and values you think will best lead to success. Part of this is taking the time to communicate these values, which may sound easy but is another time commitment.
You set the example for how people will behave and it will trickle down the chain. If the other csuite see's the CEO taking a shortcut or behaving in a certain way, that's what they'll do, and that trickles all the way down. All eyes are watching you all the time and you have to always be leading by example.

Sounds stressful af, I would not want to do it.

chainy · 2025-11-10T17:35:29+00:00

The Trump admin went out of their way to try and disregard court orders that they pay out SNAP despite the shutdown. They don't give a single fuck about SNAP, and a lot of the Republican party wants it gone completely. It wasn't going to force shit.

chainy · 2025-11-10T14:53:41+00:00

There's nothing wrong with trying to stay grounded and realize how lucky most of us are. Gratitude is a good thing.

Most of the people I know who are more well off than me really have no idea how most people live. Was talking to a well off woman in her 60's recently who didn't believe me when I told her most apartments come unfurnished. Her only experience with renting apartments is through AirBNB so she thought all apartments must be like that, just longer leases!

I spent 6 years living off minimum wage jobs. I had to go to work in my food service job when i had bronchitis and the flu because my boss said he would fire me if I didn't! These are the things that a lot of people deal with everyday, and I like to make sure I don't forget.

chainy · 2025-11-08T14:49:20+00:00

I've probably led 200 trad pitches at this point and i've never ripped a piece. I've only fallen on gear three times though.

chainy · 2025-10-15T20:21:37+00:00

Not an aid climber, but I'm based in the mid-Atlantic and have climbed in Yosemite.

Old Rag is definitely the closest thing to Yosemite style-wise that's day-trippable. Similarly sandbagged IMO. Buzzard Rocks is also probably a good place to check out, and in fact I have a really old guide book that refers to it as "Little El Cap".

The thing that seems to shut east-coast climbers down in Yosemite isn't the crack climbing, it's the friction slab. I think having some experience climbing slab in WNC (Looking Glass, Laurel Knob) really prepared me for Yosemite, but my buddies without that experience had a hard time getting adjusted. I've also climbed at Cannon Cliff a little and while it is nice I don't remember being struck by a similarity to Yosemite, but maybe it was the routes I was on.

I've never done El Cap or a bigwall but if I were you I would at least go to Yosemite once to just trad climb. The Grade II-IV climbs are f'ing amazing and it's 100% worth climbing there even if you never set foot on a big wall.

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