more pictures of the Hammer lady's handiwork

nuclear war

read about how "we all almost died" (from metafilter):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm

One reason for Soviet jitters at the time was that the West had unleashed a series 

of psychological warfare exercises aimed at Moscow, including naval maneuvers 

into forward areas near Soviet strategic bastions, such as the submarine bases in

 the Barents Sea.



The 1983 alarm also came just weeks after Soviet pilots had shot down Korean 

Air Lines Flight 007 and just before the start of a NATO military exercise, known 

as Able Archer, that involved raising alert levels of U.S. nuclear forces in Europe 

to simulate preparations for an attack. Pry has described this exercise as "probably

 the single most dangerous incident of the early 1980s."

but wait, who was president in 1983? I thought he single handedly ended the cold war? He must have been working on other(okay one year later) things at the time?

3AM attack!

This morning I awoke to the sound of 4 whacking noises. In my torpor, I thought: "hmm four... and its sounds like a .... staple gun... someone putting up notices... zzzzzzzz". Then I heard it again, so I resisted the urge to stay in bed, and slid (literally, I'm not proud to say) out of bed. In the midst of this graceful ballet style dismount of our bed, I heard the unmistakeable sound of glass being broken, so I started moving faster. What I saw when I got to the window would be surprising at any hour of the day, let alone 3AM: A woman was systematically breaking the front window of the chinese restaurant right under us:





with a hammer. I dont think I actually rubbed my eyes, but I think it took me a few seconds to realize what was going on. In the mean time, the lady (now yelling something) had broken someones car window with her hammer. Seconds later she had focused her attentions on the parking meter:






Now this last one told me something was REALLY wrong. Who could hate a parking meter?! Then she started walking down the street bashing in more car windows. At this point I did something a little foolish, which I will attempt to explain in a minute. I started yelling "wheres my pants!?", and grabbed the closest weapon I could find, which happened to be a nut attached to a quickdraw:



You see, she was heading for OUR car. And anyone who knows me will tell you how attached I am to our 1994 red Renault Clio. The Clio has really been an exercise in humility and patience for me, since every element of it seems to have been engineered for frustration: doors that magically swing closed and hit you in the back, overzealous seatbelts that prevent you from picking anything up off the floor, an engine that sounds like its going to explode at 120 kph, instruments (like a clock ) which are mysteriously unilluminated and unreadable at night, a heating system that becomes irreparably damaged if you use the wrong coolant and on and on. but I digress. It would, after all be a huge hassle in our pidgin French, to get a windshield replaced, regardless of the shittiness of the car. So I decided to put a stop to it, found my pants, armed myself with my lethal climbing equipment (see above), and wife (c-money insisted on coming with me, armed with the fearsome Broom of Death):




and heading downstairs. By the time we got downstairs, she was no where to be seen, but no matter. We knew where she
she was going: to assault our beloved Clio. So we started walking down the street. Midway down, a police car pulled up, and the cops were out remarkably fast (for French cops). I think he said "Bonjour Pepe!" out of his rolled down window. A little more description is needed to fully appreciate the situation. The cop was at the corner, C-money and I were about 30 feet away from cop on Rue Jay. The crazy lady with the hammer was out of sight to us, on Rue Marechal Dode




I was dressed in some pants, no shirt and a Marmot windbreaker. C-money was in the somewhat ratty t-shirt she sleeps in, some jeans, and the Broom of Death. And theres a crazy woman with a hammer around the corner, in case you forgot. All of a sudden the cop (now out of his car) looks frightened. So frightened, in fact, that he jumped back and pulled his gun out, in a kind of ridiculous french cop way: all loose wristed and silly. Now I should mention here that you rarely see unholstered guns in france, so it was more than a little shocking, and moreso given our proximity to the hammers and guns. All of a sudden our Broom of Death didnt seem quite so death-inducing, and the gravity of the situation sunk in: that we were two Americans with brooms and climbing gear trying to prevent a crazy woman from breaking our windows. The decision to beat a hasty retreat was made quickly and wordlessly upon the guns being drawn (there was another cop, by the way). As we sucrried away, looking back over our shoulders, we saw the cops unleash their dog on the woman and start screaming "Allez!" like in the tour de France. An hour later, there were cops everywhere, surveying the damage and taking statements etc. I couldnt fall asleep for hours, and felt a little ill.

I'll discuss the reasons for my rash actions this in a later post. For now, suffice it to say that I felt like there was no way the cops would get there in time to save our car, and that there was little chance she was armed with anything besides a hammer (this isnt the US after all).

As for why the lady went after the restaurant, but not the other ones nearby? I really have no idea. The guy who runs it is super nice, and I cant imagine him offending anyone at all.

Goulandiere

C-money and I went to a new-ish crag in the vercors called "La Goulandiere". Unfortunately, we didnt know where the road had been closed between Lans and Pont en Royans, so we took a gamble on PoR, and ended up hiking around in the brutal sun at the foot or Presles for an hour and a half on the GR9. Not content to write the day off without finding this mystery crag, we drove to La Balme de Rencurel, taking the detour through the beautiful but car sickness inducing Grandes Goulets, parked near the barriere, and found the crag. As for the crag itself, I would have to agree that its one of the best within one hour of grenoble: 35 meter routes on absolutely vertical rock with interesting movements and great views into the valley. It even has a little spring which we were too chicken to drink out of.