[Alpines] Fools and Funding

[Mark J Bradakis]

No, this is not a political rant about the scoundrels on Capitol Hill.
I'll rant about that elsewhere, probably the prattle forum on the
Team.Net forums.  For the moment, though, consider this my annual
State of Team.Net speech.  It is getting sent out on All Fool's
Day.  More on that in a bit.

Back in April of 1991 the domain team.net was registered.  We are 19
years old this month.  Of course there were a few years before then
that email was just sent to various places as the lists were in their
infancy.  The patriarch of the family was SOL, the Scions of Lucas,
thanks to Dale Cook and Jim Muller.  Now there are over 60 Team.Net
email lists, and about 14,000 subscribers scattered about the planet.

And 19 years old describes my age when I moved to Salt Lake City, a
young lad looking for adventure in the mountains through climbing and
skiing.  And many an adventure was to be had.  The biggest was no
doubt the Weird Winter Wall trip of 1977.  I really need to write that
up, get a bunch of the slides digitized to share with others.  The
short version is that I am amazingly lucky to still be alive.  It was
April 1st, 1977 when the four of us, hungry and exhausted, demoralized
and chilled to the bone sat on a mountainside in the Wind Rivers and
watched the sun come up.  Sunrises are always beautiful, but to this
day those firstly faint glowing streaks of red, orange and gold have
never looked so welcome as on that morning.  We knew we'd make it,
we'd see more sunrises.

It seems appropriate that we returned to civilization on April Fool's
day.  A winter ascent of the North Face of Mt. Hooker seems a fool's
errand in hindsight.  But I survived.

And Team.Net has survived.  There have certainly been many times over
the years when I've felt the fool for putting in the effort to keep it
going.  Just hitting the off switch and walking away would have been
so easy.

But far more prominent are the occasions where a well crafted message,
an unsolicited thank you or donation, a T shirt or some trinket
unexpectedly showing up at my doorstep makes me realize what a
treasure Team.Net has been over the years.  There are untold old
classics out there still on the road, thanks to you folks.  Sure, you
may have never turned a wrench on them, or pushed them in or out of
the garage, but the technical support provided, along with the email
equivalent of a friendly smile and a heartfelt pat on the back has
kept folks going.  They've taken that fool's errand of a hopeless
restoration and brought it back from near death to see another sunrise.


If you see fit, please make use of the information provided at
http://www.team.net/donate.html


mjb.


"But look, the morn in russet mantle clad walks o'er the dew of yon
high eastward hill"   Hamlet, Wm. Shakespeare