Dawn Wall

[Thumper]

The story of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's epic free climb of El Capitan's Dawn Wall. I knew The Kid wanted to watch it, but when we looked at streaming options around Thanksgiving, they were prohibitive. In a snap decision, I ordered the Blu Ray. She watched it and took it back to school to show it to friends. We finally got to watch it together last night after I brought her home for the semester. So the climb was and still pretty much is consider impossible. That's not what moved me. It also doesn't matter to me that alot of people don't understand why they did it, or consider them crazy. The thing that caught me was when Tommy was ascending and Kevin was failing. Tommy got to a point where he was pretty much going to be able to make it to the top. He decided it would be a hollow victory. He waited with Kevin, while he rested and let his butchered hands heal. (They camped on port-a-ledges on the wall for over two weeks total). They were going to make it or not, together. That made a very big impression on me.

[pumpkinpi]

The story of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's epic free climb of El Capitan's Dawn Wall. I knew The Kid wanted to watch it, but when we looked at streaming options around Thanksgiving, they were prohibitive. In a snap decision, I ordered the Blu Ray. She watched it and took it back to school to show it to friends. We finally got to watch it together last night after I brought her home for the semester. So the climb was and still pretty much is consider impossible. That's not what moved me. It also doesn't matter to me that alot of people don't understand why they did it, or consider them crazy. The thing that caught me was when Tommy was ascending and Kevin was failing. Tommy got to a point where he was pretty much going to be able to make it to the top. He decided it would be a hollow victory. He waited with Kevin, while he rested and let his butchered hands heal. (They camped on port-a-ledges on the wall for over two weeks total). They were going to make it or not, together. That made a very big impression on me.

The true meaning of "it's the journey, not the destination."

And OMG, a Blu Ray. So old school! JK. We do much more watching on disk than streaming. The library is a great resource, and if we know we are going to watch it over again we'll buy it. We even still have a mini DVD player we take for the kids to use on vacations. Those options are getting limited, though. For a while we'd buy Blu Rays that came with DVDs. That's not possible as much anymore. But soon enough they will have their own devices to keep them occupied on long trips, right?

[Rommie]

And OMG, a Blu Ray. So old school! JK. We do much more watching on disk than streaming. The library is a great resource, and if we know we are going to watch it over again we'll buy it. We even still have a mini DVD player we take for the kids to use on vacations. Those options are getting limited, though. For a while we'd buy Blu Rays that came with DVDs. That's not possible as much anymore. But soon enough they will have their own devices to keep them occupied on long trips, right?

I've thought about this a bit because we actually don't have a blu-ray or DVD player at all in my apartment- laptops of course don't have drives included anymore, and we never bought one (last time I bought one was like half a dozen years ago during my MSc, when the whole Netflix DVDs thing was still in play). I mean, I keep thinking we ought to get one, as they're like $20 and then we could get some free stuff from the library, but usually we just spend the money to rent it on Apple Store the few times it comes up.

Otherwise, it's whatever is free on YouTube/ our two or three TV channels on the antenna, and then Netflix/ Amazon Video/ CraveTV (basically a Canadian TV streaming service where everything gets dumped with no good international distributor, like Hulu shows and old HBO ones). Probably the most annoying thing is there's less stuff on Canadian Netflix than the American one.

[Thumper]

And OMG, a Blu Ray. So old school! JK. We do much more watching on disk than streaming. The library is a great resource, and if we know we are going to watch it over again we'll buy it. We even still have a mini DVD player we take for the kids to use on vacations. Those options are getting limited, though. For a while we'd buy Blu Rays that came with DVDs. That's not possible as much anymore. But soon enough they will have their own devices to keep them occupied on long trips, right?

Yes they will. The Kid, and Mrs. T stream everything. The Kid from her phone or laptop. I still watch "live" cable and what I've recorded on DVR. When I went to stream the Dawn Wall, it was like $17 bucks to rent from Prime, I said screw it, paid the $22 bucks for it and now we have it with the bonus features. Like I said, silly snap decision. I like blu rays, 1080p video and all kinds of audio options. We've been watching some streaming stuff and the video was so bad and pixelated, it looked worse than an old school broadcast from the '80s on a tube TV. Also, it's hard to get the good Dolby and DTS true discrete 5.1 and 7.1 surround formats when we stream. Often it just a downmix.

[Thumper]

Funny thing now that I re read through Rommie's post. While The Kid and I were driving around last night, she got a text from Mrs. T (who is in Nashville on a business trip). She wanted The Kid's Netflix password so she could stream in her hotel room. For all the traveling for work I've had to spend alone in hotel rooms, I would have to settle for cheap Chinese take out, and whatever crappy cable options the hotel offered.

[Rommie]

Funny thing now that I re read through Rommie's post. While The Kid and I were driving around last night, she got a text from Mrs. T (who is in Nashville on a business trip). She wanted The Kid's Netflix password so she could stream in her hotel room. For all the traveling for work I've had to spend alone in hotel rooms, I would have to settle for cheap Chinese take out, and whatever crappy cable options the hotel offered.

Funnily enough, one of the things I find myself doing when I travel for work is getting sucked in by their cable! Because I watch it so little, it's fascinating to see all the options, as no one to my knowledge ever picks up crappy reality shows or Ancient Aliens for their streaming services.

[SciFiFisher]

Funny thing now that I re read through Rommie's post. While The Kid and I were driving around last night, she got a text from Mrs. T (who is in Nashville on a business trip). She wanted The Kid's Netflix password so she could stream in her hotel room. For all the traveling for work I've had to spend alone in hotel rooms, I would have to settle for cheap Chinese take out, and whatever crappy cable options the hotel offered.

Funnily enough, one of the things I find myself doing when I travel for work is getting sucked in by their cable! Because I watch it so little, it's fascinating to see all the options, as no one to my knowledge ever picks up crappy reality shows or Ancient Aliens for their streaming services.

If you are going that route you should try the "How It's Made" shows. I can spend hours watching how they make things like vinyl records or hot dogs.

[Thumper]

If I have control of the remote, I'm either watching Star Trek on BBC, How It's Made, or How the Universe Works on Sci or Disc, (Sometimes Amazing Acts of Science), Some musical doc or The Big Interview on Axs, or Air Crash Investigations on Smith.

Oh, BTW, I thought the cinematography was awesome and the movie was well done on The Dawn Wall.