Heisenberg

I'm from Warrensburg, which is like 5 mins from Lake George (you're probably more likely to have heard of that lol)

Welcome! Fellow Upstater here

You should. From what I've seen from my own experience is that the climbing community is exceptionally chill and open. I don't know how many times where I've been climbing somewhere with my buddies and another group of people will want to climb on the boulder or problem we are on and everyone just jumps in, spotting, encouragement, all that stuff. Then next time you know you're chatting about any and everything. It might be a fantastic way to introduce yourself to people and let them know about your stances on parenting and such. Glad you enjoyed the resources. I've been to a bunch of those places. Some really hard and beautiful lines. There's a place in Indian Lake, Snowy Mountain (I'm sure theres some videos from that place in the resources), that has these crazy huecos in these sandstone type boulders. Crazy stuff with dynos. If you're ever in the area and need a guided tour I'd be glad to either get you in touch with some people that do that sort of thing or if you got a group of friends you're with you can come along with my group if we're going out. Not to worry, I think only 2 of them are serial killers but you don't fit the profile they like so you should be good. Should be. lol

Some really great beautiful areas, if you ever get the opportunity you should certainly take it up, for the scenery if nothing else heres a decent resource: adkbouldering.blogspot.com and another: southernadirondackclimber.blogspot.com maintained and updated by some locals who are always out looking for new spots and putting up sick new lines also, you should pick up some climbing vids if you already haven't, BigUp Productions comes out with some great stuff, showing some of the best climbers in the world doing some of the coolest and hardest lines all over the world, nothing gets you more excited then seeing some hard stuff go down, really motivating

Ive done a bunch of outside climbing. Mostly bouldering, much cheaper, I live in a pretty nice area for climbing but its either mostly trad (which is expensive) or bouldering Lets see, been to Keene Valley (gorgeous place), McKenzie Pond, The Shawangunks down in New Paltz, Rumney in NH, a place in Indian Lake, and several more local spots Another reason I prefer bouldering: I'm terrified of heights lol We have a few local indoor gyms Ive been to, participated in a few competitions for fun

Nice to meet you as well What part of upstate you from if you don't mind me asking Im from right near Lake George And yes climbing is amazingly fun, gets you in shape really quickly, a super social activity (well bouldering anyways) Where have you gone climbing? Had the chance to get outdoors or just inside so far?

Glad to meet you Yeah, it's pretty amusing when people think Albany is upstate It's like, you do realize there is a couple hundred more miles of NY north of Albany right? Plattsburgh, ahh, I dated a girl who wound up going to college there a long while back, dear heavens there is nothing to do, perhaps that's why it was one of the top party schools in the nation for a while Im definitely thinking about getting out of here but looking further away than NH

Interesting question and I actually have some (very small) experience with this. I managed to convert a coworker who was a full on creationist. A lot is going to depend on your personal relationship with the person. I was friends with this person outside of work so it wasn't just a coworker type deal. That helped in my case because I tend to be extremely blunt in conversations about religion and go straight for the jugular (you'll see what I mean), so being friends beforehand took some of the sting out of what I had to say and ask. I didn't bother with logical arguments or scientific arguments, I basically took the Bible (she was a Christian) and applied it in a personal way to her. For instance I took the story of Abraham and Isaac and asked her if she was told by God to kill her brother to prove her faith if she would. I didn't allow her filibuster with rationalizations or excuses, I cut her off immediately, and made her answer Yes or No. I forced her to confront the problem she knew innately, that if she said yes she would be committing an unspeakably horrible act and if she said no because of that then God surely wasn't the source of morals (since she would be substituting hers for his) nor a completely good or moral entity because no one of even average moral character would even ask that. Things like that. I think for a lot of people the moral aspect is more difficult to overcome than the logical or scientific aspects. If you can overcome that then the other stuff is easier to convince them of. There are some caveats of course. Despite the fact that her father is a pastor and both parents are creationists (of the "the earth is 6000 years old" ilk) she is very smart and curious. She was willing to atleast listen and willing to face up and give an honest answer (eventually) instead of continuing to deflect with irrelevancies. So I think you need to gauge the person, if they are willing to listen and honestly answer questions then you have a shot. If you see some daylight through the cracks then hammer away at them. Eventually the façade will crumble. Of course if they aren't willing to face up to questions honestly or even worse say something like "well yeah id kill my brother to show my faith" then you have no chance. So if you have a good relationship as friends (so they wont just get furious and not talk to you anymore), the person is smart and atleast willing to answer honestly, I think making it personal (in the way I described, I didn't once say she was a horrid person or anything like that because of her beliefs for instance) is a good way to go. It's sort of like Stef's "against me" argument in a way.

Hello everyone. My name is Al. I'm a 32 year old from Upstate NY (and by upstate I mean like an hour north of Albany). My journey to here started in 2007. I started following the Presidential primaries that year (I'm not actually sure why I suddenly became interested, I had never watched anything political before) and in doing so I discovered Ron Paul. I had always considered myself a Republican, in hindsight it was because I fell for the laughable description that Republicans were for smaller government, and I even voted for George W. Bush in 2004 based on my naivety (my birthday is in Dec. so I missed out on the 2000 election by about a month). I was your basic little info voter. Though I now find politics to be a pretty detestable endeavor, it was my initial interest that set me upon this path. When I saw Dr. Paul and listened to what he was saying it made a lot of sense to me. I watched the debates (my particular favorite Paul performance was at the Reagan Library during that cycle, where Paul had the fantastic quote, which pretty much sums up politics beautifully, that McCain and Romney were arguing over "who said what, when" instead of foreign policy) and felt like I was having a revelation. The message of liberty spoke to me in a deep way. I guess the best way of describing it would be to quote Giordano Bruno, "The revelation of this immensity... was like falling in love." I now hungered to learn more. I bought books, read articles, watched videos. This would open me up to more and more. I found Tom Woods, Lew Rockwell, Schiff, Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, Rothbard, Adam Kokesh, and eventually I landed on a Stefan Molyneux video. Each source leading me to another and leading me further down the rabbit hole. From Republican to miniarchist to eventually, after much thought, (and listening to argumentation put forth by people like Kokesh and Stef) the only position that made any sense if I indeed held that initiating violence was immoral. Anarchy. As for religious affiliation, I would consider myself an antitheist. I went to church as a child (my parents never made me and they didn't go themselves) but I don't recall ever actually believing any of it nor do I recall ever praying. Looking back I think I went because of the community. I was in the Awanas (sp?) which is basically a more religious boyscouts/girlscouts with workbooks and badges and all of that. It was fun. Now I consider myself to be on the Christopher Hitchens (love that guy) side of the religious argument (minus the warmongering stuff). Outside of taking part in stuff like this I spend a lot of time reading (I like fantasy stuff), watching baseball (NY Mets fan), rock climbing (awesome job on Tommy and Kevin conquering the Dawn Wall), chilling with my niece (shes a little over 1 y.o.), and keeping up on all the cool scientific and tech stuff that's going on these days. And that's about it. Any questions feel free to ask.