{"id":167,"date":"2013-05-24T09:11:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T17:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/?p=167"},"modified":"2013-05-24T12:53:58","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T20:53:58","slug":"friday-mid-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"Friday mid-day…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dad<\/a>

Dad in Kiev<\/p><\/div>\n

So, as I said in my mini post, much has changed.<\/p>\n

Right at the top, let me say that just about 24 hours ago, Randy went down to the police station and had a chat with the lieutenant who is in charge there.<\/p>\n

Randy, and those with him, were rather startled to hear that the police have changed the classification of the case to a criminal one. They have decided this isn\u2019t a missing person case. They said believe that this is either a kidnapping or a murder.<\/p>\n

More importantly, Randy was told that this wasn\u2019t just a local police matter now, but had been upgraded to a state case and that the SBU [what was the KGB years ago] was involved now.<\/p>\n

Randy said there was a stack of documents on the table, and that the officer said this was the file on the case. I\u2019m not sure why, but Randy wanted to take a photo of the cover sheet, and they said he could.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what to think. I like that they are taking the case more seriously and that, evidently, many more resources are available, and that we\u2019ve turned a corner. But I don\u2019t exactly like the sound of \u201ccriminal case.\u201d Yeah, who would.<\/p>\n

Randy and the people from the Union office and volunteers have been following up all the fragments of information they have had \u2013 reports, rumors, claimed sightings etc.<\/p>\n

These have, repeatedly, turned up nothing credible.<\/p>\n

We are continuing to gather video feeds and review them.<\/p>\n

We look forward to the state security services aggressively putting the resources that the state has, which are vastly more than we have [save God] to work in figuring out what happened and getting Dad back to us.<\/p>\n

—
\nSo, as long as I\u2019ve been telling stories, let me talk a bit more about REI and down-jacket related events.<\/p>\n

Dad hasn\u2019t been doing any mountaineering for a while now. I get altitude sickness so easily and that\u2019s no fun, so I\u2019ve not been climbing for quite some time either.<\/p>\n

But \u201cback-in-the-day\u201d we did climb together more than a few times. [Yeah, I know, \u201cback-in-the-day\u201d we had to walk to school, barefoot, in the blowing snow, uphill both ways with only birch-bark for lunch. Well, it\u2019s not quite<\/strong> that kind of story.]<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve climbed Mt. Hood, a couple of times together. I have a large [probably 18×20\u201d] print that Dad gave to me of me standing in the sunset on Mt Hood. It\u2019s a beautiful print and a very nice picture. It\u2019s framed and hanging up in our house.<\/p>\n

Well, that trip [at least I think it was that trip] was rather exciting.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d decided to sleep on the mountain, mid way up. Hood is really a one-day climb for the south-side \u2013 but I tend to feel less sick if I have more time acclimatizing and it\u2019s a shorter day if you don\u2019t do it all in a single day. [Good for older <\/em>men and wimps like me.]<\/p>\n

We got up and it looked like a reasonable day. A reasonable day in the northwest, on the mountains is a day when it\u2019s not raining, blowing 50+ mph and not too cold or ugly.<\/p>\n

So we started climbing. Clouds covered the top section of the mountain and we thought this would clear as the day progressed. In any case, we\u2019d just come back if it got too bad. [Yeah, right.]<\/p>\n

Well, it didn\u2019t get any better, and in a few hours we were going up the summit chutes, which are not too far from the very top in what seemed like a hurricane.<\/p>\n

The wind was howling, we were in the clouds and could barely see the ground. There was so much moisture in the air, it would condense and freeze on everything \u2013 making what is called rime ice. It would even condense on your eyelashes and if you blinked, the two sets of eyelashes; bottom and top, would then freeze together and you couldn\u2019t re-open your eyes. Goggles would help with this, but we didn\u2019t want to stop to fish them out. So, you\u2019d just pull your hand out of your glove and melt and pull the ice off your eyelashes and you\u2019d be good to go, at least for a few more minutes.<\/p>\n

Why we didn\u2019t turn around, I\u2019m not sure. It\u2019s that allure of the summit, I guess. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s caused more than a few accidents and induced bad judgment in lots of climbers. Perhaps one could claim we used bad judgment too, I\u2019m just not sure \u2013 you generally think you\u2019ve done fine, until something goes wrong.<\/p>\n

Well, we did reach the summit and while you couldn\u2019t see a thing \u2013 not even the ground under your feet \u2013 we were happy we reached the summit.<\/p>\n

So we started down. But white-gray snow, white-gray sky, white-gray clouds and wind at unbelievable levels makes for vertigo – where does the sky and clouds end and the ground begin? The wind had been blowing us up the chutes to the summit. Now it was blowing directly in our faces. Even though we were now going down, one almost had to exert effort to go down against the wind.<\/p>\n

Well, a long 30-45 minutes later, and after having gone somewhat off-course in our trek down, we break out of the clouds. I now know, first hand, how easy it can be to get lost on Mt. Hood.<\/p>\n

We gathered our tent and other gear we\u2019d left behind at camp and trailed out to the car many feet below us.<\/p>\n

It was nice to spend some time with Dad. I\u2019m not as much a mountaineering kind of person as Rick \u2013 I\u2019m certainly not up to the insane levels of torture he goes through. But it was a way Dad and I could do something together. We both love the mountains \u2013 especially mountaineering and being out in the brilliant, sparkling, awe-inspiring mountains. The snow soaks up the sound, and it\u2019s so very different, even when you\u2019re in the same place, sans snow and ice.<\/p>\n

This is one of only a few climbing experiences we had together and it was a good one. Sure, sitting in the sun on the lawn probably would have been a lot more pleasant \u2013 probably a lot safer too. But Dad wasn\u2019t the kind to pick \u201csafe\u201d over what he thought was important. [He certainly wasn\u2019t the one to shy away from pushing you through the hard-stuff he thought would help make you stronger and better, no matter how much complaint and whining he heard. I\u2019m pretty sure there\u2019s more than a few of you who experienced that \u2013 at least the pushing part, I\u2019m probably the only one who whined so much. (I\u2019m sure the brothers would confirm the whining part! {and look, nested parenthetical asides! that\u2019s my specialty}) ]<\/p>\n

Dad is, and was, the kind who wasn\u2019t easy on himself, when he felt something needed to be done. He didn\u2019t give others the easy way out either. He\u2019d tell you fairly bluntly what you ought to be doing \u2013 he wasn\u2019t bossy, but he wanted to make a difference, he wanted to help. He cared a lot. Going to the Ukraine and the many, many hours he donated to helping people change the way they lived and their health, spiritual and physical were just part of who Dad is and was.<\/p>\n

You couldn\u2019t steer him away from what he felt was right. Sometimes it was not the best idea \u2013 like climbing Hood in that weather \u2013 but he always pushed himself as much as anyone \u2013 probably more. But he would push you pretty hard too.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re different in that way \u2013 but I know he pushed me and others because he cared, and he cares a lot!<\/p>\n

So, this experience in Kiev is just a lot like the way he lived and loved those around him. It\u2019s tough. It\u2019s hard, and we\u2019re beyond where we wish we were \u2013 we\u2019d rather be sitting on the lawn in the sun sipping a cool drink and enjoying the leisure.<\/p>\n

But he would be still thinking about all the stuff that he wanted to get done, all the ways he could help you be a better self, and how he wanted everyone to know, see and feel the God he saw.<\/p>\n

I know others have said it, but we\u2019ve also thought it and commented among ourselves \u2013 if<\/strong> Dad is being held by someone, one can be sure they\u2019re hearing about Dad\u2019s loving, caring God – and that he\u2019s doing his best to push them to live a better life too \u2013 regardless of how scary or hard that might be. I hope, if that\u2019s the case, that he\u2019s more tactful than he\u2019s been with me at times. He may be right, but sometimes he\u2019s less than the most gentle in expressing it.<\/p>\n

[Remind me to tell you about the patient who had been out snowmobiling and claimed that was \u201cexercise.\u201d Tact, and gentle? Hmmm.]<\/p>\n

So, please \u2013 continue to pray. We know that God is able to bring about *any* outcome. We will do our best to help, and do our part. But though God doesn\u2019t need reminding, please let us keep doing it anyway. I think he\u2019ll handle our \u201cwhining\u201d better than Dad did.<\/p>\n

-Greg<\/p>\n

Posted 2013\/05\/24 10.45a PT \/ 8.45p Kiev time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, as I said in my mini post, much has changed. Right at the top, let me say that just about 24 hours ago, Randy went down to the police station and had a chat with the lieutenant who is in charge there. Randy, and those with him, were rather startled to hear that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloop.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}