A couple months ago I decided to get a new cellphone. My Nokia was acting crazy, with all kinds of weird crap on the display, make it pretty much unreadable. The phone still basically worked, in that I could make and receive calls, but if I wanted to do anything else with it, I'd have to have memorized the menu options. Now occasionally, the problem would go away and it would act perfectly normal for a day or so, but then it would right back to spewing gibberish. So, I waited until Amazon had one of their $50 coupons, and bought a new phone last week. It's amazing how tiny and cheap phones are nowadays. I paid $79 for mine, after the coupon. Now, I should probably take a moment to point out that my Nokia no longer needs replacing. It's actually been acting perfectly fine for about a month now. However, I promised myself a new phone, and I'm not the kinda guy to go back on a promise, especially one that lets me get a new toy to play with.

I went home this afternoon to take Jade to the vet, and saw a FedEx guy waiting for the elevator holding an Amazon box. I asked him if that was for 702 and, luckily for me, it was. (Why lucky? Well, for some reason that I can't quite fathom, my condo and FedEx do not get along, which means that FedEx either will not or cannot leave packages at the front desk. UPS can, the Post Office can, but not them. So this makes it a real pain whenever I receive something shipped by FedEx. Unless of course I happen to find myself sharing the elevator with the FedEx guy on the right day, but this is the first time that's actually happened.)

So I've got my new phone, which is at home charging its battery, and I go onto the SprintPCS web page to find out what I have to do to transfer my service to the new phone. And this is where the bastardness comes in. They have a $34.99 "phone activation fee." Now what the hell is that? That's almost half of what I paid for the damn phone, and is equivalent to almost three months of service for me! I can't imagine what sort of Herculean effort is going to be required on their part in order to justify that fee. In fact, you're supposed to be able to do the transfer right on their web page, which means it shouldn't even require any human labor. However, when I try to do it on the web, I get an error. Which means I'm condemned to one of two fates: calling Customer Care, or visiting the SprintPCS store. Those of you who have ever had to call SprintPCS Customer Care, or waited in line at one of their stores, know what a difficult choice that is. Ugggh.

May 1st. An incredibly sad morning for all at Base Camp as we've just seen Babu Chiri Sherpa's prayer-scarf entombed body, once so bursting with life, off to Kathmadu by Helicopter. Babu died two nights ago at Camp II when he accidentally fell into an unseen crevasse. He, Boca and Dawa (Babu's brother) had arrived at Camp II early that day (April 29th) and were resting before beginning the difficult process of carrying loads the following day from Camp II directly to Camp IV. Babu took a nap after lunch and in the early evening decided to get a couple of video shots of the sunset. He walked 200 meters South of our camp and evidently fell through a completely hidden crevasse 30m to his death. It is surmised from the amount of blood and the fact that he was wedged upside down in the crevasse that he was not stuck there long suffering. It wasn't until 9 or 10 that night that they realized he was missing. After a brief search, the body was discovered around 12am. When word went out to Base Camp over 30 sherpas went up the mountain to help in the process of bringing the body down. Babu is survived by a wife and six daughters. We (Rick, Brant and I) had been resting down in Deboche when we heard the fractured news that something had happened to Babu, it didn't look good, but it also was very unclear. We packed our gear and raced back to Base Camp (trekkers usually take 3 days or more to make the trip we did it in 6 hrs of quick hiking). We made a stop on the way up at a point about half way between Periche and Lobuche where there is a memorial sight to herpa's who have died on Everest. A mismatch of Cairns and Memorials each it's own irregular shape, size and existing within it's own private space on that gray windswept plateau below the Everest massive. We carefully built a rocky spire topped with Juniper branches in the middle of the hail storm that raged around us and continued on our way. It was miserable weather all the way back to Base Camp, windy, hailing and then a full on snow blizzard around Gorak Shep as if Sagmartha herself was tormented by Babu's senseless death. But as we arrived in Base Camp under the cover of nigh€t, the wind had calmed, the sky had cleared to a starry half-moonlit night as somber, but as beautiful as the scene we came upon. We found Babu's body laid out in the large domed Mountain HardWare tent. The room was lit with Candles and incense and was packed with a patchwork of down and Gortexed clad Sherpas. Lahwang and two other Sherpa's from other expeditions, who were also Lama's were chanting and someone was busy handing out milk tea. The vigil went on like that throughout the night. His death is not only an immense loss to his family, but the Sherpa people, the country of Nepal and humanity in general and I don't say that lightly. Let me explain. Babu has summited Everest 10 times, holds the speed record of an ascent from Base Camp to the summit of 16 hrs and has spent 21 hrs on the summit in a Mountain Hard Ware tent without oxygen a feat that doctors assumed was impossible. We were here this year so that he could get 2 more ascents of the mountain this season, securing that record as well (current record for most ascents is 11). Yet these "stunts" are not simply for personal gain or for ego. Babu with his partners, Karma and Lahwang have built a business, Nomad Expeditions, that is wholly Sherpa owned and run. Where most climbing Sherpa's are freelance, hoping to get an expedition in the Spring or the Fall that will pay for their whole year, Babu and his team are completely self sufficient. In addition to securing a better, brighter future for his and his own, Babu started a project to raise money to build schools in High altitude Sherpa communities (Thus the continued stunts). He has already built one and was in the process of building another. (The school project was another part of our expedition and in the 6 short weeks before we left for our trip we were able to raise $6,000). Babu's hope was that with a proper education, the climbing Sherpa's of tomorrow could build and control their own climbing businesses or more importantly would have a choice whether to climb at all or not. Ironically, Babu was pushing the limits of climbing so that the next generation wasn't left with that as their only career avenue. For all these things he's done and simply for being a role model, he will be greatly missed by the Sherpa people and the people of Nepal. But above all that, I have to add that having gotten to know Babu, if even briefly, in the last couple of months I can say he will be a large loss to humanity in general, because he was simply such a brilliant spirit. A fairly short and rotund 35 years old, Babu had a mischevous laugh that you could hear two tents away and find yourself breaking into a smile at the pure joy of it. He was very quick with a joke and even quicker with a smile. I remember in our first meeting when we were grilling him on climbing Everest and I asked him if there was any secret to keeping warm on the mountain. He paused, giving it some great thought, fired off something in Nepalese to Lahwang then looked at me and said "you could bring your girlfriend." And let out his contagious laugh. The world is in a great shortage of spirits like him. He'll be missed by all.