Written by Barry Duggan and Ralph Riegel.

MEET the country’s oldest mountaineer.

John Lyne (85) was this week preparing for his next challenge at his home in Castletownbere, Co Cork after he conquered the country’s highest peak – for the 205 th time.

The retired doctor again scaled all 3,414 feet of Carrauntoohil in recent weeks and said he is eagerly looking forward to taking on the next summit.

He is no stranger to the Kerry peak and has continued to scale it – no matter what the elements. Speaking of his most recent expedition, Mr Lyne said the mud was getting heavier on the slopes of Carrauntoohil.

“I fell a few times on the ‘Devil’s Ladder’. It was a bit slippery there and I got a bit of help. Coming down, it was deep mud. I never saw it as deep. There must be a lot of people using that path. It was tough going and a bit slow for all of us,” Mr Lyne said.

The elderly man was in the company of Eilis Duggan, Seamus Harrington and Kay Mullins – all from Bere Island, Co Cork – and Noel Dineen from Ardfert, Co Kerry. Their leisurely ascent and descent took a total of nine hours.

The keen mountaineer said he began to take his hobby seriously when he turned 50 and said he has no intention of resting his limbs anytime soon.

“It is just something I liked and became more involved in. I’ve always been very keen on it and like it very much. It is getting tougher and I’m becoming a bit slower on them, but I’ll give it up when I die. I’ll have to look to climb elsewhere then,” Mr Lyne joked.

The nearest peak from Mr Lyne’s home to practise on is Hungry Hill in the heart of the Beara peninsula and he has climbed the 2,248 feet over 1,300 times. During the summer months, he is a familiar sight to mountaineers and hill walkers on the Beara peak.

Two years ago, he attempted to conquer the highest mountain in Africa.

“I had a go at Kilimanjaro when I was 83. I had to turn back at about 14,000 feet because of altitude sickness. I didn’t make it – that time. We’ll see in the future.”

“I retired as a doctor 15 years ago and have since climbed the main peaks in England and Wales.”

Outdoors Ireland - who organise mountaineering expeditions - confirmed that Mr Lyne is the oldest man in the country to have scaled Carrauntoohil.

Ruth Kingerlee of Outdoors Ireland said they had previously known of a 70-year-old who successfully climbed it. “At 85, he would certainly be the oldest man we would know about,” Ms Kingerlee said.

-ENDS-

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/oldest-mountaineer-dies-before-dream-climb-3031382.html

I have mixed feelings regarding the ongoing woes of Netflix. On the one hand I enjoyed using their services, but on the other hand I was annoyed by their steep price increase and am glad they are feeling pain for their choice. My delight is also because a group of customers decided to make their voices heard by canceling their service, and it has taken a noticeable toll on the company.

In so many companies that rely on a large customer base, the job of customer care is often assigned to a small number of employees. This is how it should be, a few people should focus on customer issues, resolving and preventing them. And in some cases a customer community can be nurtured that helps create an avenue of communication between the company and its customers. In good companies the job of customer care is integrated with the team of people working on the products and services provided. They inform other departments what customers want and how they will react to changes. When things are working well, everyone should have a good idea about what customers want and can plan accordingly.

Sometimes business needs conflict with what customers want. Price increases being the most obvious example. Customers also want the business to survive and thrive, but for the lowest possible cost to them. Here is where Netflix did not listen to their customers, and likely ignored their customer care employees. A 60% increase in price is a large amount for anyone to swallow, especially in such harsh economic times. It demonstrated a cavalier attitude towards Netflix customers and erased a lot of customer goodwill and loyalty. Perhaps Netflix needed to make these increases in order to survive and compete, but they did a horrible job of rolling out these changes. It was some saving grace that they cancelled the split in their services, but a lot of damage was already done.

Bottom line, treat your customers well. In most cases customers will not rally to demonstrate their dissatisfaction as clearly as they did with Netflix, instead they will gradually go elsewhere and encourage others to do so also. Once the tide turns, it can be almost impossible to turn it back.

I'm ready to go to Vegas for the weekend. My bags are almost packed and everything is in order. I even have a little black eye for good luck. I must have been clipped by an elbow or knee in jiujitsu class earlier.

The big plan is to go see Chris Cariaso fight in UFC 130 on Saturday. I have a ticket, and apparently a good seat. But I also hope to catch up with some LJ friends, visit a kung fu class and down some drinks at the Double Down Saloon. Should be a fun 48 hours, starting Friday afternoon.

Are you looking for a new hair stylist in San Francisco? Look no further than Willie Lizardo. I’ve known Willie for over 10 years, he’s been cutting hair for over 20 years and cutting mine for 8 years. He cuts hair for both men and women.

I normally get annoyed with cyclists on bike to work day, but today wasn't too bad. My main peeve in the past was the SF Bicycle Coalition "energizer stations". People would crowd around them and spill out on to the street and block bicycle lanes. I only passed one of the stations this morning and while it was busy, cyclists were not blocking the bike lane.

Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today.
Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
Try to have as good a life as you can under the circumstances.
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Back in the summer of 2009 I first tried out Jiu Jitsu at Fight and Fitness in SF. I took maybe 10 classes over the period of a few months. Most classes left me feeling quite sore, and as a beginner my ego was often bruised. But starting anything new often presents uncomfortable challenges. I missed classes for a while until I dropped in again in January 2010, and strained my back quite badly. Fortunately the Jiu Jitsu guy I was rolling with when I hurt myself was Peter Goldman, an excellent chiropractor and zone healer who fixed my back over the coming months. But while my back recovered my desire to explore Jiu Jitsu did not.

A few weeks ago I became excited about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu all over again. I read Sam Sheridan's book The Fighter's Mind, where a chapter focused on Marcelo Garcia, a world champion in Jiu Jitsu. He is an amazing competitor that often beats much larger opponents, see the video below. I also read The Art of Learning a book where Josh Waitzkin details his life growing up as a chess champion, and further on into his life as a Tai Chi Push Hands champion. Josh eventually moved into the world of Jiu Jitsu. Both these books reinvigorated my interest in learning Jiu Jitsu.

My goal in taking Alex Ferreira's class at FnF again was to do at least 10 classes. Going back to the class was a lot easier than starting from scratch. I remembered much of what I had learned before. The classes are still tough, I have a lot to learn, but the techniques are easier to understand. Free rolling, where you essentially spar on the ground, wears me out fast. Bigger guys I especially find grueling to work with, as they can use their weight to make me work really hard.

Today was class number five, taking me half way to my 10 class goal. Suitably it was commemorated with a slightly bigger guy dropping his knee, and his body weight behind it, directly on my crotch. Fuck that hurt, even with a groin cup. I almost called it a night, but eventually shook off the pain and got back on the mat for a little while longer. It was worth it, any time spent on the mat is a chance to learn more and get better. Each submission won a little reward for a job well done, each submission lost a motive to keep on working on improving my game.

Last Friday I was sparring in my Wing Chun class with AJ, feeding him a lot of round kicks to the outside. One of those kicks connected my foot to his elbow, and hurt a little. After class it hurt a little more, somewhat uncomfortable to walk on. I rode my bike to Zeitgeist and while standing at the bar decided to stretch my foot out. At that point it hurt like hell and was quite painful to walk on. I rode to my friend Sailaja's for dinner and rested it for a while, hung out and had dinner. A couple of hours later and it still really hurt to put any weight on my left foot. So, I decided I need to get it checked out and rode to the Kaiser ER on O'Farrell near Geary. Sailaja insisted on driving me there, but I insisted on riding because I could ride without any pain and didn't want anyone going to any trouble.

The Kaiser ER entrance is on a hill on O'Farrell. Not easy to ride or walk to. I hopped inside and told them I hurt my foot. Answered some questions, sat down. Got called to answer some more questions, have my temperature and blood pressure checked, then sat down again. I was called again to go sit in a shared room with beds and given ice for my foot. Doctor Jeanne came and poked at my foot and asked me questions and sad I would get an x-ray. I was rolled down to the x-ray room on a bed and rolled back again. Doctor Jeanne showed me the x-rays and told me nothing was broken. That was a relief. She said I could hang on to the crutches they gave me, but I declined. If the foot was not broken, I probably would not need crutches for long, and didn't want to bring them back. I paid $50 at the desk on checkout, and hopped outside to my bike outside.

I spent 50 minutes to an hour in the ER in total. I arrived at about 10:45, was being shown my x-ray at 11:30 and was out the door shortly after that. A pretty good ER experience with very little waiting.

Later that night I put ice on my foot again and took some ibuprofen. The next morning I woke up and it was much easier to walk on my foot, so I met with folks in the panhandle and went for a bike ride to Ocean Beach. It must have just been a nasty bruise in a particularly painful spot. By sunday I was able to walk around quite freely.