Pancho & "Lefty"

You have to be super careful about making people with one hand angry. They always have a harmful weapon firmly attached to their composite limb. Their temperament is also highly susceptible to the effects of altitude and temperature, as evidenced by this photo taken two summers ago at 14,000' (where my t-shirt-clad amigo was overwhelmed by the frosty high-altitude temps and took it out on his climbing associate... me).

Yes, this is the dark side of my former Aspen roommate Aron Ralston, who I'm very happy to announce will officially be making an appearance in Northeast Ohio next May in between travels to Europe and Colorado. This is a very sweet opportunity, as he is speaking at a special event for the Green Building Initiative that I'm part of, and we will be raising money for the Wilderness Workshop (a wilderness conservation non-profit out of Aspen). We'll just make sure to keep a warm temperature in the room so he doesn't go on an ice-pick hand attachment beating spree.

I hope this doesn't hurt his public perception... next thing you know Tom Brokaw's gonna have another special, "When Good 2nd-Tier Personalities Go Bad."