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Good morning!

We’re back! This weekend (actually most of last week really) was pretty much non-stop work. Friday saw class, Saturday saw class, and Sunday saw 11 hours of work on an engineering project. So really, not all that super.

BUT, there were moments of joy nestled in between the mayhem. First, I had dinner with Schuyler and Darcy on Saturday night. We got a little dance dance revolution and guitar hero in before I headed out overwhelmed with exhaustion. Those people are so much fun.

Saturday’s class was rather exciting as well. The class I’m taking is ‘Management Failure Analysis’ We’ve been talking about big failures and what went wrong and how to fix them. This week we had Rear Admiral Thomas Atkin come in to talk to us about Katrina. Admiral Atkin was the Chief of Staff for the federal government’s response to Katrina. His commentary was great and, whew, what a cool guy. Tall, clean cut, and dressed in his coast guard uniform he walked into the classroom with an aura of authority. He was extremely well spoken and really knew what he was talking about. He discussed federal and state law during emergencies and some of the challenges that he and the others (federal, state, and political) faced as they tried to rescue the people of New Orleans. We discussed future disasters, the role of media, the organizational structure of emergency response, and some specifics to Louisiana.

It was totally awesome.

All in all, the travel went pretty well last week. The meetings were smooth and the dining out was A+. After getting home I zipped out to Cape Cod to relax a bit with my sister and her fantastic friends Amy and Kevin. We played dominoes, ate excessively large burgers, and chatted about all sorts of things. It was a nice break from the typical world and despite the fact that the vacation was short, it did the job of resetting my frustration clock.

So now we’re back at work. The Problem Light remains on but I’m confident that my sunburn will be a consistent reminder of the weekend relaxation.

These Mondays keep sneaking up on us. We’re all relaxed into Sunday night and then… BANG. It’s Monday morning again. Here’s a recap on all things Mike D.

Work.
The next two weeks are going to be a bit off the charts with respects to work. Between travel and deadlines, it’s going to be out of this world. The problem light remains on.

Our band.
Our band continues to rock without a name. I started learning “Mailman” by Soundgarden. DANG. Wow. I really really appreciate soundgarden. Jesse and I spent some phone conversations this weekend trying to figure out the timing in the verses. I was thinking it was: 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 3, 4. But Jesse figured out that it was 8, 8, 7, 6. Look up the song on Youtube and count the beats. It’s truly a remarkable tune.

DDR.
There was a DDR get together on Saturday night. Darcy, Shaun, and I danced with powerful vigor.

The Website.
Ryan Schenk continues to be annoyed at the advertising. He’s going to be especially excited when he learns that I was just contacted by a new advertiser. Perhaps I can sell out even more (yes!).

School.
We’ve been reading about political work styles. Perhaps I’ll make a post about it, it’s moderately interesting. Despite this, all the homework is really putting a damper on my…

Climbing.
Haven’t been. School’s been annoying.

Kung Fu.
I hope that work and school won’t bust up my kung fu plans. I really want to get to those seminars next week.

Cape Cod.
It’s Cape Cod season! I’m hoping to zip out to Cape Cod this weekend for some fun with my sister. It’ll be nice to escape.

The Eating.
I’d mentioned wanting to improve my diet. This weekend was a good one for food. I had a wealth of veggies and tasty meals. I made my Dad’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe, my sister’s Pan Fried Noodles, and my dad’s Pizza recipe. Delish! And on my Mom’s suggestion, I’ve started having a small bowl of yogurt with granola as a tasty breakfast additive. It’s a good move.

And that’s it! How are things in your life?

This weekend my sister T was ceremoniously rewarded her PHD in social psychology. It was a really fun ceremony. There was a monster parade and bells and drums and hundreds of people wearing robes and various hats.

T walked across stage where the administration gave her the diploma and placed the hood over her head. It was triumphant. The raucous crowd cheered heavily. What perfect weather as well! It was a proud day in Rhode Island to be sure.

Yay Tree! Great job!

The rest of the weekend was reasonably relaxed. My memorial day was spent out at East Peak with Pete. I worked Rat Crack and Cat Crack with some practice ascending. Rat crack was kind of miserable. it wasn’t really a crack so much as an off width - and I hate off widths. Cat crack, on the other hand, was a totally intense crack. For crack climbing you have to jam your joints and fist in between the rock to help pull yourself up. It’s extremely intense. Every move hurts. Today my arms are all sorts of scratched and scarred from the climb.

Then last night we had some pizza and some rockband. This was a good weekend.

I tried to hit the reset button this weekend. I had a great jam session with the band Sunday, and my classes on Friday and Saturday showed promise to be some of the better classes I’ve had at RPI (a welcome relief). Also, I got a good amount of sleep Saturday night and again last night when I went to bed at 8:30pm. Yet still, I feel dead this morning.

I’ve decided to improve my diet a bit. The past month or two has had me eating really really poorly (cheddar bratwurst, kielbasa, pork, limited veggies, etc). Today my lunch is significantly improved with some pineapple for a morning snack and a chicken rice dish with a side of brussel sprouts for lunch.

Hopefully the improved foods and more established sleeping hours will improve my energy levels. I’d like to enter the age of 27* in overdrive.

*occasionally I read Craigslist personals. Lately there’s been a strange trend of the ages of people being switched to 27. This is horribly unfortunate if you are actually at the cusp of 27 trying to find people of similar age. Try it out! go to any craigslist place in the country and check the ‘women seeking men’ section. the few sites I checked all had at least 30-40% of people were twenty seven. But then, if you open some of those, they will describe people who are definitely different ages. I presume it’s some sort of bug or spam, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

I got quite a bit of work done this weekend. While I spent much of my Saturday and part of my Sunday doing work for work and school, I did have an opportunity for some sit down time. The time spent sitting was spent mostly with a guitar in hand as I worked out the intricate details of my VOX toneLab which, as I learn of its potential, has me wondering if I need a hardcore Amp Head. This pedal just might have enough to keep the sound heavy. I’ll keep you updated.

And last night the Fun Club got together to check out BlindSight. It’s a documentary about 6 blind Tibetan teenagers who go on an adventure climbing one of the peaks adjacent to Mount Everest. It was both heartbreaking and inspirational. In Tibet, if you’re blind the populous assumes it’s because you did something horrible in a previous life. Because of this, many of the children were scorned by their parents and families. Some were openly called a burden and a disgrace. They got out of their houses and went to a school for the blind where they developed new skills. And then, they got a unique opportunity to meet Erik Weihenmayer the first blind individual to climb Everest. Erik motivated them and got a team of guides together to help the kids climb a 21,000 ft peak next to Everest. They suffered from altitude sickness, stumbled, and lost faith but kept onward. I won’t tell you what happened, but I will say that after their adventure, those six kids were able to go onward and achieve really amazing things.

And now it’s Monday! And we’re back in business.

Weekend hours awake: 41.5
Weekend hours of fun: 3.5

% of weekend that was not fun: 91.57%
% of weekend that was fun: 8.43%

This weekend’s timeline.

(more…)

This weekend was packed.

Saturday was a day of Kung Fu, Taxes, and Homework. Taxes turned out to be a phenomenal punch in the gut as I tried to carefully deduct every receipt that I had for House of Rock repairs in 2007. Too complicated friends. Much too complicated.

So let’s just scratch Saturday as a day of frustration. Sunday however… Sunday was enough to redeem the weekend. It was the ultimate day of adventure.

At 8am Pete and I were at Cathole setting up a few climbs. Pete started with a lead of a 5.6 called ‘elegant monkey.’ It did not feel even remotely like a 5.6

5.6’s should be reasonably comfortable, with plenty of hand holds where you can rest and relax. After Pete lead it, I followed and even with a rope above me I felt really uncomfortable. It was an intimidating overhanging route and required some fist jams and finger jams to get through it. Pete didn’t look concerned at all as he worked through a dicey crux. I have no idea how he pulled it off so smoothly. Despite all the brutal difficulty, it was exceptionally fun. After we finished that route, I jumped on Pegasus (5.8) again.

Pegasus is a very comfortable climb, but I didn’t perform too well. I strung myself out a little too much and had a piece of gear that wasn’t as bomber as I would have liked. I think when climbing I need to make sure to remain patient and not rush gear placement. One thing I’m very proud of is my top anchors. They have progressed considerably from last year.

After Pegasus, I zipped down to Stratford for band practice. We pretty much went through all songs learned to date, and really… they weren’t too bad. Heavens my guitar is fantastic. I can’t even begin to tell you how much joy it brings me. Once our band secures a bassist and a bandname, we’ll be probably about two months of regular practice away from a show.

After jamming, I drove up to Irene’s place for a huge dance dance revolution (the Hottest Party) get together. It was amazing. There were four hours of dancing. FOUR. We had two pads and probably about 6 active dancers. Darcy will probably throw up a review at some point, perhaps even with incriminating video. Check out her blog here.

And now it’s Monday… and I’m starting the week with a Keg of Coffee.

On Saturday night I headed into Boston with a wonderful group to see Alicia perform with the Firebird ensemble and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

The Cast:
Me.
Ryan Schenk
Ruth
Math Tim
Chef Sarah
Kelly
Chris

The Arrival

We all arrived in Boston at different times. Ryan, Ruth, and Math Tim met me in town around 6:40 for beverages . Chef Sarah, Kelly, and Chris came a bit later. As I walked these three up the stairs to our balcony seats Kelly asked…

“What type of music is this anyway?”
Mike D: “Modern.”
Kelly: “Modern?”
Mike D: “Very modern. It could be really strange.”

The show.
The event started with the world premier of a piece composed by Alejandro Rutty called “The Conscious Sleepwalker Loops.” It was fantastic. The music was sweeping and epic with some A+ percussion. Ruth spent much of the first song leaned forward looking over the balcony rail at the drum player who was rocking out.

The second piece was the world premier of a piece by Derek Hurst. The music is described on the bmop website as “a precarious balance between visceral solemnity and muscular jocularity.” The Firebird ensemble was featured and really? it was very strange. The beginning was really powerful and had the stringed instruments of the Firebird ensemble plucking their strings aggressively. I looked over towards Ryan Schenk who gave two thumbs up. After that the song became a bit more academic, and it was very tense and got me feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Intermission came and went and the second half started with the music Ken Ueno with yet another world premier. This one called “On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis”

DANG!

Ken is an overtone singer. and I was BLOWN away. He generated these powerful deep growls from within his throat that would occasionally be coupled with really high squeals. Behind his intense singing was some really wild string work which had the musicians sliding their hands up and down the strings creating a sensation of the music slowing and speeding. The other members of my group were not as thrilled with the vocals - they thought it seemed too painful or sounded too much like something you’d hear out of a horror movie. For me? I couldn’t be more awestruck. It was brilliant.

The final piece was a premier of a song composed by Lisa Bielawa called simply “Double Violin Concerto.” It was a very beautiful piece. The two violinists really worked well off one another. There were two things that were especially unique about this piece. The first was that there was an accordion player (yes!) The second was that the featured female violinist sang while playing. I don’t know how hard this is, but she did a pretty bang up job.

Overall, the event was really fun. It’s always a little weird going to these events, but definitely worth it to get a few new experiences.

This past Saturday was a blast. After a moderately intense kung fu class (we did conditioning… I’m sore), I headed over to the rock climbing gym with Irene, Tony, and Paulette. Where… wait for it… I started work on my first 5.13.

5.13’s are extremely hard climbs.

I didn’t finish it. In fact, I didn’t get much further than about 12 feet off the ground, but that alone is far better than I’ve ever performed on any 5.13 that I’ve tried in the past. Also, it should be said that I am still not a comfortable 5.12 climber. There’s a 5.12+ which is royally kicking my butt and a handful of 5.12-’s and 5.11+’s that cause me considerable grief. Still, getting on a 5.13 and working the moves feels really amazing. I’ve been told that the crux of the climb is actually at the top… very far from where I am. But have faith! I’m climbing harder than I’ve ever climbed before and I think that this route may be something I can accomplish. I’ll keep working it.

Sunday we had band practice. We started working on a Soundgarden tune (My Wave) and dang. Let me tell you: Soundgarden does some truly amazing things. My Wave is in 5/4 and has some really intense transitions. We sounded pretty good. I’m hoping to be ready for a show by June-ish.

After the band rocked out, I came back and put together a monster turkey feast for the roommates and our Roller Derby crowd. Chris, Irene, Keller, and I went over to check out the CT Roller Girls. Check out the review over on the left. The bout was incredible. Keller and I ended up staying at the After-party until about 11:30pm. It was a good time.

The next bout is on March 16th. It’s an interleague match and CT’s stepford sabotage will need our support. Let me know if you’d like to join our group.

This was a strangely busy weekend. I say ’strangely’ because despite a somewhat busy schedule, I got a lot of stuff done and managed to close Sunday out with a little relaxation. Friday was the final class in my supply chain course, Saturday concluded Ethics. Both courses were okay, I’m not a huge fan of either topic so I’m glad to see them concluded. Let’s look at the progression charts.

Not too shabby.

Saturday night I helped Shamus move into his new place up in Vernon. Prior to going to his place I picked up a few things at guitar center including the “Guitar Grimoire” which, so far, has been quite a challenge. The Guitar Grimoire is a collection of scale exercises that should help to improve my speed and comfort with performing sick absurd riffs. The exercises themselves aren’t overwhelming, it’s just getting over the habits that I have already developed and learning new picking techniques.

Sunday saw some academics with Pete, a couple hours at work, and then some climbing. I finished a 5.12 that would best be described as “pretty darn hard.” After climbing I made some delicious Goulash, practiced guitar for an hour or so, and then got into some reading and half of a film that came highly recommended from Jess.

The book: The Tipping Point.
it describes the point where trends, illnesses, and ideas go from small to huge. I really like the ideas presented. I’ll write a more comprehensive review upon completing the book.

The movie: Everything is Illuminated
A Warner Bros independent film that, so far (I’ve only watched 45 minutes), is pretty excellent.

And now it’s Monday and we’re back in business. This year is zipping by rather quickly.

Before leaving for my sister’s Cape Cod wedding, I sent out a quick e-mail to my coworkers informing them that I would be absent.

I always try and include something fun in the e-mails because “out of office” e-mails are notoriously boring parts of the cubical lifestyle. This time, I described the music that was planned for the wedding:

Fun Fact:
My sister is a professional flutist. As such she has a lot of classical musician friends who have offered their services at the wedding. The ceremony will include the following music:

Pre-ceremony
Selective Airs From the Renaissance and Baroque periods by a professional violist and cellist.
Ave Maria sung by professional Soprano

Processional
“Spiegel im Spiegel” for Cello
A piece by an Estonian composer (‘spiegel im spiegel’ means “mirror in mirror” in German)

All Mass Parts are from the Renassance composer William Byrd to be sung in Latin by a countertenor and two tenors

A response psalm sung by my other sister accompanied by some guitar by me.

Next, I will rock the heck out of the Alleluia on guitar. My eldest sister asked for acoustic, but I might bring out the electric with some heavy distortion just to shock the classical crowd.

After the vows there will be a performance of a Bach Flute solo, a Bach gigue for solo violin, and Panis Angelicus for soprano and flute.

The recessional will just be rocking loud organ.

One of my coworkers replied with this fantastic response:
“Is a countertenor anything like a counterterrorist? Is that an anti-tenor?”

Hilarious.

This weekend was decidedly mixed.

Thanksgiving was, of course, splendid. Any holiday that pulls family together and offers two days off from work gets a recommendation from me. Friday after an exciting breakfast with Abby and Ted, I got a haircut and then tried to zip back to CT in time for Kung Fu. I didn’t make it in time, so instead I went to Tony and Paulette’s place for some pizza and some Guitar Hero III.

Most of Saturday was spent researching my paper.

Let’s talk paper for a second.

The class is international business. What I need to do is write a 10 page single spaced paper that talks about something relating to international business. I want to write about intellectual property. My original thesis was an attempt to try and show that the sharing of intellectual property with developing countries is better for mankind. But right now, after a few weeks of research I want to say that really… we need something totally different. Capitalism based intellectual property hoarding seems to work, but it’s not very efficient. Peer Production seems genius and super efficient, but there are some fundamental difficulties that relate to what sorts of markets can benefit from creative donated collaboration.

If we look through the Kaleidoscope of Geekery, we’ll notice that Star Trek operated off of a Peer Production basis where the characters were not rewarded with monetary funds but instead with notoriety. Of course they had replicators for food. Star Wars was a capitalistic society. Perhaps my thesis should talk about what changes would be necessary from our current international business system if we were to start engaging in intergalactic business.

Anyway, my changing my thesis to “we need something new” is weak. It’s not quite specific enough - nor does it have as much to do with international business. So with a monster paper due in four days… I don’t know what to do.

Continuing with the weekend, Saturday night I watched the new Die Hard movie with the Scott family. It was hilariously fun. Sunday was spent working on the paper, doing chores, and playing about two hours of Rockband.

Now, it’s totally cool if you want to criticize me for playing Rockband when I have a huge paper due because Rockband… is probably the most amazing game ever. With Shaun on the guitar and me on the drums… well… it was two hours of intensity like none other.

Outside of my lingering sickness which continues to linger today, Thanksgiving was pretty sweet. The food was unstoppable and it was super wild to see the whole family.

Alicia gets married in a week, so much of the conversation was centered around final wedding plans. I got to show off my new guitar and did some fun piano/guitar rock songs with my sisters.

I hope yours was as wonderful as mine. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m in Chicago! I’m here on a sales trip and it’s pretty relaxing. It’s mostly been a mix of sales, homework, and adventure. The flight out on Saturday was fantastic. It just so happened that I shared a flight with Andreas the German Climber. We chatted and shared stories during the trip and the time flew (ba dum dum ching) by. That night I watched a great fireworks show from my hotel room.

Sunday night things were decidedly more lame as I stayed in to work on my paper.

Things picked up again last night when I threw academic responsibility to the wind and went out with the guys to Fogo de Chao, a well known Chicago Brazilian steakhouse. They give you a small token, one side of which is green, the other red.

When you want food, you switch it to green. And the food comes. Fast. An onslaught of meat like none I have ever seen. The first time I turned my token green and had to switch it back to red within 45 seconds for fear that my plate would be overrun by various cuts of tender salty meats.

It was a fun time.

Tonight will be another whole adventure. I’ll take pictures.

This weekend was a great reset. On Saturday I had my new guitar. And I played my new guitar. It is so absurd. It’s almost sinfully good. I feel guilty holding it in my unworthy hands. I played it for hours and hours and hours. Thankfully I took a long enough break to fix up the living room and get some cleaning done. The end result is a nicer house ready for fall.

I still have two or three more things to get done before HoR winterization will be complete.

Despite Kurt’s desperation, the Red Sox rocked the heck out of the Rockies this weekend.

And while the series was super exciting for us Sox fans… I am so disgusted by commercials. As a bit of a quick test I grabbed a stop watch and for twenty minutes I turned the stop watch on and off based on ads. Now, I was being harsh. Any advertisement what-so-ever was enough for me to stop the timer. Whether it was actual TV commercials, quick audio spots by the announcers, or a blatant ‘Bank of America’ billboard behind the batter.

The end result was bad, but not as bad as I expected. 11:57 mins of ads out of 20 min of TV. That’s 60% marketing crap 40% untarnished baseball. Although barely scientific, the quick study was fun.

It was a decent weekend here in CT. I finished my paper at about 10pm on Friday and was pretty pleased with the result. Class on Saturday was fun, we covered various topics on how the Fed can manipulate the economy and various methods of highly profitable price discrimination. Saturday night I stopped by guitar center to try some more guitars in my quest for rock.

I think I’ve decided on what guitar to purchase. Check out today’s feature to read about some of the things I’ve learned over the past weeks.

Sunday’s highlight was a visit with Paul Scott. We talked about various exciting projects and work and music and movies. It’s always mind expanding talking to Dr. Scott.

And of course last night, despite desperately wanting to go to bed at about eight thirty, I listened to the entire redsox game on the radio. Oh man. Super exciting.

Listening to sports broadcasts on the radio is really interesting. Let’s look at the options for baseball media.

1. TV
2. Radio
3. Gameday (internet)
4. Live internet Feed

Gameday, if you aren’t familiar, is a funky little graphical representation of a baseball game. It shows all sorts of stats but does an extremely poor job at showing action. The live internet feed is interesting… because they charge for it. Does anyone know anyone who paid for live internet feed last night?

I like radio. The announcers do a great job at conveying excitement at the field and add, I think, a whole level of excitement. They describe not only the action, but also the visual aspects that are just taken for granted on TV. “The Red Sox run onto the field, with their bright white home uniforms… Cleveland in their travel grays!” Their description of Coco Crisp’s final catch of the night was awesome. Too good to retell.

Even still, you miss the whole picture with radio. Perhaps the ultimate combo would be to watch TV with the sound off and the radio on.

Saturday Shaun L. and I took a trip up to Guitar Center to check out the latest and greatest of guitar design. You’ll see an exciting new post appear in the features section sometime in the next three weeks talking about guitars and the new purchase that is looming.

After that I went to Kung Fu and played a few sets of Tennis with Shaun L.

On Sunday, the intensity continued.

The day started with a beginner’s rock climbing day at Main Cliff. Pete, Paul, Lauren, and I got about 20 people together to share in the joys of scaling rocks. We set up 5-6 routes over the course of the day and, except for the occasional chilling winds, everyone seemed to have had a good time. TimBaird, Janelle, Asia, and Dave made up the group that came with me. They did really well.

Unfortunately, post climbing I wasn’t feeling too well. And despite sleeping 8+ hours last night I still felt pretty defeated this morning. Hopefully it will pass quickly and not develop into anything more hampering.

This week is the first in four weeks that shouldn’t have me traveling anywhere. It’ll be nice to stay home and relax.

This week… things change.

For one, classes are starting back up. I’m taking Conduction on Wednesdays, International Operations of Fridays, and Service Operations Management every other Saturday.

There’s nothing entirely unusual about this class schedule… but now I have an added commitment.

On Saturday, I am proud to report that I was promoted to blue belt in kung fu.
Looking at the following Kung Fu Belt Progress chart, you’ll see that I’m inching closer and closer towards the coveted black belt.

What does this have to do with added commitment? Well, blue belt and up is considered ‘advanced.’ This means that the class times will increase from one to two hours. This doubled time commitment will increase my weekly training from 3-4 hours to 6-8 hours. I also suspect the classes will get a bit more vigorous and I will be expected to reach new levels of fury.

It’ll be interesting to see how all this plays out.

In other news, keep your eyes open in the features section for a follow up on last night’s amazing roller derby bout.

On Labor Day Pete and I tried our luck at Chatfield Hollows.

Chatfield Hollows is a park in Killingworth, CT that has a quaint little rock climbing spot notorious for its short tough routes. The walls don’t go much higher than 40 feet or so, so the top of the cliff is just about at the same level as the tops of the trees.

After getting a little lost entering the woods, Pete and I finally found the crag and got started on a 5.5. This would be Pete’s first lead.

In action. Pete places some gear.

Pete’s completed his climb.

Now, this was a pretty good route to get a first lead in. The low height and great gear placement was super safe. Also, in an attempt to get some practice placing gear, Pete laced the thing up with protection. Let’s take a closer look at that last picture. I’ve circled gear in red.

Pete placed a total of 14 pieces of gear in a 30 foot wall. hilarious!

After Pete finished up we went through a few harder routes. Pandemonium, Sirius, and a third that escapes me. They were harder routes… 5.9, 5.9+, and 5.10+.

Overall, I would describe Chatfield hollows as somewhat magical. It’s off the beaten path so for most of the day Pete and I were alone at the rock. It was sheltered and the Gniess rock was a pleasant break from the typical Trap rock at Ragged Mountain.

This labor day weekend was overflowing with adventure. First, Saturday.

On Saturday I went to the Gunks with Andreas. The Gunks is a hugely popular climbing spot in NY and Andreas is an extremely intense German. He led a 5.10c like it was a walk in the park. Completely smooth and without hesitation. On top of that, he was humble about his on-sight achievement.

The second pitch of nurse’s aid was rated as a 5.10a… but it was not a 5.10a. At the top there was a “wild hand traverse” which would have been better described as an “insane hand traverse.” Here’s a rough sketch:

Andreas was unsuccessful in his leading of this portion of the climb. He actually had to make a little aid ladder out of gear. He did it, and eventually got to the top.

I was following, and when I got to the hand traverse I did the most horribly sloppy ascent. First I traversed out about 3 feet. Then I threw my left foot onto a chip in the far corner.

Then I mashed my face against the rock.. jammed my wrist into the crack and pushed down to get my body above the crack.

Then I brought my right foot up and kind of slobberly mushed myself higher. slobberly mush is a pretty good adjective noun combo. Other good adjectives noun combos that could be used to describe my motion might be:

sloppily wormed
grovingly smooshed
squirmingly wriggled

Finally I desperately grabbed for the top and stuck it.

After completing the route a group of climbers who had been climbing next to us spoke up.

climbers: You did a great job with that roof!
Mike D: Ugh. no I didn’t. it was just about as ungraceful as you can get
climbers: Grace? grace doesn’t matter in Trad* This is climbing not figure skating.

We had a good laugh. After nurse’s aid, I led CCK a 5.7/5.9 exposed lead. Once worn out, Andreas and I left the gunks and shared some pizza in New Paltz. It was a great experience and I was happy to spend some time with Andreas.

*traditional climbing

This weekend was perfect.

Friday night I had a very important kung fu session and I’m pleased that I went. Sijeh Shannon was running class and critiqued my forms to a level beyond any other. It was extremely helpful.

Saturday Dave Susco and I hit up Main Cliff in the early AM. I started with a quick Broadway lead (5.8). Then Dave led a two pitch route: Jessica (5.8+ R). In actuality we never meant to have him start up an R. I was looking at the book, got confused, and we started up the wrong route. That said, it turned out to be the best climb of the day. The top was extremely tricky, and despite it being an R (this means rare gear placement) Dave threw down 6 pieces of protection in 20 feet. And this was absolutely necessary. He ended up taking a pretty big fall right before topping out. I would guess that he fell about 12 feet. It was wild.

The gear held without a problem. The top ended up requiring three consecutive sharp crimps and some creative footwork. It was a blast.

After eventually finishing that route we headed over to Vector and I led that route without too much difficulty. The crux was a thin off width that required a 4 cam. Unfortunately, I’d already used it so I had to run out about 12 feet of rope (not ideal). But I never felt very nervous… I think I will soon be ready for my first attempt of YMC - Main cliff’s infamous 5.9.

Some day I will be leading 5.10s. And that will be a triumphant day.

After climbing Dave and I shared some martial arts knowledge (he does Bando*… a thailand fighting style). It was fun.

Sunday, Shaun L. and I cleaned out the fridge (it was very dirty), I finished my cleaning of the downstairs bath, and we hit up the grocery store.

Good times. Very good times.

*SEE COMMENTS

And American for “Staggeringly Delicious.”

When I was a kid my mom used to occasionally make us Calzones for lunch. It’d be a long calzone cut into thin slices and filled with such delicious combos as ham and cheese or meatball and sauce.

Well, yesterday I tried making some Calzones following my mother’s instructions. And they came out near flawless. The idea is simple enough. Buy some frozen meatballs and some pizza dough. Let the dough sit for an hour or two to rise, thaw the meatballs, and then roll into a long strip. Perhaps about 30 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters long.

Throw some meatballs, sauce, and cheese in there and roll. It’s even more exciting if you do multiple layers.

Put it in the oven at 190 C (375 F) for 15-20 minutes and you’ll be good to go.

You’ll know it’s reached its maximum potential for delicious if you tap the calzone and it knocks as if hollow. So delicious!

I installed a dishwasher yesterday. It went… okay. I have a bit more plumbing I need to do (replacement of a leaking valve with a ball valve)… but we’re really close. And it’s currently fully plumbed and will clean dishes nicely.

It’s pretty exciting having a new appliance like that. I’m debating whether or not I should consider this as the Appliance of 2007. For the past three years I’ve been buying myself an appliance.

2004: Rice Cooker
2005: Dyson
2006: Kitchen Aid Mixer

And while the dishwasher certainly will get tons of use and make my life easier, it’s almost more of a house improvement then it is a personal thing. And someday when I move out, I’ll leave the dishwasher behind.

In other news, I had my final MBA class of the school year on Saturday. Unfortunately, there’s a take home exam that isn’t due for another week. This is annoying because we really only get a few weeks off from class each year, and this take home is essentially extending the semester.