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This weekend was packed full of climbing.

Saturday: Whitestone Cliffs
Highlight: I led ‘Structures’ a 5.9-. Took my first lead fall, struggled through a hand traverse, but finished the route nonetheless

Sunday: Pinnacle Rock
Highlight: Led 5.8 Zambeezy. It was clean.

Monday: Main Cliff
Highlight: Led 5.7 Wishbone. Also clean, but the length of the route made it feel a bit harder than Zambeezy.

Outside of climbing, I hung out with Tony and Paulette a bit, partook in a Roast of all Roasts, cleaned, did some running and lifting with Shaun L, and took a number of naps. Naps, by the way, can not be appreciated enough.

On Friday night Jason allowed me to snag up his extra ticket and go with him to see Dave Brubeck play in Durham.

Dave Brubeck, for those of you who don’t know, is a jazz giant. He and his quartet came up with some really fantastic music including the infamous “Take 5″ and “Blue Rondo à la Turk.”

Brubeck got his group together to play for the inauguration of Jazz’d 4 Life, an organization whose goal is to help needy children both domestically and internationally. The show was hosted by CT’s weatherman of choice, Dr. Mel, and was very well organized.

The Quartet received a standing ovation as they walked on stage. They played for about an hour and a half (not bad for an 86 year old and his clan) and it was some of the best Jazz that I’ve ever heard.* The saxophonist, Bobby Militello rocked the Alto sax like nuts! and the drummer and bassist had phenomenal solos. When Dave hit the first two chords of ‘take 5′ the crowd exploded with cheers.

It was truly an amazing evening of music. Dave Brubeck is the man.

*to be fair, I haven’t heard TONS of jazz.

While in Cape Cod last weekend, I had an interesting car experience. When I went out to the Benchwarmer to drive the group to get ice cream, I reached into my pocket and found that my key had snapped in two.

This was not good.

I immediately got on the phone and called up a handful of mechanically savvy persons: My Dad, James, Galecki, and Chad to be specific. The general consensus was “get to a key copying place, and see if they can save you.”

Unfortunately, this delayed my return back to CT, so I made sure to call Jesse and Tony to make them aware of scheduling changes*. But, as long as I could get myself a functioning car, I wasn’t going to complain.

Sure enough, when I got to Eastman’s Hardware store in Falmouth, Janice over in the key department said she’d be up to the challenge. She clamped the two key pieces together and used a follower to carve out a new key. She did a darn good job. The new key started the car on its first attempt and I was able to get back to CT with a little extra time to spare. Total cost? $2.00

So, if you ever find yourself in a similar scenario… fear not. Your solution is just a hardware store away.

*special props to Tony for offering to drive from the HoR to Cape Cod (3.5-4 hrs) to deliver me a new key

Saturday morning, Ryan and I headed out to Chapin beach in Dennis to try and get in some kiting. I threw on my 3/2 wetsuit and Ryan let me borrow his hood. We got out there and found the beach occupied by about two dozen kiters

Chapin is a great beach for beginners. The water is quite shallow and, except for a small area of rocks, the beach is clean and open. I met a few of Ryan’s kite friends, specifically Ed and Roger. They were both out there on slightly larger kites. Ryan was all sorts of excited because he had just purchased a fantastic 11m off e-bay. Soon, he would rule the school with his sick tricks.

We pumped up our kites and Ryan got me out there with a 7.5meter. The wind was working, but my attempts were mostly weak. I was unable to do much more than struggle out of the water. I’m not highly disappointed because it was my first time out this season, and I’m just pleased to have been on the water. I was also a bit paranoid about neighboring kites. But, I’m going to just have to get used to it.

The other kiters seemed to be doing pretty well. There were even two real life Kitechicks there (real in person!). Apparently they had taken the Real ZERO 2 HERO training course in hattaras, and were now riding strong. All the more reason why I really need to get to kitecamp.

After struggling for about 30-40 minutes, I headed in to grab my camera and Ryan took off to do some mad jumps including a just where he was able to fully remove his foot from the straps, pose for glory, and then strap back in before landing on the water.

It was a pretty great day for kiting.

In brief, I went to Cape Cod Friday night, went kiting on Saturday, trampolined with Schenk’s trampoline board, played frisbee, met all of Ryan and Ruth’s awesome Clark friends, had some dinner and a sing-a-long, broke the nissan’s key in half, got it fixed, came home, cleaned, went climbing, and had some delicious tacos.

Unfortunately, the wild activity and mayhem has left me rather defeated. More specific updates will be coming later this week.

On Sunday night Jesse, Pete, Keller, Mandy, Cathryn, Tony, Ernie, and I got together to experience CT Roller Derby. We headed over to Roller Magic in Waterbury for the Carnival of Carnage!

It would be the violent meeting of the Iron Angels and the Bone Crushers.

I was rooting for the Iron Angels.
Pete was rooting for the Bone Crushers.

We got there about an hour early, which wasn’t entirely necessary as there was plenty of standing room. So we played some skiball and I won a sweet sheriffs badge.

Huge Crowds had gathered for the showdown.

The show started with team introductions. First, out came the Iron Angels. They were introduced one by one. Pearl Jammer, Pam Terror, Tina Colata, and Dead End Allie were the four main Iron Angel Jammers. They were fast, furious, and dressed for the part.

Then came the Bone Crushers. For their introduction, the bone crushers skated into the rink with Bats, chains, and other weapons of serious destruction. The crowds cheered ferociously for their home team as they were introduced to Chick Norris, the Ether Bunny, and Ivanna B. Choo.

The Roller Derby MC’s then went into a “how to” for roller derby. This was extremely useful, as none of us had any idea how the game was played. If anyone out there notices anything wrong with my explanation, just throw up a comment and I’ll make a correction.

As I understand it, there are three different kinds of roller girls.

The girl with the star on her helmet is the Jammer. It’s her job to get points.
The girl with the stripe is the Leader, she sets the pace of the pack and guides the blockers.
The rest are blockers, their job is to help their own team’s jammer through the pack and smash the heck out of the other team’s jammer.

Also in that picture is a ref. For obvious reasons, he’s wearing a clown wig.

While some rinks are banked, this was a flat track. The game consists of three 20 minute periods. Each 20 minutes period is broken up into “jams.” A jam starts with the setup show below. The ‘Pack’ which consists of the leaders and blockers, starts skating at a whistle (shown at the blue line). Another whistle a few seconds later starts the Jammers (shown at the red line). The jammers have to bust through the pack. The first jammer through is declared the ‘lead jammer.’ She has control over the rest of that particular jam and can call it off at any time by repeatedly tapping her hips (huge strategy here). Once through, the Jammers get points by passing their opponents blockers. For each blocker passed, they get a point.

Sunday’s game was fantastic! I was heavily rooting for Pearl Jammer and Pam Terror. Those girls can Skate!

The last 5 minutes were extreme. The Bone Crushers had a commanding 15 point lead. Normally, this would be near impossible to recover from. But not for my Iron Angels! In the second to last round the Bone Crushers made a bunch of mistakes. Elbows were flying! Before you knew it, the Bone Crusher’s Jammer and two of their blockers were sent to the penalty box!

the Iron Angels had FREE REIGN OF THE SKATE RINK.

And boy did they take advantage. Blcokers Nelly Knuckles and Bettie Mercury dominated and kept the Bone Crushers under control. The Iron Angel Jammer lapped the bone crushers FIVE TIMES bringing in ten points for the team.

I was going freakin’ nuts. Pam terror looked destroyed. These girls were exhausted.

There were two seconds left on the clock. Enough time to start one last jam! COULD THE IRON ANGELS GET THE 5 POINTS NEEDED TO WIN THE GAME?!?!

The Jam Started.

The blockers were especially vicious. Each Jammer was knocked down repeatedly as they tried to break through the pack. Suddenly, out of nowhere the Bone Crusher Jammer pulled some SICK moves and swung in front of the pack. She was declared the lead jammer! She IMMEDIATELY tapped her waist to end the round… and the Bone Crushers were victorious!

I clapped politely as Pete cheered heavily.

I can assure you, I will attend as much of the CT ROLLER DERBY season as possible. In September there’s a rematch between the Bone Crushers and the Iron Angels. My angels will have their vengeance.

Check out this YouTube video of Pearl Jammer being taken down mid-pack. You’ll here my disappointed sigh at the fall of one of our best Jammers. The video’s a bit dark, but hopefully you can still get a good feel for the mayhem.

I think it’s safe to say that good times were had by all.

After the Roller Derby we went to the After party at a local Waterbury bar. It was just a fantastic night.

UPDATE:
Hannah Granade of the L.A. Derby Dolls sent me an e-mail with some excellent additives to my rules explained above.

My league doesn’t wear helmet panties and doesn’t have a Pivot. We’re a banked track league and run by different rules..but I *coach* The OC Rollergirls so I understand a bit of flat track derby. Full flat-track rules can be found here.

The girl with the stripe is the “Pivot”, she sets the pace of the pack, assists her Jammer out of the pack with a whip or a bump and is the last line of defense to keep the opposing Jammer from exiting the pack.

The “star” can actually be passed between one team’s Jammer and their pivot and then the pivot can become the Jammer under certain circumstances. It’s really difficult to pull off and hardly any leagues do it.

The starting set up is:

X0
0X0X
X0

0X

The “Pack” consists of 2 teams, each with 1 Jammer, 1 Pivot, and 3 Blockers (our banked track league can get a bit more specific..using Jammer Assist, Blocker Assist and Primary Blocker positions within the pack).

A Jammer is eligible for “Lead Jammer” status only if she’s exited the pack “cleanly” the first pass through. That means she can’t commit a penalty and still become the Lead Jammer. She’s not allowed to block illegally, or step out of bounds and still become the Lead Jammer. In flat track roller derby the Lead Jammer is the skater who exited the pack cleanly *first*. In banked track roller derby the Lead Jammer is always the Jammer in the lead.

The Jammers exit the pack, race around the track (they can hit each other outside the pack) and on the second pass through they score points for each opposing player they pass.

Thanks Hannah Grenade!

This weekend kind of stunk.

Friday I spent some time with Ernie after class making pizza and playing Wii. That was the extent of fun for the weekend.

Saturday I started in on a Finance project, and outside of the occasional guitar break, didn’t stop.
Sunday was more of the same with the added bonus of some studying of Advanced Fluids with Pete.

Pete and I were sick of working and we needed a break. It was 3:30. Jesse, Kay, and Gary were climbing at Cathole and I really wanted to do some leading. So we grabbed our gear and headed over.

Climbing Story
For a fun game… let’s keep track of the good ideas and bad ideas in the following story. Devin is going to LOVE this.

We arrived at Cathole and I decided I wanted to lead 5.8 Saturday Night Special (bad idea #1). I got my gear on and got ready. We went over my plan for setting anchor at the top and reviewed each other’s knots to make sure we were in good shape (good idea #1). Then I started leading (bad idea #2).

The protection was there… but not great. I found a few good spots and a handful of mediocre spots. I wasn’t TOO worried because I was doubling up like crazy on my gear (good idea #2 and bad idea #3 (bad idea explained later).)

Then the wind started roaring and I started freaking out. It was brutal! Here I was, 30 feet off the ground with 70 feet to go, getting forcibly pushed around by chilled winds. I was nervous as all heck. BUT, my gear placement kept getting better, so I kept climbing.

Suddenly I looked down and realized I was running out of slings (see bad #3). Slings are used to connect the gear to the rope, so they are pretty important. Thankfully I had two double long slings left, and there was only about 15 feet left to climb. My cams had wiregates, so if I could find one cam placement, and then use my two slings I could still have gear that was 5 or less feet apart.

I grabbed one of my slings… and found that it was tangled with the other sling (bad #4). I was in a decent rest spot though, so I decided to try and untangle them (bad #5). a SOLID 12-15 minutes later, I was no further along and my left calf was at point of failure. It then started to rain (bad #6).

“Not Good,” I thought. “Maybe I can just use the tangled sling and try to get two cams in later on” (bad #7). I put my one piece of gear in and climbed up a little farther. The rain stopped.

This is where trouble really started. I looked up…. and the crack disappeared (bad #8). As far as I could see, there was no good placement for equipment at all (bad #9). I realized, that when I ‘mock’ lead this previously, I stopped before the top because the anchor was hanging. Without a hanging anchor, I was out of luck.

The wind tortured me some more and then I decided I better down climb (good idea #3 and bad idea #10).

Down climbing is not easy. And it stinks when you know you can’t fall on your gear. But, it was smart of me to bail.

So I started my way down. Thankfully, it wasn’t any harder than a 5.8 so I made decent progress. When I was about 30 feet up, I got into some trouble. I had to climb over a small bulge, and the foot placement wasn’t visible. On top of that, as soon as I put any weight on my calves they went into Typewriter mode, shaking like crazy from being overworked on that ledge.

I was right under a solid cam. And I felt FAR more comfortable about this cam then I did the two nuts that hung below me. I tested the cam again, and decided to lower off the edge (good idea #4)

Pete tightened the belay. That cam was extremeeely solid (good #5). He lowered me down.

I removed the gear below that cam.

Now we were in a new jam. I had left a piece stranded in the wall. I’d have to be lowered from the top to retrieve it. Joel and I hiked to the top. I kept my helmet on (good idea #6).

We get to the top, and Joel lowers me down. The gear, because it had been used, was thoroughly jammed in the crack. It took me awhile to release it.

Joel lowered me down the rest of the way. I reached the bottom and walked a good 10-12 feet away from the hanging rope. Joel shouted “ROPE!” and let go of the top.

It whipped down, as ropes always do. But for whatever reason, it flailed right at me. I crouched down and the rope whipped me in the helmet.

I wasn’t going to try my luck any more. I packed up my equipment and went home.

I’m going to have to ask Irene how the climbing books rate placement of gear on that route. Because I did not find it comfortable in the least. Especially at the top. Yikes.

I would describe the climb as a complete failure. But as Jesse pointed out, there’s two types of Failure and I’m totally okay with yesterday’s type.

End tally?
6 Good.
10 Bad.

This weekend seemed eternal.

It started with class Friday night and was followed by a visit with Ernie and Goss (Goss!). Now, visits with Ernie seem to be developing a trend. It usually involves me saying something like “hey Ernie, let’s hang out tonight. I have to get up by 7 though, so I should be leaving around 11.” Then Erich calls. Then we start playing games and teaching break dancing and kung fu and suddenly, it’s 4:30am, I’m still awake, and I’m cursing Ernie and everyone he knows.

After a solid two hours of sleep Friday night I got up on Saturday, worked on the House for a bit and then went climbing with a big crowd. We hit up Cathole and I tried out a bunch of my new equipment. I would tie into the top rope and then set anchors as I climbed to simulate the leading that will be coming soon. It was pretty effective and made the climbing experience a lot more exciting. The weather was perfect and surprisingly, no one else was at Cathole.

Check out that blue sky!
More pictures here.

Saturday night I started the taxes (Thrilling!) and went to bed.

Sunday morning I got up early again, and after some more house work went to study for today’s final exam. While there I got a call from Jesse.

“A Realtor just called. She wants to show our house tomorrow at noon.”
“oh no.”
“we have a lot of work to do.”

And with that, the rest of the evening was set in stone. We worked until after midnight cleaning, prepping, and discussing sale strategies. And today, the house looks pretty good. There are a few things we couldn’t get done, but I feel that we made our best effort. sigh. House selling is intense.

This weekend was rad.

Friday night, after shoveling forever, Jesse and I zipped over to Shaun’s place for some Wii and the third Matrix movie (I hadn’t seen it. The movie was far too confusing for me. Especially since it’s been years since I saw the second one.)

Saturday, I hit up Dick Blick’s, ACMoore, and a squeezed in a visit with my co-worker Dr. Scott in Farmington, CT who has the most amazing collection of fun things I’ve ever seen. After seeing a live demonstration of his self-machined model steam engine complete with boiler, mini-pressure gauges, and governor, I saw the Huge model railroad. He had cast each of the 115 buildings that surrounded the tracks. And at the flip of a switch, every street light and every building lit up with light. The train station itself was modeled after the old Penn Station in NY. And it really did look exactly like that. Each building facade was molded and cast, and every detail was taken into consideration.

After the railroad I got a tour of his gas, electric, and rubber band powered airplanes and a showing of the fully operational model sailboat that he’s building. It was a great time.

Upon my arrival back that at the House of Rock, Tom, Mykal, Shaun, Ernie, and Justin came over to share in some cooking, board games, and general good times. We made some sloppy joes, smoothies, and cappuccino crunch bars. We played the games Ra and “Hey! that’s my fish!” The fish game may be the simplest game on Earth.

We finished up with some wild Wii sports, Excite Truck, and Smash brothers. Good times.

Finally, yesterday I got some homework done and went climbing with Devin. There are a few new routes that are fun, though it still doesn’t feel right since Mike isn’t there.

I’m also working on a top secret Silk Screening adventure. Details to come!

This weekend was packed with excitement. Friday’s class went pretty well. I’m pleased with the content so far. The class generated a really interesting debate about Gandhi, and the question of whether his influence would have been stronger had he had access to today’s technologies. It was a good time.

Saturday was full of all sorts of Kung Fu thrills, followed by some music and a turkey dinner at Tony and Paulette’s place. The gravy was amazing. He found the recipe off of an Emeril website. I’ll see if I can hunt it down and share it with everybody. After turkey, I went home and watched the 2005 action movie DOOM starring The Rock as Sarge.

The movie, if you’re not familiar, is based off of an early 90’s video game that helped popularize the idea of the ‘first person shooter’ genre. I have a few fond childhood Doom memories and my only disappointment with the movie was that it didn’t follow the story line very closely. I had heard it was beyond terrible. So, the fact that it passed as ‘watchable’ made it far exceed my expectations and I turned the movie off feeling pretty satisfied.

Finally, Sunday was studyrific. With the added bonus of some climbing and a visit of Caitlin’s place where I realized that someday I really want to have a Husky. What a beautiful dog!

We’ll end today’s post with a little humor. Thanks to Lindsay for passing this one on.

(more…)

This weekend was decent. Saturday and Sunday were average, but Friday was spectacular.

Tony and I hit up the climbing gym right after work. We started climbing at about 6:15 and immediately set out to climb every rope in the front room. There are 19 ropes and we weren’t going easy on ourselves either. I was doing everything I can to keep my climbs at or above 5.9 difficulty, tony was doing the same for 5.8’s.

While we completed the task, it took almost 4 hours and by 10:00pm, my forearms were so destroyed that I feared that they might never revive. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder.

This is supported by the fact that my forearms are still useless… over 48 hours after the fact.

It was a great night of climbing.

Once the shirts were silk screened, the photo shoot commenced.

This weekend was one of nonstop action. Here’s a quick play-by-play.

Friday: accounting class.
Sat: Kung fu, trip to Boston, Haircut, Double Dutch*
Sun: Homework, dinner with the family, return to CT

yesterday while at dinner with the family my sister Alicia proposed the question:

if you were in jail what would you miss most?

her answer was riding horses. mine was climbing. what’s yours?

*expect a feature update later this week

Welcome to the new year! I have great hopes for this year but I’m starting it off simply. New Years eve was spent at Erich’s place doing some double dutch in anticipation for the bigger double dutch event that approaches. I’m proud to say that we pretty much got it down. By the end of the night we were trying various double dutch tricks and even the newbies were getting solid entries into the spinning ropes of fury.

Yesterday I spent most of the day doing various prep work for the coming year. Including some financial organization, laundry, and general clean up. I also started a new workout training program. It’s highlighted here.

Despite the workout being a mere 10 min interval circuit training, I was wasted upon completion.

Happy 2007!

This weekend was a good one. After the gunk thrills I returned home for some Accounting and got some sleep before a saturday of kung fu and Shaun McQuaid.

Jesse and I drove up Saturday evening for a festive night of gifts, food, and games. The best gift was by far the Avenging Narwhal which roams the seas and rivers of the world avenging its species for the atrocities of the koalas and sea pups by spearing them violently with magical horns of justice.

Sunday after a House of Rock dinner, Jesse and I went climbing with Pete and Irene. We were pretty destroyed by the end. So much so that I had absolutely no problem falling to sleep just after 9pm.

This week should be wonderful, if only because I probably won’t have to go to Texas… and I have no classes.

I’ll probably have no idea what to do with myself.

This weekend was A+ and not just because it contained nearly 10 hours of rock climbing.

Saturday I hit up the rock gym with Mechanical Pete and Simon the German. My arms were miserably sore from a Friday workout, but my hands were steel traps. I attempted a few 12’s, but didn’t have nearly as much success as last Thursday. I did come to a major realization regarding the 5.12 with which I have been struggling.

There is one particular move which is so perfectly awkward that it’s nearly impossible to do slowly. I’ve found that the discomfort level increases rapidly, almost to an asymptote, at that one move. See red line on graph:

The only way I can get through the crux is if I ride the comfort momentum and swing through the moment of difficulty, not unlike bridging the current spike on a MosFet. Note the blue line on the graph above. With this realization, I expect little difficulty in the future.

Saturday night I checked out Big Shot (a billy joel cover band) at the bar Rookies in Cromwell. I wasn’t entirely impressed with the bar, but the band was top notch. Their sound was so perfectly full. The singer sounded exactly like Billy Joel and the bassist had the most unbelievable look of apathy for most of the show.

Sunday, I zipped over to Main Cliff at Ragged Mountain and played with the routes Y.M.C. and Carey’s Corner. Devin, Irene, Mechanical Pete, Tony, Paulette, and Nick were there. It was a climbing party.

Carey’s Corner is a route that follows two unpleasent offwidths. An offwidth is a crack that is just a little too big to use a hand jam. Instead, you kind of have to stick half your body into the crack and torque your body to push against each side. Then you inch your way to victory any way you can.

It was a great weekend.

Now usually when one thinks about Butterflies, images of delicate colorful peaceful creatures come into mind. Some see the butterfly as ‘a symbol of the ephemeral nature of physical existence.’*1 A butterfly can also be the symbol of a woman’s delicacy.

How then can a kung fu move called ‘the butterfly hands takedown’ be so brutally destructive?

I learned this take down on Saturday and it is not delicate nor peaceful. Instead it whips the victim onto his or her back through a violent arm twisting motion.

It’s extremely effective.

*1 website resource

I think Shaun McQuaid might be mildly disappointed in today’s post. Yes… yes… I waited all day… but finally I’m getting my act together and am posting the weekend update. So here it is:

Climbing at Cathole
a post by mike d.

Sunday was a perfect fall day.

Jesse, Devin, and I took advantage of it by heading over to Cathole Pass in Meriden CT. We set up the rope on two routes that I have mentioned previously: Saturday Night Special and Millions of Dead Dogs.

After a comfortable warm up on Saturday Night Special, we started working on MoDD. I think I have decided that, of those climbs in CT that I have climbed, this Dead Dogs route is my favorite outdoor climb in CT.

Cathole is especially fun because it’s a very exposed cliff. Anytime while you’re climbing you can glance off to the right and get a beautiful view of the fall awesomeness. Anyway, back to the route.

What makes this route fun, in my opinion, is the top. The last 20 feet or so, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, is covered in Razor Crimps. This time, I climbed the route with my camera and took a sweet photo.

So amazing! Here are more pictures from Sunday!

Overall a pretty stellar day, though chilly at times. I look forward to our return to this spot.

This weekend I zipped back to MA to see my sister and hang out with a few friends. And without meaning to, I got a huge lesson in driving through Cambridge and Boston.

I got home Friday night. Saturday afternoon, I got lost driving into Boston. Shortly thereafter, I got lost LEAVING Boston. Then, I got lost in Cambridge on my way to see Jon Abad and got lost again leaving Jon Abad’s to see my sister. Finally, I got lost leaving my Sister’s to find the mass pike.

Let’s recap.

Of the 5 trips I took this weekend, I got lost on 4 of them in a city not 15 minutes from my home town. I am pathetic.

I had a great weekend. Friday night after class I went home and spent some time with my folks (get psyched for a fantastic “Stories by Dad D” tomorrow). I got a hair cut and then spent some time with my sister, a friend, and the Schenk crowd. It was a very social day. I loved it.

Sunday I went climbing with Mark and Irene then spent three and a half hours battling advanced dynamics with a team of students.

Let’s get our geek on!

The problem was such:

A person fires a bullet into the air at angle a and an initial velocity of i cos a + k sin a (the projectile is being shot south). Solve for the position of the projectile when it lands taking into consideration the influence of the angular acceleration of the Earth on the projectile. Disregard air resistance.

Diagram anyone?

Although a huge pain in the butt, I think we figured it out. What made it mildly interesting is that the distance of the particle from the center of the Earth is changing for the duration of its air time. So the angular acceleration has to be a function of the particle’s height.

I went to see Tony Jaa’s new martial arts movie THE PROTECTOR on Saturday night. The movie was decent… but it was the crowd that made it great. I went with a handfull of folks from my kung fu academy. Part of the joy was to hear them quietly talk about specific moves that were being performed on the screen and mock the inconsistencies and less than obvious shortfalls.

And you know how after you see kung fu movies you talk about the moves in the film and when talking about it, use your body to try and give the specifics as to what happened? well, after this movie the people of my academy were able to repeat the actual moves. So even just TALKING about the movie was more entertaining.

Also interesting: when we left the theater, the group momentarily split into two groups. I was walking with three women (black and advanced brown belts) and one 10 year old (brown belt). I realized that while sterotypes would place me as the most dangerous and able to defend myself within this group… in actually, I was the weak untrained one. it was a humbling moment.

This weekend was ideal.

Friday: climbing, kung fu
Saturday: music, kung fu
Sunday: climbing, music

That pretty much sums up the things in life that I love.

While each of these events was exciting, the climbing yesterday was of particular interest. Jesse, Irene, M.C. and I hit up ‘cathole pass’ in Meriden. Cathole was named such because of bobcats that used to run rampant in the area. Now, there’s a lot less bobcats and a lot more highway (these may or may not be independent variables).

The climbing was fantastic. I zipped up four routes. And if I haven’t talked about naming routes in climbing on this website, there’s no better time than now. When someone completes a route for the first time they usually have the priviledge of naming said route. As a result, there are some funky named routes out there. Here’s what we did yesterday.

Pegasus: pretty easy 5.8+, but it was on the edge of a ridge, so not only did you have nothing above you or below you, there was nothing to your right either. This is a classic CT climb and one of the most famous 5.8’s in the region.

Saturday Night Special: an easier 5.8. Though apparently some people call it a 5.9-. this one was quick, but it gave me a bit of sass when I approached a crack from the wrong side

Cat-o-nine tails: Super fun, 5.9 (I thought it felt more like a 5.10) and even more exposed than Pegasus. Strenuous at times, but not overwhelming. There were a few spots that really made you think

Millions of Dead Dogs: 5.10- one of the most fun climbs I’ve done outside. The top is covered in what can only be referred to as ‘razor crimps.’ Super sharp thin ledges that feel like they are going to cut your fingers. When on the route, and searching for hand holds, the sharper the better. Because if it’s sharp you know it’s a positive hold and something that will provide some good leverage. Also, “millions of dead dogs” is the perfect example of a ridiculous route name.

Check out all the climbs, and their names, with this handy drawing.

So after a summer of almost zero climbing, I am back FULL force. Saturday I climbed outdoors at pinnacle rock in Plainsville CT with Irene and K. It was a solid good time. We set up two ropes, one at ‘Emerald City’ and another at a name-unknown 5.10ish crimpy beast just to the right of beefy overhanging Supermantle. We met a few folks who were busy battling Supermantle. Irene tied in and gave the climb a shot but just barely missed a critical left hand two finger pocket on her first try. It would have been hilarious had she pulled it off because these 6 foot tall grunting dudes without shirts would certainly have been humbled if 5′2″ Irene cruised up their prize route on her first try. I was routing for her.

Sunday, Abby and Lori visited for an indoor climbing experience. They did pretty well and showed plenty of confidence (which, to a belaying teacher, is very much appreciated). They said they had a blast. I have yet to meet a person who hates rock climbing.

I hit the gym again last night with a couple easy climbs. I found a 5.11 that I’m going to make my new project. There’s a move about 10 feet up that requires a left hand lunge up to a less than awesome pinching hold.

I will defeat it yet!

So on Saturday I built this year’s BIG castle. Unfortunately, because of the early hour of rising (first shovelfull fell before 6am), I was the primary digger*. BUT, I had the brilliant idea of creating a stand for my camera and then creating a stop motion animation with pictures taken every twenty minutes.

Check out the animation here!

You can see the castle slowly grow to it’s final height of over 5.5 feet, and then watch it get carved by many furious hands and destroyed by the vicious tide.

The first picture was taken at about 5:50 am. photos were taken every twenty minutes until water hit the castle. Then the photos were taken at 10 then 5 then 2.5 minute intervals. The camera shakes a little bit at the end because the water eroded my camera stand a bit. Despite this, I’m quite proud of the result.

Next year perhaps I’ll upgrade my technology and create an even better picture spread!

*Ryan Schenk, Nicholas, and Maggie helped too!