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5-28-02
I'm still bedazzled with the fantastic weekend of climbing. Yesterday I led a new 5.9 to the right of "five gallon buckets" called "the outsider". Midway up the
pitch I realized I'd been sandbagged by the previous climber. She'd said there were plenty of holds, and that it was quite comparable to "five gallon". The route went from jugs to vertical blank face with nothing but 1 inch flat ledges. While I built up my nerve to make the scary moves, I struck up a conversation with a woman climbing ten feet to my left about children.
"I hope you have better luck getting your kids to climb than I did mine", I said.
"Nope, I can get my kids friends to go, but mine won't come near it"
"My son Clint has the body of a young Arnold Shwarzenegger, but instead of coming climbing with his old dad, where he'd be safe, he got into BMX jumping."
"A friend of mine's kid just got paralyzed doing dirt biking"
"Yeah, it seems so dangerous, I mean they aren't tied into any safety net....if they screw up, they can get seriously hurt."
Sixty feet below me, Dave, patiently waiting on belay for me to get moving again, hollered up the cliff:
"Dude, look at you, you're hanging from a little bolt up in the air on a vertical cliff, and you're complaining about your son living dangerously? Get real!"
That sort of put it all in perspective.
5-27-02 Left lane, I-5, near Portland
The rain beats on the windshield of Dave's Suburban as we fly through the long miles home from our 4 day weekend at Smith Rocks. It is raining much harder on this side of the mountains. We watched the clouds boiling over the Cascades as we finished our last route, a long 3 pitch route called "Spiderman". Dave had started it, but bailed at the first crux. I didn't blame him a bit, he'd stuck his neck out on a dozen scary leads over the weekend and deserved to have an off day. Besides, this was a gear protected route, and he is still climbing the learning curve on placing protection. I was more than happy to take over. Spiderman is a route I have led many times in the past, but not for the last 17 years. It was a shock to haul my tired old bones up the overhanging gear protected cracks and realize how very good I used to be in my early twenties. The old man's still got some juice in him, but it's dwindling. Dave was impressed, only because he's not an experienced gear leader. I was actually more impressed with some of his leads; one in particular was a vertical 5.9 that was so new there was still loose holds and sand in the pockets.
I booted up twice to write, but other than that left the computer off. Instead I hung out in the evenings with the friendly climbers, gathered from all points of the Western US. Some of the nicest people were from San Francisco. We met Stu and Talia the first day at the beginner area. Throughout the next four days we saw him, and a dozen other friendly climbers repeatedly at the parking lot for breakfast and dinner, and down on the cliffs where we all waited together for the crowded routes. At first we hated the large groups for the way they tied up the routes. But as we got to know them, we discovered them to be very friendly, and fun people to be around. We kidded them good naturedly, asking where they were going next, so we could be sure to be elsewhere. Dave and I, a team of two, were a rarity this weekend. Eventually we learned to accept the inevitable. These people, the gym trained generation, are the new breed. There are too many to fight, so it is best to simply stay off the routes they gravitate towards.
The best part of the weekend was forgetting about computers. Climbing is extremely absorbing. If you don't pay attention on the cliffs, you will die. I've been paying attention for 25 years. I took some ribbing in the parking lot when Dave mentioned this was my Silver anniversary of climbing.
5-26-02
The stars were so bright tonight on the walk out to the tent that I sat down on the trail and stared up at the sky in wonder. How many other times have I sat here and stared at a night sky full of stars? Paul and I made the first trip down to Smith in the late seventies. He's gone now, going on 2 years although several times this weekend I reached down to clip a bolt and noticed his one remaining binier, still living on my rack. I know it by the blue paint...mine are red. We were only in our twenties then...so very young. Sue had to stay home to work, but Paul and I had a week of vacation time. We were a threesome then: Sue, Paul and I. We climbed every weekend all summer long. Many things have changed since then. Paul died of cancer 2 years ago. Sue and I have raised two fine children. I've managed to escape the printing business...barely. I work on computers now instead of slinging ink and adjusting machinery. Some things have stayed very much the same. The stars are still just as bright. I still run out to take sunset pictures of the evening sky lighting up over the summits of Smith Rocks. The stars twinkle their fiery light in the indigo night while the crickets and the frogs speak to each other.
I still hump my heavy pack up the trail at the end of the day, my heart filled with a hard to define sense of satisfaction over facing terror and turning it into pleasure. That is the essence of climbing: overcoming our natural fear of heights and learning to live in the vertical environment with complete confidence. Today Dave and I found 4 new climbs. He is excelling at hard bolt climbs in the 5.9 range. I am lagging behind at around 5.7 or 8. Today he led a very steep 5.8 that crossed a knife edge almost vertical arete. I felt so good following it that I pulled the ropes and led it myself. Later in the day we wandered along the cliff to five gallon buckets. After an hour wait, I cruised it in a burst of sheer energy; throwing myself up the gymnastic jug haul with only a few pauses for rest.
It was Dave's lead next, but he balked at leading Tammy Baker's face, saying he didn't like the start. I think the real reason was the awesome morning he'd had. He'd led two new climbs, one a brutally steep 5.9 onsight. Hard climbs in the AM tend to burn one out for the PM. I volunteered to lead Tammy,  on condition that he finish it if I bailed. I was forcefully upbeat at the base, telling Dave that I would lead it one bolt at a time and not psyche myself out. After muscling past the gymnastic start I found myself on the familiar rotten ledges of Tammy Baker. Strangely though, the route seemed to climb itself. Whenever it seemed too hard, I simply rested until my nerves calmed down enough to see the holds. There are no blank spots. There are tons of rests, and the only thin clip is only one step up above a large two inch wide resting ledge.
Both on Tammy, and the arete before it, I found myself climbing in a zone. Every thing about the climb, from the belay to the bolts and the holds I needed to find, seemed cut from crystal glass. There wasn't an ounce of confusion in my normally overcrowded brain. Climb up, look for the next hold, plant my feet and move up again. Here is a picture of Dave hamming it up while following the pitch.
5-25-02
Someone read some of my old writing and decided I was a danger to the community. They sent an anonymous letter to my employer warning them of an "unstable" teacher. Never mind that the entry they brought to my employers attention was written almost two years ago when I was in the grip of a life threatening illness. My life had been turned upside down. The disease, Menieres Disease, was ruling my life. The vertigo spells were taking 6 hour chunks out of my life every two to three days. My ENT specialist wanted to do brain surgery. My research online told me the surgery had a 50% chance of succeeding. I was working my way through college at the age of 45, a disease was ruling my every moment. Life began to have very little value. I wrote honestly about it here on this journal. I was in email contact with other Menieres sufferers and thought the journal entries would help them in their battles with the disease. I also enjoyed getting it all off my chest. I was able to better put it all in perspective after I wrote the words.
Nevertheless, someone decided, from reading those old entries that I was unstable...or at the least, not teacher material. It was grossly unfair of them to take advantage of these painstakingly created pages and turn them into a tool to try and get me fired. I write here as a means of sharing my life experiences with the greater consciousness of our online world. Those of us who write online journals share a piece of our minds with the world because we are open, sensitive people who believe we have stories worth telling. Authors have written biographies for centuries. I'd like to think that if Earnest Hemingway was living today, he would keep an online journal. I'm no Hemingway, but I do live an interesting, creative life. I think it was a closed minded soul, to afraid to actually talk to me in person, trying to cause trouble for the sheer entertainment factor. Well, so far all they have succeeded in doing is closing off this journal to the public. If you are reading these words, you are either a friend of mine, or very clever. If you are a friend, enjoy. If you are clever, may the ants from hell crawl up your pants.
5-20-02
Holding my hands over my head, with the fingertips touching, I slowly lowered them to the horizontal, memorizing each change in the angles of my elbows. Behind me, I heard giggles, then raucous gales of laughter as Sue and Clint, supposedly working on a homework project, found my antics more amusing. Ignoring them (artists are never understood), I positioned the 16 inch mannequins limbs at the different keyframes of the jumping jack sequence, snapping digital photos at each position, over exposing so I could easily select the light wooden mannequin out of the dark purple velvet hanging in the back of the box. I have a plan to create an animated preloader, using a figure walking. It's been done already of course, on Flashkit.com. But I found the walking figure so fascinating I want to make my own.
My knees are quite thrashed. I'm not sure what put them down...I have been getting a lot of exercise: long mountain bike sessions, rollerblading and hiking steep hills in town, to name a few. These old knees have a lot of miles on them. I thrive on exercise, but the old sticks that carry me around have other ideas. I am making great progress on my all flash business site. New this week is a cool example of Actionscripting on the flash page. Look for the link to "venetian blinds".
5-18-02
Five hours ago I sat under an overhang in my rock shoes wondering when the rain would stop. Although the forecast had been for afternoon clearing it had drizzled off and on during the drive up. Dave led the first climb on dry rock, but I followed in another drizzle. Back on the ground we gazed morosely out at the falling rain from under the low roof. Water dripped slowly onto our gear, apparently seeping down through the inside of the cliff.
I'd not seen Dave in over a year since he moved to San Diego. But now he'd moved back to town and we were trying to decide if we could tolerate each other well enough to take a 4 day road trip to Smith Rocks. We've had some testy trips in the past, once arguing fiercely over why I couldn't climb faster during a long siege of a 5.9 crack in Oregon. Not that I blamed him...I can be a terribly slow leader when I get gripped on something over my head. Still, it doesn't pay to badger your partner and I'd had some doubts over why he moved back to town. Luckily for him, he has landed on his feet in excellent shape, and showed up with a new rope and new shoes.
We thought about waiting out the rain, but we both had work to do at home and the thought of waiting 2 hours for the rain to stop, and the rock to dry was not appealing. As soon as I got back to Lake Washington the sun came out, and here at the house it is blazing. My knee is gimpy, I need to remember to back off on the working out this week to give it time to recover.
5-12-02
The time spans between entries in this journal are getting longer. I've gotten very busy with Flash. I have a new Flash book called Flash ActionScript for Designers: Drag, Slide and Fade by Brendan Dawes.
Up until a few days ago I had ignored the recent purchase, thinking it excessively dry. Thursday I began working the exercises and immediately realized the book was a gold mine. The scripting is intense, almost identical to writing Javascript from scratch and is all done in the expert mode. And just like with Javascript, one has to painstakingly study the script to find the logic buried beneath the arcane terminology.
The rewards for this labor are rich. Since Thursday I've learned how to do the slide in effect on pictures and create a number of interesting effects that are seen all over the advanced Flash sites. Friday night I was so engrossed in the coding I stayed up until 4 AM. I paid the price yesterday but today is a bright sunny day, and after a bike ride and the bill paying ritual I am faced with a tough choice: do something fun outdoors, or dive back into Flash.
If I had a good painting going out in the garage, I wouldn't think twice about spending a sunny day at the easel. But with computer animation...somehow it doesn't seem as noble. I mean, I am creating things, and learning new techniques that I can use to create more things with greater complexity that will help me in many ways, but I feel a little guilty somehow, as if my weekends should be reserved for more meaningful things like climbing up cliffs or other important things of that nature. All my partners have bailed on me....you know who you are. Sue says she wants to do something fun, as long as it isn't rock climbing...which just happens to be the only thing I want to do. Here's a great idea: I'll take the book and the laptop out in the sun and work on my tan.
5-6-02
Rode West on pole line road on my lunch break. I've not been down that direction in 10 years. The last time I traveled that part of the road the kids were young enough to ride in the rickshaw. My rickshaw predates the store-bought running strollers sold in K-Mart. You could buy them in '85, but they cost $600. I built one out of a child carrier seat from a bicycle mounted to an oak 2x2. On either end of the 2x2 I bolted one bicycle wheel. A lawn mower handle completed the masterpiece. Although it's growing mold out in the shed now, we carried that rickshaw all over the West Coast, using it to haul the kids up steep rocky trails on the way to cliffs from Canada to Joshua Tree. The last time I used it was to haul my art pack 5 miles out on the Nisqually dike trail...but I digress.
I'd planned on a simple rollerblading trip around the neighborhood, but the skies were darkening ominously so mountain biking with a raincoat seemed more prudent. On the way out, I had to carry the bike across a stream on a six inch log on which someone had nailed a dozen planks for footsteps. On the other side, pushing my bike up the deeply rutted motocross gully to the pole line road on the ridge above I saw some novel trash: three gutted cars, two upside down...no surprise there, but the riding lawn mower was special. I've never seen one of those on pole line road before. Things were definitely looking up. Further on I was able to explore the inside of a car battery which someone had conveniently ripped apart. It's amazing how those things can make electricity. I should have paid more attention in chemistry class.
After several miles it began to hail...hard. I put on my raincoat, hoping for a spring shower, but when the ground got white, I rode into the bushes and hunkered down under a tree for half an hour. But it showed no signs of letting up and I soldiered on through the mud and slush. In a mile I rode out from underneath the cloud into a winter wonderland. The land dropped down before me in a long winding road under the lines, and as far as I could see the bright sun glittered off the white ground, steam rising in thick clouds from the road. I finally came to the end of the road where the power lines soared out over Puget Sound. I stood on the bluff in the steaming air, watching kids far below playing on the beach at low tide. My only trouble coming back was carrying the bike across the steps on the log. There was a half inch of slush and I was afraid I was going to fall in the creek, bike and all. I've been making some amazing progress with Flash. NOTE: to rasterize type on a layer in Photoshop, press: Alt+L+Z+T.
5-5-02
Usually I try and avoid sitting at the computer all weekend. But when the weather ruined my climbing plans I made an exception. Some of my advanced students are asking questions about Flash that approach the limits of my knowledge. Plus, I've been wanting to do something creative, and not feeling like painting, decided to wallow in Flash. I had a business interface languishing in my Photoshop folder that was quickly adapted to Flash. That limited me to a fixed width pop up, but a lot of my thumbnails are going to be jpegs anyway.
I have a large collection of old cassettes recorded from long dead radio stations...many of my cassettes are older than my kids...does anyone remember kzok or kezx? When I work creatively I find that music relaxes and distracts the critic in my head. Over the course of the weekend I put together a nice little all Flash site featuring a bouncy pop up menu and animated subnavigation using the "loadmovie" script.
Along about 5 PM this afternoon (Sunday) I'd had enough. Things are looking great, very sophisticated...but my body was demanding exercise. Everyone was gone as usual...Sue and Lisa at the in-laws, Clint off at a friends house riding a new half pipe. I jumped on Clint's mountain bike and pedaled down pole line road. The abandoned Yugo of 4 days ago had been torched. The rest of the garbage looked about the same. Maybe a few more abandoned washing machines. Most charming of all was a sign at the entry to a county gravel pit: Trespassers well be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It was almost unreadable due to a plethora of large caliber bullet holes. I love the riding though, despite the sleazy ambiance. This road goes entirely across the peninsula, probably 15 miles and it's all gravel, sand and potholes. It's a very up and down kind of road that we used to hike when the kids were little, pulling them along in a handmade rickshaw. They refuse to walk it anymore, but Sue and I still like it. I normally ride my road bike, but the dog situation is getting on my nerves. The dogs on this powerline road ride know better than to harass people. With bullet holes in on every flat surface, a dog doesn't stand a chance of getting an attitude.
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My ICQ number is: 147492032 
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