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6-23-08, 10AM Monday morning

Holy Smokes, my knees are sore. I'm at the end of my spring/summer break. I go back to work tomorrow. Sue and I climbed in Leavenworth Sunday through Wednesday. Sunday we climbed the roadside bolted routes on Icicle Creek butress. There was a new route above the left hand route. It felt about 5.9 though I grabbed a bolt instead of risking a fall. I'd finished grading at 4am the night before so it was surprising I could climb at all.

Monday we did R&D and one route on Bob's Wall, and that took all day. Tuesday I backed off Silouette and another route next door. I seem to have a low tolerance for making bold moves on underprotected routes with any kind of a dangerous fall potential. Perhaps that's why I'm still climbing after all these years. We drove down to Meatgrinder where I led Dogleg crack cleanly. I felt good after that and jumped on Meatgrinder (10a) for the first time in 20 years. I hung once, but otherwise led it very cleanly, powering through the moves like a much better climber than I normally am. That was very cool.

Wednesday I led the 5.9 right of classic crack with one hang. I flashed classic in fine style. I need to remember to take up just hand sized friends, green through blue and skip all the hexes, there's no time to monkey with passive pro.

We drove home Wednesday because Lisa said she wanted to climb at 38 Thursday, and Sue was getting worn out from climbing full time. Lisa changed her mind when we got home and we decided to go for a long 20 mile bike ride from Fred Meyer to Point Defiance. That was fun, though a rest day would have been nice too.

Friday evening I headed back to Leavenworth with Fletch and Christine. Gas was $25 each with gas costing around $4.50 a gallon, ouch. Saturday we did Heart of Gold and Prime Rib, 10a and 10b with them leading the hard stuff, all bolts. I led an eight and a nine pitch, but they both led some desperately hard steep friction pitches, I was totally impressed with their flawless composure on those steep moves.

The worst part of Saturday was the downclimb from Heart of Gold. It was a series of steep gullies with desperate traverses across drop offs on slippery dirt and grass. If you love bolt climbing, I suppose it might be worth the down climb, but jeez, you are one slip away from a broken back in many, many places up there and it's just not worth it to this old crack climber.

Sunday we did the short civilized approach to castle rock and climbed south face and midway direct and the first pitch of Angel. I led Angel on Fletches gear, taking several short falls on an Alien...I take back all the bad things I said about Aliens, it held fine.

6-14-08, 9AM Saturday morning

Spring quarter ended yesterday. I have to grade 50 finals today, which is likely to take all day. Because of a double paycheck last month (don't know why I got it) I've been on another spending spree, though I also paid $500 on a visa card (all 3 will be paid off next month) and saved 100. The things I bought:

• $55 - number 4 camalot (my two number 4 friends were 25 years old)
• $192 - blackjack2 cellphone ( got bored with my perfectly good cingular 3125, though it was hard to enter text )
  • $30 - cell holster
  • $40 igo tip and headphone adaptor cord
  • $44 - handsfree wired headset
• $45 - How to cheat in adobe flash cs3 (work related)
• $70 - 13x19 paper for the pixma pro 9000
• $28 ink
• $38 - 16x20 frame for a print of my presbyterian church painting
• $85 - one gallon propane tank (no more disposables,$2.50 to fill!) and hose adaptor
• $23 - tarp to put under the tents
• $35 - another 4 gig compact flash card (film)

I guess that's lame, writing down my shopping instead of thoughful prose about my wonderful life.

Work has been really hard these last two weeks. The students have asking a non stop stream of questions. I'd sit down to get some grading done, pull up someones work on the computer to grade and hear someone say: "Mark, can you help me?". Twenty minutes later: repeat...over and over and over for two weeks straight, non stop. A lot of students did a lot of condensed learning, but my brain feels like a limp dish rag. And now I have to sit here on a Saturday and grade 50 finals because there was no time to do it on the job. On the bright side, I don't have to go back to work until the Tuesday after next Tuesday.

Clint starts working at the hospital as a nurse technician tomorrow. He still has a quarter to go at TCC, but has already been hired to work in the ER room at Tacoma General. It's pretty darn cool how that works.

Marty and I climbed at Interstate Park at the far side at 38 last Sunday. When we got there everything at the Endless Bliss area was dripping wet, and Biss had a small stream running down it from the recent rains. We hiked up to Headlight Point and it was perfectly dry due to the southerly exposure. Andrea was there (55 year old mother from Smith) leading more 10b's with her 14 year old son and 46 year old husband. She is a remarkable woman, in perfect shape, arms like a weight lifter and super friendly.

She inspired me to lead Ellie's Sweet Kiss, 10a. I led it clean except for one power drain hang at the overhung crux. That is a fabulous route! I was so happy to get up that thing. Marty led it perfectly, no hangs. What a great day! Time to get to work and plow through all this homework so I can start doing things I want to do.

 

6-7-08

It's 11am on saturday morning and I have too much to do. Here is my todo list:

1. rotate tires on truck
2. change spark plugs
3. repack wheel bearings
4. grease front end steering joints
5. pay bills
6. color correct 120 meg scan of stadium painting
7. belay at 4pm
8. pack for climbing tomorrow

I have spent 6 hours trying to color correct the damn 4" x 5" echtachrome transparency of my Stadium painting and came up with trash everytime. If only I'd shot it with negative film everything would be fine. It would almost be easier to repaint it and shoot it with my digital camera.

I have this dream of selling limited edition prints of my paintings for extra cash, but first I have to learn how to color correct. I don't have time to sit here and write meaningless prose about my overly busy life.

 

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