Webster Art

I led Godzilla today. This climb is a bar I jump over every summer. When I have warmed up to the point where I can lead Godzilla, I know I’m as good as I will ever get. Today, I didn’t quite make it over the bar. Oh, I got up it, but I had no power, no enthusiasm, and no grace. Sue had to hold me 4 times as I rested on the rope.

When I climbed it last summer with Chris, I sailed up it cleanly, and that was after leading Toxic Shock earlier in the day. Contributing factors in this debacle were: I dieted Saturday, which left me weak. I almost switched gears and went painting instead today…clearly I was not passionate about climbing. I felt it was my “duty” to climb it…strike while the iron is hot. The iron being hot because I just came back from Idaho a month ago and should still be warmed up.

I stayed up late on Tuesday night framing paintings for the Puyallup fair. 3AM to be precise. The weekend before, Sue and I hiked 13 miles to Toleak Point out by LaPush. All in all, I needed a rest weekend instead of climbing.

I’m in the mood to paint. I will try to squeeze in some paintings after work this week.

Sue, Crystal and I climbed at Exit 38 yesterday. We met Crystal 3 years ago in Joshua Tree. She has moved up here for her job. It’s awesome to climb with old friends.

Crystal above i-90

Crystal and Climbing Barbie

Crystal has a mascot called Climbing Barbie. Barbie has a climbing harness of her own, with tape gloves and painted on climbing shoes. Barbie is tied to Crystal’s harness. We climbers are proud of our eccentricities.

We got on some hard routes yesterday. I got up a 10a, but the 10b Crystal is on did not go well. I had to rest on every bolt, and at the crux, there was a 20 foot run out. It looked like the climbing was easy enough up to the next bolt, but you never know. I did not have any beta about the route and this sport is dangerous enough without venturing up into unknown territory.

I chose to back off rather than risk the fall. When we rapped down I discovered that the reason there was a run out was the holds were good, no harder than 5.6. Next time I will run it out.

I’m thinking I will continue to practice the guitar, but I’m going to work on some instrumentals…possibly accompanied with my harmonica.  Lots of guitar players are very good, but they don’t sing. I thought I had the possibility to be both, but after listening to my recording…I realized I need to focus on the guitar, and forget about the voice. And that’s ok, I love the sound of my old Martin.

Sue and I went to the Open Mic at the Antique Sandwich shop in Tacoma. There were at least three very talented singers there in the hour that we stayed. There were also quite a few who were just everyday folks experiencing the thrill of performing before a crowd.

The crowd was very respectful and applauded every performer, regardless of experience or talent. I walked out thinking that it would be a good venue for my modest talents.

Tonight I got out my microphones and recorded myself playing guitar and singing. I knew I needed to get used to the double microphones used on acoustic guitars. When I played it back on our stereo speakers I was shocked. I am off key, creaky, off tempo and generally an all around terrible singer.

Sue has been telling me this for years. I guess I’m kind of like those people who do karaoke. While they are in the moment, singing along in the bar, it feels so good to be the singer. But to people listening to their untrained voice…not so much.

I’m kind of bummed about this. My emotions are telling me that I am singing beautifully, but when I listen to the tape objectively afterward, yikes. Apparently I would need to take voice lessons for a while to learn how to sing. Maybe someday in the future when I have more free time.

A better plan is to switch hobbies and start painting again. It’s almost mid summer and I haven’t touched my easel yet this year.

Fletch, Lisa and I spent the day at Index climbing RattleTale Crack. They had never been to this awesome crack up by Private Idaho. I’ve posted the trip report here. I may post it in true wordpress form here later.

I’ve been busy starting up the new quarter at work. I plan to post my trip photos here in a few days. However, I posted them online on a climbing website first. You can view them here:

My main ride, a 1973 Sekai ten speed that I bought new in a previous life.

This has been a very busy finals week. Most of my students did great, but I always have a few who are unable to make it to class very often. I feel bad about these students. If they aren’t here, I can’t teach them. For whatever reason, they sign up for classes, and then don’t show up, or show up half of the time. Finals week rolls around, and they are suddenly scholars, showing up everyday, ready to work hard.

Sadly, they are missing so much knowledge they are unable to complete the class. As their teacher, I want to help them, but they have these huge gaps in their knowledge because of all the missing class days.

Here are a few random pictures I’ve taken recently.

Playing my beater guitar

A good hair cut.

A good hair cut, when did I get this old?

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Jim, Dina, Sue and I had some fun in the sun.

Dina

Dina

This is Jim leading Saber. He had about 10 pieces on his rack, compared to my 40. I couldn’t believe he could climb that well with such a minimal rack. It was a clear demonstration of skill versus hardware.

Jim

Me playing my guitar in 1979

After a 3 year dry spell, I’ve picked up the guitar again. I go through periods…long periods, where it just gathers dust. I have no idea why it suddenly occured to me that playing guitar again would be fun. There were a couple campfires where my climbing friends were playing guitars, and I envied their talent, and the beautiful music they created.

So maybe that’s it. It’s Spring, I am feeling creative, and guitar is my way to express that creativity. I have a box full of sheet music dating back to the seventies when I first started playing. I’ve boiled that down to a 3 inch binder, but really, I only play about 12 songs, and focus on about 3: Yesterday, Stairway to heaven, and an original composition I wrote 10 years ago.

I prefer instrumental guitar, primarily because Sue has to leave the room when I try to sing….yes, I’m that bad.

I love to work complicated progressions, and I’m slowly transitioning away from flat picking to finger picking. It’s very cool to nail a long progression. There is a beauty in a perfectly played melody…it’s almost a zen thing.

Playing the guitar is a nice break from computer work. I’ve been teaching myself some new programming languages for a freelance project. When I get tired of making things pretty on the computer, I switch to my wooden guitar, and make things pretty there…it’s a nice mix.

Fletch, Mindy, Ed, Pat, Marietta and I all climbed in Leavenworth last weekend. We climbed R&D to Cocaine Crack, Bobs Wall, The Snag, and Hobo Gulch. I got shut down on almost everything I tried to lead Saturday…but it was still fun. In the evening, we played music around the campfire. I’ve picked up the guitar again after a 3 year break. Here are a few photos:

Fletch topping out on R&D, Icicle river in the distance below

Fletch on Bob's Wall, Leavenworth

Ed watching Fletch play guitar

Fletch playing beautiful music

Sue and I hiked the Purdy spit this morning. There were big geoducks sticking their necks up in the air by the dozens. We could have easily dug a couple up for dinner.. We had to be careful not to step on the poor little guys.

Geoduck on the Purdy spit

Not sure what this was, but it had pretty colors:

star fish?