Mundy the whateverth

To aid me in my quest to divest me of cellulite my brutha' in law bought me for my birthday a bottle of the Glenlivet. Typically when i have a fresh bottle of the single malt, i quit eating for a few days, favoring instead to just drink all m' meals. Right then.

Having whined at some length on Fri. about having absolutely no one with which to do anything worth doing in this one-horse town, a friend from the climbgym called me up on sat. and we went bouldering in the foothills near me house. That made for 4 days of climbing last week, and maybe the second time in almost a year i've been on real rock. That was fun. i forget how much i love rock 'til i get on it again, and how much different it is from plastic. The reason i don't climb out there more often (it's maybe a 5 min. drive) is that everything in the lower Sandias is slab climbing-- even if it's 120 deg. overhanging. It's all this quartzite aggregate weirdness, with no readily apparent holds on, and a coefficient of friction something like a cheese grater. A typical problem consists of locking down on a crystal dice glued to the face, plaistering one's feet on BBs and launching for a rugosity you assume is there because there's chalk in the vicinity. If you're lucky enough to stick it, you gain the pleasure of rocking up over it, matching a foot with your hand and standing up with no further holds on who-knows-what with 8 or ten feet of air under yer shoes for a manky top out. we probably didn't do anything harder than v2, but it's a head trip.

Anyhow, i sho' 'nuff does look me fo'ward to gettin' on some nice rocas. i wuz perusing my guidebook yesterday, and there's some very nice looking stuff around. There're routes from 5.6 to as hard as you'd wanna do, and even a five star 120ish ft. 5.9+ pitch that sounded very worth the hike in to.

Misanthropy

29.3.8 280 lbs. (+/-)

Went in tonight thinking there was gonna be a comp, but it ain't 'til next week. Just as well, 'cuz i climbed like crap. The tapeworm has left me for the moment.

i've come to hate people who have friends. It irritates me to see people around each other who seem to like being in the same place at the same time. i went in tonight thinking i might get to hook up with some cats what climb around my level, but it wasn't to be. Just a whole buncha noobs who all seemed to like bumbling around and falling a lot and joking around with each other-- the bastards. Seeing happy people with social skills just sucks the life right outta me. i sat there quietly watching this group of assorted tattooed, burly Hispanics hurling themselves at this one problem over and over again. i was already nuclear pumped, and i thought there might be a possibility of falling off of this problem and thus fitting in; but no. i even stalled half-way up as though i were searching for some really complicated foothold or something, just so's not to look like i was sandbagging, but if that silly climb went at hard 0 i'd say it was over rated. You could climb that thing with yer chin and some elbows. There was a point when fitting in became no longer worth it: namely, when i started thinking out loud that they'd have a way better chance of sending if they'd take less than three minutes to do it.

At any rate, if i could lose 15 lbs. i wouldn't need any friends.

26.4.8

i clumb yesterday, but it wasn't worth much. Did get a nice burn in, but it was a low concentration day. Plus i had to borrow some (crappy) shoes from the gym and i didn't have any chalk cuz i left all my gear in Steph's car. Climbing is way harder without chalk. Today Ouma took the kids to the zoo, so i went back to see what'd happen for the second day in a row. Turns out it's a dang good idear sometimes. Almost flashed a 5 first thing. Didn't get it, but i didn't try again. Climbed every three i could find, including at least one i hadn't linked before. After i couldn't pull any more 3s i did an enduro session on 1s and 0s. Ended up just pulling down a whole bunch of plastic. It was real encouraging to still be pulling that strong after that much climbing. The tapeworm's back i think, cuz i felt light and hungry, and that's good cuz there's an informal comp coming up this fri.

Oh, and i bought a new rope with the rei dividends, so i'm pretty amped to get on some rock. You should come visit me and climb.

22.3.8

i spassed out on wed., so that kinda killed off the rest of the week, but i went in and climbed yesterday just to get some blood flowing. m' head is still a li'l foggy, and i climbed pretty bad, but it was good to move. Cleared the noggin up a li'l bit.

Have a good Easter.

Summary of the antecedent week

i weighed on Wed. at 195. Yesterday i took Aeon to the doc, and i weighed just over 190. Perhaps i have a tapeworm.

Tues. was a brilliant day. felt good. Retro-flashed a hard 3/easy 4 after i saw a key foothold i'd been missing. Then sent another 3. Hung from the start holds of a 9+, then flashed a 3.

Thurs. was not so brilliant. Slept not at all the night before and bombed a chem exam. Mostly fell off of all the 2s and 1s i got on and finally left chalking it up to a quasi-endurance day.

Went back yesterday (fri.) and really didn't climb much better, but i didn't have very high expectations or much time. i went in for a superpump, and just jumped on every 0 and 1 i came across in as rapid a succession as i could manage. ended up doing quite a few routes, but nothing hard. Head wasn't really on straight, but it was a good workout. Anyhow, i'm pretty convinced i could walk 6 if i got down to 180 lbs. or so.

The Power of an Empty Mind

Project sent. :-) In under 1,000 tries... Think i'm on a roll.

4.3.8

i went in to the climbgym today after a 5 day lay-off. Felt nice to be fairly healed. Funny day. Felt like it was a pretty good workout, but i sent nearly nothing. Gave several burns to my proj. v4, and finally linked through the crux a couple of times and my foot slipped off a tiny hold nearly at the finish. At least now i know i can do it. i was getting frustrated cuz i could only stick the crux throw maybe one outta four or five tries. And i could only give a few burns in any session cuz it's quite pumpy. i think i'm gonna try to run tonight. Gotta find the wherewithal. Need... motivation...

Yester Day

went snowboarding with James at Santa Fe. That was a good time. Moreover, the snow was surprisingly good, and with good snow the mt. really was fairly good. we did a day there last year, and all they had open was a handful of blues. This year the whole mt. was open, and they have a some pretty nice blacks and a coupl'a doubles that shoot through some glades and bouldery couloirs. Oh, and nearly no people--specially on the hard stuff-- even on a saturday. Takes about 1.25 hrs. to get there from here. You'll hafta come up and hit it with me if there's any snow next season.

And for your entertainment: there's this nice clearing in one of the couloirs that a lift line parallels, and someone'd built a steep kicker on the side of a boulder. we went down it once and i hit it to see what was on the other side. Nice powdery landing. So we decided it was worth doing again. we set up for this thing and i went at it, but i speed checked late and couldn't get straightened. The nose of my board stuck on the boulder and i just endoed over it. Landed head down in the boulder well on the back side with my board still on the ramp. Fortunately, the lift had stopped and i had tons of spectators. This one guy's like "Yeah! Good jump man! .... hey are you alright?" i'm all, "Yep. Everything but my ego." Then we climbed the hill to try it again. That time i hit it a bit cleaner--which is good, 'cuz there were some bunnies egging me on from the lift. i've taken some nasty falls, but that was among the more humiliating.