On a brighter note...

The fam and i, along with the bro-in-law et familia, went to Las Conchas on sat. we got there a bit late ('cuz one of the dogs kept puking in the back of their car every 15 mins.), but we got some climbing in. Annie got that 5.6 we started out on. Just before we left, i insisted on doing that 10d/11a just to the right of that route. It was so cold i couldn't feel my hands, but i got the route with a couple of hangs. would'a got it onsight, 'cept for the cold i think. It definitely isn't 11a. i'd guess it's a bit closer to 10b/c. Still a nice feeling that i go fairly hard on real rock. After floundering like a fish on that 9 with you guys, i wasn't sure. The day before that, i went in to the gym. Couldn't even start that v5 i've been wanting. The first move is reeeeal shouldery, and my week on the rig pretty much decommissioned my left shoulder for a bit. But i did send a nice handful of v3s, a long string of 2s, and i nearly second-tried a v4, but i ran outta gas for the final throw. The one seriously joyous facet of rigwork is that i came home an easy 5 lbs. lighter than when i left. i just live on high-cal breakfasts, turkey sandwiches, and granola bars. Gotta be burning 3,000 cals/day, and i'm eating around 1,800. Skoal, it turns out, is low in saturated fat. If i can just hold my decrepit body together, i might come out of this a better climber. Solanjy var.

Plumb beat the hell out of

Just got home yesterday evening. Worked eight 12 hour shifts in a row. Nothing in me works the way it's supposed to. i managed to fall in the cellar of the well twice (once from a ladder), and i ended up cutting off a chunk of my own ear with scissors.* If i leave my arms in one position for more than a couple of minutes they'll both go to sleep. And two days later i still can't fully close my hands. 96 hours of good, clean fun, that. The upshot is that, well, it's over. But i think it won't take me long to be running my own rig. Turns out ain't nobody on these things what've been there more than a year or two. i've been told i'm grossing a bit over 70K as a swab, but drillers edge the 6 figure mark. i think you should both come work with me, and we can take over a rig. It's long hours, but you get 6 months off per year. Not too bad if you don't mind working your ass clean off and collapsing at the end of the day. i don't think i'll be hurting this bad once i get used to the work, and a week off every other week is some extra fine road-tripping time. And seeing's you likey the strongman schmidt, G, you'd get to spoon with 1,000lb. chunks of steel on a more frequent basis than you ever have before. Whaddaya say?

*I'd appreciate it if you don't mention any of that to your coworkers, g.

Perfectly gravid

Didn't get m' wee v5 today. On the other hand, i did get all the moves and linked through the crux. She'll fall if i can get back in with 90% or better in the tank. It's very pumpy, you see. Wed. i thought i'd overdone it on my right bicep. Wasn't sure, but there was a funny twinge. Today there was no doubt. There was an innervated piano wire running down me arm preventing the lock-off i really needed to do. At any rate, assuming i ever get back to the climbgym, i'm pretty sure it'll come down.

i start in Springtown on mon. Bought me some steel toes today. Steph's last day at work was today. i guess i'm ready to just get on with it. i think we're gonna leave tomorrow (i.e. sat.) to head that way. Pray for us, eh.

Muy Thai

There's a funny myth in professional medical circles that food takes at least 12-24 hrs. to be processed and passed through one's digestive tract fully. i can't, in all honesty, speak for the remaining constituents of last night's green curry, but i can say with authority that Thai chiles have the preturnatural ability to bypass most intestinal decomposition like Teflon, and can move faster downward therein than the same chile would move under the mere influence of gravity, were you to, say, pick it up and drop it on the floor. In fact, i have vivid memories of such chiles threatening to exit my colon before i'd managed to put 'em in my mouth (quite in defiance--one's intuition is apt to assert-- of several important physical laws.) Let me be the first to posit the nexus of cosmological physics and culinary art: The Thai Chile Wormhole. Just remember that you heard it here first, folks.