Travels with Yeti

Listening to the Wind

2012-01-21T18:31:00.000-08:00

It is hard to divorce the ugly realities of my life at that time from the joy of living in my truck. In some ways, I was happier in the back of that truck than I have ever been in any bedroom. I would open a sliding window and feel the breeze, or huddle under every piece of clothing I could find, depending on the season.
I listened to the wind. Most nights, I found myself smiling before I fell asleep.
Feeling the weather in this way is something that everyone should experience. The first time I experienced this was when I was 20 and I had dropped out of college. I was sleeping in the desert in west Texas. I slept in the same spot outside for several weeks, and got used to the landscape. Something was different, one night. After lying there for an hour, I realized that I could not sleep. I got up out of my bag, stepped out of my tent, and looked around. What I saw felt like a smack in the face - it was a full moon. I could see the desert for miles; it felt supernatural. I had been there for so long without even thinking about the idea that the phases of the moon could have any influence, however small, on my life.
Another night, a dust storm blew through, and I woke up in the middle of the night because the tent was being flattened so hard by the wind that its ceiling touched my face. Over the course of the next few hours, three poles snapped. I had a few pieces of duct tape, and some twist ties from tortilla bags. Wind and sand ripped at my face for the hours that I spent keeping the tent together. I wrapped the twist ties around the overlapped poles, and duct taped around that. One by one the poles snapped, but the pegs never came out of the ground, and the thing was still standing in the morning. The wind died down by dawn, and I was even able to get a little sleep in it.
These things filled me with an energy that I had never experienced. For the first time, I had a sense that I was part of a world that changed, that was indifferent to me. That, if I put myself in the right places, I would be forced to adapt to it. It was a taste of a world that was much bigger than me, that I could not control. The touch of the natural world was thrilling.
Living in the truck often gave me the same feelings. I have spent five or ten stretches in the truck, usually traveling, on climbing trips, or between schools, so that I rarely spent more than one night in the same place. There was one time, however, when I was in the same place for quite a while, and it forever changed the way that I looked at living in the truck.
I was at North Hennepin Community College, taking Organic Chemistry, Chem 2, and Genetics, trying to get As in some prereqs. It was the only place in the cities that I could find openings in these classes. I started attending classes during the day, and sleeping in the truck at night.
My power steering started leaking one day, and after some investigation in the truck and online, I found that I had to replace a part. I drove over to a gas station, and pulled out my tool box and the part ($60 at Napa). I started working on it, when someone walked over to me and said that If I made a mess she would personally make my life a living hell. Before I could say anything, she was walking away. I still do not fully understand this. Maybe it was about status, and my obvious lack of it. I looked down at myself. I had on a dirty shirt, a rag in one greasy hand, and a wrench in the other. It could have been more than my appearance. My position in society was in full view when I pulled my truck up to do some repairs: I did not have a driveway, and did not know anyone with a driveway that I could use.
In the second week of the term, I realized that taking three lab classes, and two chemistry courses concurrently (especially since Chem 2 was a prereq for Organic), was not going to work. All of my teachers that term were challenging people to work with, but the Chem 2 guy was the worst. He had set up a profoundly inefficient and ineffective class, and I was spending hours each day struggling with required assignments on an online program that constantly failed. I was learning nothing, and spending a hell of a lot of time doing it. I realized, after a couple of conversations, that battling with that asshole was not going to work, and I decided to cut my losses, and just do the best I could in the other two classes. It gave me pause to choose Organic, not having had Chem 2, yet, but I decided to just go ahead and give it a shot. To my surprise, I was good at it, and it ended up being an intellectual love affair for years. I finished my Organic in central Oregon about a year later, and was a classroom assistant and tutor in it the next.
I got in my paperwork to drop Chem 2 the Monday after the Friday when I could get out without a W showing up on my transcript. I was devastated. They told me there was no chance of an exception being made, which I understood and accepted. I would have a W on my transcript from a community college, and I was trying to get into med school. I felt that that was it: I would never get in. I was a 24 year old sleeping in parking lots. The delusions had finally come to an end; I realized that I had no chance of achieving this dream, and the realization washed over me like a cold shower. I wondered how I possibly could have been so stupid as to think that it would work all the time before. It started raining, and did not stop for a week.
I found out that my grandfather was in the hospital, two thousand miles away. The last time I talked to him, it was raining outside the community college, and I was standing under a concrete eave, my truck parked a hundred feet away. It was a Saturday, and I was the only one in the lot. He was extremely tired, and barely spoke, but he recognized me, and sounded happy to talk to me. When I asked him how he was, he told me that he was good, but thirsty. It meant everything to me to speak with him.
He told me that I needed to stay where I was; that what I was doing was important. It was cold, and I shuffled my wet sneakers back and forth, leaving little half shoe-shaped wet spots on the concrete. I was ashamed that I had achieved so little, and that someone who had given me so much respected me and loved me still. He died soon after. I was standing under the same eave when I heard.
I walked back to the truck. I was having trouble keeping the truck sealed, and when I got back, I found that this blanket that I had used since boarding school in seventh grade was completely soaked. I pulled it out of the back of the truck, and I guess because it was so worn and heavy with water, it ripped almost in half. Now I would not call this a security blanket, but even as an adult, you get attached to your bedding. When you live in your truck, things like this have even more value. I sunk my head down a little further, and carried the two pieces of blanket over to a trash can at the corner of the parking lot, and stuffed this meaningful possession through the anonymous little slot.
At the time, I could not afford to have a membership at the gym, so I was not climbing. I was, unfortunately, eating the same amount of food that I had been when I was working out all the time, and if anything, I started eating more. Before the term was over, I had gained thirty pounds. It would take me almost two years to lose that weight.
Going back to the truck on those nights, after being put down in my classes by instructors, was difficult. When I lived in it and traveled, it symbolized freedom, a connection to weather and nature. It was different now. I was not climbing, I was gaining weight, and I would not achieve my dreams. I was surrounded by concrete, and it was getting colder by the day.
Still, at night, when I was falling asleep, I would listen to the wind, and sometimes, I would find myself smiling.

2012-01-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

First of all, thanks to everyone that has been so helpful and supportive in my first couple years of this journey I'm on right now. Secondly, the next six months will be unusually challenging. In the past, I have gotten freaked out enough during test times to write long, elaborate emails to people aout why I dislike them. I do not want this to happen this time, or anyihing like it, but if it does, pleaase realize that it is mainly the stress overreacting to stuff. I f you can tolerate me for the next six months, I think you can tolerate me under any circumstances.

Bad Dreams, and An Idea Boulders List

2012-01-10T21:48:00.000-08:00

I'm not normally up this late, but I went to bed at eleven, and woke up what felt like ages later from horrific dreams. I'm totally disturbed, and drinking lots of tea to try to recover. Details are hard for me to deal with as a med student. For anyone else, they would be much more uncool. It will have to suffice to say that a medical school education should never be used by your subconscious to develop horrific dreams. They are way too painful, scary, and realistic.
I studied for an hour, and I thought I'd write a short post.

Dream boulders:

Rocktown, GA: Golden Harvest, v10

Stuff at Joe's: Wind Below, probably a bunch of other awesome stuff there. Eh. I've heard that it sucks to hang out there. We'll see if I care to make the trip. It's not at the top, even if it does have some of the coolest looking rock anywhere.

Hell Belly, hard v11. Beautiful problem! This is totally my style, and if I'm ever climbing this hard, you will find me set up beneath this problem come January.

Stuff at Stone Fort, Tennessee (Little Rock City) - I've got a guidebook coming that should be here any day now. I'll have to mentally update the list when it shows up.

Midnight Lightning, v8/v9 and Thriller v10, Yosemite - I've never made a concerted effort to boulder in Yosemite. When I've run around with pads, I've found it extremely sandbagged and slick. But I heard that it's only this way in Camp 4. Didn't Wilder write a book about this? I'll have to check that out.

RMNP. God. I have no idea what I want to do there. I have no idea what I can do there. When I've been to Colorado for climbing (flatirons and eldorado canyon), I've found it good, but never amazing. And for the record, I thought Eldo was ugly stupid choss. Although I did randomly climb a really cool 10d R there, which I think I would have onsighted if this guy hadn't walked up beforehand and told me all about the ways to die climbing it. It really wasn't that bad. A shaky pin that you could back up with a good piece five feet below. And the crux was like 11a.
So I have the Emerson guidebook now, and am thinking of maybe heading back to CO for RMNP bouldering at some point. I like climbing southern sandstone in the winter, so I think that'll be my big thing this year again. At some point, I'll go for summer alpine bouldering in RMNP.
I'd want to check out Whispers of Wisdom v10, Autobot v5?, and The Kind v5?. Second on the list would be Full Chaos v10, and Veritas v11. The other stuff on the veritas boulder looks cool, too.
There's just way too much there to know beyond that. I'd probably show up and be completely sucked into a single area and not want to leave until I do all the best and hardest problems there. The whole area has this mystique about it that's totally intimidating. Honestly, it is going to take some serious guts (for me) to even put myself in a position of trying some of those classic, impossible looking lines. It's an intimidating proposition, and, I feel that, to keep growing as a climber, I'll need to face this area at some point.
I feel like I'm kind of done with Ozarks bouldering at this point (until I can climb v9, v10, v11 in a couple of tries, there isn't much left). Maybe RMNP will be my next two year obsession?

Leavenworth: On reflection, doing The Coffee Cup was like completing a lifetime dream project for me. I didn't leave feeling like I had to climb anything else there to be satisfied. I think, however, it would be totally possible to go back and find another beautiful, impossible project like The Coffee Cup, and be completely overwhelmed with the joy of working on it. Some ideas for now: WAS, v8 (almost did it last time!); The Sail, v9; Equinox, v10 at Gold Bar; Span Man, v10.

Non-bouldering projects:

Badman, 14a. Although I worked it for five or six months, I never did this 14a at Smith. In the December before I would come to medical school, and back to midwest, I started working the route, not able to do any of the cruxes. I got so that I could do all the moves on command, and could link any two sections. But there are like eight cruxes or something, and the best I ever managed on this was five falls.
I think working this project was hugely important for my development. I learned that power endurance is a big deal for me. Power, I am best at, endurance, eh a little, but power endurance is where I am just weak. I also learned that climbing outdoors is just not a great way for me to train. I don't get enough mileage when I have to coordinate with others, tie in, rap off, etc. I don't get enough variety of movement, and Smith didn't have enough steep stuff to keep strong on. My abs went to crap while I lived there.
I've been much more successful since I started spending more time climbing in the gym for training at night, and climbing outside when I can get out.
I know this route was hard like 20 years ago or something for pro climbers, but it is truly hard for me. Again, going back to Smith would be like stepping back into a much more challenging, almost darker, time in my life (no offense to those of you that were there - it's not you). Working Badman would be, in effect, facing where I was at that point in my life, as well as working what is, for me, an extremely challenging climb. I don't think I'm ready to do that, yet. Maybe someday.

Mango Tango, 14a. This has been a dream climb for me since I saw the Climb X Media video in, jeez, maybe 2002? Can't remember. As I get closer to the point where I have a shot on it, I realize more and more that it totally fits my style and aesthetics for climbing. It's powerful and short. It's got huge moves off marginal holds. Perfect rock. Relaxed environment. I don't give a damn if I do anything else in the New River Gorge for now - maybe I'll change my mind when I get there. Right now, I know I want to climb Mango Tango. And I'd like to do it, soon.

The Rostrum, 11c. What to say? Classic hard Yosemite trad with an offwidth, and other goodies. Because of falcon closures until the fall, and the fact that all school schedules always book you in the F*G fall (the best time to climb in the US), I have never been able to get out there. I have no idea when I will try to do this. As I get further along, however, it's feeling more and more possible.

Finally, because I never listed what I wished I had done while I was there, and would like to do if I ever go back:

An Ozarks list of dream projects undone:
Cloud of Stars, v9
Moondye, v9
Daily Planet, v9 !!!!
Fred's Roof v10/v11 !!!
Typhoon v10/v11
The Full Package v-Impossible for Sean

I'll have some more tea, and study more, and then please wish me luck for not dreaming about nerve pathway specific vivisection.

Book Nine

2012-01-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

Well, that's it. I finished a Lee Child book last night, right before Steve showed up. I stood outside of the taxi that Steve was in, and the taxi driver said, repeatedly, to Steve, that you should not get out of the car, that there is a scary man outside waiting for you, scowling at you. He looks dangerous. I enjoyed the Lee Child book, as I enjoy them all. The title isn't important. I don't think there's much of a difference between any of the four or five that I've read.

___

For my last day in Arkansas, I decided to go to Fountaine Red and Fred's Cave. I did five or ten problems in Fountaine Red that I hadn't done before, in the range of v0 to v4 or so. Great stuff. Almost all of the climbs in that area get two stars in the book, which, I think, is strange. I mean, the ones that I did were every bit as good as many of the three star easies at HCR. Anyway, I had a good time doing that. Fountaine Red is remarkable for its ability to make me feel like a competent climber even when I'm climbing very easy things. It's a great place.
Then Fred's. I felt pretty good, and thought I had a good shot at Fred's Roof, a v10 that I worked for an hour or two a couple of days before. The problem is just three big moves, from good edges to good edges, and then a huge throw to a jug at the end. I managed all three moves on the first day, but did not link any of them.
On the 2nd day, I worked on it for a while before I was able to stick anything. Then, suddenly, I managed the 2nd move (the hardest), and decided to keep going, and stuck the last throw! So I had linked the last two moves at that point. Then I started working it from the start, and, after a couple of tries, linked through the 2nd crux. I found myself bewildered to have managed the crux of the problem, and set up to make the last throw. I went for it, my feet in precisely the right spots, the body position just as I needed, and my right hand blew before I even set off, so I ended up inches short of the last jug. I had never missed that move before.
After that, I took a long break, went back to FR, and did a couple more problems there, flashed a v7 called Unassisted Helicopter (showed to me by Katie and Jonathan, and couple of locals that I've gotten to know), and went back to the Roof.
This is when I started making big mistakes in strategy.
Instead of trying to do it from the start repeatedly, I tried to link the last two moves again. After several tries, I linked the last two moves, again. Then I felt mentally ready to do it, and, physically, completely unable to do it. I tried it twenty more times from the start, and never managed to stick the second crux again. I found that, even though I had maybe enough power to do the moves, my fingers hurt so much that I didn't even want to stick the second throw. I mentally guarded myself from holding that 2nd throw. This was surprising to me. I had been filing down my skin every week or two for months, and didn't have any problems at all with wearing down my tips, although I climbed most days in two and a half weeks. Despite having tough skin from repeated self-inflicted trauma for months, my fingers got sensitized by grabbing holds so hard, so many times. I don't know how to train my skin to not feel pain. I guess the best I can do is just to keep filing the skin down every week, and keep the callouses strong. Don't know what to about the pain.
I left defeated. It remains a struggle to remind myself that it was never a sure thing that I would climb Fred's. v10 is still hard for me. But this bothered me because I felt like I could do it, and, despite a hell of a lot of effort, just didn't.
On the way out, I did another couple of climbs at Fountaine Red so that I left with the feeling of having done something.

__

Now I'm back in school. Five hours of lecture today, and a traumatic venipuncture lab that left me and my partner reeling, trying to console eachother that the other person did a good job, and that we were both really sorry. I think we both did pretty well, but there were definitely some tough moments. Ah, med school. I can't imagine being happier doing anything else. I can't wait to be a third year, a fourth year, a resident, and a doctor. And I'm looking forward to training my ass off in the gyms. I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Book Eight

2011-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

I finished Kazuo Ishiguro's first book last night: A Pale View of Hills. Some of the themes were familiar from the others of his that I have read: postwar Japan, loss and longing, things left unsaid, regret. It is a beautiful, elegant novel that surprised me with its depth. He always catches me off-guard somehow, no matter how many of his books I read.

__

I don't remember if I mentioned my rest day yesterday - I managed to onsight Lavender Eye, 12a, and Sonny Jim, 11a, and to do Grand Dragon, this fairly terrifying v7. Grand Dragon was a tentative goal of this trip. I tried it once last year, and took a bad, 15 foot, fall on it and almost landed in a hole in the pads. Not cool. I kinda wanted to do it, but I knew I would only try it if I felt sure that I could just send it without any questions. I felt good yesterday, so, after doing some sport with Randy in the morning, I wandered over there, and saw some Minnesotans working on it. There were lots of pads, and I felt good, so I went for it. The crux, for me, was turning the corner, which is this spot where, if you fall, you scrape down this sharp boulder and then careen into this multi-level pit. I felt insecure doing the transition, and just squeezed the hell out of the holds, hoping that I wouldn't blow off and rip my face off on the rock. Yuck - I will never do that thing again. I'm glad I did it.
Today was another great day out at the crag. I went with a bunch of other Minnesotans (most of the freakishly strong and obsessive ones) to Cowell. I did a couple of easies to the left of Fred's Cave proper, and then got into Fred's Roof, a v10 in the steep part. It is one of the best climbs I've ever seen or experienced. There are three rails of good crimps and a huge jug at the top, and you do these huge throws between.
After maybe an hour of work, I had managed all the moves, and, when I stuck them, they just didn't feel that bad. I couldn't link it, though, and every time I tried, I felt a little more tired than before. Not ideal. This is now an objective that I would like to achieve before I take off for Minnesota. It's nice, and unsettling, to have stumbled on something else that I want to do before I leave. I'm glad, because Glass Bowl and Flash Gordon were both hard on my joints, and I'm not into that one bit.
After not doing Fred's Roof, I moved over to My Space, a v8, and, with a couple of creative beta solutions from Nic, I did that one in a few minutes. That is a very good problem.
They convinced me to go down and check out Off the Rails, this v10 in the New Font area. It deserves every bit of attention and praise it receives. It's this long traversing problem on sloping rails and crimps that finishes on this semi-insecure topout. I was half out of my mind with exhaustion at that point, but decided to give it a few tries. I managed to do all the moves, although only two at a time. Then I tried to link it, and, within a bunch of tries, had managed to link into the last crux. When I got there, it was like I couldn't even see straight and didn't even want to climb anymore, I was so tired. I made it to that point a couple of times, throwing and not sticking the crux move. None of us did the problem, unfortunately, although we had a great time trying. The crew I climbed with today, Nic, Pi, Noah, and Jordan, are some good, strong climbers. Fun to hang out with, fun to climb with. Good fellas. I'm looking forward to more trips with them in the future.
The trip is drawing to a close. I'll take a rest day tomorrow (i.e.: Shoney's All You Can Eat Breakfast Bar & reading), and then do my best to finish off Fred's Roof on Saturday - And off the Rails?! I have now started receiving instructions about what I am supposed to do to prepare for Tuesday (note, NOW, NOT at any time in the last two weeks). I suppose I may have to go back a day early to deal with that.
In other news, it sounds like Saya Steve is coming into town next week, and staying with me. That is going to be a hell of a lot of fun. Enough so that I'm excited to get back home.
Wish me luck for growing skin, Icy Hot miracles, and then Fred's Roof on Saturday.

Book Seven

2011-12-27T19:26:00.001-08:00

I finished Paul of Dune late last night. It was incredible. I haven't enjoyed a Dune book that much since reading the first. It took me a little while to get used to the writing. It is sloppy and sometimes silly (not that I'm Steinbeck or anything - it's easier to criticize creation than it is to create).
The fast and loose writing does not change the fact that you get to learn more about Paul both before he went to Arrakis (before Dune), and Paul after he becomes emperor of the galaxy (after Dune). If the writing isn't super duper, the plot line, at least, satisfies. I found myself hanging on each plot thread as they were woven, all the way to the end, and even after five hundred pages, I was left wanting more. Delightful.

A new order:

9) Chapterhouse: Dune
8) Heretics of Dune
7) House Corrino
6) House Harkonnen
5) God Emperor of Dune
4) Children of Dune
3) House Atreides
2) Paul of Dune
1) Dune

I'm a little concerned that I'm going to read those other books - Butlerian Jihad, Sandworms of Dune, and some other that I can't remember. I have a feeling that they would end up at 10, 11, 12. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson are coming out with Jessica of Dune at some point. I think I will check that one out.
_______

Today was a good day for climbing. You may recall that I worked Ab Lounge, a v10 a couple of days ago, and made some progress. I think I said something along the lines of, 'I can't say for sure, but I feel like I'm close on it'. A friend from Minnesota showed up late last night, Randy, and we decided to climb together today. I took him out to Fountaine Red, where I showed him some classics - Le Beak, Rings of Uranus - and I climbed a few ones that I hadn't done before, in the range of v0 to v4. All of them were superb. One of them, Let Mikey Do It, a v1, is among the scarier climbs I've done here in Arkansas. It brought me back to my R rated trad climbing days (not that they were very long). As I climbed down, I realized that the thing was about as tall as The Wall at Carleton, where I learned to climb. The crux is all the way at the top. What I would have thought, ten years ago, of myself climbing a boulder that tall?
After, I took him over to the Invasion area. I wanted to see if I could make any progress on Ab Lounge, and thought he might be into working that, Electralica, the awesome v8, and the worthy v5 around the corner (with the long name). I gave him lots of beta on Electralica, and he flashed it! It was exciting.
Then we headed over to Ab Lounge. It looked kind of wet (It just poured yesterday), and the cliff above was draining, unfortunately, right onto the top of the boulder. Luckily, the sun had dried the face, and it was overhanging enough that the water dripped off without running onto the holds. The ground was disgusting though - I continually had that extra-heavy tennis shoe feeling where you double the weight of your shoes with mud caked to the bottom. But our spirits were indomitable, and I worked on the climb.
On my first try, I almost managed to finish it! I tried this cross over to one of the last holds, and blew off from high. He got excited about that, sharing my previously tentative and unconfirmed belief that I was close to doing the thing. So we talked beta for a while, and he stacked a big pile of pads up, and I grabbed the upper holds to try to finish from them. When I pulled on, he spread the pads back out, and I just went for it. I tried making a dyno gaston move to a decent, flat hold up high, and it worked! I topped out on the wet holds, feeling pretty damn good about the whole thing. Now that I had done all the moves, I decided that I needed a good long rest, so we went and checked out the rest of the broad Invasion area, including the name sake route, a beautiful 12d.
When we went back, I still felt a little unsure. For some reason, v10 is still a forbidding number to me. I get a mental block about it, and think that I can't possibly complete a climb at that grade. I struggled with that today.
I tried it from the start, and fell from high on the problem, almost sticking the last move. Then I tried again from the start. I moved through the lower moves reasonably well, but made a couple of small errors so that my hands were not in the best position, stuck the high bad crimp, stuck the gaston, and topped out!
It is among the hardest climbs I've done, and the only one rated v10 that I've ever done (The Coffee Cup in Leavenworth, which I originally thought was v10, is called hard v9 by many). I loved that the crux moves were so high off the ground, and so insecure. I had to really go for it.
I have about five days here to make the most of. My stack of books is down to three or four, and there are a couple of projects that I would still like to do. I will persevere to make the most of my remaining time, but, even if I don't get to climb another day, or read another book, I will leave content.

Book Six

2011-12-25T16:25:00.000-08:00

The Penultimate Truth is one of the better Philip Dick books that I've read. I thought I had read it on my iPad, because it seemed so familiar, and I found the word, "leadies" in the iPad book (which figures prominently in the PT. It turns out that I had read a short story where he uses the same set-up. In the book, he takes it further, and it ends up being more satisfying. I can't say which of his books is my favorite. Maybe Ubik, or The Man in the High Tower. His books do tend to blend a bit. This one was just as good as any of them, even if I already knew one of the revelations, having read the short story that preceded it. Hopefully, I will have read all of his books before I die.
__
Yesterday, we went to this odd little place called Area 74. It is right off a corner of the road, and looks a lot like a roadcut, with paved sidewalks beneath. Not very aesthetic. I guess that's fine. I mean, it's better than Taylor's Falls. It is not, however, anywhere near the quality of the ranch, or the little crags at Cowell, for instance.
I did three problems, but don't know their names or grades. It was fun to check it out, but, again, nothing to write home about. The problems I did were probably in the v4 to v6 range or so.
Today, I got up around 10 in the morning, and decided that I really wanted to get outside. So I took off and went to Cowell. I wanted to try this v8 called Electralica, as well as a v5 nearby. I lost the strap that I was using to connect my pads, so it was a pain to hike down to the cliff carrying all four pads. I must have looked like one of those spoofs where the husband is carrying a hundred bags for his wife while she maxes out the credit cards in department stores.
The v5 was really cool. It started with this powerful move where you stand up to a sloping undercling, then up into these edges, and onto a face with pockets. Fun and tall.
Electralica was totally awesome. Among the best problems I've ever done on any trip. You start on good holds, and climb through a couple of jugs before you get into this amazing crux. From good holds below a roof, you turn around, and get this little pocket with your right hand. Then you drop in with your left, and catch a good edge. That's probably the crux. After that, you work your feet carefully, and power up to a good pinch that you use to dyno to the finishing slopers. The top out is really fun, and not as desperate as it looks. I think it helps that I've been doing a lot of v4s that are composed almost entirely of thrutchy topout lately. I worked out each of the three sections, and then did it clean, on my first try. Not a flash or onsight at all, but it's satisfying to do stuff quickly.
It was awesome, and didn't feel all that hard, so, with my confidence buoyed, I went over to check out Ab Lounge, this 4 star v10 that I had never seen before. It looked hard, but possible. I could see some of the footwork right away, and there were no monos anywhere on it, so I decided to give it a try. Within a few minutes, I had worked out the first couple of moves, and soon I was getting all the way to the crux. It's a little nerve-racking up there without a spot. It's hard to tell where you are going to land, as the moves start to get violent up high.
I worked it on and off for a couple of hours, and got so that I was on what I think is the crux crimp, going for the last holds, which are much better than anything else on the problem. You can't really rehearse the upper section because there's no way to get to it without a boost or a ladder, so it's hard to tell if I'm doing it the right way or not. It's also tough to tell whether I am really close to being finished on it. I think so on both counts. I'm tired and out of sorts when I get to the crux, but I don't think it's any harder than any of the other moves. If I can get up to the crux with energy left over, I think I can finish it up. And I have gotten to know the problem pretty well, now. So there's a chance that I could do just that.
I am stuck in the cruxes of three v10s here: Glass Bowl, Flash Gordon, and now Ab Lounge. Time is running out.
I am glad I got to do the problems I did, but I hope I get to do at least one of these three before I leave.

Book Five

2011-12-23T18:49:00.000-08:00

I have had Things Fall Apart on my reading list since high school. Between my junior and senior years, my favorite teacher in high school, Mr. Mueller, gave us an optional reading list. It was on this list, and it's been in the back of my mind since. I probably bought the thing six or seven years ago, and for some reason, it just never got read. I think it has a lot to do with the unbelievably ugly cover, which has always been a sure way to keep me from reading an otherwise good book.
This is not a simple book. It describes injustices of both African and African Colonial societies. I have never read a book like it, although I've seen lots of mediocre movies that deal with similar issues (cultural identity, colonial invasion, warrior societies, rites of passage, African children's stories, and more). I don't know, I felt some culture shock experiencing the culture of the Ibo for the first half of the book. Some of it was just out there from a contemporary western perspective. Unsurprising. When the missionaries showed up and started saving everyone, it didn't get any better, it just got bad in a different way. I think anyone who cares has read and watched lots of things that depict what it was like to be in an African society under colonial control. What I loved about this book was that it challenged me to enter this other culture, and I felt like I learned about as much as an anthropologist can in such a situation. That is, you can take notes, and pay attention, but you can never completely understand what is happening.

__

I took a rest day yesterday. I woke up with pain in the posterior-lateral head of my right deltoid this morning. I couldn't figure out what had happened. I never strained it while climbing. After a lot of thought, it came to me. I'm pretty sure I hurt it during deep concentration over a game of solo eight ball played between dueling Sean personalities late last night. When in this situation, I always talk to myself as two different characters: stripes and solids. It's more fun to play against yourself when you can convince yourself that you are playing against someone else. And if I really focus, I actually forget, as I set up for shots, that I am alone, and I feel the same sense of competition as if another brain was in the room (not another personality, which actually is in the room).
Anyway, my shoulder bothered me today, so I took another day off until around 4pm. I saw a truck that I thought I recognized, and thought some Arkansas climber friends of my mine might be up in the Idahos. So I packed my shoes, guidebook, and chalk, and headed up, thinking that I would socialize the hell out of of the next hour of sunlight. They weren't there, so I pulled out the book, and found all the one and two star v0s to v3s in the Idahos that I hadn't done yet. I did a bunch of those, including some that were really tall, and actually had a pretty good time. On top of one of the taller boulders, I caught a sound from a couple of hundred feet away, and dropped down to investigate. I found this other guy working a tricky v4 dyno (Chuck Wagon. Really fun). I gave him beta and spotted him on that, and then wandered off to do another v0 mossy highball, which scared the shit out him, and he ran over with the pad to throw under me. Nice guy.
I scoped out Cloud of Stars, a v9, and feel like it might be something I would enjoy working. Really hard looking, but I think I can feel the body positions that I'd need to have, even if I can't achieve them, yet. I might give that a shot, or if my finger, elbows, and shoulder feels good, maybe tomorrow I'll give Glass Bowl a couple of burns. Maybe both.

Happy Sean's birthday eve.

On to Philip Dick, and another Dune book.(1)

__

(1) I thought I'd propose a list of the Dune books I've read in order of awesomeness, where 1 = really awesome.

7-9)Tied for last: Dune Messiah, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune
6)House Corrino
5)Children of Dune
4)House Harkonnen
3)God Emperor of Dune
2)House Atreides
1)Dune

Book Four

2011-12-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

Reamde is the best thriller I can ever remember reading. I expect from Neal that I will learn something new about math, science, computers, or technology, and Reamde did not disappoint. I learned about gold farming. I learned about massively multiplayer online games (sic.). I learned about Iowan male culture. I learned about private jet use. I learned a lot about guns and combat. Well, especially guns and combat.
I have read Zodiac, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Snow Crash, and think, of those, this is up there. For disclosure's sake, of my top hundred favorite books, all of these are on the list. Of my top thirty, all but Zodiac are on the list.

Although it is many wonderful things, Reamde devotes most of its energy to action. In this regard, it outpaces even Snow Crash. What qualities make the best book? It does not have the page to page velocity of the others, but Cryptonomicon has always been my favorite, because it brought such beautiful math to life, and remained entertaining throughout. The Diamond Age shone in this way as well, with its handling of code. Does Reamde show enough techno-fun stuff that it can keep up with these? With as much action (and exceptionally well-written action, at that) as it has, does it matter? As you maybe surmised, I've changed my mind about four times while writing this so far.
The volume of combat action is so great in Reamde that it threatens to overwhelm the other, more enjoyable, technical aspects. That said, the action propels the story forward. On a side note, each of his previous books had a character or two that I found myself embracing: that skater girl with the bumper stickers, the lady of the primer, and the cryptographer, for example. I know it's a cliche, but he brings the characters to life. I feel as if I know what several of them would say in most situations, and how they would spend their time given certain conditions. It would be fun to sit down and talk to several of them.
I don't know whether I could tell you if Reamde is better than Cryptonomicon. I know the tech ideas in it are more exciting, even if all he gives them are a supporting role. Maybe the best thing to say about it is that it left me hungry for more of his ideas, and was exciting enough, from a plot/action standpoint that I wasn't bothered reading a long book (1044 pages, it turns out).
I didn't really go into this with a thesis, so hopefully the structure of those ideas don't annoy the crap out of you. I'd say to spend a few hours reading the thing. It's a shocking, funny, entertaining book.

____

I didn't climb today, but I did climb yesterday. I got it in my head to go and work on Hang Ten, this v7 that I tried last year and got totally shut-down on. No one else was there, but I walked with some measure of shame back to my truck that night. I didn't know if I was tired, or if the climb was really hard for me (or just hard), or if I just wasn't into it, but I did not do well.
This time, I decided to go back armed with lots of pads. So I used my car tie downs to cinch the three full sized pads together, and carried the briefcase pad along. I stopped at the Sloping Joe boulder, and did a bunch of problems there, including this kind of scary v6, with a very insecure (sloping) topout that made my left elbow hurt for the rest of the day. I did it last year, but it took me lots of tries, and I did it this year on my second try, so that was nice.
Over at the Undertow boulder, I took a long look at Hang Ten. It is a ten foot, swooping roof filled with sharp, positive pockets. It has a couple of testy little moves at the beginning, and a couple of big dynos at the end. When I tried it last year, I only had one pad. Yesterday, I carpeted the ground with the things. And I worked it from the end, doing the last dyno and topout on my first try, linking into them from the middle of the route, and then figuring out the start. I found a couple of easier ways to do each of the moves. After all that, I gave it a couple of tries, screamed a lot, and then, suddenly, felt confident that I would be able to do it. I gave it a good effort from the start, fell at the last move, and then, after resting a moment, I went back to the start, and managed to link the whole problem.
Why devote so much space to talking about it? I think because, for me, it was a technical problem, and I am glad that I was able to piece it together more effectively than I was last year. The extra planning (excessively taped fingers to prevent skin shearing on sharp pockets, carrying 4 pads over by myself, using my feet more carefully, giving it my full attention, and drilling down the beta on each move) felt silly when I was doing it, but actually worked. I ended up being successful on a problem that I could not do last year. Feels like progress.
Afterwards, I went over to the North 40 with just one pad, and cruised around doing some problems that I hadn't done before. I did this amazing pair of v5s called something like Bad Days and Better Days, which got me thinking of that Ralph Fiennes movie set in 1999. (When I finally watched it, last year, I was underwhelmed, but glad that I wasn't watching some of the other abysmal sci-fi that came out around the same time: Johnny Mnemonic, or that Russell Crowe piece of crap. At least Ralph Fiennes is an unparalleled badass (well, except maybe paralleled by Daniel Day Lewis)).
I also did maybe half a dozen v4s and under, which, all told, made for a great way to spend the rest of the day. I noticed the sun set behind The Prophet wall just as I was topping out a problem and walking down, and I got to thinking how sad I was that the day was over. I had done some things, was sore as hell, and I'd made the most of it. I guess, when the time comes to stop, that's about as much as you can ask for.

Book Three

2011-12-21T16:41:00.000-08:00

Again, I finished The Graveyard Book a couple of days ago, but the internet connection was bad. I just had dinner, and, fed up with the poor connection in the cabin, I came over to the Lodge to use one of the computers in the basement.
I never know what to expect from Neil Gaiman. In early 2000s, it started to look like he was using the same template repeatedly: person gets transported to fantasy land and must complete a quest, escape, or both before the freaky malevolent creatures, quite at home in said fantasy land, eviscerate the protagonist. Let me be clear - I would read a hundred more of his books if they used the same template that many times.
But The Graveyard Book takes a slightly different tack, and Gaiman manages to showcase all the stuff he does so well. The mythology is expanded; the adventures and setting are new. Every time I read one of his books I feel a little better equipped to deal with ghouls, under-revered gods, and the endless. You get this sense of, "Jeez, that didn't turn out very well for that guy. If the Goddess of Cats shows up, I'll know what NOT to say."
I hear people say of Coraline, "I can't believe how scary this is. Isn't this supposed to be for kids?" I think The Graveyard Book will leave you with the same impression. And for the record, my response to that is:
1) Yes, these books are freaky.
2) The adult books that Gaiman writes (American Gods, Anansi Boys) are different in content because they contain more gore, and some ... adult themes ... that Gaiman doesn't put in his children's books. They are equally scary. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
3) As to whether this is OK or not. It is. First, kids are dealing with the world same as we are. I don't know about you, but I was way more scared of stuff like clowns, potential kidnappings, etc., than I was about fantasy stories. Second, there is a long tradition of scary as hell books for kids, e.g.: Brothers Grimm.

On the day I read The Graveyard Book, I climbed... I can barely remember. I do remember climbing in the North 40, doing a few v1's through v3's that I hadn't done before, and doing a v7, also that I hadn't done before: Celestial something. Maybe five tries or so. It had a bunch of throws to sloper sidepulls, and finished with a powerful throw to a wide pinch.
Then I went down to the Leatherface boulder, and worked hard to do this thing called A Little More John Wayne, rated v4. The thing was great. It took me more tries than the v7.

In other news, getting over the last term is taking me longer than usual. It's hard to say why. I think being here, and not being able to climb very well, or really work on things that are near my limit has been tough for me. I've done a few v7s and v6s, and all that, but I don't consider that my limit. I climb those in a few tries, or on my first try. It could be that I have just done all the v8s here that I can do, and now I'm just struggling with the ones that don't quite fit my style. It could also be that I am still tired from the term. I don't like to think along those lines, because it feels like a copout for poor performance, but it seems the most likely.
On the first day here, after finishing exams, sleeping a few hours, and driving the twelve hours down, I was so shaky that I thought I might actually keel over while I was checking in. I still climbed that day, and the two days following, but I never really climbed very well.
There have been other challenges that I've experienced, lately, and I think that is dragging me down a bit. In reference to that, it's difficult to care very much how hard I'm climbing. I almost have to remind myself that it's important to me to push myself, because I only get so many chances to be in a place like this. When I am pushing myself, I really need to be willing to go for it on a visceral level. Lacking serious drive, even at an unconscious level, keeps me from climbing my best.
I think anyone in my life can tell that this term was among the hardest on me so far. Perhaps they will just get worse. Personally, now that I am emerging from the post-exam funk, I am getting a little more optimistic about the next one. This term had a great deal of what felt like micro-management: meaningless busy work, and "tracking" of learning. It just translated into more hours spent not studying, but proving that you were studying. Which meant that I was constantly stressed that I would forget to evidence that I was studying all the time, which would translate into a poor score in the course. Sorry, but I thought that that was the point of the test.
I'm thinking/hoping that the next course director will have a different personality, potentially, and that their style of course construction will jibe more with what works for me: self-driven, self-structured learning.

I climbed today, and did pretty well, but I haven't finished REAMDE, which is like a thousand pages or something, so I'm not going to tell you about it until I do. Maybe I'll finish it soon, or maybe I won't. I've been reading it for a couple of days, and I swear, if I'm not careful, it could easily take me the rest of my break.
Oh, and here's the first round of thanks to Brice for recommending it. It's a hell of a book. Also, I never publicly credited him for getting me to read Infinite Jest (probably the best work of fiction in the last fifty years), although I did credit him for getting me to read the Temeraire series (A sweet story about wars with dragons and stuff). Brice, thanks.
In case anyone forgot - Happy Sean's Birthday week.

Book Two

2011-12-18T16:28:00.000-08:00

I finished the Bean Trees yesterday, but the internet connection has been bad, so I couldn't post. This book has been sitting on my shelf for two or three years, gathering that haze that unread books on your shelf do. You think when you get it that maybe you would like it, then put off reading it, and every time you look back at the bookcase, it gets less noticable, as your eyes get more used ignoring it. I originially bought it from Goodwill, as the 1.99 pricetag reminded me. Barbara Kingsolver. This book is amazing. If you haven't read her before, read something of hers post-haste. Her writing is effortless in the way that only the best writing is, and she has a great sense of humor. I think saying anything about the plot woudl be a disservice, so I will let you go in blind. Her characters are the kind of characters that are irresistably likable.

I finsihed the book yesterday, so I'll talk about what I did yesterday. I'm hopeflly taking two rest days starting tomorrow, so I can then write about the book I'll finish tonight, as well as what I did today. I started yesterday with a trip to the Idahos, a boulder field just uphill from the cabin. My finger was sore from doing the mono on Glass Bowl, so I decided to just go and try to do a bunch of problems that I hadn't done before. It turns out, unfortunately, that I hadn't done them for a reason: they are justifiably unpopular, unchalked, dirty, and often awkward. I think one of the most important things as a climber, however, is to put yourself on as many problems as possible. Sometimes, the problems that are the least attractive are exactly the problems you should be trying, if you want to improve. What isn't attractive is probably more about your weaknesses than it is about quality.
So I did a couple of ugly v4s, a v2 arete, another v2 arete, and found them dirty and unpleasant. The v4s were the toughest kind: much harder than you want a v4 to be, and really awkward, so you are worried that someone will come around the corner and see you screaming and wildly thrashing on a v4 that looks like a piece of shit anyway. Even though no one saw, I felt kind of dirty after those.
After, I went back to the Dig Dug boulder, and gave the last three problems on that face a try: Tree Left, v4, Tree Right, v3, and A Long Road Home, a v7. I did the first two in a couple of tries, and Tree Left, with its high crux, was particularly exciting. The v7 I managed on my first try, which was cool. I had been on all the problems on the face, and had the chance to carefully look over what I was about to do beforehand, so I wouldn't assign any kind of climbing lingo to it. But it's really nice to do something quickly.
After that, I decided that Cowell would be the place to go, and Mom wanted to come along, so we packed the Honda, and headed south. After a couple of wrong turns, we made it to Fountain Red, where I wanted to try Le Beak, v4, and Center Splooge, v10. So I got on Le Beak, and tried, and managed to onsight that, and it's such a great problem (maybe the most beautiful v4 and under problem I've ever seen). And then I went up to the other one. I had heard and read that the crimps at the top were really brutal, and that it was easy to get up to them, and very hard to go the last five feet. The problem is tall, but I brought all four pads over, and set them up so the fifteen foot drops were relatively comfortable. I had seen a video online of someone doing it with some crazy beta with high steps on the right, so I gave that a shot, and manged to do it in maybe four or five tries. I got to the top, got excited that I was pulling over the jugs, and then, once I was on the other side and walking down, I started to think. Crap, that felt like v6 or v7, not at all v10, which I'd say is pretty near my limit.
I came down, and walked around the crag a bit, and found this guy and girl that I had talked to before. I asked them about the problem, "Did I grab something I wasn't supposed to?" They were both obviously the sort of people you'd want to hang out with, and the guy was a phd student in orthopedics and kinesiology. He said, "Well, I think do whatever, and who cares about rules or whatever, but, yeah, there's some controversy over what is the proper line."
I was glad I could tell the difference between a v7 and v10, and glad that I hadn't gone home and sprayed all over the place that, "I'd done my first v10 and it was easy." So he and I went over, and, over the course of a few minutes, he careully explained what holds were on, and which were off.
I was increasingly disappointed by the whole thing. I don't know about you, but I think we should do whatever we want, and climb things how we choose. If someone finds an easier way to do something, say a v7 method rather than a v10 method, then the problem is v7. You can still tell people, "If you don't use those holds over there, then it's v10" But then it's a bullshit eliminate. And I think eliminates are bullshit (repeat). So it's a really classic v7, with the crux moves all the way at the top, and satisfying jugs to finish. Why ruin it? Why say it's a v10 when it just isn't? I mean, I don't climb this hard, but it'd be like walking up to the Mandala, and eliminating a couple of holds, and doing it, and claiming that the problem is a "sick v16". I'm all for pushing yourself, and if you want to take some holds off of a v7, go ahead and pat yourself on the back for doing something really hard, but don't claim that it's then a four star v10. Gag, Gross.
So anyway, I climbed this great thing called Center Splooge, which was a really fun v7. Then we went over to Fred's Cave, and got on My Space, v8, and was shut down pretty hard. I got to thinking, "I can't do this v8, so maybe I'll go work on the v11 over there." Which I promptly did. Fred's Roof is completely stunning. It's the rightmost line in the cave, and straight up, and has all of these huge, powerful moves to crimps the whole way up. Beautiful. I started working on it with this guy Isaac, and he was doing pretty well. We got to talking, and it turns out it was Isaac Caldiero and his girlfriend that me and mom were hanging out with at Fred's Cave (a professional climber, and strong fellow). It's always nice to meet someone you've heard of doing hard things. Turns out he's friendly, soft-spoken, and unassuming. And fun to climb with. The guy is just a beta machine. I think I can sometimes see beta from looking at rock, but this was something else. We climbed and chatted for a while, and then, when I was not making any progress whatsover, and felt vaugely undead, I decided it was time to go home, and we wished them well.
I guess I did what I went to do, Le Beak and Center Splooge (A V7!).
The book I started last night is great. I can't wait to tell yopu about it. Happy Sean's Birthday week.

Book One (A post from Arkansas)

2011-12-17T07:23:00.000-08:00

I've decided to write a blog post every time I finish a book while I'm on this trip. A couple of thoughts on the book, and then what I've been doing. Book Report and Trip Report.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
This is a throwback to a time when science fiction was young. The idea here is that Martians, full fledged two legged, nuance cultured, enlightened beings with telepathic powers. This is the kind of thing you'd have to be a ten year old to even consider writing, and I mean that in a good way. If you can get past the conceit, this book is a stunner. Shortly, you come to realize this isn't so much about Martian culture, as it is about the culture at the time. It speaks most notably to racism and civil rights, class warfare, ideological warfare and censorship, nuclear warfare, and a dusting of anti-McCarthyism. For the little boy in me, I loved the Martians. They were cool as hell, doing crazy stuff and killing it all the time. The more demanding side of me enjoyed that Bradbury was just using this ridiculous construct (and entertaining) construct to comment on the time in which he lived.

My mom recently moved to Minnesota, and it's been great having her there. We spent thanksgiving together, and occasionally, I have chance to go up to her house, an hour away, to carry something heavy, or fix something, or the like, which is an easy way to feel like a useful human being. We got to talking about the holidays this year (my birthday's next week), and thought it would be fun to spend them together, for the first time in a few years. So I asked her to come along with me to Arkansas, thinking that that was kind of unlikely. She said sure, we left on Thursday morning at about 630, and, after 11.5 hours of driving, and 1 hour of rests, we got in around 700 at night.
I thought once we got here that she would walk up once to see what the boulders looked like, and then head back to the cabin for reading and needle-stuff, but she had a good time climbing over scree, and moving over creeks, and watching me and others climb. Undettered by the exhausting day of climbing yesterday, she says she's up for another day of it, so pretty soon we are headed again to look for good boulders.
I did a few v4 and under problems yesterday, and worked Glass Bowl, my v10 project, for maybe an hour. I managed to do the last couple of moves, and almost linked it from after the crux to the finish (what I couldn't do last year, even though what most people think is the "crux" was not that bad for me). So I suppose I should be happy about that. After finishing exams, and still having two assignments left after I was done with exams (!!!), and then driving 12 hours, I'd say it's good that I even tried the problem, and better that I managed to do a couple of the moves. Wish me luck today. I'm still not sure what I want to climb. I found yesterday that I have to carry all four of my pads up to Glass Bowl to make it safe enough for me to feel comfortable really going for it. So that's kind of extreme. I feel like Christain Core carrying six vertical feet of foam down to Gioia. Hopefully I find something exciting to work on.

Happy Sean's birthday week. I'll check in again when I finish The Bean Trees.

Night. Wednesday, November 23

2011-11-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

''Her kiss was full of desire, and I knew I couldn't share that feeling with anyone else. And then a wall went up, and just as quickly, I was screened out. But it was too late, because I now knew that she was capable of intense passion, if she would one day allow herself to just feel.'
I closed the book, and felt a strange mixture of wistfulness and hope, and I wondered whether a memory is something you have, or something you have lost...' (1)
__

There are things that should be written, and things that should not, and I think everyone who writes, however idly, struggles with this. Will the decisions I make now, which are so uncertain, end in regret? Endless, painful regret? I can't know that now, and, in this future in which I may regret, could I possibly have only one emotion?
Or will I feel I made the choice that I had to make, as painful as it ended up being, for the rest of my life? Will I continue on, learning new things, meeting new people, going to different places than I would have gone otherwise, but feel this choice as a weight in my throat, whenever I think of it? Or some such mixture of feeling.

(1):Another Woman, 1988
Performed by Gena Rowlands
W. Allen

Sarah and Me

2011-10-21T05:34:00.000-07:00

Wade Johnson

2011-10-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

After maybe two or three years of not seeing it, I went back and watched the Minnesota Climbing video. Wade put it together the year after I left Carleton, and it helped him get a job with Peter Mortimer et. al. I was nervous to be a part of it from the start, especially when he wanted me to sit down and answer questions, but it was fun to be a part of the project, and a bunch of the guys stayed in my crappy apartment for a couple of nights while he shot the footage. It was hard to hear Wade's voice again. It is hard to lose friends.

Evil Mentat on Leavenworth City Council?!

2011-10-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

How did an evil mentat get on the city council in Leavenworth!? Maybe they don't know?

Someone needs to call and warn them!

Vice Squad Day 2

2011-09-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

Arseny on Vice Squad
Arseny, Jose, and I went to Sand Wing on Saturday, and, after warming up on Jump Start, and The Itch (a fantastic 11d that I'd never done before!!), we went over to Vice Squad. The Perfect Crimb area was ridiculously busy. Maybe a dozen kids, parents everywhere, people leading the genuinely horrible trad routes to the right, and a group of recent Iowa college grads. There was someone on Perfect Crimb, which I used last time to hang the draws and clean the route, so I had to put in the draws, and brush the sand off as I lead it, but it was still fairly clean the first time up.
I started out strong, and Jose and Arseny were surprisingly excited about the route. With a pre-clipped first draw, and one failed attempt on the first move, I then made it to the last crux before getting lost on the footwork, and falling. I marked a couple of holds, and finished the route. This was heartening - to 2-piece it so early in the day. I was confident that I could do it.
Then I tried it a bunch more times, and kept screwing up something. Either the powerful move from the shallow pocket to the little right hand gaston, or, even if I stuck that, then the move from the gaston up to the sloping sidepull above. I have a cool video of all of that that I thought I might put on Facebook. By the end of all these attempts, I felt completely exhausted, and I almost just took down the draws and called it a day. But the guys wanted to keep working it, so I belayed and watched, and took pictures until I felt rested.
Jose did the crux move, and Arseny did all but one of the moves. He expressed great excitement over the technical nature. "I haven't had to think this much about a climb in a long time".

Jump Start

(A description of the video that didn't upload: There's another fifteen feet of climbing above, but it's hard to see it, so I chopped that portion off. The climbing after the two finger pocket on which I let out a laugh of triumph is not very hard - not more than 5.10. It is pretty sandy, but it was also quite enjoyable. You have to keep thinking after doing the series of cruxes.)
When I was going through the sequence, I often thought things like, "Grab little pocket, feel pain, slap right foot on sloping edge, powermove to painful gaston, etc". This route was somewhere between uncomfortable and painful to climb. As Arseny put it, "Any hold that isn't a slopey shit is just extremely painful". Or as Jose put it, the route is a "parade of shit holds". An odd thing happened after not doing it the first day - I started to actually enjoy it. Looking back, it may be one of the more technical hard 12s I've done. It also felt satisfyingly improbable. The holds are really small, and only possible for me because the thing is, for the most part, dead vertical.
Like I said in the other post, it's nice to do something that you don't like/isn't your style. Sometimes, this is the only way to improve in climbing - to work weaknesses. Crimpy, technical, painful vertical/slab problems are something I've avoided for most of my career, and I'm just not as good at that kind of climbing. Although it's not the hardest I've ever climbed, it's very satisfying to climb something in a style that is not my best.
After that, we decided to go to Work Ethic, a 12a in the Cyclops area, and warm down on that. The weather was perfect, the company was great, and I got to do two routes at Red Wing that I'd never done before. I'm calling it the Perfect Day At Red Wing.

Work Ethic

Arseny on Vice Squad

A letter to the school board

2011-09-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's not just you, Owen. We all need recess.

A Couple of Quick Thoughts About A Wrinkle In Time

2011-09-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

I first read A Wrinkle in Time when I was some time around 2nd grade. I did not understand it. When I read it again, in around 4th or 5th grade, I understood only a little better. I read it again a couple of days ago, and wanted to write down thoughts on it. Beware that I am going to spoil some things if you haven't read it, or if you don't remember. So I'll put a space here so you can stop reading and go read the thing and come back.

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The first thing is that it's a stronger book than I was expecting it to be. I liked it when I was in elementary school, but I also really like the Dolph Lundgren live action Masters of the Universe adaptation. I was not expecting much. I just wanted to see what the book was about, after all this time. So yes, it's surprisingly strong. In terms of coherence, it holds up quite well. The characters are fully fleshed, the plot makes sense, and it captures your attention from beginning to end. I found that I could see the images clearly in my mind as I was reading. When Mrs. Whatsit turns into a more representative form of herself, I could feel it. Even the mediocre drawing on the front (see above) did not distract me from the image in my mind.
Second, L'Engle has the strength to leave things unresolved. Even in what is often considered adult fiction, the ending overreaches the strength of the characters. Harry Potter, who is incapable of doing anything but responding to situations, without even understanding how, is somehow able to defeat the most powerful dark wizard that has ever lived. You don't get the resolution that you want in this book. The vanquishing of the evils of the story is not accomplished; the best the main characters can do is escape.
Third, a not very congratulatory point: there is much in this book that feels out of place. Mentions of god and angels pull me out of the story. The vocabulary feels a little forced, as if L'Engle meant to put in a 'big word' every now and again. These distract, but maybe serve to remind you just remarkable this book is. These features only corroborate the fact that this is a children's book, through and through. What pandering she does for her young readers through the above example is strongly juxtaposed with the respect that she shows her readers by using such powerful themes. If L'Engle did not respect her readers, Meg would have cut It in half with her pocket knife, and ignorance and hate would have been destroyed forever from the universe. Then she would have gone home and eaten some quiche and blood pudding.
This is a scary book. There is a sense of real danger and horror that you get from this story that I was not expecting to translate to an adult reader. It does, and, despite the fact that these are children in the protagonist roles, I don't think it is about being scared for them. It is about facing things, concepts, horrors, that are real. They are ideas and forces that I, personally, battle on a daily basis. Conformity, compliance, ignorance, blind hate. These are the villains of A Wrinkle in Time, and they are our villains as well.

Vice Squad

2011-09-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

Vice Squad is a nasty crimpy 12d at Red Wing, and one of a select few routes that I still haven't done at Red Wing (didn't I write a post about this at some point? Ah, found it.). I spent a day on it in maybe 2006 or so, and tried it again last weekend. I managed to do all the moves, but I was totally spent by the time I knew how to do it. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to try it this weekend.

Here's a video of my first try on it. Sorry for the long period of nothing. I don't have any editing software. After I get to the stahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnce, I just stand there for a while and don't know what to do. I think I fall at about 2 minutes, if you want to skip ahead. Then it's over. Only a couple of the groaning noises are me. The higher pitched ones are the guy climbing behind us. I swear.

It ends on a good right foot, a greasy sloper left foot, and a right two finger pocket at chest height. From there, you have to do the crux (a surprise for me! - I thought I was already through the meat of it).

The crux starts with, for me, a long reach to the sidepull thing to the right, then high step, balancing body tension move to stand up. Then you have to loosen up A LOT, and make a couple of reaches to sloping sidepull crimps, and get all fluid to make it through the next section, which suddenly changes from tight little crimps to big reaches on better holds that are further apart.

These videos don't show much. Maybe this weekend, I can rig it up so that it is recording from above.

I am pleasantly surprised to actually like this route. First of all, it looks like shit. Second of all, I've never seen any chalk on it, much less climbers. Third, it's dirty as hell. Finally, it's a crimpy tricky bastard, and all the holds through the crux are within a fourteen inch band down the wall, so that, for me anyway, it's very minging. Somehow still, I like it.
Don't get me wrong, it's no world class thing. I spent twenty minutes cleaning it and chalking holds from a toprope off an adjacent route, and I was still pulling down sand into my eyes on my redpoint attempt.
It's good to work your weaknesses, right? This type of climbing is certainly a weakness for me. I was disappointed that I didn't manage to do it last weekend, but it's nice to have something simmering on the back burner.

Steve's Shockingly Intense Friend

2011-09-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

Leavenworth Bavarian Madness

2011-09-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

"And then Dr. Lecter said, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," and with that, he makes a quick succession of hungry slurpy sounds while his unblinking eyes bore into those of Clarice."

OOOH! A big wooden beer cart thingy with lots of fancy doodad scribblies! Let's give them $15 for a pint!

Preparing Der Mac and Cheese in Palast Ferrell

Best Climbing Video Ever

2011-09-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Arnaud Petit climbing Black Bean, 13d, on trad gear only, at Ceuse.

Make sure to watch all the way through the credits.

Left Leavenworth

2011-08-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be fun to list some problems that I managed to do in Leavenworth, and list a few projects for next time. Don't judge if the numbers are low. This place is hard! (At least, for me). Lots of problems that I did are not in the book, and I didn't write them down. They just looked great at the time. Every problem I did was awesome. However, some merit an exclamation point or two. I listed a few onsights of which I am particularly proud. I did most of these alone. At some point, I will get a chance to upload some videos.

V0
Cool Down, Fridge
Fridge Slab, Fridge
Alpine Feel, Mad Meadows
Wooly Mammoth, Mad Meadows
Heir Apparent, Mad Meadows
The Rail, Barney's Rubble
Runner, Forestland
Marathon Man, Forestland
Abstraction, Forestland
Breadline, Forestland
Concavity, Forestland
Silly with an S, Forestland
Heartstone, Forestland
Cowardly Lion, Forestland
Moondog, Forestland Fun to do with no hands!! (even if no one else wants to, and even scowls at me when I suggest how much fun it is.)
Tahitian Moon, Forestland
Campus Problem, Carnival Boulders !!
Fen Fin, Carnival Boulders
Dan Akroyd, Carnival Boulders
Rick Moranis, Carnival Boulders
Straight Shot, Twisted Tree
Sumthin', Twisted Tree
Band of Gypsies, Machine Gun
Boxers, The Sword
The Crack, The Sword
The Taint, The Sword
Dingleberry Junction, The Sword
X1, The Sword
Cubicle Gangster, The Sword
Played Like a Poop Butt, The Sword
Sofa King, The Sword
The Stairway, The Sword
Funiculi Funicula, Egg
Terrapin Station, Egg
Rider, Egg
Bertha, Egg

V1
Sound Asleep, Sleeping Lady Wall
The Hueco Route, Mad Meadows - with Nicole kick!
Barnacles, Mad Meadows
The Rudder, Mad Meadows
The Dish, Mad Meadows
Crank, Mad Meadows
Rainbow, Barney's Rubble !! This is among the most thrilling climbs I've ever done, ever.
Funhouse Stairway, Barney's Rubble
Tree Crack, Barney's Rubble
Dredge, Forestland
The Scarecrow, Forestland
Slickfoot Holiday, Forestland
Against the Wall, Carnival Boulders
Butt Surfing, Carnival Boulders
The Brawl, Carnival Boulders ! - tall and has this burnt out tree behind it, so that if you fell, you would be skewered on on of the fire hardened branch spear tips!
Dutty Rock, Carnival Boulders
Over Myself, Carnival Boulders
With a Twist, Twisted Tree
Dirty Harry, Machine Gun
Leftmost Problem at Machine Gun

V2
The Sleeping Lady !!
Fridge Door, Fridge
Flounder, Mad Meadows
Madvillian, Mad Meadows
The Break, Mad Meadows
The Scoop, Mad Meadows
The Hesitator, Barney's Rubble ! I did this one a bunch of times. So much fun.
The Phatness, Barney's Rubble
Squeezer, Forestland
Lock and Pop, Forestland
Fedge, Forestland
Clod Hopper, Forestland
Sunny and Steep, Forestland
Bad Moon Rising, Forestland. Fun. Os, then Tennie Ascent
Death to Rednecks, Forestland
Heeler, Carnival Boulders
Feelin Sappy, Carnival Boulders !
Little One, Twisted Tree - both variations are great!!
Machine Gun Funk, Machine Gun
White Sands, The Sword
X2, The Sword
I (heart) Jugs, The Sword
The Classic, The Sword
Carlisle, Egg
Smokestack Lightnin', Egg. Tall, and kind of scary! os.
China Cat, Egg
Missin Nugget, Hueco Crimper Boulder

V3
Pocket Rocket, Mad Meadows
Squarepusher, Mad Meadows
The Lamb, Mad Meadows
Drugstore Cowboy, Mad Meadows
Spongebob Squarepad, Mad Meadows
The Rail, Mad Meadows
The Tentacles, Mad Meadows
Winterbottom Arete, Mad Meadows
Arrested Development, Forestland
Fiend it Like a Crack, Forestland !
Lovage, Forestland
The Ferret, Carnival Boulders
Grain Brain, Carnival Boulders
Nuthin', Twisted Tree
Buddy Miles, Machine Gun
Briefs, The Sword
Bowled Over, The Sword
The Wizard, The Sword
The Sword, The Sword. Fun problem. Asked someone the night before about this, then did it on first try the next morning, by myself, right before I left to come back to Minnesota. Tall, beautiful. Not as scary as I was expecting.
Weather Report, Egg. OS

V4
Jumping Spiders, Fridge !
Fridge Center, Fridge (OS) !
Fridge Right, Fridge !
Swordfish, Mad Meadows
The Pocket, Mad Meadows - 1 pad, no spotters. kind of hairy
The Flake, Mad Meadows
The Ampitheater, Mad Meadows
The Real Thing, Forestland
Toto, Forestland OS
The Physical, Forestland
Funny and Cheap, Forestland !! no one else likes this climb. :(
Twisted Tree, Twisted Tree !
Sunshine Daydream, Egg. flash
Ace, Egg. OS
Claim Jumper, Hueco Crimper Boulder. OS This thing used to have a jug on it, but now it's this great pinch that you throw to. Really amazing! The guy I was with said that he hadn't seen anyone do it the way that I did, which warms my heart.

V5
The Lizard, Fridge !
The Undercling, Mad Meadows ! OS, with no spotters, and just a pad. fun!
One Summer, Forestland
Dark Hollow, Egg.
Han Solo's Lightsaber Tournament, Beach Parking. !!

V6
The Hole, Mad Meadows. Finally! I tried this with a really powerful throw to from a sloper to a sloper that was beyond my reach, lots of times. It turns out all you need to do is bicycle! Did it after a couple of tries once I was told about the bicycle. Some day I will be able to read that kind of thing.
The Ruminator, Forestland. Flash. - Tall and fun.
Mr. Leftist, Twisted Tree 3 tries. great movement! tough topout. The time before I did it clean, I took a fall trying to rock over, and ripped a bunch of skin off my chest. Fun!
The Hueco Crimper, Hueco Crimper Boulder. Crafty heel hooking!
Right Side of Hueco Crimper Boulder. Fun little problem.

V7
Backdoor Ass Attack, Forestland Loved this problem! 6 or 7 tries in one session. This is a powerful sloper problem (for me). I did it on my first day, and ripped off all my skin. It never grew back completely.

V8
The Jib, Mad Meadows - A single move power problem. 4th try or so. !

V9
The Coffee Cup, Forestland. Beautiful, powerful problem! I think it's the hardest boulder I've finished, probably anywhere. I did it in maybe 8 or 12 tries, if you count the times I walked up to it and felt the starting holds, said, "yeah right", and sat back down. One session.

Areas to visit:
Clamshell - Lots of easy problems for a long circuit day.
Pretty Boulders - Another good easy problem circuit area, and it has the Pretty Hate Machine, a v8. Besides being a NIN fan for life, I have heard that this climb is one of the best in Leavenworth.
Lots of Areas in Tumwater!!! Jenny Craig, Swiftwater, The Beach, etc.
Mountain Home Road, if I can get there outside of August.

Projects:
The Sail, v9, Mad Meadows. Jeez, this thing is brutal. If I'm going to do it in any reasonable amount of time, some beta would be helpful.
The Practitioner, v11, Forestland - nice looking climb. I think I can actually do this, with some work, some help, and some luck.
Fridge Left, v8, Fridge - got really close on this!
Pimpsqueak, v9, Mad Meadows - After a conversation with a friendly local, and a session on it, I figured this one out. It needs two pads, so I had a tough time working it, unfortunately. Next time, if I have a couple of pads.
Slice of Pie, v2, Barney's Rubble. Scary. Maybe it was how slimy the holds were, or how tired I was, combined with the horrible landing. But really, this thing was scary. I backed off from the twenty foot mark a couple of times.
Lock and Load, v4, Forestland. Shockingly powerful sloper problem. Harder moves than the v7 sloper problem that I actually did. Bad beta? Who cares? I want to do the problem as I worked it in that session.
WAS, v8. I got to the false summit on this one, and didn't stick the move to the jug! I had been climbing for four days at that point, morning and night, so I'm confident that I can do it next time. An elegant climb.
The Rib, v4, Carnival Boulders. Tall, insecure, and heady. One or two pads, and a spotter, and I'll go for it.
The Hourglass, v7. Almost did it! Will do it next time. Cool conditions will help a bit.

Other than lots of bouldering, I read, and wrote (and occasionally soloed a few easy pitches). I've been into writing fiction, and used most of my blogging energy to do that. Hence not many posts.
I won't tell you what I read, because I'm going to buy a couple of them for friends and family for Christmas. Wish me luck starting up on the next semester.

Travel Part Upright Carrot Three Eyes

2011-08-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

So now I'm in Leavenworth. It's as lovely here as ever. Today, I rest. I swam in the public pool with a view of the mountains past the dangerously tan teenager lifeguards. I write, I read, I wait.
Yesterday, I climbed very hard, and many things. Some pushed me in terms my mind, but most did not. I managed to do the hardest route I have ever done here. It was, for me, powerful, almost violent.
I am having problems with my ipod, so it might be a long time before I can send the videos on. Maybe until I get to my computer back in Minneapolis. I've done so many cool things, and I'm dying to share them with you all.
Tomorrow, I climb again. I haven't decided what, but I would like it to be harder than anything I have done before. Vamos a ver.

The Scoop, v2, Mad Meadows. Shot by Noah

Travel Part Upright Carrot Two Eyes

2011-08-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

During the festivities, which lasted two days, Casey was kind enough to offer me a couple of places to sleep indoors. But I really wasn't up for it. It's hard to describe the freedom I feel when I am traveling around in my truck. It really is my own little palace, as I often describe it to others.
I just get the feeling that not having the wind blowing in through the windows, having more space, having running water, all that, just isn't the right thing right now. I couldn't be happier in the truck.
So anyway. Casey said, ok. Well, the area around his house was unzoned, meaning that I could park there for as long as I liked without a problem. It ended up being perfect. I was in a great little neighborhood, nestled in among Audis, BMWs, and Saubs. I nestled in, ate a little something, read for a few hours, and slept like hell.
When I woke, on the morning of Casey and Mahri's wedding, there was a man outside my truck, facing the street, in meditation. I was concerned about crawling out of the truck at 6 in the morning in front of him, but he meditated in his lawn for an hour, and finally, I had no choice but to exit. I mentioned this to Mahri, and she said something smart and funny, like she always does, 'Oh, then you two were able to pass between you some (peace)'. Such a lovely idea.
___
After the wedding, I had the pleasure of spending a day with an old friend, Mike Bagley. He invited me to sleep in his house, but I said the street would be fine. He was incredulous, but relented.

Mike Bagley

The next day was, if you will pardon the vernacular, pretty much totally and completely awesome. For one, I got a spicy burrito from Taco Del Mar, my favorite west coast only burrito chain. I had this completely punched punch card from when I lived out here before, that was good for a free burrito, just sitting in my pocket for a year. When I whipped that thing out, and showed it to the burrito crafter, it felt like the old days, when I used to go to across the river to St. Olaf to win their climbing competitions. Perhaps it is my Viking Blood that I like to step into hostile territory, and compete, and win. The experience at the Ocean Taco was much like that, and every bite of the spicy burrito tasted like victory.
Mike and I went to this completely bizzare concrete climbing area in the middle of a big park. We played around on the hardest stuff we could find, and found some pretty hard stuff.
After that, back to Mike's place, where we watched this sweet Starcraft 2 tournament thing, which, evidently, is "huge in Korea". I was fascinated by the sheer ridiculousness of the concept, how amazingly good these people are at the game, how much time they must spend training, by how beautiful the game was, by how many hundreds of people were actually in attendance in the audience, and by the fact that there were announcers, who spoke much the same as any other sports announcer. Fourteen hours a day of practice. Upwards of 150,000 dollars a year for the big players. People were holding placards in the audience with the avatar names of the people in the semi-finals, all of whom were Korean..
It was an unsettling experience. It's a huge world out there, and I'm fine with people doing crazy customs all over, in terms of food, sex, partnership, violence, whatever. It's just part of being human in a big world. There's some crazy stuff out there. However, this was beyond the pale. I would never, in thousand years, have considered that any institution such as this existed.
After that, we watched the first episode of the Game of Thrones. I hate that story, writer, books, show, and everything in it with a hateful raging passion that I have almost never felt towards anything else. Except maybe Brett Easton Ellis. He and George RR Martin are assholes, and I worry about the state of the world when people can watch that shit, read that shit, and are not completely disgusted with humanity, themselves, and their stupid filthy existences. I suddenly had to leave Mike's house, and fumed over how much I hate G R R Martin all the way to Leavenworth, where I slept for the night.

Mike Bagley

Travel Part Upright Carrot One Eye

2011-08-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

I had a great time in Seattle. I used the Ballard Public Pool to clean up before I met anyone. I showered, and soaked in the hot tub until it was all I could think about.

There were a number of events surrounding the wedding, all of which were some combination of fun, exciting, beautiful, elegant, and moving. I think I want to keep this experience to myself if that's alright. I hope it will suffice to say that I think I learned a lot of things during the experience, and many about myself that I did not know before. It left me feeling hopeful.

Travel Part Upright Carrot

2011-08-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

I made it to Leavenworth late. It was like returning home. It was Tuesday, early evening. I stopped in one of my favorite bouldering spots on the way up to camp. As beautiful as ever. I just about cried when I saw the boulders - huge and small, crimps and slopers. Grainy, frictiony granite. Powerful moves, my favorite kind, were the obvious read on several problems. I fell in love with the place again.
As always, when I am in Leavenworth, I camped up high in the canyon, beyond the services, the fees, and hopefully, beyond where anyone would care, or even notice, that I was there. The river below me roared, soothing me to sleep (after a few hours of reading Rothfuss, of course).
When I woke, I made myself a granola bar and hurried down to the boulders. I spent the morning climbing everything I could, until my fingers and knees were bloody, and it was ninety degrees out. I slunk back into my truck, and waited for the heat to die. I read for hours. Delighted by the fact that I could read whatever I wanted. I learned a little math I didn't know before, and memorized swaths of boulders in the bouldering guidebook.
Around 6, just as the sun was thinking of going behind the mountains, the temperature noticably dropped. I jumped out of the truck, grabbed my pad, and headed up to Mad Meadows again. It was still too hot for comfort, but I decided to make the most of it. I climbed all of the easy climbs, v2 and under, on one boulder, to warm up, and then went searching. I found a number of interesting things. First, two highballs, both of which I had never even considered climbing before, even when I had been here with several people, and several pads. I plunked my little pad down among the pointy talus landing, and looked at the first one for a long long time. v4, for those of you that care.
I saw what to do, and executed the moves reasonably well to the fifteen foot mark. It was pretty clear that I had just hit the business, and it didn't feel like what I expected it to. Concerned that I was making tactical errors, and that I did not know well enough what would come above, I jumped down, purposefully, sideways, and hit the pad squarely.
Again, I looked at the problem for a long time. I recalled a creaky edge up high that, if it blew, I would fall uncontrolled, into the talus. After that, the holds were far apart, but much better. They were features of the boulder itself, rather than exfoliations thinking of giving up the fight with erosion (and countless bodies hung from them). I could see that, if I made it past the creaky, crappy crimp, without it blowing, I would have a couple of long moves around the eighteen foot mark, but that I could do them.
I stepped up, looked again, turned on my little camera, and climbed it from bottom to top with no mistakes. It felt just like I expected. I was thrilled.
The next highball was much the same, although more powerful, and with larger pointy rocks at the bottom.

The Undercling, Mad Meadows

It was rated v5, and the book had a picture of a guy being carried away on a stretcher next to it. It was, however, less scary because it was more powerful, with bigger holds. I knew I could reach the holds while I climbed, and the size of the holds was reassuring. I probably wasn't going to grease off of these. I plunked my pad down in the center of the jumble of boulders, in the only flat spot, and looked at it for a long time. I chalked my hands, tightened my shoes, and looked and looked.
I could see all the moves. I turned on the little camera, and started at the base on a big sloper. Long reaches, technical feet, and a series of moves that revolved around the problem's namesake, the Undercling, constituted the lower half. The upper half was much more mental than technical or physical. There were a couple of long reaches, but like I thought it would be, the holds were good. I topped out on an insecure finish at twenty feet, and pushed through some tree branches to the jugs. Again, that dreamy feeling. There just isn't anything like it. I managed to onsight this one, which is always a fun little asterisk to put next to the check mark in the guidebook.
I climbed a couple more easy problems, scouted out some potential projects, and made my way back in the dark.
Next morning, I woke, and climbed for less than an hour. My skin was basically completely absent after yesterday's double header (correct terminology, Sarah?).
I climbed at this amazing little place called Barney's Rubble. The Rub, as it is affectionately known here. Again, I found the highballs to be the most alluring. Call me crazy. I did a few, nothing as hard as the day before, until it was painful to even lift my water bottle.
It was time to head to Seattle for the wedding.

Travel Part One Eye One Upright Carrot

2011-08-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

Eastern Washington is flat!

Travel Part Three Eyes (updated with photos)

2011-08-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

That brought me to Montana, somewhere around three in the afternoon (two with the time change). I was making great time, and through the odious portion of the trip. I couldn't help but think of the last time I had driven across the west this way. It had taken us a couple of days to get as far as I had gotten in an honest laborer's work shift.
Montana was a welcome sight. It being Monday I was concerned that I might not make it to Seattle by Friday, for some reason or another, so I felt I better move.
I flew through all the little highway towns in eastern Montana, and set my sights on Bozeman for dinner. There was a CB (See Part Two Eyes) there, and I wanted to take advantage. I got the Wholesome Breakfast, which included an array of exciting things such as yogurt, fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, toast, granola, and nuts. A surprising menu option for CB, to be sure. I was delighted.
It took a shockingly long time. Perhaps they had to massage the eggs out of the chickens. I don't know. But when I got back on the road, I decided that it was time to head into the woods for sleep.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't end up finding a place to sleep for another six or seven hours. Towards the end, I called and talked to Sarah for a while, and missed the exit for the forest road I had planned on using for a bed that night. She helped me find a place to crash for the night. It was a funny conversation that went something like this, as she looked over the Google Map, and I drove.

Me: Do you see anything north of town?
Sarah: No. Nothing.
Me: Crap. How about to the south?
Sarah: Yes, a number of subdivisions, schools, parks, and stuff like that. That might work.
Me: Hold on. I think there's some confusion. We are looking for the pale gray roads that end in nothing with nothing around. Is that what it is like to the north?
Sarah: Hm... Yes. Not much up there. Hold on, I see really small road with nothing on it...

It was beautiful. Five miles north of the highway, and just past a wooden one-lane bridge, there was a little dip in the road, and a rutted muddy pullout on the left. I parked, crawled into the back, and after an hour of tossing and turning, fell asleep. Good job, Sarah!

I woke at six, read for an hour (The Wise Man's Fear!!), and got back on the highway.

Dawn at the campground.

I made it ten miles before my exhaust system detached itself from the engine. The roar was unbelievable, as the limit in Montana is 75, and I was going an easy 80.

I pulled over at the next exit, and checked it out. Yep. Broken off at the header pipe, just distal to the manifold. I couldn't fix it, either. It wouldn't take a clamp. It was a new part or nothing. But it occurred to me that I might be able to get it welded, if I couldn't find the part. Someone in town had to have a MIG.
I surveyed.

I was in a little town. Maybe a thousand or two people. I found my way to the auto parts shop, and saw that they didn't open for a couple of hours. I figured, they aren't going to have the part, anyway, so I might as well make myself comfortable. I could be here for a couple of days. So I grabbed my book, and walked around. I found a yoga studio that would be doing a couple of classes a day for the next few days, which I thought would be a great way to spend some time. I tried not to worry that I would miss the wedding, but truthfully, I did.
I had some eggs at a little cafe that had one long table in the center of the room, and three tables for two along the side. I parked in one of the side tables, and watched as people came in and out, sat next to their neighbors, peeked glances at the weird guy in the corner at their cafe at 715 in the morning, and complained and gossiped like you do. It was fun, and I got to talking to a couple of people there about nothing in particular.
I asked around about a welding shop, and they said Cliff's was the place to go. I thought Cliff might be doing jobs out of his house, from the way they talked about it.
The parts store opened up, and I found out that they didn't have the part, though they could order it, and it would be two days. Hm. Well, that would still leave me with enough time to get to the wedding. However, the truck could still drive, and I might just drive it, noisy as hell, all the way to Butte, where the part would be coming from anyway. But I asked about a good welder. They also recommended Cliff.
I made my way to Cliff's place. It was actually a great little shop. Three lifts, two mechanics, and a manager/receptionist. They didn't have the part, but said they could weld it. How much?
Seventy bucks? he said.
Yeah, alright, I said.
I asked if I could borrow a shield and watch, and the guy said, sure. It was fun hanging out in the shop, checking out all the work being done, chatting with the ranchers who were also milling around the shop, watching their v8's get worked. He brushed the metal clean, and welded the crap out of it. It ended up being pretty ugly.

But a week later, and a thousand miles more mileage, and it's still held.
I tipped him, and jumped into my truck, with Missoula in my cross hairs.

You see, Missoula also had a CB, as I could see with my handy CB map. I ended up making there for an early lunch. Again, the Wholesome Breakfast! I noted, as I had in the last Montana CB, that the people here were much less judgmental in their looks, and stared less. They also had less metal crap hanging from them, less makeup, not as old, looked like they worked with their hands, etc. As different as I looked, I felt as much at home there as I've felt anywhere. It's dangerous to compare the cultures of entire states based on the differences in their country food restaurants, even within the same chain, but I did anyway. I was happy to be in Montana.

Travel Part Two Eyes

2011-08-02T16:56:00.001-07:00

North Dakota was less of a pleasure. Years ago, my mother got me a gift ceritificate to Cracker Barrel (hereafter CB), and I decided I was going to use it on this trip to save a little money, and have a couple of easy, hot meals on the road. I was not particularly hungry yet, but I saw a CB when I passed through Bismark, and thought I could stop by to see if they could tell me where the next couple of these things were, and I could use the bathroom, and fill my water bottles. By god, the people in the Bismark CB are shades of horror. After being looked up and down twice, by everyone in there, none of whom, from staff to patron, was under fifty, I walked up to the counter, where the woman there, after looking me up and down, gave me her best impression of someone that had eaten something that tasted vaguely like feces.
This place was hostile.
I got my balance, found a sweet map of the US with all 250 or so CB's labeled everywhere, stole some of their water and indoor plumbing, and got out of there. As quickly as I could, I also got out of North Dakota.

Travel Part Eye

2011-08-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

Leaving Minnesota via 94 took longer than I expected, but I made it to the border before 9 in the morning, having left at 515. I did not stop. My earplugs held true, my ipod happily played through the car stereo, and the truck ran well.

Leaving

2011-07-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

After three weeks in Minneapolis, where I've read, and climbed, and relaxed, it's time to head west. I take almost the same route west that I took in 2007, when I moved to Oregon. I go to a wedding, and then I come back to Wyoming for the Tetons. The truck is clean, the oil changed, and my stuff is packed. If all goes well (and I'm waiting on a couple of things happening), I should be leaving early Tuesday morning.
The Tetons are looking pretty exciting, although I'm doing much less research about how to do actual mountaineering than is advisable. I think I have everything I need to be safe. I'll try a couple of short routes to get started, and then try for the bigger ones.
I'll try to post some more as I go along. I don't know what the situation is in the park, and I doubt I'll bother to figure it out. Of course, if there is a federal shutdown, then maybe I won't be climbing in the Tetons after all. What then?
Assuming that doesn't happen, we will see how I fare on this alpine stuff. I think my general fitness will get in the way of actual climbing. Maybe a week or two of doing it there will help me build some endurance. Even if I don't do anything big, exciting, or amazing, I'll be in a really cool place. That is worth it, by itself.

Wyoming

2011-07-07T08:46:00.001-07:00

Non tea party Americans may marvel that any group can think of itself as egalitarian when it's main political goals are to cut off government assistance to the poorest and reduce taxes for the richest. But American populism has almost always concentrated it's anger against the educated rather than the wealthy. So much so that you night describe contemporary American pilot is as a class struggle between those with more education than money against those with more money than education: Jon Stewart's America versus Bill O'Reilly's, Barack Obama's versus Sarah Palin.
David Frum
Post tea party nation
The New York Times Magazine
Nov 14, 2010

FSGS?

2011-06-14T16:28:00.001-07:00

It turns out that, because I am not responding to therapy that minimal change disease usually responds to, and my symptoms have never quite fit with the pathology diagnosis, my doctor thinks that I may have been misdiagnosed, and may have a significantly more dangerous and potentially much deadlier kidney disease, FSGS.
I may have to have another biopsy, and I'll probably have to be on much more dangerous and aggressive drugs. I may, someday, have to have a kidney transplant.
It was heartening, on casual perusal of FSGS, to discover that these guys ( guy 1, guy 2), also had FSGS, and even after kidney transplants, they still kicked six kinds of ass.
This disease is more commonly found in african american people, less commonly in white americans. I always knew I had more soul than the typical white guy. Further evidence.

So I'm kind of struggling with this, and casting a net for kidney donors. If you are interested, give me a call at 1 800-GIVEMEAKIDNEYORIWILLDIE.

Just kidding! I'll make it through, or I won't, and it's nice that my physician is paying this much attention. Ever since I didn't get any images or rationale behind the diagnosis from the biopsy, I've been suspicious. My demographic didn't fit the epidimiology, nor did the fact that crazy heavy prednisone didn't work after three months. The side effects sure did work, however! HA on me, apparently!

This guy, the guy who did the Council of Dads thing (book, TED talk), Bruce Feiler, was speaking on NPR today about 'what not to say to someone who is sick'. It was often pretty funny. Some of it resonated, although 1) I'm not pointing fingers, 2) I have a short memory, and 3) I want to be clear that I always appreciate the effort. Thank you for all the support.

In other news, finals in less than a week. Looking forward to the end of the school year. I'm still training for time in the tetons, but I've also been thinking about maybe doing a couple of things in the Sierras, like on the Hulk or something. I think my finger is going to be better by August, and I've been throwing around the idea of maybe going to Wild Iris for a bit, as well.

Attention, Undivided and Divided

2011-06-06T15:17:00.000-07:00

So when you watch eight hours of lecture in a row, it's not that you lose the ability to pay attention completely at some point, but that you can only pay attention for progressively shorter periods of time, with increasingly longer periods of not paying attention. Ie:
8am ~ 30 min attention time, 0.5 min not paying attention
12am ~ 10min attention time, 1 min not paying attention
5pm ~ 0.5 min attention time, 5 min not paying attention
Oh god there will be a lot of catch up.

Favorite Paintings of the Month

2011-05-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

Mort du fossoyeur

Christ dans le desert Kramskoi

Baglione

Garden of Death, Hugo Simberg

Podkowiński-Szał_uniesień-MNK

Injury Part 3 / Jedi Can Look Into The Future But Sometimes That Future Is Clouded By The Dark Side

2011-05-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

I got back a positive diagnosis of an A4 sprain yesterday, confirmed by MR. That's good; I like that my flexor digitorum superficialis is still attached to my middle finger. Depending on my healing, it will probably be a while (one to three more weeks?) before the initial inflammation goes down. At that point, I'll start challenging it a little, to see what I can do without pain in the joint. Crack climbing may be possible. It should be about four to six weeks after that (?) before the injury is repaired. By that point, I should be so good at open handed climbing and cracks that I don't need to crimp on it (and maybe by the fall or winter I can take a trip back to HCR to get back on Glass Bowl, Flash Gordon, and go to Fountain Red and Fred's Cave.
It's tough to say what's going to happen in terms of my training, for now. Even if I could, theoretically, recover completely before the summer, I'm not sure I really want to go on a trip to RMNP with my finger in recovery mode. It just sounds risky, or foolhardy, or something, even if it's just in terms of expectations. If I got to do some bouldering this summer, that would be great, but I think I might push myself to do something new.
I have been working out on the stairmaster and exercise bike about four days a week (114 flights yesterday!), have continued all my other exercises (pushups, pull ups, front levers, crunches, leg lifts, reverse wrist curls, rotator cuff stuff, dips, ab machines, pronator/supinator exercise) and, assuming this stiff hamstring and sore knee can be gently remedied, and I can continue to train for it for the next six weeks, maybe I will have the fitness to make the summer into a mountaineering endeavor. That's the plan right now, anyway.
I want to see what the western slope is like (do they have good bookstores and coffee shops in Grand Junction? What's the traffic like? What's the architecture, climate, scenery, and CLIMBING? The residency program in family med is pretty awesome there, and I want to see if I would like the setting as well), and I want to go to the Tetons. There are lots of easy, long, scrambles there, that I can do straight out of the climber's camp. It could be a really nice place to stay for a few weeks, and gain some fitness, learn the weather patterns, spend a ton of time outside, etc. I could stand to commune with wilderness for a while.
Also, I get to see one of my favorite people in the world get married this summer. And another of my favorite people in the world get married this fall. It's going to be a good year.

An Injury Repaired

2011-05-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Part One
I saw a sports medicine doctor on Tuesday. His confidence at dealing with this issue was, at first, inspiring. I thought, 'this guy knows what's going on'. Of course, what this is leading to is my complete failure to believe or trust in him, beyond even the level of lack of trust that he deserves, and it's hard to say when this started to happen during the appointment. One point was when I told him I was considering spending the summer mountaineering in the Tetons rather than climbing, to give my finger a rest, and he said, "Oh, yeah, you can boulder up those hills all you want. That will be fine for your finger." For those of you that don't know, that is egregious climbing language.
He said it with the same confidence that he said everything else. Then I realized that when I had, earlier, told him I had hurt my finger bouldering, he thought that that meant that I was walking on talus or something ( -? still kind of mystery to me).
"Well, I mean, you weren't toproping, so I'm kind of surprised that you got that bad an injury." To be clear, I believe he was saying that toproping is significantly more risk-fraught than bouldering, in terms of potential injury. For the non-climbers, this is absurd to the point of hilarity (except he was a doctor trying to treat me, and was speaking in all seriousness, affecting more knowledge than he had, which is the opposite of helpful or inspiring, but more like terrifying, disheartening, and particularly scary for me, a future doctor, who wants to actually inspire, educate, and have humility, and maybe I'll end up like this guy, who is talking out his ass and being unintentionally disrespectful).
There were a number of other things that happened. It could also have been when he walked into the room, and he scowled at me immediately. Unintentional, sure, but he's either really pissed, was trying to affect some look other than 1)what he was actually feeling - fear? doubt? sadness? exhaustion? and 2) the look he ended up having, i.e.: pissed.
A little background: I have been taking prednisone for several months. Not high doses for the last three, but high doses before that. It makes tendons more prone to rupture. It makes some sense that I would have sustained a more serious injury than I have before after taking this drug for so long. On the other hand, I have experienced very few/no side effects of prednisone since I switched to the lower dose (and very little when I was on the higher dose), and I am climbing significantly harder stuff than I, really, ever have before. So the level of climbing I am doing may alone account for the injury.
"Prednisone pre-disposed you to this injury, and will make your recovery difficult. That said, you are taking prednisone for your kidneys, and they are more important than your sport, whatever your sport is."
So suddenly, he's telling me that because I have a kidney disease that has required prednisone, that this has caused my injury, and that climbing is probably not something I can do as long as I have this disease (which could be for the rest of my life). Now to me, the kidney disease just about took my entire life and psyche apart during fall term last year, and I had to fight really hard to pull myself together enough to be able to keep studying, keep learning, keep fighting. What I really don't want is for the disease to have also taken my passion from me.
He also said it with a stern attitude, like, 'c'mon, what the hell is the matter with you?'
That typical American arrogance about people who injure themselves doing something other than sitting on the couch and eating cheetos (which is the American way)(1).
Then he starts using vague language concerning the tendons and ligaments in my fingers "the sheath... the tendon... muscles come in here". This was after I discussed why I thought it might be A4, not A2, not a cruciate, incidence of injury of A4 in climbers, etc. The impression I was getting, I realized later, was he knew less than he was letting on. Let me be clear, that, at the time, I was not forming any of these judgments, that my esteem for him was basically static. One thing he said didn't make sense, even at the time.
He had told me that I should do nothing with my finger except RICE for at least 6 weeks. I asked,
"So I've been doing some reading, and a number of anecdotal accounts have said that people are responding better to starting putting some weight on the finger, using an open-handed grip, not after six weeks, but sooner, soon after the swelling goes down, which 1)keeps the person from losing the fitness they have, 2)actually encourages recovery of the ligament/tendon." (not that eloquently, for sure, but that was what I hope he heard as the gist)
So he says, "No, look, you're on prednisone, and that just isn't going to work. You have to stop climbing for a long time". This bothered me, in terms of logic.
"Okay, so pred slows down the recovery process, but shouldn't the principle remain the same? Start working with the injury in ways that use the joint, but don't exacerbate the injury further? I mean, it may just take longer for me to heal than others, because I'm on this drug for this nightmarish kidney thing, but that doesn't mean that the principle doesn't hold true".
"I would agree with you, but you are on prednisone. You need to stop climbing for six weeks".
...
He made no diagnosis, as far as I could tell, unless you count scowling at my guess at what was going on.
So there could be something there that I just don't get. That the recovery and regeneration process is somehow fundamentally different in people who are taking prednisone than in people who are not. But I don't think so. I think it's probably a prolongation. What he said sounds like horseshit, and like he wasn't listening, and was just posturing.
Basically, what he was doing, was hedging his bets. The more I think about it, the more it feels like: he did not know the anatomy very well, had no idea of the circumstances of my injury, little understanding of the injury itself, had little to no regard for me as a person, and didn't know what to do. So he said that I had to stop climbing for a really long time, maybe longer, and let my body heal. This implicit message here is that if I get hurt again, it's because I have not waited long enough, and I am stupid. That really, this is because I was stupid in the first place, and I should know better than to think my 'sport' is worth that much. He's hoping that, whatever it is, and he has no idea what it is, it will heal itself if I do absolutely nothing with it for the next six weeks, and hoping that I will get the impression that I am solely to blame for any complications that may occur later, because then I would have started climbing too soon, and 'didn't listen or respect my doctor's orders'. Maybe even that I have no self control.
That's the safe thing for the doctor to do, and what my previous nephrologist did when I expressed to him that I had concerns that he was not communicating in a way that I felt was respectful: "Well if you weren't eating so much protein, your kidneys would be fine by now".
Jesus that hurt, and, it turns out, was pretty cavalier in that you can't exactly do forensic cause and effect here (and more than unfair, because he never mentioned anything about that in any of our previous meetings). The point being that both doctors can't fix (or understand) what is happening, so they shift the blame to me to feel safer.

Part Two
Before I went to the appointment with the sports med doctor, I also made an appointment with an orthopedist. I went to that one yesterday. I have to preface this by saying that I have always disliked/hated all of the orthopedists I've had before. They say all the worst stuff, eg: Dr. W. in Maryland told me of a catastrophic bilateral groin tear from running that kept me up at night, and made it painful for me to walk for almost a year, "It doesn't show up on the CT. Are you sure you have pain? I think you just need to toughen up. Look, sometimes we feel pain, and we just have to ignore it. Sports can be really hard, but you need to learn the difference between sore muscles and injury".
And like I said in the last post, "Don't worry about your tendonitis - you won't be able to climb once you are in medical school, and it will go away on its own".

So I pretty much go into an orthopedic surgeon's office with a hell of a lot of prejudice, defenses up, even defensive scorn, before I've even met the person. This is clearly unfair, but there you have it. Contrast this with how I feel about sports medicine (which is a branch of family medicine, where I imagine I will practice), which is pretty positive.

This doctor, a different Dr. W., was unbelievable. I can't say this with enough emphasis, I was truly surprised. She didn't solve all my problems right away, and she didn't know all the answers. She did, however, 1)do her best, 2)was open to communication from me - she actually listened!, 3)told me when she didn't know something, 4)only said things that she actually knew, 5)generally, was just really friendly, and straight with me.
No affectations, no BS, just courtesy, humility, respect, and authority. Maybe she was unusually on her game yesterday, but I feel that I now have a medical interview and perhaps mode of practice, to aspire to.
She did a history, and I told her the same stuff as the other doctor. She did a physical exam, but checked my flexor tendons, in addition to the pulley system. She found all my pulleys working fine, but that my flexor digitorum superficialis was not functioning at the middle finger.
"Holy crap!" I said. This is pretty troubling, said one part of my brain, which knows that the only reason the fingers flex (ie grip) is because they are attached to two main muscles (flexor digitorum superficialis, and flexor digitorum profundus - so you really don't want to remove their attachments from the fingers), but another part of my brain went, wow, damn the consequences of this injury, I am really impressed with this doctor, and, this, combined with the fact that she exhibited all of the things I listed above, put me in a place where I was completely confident that I was in good hands, and would recover from this injury as well as is possible (at least, for someone at my socioeconomic level, which is acceptable). That is, I felt great trust.
She said that I may have avulsed my flexor digitorum superficialis from my middle finger when I was bouldering (pretty crazy injury for sure), or I may have a pulley injury, and she didn't know which from physical exam. It could be something else. Depending on the injury, it may require immediate surgery if I wanted to retain function in my hand. Although, it is more likely that the MR will just tell us what is going on for sure, and will help us plan recovery. So she helped me schedule an MR (well, the ladies at the front desk did, and then really helped my out by going to extra mile and calling me later with an earlier appointment that was much more convenient to attend (630 am Monday before class at 8am vs. last night at 6:15) and she is going to get back to me on Monday and tell me whether I need to have surgery this coming week.
I know I should be nervous about that, but I'm really not so much. I've dealt with worse, I guess. The troubling thing is that I may never climb hard again. The impression I'm getting here is that that may happen, but I think I can deal because I will have done everything I can. In the end, that's all we can do.
I love the idea that she took this seriously, that I have a pretty good shot of getting a diagnosis, and that she will know what to do about it, and do it.
I think my favorite thing came up about halfway through the interview. She said that she had the same concerns about prednisone, that it predisposes me to injuries like this. I said, "That puts me in a psychologically challenging position, because I feel that climbing is tied intrinsically to my identity."
She said, "Well, that makes sense (2), and I think you could maybe talk to your nephrologist about other treatment options. If there are no alternatives in terms of your kidney health, then you might have to get kind of creative to make sure you can still climb".
Hopefully I'll know on Monday what's happening. In the mean time, I have to get back to studying pharmacology and pathology, and frantically flinging myself up moving stairs.

(1) By this I mean, Americans are intolerant and judgmental of people doing activities that are perceived as high risk, like snowmobiling (a relative of mine called someone an "idiot" who was in a snowmobile accident. Dammit, I mean, at least the guy isn't sitting on the couch growing a third chin - he's actually out there doing something he loves - really going after it. I'm not much of a 2-cycle engine sport kind of guy - more of a 'fly by means of your own power' sort of person - but still). So someone gets hurt doing something like snowmobiling, base jumping, downhill skiing, climbing, and they are an "idiot". "It is their own damn fault". The conversation might go. But who's saying this? Go ahead and promote your waist size with a few more Big Macs, and use your evenings to watch sitcoms; your priorities are clearly better sorted out than mine.
And this tone, from a sports medicine doctor, no less, is exactly what I got.
(2) I've said stuff like this fairly often to doctors, and never once have they said it made sense. I mention that I am a climber, and people say, "Ooh that's nice". Most people see it as a "sport" at best, a "stupid" thing to do, a "fun little hobby", or some such. They want me to stop, and think that I would be way better off not doing it. What they don't realize is that if I stopped, my life might be a lot like theirs, and from where I am sitting, that looks pretty bleak.
That she was so bold as to validate my statement of identity tied to something that most people, maybe even she, believe is a pretty stupid, fanciful, or trivial thing, was pretty amazing.

A4 Injured

2011-05-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

I got another finger injury on Saturday, and probably won't be able to climb for a couple of months. It's difficult to be positive about this, to keep it from completely overwhelming me with sadness. In fact, so far it's been almost perfectly impossible, as I have walked around and worked in a state of either rage or despair. I guess it's just coming at the same time as a lot of other pressure. Up to this point, climbing has been how I relax, and get away from medical school. Now, I use the stairmaster to do this (which doesn't really do it). Ughh.
I am going to a sports med doctor this week.
I found an interesting paper that demonstrates that ultrasound can be very effective in precise diagnosis of pulley injuries and their severity. I'll do some more reading. I have a passion for this kind of reading that I didn't even have when I was diagnosed with the kidney disease.
Maybe I'll end up being a doctor that climbers can specifically seek out. The idea of being a climber's doctor is pretty attractive. I would love to become an expert in this (field, for lack of a better word) of medicine.
I know I've always been extremely disappointed in the medical community's ability to deal with climbing injury. It has always included the perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance, usually among orthopedists, who are used to knowing everything about everything they need to know. So they walk into the appointment with the same arrogance, only now they don't know anything about climbing, and just act like they do, and despite your explanation that you already know what they are telling you, and you have other questions, they just spout the same old garbage and collect their three hundred f*g dollars for the five minute visit. Or the provider that tells you to "stop doing what you are doing, and take some advil". I had an orthopedist tell me once that, because I was going into medicine, I wouldn't have to worry about my tendonitis any more, because I would not have time to climb anyway, and would have to give it up. I can gladly say that medical school has ignited a passion in me for climbing unlike any I have experienced before, and my training has never been more focused, nor successful. I've trained, and climbed, better in medical school than I ever climbed before I got here.
You can see the anger welling in me. I'm sorry. It's difficult.
I'll be doing a lot of reading about this. With more information, I will be better armed to regain function, understand my body, work on weaknesses in technique and training, and better prevent injury in the future.
Dave Macleod is helping. He's the man.
So in addition to a lot of reading, I'll be doing as much exercise as my body can handle without using that joint for a little while. And then slowly using it more and more as the pulley recovers. This may even involve crack climbing sessions in the gym, but I need to get over the initial period after injury before I will risk it. A week or two, I suppose, before I give anything like that a shot.
I hope I can convince the sports medicine doc to use ultrasound to diagnose it. I'll bring the article in. If not, there will be an ultrasound lab available to us as medical students some time before the end of the year (hopefully). Given the opportunity, I will learn to use this technique on myself, and watch the thing heal over time.
So weaknesses to work on:
Lateral epicondylitis - more extensor training, massage, better ergonomics at my computer. More supination / pronation strengthening (brought in my pipe wrench from the tool box in the truck), too.
Cardiovascular - I need to get my cardiovascular endurance up to the level of my anaerobic strength. I would like to form some cardiovascular habits now, while my finger is injured, that I can maintain once I am healed. Like I said, my current thing is the stairmaster. It's pretty much totally awesome because of how hard it works me. I can also use it as a mindful activity - don't use the handrails to improve balance, and do maintain the best posture I can the entire time (this is a big challenge for me, improving my posture. I've had poor posture since I was a little kid, and decided some time around 2009 (I was 26, and saw myself hunched over in a store window as I passed it) that I just hated that I looked like that. It's been an extremely challenging process trying to correct it, but it's improved dramatically. Sarah, for instance, who has only known me for a few months, says she never notices any problems with it. Personally, I still see room for improvement.). The other nice thing about the stairmaster is that it's pretty fun to see that whole "you are burning 900 calories/hour, and you have climbed 87 flights of stairs". Somehow this just sounds more impressive to me than the numbers the other machines spit out. It's exactly the sort of thing that's nice around here, in this land of pancakes and pancake topography, to counteract all the flatness.
Mental training - It does very little good to walk around acting like my life is over and everything sucks, just because I have a finger injury. There are lots of ways to look at it, but constantly torturing myself by saying, "You will never get better, you will never get better, you will never climb again, you never climbed that hard anyway, you never got to do project X (Glass Bowl!), you never got to do project Y(Glass Bowl! Flash Gordon!), this is only a precursor of painful, debilitating things to come as you age, until you reach a sharply declining slope into physical weakness, senility, and soon thereafter, death. You will never get better," just isn't all that helpful.
Crack climbing - Assuming my finger allows me to do this (a toss of some sort of gambling device at this point), it will be nice to sharpen my crack skills. I haven't done that much crack climbing in the last couple of years, and, really, none, since I moved back to Minnesota. I found myself falling on 5.11 and 5.11+ training cracks in the gym that I had totally wired when I lived here before. I would really enjoy getting back into that.
Cracks in the gym:
easy handcrack (5.9)
big hands, overhanging crack (5.9+/5.10a)
big hands through stepped roof crack (5.10+ Yosemite/5.11 most other places)
easy easy fingers, hands, fists, mild offwidth "natural" crack (5.7)
easy easy easy corner finger crack (5.6)
tough, overhanging off hands, and tight hands lead crack (this is the good one) (5.11+?5.12-?. Haven't been on a crack like this anywhere else.)
hard off-fingers crack (good for developing that pain tolerance) (5.12)
chimney (5.8)
smooth stemming (usually there are a bunch of holds of the previous two, but if you skip the holds, you can make them harder. The chimney is 5.8 or 5.9, but the smooth stemming is akin to the strength needed to climb something like El Matador. Ie. feels nasty hard.) (5.10++)

So all of these would be fun things to improve my technique on. When I had my finger injury in 2005 (Insidious, chronic damage to A1!, from too much overhanging lead climbing!), cracks were the only kind of climbing that I would/could do for months. It would be nice if this injury allows me to do the same. It's nice starting, this time, in a place where all of these techniques feel pretty familiar already. If I have the chance, I can really hone some skills, here.
Other deficits in my physical fitness/ability? - Always searching...

Other news:
The Pale King is an embodiment of everything I love about David Foster Wallace.
Aeneas is still stuck in Carthage (which, from the sound of the queen, isn't all that bad), while I read DFW.
My little book is picking up more momentum, and remains fun to write.
Medical school is still happening.

Pulldown Menu (Revised 07May2011)

2011-05-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Pulldown Menu, 12+, Perfect Crimb Area, Red Wing, MN

I tried Pulldown Menu, a beautiful, clean, and powerful route, for two or three sessions some time between 2004 and 2006. You can see from the image above that the climbing is easy to the roof - then the awesome three meter boulder problem starts. You get established on thin pockets on the roof, throw to a crimp over the roof, bring right hand above to another crimp, smear on the left, move right hand up to a gaston, and reach to shallow pockets, where you can kind of get your body into a vertical position, and move your hands into the much better holds above (including a bomber finger lock undercling!)
In ~2005, I fell many times from above the roof, either trying to clip the bolt above, or stabbing into the decent pockets. The route has an arete/bulge below the roof, and the crux is smearing your feet above the roof, so every time I fell, I would get inverted enough to slam my butt into the bulge below. I took enough falls like this that I was walking kind of funny, and decided to work other routes for a while. Soon, I forgot about the route, and moved to Oregon.
Now that I'm back in Minnesota, it occurred to me that it is one of the better routes at Red Wing that I had never redpointed, and was suddenly excited about it. I played a Jedi mind trick on myself to forget what it had done to my gait. Today, I managed to do it clean, and on my first try of the day! The trick was cleaning it, ticking the key holds, and hanging a couple of draws at the crux in preparation for an attempt. I did this from the adjacent route, Perfect Crimb (which suddenly feels a lot more like 10a than 5.9 - Glassier feet? Stiff grade? Overconfidence?).
When I did the crux on Pulldown Menu, rather than trying to clip off of the crux pockets, I climbed above the bolt (risking a nastier fall, I suppose), and clipped off of a bomber finger lock. It was kind of funny to be clipping the last bolt from that high - I could barely reach it below me. I'm very pleased to have done it, and ecstatic that Red Wing still holds the potential for so much joy. I climbed the route much more smoothly, quickly, and with comfort and confidence than I did years ago. Somehow I never thought that experience would count for this much. I am pleased to still be improving.

Afterwards

Insectaphobe, Demystification, at the Glorious Red Wing

2011-04-24T12:14:00.001-07:00

Made a little progress today on Insectaphobe. It was not the complete mastery (or even sticking all the moves once) that I was hoping to achieve, but it's something.
I went today with a rope, and set it up to work the lower crux. I managed to do another half move on the first boulder, and found a couple more tiny crimps. I have not linked this section, but it is starting to congeal in my mind. I think with a little more tension, and a little more time spent trying the moves, I should be able to piece it together. There are still one or two foot switches/body position changes that I will need to learn before I can piece it together.
I also tried the upper crux again. Yeah, it's still pretty brutal up there. Little holds.
It got really hot on the Winter Wall, so we went around back, and I on-sighted this 12a, Demystification. After all my years at Red Wing, I had never tried it before! Except for Meet the Feebles, I think I had at least tried every other route at the crag. It was a pleasure to be able to try, and succeed in on-sighting, something I had never been on before at Red Wing. I think it was probably bolted some time around 2005 or 2006*, so it wasn't really on my radar.
Insectaphobe remains fun, so I think I will keep working on it. The conditions were kind of sloppy today, however. Just too hot on that wall to make much progress. If it stays like this, I may not have much motivation to work on it until the fall.
I have finals this week! Wish me luck.

Editor's note - This route was first done by Liz Hajek in 2002. That was his heyday. How did this idiot miss that!?

Project!

2011-04-19T06:04:00.001-07:00

I'm as surprised as you are that I have a project in Minnesota. I didn't think I would ever see the day again.
Insectaphobe is a 14a that was done maybe seven or eight years ago by Andy Raether, and has seen between 3 and 5 repeats. Joel Anderson and Jim Merli for sure, maybe a guy named Pi, and, possibly, Scott Hahn. It starts on a tensiony, technical 15' section (v7-8?), to a good edge. From there, a hard v8 or v9 crimp problem constitutes the crux. Now, I'm not all that sure about this - I did the v8 or v9 thing in 2006 - it's the crux of the traversing Blankman - it could be easier or harder. And I'm not sure that the start is about that hard either - I've done all the moves in it except the last one or two to the decent edge. Anyway, after these two cruxes, you gain a large pocket, and finish on the classic crux of Mississippi Burning, a 12b (thin v4 boulder). So I've been thinking about this almost incessantly since I tried the start on Sunday, and couldn't resist writing (spraying?) about it online. Does it count as spraying if you haven't done it yet? I'd say that's the opposite of spraying, because it sets you up for failure.

Months later...

"So did you ever do Insectaphobe? I read that you were working on it, like, forever ago."
"..."

No pictures yet, but I'll post 'em if I can get 'em. If anyone wants to work it, I'll be messing around with it afternoons and weekends for the next couple of months.

Arseny, Apocalypse, and Sean Visit Mike's Boulder

2011-04-16T10:50:00.001-07:00

Arseny serving apocalypse:

My third or sixth try of the day:

It's the most aesthetic boulder at Taylors. The right line goes at v8 or v9, and I'm getting close. Once I've done that, I think it will be time to head up to Sandstone for bouldering. It looks like they've got some nice stuff up there.
Exams in a week, and then a trip (location tbd) for a week. After that, only seven weeks of class before summer.

Aeneid

2011-04-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the Aeneid lately, between studying for classes, and working on my climbing, and it's a great joy. I don't have time to write, but I want to say that, despite what the real classicists think, the poetry of it is much more striking than that of Homer. Homer's works always felt like great stories - maybe the best stories ever - and the Aeneid does not challenge this. But it is lyrical and beautiful in a way that Homer is not.
These ancients knew what was valuable in a man - strength, wisdom, patience, and, yes, intelligence.

Let me credit this website for the delightful image above.

Adam Ondra

2011-04-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

I am glad Adam Ondra has chosen to use his powers for good, rather than evil.
Adam hanging out with one of the Huber brothers.

Arkansas: Frustration. 1st Year: End in Sight

2011-04-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Let me start with a funny link, here.
For people who are friends with me on a certain social networking site, you can check out some videos I posted of great climbs I managed while in Arkansas. As with the previous trip, I managed to climb harder than I have before. It is thrilling to go down there, get on the boulders, and perform well. My training continues to strengthen me, and I benefit more, all the time, from experience. Among the most exciting climbs I did - I managed to flash Separate But Equal, a tall v6, and Leatherface, a v7 (although for that one, I may have started on the wrong holds). I also managed to climb Numerical Methods, a v8 that I couldn't do on the last trip, and I did on my second try this trip. I think my best effort was flashing Orbital Mechanics, a v8 in the Power Cave at the North 40.
This problem is a ten or twelve foot, dead horizontal roof, and it is sometimes described as "soft v8 if you have good beta".
I watched a guy work it last trip, and thought it was just too damn technical and complicated for me to get excited about. I scoffed, "What a load of (crap)!", and refused to even try it. This time, a fellow Minnesotan, Zach, wanted to work on it, and my project (see below), was wet... again. So I headed up there with him, and noticed that, instead of using all kinds of complicated footwork, bear-hugging, heel-hooks, toe-hooks, etc., that I could just grab a series of sharp, sort of downward facing crimps (plus a couple of sort of slopey things) that led out the left side of the roof. "This would be powerful!", I thought. But the moves in this line, while more powerful, perhaps, than the regular sequence, were obvious! So it became a somewhat powerful crimpy roof problem, rather than some nauseatingly complicated thing.
The feet didn't face in exactly the right direction, and it's horizontal, so I had to engage my abs. It ended up being exactly as I imagined it for the ten minutes that I stared at it: long reaches between decent good holds, tight abs (!), and then, I let me feet cut near the end, when I knew I would be able to campus the finish. I let out a scream, but managed to hold the last incut crimp. I decided to try to get my foot on, and shifted my fingers a little on the crimp. They had gone a bit numb, and I needed to get a little bit of feeling back. I struggled to put a foot on, made it, pushed onward to a couple of better holds, and threw for the finish.
It was a thrilling and fascinating experience. The holds were quite painful, and I had to consciously ignore the pain. It felt somewhat tenuous. I had the feeling, for the crux first three moves, that there was a razor thin line between me and falling. Before I set off, I said to myself, "Precision. Power." It seemed to help - I hit the hand-holds, and placed my feet as I had intended before I set off (except for the second move, where I almost couldn't find the crimp I needed because it looked so different from the ground to when I was climbing). Often, when I can't do something, I will just say out loud, "All this is going to take is for me to try harder". I decided to give it everything on the first attempt, and had the foresight to have Zach film it.
I got on the Prophet, a 14a sport climb at the ranch, and did most of the moves. It actually climbs quite well, despite looking like a potentially annoying technical exercise (it is, a tiny little bit, but seriously, it's pretty cool). I think, if I went down there with a motivated partner, who also wanted to work on it, or who had some other project, I would be able to do it in a week or so.
I on-sighted a medium 5.10, and a medium 5.11, and mixed up the hard stuff with lots of problems less than or equal to v3. Climbing with the people down there was a great experience, as always. I always feel, immediately, like I am part of whatever group I join. When I did Leatherface, for instance, I was just walking through the woods on my way to do a tall v1 by myself before dinner. I happened upon a group of screaming Oklahomans working this snaky little problem with beautiful orange rock, and in-cut crimps. I asked if I could join them, and they said "claro que si". We talked, and, after being excited by how cool they were making the problem look, I was inspired to try it. I asked one of them to film it (who I would later discover, was a videography major in college. It's obvious when you watch the video that he's better), and managed to do it on my first try. Satisfying!
A couple days before this, on a whim, I got on what I thought would be a problem too difficult for me to do: a problem called Glass Bowl, which is a v10. Within twenty minutes, I managed to do all of the moves on it! I two-pieced it within half an hour! It felt well within my ability.
Anyway, I worked to link it for the next hour, but to no avail! For a while, I got better and better on it, as my skill increased, then it leveled off for a while, and then it declined (Figure 1). You would think this would be discouraging, maybe, but it was nothing of the sort. It was invigorating! It was the beginning of the trip, practically, a Tuesday, I think, when I would be there until Sunday. I had plenty of time to rest, and get back on it to try for the link. I rested the next day, and came back on Thursday.

Figure 1: The sum of knowledge and strength necessary to do the route are estimated (not having completed it) at 550. Notice that high levels of strength and knowledge are believed to sum to a level sufficient to complete the boulder.

For those of you that don't know, v10 is hard for me - I haven't climbed that hard before, and, I never expected to be able to boulder that hard, ever. It still takes a little self-encouragement to convince myself that I may be able to do it.
It was hot on Thursday, and the rock was cool, because it sits in the shade, so water condensed on it until it was dripping, from dawn to nightfall. I rested still, thinking, when it dries up, I will be in even better shape. I read more in my truck, tried to stay cool in the ever increasingly unbearable heat of mid-day, and did a few v4 - v7's, thinking that I didn't want to stop climbing completely in preparation for a problem that may never dry out.
As feared, it never did dry out. I walked the ten or fifteen minutes from camp to the boulder morning, noon, and night, for three days, and it was never dry again. On the last day, I stopped by the boulder one last time, determined to give it a shot, regardless of conditions. It was completely soaked, and I only had a single pad! I managed the first move, but it felt awful. Soaking, disgusting: yuck. I didn't want to have done v10 enough - I wanted to enjoy the process of it. In any case, it is close to my bouldering limit, so I probably couldn't have done it in those conditions, anyway. But I remember thinking - "I don't want this amazing problem to feel like this when I climb it. I want it to feel good".
This, more than anything, made me turn away, discouraged and defeated. I would not do it this trip. As soon as I could, because the mid-day sun was beating down even hotter today than it had the days before, I got my draws down from the Prophet, and jumped in the truck to head back to school. As I left, I felt like I was leaving something, or someone, behind that I would never see again. My chest ached and I tried to think about other things. I made the long, slow journey back.
Now that I am back, I wake from nightmares of going to crags with close friends, getting close on problems, only to find them wet the next day, and unclimbable.

Video of my sixth, or so, attempt to link the problem.

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2011-03-28T15:14:00.001-07:00

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Goodnight Dune

2011-03-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Sarah, for the link.

http://goodnightdune.com/index.html

Microbiology, Tennessee Drawl, and Soon Off to the Fortress of Solitude

2011-03-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

I am in here. Im down here in the depths of one of these concrete monsters at the university of minnesota, thinking about Brucella, really studying for a microbiology midterm. It may be a nice day outside. I wont know, or if it is, it will make little difference. I love microbiology. I enjoy all of the material. I do miss the outdoors. I wonder how realistic it is to think that I could climb more outside in Minnesota this coming season, even in medical school(?).
In less than a week, I leave for Arkansas. Steve has been in town for the last few days, back from his mysrerious trips to dozens of places in the developing world. In one sense, things are going impressively well for him. He has created a new kind of profession for himself in the last couple of years, and is quite good at it. The offers keep coming in. He might be able to get me hooked up with some people out in Burma, so that I can contribute in some substantive way to the health of the people there. That would be a dream, and worth significant sacrifice.
For the moment, I dream of m y soon to be trip to HCR. I want to get on sport routes that are too hard for me, send boulders that are beautiful, flowing masterpieces, and to gain more perspective of what Im doing here. Im going to try to take a lot more video this time. Unless someone has a better idea, Im going to invest in an ipod touch for taking video. The quality is less, but you cam store multiple hours of video, do simple editing on the actual device, and editing and upload on the computer are easy as well.
Im not a big mfan of electronic stuff like that, but I love sharing video of climbing trips. Its almost like I had friends there with me. Wishe luck omy exam tomorrow, and marvel at the guts of this drawling guy. At least his screams dont involve a TN accent.

http://climbingnarc.com/videos/brent-perkins-trad-climbing-proper-soul-5-14a/

Kyphosis Caused By Excessive Climbing and Training for Climbing

2011-02-20T20:37:00.001-08:00

It's extremely hard to avoid this as a climber. A good start is trying to have good posture during the day. Pick an activity that you do often, but not for very long each day, say, driving in the car, and focus on having good posture during that. Pretty soon, it becomes automatic to work on your posture at other times of the day. For climbers, the thoracic, or upper back, but not neck, is the most problematic area. Look in a mirror, and learn to straighten it without bending your neck or you lower back. It can help to put a cylinder under your thoracic spine, and roll on top of it to stretch it out.
...
More on this later.

Kim Jong Il

2011-02-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

I'm just adding this to my links column, but wanted to highlight it with a post. Absolutely hysterical.

GRACES!

2011-01-27T05:19:00.000-08:00

My posts, of late, have reflected a certain inner something. I wanted to demonstrate, briefly, to all of my readers that all is not dark. Here's a list of things that are totally rad that I am doing, or that are happening to me:

1)Medical school fits me
a)I enjoy studying untold hours
b)I have some natural talent at it (let's not take this too far - let's just say that it's not a bad fit)
c)I love the clinical work
d)The foundations of critical thinking cases are sickeningly exciting: like sitting down in the Nebuchanezzar to have a spike of knowledge driven into the back of your head by Morpheus. And I have a great group.
e)It's clear to me that I am receiving a comparatively good education (check usmle stats for u of m standings)

2)I am stronger, and healthier, in terms of climbing performance, than I have ever been. My physical fitness is reasonable.
a)I boulder harder (a bad night is when I can't climb v6 or above, or five or more v5's comfortably).
b)My joints feel pretty good. A little stiff lately, but pretty damn good for having pushed it so damn hard, in training, for the past eighteen months

3)I've found a climbing area that I love, that's only twelve hours away, and it makes medical school feel like the storm that can be escaped with calm.
a)HCR, Fred's Cave
b)Many other areas down there that I have yet to explore!

4)I have started eating much healthier, and my body feels amazing as a result
a)natural foods,
b)fruits and vegetables
c)yogurts
d)vit D supplements

5)I am writing a new novel. It is slowly becoming the story I have always wished to read.

GULAG!

2011-01-24T16:38:00.001-08:00

That's where I live: in the GULAG. I know everyone hates minnesota in the winter; I hate it more than everyone else. I hate big cities all the time - every day. Take an environment you naturally hate, and remove:

1)Sun
2)Warmth
3)The opportunity to go outside during the day
4)Dirt, grass, trees

Add:

1)Working twelve hours a day underground. Yes, literally, underground.
2)Being surrounded people who cannot conceive of a world any different, and think it's quaint that you require things like mountains and trees around you to be happy.
3)Pavement, only, everywhere!
(For example: There was a pretty little dirt path, only fifty feet long, by my house that I used to use on the way to class. I went out of my way to walk on it, and every time I walked on it, I felt a little better. It brightened my commute to be off pavement for a few seconds, twice a day. In October, they paved over it. What harm was it doing? Was it some kind of danger? Is this path, which probably cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, a worthwhile expenditure? Did it do anything but make the world a worse place? The path was six inches wide, through the grass; it is now four feet wide, and f*g concrete. In a world where no one else notices things like this, it's like everyone around here is an agent of the f*g antichrist.)

=

GULAG!

I can't change minds here. I don't want to enlighten anyone as to how warped this nightmarish world is, and how unfortunate people are to be deprived of the natural world. I just want to leave. As soon as possible, and as often as possible, I will leave this concrete covered, and ice-crusted wasteland.

Great Gym Sesh Tainted by Peach Fuzzed Cop

2011-01-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Driving home from the gym tonight, after a totally raging sesh in the steep cave, I was desperate to make it to the bookstore before their 10pm close. Someone mentioned an Arther Miller play to me this morning, and it sounded irresistible. I was driving through Dinkytown, and passed this great little used bookstore slowly, and saw that it was open! I immediately got pulled over just twenty feet away, as I looked for a meter! 9:36: I wasn't going to make it.
Cop, with peach fuzz and crew cut, was not charming. "You have a tail light out. Where are you coming from?" Which I realized meant: "You were driving near the U at 10pm on Saturday, on the weekend the undergrads get back from break. I was certain you would be drunk". Later, when it was clear that I was old enough to be his papa, and as sober as a bowie knife, his expression read something like: "Wow, this didn't work out".
I was really unpleasant with him, and he almost looked sad by the end. Under any other circumstances, I never try to make people uncomfortable. I mean, I go way out of my way, in daily life, to make everyone feel good, often at my own expense. I enjoy doing that - helping people out with the grind that is daily. I think I'm pretty good at it, and medical school has provided a lot of opportunity to hone those skills.
Traffic cops are something different. I actively try to make them unhappy. I just don't know why people go into this line of work, except that they must like to have other people be in a vulnerable position under them, and they like to exploit that situation. I mean, what other joy could it possibly provide? I know it needs to be done, and it serves an extremely important purpose. But that it thought. This is feeling. It takes a twisted soul, I feel.
I hate being pulled over more than most things. It always gives me a combination of consternation and sadness. I just do not deserve it in any way, in any form. I do not violate traffic laws, I always signal, I never speed, and I am courteous. It is always because I have a "blinker out", or a "tail light out". I have never gotten a ticket, even though I get pulled over every few months or so. I mean, literally. I was pulled over six times in Oregon over the course of three years. As near as I can tell, I get pulled over because I am driving at a time and place when there are drunk drivers, and I am driving the speed limit.
Most people that drive the speed limit have something to hide, I guess. I don't care - I'm not going to get into a car accident. I don't mind if I die some other way, even if my death is imminent, but it will never be that. In the mean time, it seems I have to get pulled over constantly! We hates it! Perhaps I should try to to figure out how to hate traffic cops less.
All this reminds me of that line from Infinite Jest. Hal says, 'I read. A lot. I consume books. I get into New York City taxicabs, and say things like, "To the library, and step on it!"'.
What did the cop think when I jumped out, fed the meter, and ran into the bookstore?

Black Swan

2011-01-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

I have always loved Aronofsky, ever since I rented Pi, on VHS, when I was in high school. Directors like Scorcese - well, you go in expecting to be entertained, but not expecting much more. Tarantino: he's hit or miss, and you hope that when you go to see his new film he's hit, but you bring a lot of insulation of hope. I no longer have trepidation when I go to a new Aronofsky film. I know it's going to be good. With other directors, you don't want to get your hopes up, but Aronofsky can handle it. No matter how excited I am about a new feature, or for how long I have been anticipating loving it, he never disappoints.
I am pleased to say that Black Swan delivered. I loved the gritty tones, Portman's performance, the progression of madness, the sound, the black and gray, and the brilliant, horrific, accompanying performances. I don't think Aronofsky has ever pushed a mental breakdown into visual imagery so much before. There's something about the way that I live and think that makes his work feel as though it was written specifically for me, particularly these last two films. I will never tire of watching his movies, and I hope he never stops working. He is the greatest living director, and one of the greatest that has ever lived.

Beautiful Trailer

2011-01-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

REACH- An HD Climbing Motion Picture- Trailer 1 from Rogue State Films on Vimeo.

I think this might be the best climbing film trailer I've ever seen. Not to be too dramatic about it. Also, shouldn't I own the next Josh Lowell video by now? What the hell is going on here? I have had three beers and watched one climbing video in the last four months. Maybe if I can get through some work this weekend (my classes are awesome!x10^6), I will have a beer and trance out on some videos.

Horseshoe Canyon Ranch Pt. 1

2011-01-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

I just can't do it. The trip was too long and complicated for a synopsis. I could do a list of problems that I did? Or a recap of details of the weather? These were the two biggest components. How do I climb this hard thing tomorrow? How do I stay warm for almost two solid weeks of below freezing days, and all below freezing nights, without adequate equipment? Weather and a list of climbs aren't exactly Hemmingway.
No idea. I mentioned to Steve that this trip was better for bouldering and for soul-questing than it was for sport climbing or comfort. I am glad that I chose a trip that was physically exhausting, doing something I love, rather than some lazy-ass-sit-around-and-eat-cookies bullshit. Hopefully at some point I can think of a way to express how perfect this trip was for me. How much it meant to me. How much I accomplished. Not right now.
Here are a few pictures that give you a little bit of an idea.

Whoops! Rich Simpson Maybe didn't do all that stuff after all.

2011-01-02T14:24:00.000-08:00

I posted a while back about how cool Rich Simpson's ascent of Action Directe was. Turns out a lot of people are wondering if he actually ever did it. Uh oh. You can find a little synopsis here, and another one here2. I have strong feelings about this sort of thing, and I'm sure you can guess what they are.

In other news, I'm going to try to put a little something together to recap the trip I took. For now, you can find a few pictures on my facebook page. It'll be tough to summarize all that I experienced in Arkansas, but, at some point, I hope to give it a shot.

The name of the file on Moonclimbing was "sponsored climber". Um, not any more.

Anticipation

2010-12-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

I leave tomorrow, headed south, to a place I've never been, alone. I do not know where I will stay tomorrow night, only that it will be free. I will wonder, until I am asleep, whether I am in a place I would be wise not to be. I will arrive in the Ozarks either tomorrow night, if my interest takes me there, or I will stop along the way.
I do not know if I will be able to write here, I do not know if I will have everything I need, if I will be safe, or really, where I am going, or what I will find when I get there. This seems to be crucial to all of these trips that I have taken over the years. People always ask me about the specifics of my trips before I go, and are often surprised to hear that I do not have answers.
The important, challenging, and thrilling thing at this point is to have the strength to leave. Once you have left this all behind, everything comes into perspective, and you wonder why you ever go back, or what caused you to feel so much anticipation at the journey in the first place. Sometimes I think the road, or the process of leaving, is the only natural place for me. I know some of the most important people in my life have shared the sentiment, and hated me for it. A darkness in me, I know.
Whatever the case, I leave tomorrow, not having done everything I intended to do. Perhaps, that's for the best. I'll celebrate my 28th birthday with quiet, and with introspection. And maybe with some really hard climbing in a beautiful place.

A Photo Essay

2010-12-19T09:24:00.000-08:00

Accidentally broke this hook on the tail pipe! Crap!

Satisfied man!

It is so so nice to have the roar of the exhaust gone. She's as silent as a luxury car.
This was quoted at $1800 at Firestone!? Yes it was. Parts were $200, exercise was enjoyable (hammering, pulling, crawling), cold was character building. Now I know how to replace an exhaust system.

Body Mass Index

2010-12-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

I just read this article on Huffington Post, and am disappointed. First of all, this is not a new idea, and it is presented by the author as though it is. People have been complaining about this for a long time. A cursory search for "body mass index poor indicator obesity" shows up rants and raves and statisticians spewing forth into oblivion. Secondly, the claim is not false, but misguided and destructive. Sure, if you are Adrian Peterson, or Arnold, or some other jacked up athlete with a crapload of muscle, the equation doesn't work. Just, exactly, what proportion of our population is built like Adrian Peterson? Not very f*g many of us. Would a physician be incapable of distinguishing Adrian Peterson's health status as 1) healthy, or 2) overweight? No. So yeah, if Adrian Peterson shows up in my office, and I haven't met him, maybe I look at the chart, and go, "hm, Mr. Peterson appears to have a little extra weight on him. Perhaps I should be ready to counsel him on diet and exercise." Then I go into the room, and discover that Adrian Peterson is built like Bruce Banner's better half. So what do I say?
1) Mr. Peterson, I've noticed that your BMI is a touch high. You might consider an exercise program that would allow you to shed those extra pounds. Would you like to speak to a nutritionist?
2) Mr. Peterson, you are clearly built like a brick shithouse.
A bunch of kids in my med school class complain about the BMI for the same reason, and it always pisses me off.
Just to repeat, there is an obesity epidemic in this country, and it's not because everyone is built like Mr. Peterson. It's because of the over-availability of fatty and sugary foods, the culture against exercise, and the fact that everyone drives everywhere for everything, and takes escalators and elevators when the stairs are right next door.
The BMI is quick, easy, and useful for an individual, not just an epidemiologist, to tell whether they are overweight or not. It's like throwing grass in the air as a golfer to see which way the wind is blowing: you don't get the degrees S by SW exactly, but you're in the right ballpark. The author makes this point in conclusion: you can just tell if someone is overweight. So for the 0.05% of the population for whom the BMI is not useful, you can tell by looking at them. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it for the other 99.95%.

Gifts

2010-12-14T12:09:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone. I've got a couple things in mind to get for a few of you this year for the holidays. Unfortunately, I have run into some difficulties. I'm sorry, and I hope everyone's cool with receiving these things in January. Hope you all found peace this year.

XOXO or manly hug, as appropriate.

Computer, Car, Phone, Man. The Tetralogy of Exam Week Failure

2010-12-07T19:55:00.001-08:00

I was working on the ovaries, and writing a final essay exam, last night, when my screen started flickering on and off. My computer shut down shortly thereafter. I turned it back on, and found that Google Documents, one of my favorite things that has ever been invented, had saved all but perhaps a word of my work. I lost nothing.
A friend called, and came over to chill out for a while. We got to talking, and I expressed my concern that my monitor and/or computer was dying during exam week. He looked at it, and being an IT guy, was able to tell me that it was probably just the monitor (what I was hoping). Further, he had a monitor available that he could give me! So we agreed that I would go to his place the next morning to pick it up. I secretly plotted to be back to my apartment by 8:15am, work furiously until I had a couple of meetings in the middle of the day, and then go back and furiously work again until this take home essay thing was done.
I was on my way through one of the busiest areas in Minneapolis when my truck started to sputter. I dropped down into 2nd, which helped momentarily, but it wasn't having it. It died completely, and I cut across two lanes of traffic to try to get out of the street at rush hour. I made it almost all the way into a parking lot, and enlisted a large poorly bearded man to help push, and a small girl to pull the parking brake inside. We had to push it uphill, and were almost killed by rush hour drivers, but we got it off the street. I had this conversation with this other guy outside:
Him: Do you need help?
Me: That would be great. I've never broken down in this city before. Do you know of someone I could call to get towed? Maybe where I could get some auto work done?
Him: No, do you?
Me: ... No, I don't.
Him: Jeez, well, you're really in bad shape here. Good luck man.
Me: Thanks.

So I tried to use my phone, and it didn't work. At this point, it seemed the only sensible thing to do was to laugh. So I laughed like a maniac while I shivered in my truck for five minutes. It was around ten degrees outside.
I went inside this unlabeled screen door on an unlabeled building. A horrific smell assaulted me, and a man covered in blood and a hair net walked up. What can I do for you? I had inadvertently parked in a Chicken Chow Mein processing plant parking lot. There were people pushing around wheelbarrows full of what appeared to be chicken material, and this machine was energetically plooping out a dark gray mush in front of me.
Me: My truck broke down outside. How long before you guys will have to tow me?
Don't worry about that, he said, with a kind smile. If we have to, we'll just push it out of the way.
Me: You're the best.
He smiled, and walked back into Chow Mein Hell. I suppressed an urge to ask him if soylent green was actually people.
I went back outside, popped the hood, and didn't see anything wrong. I would later discover that my serpentine belt had broken. I have never experienced or seen this issue before, and the sound, action, and visual representation were unknown to me. So I closed the hood, tried to start it, and no luck. I tried my phone again, and was able to reach my father, who a)always answers his phone and b) is constantly in front of a computer. He gladly googled a solution, and gave me a number.
These guys would tow for a flat rate, evaluate it, and work on it. It is going to cost a crapload of money, I thought. I am broke as a dig dog, in the words of Jesse Ventura in Predator. I investigated his integrity as gently as possible, knowing that I would soon be handing over a valuable object to him, and detected no malice or deceit.
I filled a paper bag with my climbing shoes, harness, chalk bag, and the textbook that I had brought with me. Everything else was abandoned. I said my goodbyes to the truck, and its contents, certain I would never see them again.
When the truck came, about a half hour later (still rush hour), this guy gets me to get into the truck with my paper bag nestled in my lap, and proceeds to pull up to my truck, perpendicularly(!), across a busy city street in rush hour.
Within thirty seconds, traffic is backed up for a mile in both directions. People are trying to swerve around, honking, and screaming without avail. He has completely blocked the entire four lanes of traffic. His face shows no expression.
He got it loaded after an incredibly long time, which was probably less than a minute (time enough for me to take a picture with my now functional phone), and we drove off to my apartment. His name was Jared, and he was friendly. We got along great.
Back home, I thought it might cool my nerves, so to speak, to memorize the cervical plexus.

So that happened, and then I decided that it was time to get a move on with my paper. I practically ran to campus, and furiously worked on my essay exam, for an hour. I have had to write few papers in the last several years - it just is not something that is required of most people that go into medicine, and is not usually required of medical students.
So I kept feeling like I was in high school, when I had to write two essays a week for English (one in class, one out of class), History papers, etc. I remembered many of the essays I wrote for the English, Art History, History, Art, and other departments at Carleton. It was incredibly satisfying. It's easier for me to sit down and write than it is for me to memorize stuff like the cervical plexus. But whatever, medical school is a good way to challenge me to develop those skills.
I ran to my meeting, which lasted an hour, ran back, worked on my paper for an hour, forgot to eat lunch, ran to another meeting (this one about a clinical service project involving people who are deaf and hard of hearing that I'm getting involved in - so psyched), and then ran back, and remembered to eat some grapes. I worked from 2:08 pm until 5:55 pm, violently striking keys, holding my bladder through sympathetic action, and raging and laughing inside like a maniac at the joy of this impossibly challenging catharsis. I turned in the paper electronically at 5:56pm. It was time-stamped at 5:57 pm. It was due at 6:00 pm.
I walked home, turned on some music, and started working out.
I did three sets each of:
30 pushups
12 pull ups
2 x front levers
40 crunches
40 squats
20 calf raises
20 reverse wrist curls with a 10lb weight
and a few dead hangs from finger tips to work the forearm flexors.
I put some water on, on the stove, so that I could get my whole wheat pasta fix, and went to take a shower. I got in the shower, and my vision started to black out, and I fell, comically, out of the shower, and onto the bathroom floor. I decided to stay there for a while.
Everything went quiet. My water was probably boiling, I thought, or would be soon. I recalled that, luckily, I had put it on the burner near the edge of the stove, and had made sure that no inflammable objects were near. I thought, for a time, about the cervical plexus. Would I be able to remember it during the exam? I wondered, as I stared at the broken ceiling fan, wet and naked, my legs, still in the tub, being splattered by shower water, as the pot merrily boiled in the next room.
I crawled over, turned off the shower, dried myself by rolling on the bathmats, and crawled over to my closet, where I put on the softest clothing I could reach from the floor. It ended up being a sweaty, foul smelling capilene shirt from the laundry basket, and a pair of blue sweatpants that I had purchased when I was in high school. I made it back to the stove, lay there for a while on the kitchen floor, and decided to risk standing. It worked great. I put in some whole wheat pasta, and considered the cervical plexus. The kitchen floor was soon, again, my grateful bosom.
Eventually, the lightheaded-ness wore off, and I was able to make it to the toilet by walking, where I puked grape-like material for ten minutes; when I made it back, my pasta was done, and it was time to eat.
I added what remained of my pepperjack cheese stash, and some red pepper, to put the fear in me. After dinner, my friend dropped by with the monitor, awesome guy that he is. I ran outside, took the hand-off, brought it back here, and plugged it in. I received a call that the towing, inspection, and repair would cost $300. I think I can manage that, although it may require some stoicism. The monitor worked, my computer stopped having problems, and I started working on embryology. I have learned a great deal since.

Getting better!

2010-12-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

Training Again!

2010-11-27T19:25:00.000-08:00

The wind was out of my sails for a bit there, but I am back in the gym. My endurance and power are down a bit, I think, but I manage. I am climbing maybe v5s and v6s, and have done a couple of 12s in the past week. Not in top form, but not that bad, considering.
I alternate between following workouts, every other night:
Type I:
Exercise bike (which is not at all fun) for 20 - 30 minutes
Crunches
Front Levers (2 sets of 3)
Reverse Wrist curls
Push Ups (finger-tips (like Bruce Lee), one-arms (like Rocky), and fists (like me))
Dips
Infraspinatus (rotator cuff)
Subscapularis (")
Meditation (when the gym is not completely insane)

Type II:
Warm up with v0's - v4's for half an hour
Attempt or do a bunch of v5's to v8's for an hour
Do endurance problems - long v1's to v3's up and down

When I can find a reliable partner, I prefer to do lead stuff, and that usually involves a few 10's, and then some 11's and 12's. The 12's in the gym right now are extremely good. Really fun.
The thing with bouldering is that it allows me to work on my breathing and my grip type. Lead routes, I seem to be more focused on the flow. Rhythm is everything in sport climbing, and it's rad to have a chance to work on the art of that in the gym.
As afar as grip, it's best to train with an open grip - it's hard on the ego, because you climb a couple grades lower, but makes you stronger on open handed holds, and seriously reduces the strain on your pulleys. Balancing out with two types of exercise days, along with careful open grips has done wonders for my fingers. They are feeling much better.
Exams are coming fast and hard. I have been working constantly for the past two weeks, and put in three 10-14 hour study days in the last three. Taking off from climbing for exam week would be a nice break from such intense physical training before heading to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. Also, it would provide more opportunity to study, which would be pretty useful. Two weeks more classes, with a physical exam practical, a sort of take home/term paper, and then a week of exams! Almost there.

The Hunger Games - A Thanksgiving Essay

2010-11-25T10:15:00.000-08:00

In the same way that the idea of Batman is always more satisfying than actually reading Batman, the Hunger Games books, by Suzanne Collins, are great novels. The ideas are thrilling: Children from impoverished regions around the wealthy capital are forced to combat each other in a post-apocalyptic theater of horror devised by the ruling class. The concept is brilliant and visceral. Beyond that, the delivery is successful, and the scenes and characters memorable. Katniss, our protagonist, is a lovable, beautiful, and elegant character. In the same way that it is meaningful when a villain has the more admirable cause than the protagonist, Katniss is lovable because she is an inherently dark person: killing is possible for her. There are some apologies and sidesteps for this, but for the most part, the reader is forced to accept it. It is a bold character design, and a tough gamble. On some level, this is not a darkness - in her situation, most of us would do the same.
On a thematic level, these books are powerful. A classic struggle between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, is constructed. What's more, scene for scene, the action is engrossing. Violence and sex will always be the most exciting things to read, and this book is packed with the former. Pure, primal moments come up constantly. Moments of Cave-Man Facing the Charging Mastadon come up in every chapter. True, there's always this structure to it where Collins intentionally and predictably leaves you without information. This is meant to keep the reader engaged, but it starts to feel formulaic as it is overused. Which leads to some other issues I have with these books. People who read a ton of books (especially well written books by people like Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Nabokov, whatever, all those guys...) have a sense for what makes a good sentence, paragraph, chapter, and novel. You just start to know when something has been well written, and when something is amateurish. A good example is my blog. Obviously, embarrassing, crappy writing. Hopefully I get some good ideas in there now and then, but you can just feel how even this mini-essay is falling apart at the seams. There's this life-enriching feeling that comes from great writing. Steinbeck, Camus, DF Wallace and Nabokov, sometimes Dostoyevsy (although in novel structure, because I don't trust the translations) fill me with this passion for life in a way that nothing else can.
When it comes time to read something like The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, you have to suspend your addiction, your need, your desire for this kind of artistry. These books are not written with the same soul. Examples abound; a particularly embarrassing one is when Collins writes, "But it wasn't enough to keep... Hazelle from working her fingers to the bone on that washboard. In winter, her hands got so red and cracked, that they bled at the slightest provocation. Still would, if it wasn't for a salve my mother concocted"(8, Catching Fire). When I read this, it takes apostolic restraint to keep from vomiting in paroxysms of linguistic consternation. You can just read the editor being frustrated by it as well. You know she started with the sentence, '...works her fingers to the bone'. Her editor, or her conscience, said, "You can't say that, it's a cliche, meaningless, predictable". So Collins, was like, "Crap, well, I am awesome, My Writing Is Not Cliche. I meant it literally". Groan. Then she tries to justify this abysmal sentence by explaining how Hazelle's fingers actually were, literally, worked to the bone! Offensive, transparent, and extremely difficult to ignore. Examples just like this are ubiquitous in both the Hunger Games and Catching Fire.
Ultimately, for me, the novel becomes an exercise in ignoring the syntactical and linguistic shittiness, and focus on the elegant, primal themes. I enjoy many other novels in the same way. Books that have fun, exciting stories, but are constructed, word for word, and sentence for sentence, with none of that engrossing passion. There's maybe a spectrum there somewhere, where on one end, you love a book for its writing, even if almost nothing happens (eg. Tristam Shandy, Jane Austen, Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, or that guy who wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge, which is a great book), and on the other end, you enjoy a book because it's totally primal, about sex and violence (Armor, Temeraire, Ender's Game, The Dragonball Series, Harry Potter). Some books actually bear both beautiful writing as well as striking visceral themes: Infinite Jest, The Plague, The Odyssey, American Gods...
First of all, as an avid reader, it takes guts to say that you like a book like the Hunger Games, mainly because it is written so poorly. 'What if everyone thinks that I think this book is well-constructed?' Second, you are an asshole if you say you don't like the Hunger Games, because it is actually fun to read, takes almost no time, and has stuff in it that you will never forget. Third, It's hard to put your finger on why a book like Lolita is so amazing. Sure, I can banter around like some pompous jerk all day about the syntax, themes, and elegance of his writing. The thing is, you read it, and it fills you with a fire for life like nothing else can. It challenges you, it changes you. I've never bought into the whole 'New Yorker style', super aloof way, of appreciating books and movies, because if you want to have the fullest life possible, you have to be able to appreciate books of all types. Love The Piano, but also love Predator. You have to be able to look past the "fingers working to bones". The feeling you get when you read Ender's Game is entirely different than the feeling you get when you read Of Human Bondage, and that's okay. It does not mean that one is better than the other (although your socioeconomic background and culture will tell you which you think is better).
This leads me to my last point. What to write? How to write? Where does one begin to think of what one's writing style should be? Should I try to write about a new class of rogue samurai being led by a mutant warrior prince against the oppressive Big Brother of future China, or should I write about the man who decides that his life is not worth living, in the same way that he always has, while he drinks a cup of coffee and eats a muffin?
I have tried to write fiction for as long as I've been alive, and just never know where to start. In terms of themes, in terms of violence, in terms of conflict and epic scale. The visceral, the primal themes are the most exciting for me. But there is this overwhelming beauty that you can give people through the written word.
Few have achieved both, and as of yet, I have not been up to it. If I write something, it will lack both the primal quality of The Hunger Games, as well as the soul of the Nabokov. I will probably live the rest of my life without completing the construction of any novel because of this very conflict and the impossibility of success. I know what you are thinking... well one of two things. Either, "Good, your writing sucks, and you should focus on clinical medicine, which allows you to make a substantive difference in the lives of others", or "Just do it, brother! Just write, and see what happens". Perhaps. If nothing else, when I do write, I hope that I have the perspective to know where it fits on this spectrum - to know its faults, to know its strengths, and to not be deluded into thinking I am contributing something that I am not.
Different writing is worth accepting into your heart for different reasons, and I've tried to explain how we can appreciate books for those reasons, not just the reasons for which our socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds recommend. Writing that encompasses these strengths is this impossible synergy of soul, technical skill, self-knowledge, and, above all else, humility. When our fellow humans, and their work, do not possess all of these qualities, I hope we can still enjoy their work for the ways in which it does succeed.

Hope you enjoyed your Happy Thanksgiving essay, and thanks for reading. I need to get back to histology and molecular biology. Good luck to you in all of your projects.

Disturbing News From North Korea

2010-11-23T05:35:00.000-08:00

North Korea has now decided that it's time to attack and kill some South Koreans for no good reason, except to show that they can. This has everything to do with the fact that the world just learned that they are extremely advanced in terms of nuclear energy and, potentially, weaponry. I bet all those North Korean leaders are sitting around feeling pretty awesome about this whole thing. Well, actually guys, you are just a bunch of ()s who should be spending money on rice for your people, not nuclear weaponry.
I know I'm just an ignorant American, deeply isolated physically and ideologically from the rest of the world, but the whole idea of North Korea is kind of insane. I keep thinking they will all just go, "Jeeze, maybe we should stop violating the natural human rights of our people. We could have open trade with others, maybe balance out some inequality." This has not happened, and does not look like it will happen.
By all means, judge the man prone to violence, but not favorably.

Dr. McNinja

2010-11-18T05:35:00.000-08:00

Certainly not the most appropriate thing for a medical student to be reading (or posting on his blog). It is kind of funny, though. The first couple of episodes were a little, eh/silly/mindless fun, but he's picking up style now.

Minimal Change Disease

2010-11-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

I have received a lot of support and well-wishing, as well as real help in the past few weeks. Jamie actually flew out here to buoy my spirits, Brice sent me links to awesome web comics. Also, Casey, Caitlin, Jamie, Matt, my parents, Laura, Brice, Steve, Eva, Max, Kathy, and many others listened to me, and cared. Steve brought me food, told me (reasonably) funny stories, and consistently told me that I would be a climber and student again at some point. Things have taken a turn for the better. When things were much darker, and there seemed to be little hope, all I could think of was myself and my problems. It is exciting that I can stop, temporarily!, from being so nauseatingly self-centered, and not talk about myself and my problems for a little while. It was really great being able to do so for so long, with all my friends and family, but I am suddenly sick of it.
I thought I might just write a blog post to sum things up, so that everyone can read that, and not be so curious, and we can talk about you all, rather than me, for the first time in a month.
First of all, I do not have leukemia or lymphoma, which was a hypothesis for a while. So I have that going for me. Secondly, I was diagnosed with this auto-immune, spontaneous kidney disease called Minimal Change Disease (MCD). It is the least serious of all the string of serious kidney diseases that I could have had after getting the diagnosis of Nephrotic Syndrome (NS). It is also one of the only treatable forms of NS. Remember, NS is general, and MCD is a specific type of NS. Look it up if you want. There's a bunch of stuff online.
Finally, the treatment involves suppressing my immune system, because my body is actively attacking my kidneys. This is quite dangerous, risky, has potentially nasty side effects, etc. The trouble breathing is of unclear origin, but hopefully if we suppress my immune system, that will calm down as well. Potential side effects: type 2 diabetes, muscle weakness, redistribution of body fat to face and back of neck, high risk of infection, weight gain, depression, and more. You aren't supposed to take this stuff for more than three weeks, and I'm on heavy doses for months. So I could end up an obese, fat faced, hunch-backed, depressed, infected fat ass in short order. Hopefully not. They tell me that once you stop taking the prednisone, you can usually fight your way back to normal.
I could be far enough behind in my classes that I cannot catch up. That is unclear at this point. I am fighting to get back to where I need to be, and trying not to get overwhelmed by the idea. My classmates have been kind and supportive. Many of those listed above are in my class.
Climbing is still a depressing thought. Hopefully at some point, I will be back into shape where my normal life is manageable, and I can start killing it in the gym again. For the time being, I focus on surviving this illness, and this whole med school with a one month handicap thing. I am not quite back to my normal level of energy, but I persevere.

Classic Review Paper on N. S.

2010-11-10T18:40:00.001-08:00

Still don't know what type. This chapter/paper is quite old, but is very readable. You gotta love the old, 'This pisses doctors off, but if they calm down and try to understand this better, the patient will benefit'. (In the conclusion section.) My sense of humor remains intact. In case the link doesn't work, skip to page 377.
Thankfully, this does not represent the state of knowledge now. Several types of the syndrome have been identified, and the therapies are safer and better evidenced. When I run across a good and recent review paper, I'll share it.
At this point, I can only stand to look at this stuff every few hours.

No title/ironically titled post

2010-11-09T07:20:00.000-08:00

If you thought i was a poor writer before, wait until you read what I write when I am in the hospital, and on some medications that affect my mind. Guys like burroughs may have benefited from it, but I kind of doubt that it will be a good thing for me. Its like flowers for algernon over here. The nurse, karen, generously brought me my ipad from my bag, and gave me the pw for the network, so i am in a unique position of being able to write about things while i lie in this hospital bed. I am an outpatient, so I ought to be out of here relatively quickly. Biopsies are actually quite a bit more painful than i expected. And the lidocaine didnt seem to have much effect in the first injection, so they had to give me another shot. Funny, bc you dont know whether the pain medication is working until you pierce an internal organ and feel the pain of that. Pretty funny. So i tried not to move, but jerked anyway, and they felt really bad, and gave me another shot. Which was nice. And then i couldnt feel it. but i have so much of that stuff in me, which is called a local, but seems to be acting in a fairly systemic way, i might counter. For instance,, as i was leaving, i tried to tell a story to tim, and i couldnt remember if pandemonium was a word. I can rememeber now, and the latin root has something to do with "all" and it occurs to me maybe has something to do with pandoras box. Seems likely.
Steve has a been a lot of help. Brought me here, keeps saying encouraging things, keeps pretending that we will be able to go on a climbing trip at some point. Which is fun, and helpful. I keep thinking of all the work that i have to do. Something about nuclear receptors, nerves, blood vessels, bony features of the head and neck. I wonder if I will be in good enough shape soon enough to be able to finish the term. I know, normally, it would not be difficult for me to do well, relatively speaking, but I dont know what i can do as I am. Well, then this isnt exactly a good time to take a sample of my condition, relatively speaking. Not a representative sample of my condition, i mean. I learned that i am urinating out 500 times the amount of protein that a typical person does, and have been doing so for perhaps a month. Makes sense that that would make me so tired. The tests, results, differential diagnoses,, etc, are all fascinating. I am enthralled by the pathology of me.
Its kind of hard to look at my body, bc i am in the best shape of my life, in terms of musculature. I have been working to balance my muscle groups, lots of fiber, nutrients, and a good balance of fats, carbs, and sugars for the last few months. Climbing harder than ever. That my body has decided to scavenge from all the muscle that i so carefully constructed is frustrating. Wow, this really hurts. Too bad i refuse to press the call button. Oh well, who wants more "local" anaesthetic anyway? So as I was saying. I am getting thinner very quickly. Its difficult. One of the nice things about what i am experiencing is that it is unlikely to be hereditary. I would like to be a father at some point, and i would prefer not to give this to little Butch, Bruce, Akira and the last named whatever she wants. My future brood. Cool, my blood pressure went down a little. Hm, thats a very stern looking, but pretty nurse. I wonder if her home is very cold, very quiet, everything is really beautiful, and you arent allowed to touch anything? Alright, well, i guess i ought to fall asleep. Maybe when i wake up, i will be a climber, student, and future father again.

I See A Darkness

2010-11-07T07:08:00.001-08:00

Well, you're my friend, (that's what you told me)
And can you see (what's inside of me)
Many times we've been out drinking
And many times we've shared our thoughts
But did you ever, ever notice, the kind of thoughts I got
Well you know I have a love, a love for everyone I know
And you know I have a drive to live I won't let go
But could you see its opposition comes arising up sometimes
That its dreadful antiposition comes blacking in my mind

And then I see a darkness
And then I see a darkness
And then I see a darkness
And then I see a darkness
And did you know how much I love you
Is a hope that somehow you, you
Can save me from this darkness

Well I hope that someday buddy
We have peace in our lives
Together or apart
Alone or with our wives
And we can stop our whoring
And pull the smiles inside
And light it up forever
And never go to sleep
My best unbeaten brother
This isn't all I see

Oh no, I see a darkness
Oh no, I see a darkness
Oh no, I see a darkness
Oh no, I see a darkness
And did you know how much I love you
Is a hope that somehow you, you
Can save me from this darkness

Bonnie Prince Brandon

Time is a Biocentric Construction

2010-11-06T12:34:00.001-07:00

Not my idea:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/is-death-the-end-new-expe_b_774814.html

Mid Term Elections

2010-11-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I know when we all say, "Get out and vote!", we mean, "Get out and vote for the person that I want, not that other idiot". After a vote, half of all those "Get Out and Vote" people are sitting at home feeling pretty dejected, even in good turnouts. So let me just applaud America for getting out and voting. Well done. Seriously.
About having voted for the idiots. I think maybe the issue is more fundamental than people realize. It is all about mathematics and emotion.
We often look at politics in this country as a two-sided thing. This is obvious, and forced upon us by the mathematics of our voting system. Remember Nader? For two elections in a row, he had such a solid base of voters that he prevented the Democratic candidate from gaining office, which meant that Bush II became president. How much did that suck for all those people (like me) who voted for the democrat? Let's be general about this, because I have to study some Histology before going to lab, and I don't have time to look up statistics. Lets just say, in a three party election:

60% Like Bush
40% Dislike Bush
--
70% Like Gore
30% Dislike Gore
--
30% Like Nader
70% Dislike Nader

Who should win? The results:

49% Bush
48% Gore
3% Nader

So who wins? There were two flavors of left(ish) candidates, and the majority of people voted for leftish candidates. But they disagreed about which one should be in office, and the more moderate of them, Gore, lost. Try another system, where you assign point values to each candidate: 3, top choice, 2, next, 1, least choice. Whoever gets the most points wins.

10 people in the room, representing 300 million voters.
Person, Votes:
1: 3 for Bush, 2 for Gore, 1 for Nader
2: 3 for Bush, 2 for Gore, 1 for Nader
3: 3 for Bush, 2 for Gore, 1 for Nader
4: 3 for Bush, 2 for Gore, 1 for Nader
5: 3 for Bush, 2 for Gore, 1 for Nader
6: 3 for Gore, 2 for Bush, 1 for Nader
7: 3 for Gore, 2 for Bush, 1 for Nader
8: 3 for Gore, 2 for Nader, 1 for Bush
9: 3 for Gore, 2 for Nader, 1 for Bush
10: 3 for Nader, 2 for Gore, 1 for Bush

Total:
Bush: 19
Gore: 24
Nader: 14

So, the candidate that most people like or moderately like, gets into office. This is pretty cool, right? I've tried to be honest, and even skew the results in favor of Bush above (For instance I imagine that half the people who vote for Gore with 3 points, give Bush 2 points - I think many more people would give Nader 2 points, just because they don't want the most neo-conservative candidate in office).
Alright, so what's the point? The point is that we have to choose between Democrat and Republican in this country because our voting system is mathematically flawed. There is a better way to do this. If you were a fifth grader, and were voting for who gets to be the king of the castle to start, okay, use the voting system we have now. Otherwise, please have the intelligence to use math to make the world a better place.
In my mind, we choose between two evils. Because we look at the two choices, we assume that there is a spectrum from one to the other. In fact, there is a wide variety of political belief in this country, and these two parties do not come close to representing it fully. If we want to vote, we have to pick one of the two. Two shades of shit, in my mind. So I vote Democrat (which pains me), because at least in theory, they are more focused on representing the middle class, and there are a whole hell of a lot of scary people who align themselves with the Republican party. Like Big Oil, Ultra-Conservative Religious groups, Big-Agriculture, etc. Basically, lots of different types of people vote for Republicans, but the kinds of organizations that give them money are the ones that are eroding the middle class. I would rather vote for the candidates that have Health Care, Education, and Environmental Protection as their platform priorities. What can you do? You vote for the lesser of two evils.
The other thing that happens here, that I think is pretty dumb, is that people vote emotionally. They are pissed that they don't have jobs (rightly so), and many Democrats were in office. So they struck back. They voted in Republicans. Does this make sense? Does spending less money on initiatives to help the middle class make sense? Did it occur to anyone that they were being influenced by TV, political ads, or that it is now legal for Corporations to contribute money to political campaigns without reporting it? Did it occur to anyone that the Democrats actually did a decent job? Or that this is the worst economy since the great depression, and you can't expect that to turn around in two years? No.
Although most Democrats would be upset by the idea, I might add that people voted for Democrats, including the president, for the same reason. Everyone was upset, the people in office were Republicans, so you vote them out. Duh. It's like that graph that all the poli-sci professors love to put up: When oil prices are high, incumbents are defeated. People don't really vote for someone in this country, as much as they just vote against people. This is what I heard yesterday on, of all places, Fox News Online. They were saying that people leaving the polls expressed frustration with Democrats, but that they expected Republicans to do something about all this. Basically, that they did not want Republicans to act like Republicans, and represent the interests of the wealthiest citizens in the country, and the corporations. Yeah, right.
Mark my words, the economy will improve, in the same way that if you send someone home who has a viral infection, and give them antibiotics, they will get better. The antibiotics don't affect the virus, but their immune system fights it off. Also, things will get worse for the middle class. Rights and freedoms will continue to be insidiously eroded by the Republicans (and Democrats, although a touch less so). The divide between rich and poor will increase. The richest Americans will get richer, and the number of Americans who are desperately poor will increase as well. Over the years, many of our best and brightest will continue to move overseas to get away from the mass of crazy people who live and vote here. Americans will vote for the person or party in office when times are good, and the person out of office when times are bad. Although Obama has done as much good for this country as any president since the founding fathers, he will be elected out of office if the people still don't have jobs during the next election. After observing these futile cycles for years, I'm almost at a point in my life that I don't get all that passionate about it anymore, but not yet.

Jon Stewart on the Mall

2010-10-31T17:19:00.000-07:00

Asi Es La Vida

2010-10-27T17:38:00.001-07:00

My lungs stopped working on Sunday. It has been a while since I have had an experience that seemed like it might (or could) kill me, so I was out of practice at dealing with it. First, I was incredulous, "I will be fine". Soon after, I was upset: "I'm not ready to die. I would really like to do some other things before that happens". Then I decided that peace was important, and I must find it, in the event that I did die.
There will always be things left undone, and making peace with not having done them is, I think, important. Finally, I was at ease. I've been through the process of accepting death so many times now, what with personally fighting a flu that killed other people, and climbing-related situations, as well as others, that I'm able to go through the stages fairly quickly. If only I was able to find such complete peace without the threat of death.

Once I realized that I was not going to die that minute, I decided that I ought to do something physical about my situation.
I figured that I could probably make it to the morning to be treated, and not owe the emergency department several thousand dollars, so I waited until the morning to see someone. I battled through an appointment that lasted three hours, filled with all kinds of unpleasant and exhausting things. I refused to go to the emergency room. I survived the initial appointment, battled some more, and was defeated. When I least expected it, I got a lot of help from a powerful and very intelligent person (you know who you are). I would be remiss if I did not also thank the friends and family who were so supportive.
A silver lining was that, when my chest x-ray came back, the PA said, "I don't know what these nodules are, but you have very little fat, and impressive pectoral development". I remember thinking, well I may be dying, but at least I have that going for me.

The nodules ended up being nothing, thankfully, and I am on the mend. I will soon be back to myself.

Not Climbing

2010-10-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

It is odd. I have become a different person, somehow. I was a climber. Before I came here, I climbed at Smith several days a week. I took trips to places outside of central Oregon, like Leavenworth, Lost Rocks, Yosemite, and others. I do not do these things anymore. Now, I "climb" in the gym three nights a week. My life has been so tied to school that I am no longer who I was. Sadly, I can barely remember why I liked climbing outside. I have almost lost the memory of it, the feel of it, and the passion of it. Before, it was my life. I am, now, that guy who goes to the gym and climbs plastic boulder problems, but never makes it outside. Unfortunately, I am not the guy who is really excited to climb plastic boulder problems. I am the guy who loved being a rock climber, and forces himself to climb hard in the gym so that, someday, when he hopefully makes it outside again, he will be stronger.
Sadder still, I do not know where I would want to go, except Smith, Yosemite, Red Rocks, Joshua Tree, Leavenworth, or Squamish, which are all a couple thousand miles away or more. A few people were going to Sawmill this weekend for bouldering. I've been there before. It is acceptable, as far as things go. I think it's among the best climbing in Minnesota. It is not, however, inspiring enough to drive four hours, and take all that time away from studying (not that I'm being that successful working this weekend). So I think of places that I would want to go when this term wraps up, which is approaching extremely rapidly.
I have a two week break in December. I would like to go climbing somewhere really amazing. Some place that reminds me of who I actually am, rather than the Morlock I now resemble.
I think of places in the American South, like Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, Horsepen 40, and other places I've never been. I'm looking for a partner for this trip who wants to climb sport routes. I want to work something way over my head, and maybe do some bouldering in the mean time.
I don't think I can afford to fly anywhere, unfortunately, so it has to be a pretty easy drive. Arkansas is only twelve hours away, and has sport and bouldering, so maybe that's the place. I have visited all the areas in Minnesota now (except Sandstone for bouldering), and have done, or attempted, just about all of the routes. I can think of two or three 5.11 cracks on the north shore that may or may not be leadable on gear. Is it worth driving eight hours in a weekend to check them out? I kind of doubt it. More than likely, they are either unleadable or not that much fun.
Last time I went up there to check out a 13b that everyone said was incredible. It was kind of shit, and I spent a ton of time driving up there to check it out.
So this all leaves me in kind of a tough spot. I need to figure out how to not be completely screwed up over not doing any real climbing, need to climb outside more, and need to figure out how to take these trips elsewhere more often. I am beginning to see that there will be grave consequences if I do not.

Um... What? Glenn Beck On Evolution

2010-10-21T18:30:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about this for much longer than it really deserves, and I still don't know what to say about it.
Idiotic, scary... I don't know. I'm really at a loss. I don't have a TV, and I don't watch The Conservative Propaganda channel (Aka: The Make the Rich Richer and The Poor Poorer By Convincing Poor People to Vote In Favor of The Ultra-Rich Channel, aka Fox News), so I don't know a lot about Glenn Beck. But this is fairly damning. I mean, it takes almost no effort to find evidence supporting evolution. Read a couple of papers. Perhaps Beck is unfamiliar with the Google Machine? Or how to find scientific journal articles? Has he never been to Barnes and Noble?
So he's a pretty big idiot. Still, I'm lost. Do people actually agree with this? Do people have these concerns? That's the main thing, the truly upsetting thing. If this guy is so popular, does that mean that these absurd comments reflect his listeners' lack of understanding? That's the really scary idea about all of this.
I can uncomfortably accept the fact that there are some poorly educated people out there that are not convinced evolution is possible, but I think of this as kind of an anomaly in American culture.
Many people listen to this guy, and my impression was that he mostly talked about things that most people have a tough time understanding. Things that are actually pretty complicated. A good example is: who to vote for so that you have a better chance of providing for your family. It'll be obvious from reading any of my relatively political posts what I think about that. The middle class should vote in its best interests by supporting politicians that help them, rather than the wealthiest people in the country. Another example is climate change. I mean, that's a pretty complicated deal, and the evidence tying carbon dioxide levels and global average temperature is not light reading. People have a tough time understanding it, sorting it out, and talking about it. There's also a huge economic interest out there (energy industry) that has always worked to convince people that the evidence should be ignored. So you can kind of understand why people would be confused about climate change.
Disturbingly, from this piece, it sounds like his listeners may actually have trouble understanding the ideas of the theory of evolution (?). If they are like Beck, then maybe they are even threatened by the idea?
I think, among the stupider things he said, was making the comparison of the theory of evolution to the round earth theory. He says that everyone believed it because it was obvious. People didn't accept that the earth was round because it was "self-evident". Who looks around and goes, "Well, finally, I got here. It's obvious from this spot on this veranda that the earth is round"? What I'm trying to say is that you can't tell. People thought it was ridiculous; experts said it was ridiculous. It wasn't until there was enough evidence out there that proved the contrary that people believed it. (For instance, when people traveled around the earth in boats, and showed up on the other side of the continent, and were like, "Oh shit, back here again. Guess the damn thing is round." The history of the theory of evolution is identical in that regard. People, experts, rejected the idea. A lot of people were excited by it, because Darwin presented such a beautiful and well-evidenced line of reasoning. But a ton of people thought he was a stupid jerk. Further, their history is identical in that some strange and often religious people are reluctant to believe either of them.
If this idiot had never seen pictures of the earth from space shuttles, he would probably propose that the earth is actually flat, and that this, too, is a hoax put upon us by people like the 'scary socialist president' (who isn't socialist in the least - he could stand to be more socialist, by my account).
Perhaps Beck will not be convinced of the validity of evolution until archaeologists can come up with a video of "monkeys becoming humans".
It reminds me of someone I knew in high school, who said, "I was never a monkey." I remember just looking at her, and thinking, "I'm sorry. What?". Of course you weren't a monkey. You are a human being. You were born X years ago. Monkeys are another species that exist on this planet concurrently, that is, right now. Monkeys and man are both descendants of an earlier precursor, which was, most definitely, also not a monkey.
So, to sum up, maybe the answer to both of these people is "Yes". "Yes, in fact, you were never a monkey", and "Yes, Glenn Beck, I believe you when you say you have never seen a half-monkey half man". That is not surprising. What is surprising is that these people grew up in the United States, and do not know anything about the theory of evolution.
One last note. I think some people make the mistake of using the word "belief" when talking about scientific theory. Belief requires the suspension of thought. You literally have to stop thinking to believe in something. I do not believe in evolution; the evidence that I have seen has convinced me that it happened, and is happening. "Theory" does not mean that something is unsubstantiated.
What can you do? No one reads this blog. There are, presumably, millions of people out there that listen to Glenn Beck. I got a hold of a two minute sound clip of him talking, and wrote about it for thirty minutes. The guy talks for hours every day to his brainwashed audience. This is an unsustainable practice. Clearly, you can't count on people to be smart, if there are so many people who listen to Glenn Beck. Maybe the best I can do is just to sink back into my schoolwork, continue learning to be the best doctor I can be, and try not to think about how scary it is that there is a huge body of American people who think it is worth listening to this person.

Esta Es Paola!

2010-10-19T06:14:00.000-07:00

Demencia Senil repeated by Iker Pou! When Chris does it in Dosage 5, it looks like it's piss easy. But then, it's actually 15a, and it just looks piss easy when he climbs 15a. So it's cool to see Iker Pou climb it, and get his fingers all ripped up and get all groany about it. Esta Es Paola! HAHAHA!

IKER POU - DEMENCIA SENIL 9a+ (Margalef) from Jordi Canyigueral on Vimeo.

Dave Graham: Weirdo We Can't Help But Love

2010-10-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

I liked this video when I first watched it, but I was in a funky mood: taking exams and thinking obsessively about climbing to escape, occasionally, from school.
I watched it again today, and I have decided that I actually like it. To be clear, I think I'm in about as normal a mood as I ever achieve, and I still think it's completely hilarious. I'm not sure if it is only enjoyable if you are a serious (read: self-destructively and idiotically obsessive) rock climber, so I won't speak to that.
I have thought Dave Graham is funny as hell for years, and I have always been impressed by him. He is among the most (maybe is the most) creative climber(s) in the world. I mean, the guy develops v14 beta for breakfast. All those guys that run around the world and do all the v13s to v15s? Well, if they aren't climbing Fred Nicole's or Chris's problems, then they are probably climbing Dave's problems. Half the time, Dave is actually there, motor-mouthing the beta in the background, practically spoon-feeding the climb to them, like the frenetic little weirdo he is.
If, years ago, he had decided to be aggressively secretive, or even not so unbelievably generous with his knowledge, everyone else would be a step below. He helps a lot, but most everyone still is. Aside from a couple of others, no one can touch his kinesthetic genius, vision, and creativity.
This video isn't about Dave having mutant climbing powers. To me, it's more about how unique, bizarre, funny, and lovable he is.

Dave Graham's Life on the Edge—Amazing! from Rock & Ice on Vimeo.

Exam Week Is Over

2010-10-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

I have survived, and even performed well. It is satisfying; it is good. For future reference, I thought it might be helpful to record a couple of thoughts. First, work smarter, always. This can always be improved. Further, you have taken the tests and know the wizard behind the curtain. No more working in the dark. Second, worry a little less. Motivation and discipline to work are clearly not an issue, and the only practical function of stress seems to be to serve those purposes. Third, spend more time in the clinic - it's what you're really excited about, and it puts things like studying all hours of the day in perspective.
---
It was interesting to see the reactions of the other students after the exam today. People kept filing out of the last exam - my group finished at 10am - and collecting nearby. Really funny. I mean, I love going to class and working with my colleagues, but you would think that everyone would want to get as far away from the exam as possible after. Maybe go home and take a couple of showers to wash the memory away. Everyone just hung out outside and talked, looking bleary eyed and happy. I think most of us were really unsure what to do next. I kept thinking that if a Mastodon showed up, I would take that sucker out, even if all I was armed with was my number two pencil.
A couple decided to get bloody marys, others wanted to go back to bed. I decided that the best use of my time was to work on my climbing, so I went to the gym and climbed with Steve for a few hours. I could tell that this was a rough week - I haven't climbed that poorly in months. Que sera, sera. It's nice to push it really hard when you're totally spent. Next time you climb, you're that much stronger.
Everyone asked what I'll do this weekend. I still don't know. I had a nice night talking with Steve and Jamie. I think I'll finish The Plague, by Camus, which I absolutely love. My reading of it was rudely interrupted by exam week. I might also buy the third Susan Collins Hunger Games book. Despite a slower start, the second actually was better than the first, which defied my expectations, as well as reason. I might go to Red Wing or Taylors or something tomorrow, or I might change my oil. The poor truck is really neglected right now. She needs an oil change, and a new exhaust lime from the catalytic converter, all the way back. So at some point, I'll have to find a cheap exhaust line. I don't know why, but I love working on my truck while I am in med school.
When I was preparing for medical school everyone told me that I would never have any time to do things like work on my truck, read fun books, work out... I am finding that that is not the case. I've been able to read roughly one non-medical book every week or two, and work out in some way every day. I climb in the gym four days a week. For anyone preparing for medical school though, you should know that the two or three weeks before exams, and particularly exam weeks, are highly derailing and disruptive activities. Plan on only being able to maintain one hobby during these times that keeps you sane.
Thanks for the support from everyone that helped out during the week and leading up to it. Casey, Brice, Steve, my wonderful parents, my study partners, my fantastic professors who wrote beautiful exams: I couldn't have done it without you.

Exam Week

2010-10-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

Exam week is still going, despite it feeling like I have been taking exams for three weeks. Every day, after sprinting through reviews of material for serious hours (that I thankfully had already learned, and didn't need to cram), I get not enough sleep. God knows why I do this - I already know the material - I guess I just like to know it backwards and forwards. What I've discovered is that if I'm going to get something wrong, it's because I didn't know to devote time to it. Constructing a metric for success is extremely difficult in medical school. Everyone else is fighting to do really well, and just like the kids at Carleton, everyone (with the except of your protagonist) is freaky smart. And the tests are designed so that people can pass, but just barely. So both of these are problematic determinants of success. Unwisely, I still compare myself to my peers, and judge myself based on my test scores. More importantly, I take a look at the material and say, "Was it clear to me that I needed to know that, and I still got it wrong?" If this is the case, then I consider the test a failure (the psychologists among you will be able to tell me that this is a classic example of all or nothing thinking, a self-destructive form of self-criticism).
More tired and more congested, I woke up this morning and realized I was actually sick, not just getting worked. Productive cough, stuffed up, exhaustion, no fever. If only I was taking exams right now on how to diagnose the difference between rhinovirus and an upper respiratory infection. Oh well, when I get sick during exam week next year, I ought to know what kind of illness I have acquired.

Dear Diary

2010-10-11T20:31:00.001-07:00

While bouldering in the B2 cave tonight, trying to escape the mounting horror of exam week, I was climbing nearby Alex Johnson, pro climber, one of the strongest women climbers in the world, and winner of competitions everywhere.
I tried a new purple tagged boulder problem, and managed to do it in three or four tries. Alex had been climbing for a few hours, and was warming down. She decided to give that purple route a go, and fell near the top! Holy shit - it's not everyday that you do a problem that Alex Johnson doesn't do on her first try.
Let's just ignore for the moment the fact that we were bouldering on an indoor wall, that she couldn't care less, and that she was warming down after hours of bouldering. All that ignored, it was definitely a highlight of my training session. I guess you gotta take it where you can get it. Cheers.

Norwegian Bouldering

2010-10-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

Bouldering in Norway from Boulderkeskus on Vimeo.

As near as I can tell, I don't agree with Nalle Hukkataival about most things, but this video isn't about him so much. The views are amazing. Every time they walk to a crag, it's like they are entering a cathedral of stone. Overwhelming. If only it wasn't incredibly expensive to go to Norway, and the weather was cooperative there. Well, maybe a trip at some point in life...

"Sex" and The Clitoris

2010-10-11T05:52:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid, it was hard to find the information that you really really wanted to know. Developing definitions and proper usage of curse words was a slow and jerky process, and as a third or fourth grader, who was suddenly conscious that there was a thing called "sex" out there, I hunted far and wide to discover its meaning.
I found that the dictionary in the library carefully sidestepped the issue by jumping from "sewing machine" to "sextant". I knew enough to know that I should not ask my parents about this, because who, really, wants to have that conversation? And when I asked my classmates, they sagely nodded their heads, and revealed truncated jewels of information: "Babies come this way", "It's what happens when you love someone", or, "It's like dancing only smelly".
We learned what we could from jokes, television, books in libraries outside the elementary school, and older brothers. It was a long time before I had any idea what the hell anyone was talking about, despite my curiosity.
Contrast that to a Wikipedia article I just ran across while studying the development of the female urinary system. I mean, holy shit, right? There's an actual picture of the clitoris on this page. As a kid, finding this would have been like the discovery of the Lost Ark of the Covenant.
I am 27 now, and I was learning about these things when I was around 9 or 10. This is a huge deal: we've gone from a place where you could limit what third graders knew about sex by writing dictionaries without the entry, to a place where you can easily find a photograph of the most interesting anatomical feature known to man (or woman) using any computer, anywhere.
Quite a change. And this isn't pornography, or seedy or disgusting, this is an encyclopedia entry. Remember encyclopedia salesmen? How about going to the library and pulling down "N" of Encyclopedia Brittanica when you had to do a paper on Namibia? Do you remember how crappy the entry was - "Yeah, I already know its a country, where it is, how many people live there, and its chief export. I want to know something about its history for God's sake." So then you had to go to the card catalog and look under "N" for Namibia, and hope that there was a decent book on it.
With my third grade level penchant for research and natural curiosity, and given the explosion of availability of information, how much would I have learned by this point? What my mind be stronger? Would I have started reading all the time, and still be reading all the time now?
Perhaps I am out of touch even now. I wonder what else I am missing. I mean, what else do third graders know about that I've never heard of? As someone who didn't have an internet connection until he was in college, it's awfully intimidating, looking at the availability of information for young people. Their exposure to ideas is absolutely staggering.
I look at the curriculum, and the amount of information taught to medical students, and compare it to what we knew (and had to know) fifty years ago. There is no comparison. Older doctors complain about having to memorize the Kreb's cycle in medical school. I memorized the Kreb's cycle (and the amino acids, Electron Transport Chain, and Glycolysis) in the first two days of Biochem, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have had any idea what was going on with the rest of the material for the rest of the term, when it actually got complicated.
This is just one of the many classes and subjects within the classes that I am expected to master. Perhaps it would have felt comparably difficult to do well in the sixties and seventies, but you didn't accumulate twenty to thirty years worth of debt (which is about what I am accumulating, in comparison to many of my peers that have parental or spousal assistance). And you just didn't have to know nearly as much. Another example is the huge number of drugs available now. A professor was telling me that when she was in medical school you gave penicillin for everything. You only had to know five antibiotics! Compare that to the pharmacotherapy of cancer that is "briefly" mentioned in my Genetics course. I mean, I'm not even in a pharmacology course yet, and already, I have been given who knows how many drugs "to be aware of" (If you believe one of our professors, we will be tested on this tomorrow. Hopefully not: Seventy hours of lecture on Genetics and Biochemisty alone provides plenty to learn without memorizing laundry lists of drugs. There's plenty of time for that later.).
But back to the clitoris. I think the availability of information has it's ups and downs, but information always does. I don't think the balance of information available to children is any darker than it was when I was kid, but there is just a whole lot more of it.
The generation of children growing up now, with such profoundly easy access to information, will lead more efficient lives, learn more, constantly, and, with greater perspective, will contribute more to society than any generation before them.

Burning the 6:31am Oil

2010-10-11T05:29:00.001-07:00

And only loving half the minutes of it.

Americans Hire Lobbyist to Represent Interests in Congress

2010-10-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

Great Onion Headline that I think fits really well with this post.

Boogie Til You Poop

2010-10-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

Boogie 'til You Poop from Cedar Wright on Vimeo.

Climbing with Dad

2010-10-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

A little more than a year ago, Dad visited me in Bend, and we traveled all over the state. Before he took off, he agreed to go climbing, so we went to the Sisters Climbing Area to do a little top-roping.
The easiest things I could find weren't all that easy, and I was kind of worried that he would get discouraged if it didn't work out. Thankfully, he's about as strong as a bear, and as graceful a cat. Guess I know where I got it. Here's to the next time, Dad!

Kurt Albert

2010-09-28T07:15:00.001-07:00

Kurt Albert, a guy who has been climbing hard and making major contributions to the sport for decades, is in critical condition after a via ferrata fall. If you read Spanish, take a look at this article.
From this and other sources, it seems that there is little hope he will recover.

Action Directe

2010-09-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

This is among the best climbing videos I've seen. I just love everything about it. In the past few weeks, I've stumbled across a number of videos of British guys training in places like "The Schoolhouse", or on tiny little walls in their attic. Pretty inspirational, especially considering the position in which I find myself. I have little option but to train maniacally in hopes of someday being able to climb routes that inspire me again.
Just so you know, Action Directe is a one of a kind route. It's among the hardest in the world, even now. There are quite a lot of people who can climb 9a (14d); few climb Action Directe.
More importantly, I think this video captures a lot of what makes the process of projecting a route so special. Rich Simpson is surprisingly charismatic and humble, and his work ethic is inspiring.

Obsession from Chris Doyle on Vimeo.

Here's to all of us sending our respective projects this year. Let me know what you think.

A Day In the Life

2010-09-19T07:31:00.001-07:00

I sit here on this lovely Sunday morning in my "Minnesota Medical School" sweatshirt, jeans, and German woolly clogs. A candle burns beside me, and, due to my bewildering inability to purchase groceries with any regularity, my breakfast consists entirely of brewed chai with milk. Since I slept in until 7:30, and woke up, I have worked through a series of Histology practice quizzes. I have learned to recognize and differentiate the following: oligodendrocytes, fibroblasts, meissner's corpuscles, pacinian corpuscles, neurons, dorsal root ganglia, sympathetic root ganglia, glial cells, axons, myelinated axons, and many more tiny little things associated with the nervous system. I have also learned the major features and some minor details of the nervous system, and learned why Casey gets cotton mouth when he leads something scary (just giving a hard time - so do I).
I have positioned my chair at my little desk so that I can look out the window at a tree. I do this more often than is strictly necessary for mental health. When I looked for apartments, I decided this was a requirement. I thought of Hannibal Lecter in his basement cell next to Miggs, explaining his terms for helping Clarice: "I want to have a window, through which I can see a tree." It is a crab apple tree, and the leaves are shaped like tiny bananas.
Desks at IKEA were between thirty and two hundred dollars, which, to me, seemed excessive. I made my desk from a cleanly finished pine board that I was using as a bed in the back of my truck as I drove out here. I have found, from sleeping on many surfaces, that harder surfaces are quite fine, as long as they are flat.
My right bicep is still sore from working a hard (for me) boulder problem, on Friday night, in what we call the B2 cave at Vertical Endeavors, the climbing gym in Saint Paul. Comparable to the pain in my bicep and soreness in my left elbow, which is chronic tendinopathy, my psyche is still reeling from last night. I walked twenty minutes to the student center last night to get away from my apartment, and, while the undergrads passed through on their way to parties, I took an Anatomy practice test. This test was purchased in a packet from the Women in Medicine medical student organization, an organization that hosts incredible guest speakers. For instance, I went to two talks last week: one about female circumcision, and the other about sex slave trafficking.
Despite my knowing the material reasonably well, I did not receive an acceptable score. It is a practice test, and an opportunity to learn, but this remains deeply troubling for me. It is hard to console myself about this, despite the fact that the questions did not overlap perfectly with the material as it was taught this semester. I will recover, learn from it, do very well on the actual test, and hopefully realize that, despite its importance, it will not determine how successful I am on board exams or in my practice. Rationality tells me this. But for the moment, it is devastating, and I concern myself that it means I will be a poor physician. As a silver lining, I recall the Anatomy practice practical exam that I took on Friday, and embrace my strong score.
I look forward to climbing this afternoon, and have not decided whether this will mean a trip to VE for serious training, or a trip to the St. Paul campus gym, which would be more like a training vacation. I look back, and try to remember if I did all of their hardest routes and boulder problems. There may be a couple more hiding that I could not find. I cannot remember. I hope there are, that they are hard, and that I will do them.
A stack of books and papers stands two feet high next to me; it includes most of the knowledge that I will need to master this semester. Beside it are two Gunnerkrigg Court books, the best graphic novels I have read in years. And beside Gunnerkrigg Court is the fourth Craig Johnson novel I have read: Kindness Goes Unpunished. The Dark Horse was the best, and The Cold Dish and Death Without Company were quite good. I marvel that I have found time to read so many books since I started here.
Soon, I will pick up my whiteboard pen, strike out "Histo Quiz - Lecture and Lab", as well as "Learn Bernlohr's Biochemistry Monday lectures", which I learned last night after saying good night to Kara, my girlfriend, who lives a thousand miles away. I will pack my little black pack with Anatomy notes, a Netter Anatomy atlas, and Embryology notes, and walk down the street. I will buy an overpriced coffee and stale baked good, will put earplugs in my ears, and try to learn the details that prevented me from getting all of the correct answers on the practice test last night. While I am walking, I will think only of walking, while I am studying, I will think only of studying, and while I am climbing, I will think only of climbing.

Radiology vs. ER

2010-09-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks Brice, for sharing this.

Tuesday Night Rant. The Latest Evidence, Since Bush Being Elected Twice, That Most Americans Are Stupid

2010-09-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

The evidence is that FoxNews is now the most watched "news" channel in the US. What?

I just read about the "superbug" on Reuters, but it was pointed out to me as a FoxNews story. Sounds pretty typical of a scary antibiotic-resistant bacteria. You never know what it might become, but for the moment, I wouldn't worry about that one. We use so much antibiotics in the cattle industry, I would worry more about all of our strongest antibiotics becoming rapidly useless.
There is a strong lobby group for big agricultural firms who want to use the strongest antibiotics to treat cattle. The cattle are treated so poorly that they get infections all the time. Sores and internal infections, constantly. So the cattle industry is always fighting to get front line, or our strongest antibiotics, to be allowed for use on them. Basically, then the cattle become breeding grounds for bacteria that are resistant to the drugs. Cattle are similar enough to us, biologically, that often those same bacteria can kill us. Because they developed resistance to our strongest drugs while in the cattle, we can't kill them(1).
I wonder where Fox "News" stands on that one? It's pretty easy to say "Indian Superbug" and to ignore the issue above. This smacks both of xenophobia and being in bed with the cattle industry. How about a story about antibiotic overuse in the cattle industry before a story about how the 'scary foreigners' are importing superbugs? Or are you worried that your cattle-torturing friends are going to be upset?
I've heard that sometimes Bill O'Reilly shows up at blogger's houses and harasses them in front of a camera about their blog posts. Wouldn't that be a treat.

1-The collateral damage is that cattle are treated unbelievably poorly. Why do we condone this as a culture? Why do we think we can go to a fast food restaurant and endorse the systematic lifelong torture of an animal?

St. Paul Climbing Gym Part II

2010-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I visited the St. Paul climbing gym this afternoon. The facility is acceptable, and, surprisingly, the route setting is also acceptable. The staff and wall rats, however, were fantastic. I had such a great time hanging out with those guys and women. Someone recognized me as "the guy from the Minnesota Climbing video", and we all really hit it off. This video is a YouTube thing filmed and produced by the late Wade Johnson, one of my best friends, back in 2006 or so. He was a brilliant scientist, filmmaker, and a just a truly great guy. I think of him often, and, maybe it sounds childish, but it just doesn't seem right or fair that we lost him. Sigh. But back to the St, Paul gym...
I explained what kind of climbing I did, and got to hear about their climbing-related struggles and triumphs as well. We understood each other. Totally awesome. I did all the elevens and eleven pluses (maybe six or seven of them), did their crack (maybe a tough 5.9 - hands to off-hands) and did a couple of tens as well. Most were well set, which was actually pretty great. Their wall tops out at 25 feet, and it's vertical, so it's pretty hard to set a good 5.11 under those conditions. But they are managing well.
This guy, Sam, who reminded me so much of this guy I knew in college named Chris Deihl (or something like that), told me that I could probably set for them if I was interested. He said they could use someone that could set some harder stuff. It was a really nice compliment. So I might do that. They also have a small bouldering wall, on which I would be most interested in setting. Again, it's not very overhanging, so it'll be tough to make the problems good without making them super crimpy, but I might be able to manage something.
It reminded me completely of climbing at Carleton. The wall at Carleton was like my home for four years. I spent more time there than anywhere else while I was in school, including most of the apartments I lived in. I worked there over the summers and in the evenings during the school year, and hung out there, unpaid, in the afternoons. Whenever I could get someone to drive me, I was climbing outside. I often say to people, well, yeah, my degree says that I majored in art, but really I majored in climbing. Considering that I was a much better climber than an artist and spent more time doing it than I did making art, I feel some sort of diploma is deserved. I got distinction in art, maybe I would have even gotten distinction in climbing?
The strange thing is that even though I didn't know anyone there, it was exactly that same feeling at the St. Paul gym. Everyone greeted me warmly, and I felt that same energy and friendliness. I kept thinking how strange it was to be back in exactly the same climbing situation I was in almost ten years ago when I started climbing at the Carleton wall. Do I look that different? Do I climb that differently? Am I regressing? Is it a pit that I don't want to be trapped in? Or a chance to meaningfully call a place home for the next four years?
I don't know. I do know that I will email the guy Sam said I should email about setting routes. At the least, it would be nice to set some of my own problems. It could, potentially, also be a great social outlet, and a nice change of pace from going to Vertical Endeavors in St. Paul. I can take the campus commuter to the St. Paul gym from campus, which is free, and fast. I just hope I'll be able to continue improving there. I'm on a mission, after all.

Hair Problems

2010-09-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

Irish Spring is not a suitable substitute for shampoo.

Self-Embedding

2010-09-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Following is something I just ran across. I grew up in a profoundly unhealthy boarding school where these sorts of things happened. I think most of the worst behavior went on among the young girls in the school, and most of it was as concealed as possible. For every event that I heard described, I bet there were fifty more.
Embedding, however, is new to me. Every time I run across something like this, I am overwhelmed with sadness and awe. I wonder what I will see when I start practicing, and how I will try to help.

Self-Embedding' Takes Teen Self-Injury to the Extreme

Radiologists recommend minimally invasive procedure to remove staples, paper clips and more

By Jenifer Goodwin
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- The 16-year-old went to the emergency room because of a painful infection in her arm. When doctors used ultrasound on the area, they were shocked to see about 20 foreign objects under her skin, including a paper clip, a screw from a pair of eyeglasses and multiple pieces of pencil lead.

The teen had engaged in "self-embedding," an extreme form of self-injury, in which people -- often adolescents -- deliberately hurt themselves or mutilate their bodies without intending suicide. Self-embedders insert objects made of glass, wood, metal or other materials under the skin.

Determining how many teens "self-embed" is difficult, doctors say. As with other forms of self-harm, such as "cutting" or burning, many teens are ashamed of what they're doing and take steps to conceal their behavior, said William Shiels, a pediatric interventional radiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Between 13 percent and 23 percent of U.S. teens have reported intentional self-injury, according to background information in a study by Shiels and colleagues that was released online Sept. 7 in advance of publication in the October print issue of the journal Radiology.

Shiels' team found that of about 600 patients of all ages who went to the hospital to have foreign bodies removed from under their skin, 11 patients, or about 1.8 percent, had intentionally inserted the objects. They ranged in age from 14 to 18, and nine were girls.

The 11 teens had other psychological disorders, including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the study.

"One girl told us it's easier to deal with physical pain than the emotional pain in her life," Shiels said. "The reason they cut and embed is an effort to relieve their internal pain, the pain that's inside."

Removing embedded objects can be difficult, said Shiels. If cutting into the skin and searching for the object is likely to do more damage, surgeons may opt to leave the object in place, Shiels said.

To minimize scarring and lessen the chances of nerve damage or other surgical complications, his team used ultrasound or fluoroscopy and a minimally invasive surgical procedure. The ultrasound pinpoints objects that might not show up on X-ray and guides a tiny forceps to the object, said Shiels, chairman of the department of radiology.

This less-invasive approach is especially important with teens, said Shiels.

"They have emotional pain already. They are already embarrassed and ashamed that they are hurting themselves. Leaving a large scar can degrade their self-image and complicate things worse," Shiels said. "The beauty of doing this minimally invasive procedure, with a scar that is the size of a freckle, is that we don't add more emotional scars to these children."

In all, Shiels and his colleagues removed 68 of 76 self-embedded objects from the arms, necks, feet, ankles and hands of the 11 patients. In one case, an 18-year-old boy had embedded 35 objects, including staples, a comb tooth, a fork tine and nail polish wands.

Ten of the patients had either attempted suicide in the past or had had suicidal thoughts, the researchers said.

Dr. Niranjan Karnik, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at University of Chicago Medical Center, said suicide risk is one of the first things doctors try to assess when they see a teen who is "cutting" or "self-embedding."

While parents usually urge the teen to stop immediately, that's not necessarily a good idea, said Karnik, who specializes in adolescents. Teens say self-harm gives them relief from emotional pain -- and there may be some truth to that, Karnik said.

"Self-injury is almost like a pressure valve for them," Karnik said. "Without it, you have to ask, 'What is that kid going to do now?' We have to work with them to give them better strategies to relieve their stress and anxiety."

Journaling, exercise, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and medications may help, Karnik said.

Health Epidemics and Parental Behavior: Your Decisions No Longer Affect Your Life Alone. Practical Epigenetics is Being Taught to Student Physicians

2010-08-31T06:07:00.001-07:00

It is clear to scientists now: parental eating habits before and during pregnancy affect the long-term health of the child. The details are not yet perfectly understood, but there are hundreds and thousands of articles showing that both male and female parents' lifestyle choices affect the genetic makeup of their children.

First of all, this is a little different than traditional Darwinian evolution. In the traditional mode, which is well established (unless you are willfully ignorant, a religious fanatic, and/or a school board in Kansas), the only thing that changes from generation to generation is who has progeny, and who doesn't. So, obviously, this is slow. If I have something wrong with me, it will only matter in terms of evolution if this means that I and my progeny die out (or don't prosper in comparison to other bloodlines). This mode of operation has been demonstrated all over. It explains everything in Biology - like why giraffe's necks get longer and longer.
There was also this other guy, Lamarck, who was kicking around at about the same time as Darwin, believed that giraffe's necks got longer because they were reaching so hard all their lives. Unfortunately for Lamarck, it doesn't work like this - you can't change your neck length within your lifetime (although many people believe that this is how Darwinian evolution works). Fortunately for Lamarck, though, we are discovering that there is some truth to his ideas. Based on studies done in the last twenty, and especially five years, it turns out that the behavior of an individual in their lifetime can affect at least the next two generations of children.
So this is kind of shaking up Biology. Everyone's excited and a little nervous about what it will all mean. It's hard to do studies with people 1)because we live so long 2) because you can't make up experiments and do them - all you can do is observe behavior and see how things turn out. But the data is coming in. Mostly in animal models: Mice, rats, monkeys.
The data is showing that if a mother or father live their lives obese, the children are more likely to be obese themselves. So by consuming a high fat diet, mothers and fathers are not just making their own health more difficult to control, but the health of their children. Monkeys that are born of obese parents are more likely to be voracious eaters, to be aggressive, to be fearful. Interestingly, malnutrition (caused by famine, anorexia, etc.) in the parents can have a similar effect.
It's all very shocking, and will completely change the way that we look at eating habits, smoking, behavior, everything. There has always been this idea that you start with a clean slate(1). Your parents may have lived poorly, but that doesn't mean that you are going to. Your willpower determines your lifestyle. Unfortunately, this is not true. Your willpower, degree of fitness, personality even, may be profoundly affected by the lifestyle choices of your parents.
As a physician, it's no longer enough to say, 'Don't smoke or drink during pregnancy because it could affect the health of your child.' I will have to say to both parents, 'If you are obese, have smoked, or live a stressful life, you can pass on serious problems for your children. You are, effectively, changing your genetic makeup by engaging in these activities, and it is no longer just about you. It can affect your children in terrible ways They won't, can't, don't start with a clean slate biologically'.
Even though there are hundreds and thousands of papers about this, the details aren't clear yet. We know this is real. We know that it happens in people. We just don't know, specifically, how. For instance, do fathers contribute certain types of problems versus mothers? If someone is obese, but loses the weight before they have children, will the children still be affected as though the parent were obese? If you smoke when you are a kid, give it up, and have children later, will they be adversely affected?
I've been told, and I believe, that this will bring a revolution in public health policy in the next twenty years. My personal belief is that, if people can learn more about it, they will take better care of themselves. Most people don't care enough about their own health, appearance, or happiness to treat themselves well. The prevalence of obesity in this country is evidence of that. But it isn't just about us anymore. All of us have an intense desire to see that our children are healthy and happy. When it becomes clear to people that being overweight will affect their children's (and their grandchildren's!) biological makeup, hopefully, they will decide it's more important to take care of themselves.

_________________________________________

Post Scripts:
For those of you who don't study Biology for a living (For those of you that do, let me know what mistakes I'm making):
The genetic code can be thought of as a series of letters (nucleotide sequence). In evolution, this sequence changes irreversibly from generation to generation. Over times, this gives rise to all kinds of great stuff - different species, and differences within species (Like Brett Favre is a kick ass quarterback, but I can climb harder than him while eating a tuna sandwich). It changes all the time, but these are small changes - big changes usually mean that the growing embryo won't survive.
This is evolution. It takes a long time. The changes that I started talking about, with obesity and all that, are called epigenetics; changes that happen to the code without changing the sequence. If the sequence isn't changing why is the code changing? Why are the children different?
The genetic code doesn't exist on its own. It has stuff holding it together and protecting it, like scaffolding. In addition to changes in physical organization, you can also make portions of it inaccessible to the cell. One form of this, and the form that is responsible for epigenetic change, all the stuff I'm writing about, is called methylation. If the code is methylated, that portion of it cannot be used by the cell. This is called silencing.
Effectively, this portion of the genetic sequence may as well not even be there. Say that, because a parent was morbidly obese, there are twenty genes silenced in a child that moderate their ability to consume food. Now this child will not have as much self-control when it comes to eating.
Silencing is a normal part of the maintenance of the genetic code. It allows the organism to adapt very quickly to the surrounding environment.

Many thanks to Susan Johnson, turned me on to this about five months ago. It was pretty cool to be in med school learning about it, and already know a lot about it.

(1) - This idea, the clean slate, tabula rasa, is Aristotle's and John Locke's. Pretty fun reading, if you are curious.

Mazzy Star

2010-08-29T08:20:00.001-07:00

Kara introduced me to this band, Mazzy Star, which I completely love. So far, I've only heard So Tonight That I Might See, but as soon as I can find a record store that carries unpopular music from the early 1990's, I'm going to pick up their others. You come across something like this, and you think, "God, where have I been?" When you hear something that's this old, you can't help but think that there's a whole world of music that you would love that's just beneath the surface. Maybe there is, but I've never known how to find it without a lot of work.
You'll see the image above on Wikipedia, I just liked the drama of it. Here's another.

Apparently, they are working on another album. I wish they'd hurry up about it.
I'm currently learning how to tell the difference between epithelial layers. This is usually pretty easy when it's only one or two layers, but gets hard with some of the special types. Things like pseudostratified columnar, transitional epithelia, and stratified squamous all look pretty similar, with only faint visual clues. Hopefully, it will eventually be obvious. Also, microvilli and cilia are pretty tough to differentiate, unless you have an electron micrograph and can pick out a terminal web or axoneme or basal bodies. Let me know if you figure out a trick to telling the difference without staring at slides for half your life.