since you asked

Further Failure

2011-12-19T09:46:00.001-05:00

At least I'm not the only one failing:

Why I Climb (Part 3): Failure as Success

2011-12-01T14:22:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about climbing lately. This is not unusual. I’ve been thinking a lot of conflicting and probably not very interesting things about climbing. This is also not unusual. Since you asked, I thought I’d tell you about some of my… um… thoughts.

My wife, son, and I spent the Thanksgiving interval at her parent’s house in Massachusetts. We usually do a kind of grand tour of New England, but this year we stayed put in Mass for the whole four days. This put me within easy striking distance of Farley Ledge, home to a significant portion of New England’s best hard boulder problems. The temptation was too much, and I spent a day at Farley relying on the kindness of strangers (thanks, boulderers from Boston!) to sample some of the excellent stone.

Long story short: I failed to climb anything notable. But instead of walking away disappointed, I left feeling more excited about climbing than when I arrived. For some reason, my failure felt more like success than succeeding often does.

I've been trying to understand this feeling and what it reveals about why I climb (and maybe why I boulder, specifically). I'm also interested in how it interacts with some of my other motivations.

First, I think it's important to note that this was a particular kind of failure, a failing forward, failing towards success. What I mean is that, while I spent most of the day falling of two hard problems, I wasn't getting completely shut down. I made progress, and left the problems feeling like I was within shouting distance of topping out both. Proximity to success is motivating. Not really such a mystery.

[It also certainly appeals to my vanity to quickly make progress on double-digit problems, and climbing in front of new people probably boosts that appeal a bit. I don't experience this as a conscious process ("wouldn't it be cool to totally impress these random dudes, self? Yes it would!"), but I suspect it's there just under the surface.]

Here's what's weird about how appealing this kind of failure is: I might actually like it better than topping out hard problems. It's a bit hard to investigate this feeling because I haven't gotten to the top of anything truly near my limit in quite a while, but my memory of the feeling that closely follows a send is that it's somewhat bittersweet. There's a small rush of pride, tempered by a tiny bit of sadness that the process is over, and the blankness of not knowing what's next.

Not that sending a project is a bad feeling - not at all. Just that it's a mixed feeling. Failing toward success on the other hand is pure possibility - bright, shining potential. It also puts my "training" (read: random occasional sessions at the gym) efforts into sharper focus, gives them a purpose: get strong enough to send those specific problems.

Hm. I'm kind of disappointed that I just spent all that time working up to "the thrill of the chase, man!" as my motivation for personal progression in climbing. Oh well. I guess I can live with that.

Oh, and apologies for not "dropping" and "edit" from my session. I failed to capture any media at all. LT11 I ain't.

I can goez bouldering (for a whole week), with video

2011-11-11T15:28:00.004-05:00

OK, OK, OK! I’ll write about my climbing trip. You don’t have to twist my arm! Jeez.

Short version: my wife is amazing.

Slightly longer version: I skipped off to Horse Pens 40 and the Stone Fort for a week with a couple friends while my wife played an exhausting game called Single Parent.

Even longer: My mind is still reeling from the idea that you could live in a city where it’s legitimately possible to work a half day and get some climbing in at any one of several amazing climbing spots. Frankly, I think Chattanooga should share with the rest of us, but nooooo, it has to keep it all for itself! Jerk.

But, so. The trip was fantastic, despite the temps, my (lack of) fitness, and the limited time in one spot conspiring against projecting and hard sending. Actually, I’m pretty happy we chose not to really project anything because there are way too many great problems at both Horse Pens and Stone Fort that we didn’t try anyway, and projecting would have meant trying even fewer of them.

We spent three days at Horse Pens, climbing about two days spread over that time. We spent four and a half days at the Stone Fort, with one day a complete rainout. Highlights included a (near) team circuit of the Panty Shields boulder at HP40, team sends of Art of the Vogi and The Big Much at Stone Fort, and my complete punt on Cyclops at Stone Fort.

I think, in the final analysis, I enjoyed the climbing at Stone Fort more. Maybe it fit my style better, maybe I was prepared for the sandstone after a couple days at HP40, or maybe I like being close to golf courses. I certainly had much more success at Stone Fort, doing my three hardest problems of the trip there (Jerry’s Kids [V7], Celestial Mechanics [V7], and Spanky [V8]), and getting a surprise flash of the Wave (V6). I would go back to both places in a heartbeat, and hope this wasn’t my last visit to either.

If you enjoy self-indulgent videos slapped together using free software, I “dropped” and “edit” of the footage from when we remembered to set up the camera. In HD! You’re so welcome!

My Brain, Before & After

2011-06-23T12:53:00.003-04:00

Inspired by the USDA, here's a picture of my brain from before the baby:

And here's one from after:

Type rest of the post here

Off Belay

2011-05-17T13:22:00.004-04:00

It’s raining in Maine. This situation is not particularly unusual. I do think it was dry a while ago? Maybe? And when it was, there was climbing? Or something? Anyway, my point is that even if it wasn’t raining I probably wouldn’t be climbing. Because my bed time is now 8 PM and my wake-up call comes at 5:15 and I’m basically useless after 3 in the afternoon. In other words, I have no point. But I do have a recommendation, and it is this: listen to the Off Belay podcast.

It comes to us from Jamie Lynn and Chris Kalous (of classic aid climbing rant fame). It is recorded in a 198something Del Fuego RV. And, somewhat shockingly, it’s interesting, engaging, funny, etc. This defies what I thought was a universal law: other people talking about climbing you’ve never done is interesting for exactly 3 minutes (which is actually a corollary to the actual law: there’s nothing interesting to say about climbing, really, and we’re all just thumb wrestling with ourselves here, metaphorically speaking, and pretending we’re thumb wrestling with someone else – the thumb wrestling is talking/writing about climbing in this metaphor, and the “someone else” is the idea that what we’re saying/writing is interesting and the “ourselves” is the fact that what we’re saying/writing is actually really boring).

Anyway.

What I dig about the podcast is that Jamie and Chris have great friend chemistry and manage to find a middle path between the kind of pin-head, pseudo-philosophical, navel-gazey stuff that can get really aggravating and the dull, repetitive rock-jock spew. They’re self-reflective but not self-obsessed. It’s just kind of good to know they’re out there trying this thing. And, so far, totally pulling it off.

Success & Futility: Spring at Pawtuckaway

2011-05-05T10:37:00.002-04:00

A lot has happened since I was last posting regularly: the boy arrived and is now a three-month-old milk regurgitation machine, I'm sleeping less than I ever have (and managing ok I guess), climbing less than I have in years (and getting weaker, but not as dramatically as I feared), and probably a bunch of other stuff that's not very interesting.

In lieu of attempting a full update or whatever, I present the fruits of my only outdoor climbing adventure since my family got bigger by one little person:

Spring Session at Pawtuckaway State Park from JMM on Vimeo.

Julian’s Rules of Routesetting

2011-03-07T13:49:00.001-05:00

Because most of the “climbing” I’ve done recently has been in my head, I’m getting about 65% as much sleep as I’d like, and New England is living in some kind of rain-soaked alternative universe right now, I thought I’d get everyone up to speed on my routesetting commandments. I’m totally qualified to hold forth on this because I have no training, have never set for a competition, and everyone down at the gym likes my problems.

1) It’s not about you: if you’re setting stuff that you want to climb, you’re just wasting space on the wall. Tall people who only set reachy problems, muscle-bound campus-freaks who disdain footholds, and spazy spazes who set crap problems all need to stop. Now.

2) Don’t use 37 colors of tape on one route. And your little faux rasta color scheme on the problem you cleverly named Jah-min? It’s stupid. One color will do. If all the single color’s are used already, two colors will do it. It’s that simple.

3) If you get lazy and tape that sloper on another problem as a foot on your new sweet rig, you’re an asshat.

4) When someone tells you your awesome problem is awkward, painful, or just not fun to climb, you should listen. Maybe you don’t change it this time, but think about that feedback next time you set. If you’d rather stick your fingers in your ears and sign the theme to Doogie Howser, MD until they go away, see rule number 1.

5) Every time you crossthread a T-nut, King Sharma kills a narwhal.

That’s pretty much it. If you’ve got questions I will probably ignore them, but I might not. It’ll be a fun game.

What's easy and what's right.

2011-01-25T15:27:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I wish I had someone else’s obsession. Like, maybe I could be a fanatical gardener. Maybe I could be fixated on mentoring youth or volunteering at homeless shelters. But no, I’m obsessed with climbing, which is certainly a net negative in terms of environmental impact, and the social impacts are… questionable.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but struggled to put my thoughts on the page. Fortunately, Sonnie Trotter, proprietor of probably the most consistently interesting pro climber blog, is here to do some of the work for me. Writing about his time at the annual Outdoor Retailers winter show (amidst musings on Bob Dylan, becoming, and climbing new routes):

“I had lunch in the convention center, pressed for time, a bad move on my part, and the food came in a thin, cheap, plastic container. I used it for about 4 minutes, then needed to dispose of it, arghhh! There were thousands of other attendees at the show, and they too needed to eat. I asked around where the recycling was, nobody had a clue. Not even the organizers…

“I wish we didn’t have to choose, I wish, what was right was always right before us…What I learned (again) is that if you want to help people do good things, one must make doing good things easy.”

That rings true for me, and I’m guilty of doing the easy thing many times over when doing the right thing would have taken more time or effort. I’m hopeful that I will get better and doing what’s right, and teaching my son to do the same, but I have no doubt that I will continue to do what’s easy at least some of the time. This will be true in the super market and it will be true on the rock.

I should say that my goal here is not to cast gloom over a thing I love to do. I think my goal is to better understand why I make the choices I do in the interest of making better choices in the future. I want (maybe need) to keep climbing, but I also want to understand what compromises I’m willing to make to do so. I buy gear that uses incredibly energy intensive materials that are shipped thousands of miles across the globe. I drive a couple hours for a day of climbing without a second thought.

Life is about drawing lines. Deciding what we will and won’t do. Deciding how to balance our wants and our needs with what’s best for others. Balancing the short term with the long term. I don’t know where to draw the line in my climbing life, how to balance my desire to climb against the impacts of my climbing, but I don’t want to throw up my hands and ignore the question just because it’s had to answer.

Trips I'm Not Currently Taking

2011-01-21T10:21:00.002-05:00

First, the big news: I’m about to be a father (it’s a boy)! I haven’t written anything about it here because it seemed weird to blog about. But then I remembered that no one reads this and I figured, what’s the harm? Anyway, we have less than a week to go until the due date and I’ve already got visions of my little guy crushing routes I sketched my way up at age 30 when he’s about 10 years old. It’s going to be awesome. Unless he hates climbing, in which case, I’ll dig whatever he’s into instead.

So. It’s snowing in New England and I haven’t been climbing outside the gym since early November (I think). So my only choice is to live vicariously through others. I had been relying on various blogs, Vimeo, and YouTube for my fix, but I got a very cool message from an old friend a few days ago.

In college, I spent a semester in Ireland at NUI Galway. While there I met some crazy climbers in the university outing club, and spent a lot of time with one of them in particular, a guy named Andrew. Turns out he’s in Hampi, India right now, bouldering with his fiancée. They’ve also been through France, Spain, Greece, and Thailand on this trip. They’ve been keeping a blog on the voyage and adventures, which has tons of great photos and stories of regular people climbing and enjoying a super cool trip.

Why did this particular bit of vicarious adventure spurred me to post after my longish blogging hiatus? Because it’s refreshing to read about a climbing trip with sending stories I can really relate to. It doesn’t hurt that I know some of the protagonists, but my favorite part is just the regular-folksness of the whole thing. Made me smile despite the gian snow globe outside my window, so I thought it was worth sharing.

I'm not alone. Also, spam sucks.

2010-07-23T09:45:00.004-04:00

So, I just noticed that months ago Jon alerted me to the other (apparently more reputable) since you asked blog. It belongs to the Alaska State Library. Of course, I've been posting longer, so.. Um... I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm a big fan of libraries and was actually pretty close to going back to school for a masters in information/library science. So no bad feelings on my part. (Though I really should upgrade the look of this thing so we're not both using the exact same template.)

Also, I'm switching to moderated comments in order to head the spammers off at the pass. I've been deleting tons of spam comments and I'd rather they never see the light of day. I will post pretty much any legit or semi-legit comment that comes through unless it's really nasty or something.

Boring, but brief.

2010-07-20T09:47:00.002-04:00

I’ve been getting a ton of spam comments on my last post, for which I figure there are two possible explanations: 1) spammers are really dumb (because no one reads this blog and I never post and I ignore the whole keyword thing) or 2) it’s some kind of weird conspiracy of climbing bloggers trying to run me out of the blogging gig. There are no other scenarios in play.

Either way, I figure you all deserve the immensely boring update on my climbing life. Don’t worry; it’s brief.

Since we last talked I did some climbing, most of it of the sport variety. A couple trips to Rumney yielded very little success, but several new items of unfinished business. A pair of trips up to Shagg yielded one send (my hardest on a rope) and progress on some other stuff. A trip to Sundown yielded a bunch of falls off Eyeless in Gaza (which is like kryptonite to me for some reason – I can’t even remember half the beta from one visit to the next) and a surprisingly high level of psych about Mithras, which is a strange route (it comes in four parts – sketchy 5.8 intro, short V4/5, 5.9 slaby cornery thing, V5/6).

I’m still a pretty bad sport climber. Or, I feel like a bad sport climber. I screw up clips, get scared, pump out, forget to try hard, and generally screw myself up. It can be frustrating, but since I’ve got a ton of other crap going on right now (more on this later… maybe) I’d rather not let it get to me. For the rest of my summer I’ll try to squeeze some climbing in around the weddings and family visits, and then, come fall we’ll see where we are. It will probably look a lot like where we are right now. (Indoors, thinking about climbing).

Oh, and I met Peter Beal last night. He’s in town for some family vacation and I supplied him with a couple loaner pads so he can hit some of his old stomping grounds. Was cool to put a voice to the blog. Now I “know” someone in CO should a window of travel opportunity ever open up (not terribly likely, but you never know).

In which I talk about myself. Again.

2010-03-01T15:13:00.003-05:00

Hokay. So. Recent developments in my climbing life: failed to kick elbow pain, went bouldering two weekends in a row anyway, sent another one of the problems on my increasingly-optimistic-looking list of goals from last year, injured knee without noticing, bought a rope. Some of these things are cool, some are not. Basically par for the course I guess.

The only one of those that I can actually explain is the third. It goes like this:

This winter has been beyond bizarre in New England. There’s currently almost no snow on the ground anywhere between far northern Maine and Manhattan. NYC and points south have had far, far more snowfall than New England. The result: crap ski weather, good climbing weather.

This lead to consecutive Saturday climbing adventures, the second of which took me and my friend Chris to Rumney to try Satan on a Halfshell. Actually, an alternate start version of that problem (which for some reason gets its own name: Satan’s Sister Sally). They’re about the same difficulty, with the Sister version taking a more direct line into the same exact crux moves.

After warmups, we camped out under the problem and started refining beta. Chris had never done the moves and quickly got to the crux, which involved a long reach from a decent right hand crimp and bad left edge. After a few goes, a crew of folks rolled up and joined us. Now usually I’m not a fan of people just hopping in when I’m working a project (more on this later), but I rolled with it.

One of the newcomers was local(ish) legendary math major hardman, Zeb. He quickly strolled through the crux and topped out. Which could have been demoralizing, but it actually helped me nail down beta that might work for me and got me psyched. A few more unsuccessful goes and Zeb and company decided to move on, leaving us with only one serviceable pad, plus my totally useless 10 year old beater. Fortunately we were soon rescued by a brand new Organic Big Pad and its owner.

A few goes later, I latched the long reach, held the swing, made a strenuous match, and stuck the lip. Easy mantle. Done. (And now, the self-aggrandizing is over.)

I tell this story not (just) to toot my own horn, but because it leads to a thought about me and my climbing accomplishments. Whenever I top out something hard or send a long-time project, I don’t feel like celebrating. I don’t feel let down either, I just don’t want dance/yell/whatever. Usually I smile a little, climb down of the boulder, and try to avoid talking about the send. I actually feel a little embarrassed sometimes, like I was showing off (this came up in my first why do I climb post as well).

I still don’t know what that means, and I usually end up talking about the send eventually, but in the moment it feels weird to crow about it. Anyway, I hope it’s a good quality and not some kind of reverse-psychology vanity.

And while we’re here: Spring comes soon. Hopefully a dry one. My mission for 2010: suck less at sport climbing. We’ll see how that goes.

What is moderate?

2010-01-28T10:54:00.001-05:00

Two things first: 1) this is not a political post, so don’t get out your illegally-weighted ideological boxing gloves, and 2) I recently made the jaunt down to Lincoln Woods but I’m sparing you the full report and will sum up the experience thusly: not very fun.

OK. So. On to the part that comes next.

Life is full of flexible concepts, ideas with meanings dependent on context. One such concept in climbing is “moderateness.” When someone says they’re going out for a day of climbing “moderate” routes or boulder problems, the difficulty of the climbing they plan to do can range dramatically. You probably know this, so my pseudo-academic explanation is almost certainly pointless. And yet I persist.

I’ve been thinking about this idea of moderateness for a while, and a throwaway line from a recent Jamie Emerson blog post brought it home for me: “I also climbed a few moderates Livin’ on Prayer V9 and a low start to Finger on the Steel V8…”

Jamie’s definition of moderate doesn’t really mesh with mine, which is no criticism of the man. It just makes it abundantly clear that all moderate means in the context of climbing is “not that hard for me.”

It’s easy for climbers, particularly those who climb at the upper end of the difficulty spectrum, that climbing is hard and that many people climb for many years without ever getting to the top of a 5.11c. It’s likely that someone capable of climbing hard 5.12 or V9 exists in the right tail of the climbing bell curve; among the “top” 10% of climbers in the world.

Of course, I have no statistics to back this up, nor would I know how to go about compiling them. It’s just my sense that the majority of people who rock climb (those who might self-identify as climbers) climb somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.10 and V0. If that’s true, then the most common definition of moderate would lie somewhere in the range of 5.8.

Lately, when I find myself saying something like “I did a couple moderates but nothing hard,” I remember that my moderate might be someone else’s project, and that it might behoove me to be careful how I apply the term. No, I don’t think we need to agree on a firm definition for moderate, only that it’s worth recognizing just how fuzzy the concept is in the first place.

Winter. It's like summer only colder.

2009-12-21T16:17:00.004-05:00

With snow on the ground and temps below freezing, it's unlikely that my usual climbing haunts will be worth a visit until March at the earliest. That means plastic and the occasional masochistic jaunt down to Lincoln Woods are probably my only climbing opportunities for a while. Fortunately (for me), I managed a day out on Saturday. Unfortunately (for you), I'm going to write about it.

I've been battling some elbow pain for a couple/few weeks now. By battling, of course, I mean trying to ignore. That tactic has begun to fail me, so my plan is a couple weeks of rest, ice, and antagonistic exercises.

This is relevant because Saturday was my Official Last Day Out Before Self-enforced Rehab. I spent it at Blair with my buddy Chris. He had his sights set on finishing Burt Gives BJs (V6), which he'd worked the weekend before, and I thought I might do some moderates in the area and check out one or two other things that were likely to be mostly climbable despite the snow on top of everything.

After warming up, Chris did Burt in just a few attempts. I climbed it again as well because it's really fun. After that we went over to Freezing Point Depression, an interesting V5 with a couple funky holds. Then I pulled on to Giving Up Skin for the New Year (an awkward one move V9) a few times before deciding that discretion is the better part of valor and moving on.

A quick visit to the Method Boulder so I could try Check the Method (I think I have it more or less sorted out, but need to refine the beta a little), and then off to the Swirly so Chris could get on Amnesia and I could reprise my comedy routine, "Stand and Deliver? I'd rather kind of stand and then fall before doing a single move."

After two short sessions working it, Stand and Deliver still feels nigh impossible to me. It's an interesting problem, relying almost entirely on compression power for the first two or three moves. I would tell you about the rest of the moves, but they're impossible to rehearse without climbing the first two, which I can't do.

Basically, I can pull of the ground, make the first move, start doing the footwork, and then fall. That's it. So what does this tell me? I have reached the point where I probably won't make much progress (on this problem or in terms of difficulty generally) without training for it.

This is not my strong suit. And first I need a fully functional elbow. So, the plan for 2010 is:

1) Healthy elbow
2) Training
3) ???
4) Progress!

Still unresolved: 2009 goals

2009-12-17T15:56:00.004-05:00

It's that time of year, when you're supposed to get all thoughtful about last year and hopeful about next. The holidays! Resolutions and pudding and ponies for everyone! Well, since were in a period of deep national reflection I thought I'd join in and give y'all a report on all the super things I accomplished in 2009. It'll be boring, I promise.

Back in January I posted this list of goals:

Go on vacation. I didn’t realize how great vacation was until last year. It’s great.
Finish off long-standing bouldering projects, including Swamp Thing (V7/8), Pyramid Power (Worlds Hardest V7©), Boulder X (V6), and Gun Show (V8?).
Finish fixing up the spare bedrooms (lots o’ plaster repair – fun!).
Send at least one V9 or harder (maybe Margin Walker, Loomit, Satan on a Half Shell, or Stegosaurus).
Turn 29 (I needed at least one gimme).
Do the moves on Halcyon (V11) and Stand and Deliver (V11).
Read at least one book that’s not a total escapist throw-away.
Keep updating this pile of pointlessness folks call a blog.

Without further ado, the results:

Check. Puerto Rico. Warm, sunny, only one near-death experience (and I wasn't the nearly dead one anyway).
Check-ish. Did Pyramid Power and Swamp Thing, but not Boulder X and Gun Show.
Check. Well, mostly check. Need to finish a little painting and figure out where the hell to store all the crap we've been tossing into the empty spare room.
Negative. Lame.
Natch.
Kinda-sorta? Did about half the moves on each. It's really difficult to rehearse the middle/end moves on both problems, so progress has been sloooooow. Plus I didn't get on them much.
Check, if you count The Road, which I think is a pretty poor excuse for quality literature.
Check. Sometimes.

All in all, pretty damn meh. But that's what I expected anyway, so call it a win.

Why do I climb? (part 2)

2009-11-18T16:18:00.001-05:00

Trying to figure out why I climb turns out to be even harder than I thought. I’ve been thinking about the follow-up to my last post on the subject for a month now and I don’t feel much clearer in my mind. I don’t know where exactly this will go, but let’s find out…

So why climbing specifically? If vanity (my desire for others to know that I’m good at something) is a prime motivator for me, why did I settle on a single activity where my skill will be apparent to and seen by a small audience? I was also relatively good at Ultimate (don’t call it a Frisbee), and I had almost no trouble giving it up after 10 years of consistent and dedicated practice. In fact, I put it aside specifically so I could climb more.

Partly, that decision was about what each activity brought out in me. Ultimate highlighted some of my least favorite things about myself: my tendency to be over competitive and argumentative, my know-it-all-ness, my tendency to hold forth on topics. I rarely left the field after a game feeling good about my behavior on it.

Climbing on the other hand, appeals to my competitive side, but refocuses it. Instead of trying to beat someone, I’m trying to solve a puzzle or perfect my own movement to achieve something difficult. I’m a fairly strong introvert, so this internal focus is very comfortable for me (maybe too comfortable, but that’s another story). I do have to be careful still of my inclination to spray beta or pontificate on some climbing minutia, but I find it easier to avoid that, thanks I think to the less confrontational atmosphere of my climbing group.

So, I think that the more individual nature of climbing (including the fact that I generally climb with a smaller group) helps me control what I see as unpleasant aspects of my personality. This is somewhat in conflict with the vanity appeal of climbing, but I think it helps balance that out a bit as well.

Hmmm. That was kind of unsatisfying. Maybe there’s more to dig up here. We’ll see.

Choose your own adventure (warning: no climbing content)

2009-11-11T16:35:00.002-05:00

Remember the choose your own adventure books? Ever considered doing extensive data visualization work on the subject? Then this is for you. For those with short attention spans, try this first.

Type rest of the post here

Why yes, thanks for asking!

2009-10-28T15:59:00.004-04:00

I did indeed go climbing recently and I would love to show you some pictures! I know you're utterly fascinated by my climbing exploits (who isn't?), so I'm happy to indulge you with photographic evidence of said exploits. Pity they're not very impressive. The exploits that is. The photos are quite nice (all courtesy of Jon Reece).

Julian looking awkward:

Kirk looking awkward:

Julian awkwardly expressing his love for a boulder:

After all the awkwardness I did manage to finish off a really good V7/8 that sent me into a tailspin of fail last year. Really fun problem with a unique and odd start. Followed up that success with some more failure on what Jon swears is a V4 dyno with an uncompleted Vhard start but is really a Vhard dyno with a V6 start. Of course, I suck and dynos so, you know.

I'm still trying to figure out the follow up to my last post, but I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts. Maybe some day I'll sort that out.

Why do I climb?

2009-10-14T16:01:00.001-04:00

I’ll dispense with the vague platitudes. No “I really like being out in nature,” no “I love the connection of mental and physical challenges,” no “chicks dig it.” Those may be true at some level (in fact, I do think that there’s something about the physicality of climbing that appeals to me physiologically/psychologically), but they are not the sum of my motivation. By rambling for a while I’ll try to figure out what else factors in.

I like to be good at things. It’s satisfying to do something well. I don’t know where this satisfaction originates, though it probably finds its root somewhere in the nature/nurture-people-are-social-animals matrix-and-society-trains-us-to-value-certain-things. Anyway, point is that I like to be good at things.

I like it when people know I’m good at things. I take satisfaction from the knowledge that others know I’m moderately good at climbing. I also take some satisfaction from others thinking that I’m getting better at climbing. It’s possible that this satisfaction is at least part of what motivates me to get stronger/better at climbing. I don’t know to what degree, but I think it’s a factor.

On the flip side, I don’t love to talk about how good I am at things. It feels like pure vanity (at least in person) to crow about accomplishments that mean very little (read: nothing) in the grand scheme (whatever that is). I’m sometimes embarrassed to talk about/demonstrate my skill. My wife has been with me for exactly two hours of bouldering, in which time I flashed a difficult problem (hooray for me). It was surprisingly awkward for me. I felt like a showoff and a fraud — as though the point of that particular feat had been to impress her (was it?).

The satisfaction I derive from being (relatively) good at climbing, and from others’ perception of me as a good climber is, I think, at least a part of what motivates me to climb. I hope that this vanity is the least part of my motivation, but I don’t know. I try hard to keep it below the surface, to support and encourage my friends more than I focus on myself, and I hope I succeed.

I’ve got some other thoughts (even less well-formed than this post) that I’ll try to write about in the near future. What about y’all? What role does vanity play in your climbing life?

It begins... What exaclty is "it?"

2009-09-28T09:43:00.002-04:00

With Big Sharma’s words ringing in my ears, I lined up a day of real-world bouldering on Saturday. The crew included Mark, Jon, and two others (one who’d never bouldered before), with Kirk and Rachael meeting us at the boulders. Destination was Pawtuckaway. Project list was basically non-existent.

OK, so that’s not exactly true, but I like to think my expectations were reasonable. Weather was going to be low 60s with tons of sun, so a bit warm for hard projects. Still had some hope for a few things.

Got off to a rocky start thanks to my compatriots’ inability to brew coffee at home and/or make breakfast and arrived at the pebbles at about 11. Warmed up like a meth-addled squirrel (apparently I was kind of excited to be out), did a nice-looking, OK V3 I’d never done before, then spent some skin working a slab in the V5 range (?).

Slabs are weird, right? You generally can’t just overpower them, and even “easy” stuff can shut you down. As a boulderer I’m probably supposed to say something like “slabs are for sissies” and move on to some dope roofs dood! But I actually dig climbing slab. Well, sometimes. On Saturday, with 6 people trying the one line, I couldn’t stick it out, so Mark and I moved on to Boulder X.

Let me just get the requisite “that problem is totally strange and no way can a V6 be that hard” comment out of the way. Mantle problems are just like that, so deal. Anyway, I refined my beta and came close, but warmth and low energy defeated me and I came away empty handed. Nearing skinlessness we moved on and I did another V3 I’d never been on before calling it a day.

So here I am, feeling really happy to have nice fall weather in NE, mentally writing and re-writing my project list, and yet I’m a little ambivalent. I can’t shake the feeling that The Exalted Sharma is right. In NE, you can’t really boulder in the summer unless you’re fond of greasing of V1s. Winter bouldering is doable, as long as you’re willing to suffer. Spring is often wet, but you can eke out some good days. Fall can be glorious, but in bouldering terms it really only lasts about 6-8 weeks. In other words, I spend so much time waiting around for good conditions that I’ve become primarily a gym rat.

I may be coming to a point in my climbing where I need to step back and decide what my priorities are. Do I want to push for harder boulder grades, resigning myself to the cycle of the conditions-dependent? Maybe I should switch my focus over to sports climbing. Or maybe learn to place some gear and open up a whole new range of options.

I still maintain that a good day of bouldering is the most satisfying kind of climbing I know, but is it worth all the waiting? All the finger-crossing, hoping for good weather? I’m not sure anymore.

Media Matters... ish.

2009-09-22T11:22:00.002-04:00

Anyone up for some navel-gazing? ‘Cause I’m totally about to lay it down here. Yeah, it’s like a little taste of the good old days.

Anyway, thanks to Peter Beal I’m pondering one of those fantastically introspective climbing topics. It all started when PB (that’s what his friends who’ve never met him call him) posted up about the apparent superiority of euro climbers (as in, they climb harder stuff more easily, not they’re better people, though that’s also possible). This lead to a totally interesting comment thread. This lead to me thinking too much about what climbing means and whether we should care about progression/improving standards/etc in climbing. This lead to me writing this post and wasting all y’all’s time.

Here’s the quote that really got my wheels turning:
“I agree that climbing ultimately doesn't matter much, especially in terms of national pride, but suppose we argued that difficulty in climbing is a desirable goal and achievements to that end are more admirable than looking good in branded clothing. Is the current mode of marketing and media furthering actual climbing achievement/progress or merely cultivating image? What does that say about culture overall in the U.S.? That our achievements in climbing consist of photogenic people posing in attractive locations?”

There’s kind of a lot going on here. I’ll start somewhere random.

I accept the premise that difficulty in climbing is a desirable goal. It seems plausible (though by no means certain) that if climbers stopped pushing the limits of what’s possible, the sport would stagnate (i.e. fail to grow). Of course, we could argue all week about whether this is really a bad thing. Would it mean fewer people getting in to the sport? Would that mean more access troubles? Less? Would it mean more expensive gear? Etc.

Related thought: difficulty in climbing is my main personal climbing goal, but that’s utterly personal. Whatever Strongmo Francais or Buff Americano is doing has no real impact on that goal. So if American climbing media doesn’t necessarily support the hardest climbing eva I don’t really lose out.

And yeah, American climbing media is probably more interested in selling an image of coolness as it relates to climbing than pushing difficulty. The “important” question is probably whether the climbing community at large loses out, and I think the answer is probably some kind of “yes.” If we think pushing standards provides the most benefit to the community, then the climbing media in the US as currently constituted ain’t helping much. If we think increasing climbers’ level of satisfaction with their climbing experience provides the most benefit, then US climbing media may be helping. Of course, a lot of that media is focused on “lifestyle” stuff like clothing, gear, etc, which is a pretty shallow way to improve an experience.

So, climbing media appears to be participating in the stuff = happiness movement. This probably doesn’t help push US climbers to new heights of difficulty. I doubt it’s the only factor (as commenters over at the Narc point out).

Semantics

2009-09-14T16:44:00.002-04:00

What's with folks referring to boulder problems as "boulders?" I see it around the webster in various places. I think it's weird and confusing. It reminds me of the similarly unhelpful conflation of "blog" with "blog post." Seriously folks, a blog is the vehicle/medium and a blog post is the individual piece of writing. And seriously folks, a boulder is the big hunk of rock, and a boulder problem is the sequence of holds/features you use to climb it. Amiright?

Type rest of the post here

Cold Summer

2009-09-11T12:10:00.002-04:00

If you live in Americaland, you’re probably aware that last Monday was ~~Memorial~~ Labor Day [editors note: Julian is an idiot]. For those who live in other, less lipidically gifted regions of the globe, it’s a day set aside to celebrate the act of selling crap you don’t want to strangers, which we celebrate by piling all the old junk we have no use for outside our house and demanding money for it. We call these small festivals of attempted screwing-over “yard sales.”

But I’m not here today to talk about grey market commerce. No, I’m here to talk about how lame getting sick is and the havoc it can wreak on your climbing plans. You see, I had decided to take a few extra days off after Memorial Day, thus providing sufficient consecutive days of no workey for a short climbing trip. My plan was to drive to Rumney on Saturday morning, spend the day Elvising up some 11a sport routes and falling off some easy 12s before heading to VT for some solo bouldering in Smugglers’ Notch. The rhinovirus, however, had a different plan in mind.

Long story short, I ended up crashed out at home on Thursday and Friday trying frantically to get over a cold so I could go on my trip. It kinda worked and I ended up going to Rumney on Saturday afternoon where I promptly tweaked my good (by which I mean slightly less fecked-up) shoulder. So mostly I just hung out while other folks climbed in the perfect weather. Then I went home.

Luckily, the whole ordeal was rescued from the realms of complete disaster by a Tuesday session at a spot called Lion’s Den in Evans Notch (which is basically right on the NH/ME line north of Fryeburg, ME). It’s this cluster of massive boulders perched on the side of a mountain and if it were a little easier to access there’d probably be about 20 or so problems. Since it’s kinda remote and gets little traffic, nothing gets/stays clean enough to climb on. Except this one awesome boulder that’s got a V4ish, a V6 with a committing dyno at the top, a cool V8, a cool V10ish, and a project on it. Well worth a day or three if that’s in your range.

Hiked up there with Kirk where he promptly tweaked his shoulder and I managed the V8 and got in some good work on the 10ish. They’re both quality problems on really interesting quartz-streaked granite that’s both fine grained and crystal-y in places.

All in all, the past week has been a lesson in just exactly who’s not in charge: me. I’m not sure I needed the reminder, but whatever. I’m back at work now, so that’s cool. I guess.

Rock climbing is stupid.

2009-08-13T16:08:00.001-04:00

There's just no other way to explain this video. I mean, WTFuck.

"Thanks" to SendAustin. I guess.

Type rest of the post here

Meta Minute

2009-08-06T14:50:00.004-04:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome my good friend (whom I've never met, nor laid actual eyes on, but to whom I am referring as a friend nonetheless because it improves the rhetorical flow of this post) Tommy Tissue Tendons has announced his triumphant return to bloggerdom. May his reign as premier sarcastic train-of-thought blogger south of the Mason Dixon be long and meh-rific.

I'd also like to compliment my arch-nemesis (whom I've never met and toward whom I harbor no ill will but to whom I'm referring as my arch-nemesis because it's fun to have an arch-nemesis and I've never really had one before, so I figured, why not?) The Climbing Narc on his meteoric rise to the top of the climbing meta paparazzi.

Climbing "culture" has its performers, its documenters, its regular Joes and Joannes, and, increasingly, its meta documenters. The latter are a breed of dedicated folk, who generally begin as regular Joe/annes but who possess an irregular ability and willingness to devote a lot of time to reading about and watching climbing "news" and "events" and "films" on teh winternwebs. Also probably printed climbing "mags" and "films" released on digital video disc.

I believe that The Climbing Narc has risen to the top of the meta documenters like the meta cream on the unpasteurized meh-ta milk that is climbing "culture." His dedication is remarkable. If he weren't my arch-nemesis I'd probably like the guy. C'est la vie.

See, I used to read climbing mags. Even subscribed to one for a while. Unfortunately, most writing about climbing is more repetitive than watching all the Rocky flicks back-to-back-to-back-to-howevermanybackstherearenow. This is particularly true of the printed media. And the unprinted magazine media. And pretty much everything else out there.

This is a fact that has occasionally caused me to question what exactly I'm doing here, as we speak, writing about climbing. Also to question why I follow so many climbing blogs (more than 20 at last count). The only answer, clearly, is physical addiction. Yes, climbing is my drug of choice, and reading about climbing is the methadone that gets me through the long periods when my dealer is dry (or, in the case of this summer, raining constantly).

So, Mr. Narc, I thank you for your service. You are the meh-thadone clinic of my meh-diction.

2009-07-22T12:19:00.001-04:00

It seems like no one wants to be my personal cruise director, which I find surprising since it’s a really cushy job. OK, so you don’t get paid and there are no “benefits,” but it’s not like there’s actual work involved.

Well, since I couldn’t get anyone to supply me with theoretical climbing trip fodder, I decided instead to actually go climbing. Sports climbing. For the first time in over a year. Predictably, I spent the entire time three-hanging .12a’s and short-roping my friends.

It appears that my plasticitis has progressed into inabilitytotryharditis, which is characterized by, well, an inability to try hard while climbing. This causes some problems when you encounter hard moves. For example, I’ve become competent at cruising the easy sections of hard routes but remain utterly incompetent at bearing down and executing the difficult sequence that follows. It is my fervent hope that this problem will sort itself out without me actually putting in any effort to sort it out, since I’m unlikely to put in the time required to actually get better at climbing.

Oh well. I guess I did re-prove that Shagg Crag is pretty sweet. Even if the approach is a 30 minute hike uphill through a lake of mud.

Plan a trip for me.

2009-07-17T15:29:00.001-04:00

Go on. Do it. Pretend I have three days of in September, meaning I can take a 5 day trip. I live in the Northeast, and blowing two full days on travel is not appealing. I'd like to keep the cost down. I prefer bouldering to other kinds of climbing.

Go to it. All suggestions considered.

There is no more. Make with the ideas.

Interview with some blogger guy

2009-07-02T13:35:00.002-04:00

It’s like I should be blogging about climbing because my legions of fans expect it, but I kinda got nothing at the moment. I mean, sure, I’ve been noticing stuff on the websternets and thinking about climbing a lot, but all my thoughts are of the “all rain and no climbing make Homer go something, something” caliber. So, in the absence of a better idea, I have decided to interview myself. It’s intentional absurdity at its most mediocre. Enjoy.

Me: We’re here today with renowned respected anonymous climber guy, Julian. So, Julian, you’ve been spending a lot of time lately not climbing on rocks and complaining about the gym. Do you have any other plans for the summer?
Me: Not really, no. I guess I’ll probably sit around waiting for the sun to come out for a while, and after that I might install some replacement windows in my house. Oh, and I think I’m going to like 37 weddings, so that’s happening.
Me: Sounds great. Say, what kind of harness do you own?
Me: Harness? Is that the thing that’s like a belt with leg belts attached to it and you wear it over your pants when you want to have your pants strapped to your legs for some reason?
Me: Um, kinda? It’s also used for rock climbing with a rope.
Me: Oh, right! Yeah I have one of those. It’s old, I think. I bought it like 7 years ago or something. I’m pretty sure it has adjustable leg loops. What does that say about me?
Me: That you’re pretty lame? Anyway, any truth to the rumor that you’re working on a “collabo” with Steve Jobs, Chris Sharma, and Weird Al? Something about a hand-held climbing karaoke device?
Me: No. You just made that up.
Me: Did not.
Me: Did too.
Me: …
Me: …
Me: This is awkward.
Me: …
Me: Moving on. Do you have a job.
Me: Yes.
Me: Shocking.
Me: I know, right?
Me: How’s that working out for you?
Me: Well, they pay me, so that’s cool
Me: Nice. You should spend some of that money on a climbing trip.
Me: (laughter)
Me: Why are you laughing?
Me: (more laughter)
Me: Stop laughing. I didn’t say anything funny.
Me: (still laughing)
Me: That’s it, I’m outta here.
Me: (yet more laughter)

Would it kill you to stop raining?

2009-06-19T13:04:00.002-04:00

Can someone put me in touch with that bowler-hat-sporting chap from the Traveler's commercials? I need the name of his giant magic umbrella supplier. It's urgent.

Risky Bizness

2009-06-09T14:14:00.003-04:00

Climber types often get all navel-gazey and philosophical when they start talking about risk, aka consequences, aka seriousness. Which, I guess, is fun for them. And fair enough, ‘cause I’m not interested in denying them something they find valuable.

I am interested, though, in what role risk plays in my own climbing. Because I honestly think it’s a real small role. I don’t place gear, I get all elvisy climbing above protection, I don’t do much highballing (and I do no “serious” highballing with real “consequences”). Nearly all of my favorite routes/problems are pretty short, and I love them for the moves, holds, and sequences not the scare/adrenaline/whatever.

Or maybe, I’ve become a little immune to the basic level of risk we all accept when we go climbing. An awkward fall could still kill me, even if I’m just 4 feet off the ground on a V3. But the thought never crosses my mind. Does that mean those risks I ignore are not a part of the appeal of climbing, or just that I’m not consciously aware of them?

I tell myself that I don’t take a lot of risks, and I kind of cringe whenever someone defines risk as a personal benefit vs. odds of serious injury/death inequality (you know, if benefit > odds of death/major breakage then have at it!). Because to me, risk is a much more complex set of questions and relationships than that. What about your friends and family? What about the folks who will be taking care of your comatose ass when you deck? Etc. Etc.

Risk, to me, is not a personal decision with personal consequences. It’s a personal decision with personal and social consequences. Which makes it much harder to pin down. So when folks do crazy bold shit and talk about the freedom and joy of risking death or whatever, I can’t really follow them. I don’t think that’s freedom or joy.

It’s also possible that I’m just some kind of milquetoast. Likely, in fact.

Back without anything resembling vengeance

2009-05-29T12:37:00.002-04:00

Clearly, over the last several days/weeks/whatever I have been neglecting my bloggerly duties. Blogeebus (the fearsome god of blogging) will probably smite me for my lack of devotion. But, you know… Meh.

Anyway, I recently had a sweet day of bouldering in Smuggler’s Notch, VT where I discovered the joy of renaming boulder problems in Vermont based on blatant stereotypes about Vermont. For example, “Greening All Day” to “Becoming Intoxicated by Smoking the Buds of the Female Cannabis Plant,” and “Pulled Pork” becomes “Dank Pork Nugs.” The Great Nug (the heavy lidded, ravenous, yet oddly sluggish god of Vermont) will probably destroy my soul now. But it was worth it.

Sadly, I returned home to find that I’m still climbing like crap at the gym and pretty much my entire summer is planned out. This happens every year (the too-many-plans thing, and now that I think of it, the crappy climbing thing too) and I never manage to head it off. Maybe next year.

At this point, it would be really cool if I had something either hilarious or totally fascinating to say right now. That would really help me establish some blogging street cred, which as we all know, is legal tender on the interstreet. But I don’t. So I’ll just point to this post from Peter Beal, which pretty much nails the silly climbing vs. life issue, and call it a day.

Dead Zone

2009-05-12T11:10:00.001-04:00

I’ve been struggling a little lately, folks. (Don’t worry, this is not a long personal disclosure post, I’m talking about teh rockclimengs). I’ve suffered a series of high gravity days, some minor elbow pain, and a serious lack of motivation.

Basically, I’m me only worse.

I figure it’s a combo of mourning for the good temps, my annual bout of plasticitis (characterized by bouts of lethargy when exposed to urethane and an apparent inability to complete a frickin’ blog post), and an utter lack of goals for the summer climbing season.

Now since none of those foolish enough to read this have ever met me, you don’t know just how bad I am at making plans and/or setting goals. I believe I have a genetic predisposition for being lousy at setting goals and even lousier at sticking to them. I blame my dad. This leads to a lot of time sitting at the gym pondering whether I should try that hard boulder problem a few times, maybe do some laps on a V4, or rope up for the first time in months. It also leads to this conversation any time I’m at the crag/boulders:

Friends: “What do you want to get on today?”

Me: “I guess I’d like to try [problem/route]. But whatever.”

Friends: “Want to go check out [some other thing]?”

Me: “Sure. Whatever.”

Friends (thinking): I wish this asshole would just say what he wants to do. It would make my life so much easier.

Me: “Did you just say something?”

Friends: “What? No.” (thinking): Damn! Must think quieter.

It’s really sad.

So now I need your help. Someone please tell me what the hell to do climbing-wise over the next three or four months!

Failing that, I’d settle for someone telling me what to do at the gym tonight.

Happy first day of the bouldering season!

2009-05-04T13:15:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, some friends were out bouldering in late April in NH. The bugs were starting to swarm and the temps were too warm for sending. After spending a pleasant but only somewhat boulderingy day, the were headed for the car, lamenting the end of the good bouldering conditions, when along came a cheerful fellow with a pad on his back.

“Great first day of the bouldering season, eh?”

…

*Blank stare. Blink. Blink.*

I tell this story by way of illustrating how much more pointless and dull this blog is likely to be over the next few months. You definitely won’t be hearing about my sick climbing exploits, dude, because there won’t be any. (Which is different from the rest of the year how, exactly?) You probably won’t read any poorly-thought-out-but-mockable ramblings on the meaning of rock climbings. What you will get is a big stack of sickeningly self-indulgent, whiny posts about insects, sweat, and how heavy ropes are.

Buckle up; should be fun!

Type rest of the post here

Climbing with Venn

2009-04-23T13:10:00.005-04:00

Every year spring rolls around and I start whining about bouldering season being over. Mostly because I’m a weenie, but partly because it’s no fun to pull on sharp, microscopic holds or sandpaper/crystaly/glassy slopers when it’s warm out. Fact.

This gripe leads inevitably to someone saying something like, “Yeah but rope climbing season is just getting started.”

Ok but so does that mean when you’re tied into a rope holds become less sharp? Do you sweat less in a harness? Are there fewer rage-inducing insects biting the shit out of you? The whole thing kinda confuses me.

So I put together a Venn diagram to try and clear it up…

Nope. Doesn’t help. Oh well.

It's almost as if the kettle killed itself rather than be used by me

2009-04-22T10:55:00.003-04:00

Feeling a bit bummed out today folks. The good bouldering season is just about dead, though the funeral won’t happen until mid May. I haven’t had a funny or interesting thought in, oh, about two weeks. And I’m kinda tired and maybe a little cranky.

I think I need your help, friends. I need some kind of inane and highly detailed project to obsess over. It should involve rock climbings, definitely. It should also ideally involve the funny. And it should be something that doesn’t feel like work. Oh, and it should be something that my wife won’t think is stupider than the stupid things I already waste all my time on (rock climbings, thinking about rock climbings, candlepin bowling, blogs, teh netywebs, etc).

Give me the ideas, people. Don't make me beg, it's not pretty.

I can goez bolderng (a.k.a. my wife is super cool)

2009-04-13T13:35:00.005-04:00

Up close & personal with Satan's kid sister

So, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m married. Yeah, sounds weird to me too. Even after almost three years. I mean, marriage is something grown ups do. And I bring this up not because I’m interested in disclosing more about my personal life, but just so I can make this point: I’m married to a non-climber and on the list of reasons I don’t get out climbing all that often she’s right near the bottom.

Par example (that’s French, folks), all last week I was eyeing Saturday as a climbing option ‘cause my wife was going to be out of town. As the day approached, it became clear that weather would intervene. I was a little bummed. Then, on Thursday evening, my lovely wife pipes up with: “Do you want to go climbing this weekend?” I responded: “Well, yeah, but I figured we’d be hanging out on Sunday and it’s gonna rain Saturday, so…” And then she was all: “That’s OK. You should go climbing.”

She’s great. No joke.

Spraybomb after the jump...

So, with spousal consent, I went to Rumney with the usual suspects for some bouldering. My tick list: Pyramid Power (V8, but always called V7 ‘cause that’s what the guide says), Spragueasaurus (V5), and to put in some work on Satan’s Sister Sally (V10). If this sounds familiar to you, you’ve been reading this blog too closely.

My crewmates had other objectives as well: Rachel wanted to work Bobby’s Problem (V7), Kirk wanted to put in some more time on Satan’s Choice (V12), and Jon wanted to climb a little and take some photos.

Oh and temps were in the low 30s with a nice cutting wind and some snow flurries. On the plus side, friction was excellent.

I’ll cut right to the spray: I managed a flash of Bobby’s Problem (definitely my hardest flash), finally did Pyramid Power after refining my beta a bit, did Spragueasaurus quick, and made some progress on Sally.

Excellent day for me, but pretty much everyone else was just fracking cold. Kirk wasn’t feeling it on Satan’s Choice, but did have a few good goes on Sally. Rachel got stumped by a move on Bobby’s Problem where the short person beta is hard and shitty.

You know what’s funny: the more I actually climb the less I obsess about the minutia that so consumes me when I’m not climbing. It’s kinda liberating really. I should keep this up and save us all the rambling, bull-infused junk I end up posting during the dry spells.

The iSpray: now with even fewer sends!

2009-04-06T13:09:00.008-04:00

A wise man once told me, “No one cares about you or your stupid rock climbing,” but you know what I say? I say tough cookies, I’m spraying the intorw3b down with my rock climbing hose anyway. Take that Mr. Madeupdude! You're not the boss of me!

Anway, it being spring and all, the boulderings have become somewhat more logistically plausible here in Jolly New England. We have about two weeks until the whole of the region north of the line from Boston to Amherst, MA becomes one giant tick and blackfly apocalypse, from which we will emerge again in September with Lyme Disease and 1,000 itchy red welts. Those of us with more climbing obsession than sense are trying to pack in the maximum possible quantity skin-tearing good times.

To that end, I went to Pawtuckaway on Sunday with a mid-sized crew and did some boulderings. Photographic evidence below.

I’ve got unfinished business all over the park, but I had my eye mostly on Halcyon, an excellent-looking V11 I’d never tried and had begun to harbor delusions I might be able to do. Warmed up with a couple friends, did a slopey V7 called Bodacious that I’d been trying for a while, then set up under Halcyon’s imposing prow.

My buddy Jon, future famous fotographer (hell yeah! awkwardly forced and badly spelled alliteration for everyone!), set up some lights so he could better capture the weird constipated faces I make when I try hard problems and I stated working out the moves.

Basically, Halcyon a few V4 moves on steep rock into some serious business involving a bad gaston/edge and some crystaly slopers to a sketchy-looking mantel. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I can actually get into the crux, which did nothing to disperse my delusions of grandeur and now means I’ll be spending a lot of time describing how I’m soooooooo close to doing Halcyon, dude, I just need to hold enough tension to stick the heel, pretty much it’s done I just have to link it and aren’t I cool?


Entering the crux	The Business

After that, we did some hanging around, I tried some other hard problems and didn’t send them, and we ended up under Maxim, a tall, tenuous-feeling V7 with a moderately bad landing. I basically mocked my friend Rachel into trying it despite her protests. She’d worked it some before, and was pretty much ready to pack it in after a few tries. Then a few extra pads showed up, she pulled on for a last go, and cruised the thing! Easily the coolest thing that happened all day.

OK. Enough semi-earnest spray-bombing for me. Back to your regularly scheduled snarkternet.

ShamWhat? or Things that make me write yet more about grades

2009-03-30T14:33:00.005-04:00

OK. I’m trying to shake off the disturbing revelations about the ShamWow guy. (Seriously? He’s 41? And stays in $750/night hotels?? I’m stunned.) My plan for coping with these mind-bending facts is to retreat into comforting intellectual territory: bouldering grades.

I was strolling around the insternwebs, just checking out my collection of white/yellow text on black background sites, when I happened across this slightly incoherent piece* on Jamie Emerson. I’m not sure what the point of it is, but there’s an interesting quote from Jemerson: “to be honest, grade inflation is totally out of control, and I mostly blame 8a.nu. I think there should be a significant jump between each grade, but it seems that the media often encourages that jump to get smaller and smaller.”

[*I should totally keep this kind of comment to myself, since I’m as guilty of publishing poorly-written/edited/proofread work as any other writer-type, but I kinda can’t help myself. Anyway, I’m starting to wonder about Deadpoint’s editorial standards, because, and I say this with love since I think Matt and Megan are really cool and work really hard, some of the stuff posted as news or whatever on the Deadpoint site really needs a good copy-edit. Or a quick pre-posting read at least.]

Sure. OK. Grade inflation is out of control. I have no idea if he’s right or not since I don’t climb that hard and I’m not putting up new problems and haven’t climbed enough different stuff to make an informed comment on how hard something is quote objectively unquote. And I’m totally on board with blaming 8a. It’s fun and easy!

But yeah, here’s the thing: boulder difficulty is a continuum. Any individual grade has to be defined as a range of difficulties because if you try to say all V9s must be exactly this hard, you’ll end up with an infinite number of grades (since, you know, no two problems are exactly the same). And sure, this seems like splitting hairs, but it’s not. Well, mostly not.

Because: there can’t possibly be “a significant jump between grades.” Not exactly anyway. There can be a significant jump between the exemplar for V8 and the exemplar for V9 (between the “standards for the grade” in climbspeak), sure. Which, now that I think of it is probably exactly what Mr. Jamerson is talking about. So, yeah. I agree.

[Wow. This post surpassed even my high standard for pointlessness.]

Trip Report (with Battle Rifle)

2009-03-23T15:47:00.005-04:00

"Please, no! Don't hurt me with your awesomeness at rock climbing!"

Since I pretty much never get out to climb, unlike your average climbing blogger type, I rarely have the self-indulgent pleasure of spraying hard about my sweet trips. Well, the shoe is on the other foot now, suckers!

[Where’d you go?]

Um… Cape Cod.

[There’s climbing there?]

Well, no. Actually there’s just a lot of sand and stunted pine trees and old people.

[So, where did you climb?]

I stopped at Pawtuckaway for two hours on the way home.

[Oh… Good for you?]

OK, so maybe I didn’t go on a climbing trip. Maybe I went to a fucking four hour fantasy baseball draft and sat around playing Halo 3 for a few too many hours. And yeah, maybe I suck at every aspect of Halo (except squatting) and mostly just ate Edy’s Fruit Bars and made fun of people, but that doesn’t make me any less of a badass climber! I mean, I wasn’t a badass to begin with, so there is no less to make me.

I had actually planned to get a solid half day of climbing in, but here’s the thing: staying up late playing Halo makes it hard to get out of bed. Plus dropping people off at bus stations and crap takes longer than you think. So I ended up with two hours to work with. And then it started snowing.

Basically, I hiked in, warmed up, did this one cool V6 called Throwing Trump, hiked out, and drove home. ‘Course, it was better than not climbing at all. Further proof that I’m unhinged.

Vacation Trip Report

2009-03-18T14:03:00.004-04:00

First things first: I did absolutely no climbing on my vacation. Unless you count the three steps to the door of the liquor store, or flopping up onto a surf board. Therefore, if your interest in this blog is climbing-related, you should just move on right now. (In fact, if your interested in this blog at all, you should probably move on to some serious counseling. You need help.)

Right. So. Anyway. I spent last week in Rincon, PR.

I sat on some beaches:

I participated in the dismantling, grilling, and eating of a 12 pound red snapper:

I got my ass handed to me by some rather large waves:

(No photographic evidence exists, but my salt-crusted sinuses can vouch)

I drank a few margaritas and a few beers. It was pretty nice:

Now that I’m back, expect more of the same in this space. You know, whining, bullshit intellectualizing, and hastily judging others based on throw-away comments. It’ll be fun.

Won't you miss me?

2009-03-05T11:14:00.004-05:00

Dearest webternets, this blog will be on vacation for about a week here. I know you care because I can feel all the warm, webby vibes you’ve been sending me recently. Thank you. As a token of my gratitude I have refrained from posting a long, whiny paean (yes, it is possible to write whiny paeans) to climbing about all the climbing I’ve not been doing recently.

And I’ve not been doing a LOT of climbing.

So. Anyway. I’m off to sunnier climes for a while. When I return I would appreciate it if Winter’s janitor (a.k.a. Spring) has come and cleaned all the snow and ice from all the boulders I have not been climbing on. I’d also appreciate it if Nature’s exterminator (a.k.a. Humans) could have found a way to eradicate that horror of Spring in New England, the black fly. That would be excellent. For me, not for nature, which I’m sure would suffer in dramatic and difficult-to-predict ways if black flies were indeed to cease to exist.

While I'm gone, please feel free to amuse yourselves with the work of the more reliable and interesting bloggers that populate the netsterweb. You know who I mean.

Expect plenty of whining upon my return.

Mom, Dad, I have a confession... I'm a blogger.

2009-02-25T16:41:00.003-05:00

I've got a bit of a problem. Basically no one I've ever actually met knows I have this blog. I've mentioned it offhand to a couple people, but not since I started posting more regularly and I've definitely never invited a friend or relation to check it out.

I figure that someone I know will eventually discover this little pit of self-indulgent, rambling nonsense. And then comes the mocking and the shame. 'Cause I promise my climbing friends will mock me. And my non-climbing friends will probably mock me too. It'll be a festival of mock. It'll be ugly.

So my question to you, dear internet people, is: what should I do? Rip off the bandaid and come out of the blogging closet? Stick my head in the sand, tell no one, and hope for the best?

Please. Help.

Type rest of the post here

Stylists on parade

2009-02-22T10:51:00.009-05:00

OK. This goes on for waaaaaaay to long, so the smarties among you will probably just skip it.

[Inspired by this editorial at UKC]

The problem with style in climbing, is that we take as given that certain types of ascents are "better" than others. This belief isn't based on any kind of logic, it's just sitting there, largely unexamined, like an appeal to authority looking for an argument.

I'd love to spend some time digging into the assumptions that underlie the ranking of ascent types, but I'm not sure I have the attention span (or frankly, the knowledge) to do so. My plan, then, is to throw some thoughts against the wall here and hope I don't sound too stupid.

Onsight
The reverence many hold for onsight ascents seems to be based on some notion of boldness (read: bravery). The idea of a climber venturing out on a line s/he doesn't know much if anything about has a kind of romantic appeal.

Climbing a route onsight is definitely more difficult: the climber doesn't know the protection or the moves, doesn't know what the holds will fell like, doesn't know exactly where to climb. But I believe the majority of the romance is tied up in the risk - there's nothing special, after all, about an onsight ascent of a well-protected 5.6 sport route.

Ground Up
Again, there's uncertainty here, the very present possibility of failure. Again, there's risk here: the climber continually moves into unknown terrain as s/he makes progress. Assuming the ascent isn't made onsight, the risk and uncertainty begin to diminish with repetition, each further attempt confirming the safety and increasing the chance of success.

Projecting (working a route, headpointing, etc)
These methods reduce the risk and uncertainty to varying degrees. The climber becomes familiar with the moves, holds, and mental aspects of the route without risking much in terms of bodily harm. In the climbing canon, this is clearly less preferred. There are certainly those who see no inherent problem with this kind of ascent (myself included), but myth- and legend-making sneers at the methods used.

Other considerations
Climbing history and culture tend to elevate risk as the marker of significant ascents. Certainly difficulty is important, but there is a sense that without risk, the climber is "failing to accept the full challenge of the route. [see 8th post]"

And what happens when we begin to try to account for the rock itself in the priority? As Graham Hoey indicates in his editorial and the related discussion, protecting the rock as a resource is an important consideration. The question is, how best to do that, or more to the point of this (rambling, nonsensical) post, what type of ascent best does that?

For many, fixed gear (i.e. bolts) are inherently harmful to the rock. It's hard to argue that on technicality because you are creating a permanent hole to place the gear. But does it really harm the rock in any meaningful way? Does placing bolts have a non-negligible impact on the health of a cliff? Many also point out that bolts can prevent damage to clifftop (and mid-cliff) vegetation.

And what about the impact of repeated attempts and ascents on the rock itself? Holds and features are eventually polished by hands and feet, and some rock types (gritstone for example) can be worn significantly by climbers, and repeated falls on marginal gear placements can damage the placements. In those cases, is it better to headpoint to avoid falling on the gear? Better to onsight to avoid polishing and wearing through the holds? How do you balance the potential damage against the history-given priority of ascents?

Conclusions?
Honestly, I have no idea how to deal with this mess. I know that it forces the question: What is the "point" of climbing? Is it risk? Uncertainty? Difficulty?

At various times, different aspects are more valued. As climbing grows, it seems that two modes are emerging: pursuit of difficulty and pursuit of risk. They aren't purely distinct because each values the other's core tenant, it's just a matter of priority.

Those who pursue difficulty tend to boulder or climb sport routes, where safety is more readily assured. Those who pursue risk tend to favor traditionally protected routes and highball boulder problems, where safety is always in question. The risk-pursuer also pursues difficulty (because the harder the line, the greater the risk), but seeks the perfect blend, not the apex of one or the other.

Personally, I'm more interested in difficulty, and because I boulder almost exclusively, the question of style is somewhat remote from my own climbing. I recognize that it does matter at some level, though probably less than we tend to think.

I also think that as more areas see more climbing traffic, we will find that protecting the rock is our primary concern - but how best to protect it while we continue to use it? And is that really a question of style?

OK. Too many words. Sorry.

Blog posts that should be neither seen nor heard

2009-02-17T14:58:00.004-05:00

It’s been a while since I posted, but I want to assure my loyal readers (all one of them) that I have not been idle. Anything but! I have simply experienced a period of remarkable restraint and decided not to post unless I have something to say.

Unfortunately, that period has come to an end.

Over the last week or so I have read much and thought little. I have experienced vicarious joy and suffering, discovery and coverings, etcetera and etcetera. I have discovered that my little sister is dating someone who climbs harder than me and found this discovery both surprising and somehow perfectly expected. I have climbed on plastic a bunch and on real rock not at all.

I have attended a dry Paris-themed Valentines Day wedding. I have turned the year-at-a-glance calendar of my life one page. I have done, in short, many things that matter not at all to anyone (other than my mom and my wife, I guess). And through all this doing I have learned, well, nothing.

So, by way of apology, here’s a picture of a tall guy climbing a short rock using suspect beta:

Warning: steroid- and baseball-related content follows

2009-02-08T11:24:00.002-05:00

Edit to add: good discussion of the whole issue at The Hardball Times.

If you have any interest in sports (and I have this sense that most climbers don’t give a crap about mainstream sports), you know that Alex Rodriguez apparently tested positive for steroids back in 2003. This is news for a whole host of sports-related reasons, and people are all fucked up about it. For many it’s just a confirmation of everything that’s wrong with the culture of professional athletics, and for many more it’s something to get all fired up and holier-than-thou about.

Personally, I guess I’m a little disappointed that so many of the best athletes in the world use illegal drugs to make themselves marginally better, but I’m not surprised. The incentives to use performance enhancing drugs are immense.

Anyway, I’m not the type to get indignant about this kind of thing, and I’m not a real political guy, but I think the most important aspect here is being totally and completely overlooked by most fans and probably most journalists as well. Namely, that the record of A-Rod’s positive test was under seal in the California court system, and the test results were anonymous by legally-binding agreement between the MLB players union and the MLB itself.

To be perfectly clear: it never should have been possible to link A-Rod to his test results, and even if it were (and it apparently was), it never should have been revealed. It appears that some court employee or lawyer or lackey who had access to the test results decided to drop a dime. No telling why.

So here we have a story where a huge international celebrity and sports star has had his legal rights violated in the most public possible way, and pretty much no one seems to care. I’m not sure what this means for anyone else, but it doesn’t seem like a real good indicator of the health of our legal system.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled webternet. Since You Asked apologizes for the unscheduled interruption of its climbing-related nonsense.

Video Friday

2009-02-06T12:56:00.002-05:00

Since I haven’t been climbing anywhere but my adorable (read: cramped) local gym in a month, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time reading about and watching video of other people climbing. Fun for the whole family! Or, in my case, kinda fun for me but something my wife couldn’t care less about.

Oh, she understands the depth of my fixation, and is a generous enabler, but I’ve never managed to convince her that watching climbing footage is any better than, say, college gymnastics, which, on a slow day, you might find yourself accidentally watching on the tube for 10 minutes before you realize what’s going on.

So I figured I’d share with you some of the vids I enjoyed recently, even though everyone’s already seen them because they’re way more tuned in than I am. (click through for links)…

From Uncle Somebody, the man who brought you L’Etranger, three Swiss 8Bs. Note the excellent style demonstrated on a couple of the top outs – I think we’ve all been there.

From John McCartie, some goodness from Bishop.

Adult beverage-themed crushing from Jamerson.

A few from Jordan Shipman. Maybe a little overproduced, but quality nonetheless.

And, of course, the Pure trailer. Stephen Hawking voiceover = bad. Footage = very, very good.

There’s ton’s more out there, and if y’all want to point me in the right direction that’s fine by me.

I give this post three stars

2009-02-03T14:00:00.003-05:00

A while back I was thinking about writing a long post on the star system described by Mr. Jamerson over at B3. Then I noticed that I couldn’t add anything even vaguely new or interesting to our collective knowledge on the subject. So I decided against it.

Of course, it turns out I couldn’t help myself. So instead of writing about this head-on, I’ll take an oblique (possibly obtuse) angle and talk about star inflation and the nature of subjectivity. Or something.

I contend, that among the evils perpetrated on “climbing culture” by our friend that we love to hate, 8a, is star inflation. Go ahead, check out some score cards. Hardly a one-star problem or route in evidence.

So if everyone thinks all the problems they climb are either good or great, what does that mean? I say, either our scale is off and everyone’s using the wrong baseline, or everyone wants to have climbed only cool problems in order to prop up their romantic self-image.

I’d like to think it’s the former, and everyone out there is just digging climbing so much that they’ve lost perspective and instead of considering an average problem average they give it three stars ‘cause it was so much fun to climb, dude! Anyway, my point is that we can’t trust the star system ‘cause everyone’s is different and plus, we all over-star everything once we’ve sent it even though we though it sucked while we were trying it.

OK, I think I’ve totally lost the plot. Feel free to start ignoring me about four paragraphs ago.

Group Dynamics

2009-01-23T13:58:00.001-05:00

I prefer to boulder with other people. I’ve had some good times out in the woods on my own, but if I can bring a friend or three, I’m happier. The marginal return starts to diminish a bit once you hit a group count of 6, and really drops off the proverbial cliff at 8. And don’t get me started on large groups of people I don’t know crowding up my areas. Seriously, there should be some legal method of putting them out of my misery.

[Please don’t take those last two sentences too seriously; I’ve now been sick with a head cold for 9 days. I believe that makes me legally impaired.]

There is, however, a problem that crops up among groups of climbers. There will almost always be someone who climbs much harder (or less hard) than the majority of the group. In fact, in my experience there’s usually a pretty wide range of skill/strength levels in the groups I climb with. This can be bad.

If you’re lucky, everyone’s good natured enough to be patient while others are working something hard/easy and there’s a nice big share-fest. Sometimes, though, it ain’t so easy.

Say the V4 climber in the group is working something while the v9 hard-men and -women stand around. This can lead to feelings of guilt for the former and boredom/resentment in the latter. Or maybe the hard-people camp under their project and hog the pads for 4 hours. That’s not fun for anyone else.

So, what’s to be done about this? For me, a good day doesn’t always mean sending my proj, bro. Sometimes it means spending 5 hours cruising around to cool moderates and then hitting something I want to try before the day is over.

I guess it’s all about expectations. Or not calling your lame, weakmo friends. Whichever.

Grades Are Dumb Redux: in which the author picks on Kevin Jorgeson… again

2009-01-14T13:25:00.003-05:00

We’ve been here before. Actually, I’m a little worried that I bothered to take the time to write this. I fear I’m developing a malignant strain of 8a syndrome that causes me to get worked up when people talk about how climbing grades are useless/dumb/don’t matter/etc. while at the same time getting worked up when people make grades seem really important and meaningful.

I’m sure this is healthy.

Anyway. Kevin Jorgeson has been up to his usual tricks: climbing really tall lines with minimal or no real protection. He’s good at this climbing thing. What he’s not so good at is understanding the value of climbing grades. Here’s the money quote, courtesy of Deadpoint Magazine:

DPM: While in your Europe you tasted the "E" grade. Do you think that is a standard that is adaptable and should be adapted to US bouldering?

Kevin: No, because only on a very small percentage of boulder problems does the danger weigh heavily into experience. Even for the highballs, trying to quantify these hybrid climbs is nearly impossible I think. In the end, the grade is irrelevant.

But the grades clearly are not irrelevant. In fact, they’re extremely relevant in that they are expressions of the difficulty of the climbing, which is primary element of the experience of the climbing. Jorgeson himself points out how important difficulty is to him when he says, “My inspiration for climbing lies purely in aesthetic lines and personal progression.”

How else do you measure personal progression without comparing difficulty? I suppose you can compare all the other subjective factors, like setting, style of ascent, and such, but those are even more difficult to quantify and compare than the difficulty. To me, difficulty is the basis for the scale on which progression is measured, so how can the grade be irrelevant?

Kevin also throws out this line: “As new climbs are developed that don't fit into previous grading systems, I don't necessarily think they should, or even need to be, graded. They just are.”

I guess what he’s saying is that summing up these hard highball/solo type lines in a single number is hard. Fair enough. But calling grades irrelevant is a privilege of the super strong. Grades are extremely relevant to your average climber, and in the case of potentially dangerous climbs/problems, they are more relevant, not less. Obscuring the technical difficulty of a dangerous line is a serious accident waiting to happen.

Grades will always be an oversimplification, a minimalist second-order description of the experience of climbing the line. They should not be treated as an end in and of themselves, nor should they be thrown out. Use them judiciously, don’t get caught up in the number, and they are very valuable.

There. I’ve said my piece. How wrong am I?

Masters of Stone VI: Yikes

2009-01-12T14:10:00.005-05:00

Apparently there’s a new Masters of Stone due out soon. I only wish it could possibly be as awesomely dated as some of the 90’s installments. Unfortunately, there’s no way a movie made in 2008 can be that spandex-y and hair-band-y.

What’s that? They’re still using the Limozeen font? Really? Maybe there’s hope after all!

I still doubt the new vid will be as replete with feathered hair and crotch shots as numbers I & II. Or as rife with weird, pointless color-shifted sequences, tiny shorts, faux scientific nonsense, and tripy hand waving as III and IV. Or backed by the sweet sounds of Harvey Mandel’s Mad Dog (Electric Snake Records) [editors note: seriously] like numero V.

I do expect it to be shot in the same crappy style, with the same utter lack of aesthetic sensibility, and littered with mumbo-jumbo. Actually, I’ve got evidence. But hey, if you like “simo-climbing,” and dudes pulling on gear, than this is the video for you!

Despite the fact that Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine are pretty bad-ass, I can’t get behind aid climbing. Here’s someone else saying exactly what I would have said if only I’d thought of it first: aid climbing is so great!

[Apparently J took an extra dose of sarcastic this morning. Apologies all around. -ed]

Who's an Idiot?

2009-01-07T10:20:00.007-05:00

I thought for sure I would have a long post about my stupid shoulder somewhere in the archives, but no. Apparently I do have some restraint.

Just not enough to spare you now.

Fact: on a beautiful July evening in 2007 I dislocated my left shoulder playing Ultimate. It actually wasn't all that stupid (unlike most of my injuries), more just unlucky (but I'm still giving this post the "stupid injuries" label).

Fact: PT is actually kinda cool, especially when it helps you avoid surgery

Fact: this injury was the last straw in the abusive affair that was my Ultimate career and I quit the sport.

Fact: I'd had no problems with the shoulder since. Note, however the use of the past tense of the verb "to have" in the previous sentence. I think you know where this is going.

Last night I was at the climbing gym. I like the gym. It lets me climb all year round, and even though it's fake climbing, I'll take it over no climbing. Anyhoo. I was trying some hard boulder problem with a left hand gaston move in the roof when I felt a disturbing shifting/crunching/slipping in my left shoulder. Shortly thereafter I found myself on the floor.

Yup. Definite shoulder tweakage. The good news (news to who?) is that I'm pretty sure I can avoid PT. I just need to be more diligent about my shoulder strengthening. Pick up those weights a little more often.

Which leads me to this fact: I'm an idiot - for not keeping up with my exercises, not paying avoiding moves that are designed to f&^% with my shoulder, etc. Like I needed more confirmation.

I'll test out the shoulder at the Gym tomorrow and maybe post another self-indulgent report after that. Lucky you.

Winter Bouldering in New England (and a Mental Plateau?)

2009-01-05T13:12:00.005-05:00

Well, it’s officially next year now, and once again time to start trying to convince myself that this is the year I bear down, start training, and send some hard problems. That should last for about 3 months until the weather warms up and I get busy with other shit, fail to put together a training plan and start the serious slacking portion of the program. Good times all around.

On a somewhat less repetitively-pointless note, we were blessed with a few days of nice (but cold) weather up here in New England, so I set out for Pawtuckaway (Blair Woods, specifically) with my buddy Mark on Sunday.

Jon's Arete in warmer weather. Photo by Bryce Dalhouse.

It was a pretty typical (cold) winter session – full description below – and it got me thinking again about whether I’ve hit a mental plateau. At this point, I can usually dial in a problem in the V8 range relatively quickly (a session or two), and generally send soon after. On the other hand, problems from V9 up feel un-fucking-possible. Am I convincing myself they’re too hard for me? Am I approaching them differently somehow? Am I not strong enough to keep improving?

I think I need to set my sights on a problem V9 or harder and commit to working it into submission. I figure I’ll either get stronger doing it, or push past whatever mental block I’m up against in the process. It’s a win either way.

On to the session report (which will likely bore you silly)…

Blair is a sector of the park full of short-ish boulders covered in crystal-y slopers and edges. It’s also home to some of the best problems at P-way: the balancy and unusual Ball Doctor (V5); the slopey, clean arete The Rose (V7); the Method Boulder, which is home to 5 problems V8 or harder; and the obvious, stout V13, Child of the Storm.

We knew there was snow on the boulders, and upon arriving at the Swirley Boulder (where Child of the Storm, The Rose, Stand and Deliver, Jon’s Arete, and other nice lines live), we realized that toping out would not be an option at all. There was a nice sheet of ice lurking under 3 inches of beautiful, fluffy powder on top of everything. Also, it was 20 degrees and windy. I was wearing two base layers top and bottom, two fleeces, and a down jacket. I was actually relatively comfortable most of the time.

We brushed off The Rose, warmed up on the sharp V5 Amnesia (not a good warm up, FYI), and then stepped up to the Rose-y slopers. I’d done the line before, but Mark hadn’t, and he was hoping to link it up to the mantle. A few goes in and he’d made some progress but it wasn’t coming together.

We moved over to Stand and Deliver (V11) so I could try the opening sequence and try to figure out whether it was even feasible for me. 5 minutes later, we moved on. I didn’t feel strong at all, and definitely wasn’t properly warmed up.

So we moved on to Jon’s Arete, a really nice V8 that starts on good holds under a low undercut and climbs a vertical face next to a steep arête. The crux is a three, move sequence that bumps the right hand from a good edge to a bad sloper over the lip to a bad crimp, to a good edge/jug. From there it’s just a thin face to the top.

Some initial struggles lead to revised beta and all the moves came together relatively quickly. There’s one section I need to clean up or just dial in, but I think I can do the problem in pretty short order. Mark also made a bunch of progress.

At this point, skin and motivation were giving out and we moved on out. Temp was 32F as we left. It sure felt colder, though.

2009: The Year of the Candlepin

2009-01-02T11:45:00.006-05:00

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of candlepin bowling. Keep your hand up. Now raise your other hand if you’re from New England, the Canadian Maritimes, or Ohio. Yup. Perfect 1-to-1 correlation. Which is too bad, really, because candlepin bowling is probably the perfect mix of ironic fun and genuine fun I’ve ever experienced.

Therefore, in hopes of spreading the mustachioed, beery, unintentionally ironic gospel of the most frustrating and arbitrarily rewarding form of bowling ever invented, I am declaring 2009 The Year of the Candlepin.

Why you should try candlepin:

Bowling (in all it’s forms) is always more fun than you remembered. I’ve always been a big fan of its cousins bocce and pitanque as well, which leads me to the following theorem: Games that involves throwing a ball at something are intrinsically pleasing to human nature.
Candlepin more perfectly mirrors the random, forehead-slapping bizarreness of life. “Normal” bowling (big ball, fat pins) is too easy – I mean any decent bowler has a chance of rolling a perfect game. In candlepin, on the other hand, no one has ever scored more than 245 and an average score hovers around 100. Just like real life.
It’s impossible to find outside of New England (except, for some reason, in Wyoming, Ohio – I have no idea why), making it a true regional oddity. All regional oddities are worth experiencing at least once.
A candlepin bowling center (apparently bowling center is the preferred term) has all the wonderful weirdness of a regular bowling center, but with an extra helping of pathos. Also, pretty much everyone there will look like they badly wish it were still legal to smoke indoors.

Seriously. It’s tons of fun.

Unresolved: Random Goals for 2009

2009-01-02T11:38:00.004-05:00

I don’t really do the New Years resolution thing. Probably because I don’t want to run the risk of committing to something and failing to follow through. But, in the spirit of looking forward, I put together a short list of goals for 2009. I wanted it to include some non-climbing stuff, but my obsession shines through pretty clearly.

Go on vacation. I didn’t realize how great vacation was until last year. It’s great.
Finish off long-standing bouldering projects, including Swamp Thing (V7/8), Pyramid Power (Worlds Hardest V7©), Boulder X (V6), and Gun Show (V8?).
Finish fixing up the spare bedrooms (lots o’ plaster repair – fun!).
Send at least one V9 or harder (maybe Margin Walker, Loomit, Satan on a Half Shell, or Stegosaurus).
Turn 29 (I needed at least one gimme).
Do the moves on Halcyon (V11) and Stand and Deliver (V11).
Read at least one book that’s not a total escapist throw-away.
Keep updating this pile of pointlessness folks call a blog.

That should keep me busy. Or not. But I’ll definitely think about doing most of that stuff. Probably.

What is Progress?

2008-12-31T15:38:00.001-05:00

Responding, yet again, to the Climbing Narcissist, with an assist from Straight Outta Bedlam…

I've never really been clear about what progress means to a sport like rock climbing. Setting aside the commercial interests, the only way I can really understand "progress" in rock climbing is either in terms of pushing standards (of difficulty or style), pushing development (new areas with routes/problems of all difficulties), or pushing myself.

As a moderately strong casual climber, I will never personally push the standard of difficulty, so my interest in that aspect of progress is purely voyeuristic: it’s neat to see people do stuff that’s super difficult. Whether that’s run 100m in 9 seconds or climb some blank roof somewhere make little objective difference.

As an almost-29-year-old with a non-climbing wife, an 8-5 job, and a mortgage, I will not personally be developing new areas that others can enjoy. I’m excited by the prospect of new and emerging climbing destinations (though I will probably never visit any of them) because they offer potential opportunities for me (and many others) to do something that makes me happy.

As an only somewhat obsessive individual with more distractions than dedication, I am likely to make only small steps forward in term of my own climbing. This is the element of progress that means the most to me personally, largely because it’s the one I control and the one I actually experience. I doubt it means the most to anyone else.

And so, and so, and so (I’m trying to bring this back to the topic at hand, I promise). I will always be impressed with an ascent of an established, hard line. I will also be impressed with the folks out there establishing hard lines. I agree with Sock Hands that they are related in ways that aren’t obvious, and that the energy of the group can create yet more energy, yielding new problems and areas, more repeats, etc.

And that’s where it really matters: in the opening up of opportunities. The stealth first ascensionist doing futuristic lines on private property is doing nothing to create opportunities. The strongmo running around repeating the crazy lines is, in one sense, also doing nothing to create opportunities – at least nothing explicit. If, however, they are inspiring folks to go out and develop that area they found last weekend, or getting new folks psyched about climbing and getting out on the rock, they are creating potential opportunities (at least as long as increasing the population of climbers doesn’t lead to increasing access restrictions, which is a whole other topic).

Anyway. I don’t know. I’ve always struggled with the notion that rock climbing is really important in the grand scheme of things. I think it’s great in that it can inspire people to be in nature, but sometimes that’s a destructive influence (crag litter, access issues, etc). I think it’s great when it creates communities that work together and help each other. But it is usually a self-focused and selfish pursuit (and that’s certainly true for me – what have I done for the world?).

Anyway. I don’t know. Complicated topic.

In the Beginning

2008-12-30T16:24:00.002-05:00

Inspired by Straight out of Bedlam, and because I once thought I could write for a living and then later discovered that writing is hard, only to end up writing (copy) for a living, I will now try to tell you a story. A short but boring story I call: A Brief History of Almost Nothing: My Climbing Life.

I suppose you could say it started on Mount Monadnock, scrambling up slabs in sneakers, a tattered nylon backpack full of PB&Js and fruit leather on my back. Of course just about every kid I grew up with was doing the same thing at the same time and as far as I know, none of them are now routinely getting up at 5:45 on Sunday morning to boulder on an overcast 28 degree day.

It might be more accurate to credit that day in high school when my buddy Jeff told me he was building a climbing wall in his basement. He’d recently climbed some route at White Horse with his dad and a guide, and was all fired up about climbing. I figured it sounded interesting, and anyway, hanging out with Jeff was better than sitting at home. I’m pretty sure I contributed zilch to the actual building, although it’s possible I hammered some T-nuts. And yeah, I enjoyed climbing on his little 8ft wall, but I didn’t really spend much time there, so maybe that’s not really the beginning either.

What about the school trip where I spent 2 days top-roping at Rose Ledges? That trip did inspire me to buy my first pair of climbing shoes. Then there was that summer in NYC with nothing to do. I met a few guys who climbed at the New Jersey Rock Gym and tagged along about once a week.

Then, for no particular reason other than it seemed like the kind of thing I should do, I decided to spend the fall semester of my junior year of college in Ireland. Specifically Galway. I knew nothing about the National University of Ireland, Galway except that it had a climbing wall. So I brought my shoes.

And here it happens. Since it was raining more or less constantly for the entire time I was there, I spent a bit more time than may have been advisable messing around at the climbing wall. I met some crazy Irishmen and a crazy German, all obsessed with climbing. I drank with them, climbed cathedrals with them, set routes and generally messed around at the wall. It was maybe as much fun as I’d ever had.

When I got home, I had the bug, but no outlet. I didn’t tap in to the climbing crew at college, probably because I don’t really like people and was pretty depressed in general. But that’s another (even more boring story).

Eventually I graduated and moved to Maine with my girlfriend (now my wife). We knew no one. No. One. So I would occasionally go to the local climbing gym. Then I would frequently go to the local climbing gym. I met some crazy Americans. I did some winter bouldering (nothing I know of can prepare you for the misery that is your first time bouldering in temps below 30 degrees – it’s simply something you must endure before you can understand).

It’s been 6 years since I came to Maine. I climb harder and more now than I ever have. I’m obsessed to the point that every time I say that I’m thinking about climbing this weekend, my wife just says “I thought you were.”

Life is good.

Top Out or Drop Out?

2008-12-23T13:41:00.000-05:00

Climbing is contrived. Of course, pretty much every human activity outside of eating/drinking, sleeping, and reproducing is contrived (i.e. based on an arbitrary set of rules invented by humans and for humans and which has no real basis in necessity – a definition I made up on the spot).

I say this not because I like to talk in technical-sounding, semi-intellectual complex sentences (which I do), but because of this post about boulder problems that don’t top out over at the climbing narcissist.

I’ve always felt that problems that finish on a jug are a total anticlimax. When I sit at the bottom of a boulder problem, I accept the arbitrary challenge of that particular sequence of movements. (I understand that it’s arbitrary, that I could just as easily start over there and finish over somewhere else. Instead, I’ve chosen to start here and finish there.) If that challenge ends before the rock ends, it simply feels unfinished to me. I’m disappointed in a vague way by all problems, no matter how classic, that don’t reach the top of the boulder.

I willingly acknowledge that there are situations where safety or other concerns (e.g. conservation of rare plants) dictate that a problem not top out a boulder or cliff band. I will willingly climb such problems, but I will always find them a bit, well, incomplete.

Rare Photographic Evidence of Yours Truly Climbing

2008-12-19T13:31:00.009-05:00

As this blog descends ever further into the depths of pointless vanity, you (dear fictional reader who will never, ever read this) are treated to spasms of pure self-indulgence like this.

This is a shot of me not sending a sweet V7/8 called Swamp Thing near Bethel, ME. My buddy Jon Reece took the pic, which is one of a very few of me actually climbing an actual rock that exist.

The problem starts in the pit below, and follows a pretty obvious line to a pretty inobvious, insecure, mantle-y topout. I've fallen from the top, which requires you to rock over the lip using a bad foot a bunch of holds that face the wrong direction, 4 or 5 times. Proving yet again... Something. I'm not sure what.

Jon's got some nice shots up on his website and at his flickr stream. Check 'em out.

Purity Test*

2008-12-04T15:52:00.005-05:00

I was thinking yesterday (yikes!), after reading this Mandala post from the Climbing Narcissist. I was thinking: the Mandala is a classic problem with about 4 variations now – does that affect it’s classicness? Does a problem need to be “pure” to be “classic?” And what the heck is a “pure” problem?

*Remember purity tests? What a weird time middle school was for me.

And that’s where I went down the rabbit hole, because one of the things climbers like to wax poetic about is the “pure” line, the problem or route that’s so simple, so perfect, that something in your soul sings out in recognition the moment you lay eyes on it. The constructive interference of the vibration of your being and the rhythm of the rock create a wave of joy that echoes out into the cosmos and infuses you with an energy and excitement unrivaled in this world.

See what I mean about waxing poetic?

Of course, everyone has a different idea of what a “pure” line is (and maybe that’s the point, but I won’t let that slow me down). Is it a line where it’s impossible to escape into easier climbing? One where you have to use every single hold to complete the sequence? And does that mean it’s only possible to have a “pure” line at the high end of the difficulty spectrum? And what about a V3 dyno problem that starts on a jug and finishes at the lip with no usable holds in between? Is that a “pure” line? Or maybe you just, to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, know a “pure” line when you see it.

For me, a “pure” route or problem is one with an obvious start and an obvious line. It has no obvious variations. It can, however, be susceptible to variations in beta (that’s a bit of a fine line sometimes, but bear with me). In general, harder climbing is somewhat more likely to yield “pure” lines, but I’ve climbed some really “pure” V3s in my life. And the bottom line, I think, is this: a “pure” line makes you want to climb it from the moment you see it.

Actually, obviousness figures heavily in my definition of a “pure” line. If it ain’t obvious, it ain’t “pure”. I want to walk up to the rock and be smacked in the face by the sheer unavoidability of the line before I’m ready to call it pure.

Also, it’s true that there are many not-so-pure lines that make me want to climb them, but none are as compelling to me as an obvious, inescapable, pure line.

It occurs to me that this means splitter cracks are the purest lines possible. And yet I hate crack climbing.

"Grades Are Dumb" or Oversimplifications that Famous Climbers Like to Make

2008-11-26T11:54:00.003-05:00

I'm not trying to single out Kevin Jorgeson (especially since he has some really interesting things to say on the subject - check out his travel log), but this kind of quote (courtesy of the ne2c blog) gets on my nerves:

Pete: I think grading rock climbs is as stupid as surfers trying to grade waves and am starting to get frustrated with myself for caring at all. Why should we even bother? Does it honestly serve any purpose beyond stroking ones ego and getting sponsors?

Kevin: I agree. Grades are dumb.

Wrong.

It's not grades that are dumb, it's the way they are used that's dumb. Grades help a climber understand context, measure success, and decide where to put their effort. Well, that's what I use them for anyway.

I've probably said this or something like it before, but I like to know if the boulder problem I'm looking at is V6 or V11 because it helps me understand what I'm about to get myself into. Is this something I want to camp under for a while to really work on? Should I temper my expectations back from "maybe I can do this quick" to "maybe I can make progress on this?"

And yeah, this can be limiting. Yeah, you don't want to set yourself up for failure by putting a big, scary label on a problem, but for me the benefits of knowing a grade outweigh the drawbacks.

The real issue with grades, is how they have come to define the experience of climbing for people. Especially how they define the "cutting edge" of climbing. Squabbles over this route being harder than that one, or this one not deserving its grade, are basically worthless. All they really do is start petty fights. And make sponsors happy, I assume.

I'm sure that most high-end climbers are interested in grades primarily because they help the climber understand that they are pushing their own limits. I hope this is the case.

I will give myself 24 points.

2008-10-22T15:22:00.005-04:00

Had my first two-day bouldering weekend in a loooooong time on the 18th & 19th. Total treat. Probably won't be able to do that again for another looooong time.

I went down to Pawtuckaway both days (Saturday all by my lonesome, Sunday with a small crew) and got some stuff done! It's always an odd feeling for me when I top out a hard problem. For some reason I don't usually get all excited like some folks; in fact, it's usually a little melancholy. I don't know why.

Anyway, on Saturday I did Gone in 60 Seconds, which is a short, tenuous V8 where the crux holds basically aren't holds. I tried it almost every time I was at Pawtuckaway for the last few years, starting when I had no chance whatsoever of doing it. I guess it was just the right day, because I nailed it third try.

Then I moved over to Polish Terrorist, the V8 low start to an awkward V6 mantley problem. I'd given this thing maybe a coule hours of serious effort the week before and felt pretty close. Again, it must have been the right day 'cause I hiked it... only to fall of the mantle 3 times. Fortunately for my self esteem I managed not to fall the 4th time.

By this time Pawtuck' was crowded. I wandered over to Mothra Stewart (V8) where there was a group giving it a good go. I joined in, dialed the beta, and latched the crux after 6 or 7 goes! The rest was just your typical highball, juggy, dirty, leafy, heart-pounding, funathon.

So probably my best single day ever. Again, I was oddly mellow after all that. You'd think I'd be dancing, and I was definitely pleased with the effort, but I didn't feel like celebrating. I wonder why that is.

The return trip on Sunday also yeilded a send of Tectonics (or Tectonic Plates, not sure which is right). Another cool V8 with a powerful undercling move followed by some tensiony lip-traversy moves. I also repeated the Innovator, which seems to fit me just right somehow.

OK. Enough spray. I apologize to anyone who accidentally reads this for all the self-aggrandizing bullshit. Carry on with you webternet explorations.

"Overclimbing" vs. "Underclimbing"

2008-09-24T16:08:00.005-04:00

From this post at rockclimbergirl:

“Underclimb the route. Climb hard routes like they're easy. Climb as calm and relaxed as possible, and the route really does feel easier.”

Really interesting. I can see how that works on trad and sport leads, but for bouldering I actually think it's kind of the opposite.

When I’m climbing a hard boulder problem, I often need to “overclimb” it. That is, I need to keep in mind that the moves I’m trying are fecking difficult, and I need to exert a lot of effort to succeed. Otherwise I don't try hard enough and come up short on a move or fail to latch a key hold.

The only place I think underclimbing really works in bouldering is topouts and mantles. I find that even heady mantles are often easier to pull if you relax. Getting tense because you know the moves are hard is counter-productive. I've seen strong, skilled climbers toss technique out the window and try to scramble through mantles... and fail.

So, apparently what I'm saying is that you have to either overclimb a route or underclimb it, depending on the situation. Helpful, eh?

DAB! or Bouldering and the Games We Play

2008-09-23T11:07:00.004-04:00

Got out climbing twice last week, both times down at Pawtuckaway. It was really nice to be out on the rock, and conditions were about as good as they get for late summer. I repeated Ride The Lightning a couple times (fun problem!) but didn’t send anything new. Put in some good work on The Polish Terrorist and tried Tectonics a few times. I think I can do both this fall.

Anyway. You don’t care. Moving on.

Late in the day we ran into the remnants of the Douche Factory (they showed up early and literally crowded us off some problems by dropping their pads and hopping on our projects – yuck). They were camped under Atlas, a one-move V6 on a really cool balancing boulder. A young dude was trying it as we walked up. We watched as he blatantly and repeatedly dabbed (including one egregious foot-on-the-pad-then-jump-off type of dab) while his friends urged him on. He topped out, cheered, and removed his shirt and struck a pasty imitation of a conqueror’s pose. Acclaim was showered upon him by all and sundry. Except us. We muttered quietly and moved on.

Now I’m not one to get too wrapped up in other people’s approach to climbing (except when it affects mine), but this scene got me thinking. Basically, all forms of climbing are games defined by arbitrary rules that have ossified and become dogma. This young chap broke one of the cardinal rules of bouldering (no touching anything that’s not the rock once you pull off the ground), and his crew said nothing. In the rigid little world of bouldering that’s a big no-no, and it was the consensus among us casual observers that his buds should have said something. Because, you know, it matters in some teeny, tiny way whether he actually did the problem in good style or not. Didn’t bend me out of shape, but it did bug a couple of my companions.

I guess my point here (if I have one) is that it doesn’t pay to get too bent out of shape by the way others choose to climb. Aggressively applying the aforementioned arbitrary rules of this game called bouldering to others is a good way to get all worked up over nothing. If young Mr. Shirtsoff wants to claim victory and grab the next rung his crew’s coolness ladder, more power to him. Peace of mind is much easier to maintain when you’re doing your thing and not worrying about his.

The Intellectual Climber

2008-08-27T16:06:00.008-04:00

Dave MacLeod on the first ascent of Echo Wall, E11+? (read: really hard and scary with death-fall potential)

I think a lot about climbing. Not just daydream/wish-I-was-out-climbing-right-now/Ty-Landeman-is-fucking-strong kind of thoughts, either. I spend a lot of time breaking down my own climbing, pondering mantle technique, imagning sequences, etc. I sometimes think it's held my climbing back, but now I'm sure I couldn't climb any other way. And I'm not alone.

In fact, there are some who are much bigger climbing intellectuals than I am. Dave MacLeod is maybe the biggest (or at least the one I'm most fascinated by). He climbs hard, scary routes and puts much of his process (physical and mental) up on his blog.

It's been really interesting to read his work because I climb with a crew that's much less likely to analyze climbing critically and much more likely to just, well, climb. That's not bad, it's just not quite how my mind works. Dave, and climbers like him, are a great outlet/resource for the intellectual side of my climbing brain.

The more things change...

2008-08-22T13:53:00.006-04:00

... The more I remain an idiot.

Spent another day working on Pyramid Power at Rumney. Apparently I didn't learn anything from last time.

After warming up at The Pound (did some easy high-ball, wimped out on a tall v3ish thing, did Whale's Tale and the slightly harder variation), we headed to the Blackjacks. I've bouldered at Rumney a few times, but every time I follow my usual pattern of trying few things and sending even fewer. Today would be no different.

We (Kirk and I) parked under Pyramid Power and Satan's Choice, made some quick progress, and settled in to get our asses handed to us. It took me about 4-5 goes to remember my beta, and which point I repeatedly fell doing the last hard move. Bogus.

Meanwhile, Kirk made some progress on Satan's Choice, but the temps made cranking on tiny, sharp crimps pretty difficult. Eventually, I got to the point where more attempts would almost certainly result in an injury. We wandered over to look at Pit Boss, Chinese Connection, and Dirigible. All three look excellent, but the landings are a little dicey.

After our wandering rest, we decided to have a look at Satan in a Half Shell and Satan's Sister Sally (picture at right, stolen from Hayden's Bouldering). These problems follow different lines (Half Shell on the right, Sally on the left) into the same crux: a dyno from sharp crimps to an incut single-pad edge. The both start on jugs around head height, and Half Shell follows an obvious rail-like feature, while Sally uses a left-hand slot and right hand crimp to set up. Both are brick hard, sharp, and a little scarry. The landing is basically perfect, but you feel pretty exposed for some reason.

We spent more time on Sally, dialing beta on the lower section, but didn't have the juice (or skills?) to get into the crux. Bboth are excellent problems that I'd love to put more time into this year. Hopefully I can get back there before I forget all my beta again.

Plastic makes it possible

2008-07-23T15:47:00.002-04:00

Spent some time at the gym last night trying to remember how to try hard. I've reached a point in my climbing where if I can't do it quick I stop trying hard enough to do it at all. Which makes me, um, lame.

Anyway, if I ever intend to boulder double-digits I've got to learn to bear down on bad holds, do moves that don't seem doable, and generally crank harder than I think I can. In fact, I think the trick for me is to think less. When I try to coach myself through a strenuous move at my limit, I generally fail. When I just let my body do what it's capable of, I succeed. Well, I succeed more often.

This is totally different than when I'm doing moves that are within my physical limits but near the edge of my mental limit (say, way off the deck or on a rope more than a foot above the protection [yes, I'm a sissy]). In that situation, I can effectively coach myself by reminding myself to breath, check my feet, relax, etc.

This dichotomy makes it hard for me to transition from bouldering to route climbing, which I might be why I never have much success on a rope.

The myth of me as a strong climber

2008-07-22T14:16:00.001-04:00

I used to think that if I just dedicated myself to climbing, gave up some other hobbies, and actually tried hard enough I could be a really strong climber. Not a star by any means, but the kind of guy who sent V12 and 5.13.

Part of me still believes that. The other part remembers that I don’t climb outside all that often, don’t train in any concentrated way, and have a poor mental game.

So I’m trying to make peace with the idea that I’m not a hardman without feeling like I’m giving up. I still want to climb harder, but I think I need to reframe my expectations. Either that or come up with a training plan (climbing, hangboarding, weights, stretching, etc) and actually stick to it.

I have high hopes for this fall in New England. It might be my last best chance to do a lot of climbing, send something hard, and re-convince myself that I’m a badass. I’ll let you know.

Ultimate End; Other Stuff

2008-07-16T11:52:00.002-04:00

Well, here I am, "rededicating" myself to this blogging thing. Of course, I was never dedicated to it in the first place. And I'm not dedicated to it now.

Anyway: I gave up Ultimate this summer. Too many injuries, it was stressing me out, it kept me from climbing. I'm also giving up coaching. Similar reasons (without the injuries part).

I'm definitely climbing more than I have in summers past. Unfortunately, most of it is in the gym where life is sweaty, greasy, and kinda depressing. I'm hopeful that it'll make me stronger for the fall, when good temps arrive.

I've been thinking lately about training, tactics, motivation, etc. Maybe I'll put together some posts on those topics, but don't bet on it.

I've also been thinking about what value my own writing about climbing might have. I'm kind of moderately tallented, fairly strong, somewhat motivated, and too busy to climb every weekend. Is that a valuable perspective?

Anyone? ...

... Anyone?

Men I Love: Joe Posnanski & Brian Bannister

2008-03-17T15:58:00.003-04:00

I wonder if I'm tempting fate with that post title. Am I going to end up with a whole series of posts about the men I love? Hmmm...

Anyhoo! These two guys get a joint post because they both work in Kansas City, MO. One's a baseball player, the other one writes about baseball.

First, the writer, Mr. Posnanski. The man writes for the Kansas City Star and still finds time to write waaaay too much on his blog, and nearly all of it is excellent. He's like that annoying guy who tells really, really long stories that no one wants to hear only his stories aren't annoying and you always want to hear them. If you need a dose of baseball, tossed with some good writing, dressed with a nice splash of humor, with some fresh-ground self deprecation, Posanski is your man.

Now, the baseball player, Mr. Bannister. As far as I know, he's the only pitcher who not only knows was his batting average on balls in play is, but has a theory about how he can keep it consistently below the league average (which is a lot like saying you never feel cold and heading outside in a t-shirt when it's -12 degrees out and everyone's running from heated building to heated building all wrapped up in down comforters and whatnot).

The guy is Chomsky in a George Bush world. He gave a frickin' fascinating interview to MLB Trade Rumors. Seriously. Blew my mind just a little bit.

Sometimes I imagine Bannister is the first of a new breed. I imagine a world where professional athletes talk in complete sentences. A world where kids don't grow up idolozing guys who can swing a bat but can't speak. Then I wake up.

"Walks Are Bad" and other bits of baseball wisdom

2008-03-11T13:00:00.007-04:00

You’re a baseball fan. Rank the following from best to worst: a) single, b) double, c) triple, d) home run, e) walk, f) strikeout, g) ground out, h) fly out. That’s the most straight-forward set of possible outcomes of an at bat. Just put ‘em in order from most desirable to least desirable. I’ll give you all the time you need...

Home run

Triple

Double

Single/walk

Strikeout/ground out/fly out

Pretty much, right? Did anyone have one of the three kinds of outs ranked about anything else? No? Interesting. So, would you say that making an out is the worst outcome of an at bat. I see. Well, makes sense to me.

Dusty Baker? Not so much. In fact, he’s apparently “not down with OBP” (scroll to the bottom). Here's some history (with a dash of meta sanity).

Of course, if you’re on base then you’re not out. Also you have a chance to score. Making outs is bad. If you make too many, the game is over. Scoring runs is good. If you score more than the other team, you win.

p.s. Google the phrase "clogging up the basepaths" and you'll see I'm not the first one to bitch about this.

Pain don't hurt, but cancer does

2008-03-07T14:34:00.002-05:00

I'm not a big Patrick-Swayze-in-Dirty-Dancing fan, but I am a huge, huge Roadhouse fan (released in '89--much later than I thought). Thus, it is with some sadness (beyond the simple "cancer sucks" variety) that I note this article on Swayze's pancreatic cancer.

Best wishes to the man who uttered, with a completely straight face, "Pain don't hurt."

Subprime Comics

2008-02-26T10:20:00.001-05:00

Hmmm... How to lose money on subprimes without really trying? Sounds interesting...

*giggle*

*Snort*

*chuckle*

*sigh*

Well, fuck.

Do Be Dense...?

2008-02-21T16:55:00.004-05:00

Life has officially reached the point where I can't follow it anymore. There is no issue that can't be complicated to the point that it's impossible to form an opinion on it.

Latest example? Is it better to live in denser neighborhoods?

Short answer: Um...

Long answer: Um... with a few ifs, several buts, and a liberal dose of snark.

Follow the trail starting with the Matthew Yglesias blog entry and see how fast you lose perspective. Despite how confused all the arguments and weird utopian stuff makes me, I have the sense that a moderate increase in density would be a positive good for the planet, and a positive good for many individuals as well.

Learning to Lie: the kindergarden set tells all (or rather, specifically less than all)

2008-02-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

Don't freak out here, but apparently kids often lie to their parents (and friends... pretty much everyone really). Shocking, I know. The interesting thing here is not that kids learn to lie young, learn the skill from their parents, and do it all the time. Nope, it's that parents often subtly encourage their children to lie.

White lies are often considered polite: "Consider how we expect a child to act when he opens a gift he doesn’t like. We instruct him to swallow all his honest reactions and put on a polite smile." Adults do this constantly, and they do it to keep social interactions pleasant, to avoid uncomfortable situations.

Parents also often entrap their kids by asking questions they know the answer to, questions like, "did you take your brother's toy" when the toy-taking was done right in front of the parent. Naturally, the child lies to avoid punishment. Again, shocking, I know.

There's more interesting stuff in the article, including a bit on permissive parents vs. restrictive ones and the value of arguing with kids. I hope I remember some of this stuff when I have kids.

Greener Gadgets

2008-02-12T13:34:00.002-05:00

Some cool ideas from the Greener Gadgets design competition (site has some issues, especially font color--you have to highlight the pale text to read it against the pale background on most pages). The grand prize winner, the EnerJar, is basically just a DIY version of the Kill A Watt. Cool for sure, but I really dig some of the notable entries.

My favorite might be the Krank, a hand-crank-powered lamp based on the design of an old hand drill. I also like the RollOn mp3 player that took 3rd place. Basically, I'm a bigger fan of the ones that generate power instead of generating guilt (Bottle of bummer, anyone?). Sure, guilt can be a powerful motivator, but it can also be a powerful de-motivator. Seems to me that getting technologies like these established will depend on how cool it is, not how much it raises awareness of an environmental ill.

Low-flow Toilets are Ruining America

2008-02-11T12:42:00.000-05:00

Apparently, conserving water is bad because it poses a risk to old sewer systems. Yup. If you live in Tuscon and have a low-flow toilet, you're responsible for screwing up the sewer system.

OK. So I'm being a little unfair here, but it's hard to take seriously the claim that flushing more potable water into the sewers is a good thing. This is basically what some wastewater officials in Pima County, Arizona are saying. Less water running through the sewers could lead to backup of "solids" and more quickly deteriorating pipes.

Never mind that they might be vastly overstating the actual risk, consider for a moment how hilariously reactionary this is. They're arguing against water conservation! In a desert!

Even if they're right, and installing more low-flow toilets and greywater irrigation systems would hurt the sewer system, that just means we need to improve our wastewater handling systems, right? I can't believe that the obvious solution here, irrespective of the cost in dollars, is to change the sewer system not to stop saving water.

Live Local, Eat Local

2008-02-09T11:57:00.001-05:00

How often do you find yourself reading something and getting distracted, losing focus, wandering around in your own head? Now, how often is what your thinking "this is important stuff, this is meaningful to me personally, this could change my life!" For me, those are rare thoughts. I'm not easily inspired; I'm chronically and acutely jaded. But I just finished a chapter in The Omnivore's Dilemma that sent my mind on that particular jaunt.

I believe that The Omnivore's Dilemma is an important book. It may not be the first to make its points, nor necessarily make them the most strongly. It does make them in a clear, accessible, and most importantly, narrative way. It's not just laying out ideas or arguing ideals; it's telling a story. A fascinating, compelling, and true story.

It makes me want to visit Polyface Farm. It makes me want to be a farmer. It makes me want to live more locally, love my food more, and be a part of changing the world. It makes me want to read Wendell Barry and the Stockman Grass Farmer.

Will I do these things? Maybe. Hopefully. I'll try.

More Biofuel = More Carbon?

2008-02-08T13:22:00.000-05:00

Apparently, if you consider the ripple effect that biofuels have on land use, they’re an obvious losing proposition. Basically, diverting crops (like corn) to biofuel production means that more land somewhere else has to be converted to farmland. Usually this means burning rainforest or plowing up grassland. Which is bad:

The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

We’ve known for a while that corn ethanol is wildly inefficient, but this seals it. If we (the US government) don’t change our agricultural policy, and quick, we’re effectively telling the rest of the world that we don’t give a shit about carbon emissions.

Despite the depression that this finding might throw me into, biofuels are by no means a complete “bad.” Global oil supply is limited, and we will need to replace the energy from petroleum with something. Biofuels are part of the solution, we just need to get much, much better about how we produce them.

Corn is ridiculous. Sugar cane would be better. So would algae (maybe?). Using agricultural waste would probably be best. Here's a visually appealing (oversimplified) comparison of biofuels by source.

Cato on Carbon

2008-02-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

I came across Indur Goklany’s paper on the ecological and human health impacts of global climate change thanks to the Marginal Revolution. Basically, it’s a long-winded explanation of why we should ignore the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and worry about malaria instead (note: massive oversimplification). Given that this report was issued under the auspices of the Cato Institute, I’m pouring a few pounds of salt on the conclusions.

Goklany says this, pretty much right up front: “By and large, as I will show, the FTA and Stern Review confirm that richer and warmer worlds will not necessarily have lower levels of human and environmental well-being than poorer but cooler worlds.”

And later, this: “Climate change is not now—nor is it likely to be for the foreseeable future—the most important environmental problem facing the globe, unless present-day problems such as hunger, water-related diseases, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, and indoor air pollution are reduced drastically. Otherwise, with respect to human well-being, it will continue to be outranked by these other problems and, with respect to environmental well-being, by habitat loss and other threats to biodiversity.”

His conclusions rely heavily on the assumption that society will adapt and technology will advance to address threats of global climate change. To whit: “… the threats that climate change would exacerbate can be reduced more effectively, not to mention more economically, through focused efforts to reduce vulnerability or through broader efforts to advance economic development. Any such obligation [to address climate change] is best discharged through efforts to reduce present-day vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that are urgent and could be exacerbated by climate change.”

I admit, the proposition is pretty appealing. It would mean we've got a lot less to worry about vis a vis carbon than I thought. Of course, it would also mean we should be working harder to improve economic conditions in developing countries.

NBC and Super Tuesday - @%$* the Heck?

2008-02-06T11:45:00.000-05:00

I'm not a big fan of politics, or the news media's coverage of it. I don't obsessively follow blogs and commentary. I don't even have a clear understanding of the primary election system in the US. What I do know is that the Democratic Party distributes delegates proportionally based on some complicated formulas. So why is it that when NBC cut to their election coverage last night, they kept listing the states that Clinton or Obama had won, but not giving actual or estimated delegate counts? Seems like a real misleading way to present results, no?

Books vs. E-books: Irrational Pleasures

2008-02-05T12:14:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this has been said by many (and certainly said better by almost as many), but I don't think we're anywhere close to seeing the death of paper books. Megan McArdle's post on the future of publishing over at theAtlantic.com lead to a very interesting series of comments. I won't try to boil the conversation down, but it helped crystalize what it is about books that I'm not willing to give up.

I derrive a ton of pleasure from the experience of browsing physical shelves full of physical books. I'm a huge sucker for used book stores because they help me maintain my romantic self-image (Julian as adventurous reader and all-around cultured, articulate guy). However tranparently false this self-image is, it's meaningful to me and I don't want to lose it.

Couldn't I get the same ego-stroking benefit from browsing high-brow blogs and checking out books on Amazon? Well, yes and no. I also enjoy that pursuit, but it doesn't have the romantic cachet. Not even close. In fact, it accentuates some of what I feel are the biggest flaws in my character: a tendency to retreat from real interaction, an urge for the easy road, casuistic reasoning, etc.

At the end of the day, the narrative I've invented for myself includes physical books on physical shelves, and I'm not ready to re-evaluate that story just yet.

Grab Bag: Dilemmas & Self-Consciousness

2008-02-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

Most of my self-improvement projects fail. Once I managed to do the dishes like 8 or 9 days in a row. Then I stopped. This other time, I stopped watching syndicated sitcoms after work for a whole month or two. I'm not sure how long the current project will last. It's got two parts: 1) read more books & think about them, and 2) be less self-aware. I've been getting slowly stupider since I turned 19, so the first part is an attempt to reverse that trend. The second part is about getting out of my own head.

Also on my mind: should I quit Ultimate. Also: The Omnivore's Dilemma

On Ultimate: I've realized that I don't like the majority of people who play Ultimate. I love many of my former teammates and would be psyched to spend more time with them. I don't love the intense douche-baggery that playing Ultimate tends to inspire in them. And they're far from the worst. I think I'm done playing tournaments. I may play summer league again, but I'm torn about that as well. I may also give up the coaching thing, despite the guilt that will probably inspire. Ugh.

On Pollan's book: I'm pretty sure I hate Americans. We're so fucking clever that we keep clevering ourselves into deep shit. For example: corn. We're so good at growing corn that we have waaaaay too much of it. So we figured out what to do with the surplus: turn it into processed food, feed it to cows (bad idea!), etc. The upside: cheap food (sort of). The down side: major ecological impacts from large-scale (monoculture) farming, the feedlot system of cattle raising, the obesity epidemic, the fact that our food production system relies heavily on fossil fuels, etc. Basically, our ability to produce massive amounts of corn forces us to invest staggering amounts of energy (intellectual, fossil-fuel derived) into dealing with the self-inflicted over supply, which is seriously bad for the planet.

Like I said, I think I hate Americans.

Ultimate change

2007-10-12T12:11:00.001-04:00

Right. So crazy Frank is clearly crazy. On the other hand, I think he's got a point about Ultimate players (certainly those who hang out on rsd) being resistant to change. I think it would be worthwhile to take a critical look at the logic behind the current rules, the history of their evolution, and the consequences of their current structure and make some choices about whether to keep, adjust, or completely change some of them.

I don't have the comprehensive list of Frank's rule change ideas, but here are a few:

Legalize double teaming
Legalize picks
Legalize "boxing out"
Legalize tipping, delaying, air brushing, etc.
Institute a hard cap of three steps for traveling
Make contact with the out-of-bounds area a turnover
Shorten endzones to 10 yards
30 seconds between points
Institute a fouling out rule
Eliminate the continuation rule
Eliminate disc starts in the middle of the field (side out for all
restarts)
No getting up after laying out or falling down until after you throw the disc
Legalize jump passes

My gut says some of these won't work or aren't great ideas, but I don't think we should reject them out of hand either. I think it would be a valuable exercise to get a group of thoughtful Ultimate players together to talk about these. It's possible that some good critical thinking about the framework of Ultimate would lead to unexpected insights. Maybe it's a topic for the UCPC.

Reactionaries: bad reactions to foul calls are worse than bad calls

2007-10-09T15:02:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd posted about this before, but I can't find it now. This post was inspired, in an oblique way, by the furor on RSD over a contentious game at Central Regionals. Most of the thread on the Van Buren Boys vs. Mad Cow game is junk, but there are a few thoughtful thoughts in there. The one that got me thinking was from a VBB player who said:

It is also unfortunate that we couldn't settle a lot of our differences in calls on the field with each other early in the game. A few early calls from both teams were met with immediate anger and shouting, neither of which will ever resolve an onfield argument. The results of this game actually gave me an even more profound respect for Ricky (#00) from BAT, who handled such events in our VBB-BAT game with such a calm, rational demeanor. I called a foul on a BAT player in that game, who proceeded to get angry, Ricky backed him off and we talked it out. I realized my call was not the right call, I rescinded, and we moved on. With a player screaming in my face, it made me believe in my call all the more, there is something polarizing about an opponent with no civility. The respect I was shown by Ricky and the ensuing conversation helped determine what actually happened.

I couldn't agree more that a low-key response to a foul call (whether you believe it's justified or not) is the best possible response. It not only increases the likelihood that you might get the call taken back or reconsidered, but it will undoubtedly improve or at least maintain a resonable tenor to the game. Angry reactions usually lead to more angry reactions, a vicious cycle that can make what was a great (exciting, fun, competitive) game into a bitchy call-fest.

I'd love to see less of the "what the #@%& are you talking about?" kind of reactions, and more of the "I'm going to contest that call because I think the contact was incidental" kind of reactions. I think it would make high-level Ultimate a better game to watch and play.

Josh Ritter: a man on fire

2007-10-08T18:04:00.001-04:00

If you're a fan of folk/pop/rock or smart and clever lyrically-driven music, you have to see a Josh Ritter show. His albums are excellent, but the live show is out-effing-standing! I have never seen anyone who loves what they do as much as Ritter and his band. The joy is so pure and infectious, it'll make you feel good for about a week.

The Ultimate skills (one man's half-formed thoughts)

2007-10-08T17:41:00.000-04:00

Watching games at North East Regionals last weekend got me thinking about the little things that good Ultimate players do that make them good at Ultimate. I know that there are some big things (practice a ton, workout, etc), but the details can be the difference between being a decent player and being a good or even great player. This is my quick, not-very-well-thought-out list of little things

Defense:

Move your feet on the mark
Don't swipe at the disc--try to put your hand where you think they thrower wants to release the disc
Don't focus exclusively on your person, glance around to see the field/disc location/other cutters and defenders
Conversely, don't lose track of your person because you're too busy looking around

Offense:

Practice the little throws (quick backhand in front of your body for the dump--keeps you from having to throw a flick, etc.)
Always know where your defender is and try to work away from them
Develop a quick pivot, especially from backhand to forehand
Hone your fakes down to the smallest effective movements
Get rid of excess motion in your throws (e.g. too much windup)

There must be a million more. I'll edit this post as I think of them.

I was a fan before he was famous! No, really...

2007-10-05T12:42:00.001-04:00

I don't care if this makes me look like i'm way behind the curve. Brad Neeley is the #@%&*@^ man. If you have even the tiniest bit of a taste for the absurd, this guy is for you. His comics, videos, etc. rarely make any kind of literal sense, but that doesn't keep them from being the funniest shit on the web.

Haves and have-nots

2007-09-19T13:21:00.000-04:00

Long time since the last post, but this was on my mind…

No one who pays any attention to women’s Ultimate in North America will be surprised to hear this, but the talent divide between the top teams and the middle tier is HUGE. Worse, I don’t think it’s getting smaller at an appreciable rate. This was patently obvious at NNE Sectionals last weekend (September 15-16 in Lancaster, MA).

First, a big thank-you to the Sectional coordinator. There was much scrambling about for fields and uncertainty about the location until about a week before the tournament. It couldn’t have worked out better. We played all games on some amazing Field Turf fields at a big soccer complex. The downside was, due to rain, we got jerked around a bit (we were supposed to be on grass all weekend with nice leisurely start times of 10 but ended up on the turf [no big deal] starting at 7:30 on Sunday [also not such a big deal]). The coordinators did a great job and everything ran on time all weekend.

As for the games, it’s a bit of a story of two tournaments. Gale Force was seeded 8th (too low, but we didn’t care—and you’ll see why) and in a pool with Godiva, a Wellesley split-squad, and Boston College (going by the excellent name Boston Molasses Disaster). We played the two college teams first and cruised. Given that college just started and these ladies had little or no real practice under their belts yet, that’s not too surprising. Scores were 15-0 and 15-1. Then we get Godiva, and take the big, foregone-conclusion loss 15-4 (our best ever result against that traditional powerhouse).

This series of blow-outs puts us into the top bracket as Brute Squads third sacrificial lamb of the day. They pick us apart 15-4. Oh, and they were only playing half their squad in the game. Super.

Next day we crush Tufts first round, struggle to maintain focus against a thrown-together club team by the name of Hold That Thought, eventually winning 11-9 at the hard cap, and roll to another easy win against Wellesley’s other squad (clearly talented, but probably not very motivated by this point). So we’re the 4th seed to Regionals behind Brute Squad, Godiva, and Rogue.

OK. Long and boring recap out of the way. Back to my point. It is difficult if not impossible for second-tier women’s club teams to make progress against the top dogs. The difference in athletic ability, disc skills, and strategy is astronomical. I’ve done my best to get Gale Force using (what I consider) sound offensive and defensive strategies, and it’s definitely helped make the team more efficient. It won’t give us a realistic shot at upsetting one of the top teams unless we get a major infusion of talent from who-knows-where.

Now I’m not trying to whine here, and this isn’t supposed to be a self-pitying rant. I guess I’m just pointing out how far we have to go before there’s any semblance of parity in women’s Ultimate. There are definitely more athletic and talented women playing Ultimate these days, but until the top teams start turning them away in droves, those of us in the middle-ground are swimming against the tide.

Things I'm really failing at

2007-05-14T15:05:00.000-04:00

Apparently when I get busy, this blog is the first thing to get cut from the to-do list. Well, that and showering.

While we were away, I did a whole bunch of innane crap, including: about 500 hours worth of meetings, getting two coats of primer on the futurelaundry room walls, one 24 hour bout with a fever, a Gale Force meeting, and buying a suit. Indeed.

The Gale Force meeting was ostensibly about setting goals for the year, but I'm a much worse facilitator than presenter so it didn't go so well. I think it was valuable in the end, but nothing concrete came of it. I'll end up sending out some more specific goal-setting homework sometime soon in order to get everyone thinking about specific steps towards better ultimate.

This week we have a chalk-talk scheduled to unveil my plans for world domination through the spread offense. Should be fun. Ish.

The straight dope

2007-04-02T19:08:00.000-04:00

Having not learned my lesson after my last bout with bouldering in the great outdoors ended in ignominious defeat, I headed out to Pawtuckaway with a crew on Saturday. Spectacular weather. Almost too spectacular. I assumed it would be too warm for really hard bouldering.

You know what they say about assuming.

It took a long time to warm up in the morning, and Kirk was all pissed 'cause he couldn't do his warm-up routine. Sometimes that just happens; you're off your game for no particular reason. Probably it was a little mental hangover from the realization that all his projects were wet.

We overcame that little problem and went over to Four Eyes Blue, a slightly contrived V10 to the right of Vintage. The rest of the crew messed around on Zap and some other problems while Kirk and I flailed for a while. Then some random French fella showed up and started puking beta all over our shoes. It's a good thing he did, because his beta made way more sense than ours. It turns out that the problem is actually super fun. Too bad it's one of those "the arete is off" problems. Plus it's tall and scary. Needless to say nobody sent.

I wandered down to boulder X and tried that a few times with Ali and his buddy who's name I can't remember. I came super close by using a right heel hook, but pussed out and didn't send. Another day, I guess.

Then we headed off to Round Pond to check out Atlas and some other stuff. A bunch of folks, myself included, did that with the new beta. It doesn't suck now. Go figure.

After that, Luke and I screwed around on this little thing down by the Tanning Bed. Nice little problem with one long move and then a slightly funky mantle. Meanwhile, Kirk, John, and Mark are running around looking for Rachael. Why? Because she was gone for about a half hour and people started freaking out. Don't ask me why. It just happened.

(This post is getting too long)

So Kirk found us and told me that Dopeman was dry. So I decided to go flail for a while, figuring it was too warm for a send. 50 degrees and sunny usually makes that problem the sucky. Somehow there was shade on all the crucial holds, though, so I booted up for a few tries. Sat down for my first go, forgot my beta, remembered my beta and... sent! I shit you not. First go of the day. It was weird and almost anti-climactic. Not that I'm not psyched. I'm super psyched. It was just odd to do it so quickly when I expected a battle. Sometimes life surprises you.

All in all, an excellent day.

Now I need a new dealer.

I love my inbox

2007-03-15T14:53:00.000-04:00

Want to see something ridiculous? Of course you do!

This is part of an email I got today:

"I repeatedly see out clients shipping PCB light ballasts on a non-hazardous waste manifest to [deleted] using the DOT shipping name of "Polychlorinated Biphenyls..." and no "B" waste code in NY for PCBs. This seems contradictory to me for a few reasons (which is not surprising given that RCRA, TSCA, and DOT are all coming together here). There is an exemption under TSCA for small, non-leaking PCB capacitors, which is what are typically contained in ballasts. However, one must also consider the PCB concentration in the ballast potting material - there is no exemption for this. If the potting material is > 50 ppm PCB, the ballasts must ship on a manifest under TSCA and RCRA. Using a DOT PCB shipping name seems to indicate that they are PCB. The ballasts would be considered a hazardous substance (and therefore subject to DOT and required to use the PCB shipping name) if they equal or exceed the PCB RQ of one pound per package and the PCB is in a concentration by weight of 20 PPM or more. (49 C.F.R. 171.8 - definition of "hazardous substance") So, the only way it can be correct to ship ballasts with a PCB shipping name on a non-hazardous waste manifest is if the small capacitor is intact and the potting material contains 20 or more ppm PCB, but less than 50 ppm."

There's more, but I think you get the idea. Just a little taste of what the people I work with do with their time.

Things I'm failing at

2007-03-12T15:46:00.000-04:00

Remember when I said I was going to post more? Oh right. Of course not; no one read that post. Well it happened. Scroll down about an inch for the evidence. I'll wait right here...

Fun read, eh? Anyway. I'm probably not gonna post much more than I did before. Fortunately no one will notice.

In other news, I was recently turned on to this blog: http://www.firejoemorgan.com/. It's brilliant. I wish I had the dedication to snide witticism that the posters there display. They read articles (admittedly all sports articles), and then gently shred the illogic behind them. What are the chances I would stick to a project like that? Slim? None?

Maybe if I had an axe to grind, but I can't get worked up about... well... anything. I could sound worked up if I tried, but that sounds tiring.

Things I'm trying to do

2007-03-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

I'm making an effort to post more. This will probably lead to a dramatic slip in the quality of the posts. How much can it slip considering the ass-dragging heights of literature I've achieved so far? Oh, it can slip! Just you wait and see...

I'm also trying to become a better climber. I'm just not sure how to acomplish that.

In order to climb harder, I'll need to climb more. I'll also need to be more intentional about how I spend my time at the climbing gym (probably the regular gym as well). What I should do is try to assess my weaknesses as a climber and try to address them through training, and spend more time climbing outside. I'm a little worried about my ability to manage teh first part of that, and very worried about the second part.

Frankly, I'm not in control of my life. I don't manage my schedule well; I don't deal well with a full calendar; I'm tired a lot; I tend to demotivate at the least provocation; etc; etc. With house projects, work, family, friends, and Ultimate in the mix, I feel spread a little thin. Dedicating myself to climbing harder will require that I sacrifice my "lazy" time. That's not going to be easy for me.

So let's consider this post a public statement of my intention to try harder at life! Or at least scheduling. Or maybe just climbing.

Gale Force Winter Meetings; that didn't suck

2007-03-01T16:01:00.000-05:00

So the first ever Gale Force Ultimate Winter Meeting was a moderate success. I could have gone with a more grandiose title, which might have improved the experience. Live and learn. I doubt you're interested, but I'm writing this anyway damn it!

I nerded out pretty hard and put together a little PowerPoint. Given my inability to remember things and my propensity to wander off on tangents, this was a good thing. I managed to stay on topic, and even on message for the most part.

The basic goal of the meeting was to introduce some ideas about the coming season, talk about one specific topic (making good deep cuts), and watch some reinforcing video clips (courtesy of ultivillage.com). We cleared up my role a little, and the discussion was good for the most part. I learned a couple of things as well.

First, I need to think more about how to end these meetings. This time I basically just let it peter out. Not the best approach. It leads to some awkward, "thanks... that's all I've got" kind of moments. I don't know what I'll do at the next one...

Second, I realized just how hard it is/will be for me to stay positive and on message all season. When I'm surprised by a question or comment, particularly if it goes against the point I'm trying to make, I don't think I give a good enough response. Or I don't give the kind of response I want to give. On the one hand, I want to squash misconceptions as firmly as possible. On the other hand, I don't want to be dismissive or appear mean. I think I usually come down too much on the nice-and-not-firm-enough side of misconception-squashing. Something to work on.

I've got more meetings planned (in theory), and some other Ultimate-related posts brewing. We'll see how that goes.

Learning in Las Vegas

2007-02-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

I played at Trouble In Vegas ’07 and all I got was a nasty “grass” burn.

OK. That’s not true at all. I actually learned a couple important things: one personal, one Ultimate. Or rather: two Ultimate, one of which is also personal. I’ll try to spare you the Vegas recap (drinking, gambling, lack of sleep, etc.) and stick to the actual thoughts. We’ll see if I can manage that.

Thing one: Ever since I stopped playing club Ultimate (two years now?), I’ve had the itch to go back. Every time the itch gets persistent enough I remind myself why I quit: too hard on my body, too hard on my schedule, not as much fun as I think it is. So far, those reminders have been successful. Thanks to a long weekend in Vegas, I think I know why.

I prefer a style of Ultimate and a style of team leadership that uses a thinking approach. I’d rather hear: “We’ll be using our resets to generate offense by creating power position. Let’s anticipate this and set up aggressive deep cuts.” Than: “We’re better than these guys! Let’s run harder!” That second approach has its place, but it fails to inspire me to want to play better. And that’s why I don’t play club Ultimate anymore. The teams I would have the opportunity to play with rely heavily on a “jockish” style that I find taxing and de-motivating. It just doesn’t work for me.

Thing two: I already mentioned it, but in Vegas my team deployed a system of dumps that was designed to maximize power position for good throwers. It was so obvious once I heard it out loud, and yet I hadn’t come upon that system on my own. I needed someone else to draw it up for me. I love learning these things. Gets me fired up about Ultimate.

So it looks like thing one and thing two are really an interrelated bundle of things. That is, when I learn new things while playing Ultimate, I have fun. When I don’t, I don’t.

Yup. That’s life in my head.

Gale Force Winter Meetings, part 1

2007-02-05T16:42:00.000-05:00

Good idea; great results.

Good idea goes over pretty well.

Good idea executed poorly.

Bad time had by all.

Those are some possible outcomes of the first ever Gale Force Winter Meeting. I conceived the idea as a good way to keep the team thinking about Ultimate in the off season. I hope it will be a fairly regular thing. I really hope it will be good for player development. The danger here is that I do a poor job planning and presenting and no one learns a damn thing.

This danger looms relatively large, given that I'm busy at work, unmotivated to think at home, and not very confident in my abilities as a motivator and teacher. On the plus side, I've been listening to Tiina's presentation from the recent UCPC. It's pretty inspiring, and I hope that I can apply some of her ideas at the meeting and in the coming season.

Foremost among the hoped-for improvements to my master plan: more focused practices, less tardiness, actual process goals, an assistant coach. I'd say I'll end up with one and a half of those four things. If life were baseball, I'd be a respectable major-leaguer.

I'll post an wrap-up for my non-existent fans. Lucky you.

Climbing = boring?

2007-01-17T12:01:00.000-05:00

Is all writing about climbing boring? I mean, I'm obsessed with the sport and I can't be bothered to read most of what's written about it. Which begs the question: why do I write about it?

Unfortunately I've got no good answer. Maybe I do it because it gives me something to do. Maybe because when I write I have to think, and thinking is good. Maybe because writing about my own climbing helps me remember the details more clearly. I guess I'll keep doing it, given that no one's reading this so I'm not boring anyone but myself.

In related news, It seems I'm a crappy writer. I haven't really liked a single post I've written so far. They're all disjointed and end abruptly. Probably because my attention span is shrinking like Costanza in cold water. (Nice outdated pop-culture reference there. I'm awesome.)

Not-so-great Pyramid

2007-01-08T16:03:00.000-05:00

Hi. My name is Julian, and I'm an idiot.

("Hi Julian!")

I went climbing on Sunday. Drove more than two hours just to get there, and when we (Kirk and I) arrived it was kinda wet and muddy, but we climbed anyway. This is one of those things that climbers do. We forge ahead with our climbing plans if the conditions are even marginally satisfactory.

Anway. The spot we went was Rumney, NH. More specifically, the Blackjack boulders. The goal was to get on a pair of problems. I was gunning for Pyramid Power, and Kirk was working Waiting for No One. I'll stick to boring you with a description of Pyramid Power.

Start sitting, hands matched on a good, incut edged. There are a few options for feet, but they're all pretty low;
First move is a loooong deadpoint to a decent, pyramid-shaped pinch (hence the name);
Then, my beta is a hand/foot match, bringing your right foot up inside your right hand;
Then I drop in to a 3/4 undercling and pause for a second;
Now I pull hard with my right toe, and make a looong reach across my body with my right hand to a decent jug left of my left hand;
Grab that, up to a better jug, and top out on good holds--funky moves, but good holds.

Or that's how it's supposed to go. And it did. At least until that last bit. But I thought I'd add my own flavor to the proceedings. I decided to hike the problem to the jugs, then forget what the hell I was doing and grab some soaking wet moss instead of a hold. Hence my initial confession.

To compound matters, I managed to strain a finger tendon as I was trying to actually send the problem. So now I'm injured and I didn't send. Another day I guess. I'm sure there's another opportunity for self-analysis here, but I don't want to get into it. Or maybe I do, but it feels like a separate post. Maybe I'll get to that later.

Coaching my way out of a paper bag

2006-12-14T09:13:00.000-05:00

I've been interested in coaching sports in general pretty much ever since I had a cool soccer coach in the 11-12 rec league growing up. Since I gave up soccer (OK, fine; since I was forced out of soccer by my lack of skill), I've thought about coaching Ultimate instead. The opportunity came along last spring in the form of the local women's club team--Gale Force. At the time, they had a different name, which I won't mention because it was painfully lame (sorry, but it was). They were also struggling under shifting leadership, commitment issues, fluctuating membership, low practice attendance, and general lack of direction. We're still struggling with some of those issues, to be sure, but things seem to be getting better instead of worse.

I won't claim to be some kind of guru, motivational genius, incredible teacher, or any of that stuff. I think where I add value to this team is in providing a consistent vision of how we want to play, and freeing up the captains' head-space for on-field concerns by handling line-calling, adjustments, etc. These offer positive benefits to the team, but I and we still struggle in a few key areas.

The most important (and most frustrating) challenge is using practice effectively. Because we're a club team in a small city with no real shot at the Big Dance, we often run practices with fewer than 14 people. I try to design practices that incorporate basic skill-building drills, simulated game-play, and actual game-play, but I often feel I'm not using our time effectively. Part of that is a culture issue (lack of focus), but part is a leadership issue (my inexperience and unwillingness to play bad-cop). We can only practice, for practical reasons, twice a week. And in the summer, the local league takes up pretty much all available time. Consequently, it's difficult to introduce a concept/skill/strategy and reinforce it sufficiently before we try to implement it at a tournament.

There are other frustrations, as well: We don't even draw the best players in the area, and consistently lose people to family commitments, new babies, etc. These are all valid and unassailable reasons to skip practice or leave the team. I won't argue with anyone who chooses to leave Ultimate behind for something else. That doesn't mean it's not frustrating when good players disappear. But I'm done complaining. For now...

What I think we need is to break our game down to the simplest possible components. If we can isolate the basic elements of our game then practicing those skills and strategies is dramatically simpler. So what I need to do, as a coach, is draw up a list of those elements and figure out a way to teach them and their applications. And I'm not sure I can do that in a vacuum. Maybe I need an assistant, or maybe I just need someone to bounce ideas off of.

So, Julian's to do list:
1) Find Ultimate player with coaching experience and enough free time to chat about the general issues of women's ultimate and the specifics of the offenses and defenses I want to use
2) Chat with said Ultimate player.
3) Apply insights.

Honor among teams

2006-12-07T11:13:00.000-05:00

Good stuff going on at George’s blog (here) and Zaz’s blog (here and here). I’ll stick with Zaz’s topic today, but I’m very interested in what George is up to as well.

On the subject of SOTG and expectations, I think that the Ultimate community at large (myself included) is actually very passive. I have never had a conversation with an opponent before a game about expected/intended standards of behavior. The assumption is that there is an understood common expectation. I’m sure that there isn’t.

Too often I see one team angered by the other’s behavior (perceived/actual bad calls, spiking/celebrating, etc.). Even when teams are behaving equally well (or badly), there is often a perceived imbalance. Stating expectations before a game could go a long way toward diminishing the resentment that arises in many contests.

Hmmm... I may be putting the cart before the horse here. Maybe the first step should be creating a team policy, explicit if not actually written down, about SOTG and on-field behavior. Many Ultimate players are independent types and might chafe at an attempt to regulate their behavior, but the policy doesn’t need to be restrictive. I guess I’m proposing a kind of honor code with provisions like “know the rules,” “only contest fouls you honestly believe did not happen,” and “try to express disagreement on the field calmly.” These are not revolutionary ideas, but I think if taken seriously, a team spirit policy could dramatically change on-field interaction in some cases, and at least clarify individual expectations in most cases.

Applying a broader policy as Zaz is proposing is a superb idea as well. Unfortunately, legislating behavior is going to be hard in this or any community. I don’t know if we can expect people to take a UPA mandated spirit score seriously if they don’t have any internal standard for spirit. I fully support Zaz’s efforts and I hope something like what he envisions is adopted, but in a grassroots sport I think real change will come from the ground up.

So, I plan to put together a list of expectations for the team I coach with the help of my players. I will try to discuss our expectations with our opponents before games. I will try to enforce our standards internally and hope they have a positive impact on both our play and our community. No harm in trying.