I'm at my parent's place. I got a sore throat, likely from someone at the airport/airplane. In a few hours, we're going to take the kids and drive up to Madison to see my brother for the weekend. That should be fun, although I wish I didn't feel like crud.

Hopefully this will be mostly past in the next day or so. Madison's got a climbing gym that I'd like to check out, if at all possible. There isn't one close to south bend that I've been able to find, and I'm not sure how many times I'll be able to take the hour or so trip to one of the ones in a town in the general vicinity.

While I'm not going to be left on my own for a week, I would like to connect to any and all friends I've got within the nearest three or so states, if possible. Perhaps between Christmas and New Years or the week after New Years. If'n you're in the vicinity and want to hook up for a day (even if it's just going out for dinner) that'd be cool. Drop me a line. damienroc at sandwich dot net or damienroc at gmail dot com

The iPod is awesome. I'm so glad I got one. Replacing my CD player and a huge wallet of CDs with this little thing is such an improvement. Also, the noise-cancelling, canal earphones I got worked really well on the plane. They only cost $30 and while I'm sure I could get a pair that's slightly better and more comfortable for more, I'm quite happy with them.

Also, for any of you in the Washington area, give Loony a call to wish him well, if you could. If you haven't heard, he got beat up pretty bad on the job in the past couple weeks. He's going to be fine and the guy who did it has been taken in by the appropriate authorities, but it seems he might have a bit of trouble getting the whole legal situation straightened out.

My trip back to Tacoma was characterized by rain, at least for the first five or so days. Things started to clear up over the weekend... and Monday actually looked rather nice. Of course, Monday evening the snow started, and it's apparently the worst winter storm to hit the area in quite some time. The trip from my grandparents' place to the airport Tuesday morning took longer than the commute I had to make to UW on 9/11/01. It was something like two hours, for a drive that, even in traffic, rarely takes more than one.

Needless to say, I missed my flight. I got rebooked onto a flight three hours later. And even that was delayed almost an hour. Instead of my expected 10:30 arrival, I landed right around 2 and got home at 4. In a lot of ways, it was the getting home from the airport that took the most out of me. I needed to take two busses and a BART to do it, and then walk five blocks. All this with my backpack, shoulder bag, duffel, and a suitcase I borrowed from my grandparents to carry everything. Four bags while standing on a bus across SF is not fun. It was a very crowded bus, as well.

But I'm back home, safe and sound, if a bit annoyed that the weather here in SF seems to have taken a turn for the colder. I suppose this means I'll be sleeping more. I'd imagine if I can't face the cold unconscious, I'd do it by killing my sobriety. Not really preferrable and certainly more expensive.

Despite weather and travel, the trip back was rather nice and welcome. I got to catch up with a number of people, especially a few I'd missed just prior to the actual move, like Max. Hanging out with him Saturday was a blast, and I quite enjoyed observing a group of people rather outside my normal crowd.

The two climbing sessions at Edgeworks were spectacular. Unfortunately, they also reinforced my thoughts that Edgeworks is a better gym than Mission Cliffs in most ways. The route balance, personal traffic, and atmosphere more than make up for the disparity in sizes. Even so, the two sessions did help me jump myself back into shape, so in my climbing session earlier today, I started hitting the V1s down here. I'm noticing that route rating varies wildly. I did a V0 that's got some really tricky, grippy bits and that I'd consider more difficult than some of the V1s.

A downside to the two heavy sessions at Edgeworks, though, was how much I wore my arms out. I had to quit rather early today. But I suppose that's just as well, since MC closes earlier on MWF.

I think, because I left my car behind, the trip back down here carried a stronger sense of finality. In the previous month and a bit, it never really felt like I'd moved. Now I'm down here and fully into the bus and BART mode so I suppose I must live here. The added inconvenience is worth dropping $400 or so off my insurance premium because I'm just storing my car, now.


Must get tickets for my Christmas trip. Looks like I'm going to spend both Christmas and New Years in South Bend because of cost.

Amazing climbing session on Thursday. Unfortunately my last as a "regular" at Edgeworks. While I know I've not had a chance to sample many other gyms (only other one is the Warehouse Gym in Olympia), I think I'm going to miss Edgeworks. It's got a great atmosphere and there are multiple challenge levels for me.

In any case, due to being busy and booching the time of the gym, the last time Chris and I had gotten there was Sept 4th, about two and a half weeks ago.

So we got there and found that the far side of the bouldering wall had been completely redone. There was another guy there who pointed out a new V2. So I hopped on it and got it on the first try. My first "successful" V2. The guy pointed out something on the green V2 I'd been working on for a few weeks, but it was a long arm stretch which I am not capable of repeating.

In any case, from there, Chris and I started working on this long, new V1. We didn't manage to defeat it, mostly because it's really long and tiring. Even so, we worked on it in tandem quite well, I thought, which was fun. For a while, we've kinda been doing our own things and haven't really had a session where we put our heads together to get through a problem. I'm probably going to miss that.

After we'd been going at it for about an hour (I paused at one point to try a few other things, including doing the new V2 once again) we wrapped it up by doing the easier new routes. We got stuck at one point on what is apparently the most difficult V0- known to man. I actually think it's because someone put a hand element on upside-down.

Still, it felt really good, even if my arms are still aching from the intensity.

Afterwards, we went to Chevy's for dinner so Chris could repay me for the dinner I'd covered recently. We hadn't done that in a while, so it was nice to have the Chevy's salsa, which is good even if the chips are a bit too light. The fish tacos they had were tasty as well. And the plates were huge, even by family mexican standards.

On Friday I got up early so I could call the auto shop about getting my car in. Unfortunately, they can't look at it until Tuesday, which means it's going to be quite tight doing that along with everything else next week. But it needs the tune-up, oil change, and whatnot, especially before I leave. Unfortunately, my mom's got classes starting... really soon, if not already, and my grandparents leave on a trip on Monday, so if I'll need to rely on friends to shuttle me around a bit.

I started heating up the chili for dinner (did the prep work the previous night) and Chris and I went to CBI for, I suppose, the last time I'll be getting comics there for quite a while. Since they didn't have long boxes, we ran down to Spy Comics to get one.

I made fish chili for dinner. It was interesting, because I'm not really familiar with cooking fish. I was a bit rushed overall for the chili, so I forgot a few things... like tomato paste. Also, since I didn't use any chipotles this time and I didn't up the amount of chili powder used, it didn't quite have the rhobust flavor I'd have wanted. Even so, the combination of the black beans (normal and cuban style), corn, bell pepper, and onion worked quite well. Bit of chili powder and cumin, some been and vinegar, and that cooked up well. I briefly fried the fish before portioning it a bit and dropping it in the mix. Then let it cook in the oven for about 45 minutes or so with the cover off to reduce. Made some corn muffins to go with it. It had an interesting sweet undertone. It was popular and gone rather quickly. I think I'll keep doing chili after I move.

We had our "final" anime night. Watched a couple episodes of Ouran High School, welcome to the NHK ep 1, Kamichu, and Last Exile. All new stuff, really. I'd seen everything, but others hadn't. Sam, Jack, and Jack's brother Frank all came by for their first anime night, which was cool.

Now... I am very tired. And nervous about moving. Just a few days left. So much work done, but so much more to do.

Tomorrow after I wake up I need to load my car up with stuff to store at the grandparents', run to CBI for the signing (lots of Brubaker stuff), run to the grandparents' for dinner (since I won't see them until Thanksgiving, likely), and do laundry while there.

Sunday is a big packing day... and maybe Fearless.

Monday is work and packing and probably putting anything that remains into storage.

Tuesday is the car and going up to Seattle for an M's game with Deanna.

Wednesday is packing day. Packing party! Load up the truck with my loot! Buy pizza! Fun times had by all!

Thursday...

Climbing was a good session today. I started off on a V2 that I checked out last week. The holds aren't incredibly difficult (at least as far as I've gone) but it's a really long route. Still, I got to a point where it's got a fair bit of stretchy difficulty. After that, I gave my grippy corner-hugger V1 route another go, and got stuck in the same place, which has me holding onto a plank which is requires me to be pretty grippy AND using a lot of muscle bunching (which wastes energy) with no way to let go to grab the next hold. I -think- it might be pretty easy if I could get the next hold, I just have no idea how to get there.

Then I started doing the figure 8 traverse idea I had a couple sessions ago. The center area of the gym has these two columns of rope-cllimb routes with a connection between them, so there's a little cave in the middle. I thought we could try traversing (moving sideways along the wall) in a figure eight around both columns. When I first thought about it, I figured that the most difficult part would be going through the center section (since you had to switch from one wall to the other.) Oddly, that's not been the case. Instead, it's the parts of the wall that have the most difficult routes which have gotten us stuck.

Even so, I started just outside the cave on one column and started working my way around. Despite getting tired, I got all the way around the column (which includes two difficult transition parts) to the cave again before fatigue got me. After a bit of a rest, I got up on the same part, went through the cave, and got all the way around the other column to the outside of the cave again.

At this point, we'd been going for about an hour and I was really tired. But we still kept going (rather lightly) for another 90 minutes or so. I think, with a bit more practice, I could do the whole figure 8. However, I need to work on some conditioning to get to that point first.


I'm going to Otakon this year. A bit late notice, but Fred pinged me and asked me to come help out. I called him yesterday and we hashed out some loose plans for me to fly out for the weekend to cover the MT booth again. Should be fun. I was last at Ota in '03, which was kinda fun, but also a bit boring (since I was helping out with the Super Techno Arts booth. Not really high flying excitement there.) MT, at least promises to have more people around. And it's always fun to hang out with Fred and Sarah.

I've got some friends in the area who I'd like to hook up with for a meal, as well as with anyone else who happens to be at the con.


I tried reading some comics earlier. I didn't feel like it. So back to novels, I guess, at least for a while. I've also been trying to get back into writing.

Chris and I climb fairly regularly. We -try- to go once a week or so, but invariably stuff will happen to obstruct that. On Wednesday we went, which was the first time in about three weeks for me. The previous week Chris had been sick and the week before that I was in Indiana.

For those who've never climbed before, a primer:
In a gym, different routes will be rated for different difficulties. It starts at VB (Basic), then goes V0-, V0, V0+, V1, V2, etc. Theoretically, routes could get infinitely harder. I think the most difficult I've seen in the gym is a V10 or V11. You can usually judge how difficult a route is by how easy the holds are, how many holds there are, how much hanging or stretching there is, and how much you need to do complex movements. A very easy route (VB) will have easy holds, many of them, and it will hold your weight well. For slightly more difficult routes, they could either made the grips a bit more sparse or more difficult to hold, require you to hang a bit more or whatever.

For me, I've tended to handle V0's with regularity. V0+'s may give me some trouble though. I had tried some V1's, but never really got anywhere.

In any case, when we got there, Chris started out on a V1 which we'd tried the last time I climbed. It seemed like a fun route, but a bit more difficult than we'd done previously. That session, I wasn't at my best, so I cheated a bit to get going by going to a "save point" and starting a couple holds in. Even so, we only managed a few moves before fatigue and whatnot overtook us.

After Chris gave it a go, I decided to try. I got in position from the start and then... just did it. First time.

Over the course of the session, I finished that route and three others (another V1 and two V0+'s) which had been defeating me previously. All of them I got first time out. Made me feel really good about the session. I think I'll want to try and get the top out certification so I can do the routes all the way to the top of the bouldering wall, now.


***

Since our D&D group has been put on hiatus for the summer, I've decided (after some consideration) to run a Shadowrun campaign. This will be my first experience running a game in close to ten years, so we'll see how it goes. Right now it looks like Pete and Wooko will be players, and I think we're going to invite Lance as well.

If anyone in the general area would like to play, I think it'd be fine to add another two players or so. I expect the campaign will go for about 3 or 4 sessions, about once a month, over the course of the summer. We'll be using the Shadowrun 4th edition rules. If you want to, just ping me in a comment.

I'm also giving some thought to running a modified 7th Sea or an Earthdawn campaign. Those would be further down the line, though.

***

I'd also like to do a BBQ or two over the summer. Now that I've done my first test batch of chili, I feel more confident making some for a bigger get-together. Plus I've got some buffalo burgers and BBQs are always good.