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.

I've just finished reading Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant series. It took me just over a week. 7 novels in 7 days. I haven't really done that since, um... high school.

Granted, I'd read four of the books before (The Esmay Suiza ones) but I picked up the Heris Serrano omnibus edition a couple months ago and finally got around to it. And didn't really stop reading. Once I got through that, It didn't feel like an ending, and I wanted to see (again) what happened afterwards. The first three books do lend a lot of background to help the later ones, even though they aren't strictly necessary.

It's kinda funny, but I remember WHY I started reading Moon. When Once a Hero came out, I wanted to see how it was. I viewed it as the "other" Once a Hero (since Mike Stackpole had a novel of the same title a couple years before). I may prefer Moon as a writer, now, even if the overall series has a few problems. The first two books (Hunting Party and Sporting Chance) are good, although the set-up for Hunting Party is a bit cheezy. The third (Winning Colors) runs into problems because the plot is a bit more complex and more characters are covered, however Moon doesn't really develop things out.

Similarly, the next two books (Once a Hero, Rules of Engagement) are quite good, arguably the best of the series, while the last two (Change of Command, Against the Odds) against feel a bit problematic because of plot complexity. When she's hopping between so many characters, I get the sense that none are getting fleshed out enough for satisfaction. Mostly, I felt there wasn't enough Esmay Suiza in the last two (particularly Change of Command).


After I finished I tried reading some manga, but didn't really feel like it, so I suppose I'll read a few more novels. I've got Rendezvous with Rama.