Spring?

Maybe not quite, but I'm climbing outside today anyways. My friend Ben and I are going to Solar Cave, it gets sun most of the day, facing SSW. Hopefully all those days in the gym will be worthwile. The temps will be around 40 and partly cloudy.

Looks nice huh, well maybe not, but I'm sick of climbing indoors.

A Fraction of the Whole

I don't have anything cool to write about, so I'll just say that I started a new book 'A Fraction of the Whole' by Steve Toltz. It is mostly set in Australia and is funny. get it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fraction-Whole-Steve-Toltz/dp/0385521723

I'm a big fan of John Irving's work (Hotel New Hampshire, Cider house Rulesl, World According to Garp), and this is similar in style.

The tele

Last night Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations was set in Jamaica, super interesting. He met up with a guy from Jamaican Caves Organization. He was surprisingly being a pussy about the whole thing, odd since the guy will put just about anything in his mouth, he once sucked animal shit through a straw. I was hoping to see some views of rock on the show, but nothing. I did learn quite a bit about Jamaican culture though.

Here's a blogg from Bourdain about the experience:
http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/2007/12/notes-from-the-road.html

Spoiled brat

I just watched most of the documentary 'Life and Debt'. It has to do with Jamaica and a loan they received through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The IMF put several stipulations on what Jamaica could and could not do with the money, and forced them to allow imports which of course are from the even poorer countries of S. America (through Huge Corporation, e.g. Dole). Almost all of the agriculture and livestock jobs have been lost do to this. For example dairy farmers can't produce milk cheap enough to compete with the powdered milk from other countries and are forced to sell their cattle. McDonald's and other corporations refuse to use locally grown products for their menus, and even the biggest source of income, tourism, doesn't use local food for their customers, but instead have food delivered from Miami and other large ports in North America.

Life and Debt shows what life is like for the majority of Jamaican's; poor and disgruntled. I'm not really seeing how I can fit in there, especcially if I spend all my time and money on putting up silly sport routes. I currently don't see how I can take 27 months away from climbing, but I don't want to be just another selfish American taking advantage of Jamaicans.

Lowered Expectations

I've contacted a couple of people down in Jamaica, they are super friendly but I think they are laughing at me because I just don't understand what it is like down there. I was looking into establishing some climbing routes and I've been told that it's not impossible, but will be a challenge others have decided to drop. If I'm near rock I'll definately do it, but it takes about 4 hours to get from Kingston to Montego Bay, about 120 miles. I doubt I'm gonna get april psyched on taking a whole day of travel to establish one route.

Today I found some info on surfing there:
http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Central_America/Jamaica/index.html
Looks good, and tame. When I lived in hawaii I got my butt kicked by the surf, but I was too young to figure out what was going on. Hopefully I can try it out for cheap a few times. It all depends on what side of the island we are placed.

First Blog

I should be doing some homework for my drinking water class, but instead I have been reading peace corp's volunteers blogs in Jamaica. I'm not 100% sure that we'll be going to Jamaica, but I think it is more likely than other caribbean islands because they emphasize the need for water/sanitation engineers on the Peace Corps website. I'm really stoked to find out that there is a lot of limestone in Jamaica, but I also found out that there are also a lot of ticks there, hopefully there are not any deer in Jamaica (lyme disease is carried by deer ticks). Jamaica has a lot to offer folks like April and I when it comes to outdoor activities, there is hiking, biking, swimming, cliff jumping/climbing and NO SNOW!!!

April is not interested in looking at Jamaica because she doesn't want to psyche her self up just to be let down later, but I don't really care where we go, I just want to make sure I have all the stuff I'll need once I get there. For example I bought a new pair of swimming trunks last week, mostly because the ones I have now are kinda tight and I'm scared the velcro front is gonna pop open and every one will have to see my weiner.