Thao Nguyen

Another great band, kinda poppy/indie/folky and superb artist I've found, Thao Nguyen. Also you can download the last three songs on her playlist.

sleddin & climbing

I finished my level 1 avalanche course on Saturday. Our instructor took us up to Tony Grove to look at the intricate terrain there. I thought that if rednecks ride snowmobiles then they must be easy to ride, but they aren't I had to man-handle my sled like wrestling a cow to keep it from getting stuck. Once stuck I would have to dig out around one side of the rear of the sled and the opposite side of the front and then lift and rotate the rear onto the side shovelled out, what a pain in the back. I hope to get the hang of it, but this job will be more difficult than I thought before. I'll either show up to Jamaica strong as an ox or bent over like a geriatric.

Yesterday my friend BJ and I drove to Ogden and met up with Jon, Tom and Colby to climb at school room. I usually can do the hike up with only one or two short stops, I stopped about five times yesterday and felt dizzy half way up the hike, I blame it on Saturday's sledding excitement, but it's really because I've ate too much ice cream and watched too many movies this winter.

The weather was great yesterday, high 50's and only a slight but cold breeze every so often. I ended up not leading a single climb, I TRed 4 climbs total, an easy 10 a 9 and two 12a's. Ogden 12a's are definitely a different level than Logan, mostly due to the formation of imperfections in Quartzite causing many side pulls that make okay hands and horrible feet. I hope to go back before it gets too warm, I need the exercise really bad.

After climbing we all went to the only good restaurant in Ogden; Roosters. I drank 22 or so glasses of iced tea, and everyone else had really delicious beer (I forgot my wallet in Logan, and I get 'tipsy' too easy). After eating a great burger we sat around chatting and were about to head back home when April called. April's friend Melanie's boyfriend was in Pittsburgh for the week at a ceramics meeting and needed a ride home. Some how his ride was sent towards texas and he was sent to Newark, his ride wouldn't arrive till some time today. So BJ and I relunctantly said we could go pick him up from SLC at 10:50pm, we had 2 1/2 hours to waste. We left Ogden and headed towards SLC, we thought it might be good to waste the time at the dollar theatre in Sugar house, but they didn't have any thing playing till after 10, so we went to my favorite gay hangout: The Coffee Garden on 9th and 9th. We drank coffee and waited for 10:50 to arrive by telling stories and making fun of the articles and advertisements in the City Weekly. When we did get to the airport we picked up a barely thankful Denny and headed back to Logan, I was completely exhausted, but BJ kept me awake with his crazy stories. I made it to bed around 1:30, the latest I've been up in this semmester, I didn't wake up for my 8:30 class, and now I'm a daze, which should be obvious by my incoherent ramblings above.

Found

I found a new band I really like; The Avett Brothers (listen to all of the songs). Another band I found is Big Eagle.

Tooth and Eye

April successfully went through wisdom teeth extraction yesterday. She is healing up now, but has quite a bit of pain, the Lortab will hopefully keep her sedated enough till the pain subsides.

I just made my second order to Zenni Optical, I bought myself another pair of $8 glasses (that is with lenses) and a pair of titanium frameless glasses for April, I even upped the ante for April and ordered thin lenses, the total was just under $60 including shipping. I am really happy with my glasses from this place, they get the prescription perfect.

Spring Break

What a wonderful idea, give students a short respite in order to invigorate the desire for learning. Well I almost fell asleep in my first class back. I should work as hard in school as I do when I’m playing, I still wouldn’t be a valedictorian but I wouldn’t stress about passing a class.

On Monday of spring break I rode down to Indian Creek with my friend Brad, we arrived just before dark in the Beef Basin campground and set up our tents in the site adjacent to my friend Colby of Ogden. The next day I woke up late, ten-ish in the morning, we ate breakfast and then hiked up to the Bridger Jacks and climbed the two shortest towers while Colby and his girlfriend from Jackson Hole, Katrina, did Vision Quest (burly 5.10+ offwidth). We had a good day and spent the evening BSing around the fire. The next day we went to the Pistol Whipped wall so Colby and his strong buddy Mike could give the three pitch Pistol Whipped (ridiculous looking 5.12-) a go. Brad and I dinked around on a 25 foot 5.8 called short and stupid, it was short and hard like tight #1 hard, next Brad went up a junky 5.7 to access the anchors for a short 5.10 we could TR, it started with fingers and ended with #2’s and had a short roof with ring locks, it was the hardest .10 I’ve yet been on. After dinking around on TR for most of the day we were about to head back to camp, but we took a quick look down the wall and found a 60 foot 10 that called for a bunch of #2’s, so after a bit of guilt tripping from Colby I decided to give it a go, after the previous .10 I wasn’t confident but the thing was fortunately very easy and would probably be considered a .9 by anyone with normal sized hands. At the evening campfire we decided that the next day we should hit up Supercrack Buttress because neither Brad or I had been there. We woke up Thursday ate and packed up then headed to Supercrack with Mike. The trail goes straight to Incredible Hand Crack so we did that first, we let our ropegun Mike put everything up, Brad cleaned up the gear and I cleaned up the anchors, it was a good day although we only did 4 routes total we were good and beat by the time we arrived back at the car and drove back towards Logan.

I arrived in Logan late Thursday, got about five hours of sleep and then took April to the dentist because one of her wisdom teeth is causing some pain due to an infection. The doctor gave her an antibiotic and scheduled her for a removal of all four teeth today (Monday). This dentist is really friendly and is doing the removal for around $400 less than she was quoted a few months ago, despite all teeth being impacted. Unfortunately this is supposed to be one of April’s busiest weeks this month, but her work is understanding and will allow her to cancel a few events and has found replacements for a few other appointments. I am just hoping that the pain killers work without making her ill; she doesn’t always react well to narcotics.

On Friday I started training for my level 1 avalanche certificate, it will be for my job so not only do I get this for free but will get paid for it. My coworkers and I sat in class for three hours Friday night and spent eight hours on Saturday tromping around in the snow doing beacon searches and snow pit inspection. This training is fun, and although I felt like crap hiking in Indian Creek I was easily outpacing everyone on Saturday, partly cause I walk fast and partly cause I have the longest legs of em all. Next Saturday we finish our class, we should be going to the area that we will be working, on snowmobiles, so the instructors can point out hazardous areas and we can determine the proper routes of travel. I sure hope that an avalanche doesn’t occur, but my boss is more paranoid than I am so we are getting some great tools in case one does like brand new beacons, Avalung, shovel and probe. The job will be fun and relatively safe.

Typical

I've lost all motivation. Last night I went to the gym and was shut down. I guess I peaked last week, I sent several 12's (in the gym) in the last month, but now even the 11's I have dialed are killing me. School is really bad, I just can't get myself to care about traffic engineering, after working for UDOT I have realized you don't need to have any engineering skills to be a traffic engineer, so why does this class propose that designing highways is supposed to be such a pain? I wish I could kick the person who decided everyone needs to know how to design concrete beams, I guess I'll be very well rounded since I'll have about 5 structural classes and only one drinking water class.

I was planning to go to Lander Wyoming tomorrow for a short climbing trip with several friends, but the weather isn't gonna play along, so I'll be sittting around. I might go to Moab with my friend Brad on monday, but 0nly if the weather changes, and he can't find someone that wants to stay all week. It should be an exciting spring break! I should be getting several DVD's from netflix, one is 'Sex and the Fury' a story about the Sex Pistols, that should cheer me up.