My army man has the coolest stuff

As a child I remember thinking that GI Joe commercials always had these crazy landscapes that where not all that practicle and most likely couldn't work the way the commercial showed. Well I have a GI Joe that has a full rack of climbing gear that would put most sport climbers to shame. For the past month or so He has contented himself with rappelling from air ducts and door jams in my appartment and hanging out with "the barrel of monkeys" monkeys. That is no longer the case. This Week I built a cliff face for him to climb on it is awesome.

My toys have the coolest toys!

Disgusting bloodsuckers (and I don't mean Lawyers)

Wednesday I was hit by THE URGE. I slipped my backpack into the trunk of my car as I left for school in the morning (it had been in my appartment for a inventory and restock) and by the time my school day was over at 2:30 I was definatly headed for the hills.

I drove upto the ranger station at Auburn and found that the campground I had planned to use was closed due to being rather underwater. I considered my options and chose to head for a hike for a few hours and the head home around dark.

The trail I picked was the american canyon trail ( I had read about a waterfall at the bottom of the trail and hoped I could do the round trip with the remaining light I had). At the trail head I stuffed the basics (large water bottle, light stick, flash light, local topo and 20 feet of paracord) into the pockets of my jacket and started off.

It is a nice trail clearly designed with CDF access in mind, but it could be much more clearly labled ( the trail is actually well labled but the topo for the park doesn't have all the trails on it so at a junction I made a wrong choice and never got to the waterfall, If I had the written trail guide with me I would have been better off than having the map.) The trail wound down the hill to the creek witch I crossed and wound back up the other side. It was a nice day out considering it is January and I shed my jacket fairly quickly. About the time I decided I ought to start back toward the car it had coolled down enough that I took of my long sleeved shirt witch was rather perspired in and put the jacket back on.with dusk settling in I got back to my car and put the shirt back on before settling in for the drive home.

On a slightly differant topic, I had never driven stick on a steep and windy road before. Hiway 49 between Cool and Auburn is the quintacential steep and winy road. I was a fun drive, my little car handle corners nicely but it is not much of a climber.

I few miles before I get to home I scatch at my arm and notice something. I pull into a parking lot and roll up my sleeve. I have a tick imbedded in my right arm. Now I have been a scout and a scout master and in theory I know a thing or two about tics but my first instinct is still to freak out just a little bit. I decide to head and see my dad, I have never actually dealt with on of these arachnids and I know he has.

To get to my parents from where I was I had to drive by the church and as I did it hit me, I should let the scouts take it out they are all supposed to know how to do this, I should let them try. Yeah Right. Neither the scouts nor the leaders were willing to try. Now at least the have seen one though, actually Dallas did come with me to see if covering it with soap or bsa advised credit card trick would work. Neither did. I continued on toward home with my faith in the future slightly diminished.

My father didn't have much better luck at first. He started with the "used a match and make it uncomfortable so it will extract itself" technique. Utter failure. Next we revisited the credit card trick. Then we decided it was time to buy that Sawyer Extractor we had been looking at for months. A sawyer extractor is a suction device that can save your life in the event of a poisonous snake or spider bite. I myth it can pull out a tic. I reality it does not. At this point my loving and concerned mother is suggesting I seek medical attention. Mean while I am diggin through the first aid kit to get the Forecepts (it is a good first aid kit) I would much rather have a family member rip out a tic and small chunk of arm for free than wait in a lobby for an hour plus then pay a doctor to rip out said tic and chunk of arm.

critical interjection - I believe in doctors and ERs they save lives but I knew they where just gonna pull the tic out and that I would have to 1. wait forever and 2. pay no small amount of money. The thing a doctor could and may have done in this case that I could not was prescribe an antibiotic to insure that I did not contract Lyme Discease. I know the symptoms for Lyme discease if any showed up I could make an apointment to see a doctor. If you are bitten by a tic and have any doubt as to how long it has been on you or are uncomfortable with the prospect of having only half a tic embedded in you, then by all means go see a doctor.

With the forecepts and a decent tug dad removed the tic. To our surprise it was still alive, we quickly resolved that.

I have a nastly little hole in my arm that spent two days being red and irrittated. I did further research the next morning and it confirmed that removing a tic with a good set of tweezers was the best technique and afterwards using a sawyer extractor or evan just an alchol wipe on the bite. I also found that a tic could not realiticly transmit Lymme Discease unless it is on you a minimum of six hours and has become engorged.

Well now we know (and knowing is half the battle)

moderatly exciting car news

Two or so weeks back a friendly law enforcement officer pulled me over and called to my attention the fact that my car is not operating legally. This I had infact known.

Largely as a result of this, but also due to my desire not to have my car break into two or more peices as I drive over a speed bump in my apartment complex, I took my car to see its doctor. I had the car doctor replace the front drive axils, greatly reducing the risk of the car breaking in two. I also had them look at the brakes, I did not need a brake job... I needed my master cyclander replaced. This was not in my budget so I will put it off until later. Who needs to be able to stop any ways.

Oddly neither of these had anything to do with what the law enforcement officer told me, but I have a week or two left to worry about all that.

Now the exciting news. Jordan, Jeremy, and anyone else who has been a passenger in my car most like would confirm that the passenger side window has been down and in opperable for the past... forever. This was still the case when I took the car in to see its doctor, but when I picked it up (drum roll please) the window was up. They didn't even charge me for it, even though on a previous quote they had said $70 to repair it. I guess they just saw the loose whatsit and plugged back in the thing-a-mujigger well they were doin' there thing.

Any ways Jordan at least should be excited by this.

fun with ropes

I have been reading up lately on rock climbing rappelling and canyoneering, you know just to build my repotoir. (feel free to visit www.chockstone.org) and earlier this week I decided I needed to get out some gear and try some of these new techniques in the safty of my own back yard before I found myself in a field situation where my life depends on my ability to tie a prusik knot.

Well, as is so ofte the case I started by heading to the store. Actually I started by heading to my fathers garage, he had most of what I would need so I climbed onto the roof and found an anchor for my static line and tied it off. Then I went and bought the thing I needed, 15 feet of static accessory cord to tie into two 3 foot loops (the thing I wanted was a pair of mechanical ascenders but they run $125 a pair)

I got back to my parent and went online to make sure I was tying my joining knots and my prusick knots correctly. It was about then that Jordan got home, good now I had a spotter. I dragged him out to where my rope was tied off and told him I was gonna climb up to the top of it and his job was to keep me from dying.

The technique I used was pretty crude but it worked. I stood with each of my feet in a loop of cord that was tyied to my rope. I would first lift a foot slide that foots knot up transfer my body weight to that loop and bring the other loop/foot up to it and then repeat. I was not harnessed in and to come back down I used the same technique in reverse. I then spotted Jordan as he gave it a try.

Next I went back online and compaired my experiance with how it looked on paper. The "right way to do it" was of course much more safty concious. I tried on the one prefabb'ed sport harness my father owns and no matter how hard I tried I knew I was not gonna squeeze in there. So... I had jordan put it on and we went back out to the rope.

This time I shortened on of the loops and clipped it to his harness, the other loop I left long for his foot again. The techniques was now to step up, slide the harness loop up the rope, sit so you are hanging by a little rope with no hands or feet involved and slide the foot loop up high enought hat you could step up again. Although it is DEFINATLY the safer of the two, I think it is slightly more unsettling. (you may all note that it was jordan in the harness and me on the ground)

Once Jordan gets up to the top I tell him to clip into the anchor above the rope so that none of his weight is on the rope. At this time my loving parents wander back to check out what I was upto. Jordan is dangling not I like a pinata with no ability to climb or jump down and I start a conversation with my father. Now I don't forget Jordan completely, I toss him a "figure eight" (a peice of gear for rappelling [sliding] down the rope) and give him insructions for using it. I then tell him to untie the loops he had used to get up the rope. Once he get the figure eight inplace and clipped to his harness I do what is called a "fireman's belay" to keep him from sliding until he is ready as he unties the prusick loops.

Next I let go of the rope and tell him to rappel down, that is when this gets fun for those of us watching (well it was kind of amuzing to see how Jordan grabbed the rope with both hands above him In what he thought was the right possition to rappel, but that isn't the really funny part). If you think back I had jordan clip to the anchor above the rope now he has slid down just a few inches and discovered that he is still clipped in up there. He now has no way to raise himself up a few inches to unclip either because we undid the prusicks so Jordan is dangling 12ish feet off the ground by a little cord trying to somehow pull himself up and unclip the it. In short it was good times to watch. He did eventually get the traction he needed on the side of the garage to lift himself up and unclip and the rappell back down and I would never have left him there if he had said he needed help. But it was fun to stand on the ground with mom and dad telling him not to get the side of the garage dirty with his shoes and him strugling for all he's worth to get just an inch higher.

I am glad Jordan played along with me on that. I learned a lot of lessons in both what I did and what I watched him do. Next time I need to find a real cliff.

My internet

the following list includes many of my favorite websites

www.terraserver.microsoft.com I am a map geek. Terraserve features a comprehensive topographic data base as well as hi-res satilite photos.

www.en.wikipedia.org this is an online encyclopedia that I use all the time. It is user editable and I find it to be very comprehensive.

www.dictionary.com is an online dictionary that I use often, they have a word-of-the-day that I often visit.

www.gmail.com I have a hotmail account and a gmail account and gmail rocks.

www.sluggy.com this is a silly online comic that I often visit and read I also read dilbert and Get Fuzzy online.

www.gorp.com this page has info on trails, parks, and other outdoor activities. It is not as user friendly as I'd like but it is a decent page that I use to gather camping data.

www.waterfallswest.com is an index of water falls with topo maps and trail discriptions.

www.google.com I use google for most of my searchs.

www.downloads.com this site has freeware and trial ware and I have found some great software there.

www.tmbg.com and www.tmbw.net I am a They Might Be Giants fan and these are the pages visit to keep upto date on my band.

and of course www.blogger.com

There are other pages that I visit but these are the sites I spend the most time at.

Inheritance

My uncle brian is in town this week trying to get the estate of my late grand father in order. Early on we were each asked if there was anything that had been special to us or that we wanted. In my case there are a number of items, the first was a pair of cufflinks. I have a well know affinity for french cuffed shirts and a rather respectable collection of cufflinks, so I wanted a pair of my grandfathers to add to the collection. The second was a rotary phone. In my grandfathers house he alwasy had rotary phones and I am young enough that I associate them closely with my grandfather and time spent at his house (my mother got the brass canon that is the other thing I think of when I think about going to grandpa's as a child.) I also asked for some music and some of his camera equipment.

As a teenager I wanted to go into photography and I had used much of grandpa's extensive collection of older camera equipment. Much to my surprise I was given ALL of that photo equipment, this I think was in part because I know what it is and knew that he had it so that I could ask for it. The other half of the reason would be that it is essentially all obsolete and I own a camera that is old enough that it works with his lenses.

The other things I resceived from the estate are a large number of dress shoes. many of which are dancing shoes.

I am pretty jazzed about the things, now all I have to do is figure out where I can keep all of it.

Hey Devon

This week I got 500 little army men.

keep working hard and when you get home I might let yu play with them :c)

On Singning.

(more update leading to current stuff)

I have always appreciated music. Music can be used as a tool to adjust mood and feeling. When pulling all nighters I often use carefully selected music to help keep me awake. I have a testimony of the power of music to help usher in the spirit, and it is may be more than just coincidence that I tend to go for girls with some musical talent.

But in all honesty, my family tends to lack musical talent. Until a year ago I would have said I was completely lacking in musical ability, but a year ago I decided to actual TRY something musical and was able to successfully teach myself to play the recorder (you know that little flute like instrument) and in the process I learned to read music. So, I know longer can say I am totally I am musically inept but I acknowledge it is not a strong suit of mine.

In November Jeff Heatherly approached me and told me he was forming a ward choir, and that he was greatly in need of men. He also told me that the reason he was asking me to join the choir was because he saw in me a desire to praise the lord in song. I explained to him that I was willing to try but that I am essentially tone deaf, in other words, if you play a note and I sing a note I cannot tell you if I was on the right note. Jeff promised to work with me and I agreed to participate in the choir.over the next few weeks my humble little ward's humble little choir practiced Silent Night a few times each week after church working on developing four part harmony. I also met with Jeff a few times and received, not voice lessons but lessons in music theory and principal. A big problem for me was that I was the only tenor, to help me and the choir as a whole Jeffery was also singing tenor as the choir conductor. This meant that if I watched and listened closely for Jeff I could try and sing what he was singing but if I lost him I was completely lost (this meant that I would end up trying to sing the melody with the sopranos).

On Christmas Sunday the ward choir sang and I feel we did fine. I still have a long way to go before being anything more than some one who wants to sing, but I am trying.

This leads me to some more current events...Last week we opened Elder's Quorum by singing "How Firm a Foundation" we had good attendance in Quorum but Jeff was not there. Our new bishop conducted and Bob Houghton who is in our bishopric was present lending us a powerful trained bass. We sang unaccompanied and it was the best I have EVER heard our quorum.This week we had most of the same people, still know Jeff but also no Bob, and for reasons that cannot be adequately explained I was the one "conducting" (or at least waving an arm around while standing at the front of the room) and this week we once again sounded borderline cacophonous. How is it possible that 18 men can sing so well together and then a week later 14 of those same men can not sing together at all? I just don't understand. (Any of my elder reading this should know that I am simply being honest and am not attacking any one persons musical abilities)

Tonight after church Jordan and I went to the YSA fireside. It was a Hymn-along conducted by a brother from my home ward. We sang together many of my favorite hymns and I felt the spirit greatly as we raised our voices in praise to God. I truly do love music, I just wish I had more ability to do it well.

Liquid Nitrogen

(more update)

(warning: the following post kind of rambles)

Back in mid December my father came home and told me he had found something he was willing to held me buy as a christmas present, and told me to guess what it was. My first guess was a sailboat, no not this month. I ventured a few more guesses and then gave up. So he told me. At the Army Navy store here in town he had seen an MVR Lab-20 liquid nitrogen dewar that appeared to be intact for a mere pitance, actualy 45 pitance, but that is still a great deal. (I did a bit of research and replacing it would run about $1000)

The next morning I took the $20 he gave me and my wallet and went to the Army Navy store. The guy who runs the store asked what the heck it was... that would be why it was only $45. that and the good chance that it didn't work. So, a few days later I took the dewar over to the local welding suply store (that is where you go to buy L2N) and told the guy that I wanted to buy a few liters of liquid nitrogen to see if my dewar was any good. He begins to fill it and I ask what It will cost, his responce is that it is kind of expensive. A minute later he asks how much I had wanted and I said "about five liters" I once again ask what that will cost. He responds by telling me that to fill the dewar would run about $80-$100 (quick math five liters for around $20, okay) not long after that L2N starts poring out the top of my dewar. The guy then looks at me and asks "were you paying cash" when I respond in the affirmitive he says " that will be ten bucks" and then helps me load up. Now I had figured liquid nitrogen at $2-$2.50 per liter so I guess I bought some liquid nitrogen that had "fallen of the back of a truck" if you know what I mean (nudge nudge wink wink)

So with 20 liters of commercial grade liquid Nitrogen I decide to call Avi who lets me know people are getting together at his house and we should do Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream. Now let me explain to you for a moment the virtues of L2N Ice Cream... Most people who have had home made ice cream agree that it is better than store bought ice cream this is because it is fresh it has no perservitives and you can make what ever flavor you want. The down side to home made ice cream is that it takes a couple hours to make, it is often softer that some people like and if the lid did not seal correctly it can end up salty. Now if you take all the good things about home made ice cream and get rid of all the bad things you have liquid nitrogen ice cream. each batch take about five minutes to make, it can be chilled to soft serve or to these super frozen ice cream nuggets depending on how you like it, and each person in the room can pick their own flavor if they want.

Anyway that night I cranked out a half dozen differant batches of ice cream rangeing from strawberry to eggnog. That was a week and a half ago and right now I still have a liter sitting in the bottom of my dewar so I guess it works fine. If you are trowing a party and want an ice cream bar just let me know I will do it for cost.

Feather Falls

I always want to go camping. This past week I even thought I'd get to, but my work schedule would have only let me do a simple overnighter and I didn't have much luck finding anybody to go with me overnight. I did, however, have two friends willing to going hiking with me for the day.

Tuesday morning I got of from working the overnight shift at 7:00 and drive to Crystle's place where I took the gear and food that was in my truck and moved it to her car and the the two of us went and picked up Avi. (Crystal is the girls that went camping with me over spring break and Avi is featured in the post about jewish weddings.) The weather forecasts for the day all agreed that it would be wet and the roads were in pretty bad shape but we were determined so we hit the rode about 8:45.

The drive took just over two hours, the trailhead is past lake Oroville near Yuba City. We were the only car parked at the trail and I figured we wouldn't see anybody else on the trail since the sky was drizzling on us already. The trail is a loop with the lower section running about 3.5 miles and the upper trail a mile longer, we decided we would hike in on the lower trail and if time and energy permited we would finish the loop on the way out, if not we would come out on the lower trail and save a mile on the round trip.

As we hiked in we saw salimanders crawling along at the side of the trail and lots of differant kind of mushrooms growing in the woods. The mushrooms lead to Avi and I discussing old friends from high school and the jewish and mormon perspectives on forgiveness. Crystal was most likely bored out of her mind by this topic but we tried hard to keep her close to us. By the time we got close to the Falls she wanted very much to sit and rest, so she she went to the look out and Avi and I headed to the top of the Fall itself.

The power of the Falls is truely magnificent. Avi and I roped up and went out to the very edge. The view of the canyon below way amazing and few things encourge respect and awe of nature like standing at the top of a 600 foot drop on wet rocks after only a few minuets we scrambled back up to the trail and head back to meet Crystal. I then notice I had left my walking stick back at the falls Avi balked a little but Crystal, who was there when I first picked it up understood why I decided to run back and get it.

We took the lower trail back out for two reasons the first was that Crystal was getting worn out and didn't think she could do the long hike and the second was that Avi was supposed to be back home for a family dinner at 5:00. The hike out really taxed Crystal and Avi was stressing because there was no way we could even get home by 6:00 at that point and we wouldn't have cell signal until we had been on the road for half an hour or so. I feel bad for Crystal because we kept pushing her instead of letting her stop and rest everytime she wanted to. Also the rain was really falling on us as we hiked out, my hands to really cold and even I rain gear we were all pretty well soaked by the time we got to the car.

Even with the downside we each had a good time, and we were each glad to get back to the car (well I would have been more glad to be getting back to a tent and staying but we can't always get what we want). We got back around 7:00 and Avi's Family had waited for us to join them for dinner. After that Crystal and I went and soaked in a hot tub for a half hor or so and then it was time for bed.

update

So, the past month has been… complicated for me on many different levels. I haven’t wanted to put my thoughts on paper especially somewhere that people I know could read them, but the time is here to get over that. To maintain the integrity of the record I have posted entries about the things that have happened since I last did an entry.

After SF with Marquel

We drove from SF to Oakland to see the temple all dressed up for Christmas. We went into the visitor center and did the interactive display on family. I had not seen it before and I thought it was very well done. Much of it is based around the story of a family losing their grandfather, and having just lost a grandfather it was kind of emotional for me. Next we watched to evening concert, it was a father and daughter and I thought that they did a very good job. The daughter was only about 15 and I was impressed by how well she did especially.

After the concert ended Marquel and I started to wander the grounds. We ended up on the terrace and there was a "we need to have a talk" moment. the kind of "we need to have a talk" that make your head fall to your feet. As we sat on a bench and looked out into the night, Marquel told me that she enjoyed going on dates with me but didn't want anything more than that right now. She had been dating John for so long that she felt that she needed to be single for a while and become reaquanted with who she is. The problem with this is that I was falling in love with her, but I knew she was right.

That night and the next morning I thought a lot about what she had told me she needed and about where I was emotionaly. The next morning we had a previosly schedualed date to have breakfast and see "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" during breakfast we didn't talk about the conversation from the night before. We went from breakfast to the theater in our seperate cars and after the movie I walked her to her car and told her the decision I had come to. " didn't think I could just hang out with her and go on casual dates I needed to give her space so she could find out who she is with out me getting hurt. I told her I was deleting her number from my phone and that for at least a month I would only see her at firesides and other activities that we would both be at. then I opened her door gave her a hug and walked away.

I still have feeling for her. I have seen her a couple of times since then and last night we talked for a while. I beleive very much that she should know who she is, my one concern is that her Exes aren't giving her that space and I fear that she will go back to dating one of them, witch would prevent her from learning what she needs to about herself and would lower the odds of me have another chance with her in the future.

back to SF with Marquel

One of the more amusing things done during this blog hiatus was head on a trip to San Francisco with Marquel and her roomies and their respective beaus.

We took off around 9:00 and wound through the city for half an hour or so and ended up at the palace of fine arts. Now, I am well aware that San Francisco has more landmark buildings than any other city on the west coast, coit tower, the trans american pyramid, the ferry building at embarcadero, Ghirardelli Square, etc, etc, but my two favorite, by far, are their city hall and the palace of fine arts, not only are both beautiful but I have fond memories of each. So when the group decided that we would stop and visit the palace of fine arts, I was in complete agreement.

After climbing out of the car we started down the side walk causing the upset to the indolent pigeons who were loitering there. the pigeons in that park are so lazy that as I passed one that was sitting on a fence I reached out and hit it with the back of my hand. I found it very amusing that I was able to do this. Shortly there after we were roaming beneath the grand cupola and I decide I was in the mood for an adventure... I many circles it is common knowledge that this mood of mine is often followed by mischief. it so happens that some of the smaller service buildings adjacent to the palace of fine art's rotunda have terraced planter beds by witch means someone could have perhaps accessed said service buildings roof, and while that someone was on the roof the rest of their party may have joined them there and two lovely young ladies may have even gotten into a scarf fight and practiced ballet pirouettes. Now, that is something that may perhaps have happened at some point to someone. While the six of us were there we wandered the grounds and utterly enjoyed ourselves without once being addressed by security or any law enforcement personnel.

After we ate lunch at the PoFA we drove and parked at Fort Mason. I feel one of SF's great treasures, and best kept secrets is free parking at Fort Mason one block from Ghirardelli Square and two blocks from the Hyde st. trolley and a mile tops from pier 39.

At Ghiradelli Square we bumped into Nathan, his girl friend and the magnificent Courtney, with whom we sat in the Ghirardelli café and had coco. After the café we wandered the shops and began a leisurely walk towards the pier 39. It had been decreed by fiat from some one in our party that we would have clam chowder there for dinner. We ended up at the toy museum at fisherman’s wharf with several cold girls and not much desire to keep going, so I went back and got the car and met back up with everyone, while I was getting the car they got chowder except Marquel who doesn’t like chowder. She was very cold and it took her a while to warm up inside the car.

I have made many trips down to SF over the years and in all honesty I don’t think I have ever had a bad day in that city.