"Experts said this is going to be a very busy hurricane season. To which FEMA said, 'Not for us.'"
---Jay Leno

Unbelievable weekend. Even though I had a shift at work on Saturday, I had a phenomenal weekend. Camped at Eightmile Crossing on the east side of Hood in Mt Hood National Forest. Climbed at Bulo Point. Ate some great food prepared by my lovely wife Devon and our friend Jamie. Devon climbed a couple of 5.7 rock routes. Jamie climbed technical rock for the first time ever and did great. I got on a 5.9 route and lead the climb for the first time ever. Milestone climb. Fun and scary. Great route too - grippy rock, good exposure and well bolted.

Pardon me while I bask in the afterglow.

Hmmm. Here's a bullet point for one of the proposed "improvement" the the Intellectual Property Protections proposed by the lovely AG Alberto Gonzalez:

* Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America. That would happen when CDs with "unauthorized fixations of the sounds, or sounds and images, of a live musical performance" are attempted to be imported. Neither the Motion Picture Association of America nor the Business Software Alliance (nor any other copyright holder, such as photographers, playwrights or news organizations, for that matter) would qualify for this kind of special treatment.

Why exactly would the Department of Homeland Security be required to notify the RIAA of anything? Last time I checked, the RIAA used questionable tactics to recoup supposedly "lost revenues" from private citizens on behalf of an industry that pushes more and more marginal pap out as "fresh" and "innovative" entertainment. The DoHS protects us from terrorists (I know, I know, but that topic provides fodder for an entirely different rant). Two independent agendas. Sounds like someone wants to bend government resources to protect an industry that can't survive on its own merits.

Amazing day to ride in to work. Perfect mid 50's weather. Sunny. Light breeze. And I caught green on both the lights at the bottom of the Interstate hill in my commute. The extra speed I retained from coming down that hill without needing to stop shaved 3-5 minutes from my ride in.
It doesn't hurt that I cruised by the cars at the bottom of the hill doing 25 mph either.

Nate and Sue and I climbed Mount Hood yesterday (Saturday May 12th). My first glaciated summit. And we didn't climb the "easy" South Side route (not that any snow covered, glacier climb can really be called easy) and instead went up the slightly more difficult but truly incredible Leuthold Couloir route. Pictures speak more eloquently than my words can. See them here.

Score one for Craigslist. Dev got a snowboard, boots and bindings for $70 last night. Neat graphics on the board. Decent condition. And the boots fit right. Of course, the season's pretty much over right now. Nevertheless, she's very excited about the new toy.

Here's an example of how weird it is to live in my head.

I wear glasses as most of you who read this already know. I started swimming. I cannot see in regular swim goggles so I need prescription goggles. Fortunately, the swimming industry is kind enough to make these optically corrective goggles pre-fabricated in half step diopters (-1, -1.5, etc through -10). I did a little research and found a couple of brands online and got an idea of pricing ($20-$30).

Now, I like to support local business where I can. In theory this means that if I can buy something from a local company, then I will even if I don't get quite as good a deal. After all, local business dollars go back into the local economy. You can build a friendly relationship with the shopkeepers and the other customers. Just good things all over the place. Except, generally, for price. The local shop that has the goggles in stock charges nearly double what they cost online ($40).

I'm a pretty miserly guy. I grew up learning to spend my money wisely (and sparingly). Find a good price and all that. So this price discrepancy sets me back for a minute. And I put the goggles on hold for a couple of days so I can think about my options. Dev kind of groans and asks if it's really this hard to be me. She's amazed at the amount of energy that I spend talking to myself on both sides of the issue.

Now here's the thing: $20 in and of itself isn't really a big difference one way or the other. But I had to wrestle my "save money" side to the mat with my "save local business" side. And if $20 sets off this kind of internal debate, what happens when I can save $100 on something through mail order?

So there it is. Can you hear Dev laughing in the background at my silliness?

"Hey David, what are you doing on your day off?"

Scraping paint. All. Day. Long. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. A day off to scrape paint. I am truly living the dream.

Yay.

I want one of these: Vike Trike

I cleaned the gutters on the house for the first time in...well, lets say in a very long time. So much time had elapsed since the last cleaning that I spent almost 30 minutes cleaning old growth forest off my roof. Another month and I would have had to get a logging license from the state of Oregon to harvest timber in the State Park of David and Devon. I really wouldn't want to wade through the protesters trying to stop the timber sale.

I think I'll check the gutters a little more frequently now.

I got hailed on twice last night on the way home. The cloud bands that threw down rain on us all day changed up just in time for the evening commute. The clouds sttill hid the sun and tiny drops rained down in a light sprinkle, so I suited up in my rain gear and started pedaling down the Eastbank Esplanade. The sun came out as I made it half way down the riverfront path, and then the rain started pounding down in fat drops. The sunshine stayed bright through the rain.

Just after I topped out at the north end of the Esplanade (the intersection of Oregon and Lloyd streets), the clouds cut lose with even bigger raindrops and pea sized hail. The deluge lasted less than 10 minutes. As the sun faded out, so did the precipitation. I toodled along for another 20 minutes until I hit Willamette Blvd on the home stretch of my commute. Again, the sun came out. From the river-front crest of the roadway I could see the entire shipyard and industrial district below shrouded in a thick white blanket. Not fog, but more rain. Less than a minute later I got increasing rain and hail for 5 minutes, then the darkness of cloud cover and decreasing rain.

A fun ride with some great sky to watch. I need to start carrying a camera to share these sorts of nights and sights.

Off again on again thundershowers keep rollin' through.

Awesome Bill Maher rant here.

Dev stayed "home" from work yesterday. Weird headache and nausea problem. She feels way better today.

Saturday's lesson: 3800 feet of elevation gain on an 8.3 mile hike equals sore legs.
Elk Mountain and Kings Mountain in the Coastal range are glorious though.

Sunday's lesson: Rock climbing doesn't have to be uber-technical to be lotsa fun! Horsethief Butte graced us with gorgeous weather the entire day. We got to climb on fun, blocky rock in hiking boots.

Another day, another flat. :-(

Slip sliding to fun

My Basic Climbing Education Program group went to Timberline Lodge to practice our snow techniques. The rain pelted us all day long for the whole practice. And I still had a blast. The best part involved glissading.

Definition
glis·sade (glĭ-säd', -sād') n.
A controlled slide, in either a standing or sitting position, used in descending a steep icy or snowy incline.

Glissading is the most fun thing ever. You sit down on the top of the snow slope. A slope that you can see the whole runout. A slope that is not on a glacier (crevasses!). So you sit down in your waterproof pants. And you grab your ice ax and hold it off to your side with the spike down near the snow and the pick facing away from you. This is your brake and rudder. Then you pick up your heels slightly and start sliding.

Unbelievable amounts of fun follow. I could spend all day glissading.

Eschewing titles

Unless a post just really cries out for a unique title, I'm going to leave posts untitled. The effort of formulating a witty, funny and accurate title often outweighs the import and substance of a post. So mini essays might get one while travel status messages and on-the-go posts from my phone will remain unlabeled.

As usual, if my meta-ramblings bug you then drop me a line. Or leave a comment.

Facebook is not yet lighting my world on fire. It's got some cool features, like linking to friends of friends. And the cell phone alerts make it pretty handy for on-the-go updates. Seems like Blogger (this site) plus Twitter could accomplish a very similar goal. I probably just haven't hit the critical mass of people linked up to me for the site to really click (or is that clique?) for me. We'll see - I'll give it a few more days.

Dev made it safe to Charlotte.