Friday night climbing

Ouch. Last night was another great night of climbing. My fingertips and toes are killing me in a “hurts so good” kind of way. Here's the quick & dirty:

• I beat a V3 bouldering problem that's been laughing at me.
  
• I zipped up two, 5.10a top roping routes and then got destroyed by a 5.10b route.
  

I gave the 5.10b route three tries but I couldn't get myself over the ledge, half way up the route (and the ledge wasn't even the crux of it!). Next time... next time... With all this warm weather we're having I hope to get down to Rat Rock in Central Park this weekend. I haven't climbed on real rock since last fall and I miss it.

As usual, the Friday night rock climbing session was followed by a greasy meal at the Ocean View Diner and a few good games of chess. Have I beaten Chris yet? No. I'm starting to get bitter about that! Playing against him is better than playing against a computer (slightly), but it's still discouraging when it takes me five minutes to make my move and he captures my pieces while salting his french fries. I'm getting better though, and games are lasting a lot longer than they used to.

Chris destroys me at another game of chess.

Grinded

Last night I met Chris at Grand Central Station after work and we headed over to Brooklyn Boulders for another Friday night climbing session. We seem to be getting better and better, which is pretty awesome. We both scaled a few 5.10a routes right off the bat and took care of a few tricky V2 & V3 bouldering problems. I love seeing improvement. I wish I had time to climb more than once a week though. I even ran into a coworker at the gym, who I've been talking to about climbing & mountaineering.

As usual, we wound up at the Ocean View Diner afterwords for a few games of chess. And, as usual, Chris kicked my ass yet again. I'm getting better though; my chess muscle is growing. We both had a laugh at the Friday night special: "Grinded" spicy chicken burger.

Continuity

It's been a busy but great weekend. I'm Feeling good mentally and physically and I got a lot done. Friday night, I climbed with my friend Chris at Brooklyn Boulders. This was probably the best night of indoor climbing both of us have ever had. I took care of a 5.9+ route with a hell of a crux and cleaned a V2 bouldering problem that is 90% upside down. But where I "hit the wall" so to speak, Chris pushed right on, cleaning a difficult 5.10A route and a new 5.9 on the suspended, inverted, obelisk. Damn you Chris, you've raised the bar again! After BKB, we hit up the Ocean View diner in Brooklyn and played a few games of Blockus Duo over tasty (fairly) burgers before calling it a night around midnight. When I got back to my building in Manhattan around 1:00am I walked in through the trash room and snagged a lamp someone had thrown away thinking: I need a lamp like this, whatever's wrong with it will be fun to fix.

I woke up Saturday morning around 8:00 and went for a run. It was 38°F and misting but it felt great to run so early through my hazy, sleepy neighborhood. I made a loop around The Cloisters, passing the overlook that gave a view to upper Manhattan and farther off; the Bronx. For a while I jogged along looking down on the Hudson River through dense fog and mist. I got a small high from the sight of it and a generally good feeling swept over me. I finished 2.5miles later.

Let there be light:

Fixing the lamp was fun. I used my multimeter to determine that the foot-tap switch was the culprit. I couldn't get any continuity through the circuit when the switch was closed so I took it apart to see what the deal was. Inside, the foot-tap switch, I found corrosion and arching damage. When I dug deeper into the switch I found it was melted and badly damaged so I decided to scrap it and hard-wire the lamp without a switch for the time being. Today I'll take a trip to the hardware store and see if I can find a foot-tap switch for this baby. She works (the lamp's of the female gender, don't ask me why) but I need to find a switch if I want to avoid plugging it in every time I need it.

After "fixing" the lamp, I went in to work. The purpose was two-fold. I needed to pick up my W-2's I left in my desk and I thought I might crank out a few project letters while I was there. I ended up staying for five hours, working by the light of my desk lamp and the sounds of Morrissey, I cranked out nine project letters and felt fantastic when I left the office at 6:00pm.

Now it's 9:00am Sunday morning. I've got my laundry in the drier, a hot cup of coffee by my side and life is good. I plan to attend an Introduction to Meditation class at the Interdependence Project this afternoon, but other than that and watching the Super Bowl, I have no other obligations.

Boldly bouldering

My wife took this snapshot of me last year while we walked through Fort Tryon and The Cloisters. I couldn't resist climbing this easy face. Looking back, I realize how dangerous the climb was, with my shaking limbs and bald sneakers. I'm anxious to get back to this rock with some new skills, a chalk bag and climbing shoes. In only a couple of visits to Rat Rock and Brooklyn Boulders I've already developed some skills for pebble wrestling. It's going to be a fun summer.

I've been picking up some gear in preparation for some sport climbing this summer (If I'm ready by then). So far I've got a good harness, shoes, chalk bag, a few locking biners, an ATC belay device and a set of six bent gate quick draws.