Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in hillybiker's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, October 6th, 2007
2:53 pm	Back from Tanzania It was definitely a trip of a lifetime! We arrived in Tanzania and the first day we went out to Arusha National Park where we got in a safari drive as well as a 2 hour walk with a ranger, who took us within 50 ft of cape buffalo and some giraffes! Also by a nice waterfall. Because we were in the wild, he carried a rifle but it stayed firmly on his shoulder the entire time. The next day, we were on our way to the start of hiking up Mt Kilimanjaro (which probably should just be called Kilimanjaro since the Kili part in Swahili means mountain ;-) Unfortunately, on the way there we had to stop in downtown Arusha because the 1 other lady who had joined our group had forgotten to pack her camera and therefore needed to buy another one. That delayed us by about an hour. Then on the way there, the van broke down, probably from all of the really, really fine dust that was everywhere during the dry season (a bearing seized up in the alternator). They managed to get another van, but we had yet another 1 hr delay. Thus, we didn't get to the Machame entrance gate until about 1pm, and started hiking about 1 hr later, so we were some of the last people to get started that day. We did manage to make it to camp prior to dark, but our travelling companion didn't (she turned out to be very, very slow the whole time -- she almost quit that first day). After that, things went much more smoothly ... we regularly managed to hike the sections in about the time described or less, with the other lady always at least 2 hrs behind us. It was an absolutely gorgeous route, starting out through cloud forest with vines, moss, etc hanging all over the place, then through sub-alpine and alpine areas with stunning views. One of the most memorable things we did was take an optional route over to the "Lava Tower" which is a big (probably 250 ft tall) upthrust of rock in the middle of nowhere. We got up to it and it looks like a straight up cliff, so when our guide asked "Do you want to climb up it?" I thought he was joking and said something like, "Sure, where's the rope?" However, he wasn't joking at all and took us around to a side that wasn't quite so steep (although still pretty cliff-like) and up we went! At that time, we were probably already at 12-13,000 ft elevation, so the going was slow due to both lack of oxygen as well as being really careful about our footing and handholds. It was very foggy at the time, but just after we managed to scramble to the top, the clouds broke up for about 5 minutes and we got great views, waved and hollered down to the folks on the ground below, and had a wonderful time. Once we were back down (after quite a bit more scrambling) Christine's confidence was way up and she was ready to tackle everything else without any problem. We had heard some scary stories about an upcoming feature called the Barranco Wall, but after the Lava Tower it was a piece of cake ;-) Onward we went until, after climbing over the Barranco Wall the following day, we camped at our final and highest camping spot, Barafu Camp at over 15,000 ft. We got here early and tried to get an afternoon nap, because we would have to get up at 11pm to have some food and drink before starting for the summit at just after midnight. We then tried to go to bed at 8pm to get in a few more winks of sleeps, but it didn't work too well. So, up at 11 and then we started our ascent. We both had helmet lights, but Christine's planning had been impeccable ... we were just a couple of days short of a full moon, so I never even needed to turn my light on. We started out climbing up a medium steep and quite rocky area which was pretty easy, but then eventually we got to a steeper very loose dirt/gravel/sand and was very hard to climb since it was slippery and sometimes you foot would slide backwards. Also, we were now over 17,000 ft, so every effort was difficult, our footsteps were very small, barely managing to put one foot past the other. This was, by far, the hardest section of the trek ... because it went on for hours, all the way from 17,000 ft to probably around 18,750 ft or so. We crested it just after as the sun was rising, which was really quite a sight -- absolutely gorgeous from this altitude with almost no atmosphere to interfere. And we were getting better and better views of the glaciers (which also meant that it was getting quite cold too, but we were never uncomfortable since we had come fully prepared for it). The last struggle through the loose dirt got us up onto Shira Peak, where we got a quick rest (couldn't sit still for too long due to the cold), drank some, and took some pictures, before the last climb up to Uhuru Peak, the highest point in Africa. This part only took us about 45 minutes, arriving at our destination around 7:30am, so we'd been climbing for about 7 hrs and 20 minutes. I was really starting to feel symptoms of AMS (headache and nausea) but Christine barely had any trouble at all. So, a few more pictures, and we were immediately heading back down to help relieve my AMS symptoms. It only took us 2.5 hrs to get back down to camp, but it felt actually harder to do (at least to me) than going up because it really used a lot more muscles to help protect our knees while descending, in addition to my headache and upset stomach. Christine found a neat way to get through the loose gravel, but I couldn't seem to duplicate it so she'd have to wait for me periodically. Once we got back to the rocky area, my speed improved dramatically. Back down at Barafu Camp, I got in a 2 hr nap, and then we started descending some more, all the way down to just over 10,000 ft ... so it was a very long day for us indeed, starting the previous night at 11pm and finishing up at around 4pm. But at this altitude all of my AMS symptoms had vanished and we managed to eat well and get a good night's sleep. On the way down, we caught up to 6 porters working with a guy on a stretcher who had slept too high and ended up with a very bad case of AMS. Then we saw a couple of porters bringing up a special rescue stretcher that had a motorcyle wheel with the shock mounted underneath of it ... so we watched them transfer the patient from one to the other and then start maneuvering the new one on the steep and rocky descent. It was obvious that they had done this before, but it sure didn't look comfortable for the patient, since it was an incredibly bumpy ride for him. We later found out from his group that he turned out to be OK, they got him down soon enough. The final day was several more hours of descending a fairly steep slope, until we got to exit gate. We got Christine an "I did it!" t-shirt while waiting for our companion (who didn't even try to get to the summit ... she was suffering from some AMS even before Barafu Camp, so she slept the night and then went down in the morning). After that we had 7 1/2 days of safaris in 4 different parks, where we saw lions nearly every single day, huge numbers of giraffes and elephants, uncountable types of gazelles, impalas, zebras, wildebeast, etc, but disappointingly only 1 leopard and 4 cheetahs (from far away). One of the male lions we saw with an old zebra kill, which was really cool. He didn't like everyone watching, so he eventually dragged it off which was pretty interesting to watch. We also found over 140 new species of birds that we'd never seen before. Probably our favorite was the lilac roller, an absolutely stunningly colored bird, but the 'superb' starlings (of all things) and the little bee-eaters were quite beautiful as well. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
2:08 pm	And another update Well, I finally do my first post in ages, and now I'm doing 2 of them back to back. Now I'm off to Tanzania to climb up Mt Kilimanjaro and then do several safaris. This is one of my dream, top 10 things I have to do before I die, listed items so I'm really, really excited about it. I will definitely post some entries after I get back! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
2:03 pm	A bit about Paris-Brest-Paris Right before the ride started, I turned on BBC news (which is the only english language station in France apparently) and the weather forecaster stated something like "Well, the forecast is really quite easy -- if it is not raining where you are, it will be". Ugh, and it was chilly to boot, with the highs in the upper 50s and the lows in the lower 50s or even down into the upper 40s. Since it was such poor weather, I quickly gave up on trying to make a great time and instead took my time at each control in order to dry out a bit before starting to ride again. Thus, I averaged about 1.25 hrs per control just eating, socializing with other riders, etc. Additionally, I decided to go ahead and get a fair amount of sleep since I had reserved a room in Loudeac both out and back. Unfortunately, the 1st night in Loudeac I was tired enough that when I set my watch alarm, I didn't realize it was set for PM instead of AM, so instead of sleeping for 3.5 hrs, I slept for 7.5 hrs ... which was nice, but then I had to rush and push very, very hard to make it to Carhaix prior to my time cutoff. I actually thought I came in 10 minutes late but then someone asked me which start I did which was 10:30pm (compared to the initial wave start at 9:30pm), so I actually made it by 50 minutes. I continued pushing a bit hard into Brest just to make sure I added back some buffer. Whew, I thought I had DNF'ed from oversleeping!! My on bike average speed was 16.9 mph all the way out to Brest, probably from pushing the pace hard after Loudeac. The portion into Brest was actually nice ... rain went away, sun came out, roads dried off, and I could finally paceline for a while, woohoo! However, the nice weather only lasted about 7 hrs :-( During all of the wet roads, I basically never pacelined ... I'd ride with people, but beside them so that I wasn't eating road grit. Whenever I caught up with a group, I'd give them a cheery greeting and just pass them by. The 2nd half was mostly a slog through mist/slight rain, continuously wet roads, so again I made sure to keep a couple hour buffer, but I certainly never rushed through any of the controls. Then, right after the last control in Dreux, my right achilles tendon really flared up and I ended riding single footed the last 40 miles back into the finish. There were 4 hills after Gambais that I hadn't paid much attention to, but all of a sudden with just my left leg, they became slow and painful ... almost had to get off the bike and walk up the longest/steepest one, but I managed to make it up. I must have looked like a sewing machine though, with my body bobbing up and down in order to help add force to my leg on the down stroke. Thank goodness that, through all of that, I never crashed or dropped my bike at all. The only mechanical problems were: 1 flat tire, luckily during daytime hours, and I ran out of lube for my chain and all of the control mechanics were out too! It got to the point that I felt unsafe changing my front dérailleur because it could lock up on the chain. Finally found another rider who was willing to share some of his lube. My lights worked great the whole time, but my computer stopped working for a while I think because it got wet inside. The towns in France were incredibly pretty and charming. However, I think that the thing I'll remember most about France is, unfortunately, the smell. All of Normandy and most of Brittany smelled like rancid cow manure (probably because they use spray on manure as a fertilizer), until we got out to the seacoast, at which point it smelled like rotting fish with a slight overlay of rancid cow poop. There were times where I literally tried to stop breathing because the smell was so overwhelming. People called us crazy for doing the ride, but like you I was totally amazed to see fans out at 3am in the morning, in the rain, cheering us on. Now, who's the crazy one?? ;-) That was fantastic! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, May 7th, 2007
4:07 pm	I qualified for Paris-Brest-Paris!! Woohoo, I'll be going to Paris in August for the big race against the clock (and against my own body)! I did the 400K on Apr 28th (finishing at about 12:50am on the 29th) for a total time of 18 hrs 50 minutes with somewhere around 11,900 feet of elevation gain. The biggest problem of that ride was that the temperatures were in the high 90s and low 100s, and heat is one of my biggest enemies! I practically turned red from all of the V8 juice that I drank trying to replenish some of my electrolytes. And I literally turned red in a few places where I missed putting on enough sunscreen ;-) I would have finished quite a bit faster, but decided to trade off spending time in air conditioned mini-marts instead of riding in that dreaded heat, as well as a 1 hr siesta that I took in the shade from 6:30-7:30pm, just enough to let the heat break and get a fresh start. My worst injury was a very, very sore bottom. The 600K occurred this past weekend and was quite a bit more grueling in that it was a night time start (just like the PBP is) on a Friday that I worked for most of the day, so I was up for nearly 48 hrs continuously except for two 1 hr cat naps. Additionally, it started only 6 days after I had just finished the 400K, which up until that point was the longest ride I had ever done. And my bottom was still pretty tender to begin with, ouch. This ride only had about 11,400 ft of climbing (less than the 400k) but they were much more difficult and exhausting because instead of lots of rolling hills, it had 4 climbs with 9-10% grades that lasted for 2-4 miles each. Climbing those really sapped the endurance juice out of me, even in my 34x25. This brevet was put on by a different bike club than the 200, 300 and 400Ks that I had done previously, and it was *magnificently* supported, better than almost anything I've ever done except for the Seagull Century back in Maryland. There were 7 intermediate rest stops and I spent about 1/2 hour at 5 of them, and managed to catch a 1 hour nap at 2 of them, the first one at the rest stop just prior to the turnaround point and the second one with about 100 miles left to go. This last nap proved to be sufficiently restorative that once I got to the last rest stop with 45 miles left, another fellow and I took turns pulling (with 2 others hanging in our draft) for an average speed of 21 mph all the way to the finish, including conquering a fairly major hill along the way. I have no idea where that came from since I really haven't had nearly the bank of miles that I had been hoping for prior to these rides, but it sure was tempting to hit the finish line with not a single calorie of energy left to burn. Injury sustained on this ride includes a butt that is simply too sore to talk about as well as a right knee that is swollen and tender, probably from not being perfectly dialed in on the bike. Managed to drive home, get a shower and then caught some ZZZs on Sunday morning, ate food, slept, ate food, and then went out to dinner (pasta, 'natch) and a movie (Spiderman 3, which was OK -- I needed something pretty brain dead since I was still pretty out of it). Then on Monday morning first thing, I had to go to the court house to serve jury duty. Waited around for nearly 5 hours and then they told me that I wasn't needed after all. Current Mood: accomplished (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 30th, 2007
6:18 am	Accomplished my 400KM ride Well, I finished the 400K (just under 250 miles) this weekend, starting at 6am on Sat morning and finishing before 1am Sun morning (the time limit was 9am so I beat the clock by over 8 hours). This was a very challenging one for 2 reasons: 1) I had never ridden this far before, so it set a new personal record. 2) It was *HOT* (95F at the turn around point) and I would say out of all the things that can turn a ride sour for me, heat is the main culprit. I've figured out that even though I don't sweat much or build up salty deposits anywhere, I need to replenish my sodium & potassium even more than other folks do for some reason. So at every single stop I drank down a V8 juice, as well as having sports drink mix in my bottles at all times, and I even had to borrow an e-cap from someone during the worst of the heat. Just when the heat broke, I found a little park and had to lie down for about an hour (even fell asleep a little bit), and then I felt pretty fresh for the rest of the ride as the temp kept going down until around midnight it was back down into the 50s. This was probably good practice for the 600K because I know that I'll want to catch a nap on that one as well ... and it starts you out riding through the night (8pm start), so I would like to ride through the night and most of the next day until the temps start coming down around 6:30-7pm, catch a 1-2 hr nap, and then get going again. I got a bit sunburned, despite applying lotion twice, but my main problem is my poor bottom which is really quite sore. Hopefully it will be mostly healed by my next ride. Current Mood: accomplished (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
10:31 am	Biking hard again It certainly has been a while since I last rode a century, but I just finished a very hilly one (we climbed 2 mountains, Morgain Territory and Mount Diablo) this past Sat, then still had enough energy to do a 6.5 mile hike with Lady C and a few others on Sun, and now today I go out with a group for interval training. While I was out riding on Sat, Lady C did a very hilly 10 mile hike by herself, way to go girl! I plan on doing the full brevet series this year (which is a 200KM event in less than 13 hrs, 300KM in 20 hrs, 400KM in 26 hrs and 600KM in 40 hrs) in order to attempt to qualify for the once every 4 years PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris) in August. The PBP is 1228KM that has to be finished within 90 hrs and it includes over 33,000 ft of climbing overall, ouch! Am I crazy -- yes! But, hey, everyone has to go after something ridiculous every once in a while ;-) In other news ... not missing the East Coast very much right now with temps below 20F, yikes! This weekend was between 65-70F here, quite nice but still getting very nice and cool in the evenings. However, dreadfully missing our friends up in Boston, esp. after R gave us a call from Arisia to say that everyone was thinking of us :-( Have fun everyone! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 10th, 2006
7:47 am	Great news for Dems and bicyclists Yeah!! In Tuesday's U.S. elections, one of the government's strongest cycling advocates was returned to Congress. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN) is now the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, putting him in position to become the next chairman thanks to the new Democrat majority. According to the League of American Bicyclists, "Oberstar has been a consistent champion of bicycling issues for the past 20 years. Bicyclists across the nation can look forward to working with a fellow cycling enthusiast in the years ahead. Other Democrats with a strong bicycling pedigree who may step into leadership positions in the committee include Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio, both Democrats from Oregon." Current Mood: happy (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
5:11 pm	How to track election night? Hi all, Since I don't have TV, any suggestions for the best way to track the elections this evening? Either via radio or website or whatever. Thanks! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 6th, 2006
11:22 am	excellent weekend Well, I reached my maximum hours of vacation, so I took Friday off (although I really only took about 4-5 hours off, and then ended up working at least that much over the rest of the weekend, but whatever) and Lady C & I met some friends (hot_turkey and spicy_turkey) and went indoor rock climbing for a couple of hours, got some dinner and then went up to Rohnert Park to attend the Russian River WIne & Food Festival for the rest of the weekend. I acted as the designated driver (since I don't like wine, and if fact rarely drink at all) and we managed to hit 12 wineries on Sat and another 12-13 or so on Sunday. It was quite fun getting to see all of the vineyards and winery venues (ranging from a broken down looking barn surrounded by mobile homes to some of the nicest and fanciest architecture on the west coast), pulling grapes off the vine to taste, getting to drink basically all of the sparkling blood orange juice that I could consume (that stuff is GOOD), trying out all kinds of food and desserts, and watching my friends become quite tipsy. Upon arriving back home, we soaked in the hot tub for a while and then watched "Beyond Rangoon" before they left for the evening. The only downside was that the turkey's left their climbing stuff back up at the hotel in Rohnert Park, and I haven't heard today yet whether or not it was found by housekeeping so that they can retrieve it. Today Lady C is off to El Segundo for training, so I'm alone for the week, although I do have a "date" for tonight since Lady C has had several while I was away on travel the last several weeks. Planning on hitting a pretty inexpensive but tasty sushi place for our dinner date. I also have silking coming up on Thurs evening which is always fun. I'm definitely starting to get a little stronger, now I just need to find some folks that are significantly better than I am to practice with so that I can learn some better techniques and moves. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 22nd, 2006
8:41 am	Overdoing the exercise a bit Well, I really wiped myself out yesterday and ended up dehydrated and a major migraine headache, ouch. I managed to get off of work right at 5pm and immediately jumped on my bike and headed up into the hills. My cyclocomputer isn't working right now, but I'm pretty sure I got in around 28 miles with about 3000' of climbing, some of it quite steep. My mistake was that it turned out to be a fair bit warmer than previously so I was dressed too warming (long sleeve jersey). Then, right after I got back I grabbed snack, rinsed off the sweat, got changed and headed directly over to aerial silking practice. After about an hour I wasn't feeling well, and then I did a couple of drops and my body decided that the jerking, spinning and being upside down was just too much and *bang* the migraine kicks in. Was somewhat disabled for about 20 minutes, but then got enough energy back to help others go through a couple of forms, which was nice and then I had to leave. Got home and literally crawled into bed with some vitamin I to help -- finally managed to fall asleep, which is usually what I need to fix this type of headache. Doing well this morning thank goodness, but lesson learned -- doing my hard biking sessions on a *different* day from aerial practice. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 21st, 2006
6:00 pm	Update Well, I know that I haven't posted in a LONG time, so it's probably time to write something down. Overall, I've been pretty busy, but just didn't have anything that I either felt like sharing or thought would be interesting at all to anyone. ( So, for anyone interested, it's under the cut... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
1:20 am	Bangalore so far Well, I've been in Bangalore for a little over 2 days now. Not exactly a pretty city, but much nicer than I remember Mumbai/Bombay to be, as well as a LOT fewer beggers/homeless. Overall this city is probably the most prosperous in India. The common mode of transportation here is the auto-rickshaw which is basically a 2-stroke 50cc powered tri-cycle, but what's really different here is that they run on LPG (don't remember that from 8 or 9 years ago in Bombay). They still belch out amazing amounts of polution though, yuck! Also, I've never seen so many motorcycles in my life -- with the vast majority of them around 100cc or 125cc. Saw an ad for some proclaiming that they get 108-110 km/l which, according to both my hand calculation as well as an online conversion tool, is about 150 mpg -- WOW! No wonder they are so popular. However, almost no one wears helmets, but then again it is very hard to exceed about 25 mph due to the massive traffic congestion. Yesterday, I rented an auto-rickshaw for about 5 hours yesterday and it cost me a whopping $3 (including tip and everything). The driver was very nice, spoke quite good english, and got an understanding of what I wanted to see and do before taking me out -- and he held to going to exactly those places without trying to get me to go shopping all over (they get a small cut of anything that tourists buy at certain shops). I think that is partly because I bought him lunch (included in the $3 above, how about that!!). Spent a good amount of time in their famous botanical garden as well as the park that is part of the palace and supreme court area. Lots of birds, but I only managed to get a few reasonable photos. Today I decided to walk and probably did 10-12 miles (given my walking speed and the amount of time I spent wandering around) until the humidity and pollution forced me back to the hotel. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 13th, 2006
6:55 am	Climbing the day after silking We went climbing last night at Berkeley Ironworks, which was the day after I had practiced silking, and oh my goodness am I a sore but happy puppy. Lady C managed to get in a 5.8 but got stuck on a 5.6 that had a bit of an overhang ... I think she just needs to work through it in her head and know that as her belay I'm certainly not going to let her fall. Definitely getting better, hopefully after getting her up on the rocks for a while, I can get her on silk too. Accompanying us were spicy_turkey and hot_turkey who were working on a lot of the same ascents as Lady C was. Happy up in the air! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
1:18 pm	Silks Joy & Frustration Silkworms West is on for a regular Tues night gig and we had 4 people active last night, one other taking photos since he has a hurt shoulder currently, and another bonne lassie who was way too tired to climb last night, but will be joining us. It was really *great* getting to be back up on the silks, but also terribly frustrating because without more advanced people to watch or give me hints, I don't remember how to get into or start out many of the moves that I've been shown in the past. Luckily, today, I was provided 2 links to an aerial tissu glossary as well as some walk-through instructions which I'll be diligently studying prior to my next time up in the air. Another disappointment is that for the next 2 Tuesdays I have a conflict, so I have to see if I can hopefully, possibly, beg for some other time to practice prior to my trip to India ... I really want to get back into the groove of it ASAP. Silks, Yeah!! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 8th, 2006
6:45 pm	Bathroom #1 updated, yeah!! Well, I have fully replaced the extra wide vanity, top & sink, faucet, medicine cabinet, and above toilet storage this weekend for the hallway bathroom. And *NO* leaks, yeah!! Now I have to work on the master bathroom and it is going to be MUCH harder. It is about 84" wide, dual sinks, an incredibly heavy tile counter and backsplash (which I have to pry off without doing too much damage to the sheetrock underneath), and it is too big to fit through the doorway so I'll have to probably cut it up into sections. Oh well, one thing at a time, I'm feeling a nice sense of accomplishment right now. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
6:44 pm	Long survey This seemed somewhat interesting so I decided to fill it out... (Click here to post your own answers for this meme.) ✓ I miss somebody right now. ✓ I don't watch much TV these days.  (TV is just to play DVDs -- that way no stupid reality shows nor commercials) ✓ I own lots of books.  (over 1000, mostly SF, Fantasy and Mystery) × I wear glasses or contact lenses.  (Never have, probably will have to soon) × I love to play video games. × I've tried marijuana. ✓ I've watched porn movies. × I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship. ✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy. ✓ I curse sometimes.  (Esp at this d*#n computer :-)) ✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. × I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me. ( it goes on... ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
5:09 pm	Back from Boston Just got back from Boston and got to do aerial silks with Silkworms East while they were preparing for their show that they will be giving at Firefly next weekend, and they looked *AWESOME*. Wow, I have sooooo far to go, and unfortunately my brain was mud by the time I got to get on the silks due to taking a red-eye flight, directly into a 9a-6p meeting and then drove over for silking -- so I pretty much sucked up there, but at least got some of the feel back after only doing trapeze & hoop for the last several months. A couple of more meetings on Tues, and then I left right at 5p to drive over to Diesel Cafe to see who I could catch for the Tues Poly meetup -- hi sunspiral!! Then over to doze_e_fish and sensesurfer's home to have dinner and visit for a while. Lots of chatting about biking (since they periodically commute to work by bike) and cameras due to sensesurfer's new toys (a Canon 30D with 17-55 2.8 Image stabilized lens). He managed to get a decent pic at a 4 sec exposure while hand held, pretty amazing. Now home and preparing to fly off to visit my sister's place for a family get together over the 4th of July weekend, getting back on Monday the 3rd. Where did June go??? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 19th, 2006
7:42 am	We have Silkworms West up!! Great weekend ... I got more plants into the ground (tomatoes, bell & hot peppers, wisteria that we've grown from seeds found on the ground during our walks), then got all the cats up to date on their shots for free from the SPCA, did some house cleaning and then we headed up north to camp overnight at Ocean Cove with D&M in order to get up at the crack of dawn and go abalone diving. Mission accomplished and abs stowed, we also got in a nice hike around a marsh to do some bird watching, gorged out at Fresh Choice, and then finally arrived home to clean the saltwater off of everything and to prepare and cook one of the abs for dinner ... Yum. But the highlight of the weekend was 1.5 hrs spent 20 feet up a ladder setting up the rigging for Silkworms West to get started!! I'm very confident of the safety of this rig ... most things are even redundant (or better). There are 2 4x12 joists across the ceiling that O built a custom steel piece to go over and hang onto -- no way that it could fall down by itself, even not bolted in or anything. Drilled and then screwed in 8 lag bolts, so this baby would stay put even if one of the 4x12's broke -- probably safer up on the silk during an earthquake than on the ground :-) Then used 2 layers of 1/2" thick rubber over the inner section of the steel contraption to help protect the webbing from direct contact with metal (even though all of the edges had already been ground down and smoothed). Used 3 seperate pieces of webbing, all tied in a waterman's knot, then the heavy duty steel 'biner through all 3 pieces, then the pivot (purchased the one recommended by frobzwiththingz then another heavy duty steel 'biner, and finally the steel rescue 8 with the silk looped onto it. Good to GO! Also creating a checklist of what to do/look for on a regular basis so that we can proactively replace equipment as needed. vicissitude has a couple of cool pictures up on his LJ already. Current Mood: excited (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 12th, 2006
9:35 am	Yosemite hiking We went out and spent the weekend in Yosemite to see the waterfalls since there was such a good snowpack and it is really starting to melt, causing the water levels to be quite high. It was amazing! We climbed up to the top of Vernal and Nevada (and got absolutely soaked by the mist in the process) on Sat and then up to Upper Yosemite on Sunday. Had a very hard time getting up out of bed this morning due to sore feet and leg muscles, but what a great ache. Don't know the best place to upload and share photos, have heard good stuff about flickr, any other suggestions? (Comment on this)
Friday, June 9th, 2006
8:21 am	FwB meme Hmmm ... not sure I really want to know the results of this, but I did respond to one and therefore ethically I'm supposed to post it as well, yikes. Here's the idea: There's at least 1 person on your LiveJournal that wants to date you or sleep with you [a rather specious assumption, if you ask me...]. So let's play........ FRIENDS w/BENEFITS The rules are simple... If you want to date the person who posts this, post a comment saying "I'm yours". If you just want to sleep with [I assume this really means "have sex with"] the person and stay friends, post a comment that says "I'd hit it". SCARED??? You ONLY live ONCE! THE TWIST IS YOU HAVE TO REPOST THIS!!! & see who replies. Comments are screened, of course. (Comment on this)