types of climbing

So, what is this climbing business all about then? Are you and Tracey going to be in youtube videos of people falling a hundred feet from a huge overhanging cliff face?

In short, no.

Climbing is divided into two three main styles: traditional, sport and top-rope (hmm, okay there's also bouldering, but that doesn't use ropes and is about climbing very short, tricky things that you can fall from without hurting yourself)

Traditional Climbing is where you climb up a rock formation, placing anchors into the rock for safety as you climb. There are lots of specific pieces of equipment that you carry in order to place these anchors, and you take them out when you descend. This is a pretty advanced type of climbing, and we're not here yet. I don't think either of us is particularly interested in this yet, really.

Sport climbing is where you climb established routes on which other people have pre-installed permanent anchors to the rock. You simply climb up, clip a carabiner contraption to the anchor, and then clip your rope into it. These anchors are usually about 4-6 feet apart, so if you fall you shouldn't fall too far. You can still hurt yourself though! Although we're not doing this yet, it's on our radar. Some climbing gyms offer sport climbing, although CragX does not.

Finally, top rope climbing is our current pursuit. This is the safest kind of climbing, but it's quite limited. Basically you feed a rope from the ground, up through a permanent anchor at the top of the route, and then back down again. One person (the belayer) holds on to the free end while the climber goes up tied to the other end. The belayer pulls through the slack rope that is created as the climber gets higher up. You use a gadget called a belay device to do this, and basically the idea is that if the other person falls, the belay device locks the rope off so they don't drop very far. In this kind of climbing you only fall a foot or two (unless the other person is being a wanker and not paying attention. in that case, you could get really hurt). You have to be serious when you're belaying someone, because you basically have their life in your hands! Having said that, CragX uses automatically locking belay devices, so you really can't drop somebody.

Anyway, we're top rope climbing exclusively right now, which means that if we were to climb outside we'd have to climb some place where you could hike to the top, fix a rope and then retrieve it later. Obviously, it's not that common to find a *climbing* route where you can (safely) *walk* to the top first! To get over this, we are trying to get our skills up to the point where we can start sport climbing. So, let's put up another post about climbing skill levels and difficulties.

Oh, here's some useful links if you want to read more about the types of climbing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_climbing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_climbing

http://climbing.tropic.org.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page

climb on

It's not that often that I'm sitting around a computer at home killing time, but today I got home and T was half way through a movie and I'm not one to sit down part way through. So, I thought I'd write up a quick summary of my rock climbing experience, if for no reason aside from the fact that it should be entertaining to read some time down the road.

I wrote a blog post in Dec 07 saying that I was keen to "shake things up" by trying some new things, one of which I listed as a rock climbing lesson. Well, it was some months later before that happened, and it was entirely due to Tracey that I eventually tried it, but it did happen and I was right: I love it!

My first climb was back in September (I think). I went with Tracey and her friend Mel to Crag X, the local climbing gym (hat tip to matty here). Here's what I remember about that first climb:
- tons of fun
- clearly both a physically and mentally challenging sport
- I have wimpy grip strength!
- Tying a rope to yourself does not really lessen any fear of heights you might have!!!

Since then, we've started going to the gym roughly once a week. We made a point of stopping in to a large gym in Vancouver (Coquitlam, specifically) where we discovered what a really good climbing gym is all about. That place is awesome. Where CragX is basically all featureless, flat walls and relatively short climbs, Cliffhanger is twice as tall, has more organically textured walls and lots of variety. The place is flat out awesome.

Now that we've been climbing for about 6 months, things have started to move along. I'll put up a few more posts to bring you up to speed.

Hey, I missed a whole calendar year!

Hmm, it seems I managed to go without posting a blog update for an entire calendar year. That's pretty interesting, consider how many things have changed this year. I have some thoughts about starting the blog up again, but I'm not sure what direction I want it to take. I've been quite interested in the financial mess that going on around us, so that's one avenue. Tracey and I are also getting more into rock climbing, so I thought I might talk about learning to climb in Victoria. Not exactly complementary subjects though, so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I haven't forgotten that this is here. I suspect, however, that you have. Maybe I can fix that up...

cheers,
bms

actually boxing day

I thought it was kind of funny that I'm actually putting things in boxes on boxing day. I don't think I've ever done that before. Of course, it has nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with the fact that I'm moving in 4 days.

As a side note, though, I did participate in the hysteria that is Boxing Day in north america. I went out shopping for a nice recliner and ended up buying a leather couch. It was a screaming deal, and a cool design. It's not often that I see couches that I actually like, so when I find one that's well designed and affordable, I'm all over it. We'll have it in time for our Cardboard New Years party. cool!

bms
PS: I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We certainly did!

the gift of music

I just finished polishing off an updated edition of my Music Sampler DVD. I'm giving a copy to a friend at work who I think is going to really dig this stuff. I set it up as a disc with two directories: Sampler and Albums. The Sampler has about 40 songs in it that I hand-picked to be sort of representative of each artist on the disc. Then, in Albums, I have one (or more) albums for each artist in the Sampler. Hopefully it's an easy way for people to scout out what they like and dislike without accidentally tossing a great artist aside because they happened to stumble upon one of their weaker tracks. Without the Sampler, it's a bit daunting to really get into this thing, because there's 4 gigs of music on it!!!

Anyway, I love introducing people to new music. I think it's just because I personally LOVE it when someone else gets me hooked on new tunes (huge thanks go out here to my brother, Matt, and good buddy Pete, both of whom are probably my biggest influences).

So, if anyone wants a copy of this bad boy, just let me know!!!

Highlighted genres/artists on this edition of the Sampler are:
Instrumental funkiness
Greyboy-Freestylin-07-Lite_Bake.mp3
Stanton Moore-All Kooked Out-04-Blues for Ben.mp3

Can you say "modern new orleans funk?"
Galactic-Crazyhorse Mongoose-07-Change My Ways (Pt. 2).mp3

Big/Breakbeat electronic goodness
Salmonella Dub-One Drop East-06-Ez On.mp3
10-pendulum_-_hold_your_colour-boss.mp3

HipHop minus the bullshit
Jurassic 5-Power In Numbers-06-A Day At The Races.mp3

hiphop meets other genres
01 - Mind Control.mp3 (by stephen marley)
G. Love - Lemonade - 08 - Thanks and Praise.mp3
01 radio free dc (feat afrika bambaataa and king kamonzi).mp3 (by Fort Knox Five)
Bullfrog-Bullfrog-14-Nice Try.mp3

achhh... moving!

I.

Hate.

Moving.


*sigh* but it must be done. This place has been pretty good to me: it started off as an 'easy out' when my lease at the old condo on Cook became non-renewable, but it turned out to be a nice, cheap, central place to live in while I spent a year at UVic. Now that I'm back at work and trying to change things up, a move seems like a logical thing to do. Of course, sharing a place with matty is going to be cool (if weird-I've lived alone for almost three years now).

Anyway, the move is next weekend and already I'm starting to organize and do some preliminaries. Took all the empties to the depot today. I'll be giving away some clothes and starting to pack up non-essential stuff pretty soon. The landlords at this building are really nice, but they have a pretty demanding 'move-out' checklist, and it's costly if you don't comply with all the points on the list. Damn.

Anyway, I'm still in a good mood overall and looking forward to Christmas, then the Cardboard New Years party that Matt and I will be hosting. I bet that by 6pm on Dec 31st the last thing I'll want to do is host a party, but by 10pm I'll be stoked about it. Can you say Red Bull and Vodka???

bms

today...

today I feel very christmassy. I have some great friends and family around me, and seriously, what more could you want?

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you're all having a blast these days!

cheers,
Mikey