today is my fifth mensiversary

Yup, mensiversary. Which means two things happend today: I celebrated my fifth month out of the hospital and I learned what a 1-month "anniversary" is called. Technically, I'm supposed to review the past 30 days and take stock of rad things I've done. And I've been busy so I thought, for my first recognition of the pneumonia mensiversary, I would by new freediving fins. Had I realized how expensive sweet freediving fins can be I might have considered treating myself to dinner or buying 12 pairs of climbing shoes instead. But never mind that; you can't put a price on happiness. My C4 Falcon 80's will be here in a week. And yes, they're carbon fiber. Rad.

Lisa Rands cranks V12 in South Africa

Rands Sends South African V12
www.climbing.com - June 16, 2008

Ian Thorpe's freestyle

Video analyzing Ian Thorpe's freestyle technique:

Ian Thorpe swimming freestyle 4 - kick and rotation

learning to swim from a mutant

Michael Phelps is not human. He's some sort of fish/man thing. And this video dissecting his freestyle is mega rad:

Wait, where am I?

Surprise! I'm at work.
But, Elijah, it's 3:30 in the morning.
That's right!
And here's something new I learned about wildfires: they make your power go out. They make your power go out for so long that every server, switch, router and coffee maker at work silently explodes. Ahh, IT... just 1s and 0s, right? What could be so difficult?
Well, the mysteriously named 'Gap Fire' went to town on the hills behind my home/work again last night. And despite our best efforts at containment, no matter how much we drank in the front lawn watching the thing, it continued to ravage our neighborhood. At this point I'm qualifying it as big. Possibly 'way big'.

Hans and Yuji climb the Nose in 2:43:33

Nose Speed Record is Broken
climbing.com - July 2, 2008

it's getting hot in hurr

Santa Barbara bouldering poster boy, and fellow Owl Tor aficionado, Brian Spiering peeped these photos of our area's iconic bouldering locale, West Camino Cielo, up in flames last night. At about 6:00 yesterday evening things got bright up in the hills behind our domiciles, prompting Brian's and my neighborhood to be on alert for evacuation. We were spared those orders by about 4 blocks but tonight could be spicier. I hate to see forest burn, though I'm aware this is healthy and necessary to our preserved lands. Brian is way more pumped. With the foliage out of the way he's expecting this to open up some new crags. We shall see.

photos courtesy Brian Spiering, Amerian Riviera Bouldering

I don't know which is worse

I will never try to put up a Yosemite speed record. That's right, everyone out there who was nervous can relax. But that's not to say such feats aren't rad. Being a friend of mine, I can attest that Hans Florine is in fact rad. So I was psyched to hear he and Yuji had made a bid for another speed record on the Nose. And in usual Climbing Magazine fashion, this report sucks:

Florine-Hirayama Nearly Regain Nose Record climbing.com - June 29, 2008

Eclipsed only by this article's suckiness:

On Speed in Yosemite: Catching up to the Hubers (yeah, that's really the title) UKclimbing.com - June 29, 2008