Cathedral Concert
September 17, 2011
Cathedral casts its shadow on Tuolumne
Almost 142 years ago to the day John Muir completed the first documented ascent of Cathedral Peak in Tuolumne. Writing about this experience Muir stated:
This I may say is the first time I have been at church in California, led here at last, every door graciously opened… the sweetest church music I ever enjoyed.
I can’t say that my experience ascending Cathedral Peak for the second time was on par with Muir’s first. For starters I didn’t do it in cowboy boots. But I can say that I’ve never been to an actual church in California. I can also say that years of fortunate experiences have allowed me to enjoy being on top of such spectacular summits. However, it’s the music and the company that made this trip especially enjoyable.
The day after Ben and I linked up Royal Arches and North Dome we wanted to repay Linda, Marzena and Jill for graciously picking us up at the end of that adventure. Marzena and Jill had never been up Cathedral Peak so the prospect of sharing such a special climb with them was highly appealing. However, we awoke to a rather cloudy morning and this made for a pretty lazy start to the day so it’s not surprising that we found ourselves at the trailhead organizing gear and getting ready to hike to the base around noon.
By this point the clouds had started to break and the sky was mostly blue during the approach. I think everyone (except for Marzena) was feeling a bit tired so it was roughly 2 when we reached the leftmost route up the face. Just as we started to flake the ropes a brief period of rain struck. It only lasted for a few moments and by the time we got our rain gear on it had past. But the event was enough to make us consider if it was wise to start the route. A bit of deliberation later Linda decided that since she’d been on the route before the prospect of doing it again and potentially getting rained on wasn’t too appealing.
Feeling (perhaps foolishly hoping) that the weather would hold and seeing the desire that Marzena and Jill had to do the climb I decided that I was game to lead the first pitch. We were initially going to ascend with me leading and Jill seconding on my rope while Ben would lead on doubles for Linda and Marzena to follow. But now that we were a party of 4, we decided that just having one leader would be the easiest way to go.
Racked up with a set of nuts, a single set of cams from #0.5 to #2 and 4 tri-cams I picked a line for the first pitch and ran up it until I was out of rope. Ben followed trailing the two doubles for Marzena and Jill. Ben lead the next pitch and aside from managing three ropes at the belay the climb was going well, especially because the rain hadn’t returned.
For the start of the third pitch we were just below the chimney section. This is typically where the many routes up the face meet and get funneled into a single stream of climbers. So I wasn’t surprised to see at least one party waiting to get through the section. However, Cathedral Peak is very featured and we’d read of variations to the left and right of the chimney that can be used to alleviate the congestion. No better time than now to try them.
Here’s the variation that we took. On the very lefthand side of the ledge below the chimney pitch (typically the ledge that people belay from for the chimney pitch), go straight up for around 15-20 feet of very easy climbing. You’ll find yourself in a bit of a small corner with a fantastic hole in the granite that can be girth hitched. Up and left of the girth hitch there is a finger sized crack that leads out to an arête on the left. Keep your hands in this crack and move out to the very well featured and protectable arête. It isn’t obvious that there is anything out to the left to climb, but trust me, there is and the mysterious feeling adds to the adventure. From here you can continue straight up towards the summit, bypassing all the groaning and struggling parties in the chimney. At a rating of 5.7 and featuring some fantastic exposure, I can’t recommend it enough.
After that section the rest of our route was pretty typical climbing for an afternoon on Cathedral. I got to the summit blocks and waited for some traffic to clear before making the final push to the top. As I waited, two free soloists came marching up the rock, one carrying a banjo and the other a guitar. Immediately I began to smile, hoping that we’d get to hang out as a group on the top and enjoy a world class view with some accompanying music.
The music begins as we wait for a party to clear the summit blocks
After a short wait I brought Ben up to the party and he gave Marzena and Jill a belay while I shot some video of the music scene. Once we were all on top I couldn’t help but feel extremely fortunate. Not only did the rain stay away, it was sunny and beautiful. The climbing ended up being more enjoyable than I had even remembered. Plus I got to share a summit that is always incredible with three people that I am fortunate to have in my life. Add into that the mood that the music set and it’s a day that can’t be repeated.
We ended up sitting on the summit for almost an hour, soaking up the sights and enjoying the music. I can’t thank everyone enough for making that one of the more memorable and enjoyable hours that I’ve had. The only bummer of the day was that Linda didn’t get to experience it with us. However, I did manage to get a couple videos where the wind didn’t totally destroy the audio. I’ve posted them below along with a couple other photos from the day.
Marzena enjoying the summit
The four of us on the summit
Taking Healthy Risks
August 9, 2009
In a population that has an endless thirst for safety mechanisms and cleansers, does the phrase “healthy risk” turn into an oxymoron? I’m pretty comfortable with taking risks (some aren’t even healthy) and even I don’t consciously decide to take too many healthy ones. We all unconsciously take them just like we all unconsciously eat healthy food on occasion. But few of us consciously have a lifestyle of taking healthy risks just like few of us consciously have a lifestyle of eating healthy.
When I started thinking about writing this post I decided to do a quick search and see what others out there had to say about taking healthy risks. So I started out with a simple Google search of “healthy risks” and laughed at the irony when it asked if I meant “health risks”. For me, a healthy risk has nothing to do directly with putting my health at risk. In fact, I can’t think of a single healthy risk that didn’t improve my health, even the risks that didn’t pan out. Perhaps I’ve been lucky or maybe the things that I’ve done aren’t that risky or perhaps I’ve just been good at mitigating that risk, I’m honestly not sure and that uncertainty makes me question what the definition of a healthy risk is.
It’s kind of a hard thing to define, even the internet doesn’t seem to provide a quick definition. I can think of tons of examples of things that I consider healthy risks, but what I find risky might be mundane to someone else, so examples really don’t provide much of a definition either. So after a bit of thinking here’s what I’ve come up with: A healthy risk is doing something outside your comfort zone where the positive outcome is something that you desire and the negative outcome can eventually be recovered from. A part of me wants to also add that a risk could be healthy if the negative outcome is unlikely, but would that still make it a risk?
Now that I’ve got a definition, I can actually start to seek out healthy risks to take instead of stumbling across them. The only question left in my mind is, how many should I take? Like everything else that we consume, there has to be an upper bound where above that a good thing turns bad. Perhaps the need to step outside of what’s comfortable helps to make it a self regulating system, I’m not sure. But I think to start with I’m just going to jump at the ones that present themselves to me and see where it takes me. Maybe I’ll come to find out that I already had the appropriate amount in my diet.
Sad Face in my Taxes
April 12, 2009
So in typical Ryan fashion I filed my taxes yesterday. Some people may call this type of behavior procrastination but I prefer to think of it as lazy evaluation. I am pretty proud of myself because this year I managed to get them filed a whole three days earlier than I did last year. At this pace, by the time I’m 60 maybe I’ll have them taken care of in January.
No Spouse Sad Face
I filed them online and in the process of filling out their forms they asked if I had a spouse. While it’s always fun to play pretend, I don’t think the IRS enjoys the game so I fessed up and admitted I didn’t have one. After I was all finished they showed me a summary of my information which is where I saw the image to the right. When I first saw this I thought they had a sense of humor and had put in a sad face because I didn’t have a spouse. This of course made me smile and for a moment I was amazed that a tax website could have a sense of humor. But then I realized that they were trying to output and underline a social security number that wasn’t present and all I was seeing was the dashes that usually follow the third and fifth digit.
So I guess this isn’t a sign of humor at all but more of an oversight. Either way, it made my taxes a little more entertaining and I’m only paying in $38 so I’m not complaining one bit.
Avoiding Bad Haircuts
September 6, 2008
Thankfully it grows back. That’s what I keep telling myself during and after a bad haircut. But as my hair gets a little thinner, that statement gets a little less comforting all the time. So I’m thinking it might be time to start taking a more active and less passive approach when it comes to deciding who cuts my hair.
The catalyst for this thought is the fact that I recently moved. While parts of moving can suck (boxes, utilities, general disruption, etc), the absolute worst part is finding all the people that you infrequently visit. People like a new doctor, barber and taxidermist. Being a healthy guy without pets, naturally the need to find a new barber was encountered first.
The need for a haircut tends to sneak up on me. One day it’s not on my mind, the next day it’s screaming at me to do something about. This was the case I found myself in one day last week. So I figured I’d get some work done in the morning and then head out in the afternoon and find a place to get the job done.
One thing led to another and the next thing I knew it was 7pm and not only had I skipped lunch, my hair was still too long as well. Damn. So I knew that the haircut would probably have to wait but I decided to walk downtown and grab some food. I managed to find a mexican place that was so good that it took my mind off of my shaggy head. But then on the walk home I actually found a barber that was open! Unbelievable.
Sadly it was Great Clips. Even sadder is that I went in. Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the food that I just ate or the feeling that I wouldn’t have to sleep with this mess on my head another night. I’m not sure, but I should know better than to make the mistake of asking, “do you have enough time for another haircut?”.
That question should never be asked. If it’s close enough to closing time where you have to ask if there is time for a 15 minute haircut, walk away and come back the next day. Why? For the same reason you don’t want to order fast food right before they close, these people are anxious to get the hell out of there. And when someone has fairly sharp instruments that close to my head I’d like them to be thinking about the tasks at hand, not the tasks at home.
This wasn’t the only sign that I should have continued on my way. After the woman responded with a confidence inspiring “sure”, she asked me for my phone number. Not because she was attracted to me but because she wanted to enter it into the computer. After telling it to her three times and her still not getting it right I decided that it was best left incorrect. None of this really bothers me, in fact I’d prefer if they didn’t have my real phone number.
The reality of what I got myself into slammed home when she also couldn’t understand the fairly simply description of how I wanted my hair cut. “Tapered up the sides and an inch or so left on the top”, I have a hard time thinking of a simpler haircut that one would actually pay for. After repeating myself she responded by saying, “I love your accent, are you from England?”. You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m from Iowa and the only accent I can even impersonate is a northern one don’t ya know.
What could I do at this point? I’ve got that neck based apron on so it’s hard to just run away. Calling the woman an idiot or actually saying anything that was in my head at the moment isn’t going to help one bit. So I bit my tongue, closed my eyes and told myself “it grows back”.
But if you say that to yourself for too long you’re liable to just blurt it out at some point. So instead of dealing with that awkwardness I decided to think of all the other signs that you’re in for a bad haircut. I remembered this one time I got my haircut in college (also at a Great Clips, what’s wrong with me) by this guy that had the ugliest hair I’ve ever seen in my life, it made mullets jealous. It literally looked like he sculpted his hair into a bird and no, this wasn’t in the 80’s. If someone thinks that style is good enough for themselves, who knows what you’ll walk away looking like.
After remembering that story I couldn’t help but wonder about Great Clips itself. I’m always suspect of any company who’s name implies quality. It just feels a little arrogant and insulting to me, especially because there isn’t much that’s great about them.
Thankfully when I opened my eyes at the end of my haircut the result wasn’t as bad as I expected. She didn’t do a great job, but nobody has laughed at me so by some measure it’s a success. But I’m going to find myself in this exact same position in a few weeks and I clearly need all the help I can get. So if anyone has ideas for other things to watch out for, I’d love to hear them.
Randy Pausch and My Excuses
July 26, 2008
Like a lot of people, sometimes my mind tends to make problems harder than they really are. I think we do this for problems that we’re somewhat afraid to tackle. Telling ourselves that they are really hard gives us an excuse for not solving them. Excuses are just like junk food, they make you feel better for a short while, you know you shouldn’t have them in your life and they end up hurting you over the long haul.
Lately I’ve been pretty good at keeping the junk food out of my diet but honestly I’ve allowed my brain to consume a bit too much of it. Feeding your head all those excuses only fills it with fatty thoughts which makes it harder and harder to truly solve the original problem. I was feeling kind of bummed about this situation I’ve put myself into earlier tonight, combine that with a head full of excuses and you’ve got a situation that should be avoided.
Over the years, I’ve found that distraction can be key in these situations. I distract myself long enough to stop feeling bummed, then I can work on clearing out the excuses effectively. So tonight I decided to catch up on some reading, Wired Science Blog to be exact.
I was reading through yesterdays stories when I got to this one about Randy Pausch. The blog pointed to a lecture that he gave about accomplishing your childhood dreams which seemed so wonderfully inspiring that I felt the need to watch it. The video was 85 minutes long and right from the start I knew it would be an enjoyable 85 minutes.
Randy talked about the dreams that he had as a child and then explained how he managed to accomplish them. In the course of this, I discovered that he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and that he’d spent a large portion of his career working in virtual reality. Being someone that worked in the virtual reality lab at Iowa State University for two years, my interest was growing.
In high school I was fortunate enough to visit the Iowa State campus and tour their virtual reality lab. The work they were doing was so spectacular that I couldn’t get my mind off of it. When it came time to decide what college to go to, my parents and I visited ISU and I made sure to stop by the virtual reality lab and see if I could talk to someone there. One of the students was kind enough to not blow me off and actually described a bit of the technology they were using. I made sure to stash this info safely in my head.
My choice to attend Iowa State was strongly motivated by my dream to work in this lab. One of the required skills was being familiar with SGI computers and during the summer of my freshman year I managed to purchase one for $225. This computer was a wonderful SGI Indigo with a R3000 CPU at 33MHz. It was the first computer that I’d ever purchased and honestly I knew nothing about how to use it. But damn, I was motivated to figure it out. By the end of my sophomore year I had become quite proficient with this machine and decided that I’d walk down to the VR lab and see if I could start to volunteer my time.
I talked to a professor there named Judy Vance and as it turns out, she had money to actually pay me for my time. I can only remember one other time in my life when I’ve felt as excited as I did at that moment, my dream had been realized.
I loved the work that they had me doing and I learned such a wide variety of skills. Then Judy asked if I could help out the Society of Women Engineers on a project. They were working with Carnegie Mellon University to setup these very inexpensive VR systems with the goal of getting kids involved in programming. My job was to help them with some hardware interfaces, something that I’d worked on for a previous project. The only difference was that this time it needed to be interfaced to this virtual reality software called Alice.
This project was kind of exciting for me, it isn’t often that geeks get to literally work with a room full of women and have some loose ties to CMU. However, to be honest, at this point my attention was shifting away from virtual reality and over to search engines and I couldn’t get myself dedicated to the project.
Now here’s the amazing part. Alice was developed at CMU… by Randy Pausch! The man that I’ve been watching give this fantastic lecture is the same guy that we were working with to setup this virtual reality program for kids and I didn’t even know it. In all likelihood, my boss Judy Vance knew Randy Pausch. I continued watching the lecture with more enthusiasm now than ever.
Overall Randy shared some truly fantastic advice. Advice like, “when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce him”, “when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore that means they gave up”, “experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”, “get a feedback loop and listen to it”, etc. It’s well worth the time to watch and it’s exactly what I needed to really motivate me to ditch the excuses that I’ve been struggling with for a while now.
Not only was it inspiring because Randy Pausch is a smart guy with good advice, it’s also inspiring because he gave this lecture after finding out that he had 4-6 months left to live due to pancreatic cancer. To see someone in this situation with such a good sense of humor (complete with quasi Jim Carry facial expressions) is a very awesome thing. I’d think that it would be so easy to fill those last 6 months with excuses but instead he did what he needed to do.
Randy Pausch died yesterday, July 25th 2008, at the age of 47.
My Little Puff
July 21, 2008
For the longest time I’ve been meaning to start my own blog. My motivations for wanting to start have varied but the clincher was simply an increasing desire to share. Those that know me personally have probably realized by now that sharing is pretty ingrained in my DNA. Whether it’s a thought, a feeling, a story or a hand, if I can share it I probably will, sometimes to the point of annoyance.
Being an astronomy fan, I kind of see this as my own personal Big Bang. An event that spews stuff out into the universe. Some people might find that stuff interesting, others might find it confusing and even more are bound to interpret things incorrectly. While I like to think that I’m an interesting person, comparing my murmurings to the Big Bang is ridiculous, so I’ll remain humble and call this my little puff.
I tend to find almost everything interesting so it’s hard to tell exactly what topics will dominate this blog. But it’s probably a safe bet that I’ll talk a bit about geek stuff, cycling, hiking, skiing, photography, music and the endless stream of stories that dating and relationships provide.
So welcome to my little puff, I hope I can supply you with ample amounts of the basic elements needed to start some conversations.
Ryan Grimm 