Reading (For Dummies)

First Time Little Falls

I've never been to Little Falls, until now. Jonas took a trip out this morning. It was...little.

Lots of fun, though. I didn't even climb, thanks to a knee that's been making odd popping sounds (I've promised myself to keep off of it until it feels 100% better). So I taught a bunch of new people how to tie figure-eight knots and how to belay, and we sent them on their way to climbingville.

Happy Climbers

Reunions? Reunions.

Welcome home, old-timers!

It seems like just last week that I went on my first kayak trip with Erin Rose. This weekend, she flew into town from her home in Colorado to visit with our merry band of life-livers (just another reason that Keren came up to visit).

Naturally, a visit to the brewery was in order.

Tired of Flying

After my last meeting in Maryland, I took a train down to DC to meet the imitable Keren O'Brien Murphy. She's SUOC's representative in the Sierra Club.

Keren, checking out the DC hotties

In the interest of being weird, I told my boss that I'd hitchhike back from Maryland. I didn't want the government paying fuel surcharges for my flying, after all. I guess the purpose was dual-fold: meet up with Keren, who I've never gotten to know very well, and to scare the bejeezus out of the people at work so they'll keep me from travelling so much (at least, for a little while). The plan has been a success so far, they're putting me in charge of managing meetings at our site for now. Perhaps the jetsetting life really will be on hiatus.

Keren and I drove straight up from DC in a 6 hour drive of death, complete with political-talk, sheepishly singing along to our favorite folk tunes, drinking coffee, and getting over-excited about returning to Syracuse.

After a long drive, it's time for a beer

We landed on Westcott Street, in the middle of a Partay in Full Swing. The new SUOC house has a well-built (and well-stocked) bar inside. After chatting about the reality of my computer scientude with Polar until 2am, I called it quits and headed home. Maybe home will actually start to resemble a home now that travel season is over...

DC, Not Alone

DC burned me out and blew me away on my last day there. Shortly before I left, an old friend named Aaron (generally referred to as Qryn) messaged me. I had left my own away message up, "sleep, then DC."

He wanted to meet for drinks. I was wondering what he was up to down there, but I must be becoming less polite because honestly I wasn't very interested. After I had gotten to there 'where' I kind of gave up and went back to reading. (Pssst, foreshadowing).

So I landed at BWI airport around 8:00pm after dealing with another puddle-jumper flight seated next to a chatty cathy. In the interest of saving the taxpayer money, and also in the interest of being 'that really weird guy' at work, I forewent a rental car and walked around between my hotel and the meeting place, only a mile each way.

The third day was the most interesting. A new super-smart guy from one of the contracting companies walked in and started arguing with the NSA folk. Quite persuasively, I might add. He was young. By extension, he was right.

But that's not the interesting part. There has been an issue with the whole design bugging the hell out of me for weeks. The guy that could answer my questions was coming today. There was a young punk with scruffy hair and a scruffier beard that looked vaguely familiar. He looked a lot like my cousin Kyle.

As soon as he opened his mouth, it clicked. Qryn, of course!

My what a small world we live in. Perhaps I should start paying more attention.

Feels like Flying

I barely get a chance to hang out at home and get my room cleaned up when my job flings me back into the world. I'm growing a bit world-weary, or at least America-weary, as I keep heading for Southern climes.

Just another sunset takeoff

Now I'm down in Maryland, working with people promoting technology that, at best, is a double-edged sword. I need a grass-colored, "What Would Lucky Green Do" bracelet.

Aside from ensuring the safety of future generations of computers (and furthering the "One song, one listener, one DRM-enabled player" paradigm), I'm hanging out in the capitol of world power, getting to check out what happens down here.

Like Arctic drilling protests (Photo courtesy of Keren Murphy)

As I told a co-worker the other day, "Yeah, I'm going on TDY to make the world safe from hackers, oil tycoons, and war-mongering. Actually, I'm heading out of town Thursday with a Sierra Club lobbyist for more northern climes.

Speleofest 2005

Stephen, Laura, and I packed up the woman's hybrid and drove out to Schoharie, NY, for a little thing called Speleofest.

Schoharie Cave lit up by a hundred thousand tea lights (photo courtesy of Eric Porter)

The National Speleological Society has a cabin over Schoharie Cave, which we explored Friday night. As New York caves go, it's the most spacious I've been in. While not nearly as massive as TAG caves (like Limrock Blowing Cave), it was pretty much a walkabout the whole way (which was roughly a mile in). The cave was also full of bats, and those bats were also active since we left sometime around 11PM for our caving adventure. I've never seen so many furry flying mice in my life; it was very cool.

Dante, checking out the bats

After a good night's sleep in my tent, Kevin, Stephen, Laura, and myself were ready for some more caving action. We went to End of Gulch cave, a short semi-wet, not-too-crawly passage that ends in a pool of water (which presumably feeds some lake's coldwater spring somewhere). We also re-checked-out Onesquethaw cave, a tight, wet, smelly, massively long ordeal that includes a semi-sump duckunder and an area affectionately referred to as "the barnyard." On my last trip there, we didn't get to experience the full affect of the aforementioned; unfortunately on this trip, I did. See, there's a part of the cave that sits under some sort of animal barn. The animals above tend to do things like poop and pee and do other things that animals do, and eventually that stinky stuff works its way down into a foot-deep puddle in the cave. That wouldn't be so bad, except that the foot-deep puddle happens to be in a spot that where the floor and ceiling are only about 3 feet apart. So, you guessed it, you get to crawl through water that smells like shit.

Bad smells aside, Onesquethaw seems to have bad luck for joint pain. I started feeling a little sore in my knee during the Schoharie Cave exploration, by the end of Onesquethaw my knee was making odd sounds and hurting quite a bit as I crawled and scrambled and did other maneuvers. Not fun, so it's time to take it easy on my legs for a while (and maybe go paddling instead).

The Gunks Redux

It's been a long time since I really climbed the gunks, which is a shame. My dad and brother have had their separate houses right by the cliffs for a long time now. A dozen mountain biking trips later, I've finally gotten to climb those rocks again.

Dad on the second belay ledge of Minty

Jonas, Paul, and myself formed an extra-small party and climbed over the weekend with my dad. I've never really climbed with him, save for a brief stint on the Elbesandstein. Climbing the Gunks was way better multi-pitch stuff where we could actually set pro.

Rapping off Moonlight, a free-hanging, no-wall-contact fall

All of us being incredibly inexperienced, we climbed easy stuff in the 5.3 and 5.4 categories. Jonas even got her leader legs back after a many-month hiatus of climbing at all, which was definitely nice. We even got to enjoy a totally breaktaking rappel.

Living it up, Reid-Style

We certainly lived the high life while we were there, too, enjoying fine wine, fine beer, fine food, and even a slideshow biography presentation about one the Gunks originals, Hans Kraus. I look forward to reading the book to shed a little insight on other Austrian Climbers...

Return to Florida

It feels like only yesterday that I was last in Florida. Actually, it's not far from the truth.

This time down was to learn all about another group's project, and to possibly raise my hackles over a disturbing development. I'm not terribly against the Trusted Computing movement, I just wish/hope it stays in the government sector. I guess I'm beginning to hope that Apple fails. Very unlike me, but desperate times lead to desperate hopes.

Another trip down, another trip home...

One thing is for certain, travel is beginning to wear. It has given me a way better respect for my parents, at least -- how they were able to keep a marriage together and raise three semi-normal kids with the amount my old man was on the road remains a bit of mystery. I can't even manage to change my truck's oil or do my laundry in my off-weeks, let alone take care of other people.

The Old Timer's Reunion

After much idle flirtation with the idea, I decided on a whim to go to West Virginia for the Old Timer's Reunion, a gargantuan (>2000 people) gathering of cavers from all over the East Coast.

Just another late-night drive...

Polar, Amy, and myself started off on Friday afternoon around 4pm. We arrived quite late, actually registering for OTR at sometime around 2am, and finally getting camp setup and going to bed by 3am.

I woke up entirely too early on Saturday, walked around and saw the sites on the campground. We thought about caving, but opted to lounge in the party-tent instead, talking of "Old Times," arguing the tenets of carbide lamps versus LEDs versus halogen, and otherwise making asses of ourselves. The legends of OTR are true -- there is much talking about caving, and very little actual caving.

Thankfully I brought my road bike down with me, and convinced myself to go for a (albeit brief) ride. I came back to camp to find a bunch of folks playing an interesting new game -- Jenga with instructions written on each block. Pick a block out, follow the instructions, put it back on the top. If you knock the pile over, you have to do a naked lap around the campsite.

Thankfully most people don't remember what the instructions had us do that night

Jonas and I weren't much for multiple days of drinking and sitting with the OTR crew -- there was a bit of awkwardness given the intricate social history of a club like SUOC. We opted to leave Sunday morning for Lake George, where we hoped to climb Little Finger (I had planned to climb it once before, but backed out so Tom's girlfriend could go). We drove and drove and drove. By about 8 o'clock PM we were in Binghamton, a mile from I-88 north to Albany/Lake George area. Unfortunately, seeing the "68 miles to Syracuse" sign made us decide to not drive until midnight for what would probably turn into another aborted climb anyway -- the group partying in Lake George was out of cell contact and theoretically would have packed up early Monday morning. So here I am, back in Syracuse, rested at last and ready to take on the Sunshine State again...