On Friday night I climbed Beacon Rock in the Gorge with my friend Ben. It was a 6 pitch climb, with the last being a 200 foot scramble. We went up 3 pitches and then I lowered Ben back down to the ground on another route so he could top rope that (a 5.11).
After Ben's climb we continued up, now it was in the dark. We used headlamps and it was pretty damn cool. Ben lead the whole way and I just cleaned on the way up. It was a little funky at parts when it was completely dark and you had to move your headlamp around to figure out the foot holds.
We made it to the walkway around 9:30 and after organizing a bit we hiked back down to the parking lot. I went to get the car (and beer) while Ben got his bag from the backside of the rock. When Ben got back there was a Ranger there and he came over and talked to us as apparently the park and parking lot were closed. And he didn't seem to appreciate us having a celebratory beer in the close lot. He didn't hassle us too much and we took off for the safe shore of Oregon.

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This weekend all of us went out to Smith Rock to celebrate Kate and Sandra's birthday with some rock climbing. Friday night was some beer drinking and fire starting until 2am. On Saturday after a breakfast of bacon, coffee, bagels, pancakes and warm beer, we headed over into the park. Brynne, May and I went to Wherever I May Roam, a 5 pitch climb. Brynne lead the pitches, I went send and May came up after me. On the bottom I broke a hold which funked up my zen. The first 3 pitches were ok, on the second I had issues and fell a few times (once cos a fart made me laugh and fall off).

I was following up the 3rd pitch and was having some issues with it when a guy above us started to throw his ropes down right on top of us to rappel. He was talking to Brynne, who was belaying me and I was freaking out so I yelled at her "Hey, tell those fuckers to not rappel onto us!" The guy was like 30 feet above and yelled back"Did you just call us fuckers?!?" I told him yea but to ignore it. Brynne thought it was funny. They rappeled down after I got up to the anchors and then Brynne had to help them untangle their rope so I figure we were even. He was busy yelling at his girlfriend about something anyway.

The next 2 pitches were lots of fun and made up for the first 3. On top we had great views and saw our other climbing buddies over near Asterisk Pass. We did a single rope rappel, then a 60 foot double rope rappel cos the ropes didn't touch the ground. Then we did one last one. I couldn't see if the rope touched the deck or not but when I went about 100 feet down I could see it was a few feet above the ground, so we went for it. My weight stretched the rope enough to touch.

We were all done and took off after getting some snack food and met up with everyone else in the parking lot. After telling everyone of our epic climb and the yelling we went to the 7th Street pub in Redmond.

We had a good time drinking and eating before heading back to the grasslands camping area. Where we stood around a fire and jabbered over beer.

After a frosty night we got up early and headed back out to Smith so May could do her first lead - which she kicked ass on. We talked to the guys next to us and they had heard about my yelling at the dude on Saturday. So the word got out. We did a few easy climbs and May and I called it a day and bailed to go home and sit in hot tubs.

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Last weekend I went out to the Adirondacks for Molly and Paul's wedding. I flew into Syracuse and got a rental car. They were going to give me a Neon but it was out so I got a Dodge Dakota instead, which worried me a bit cos gas was $3.50 a gallon. But I pre-paid for a tank at $2.80 so it was all good. And it was a V8, so that's fun.
I rolled up to Old Forge and found my camping spot a little ways down the road from the wedding. I wasn't necessarily being cheap, I thought it'd be fun to camp out in the woods and stuff. But it was damn cold at night. That night I met up with Molly and her friends and drank some beer. And that's good.
The next day some of us went for a hike up a - I think it was called - mountain. It was pretty and a neat hike. Afterwords there was a BBQ where we hung out and ate and drank beer again. There's a theme here. It started raining hard around 9 and some ladies (Heidi and Erika [the 3rd one there]) were nice enough to offer their floor for me to sleep on. Erika got extra candles because I was going to be in the room and their might be odors. Hard to argue with that.
The next day was wedding day and it was pretty laid back. I hung around and had donuts with Erika and Heidi and read by the lake shore. The wedding itself was very nice and it was quickly off to the reception. With beer. The rest of the day was spent hanging out and talking with people. That night there was dancing where I made a fool of myself trying to remember to Lindy Hop. I guess I'm going back to take some classes before I go out again. I think I even hurt my hip.

Chris and I went climbing at the gym for a few hours. My last climb was up the stupid *** 5.11- that I keep failing on. So I was a few moves above what I normally do and I stepped up on a large hold which spun and I fell. I was thinking of beer so I didn't try again.
Anyhoo, Chris and I rolled over to Zach's Shack on Hawthorne to grab a few hot dogs. I got 3 dogs, french fries and 3 beer (not all at once). We're sitting outside next so a group of people and having a good time talking about whatever overweight balding white guys talk about. Then
I felt something hit my back. I stood up and looked at the guys behind us. They were looking at me so I figured *they* threw some crap at me. So I yelled at them "What the hell was that?!?" They said "an egg" and pointed to the egg on my back and the wall. Some ********* **tard through an egg at me on Hawthorne! I couldn't believe it. So It took off my shirt to show off the middle-agenish and get egg off of me.
The waitress came out and said "So, you have to wear your shirt." Like I was doing it to impress everyone on Hawthorne that I have love handles. I told her I got egged and she was all apologetic - not like it was her fault.
I continued to drink my beer with Chris and then Zach came out and apologized for the egg. I said it wasn't his fault and he said, "How about I buy you a shirt?" Who am I to say no to a free Zach's Shack t-shirt.
So now I'm a proud owner of an egg soaked climbing shirt (you want it?) and a new Zach's Shack T-Shirt. I am now a devoted customer to that place.
Egg
New Shirt!

On Sunday I thought it'd be fun to go ride some firelanes that I haven't touched in a few years. I went down and up firelane 10 (which starts across Germantown from Leif Erickson). I remembered that it was BS before, and it still is. If you do it, it's best to ride down from Newtown instead of from Germantown up to Newton. I didn't have to walk, but I had to stop for a minute to stop from throwing up in my mouth.

I went over to Springville and down Firelane 7. I had been thinking I can totally go down the bottom, which is very steep and rutted. So I flew down 7 to the steep part and unclipped so I could bail out. I made it down 20% of the steep section, but there were a few things I had to get off for and it's too steep to get back on the bike. It was Moab steep and I had my stomach behind my seat.

I thought it sucked that I had to walk sections of it, so I went back up via Saltzman to do 7a - which shoots to the left of 7 near the bottom. There was more bomber trail until it's steep section. I unclipped again and just rode on my toes. 7a is actually rideable and I eeked down it to Leif Erickson and started screaming like a little girl. I thought my brakes might be hot so I dropped water on them and instantly it hissed and steamed.

I just bought a T-Shirt supporting the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The site goes into how FSM is another alternative to the normal Intelligent Design (ID). As I think ID is a crock, I want to support FSM. FSM at least can explain our global warming as an inverse relationship to the number of pirates.

On Saturday Ron and I went out to Hood River and went mountain biking on Surveyors Ridge. It normally takes 1h 5min to get there but I got us to Hood River in 45 minutes. The ride got 4 or 5 cranks in the book so it looked like it'd be a lot of fun. Ron said it was the worst ride in the history of biking. I'm not sure it was that bad, but it did suck. It was 14 miles up and then the down hill still had ups. And there were no bomber sections except for one 5 foot long area. I was cruising down one area and while thinking of trains and trying to avoid the bushes that were constantly slapping our faces my right tire veered off the trail and turned 90 degrees. So I flew over my bars and skidded to a stop on my left arm. I spent the next 5 minutes walking around swearing and throwing rocks at trees.

Ron's Pic

So that sucked and it didn't really get any better. Don't do Surveyors Ridge. Unless you're those guys from Hood River who ride up from town (15 miles) and ride up the ridge and back down. But they're sick in the head.

So I made another trip to the dentist down south. I had some fillings put in on the sides of my chompers. This is what I get for brushing too hard when I was younger. I think they need to have proper tooth maintainence classes when we're young so we don't screw it up by the time we're old and crusty.
Anyhoo, here is a pic of the flouride crap they put on my tooth. It looks like I do chew. How cool is that?

They put pictures of us from the race up. Here are my two ugly ones:

Here is my one idea for the week: The iPod needs to support record scratching when you're listening to music. How badass would that be? Like Run-DMC badass.