7-30-01
Climbed in Leavenworth this weekend with M and his family. Sue, Lisa and Lisa's girlfriend came along as well. I'm still feeling the strain of sleeping poorly on the hard ground. Even though we have good thermarest pads, I toss and turn the first few trips. It was fun getting back on the old familiar routes. Climbing cracks is quite a bit more satisfying than climbing bolted routes. For one thing, there is often no sign that anyone has been there before, other than a lack of moss on the stone. We weave our safety net up the rock as we go, and our partners remove it as they follow. M led a couple nice beginner routes without any trouble and I enjoyed a couple moderate testpieces. The last climb we did was a gorgeous three foot 5.8 roof that reminded me just how rusty I was at cracks. I thrashed up and down it for a good twenty minutes before getting up the nerve to commit to the crux moves over the lip. My pro was excellent, but the steep slab below had me a little worried about a bad landing. As it turned out, the holds were bomber and I was able to power over the lip. It was really only one awkward pull up before I could reach the bomber fist jams over the top.

7-26-01
I've been really bad about updating this journal lately. Life's been busy. The main thing keeping me from writing here has been the Flash homework I've done over the last two weeks. I've almost brought my skills up to the level they reached before I began this job. Since working here, I've done very little Flash, focusing instead on pure html with a strong dose of slicing and button building in Photoshop. After completing the tutorial, I wanted to put my skills to work. We had a request for Flash concepts for the future company site, which will be all Flash. I hammered out a plain, but reasonably original concept with some animation and a few active buttons. It was great fun to be creating in Flash again. It's a lovely program. I doubt if they'll use my ideas, since I'm really just a beginner at it. Still, I learned a lot and already have some ideas for reworking this web site into an all Flash version. This journal will have to be html due to all the type, but the gallery sections can be all Flash.

       I tried out a new barber today. He had the gift of gab that all great barbers have and was also a painter and wood carver. I enjoyed sharing some of my art experiences with him as he gave me a better than average haircut. My old barbers are kind of cranky. This guy works in a big sunny room near my job with piles of art books on the tables and carvings hanging in the window. Looks like I'll be doing some climbing this weekend. We are getting busy at work again, this time mostly Flash stuff. It's nice to get some fresh work in the shop instead of the same old customer. Still, I'm not complaining. I love working day shift with weekends off.

7-20-01
Our 3 year old bicycle rack broke. Or, rather, the latch that lets us swing the loaded rack away from the back of the car jammed. We can still carry bikes on it, but we can't open the back of the van. I dug out the guarantee, turns out it is only good for 2 years. Funny how that works. She tells me a couple people have bumped into the rack in parking lots. I assume the spring loaded latch has been bent inside the column where it is completely inaccessible.
     I've been researching high end flash sites, trying to come up with a couple concepts to present at our Flash planning meeting next Tuesday. We are planning to build an all Flash site to replace our current html site. My boss is hoping to win Macromedia's shocked site of the day award. I am a little dubious about our chances, since the competition is extremely fierce and we don't have any full time Flash wizards. I have found some very nice sites by surfing Macromedia's Flash archives. Web designing has never been easy for me. I still wonder whether I have the particular mindset for it. My creative side prefers to start with something pretty and interpret it. For example, I see a pretty view and I paint it, using my own colors. Designing for the web means taking a concept or idea, and creating visuals that help to sell it.
       Our situation is even more obscure. As web designers, we sell advertising and promotion. How can that be expressed visually? It takes an unusual combination of digital art and business sense which I may not have developed...yet. I've had some small successes, but nothing to write home about. I seem to be more of a troubleshooter than a full blown designer. I can draw and paint quite well using traditional media, and I can improve on an existing digital idea, but put me in front of a blank computer screen and I choke up. I imagine I could become good at it, God knows there are thousands of people out there doing it, and I should have what it takes. Perhaps it is simply a muscle I need to exercise.

7-16-01
Climbed again up at Exit 38 with M this weekend. I'm finally getting warmed up and can climb the moderates comfortably. My knees aren't liking it, but that's the cost of having fun with these old knees. Sunday we woke up to a flat tire on one side of the van with a nail in the other side. Since all 4 tires had 80,000 miles we took it to Sears Automotive center where fixing the flat escalated into four new tires; another $574 we didn't have. I need a part time job to support our 2 cars. Friday night my trick ear woke me up with a minor dizzy spell. Nothing too serious, just enough nausea to wake me up for an hour. My climbing partner M seems ready to lead, but I am hesitant to give him the sharp end of the rope. While I'm doing all the leading, I know for sure I can bring him home to his wife and family in one piece. Once he gets on the sharp end, I'm no longer in control. We are planning an overnighter in a few weeks to a place with traditional climbing (cracks instead of bolts).
      Cracks are much safer than bolts to learn to lead on. If you find yourself gripped out of your gourd midway up a crack, you can put in as much extra gear as necessary to feel safe, even building a mid pitch belay station, if needed, to bring up your partner, who can hopefully finish the pitch. Many beginning climbers, especially bolt only climbers, get very good but lack the necessary skills for an emergency retreat. Bolt climbs, by their very nature, lack easy escape routes. If the route was put up with 6 protection bolts, that's it. Cracks are continuous, and extra placements are easily found. The leader can make a crack as safe, or as dangerous as desired.
    I've been having some fun with flash. This is a lot of show for only 8 K.

7-10-01
Driving home yesterday I reflected on how good things have been lately. I am climbing better than I have in some time, thanks to a good partner. I have sold some paintings. I went landscape painting and pulled a nice picture out of my magic hat. I'd been worried I'd lost my touch after that brutal year in college, and the stress of beginning a new career. Things are going as good as can be expected on the home front. You can't expect perfection with two teenagers. My only complaint was not enough to do lately, and more generally, not enough need for my creative side at work. Now, they've asked me to come up with some Flash concepts for our company web site. Flash just happens to be my all time favorite software program, one that I rarely use due to the particular customer base we serve. But now, I get to dust off my skills and go to work. I surfed around the net for a while, looking at what other people are doing and thought everything looked far too hard. The critic in my head woke up and started telling me all the usual crap about how I wasn't good enough, I'd never pull it off, should'a stayed in printing, etceteras. It's a sure sign I'm out of my comfort zone. But, I've learned the hard way that good things happen in the big scary outdoors...sometimes the best part of life is found outside of our comfort zone.

7-8-01
Painted my 8th landscape of Mt. Rainier from the Skyline trail yesterday. Sue and Lisa came along for the hiking. On the 2 hour drive up, I sat in the back seat, working a Flash tutorial on my laptop. It was an interesting contrast in extremes. There I was, trying to select tiny lines with my mouse, lost in the mysteries of Flash, while outside in the real world, Sue was driving our minivan over the bouncy two lane mountain highway. On the laptop, I could just barely control my mouse as the van rocketed over the potholes. After an hour switching back and forth between the quicktime tutorial movies and my flash file, I was happy to take over the driving on the last 5 steep switchbacked miles up to Paradise. Both lots were marked full, with lines of cars driving up and down the packed lots, hoping for someone to leave. We followed at the end of a 5 car pack for a while, before realizing that only the first car in line would get any vacated spot, and no one was leaving. It was exactly like a crowded day at the mall, except for the world class view of the mountain above the parking lot.
     Fortunately, after a quarter century of visiting Paradise, we know the hidden spots and were soon hiking up the Skyline Trail. In the first mile, I heard every language but English. Since I only speak one language, it was kind of irritating to be surrounded by foreigners in my own stomping ground. Especially since, to be there in the first place from so far away, they all had to be wealthy enough to afford an international vacation for their entire family, something I will probably never achieve. I try not to let my envy corrode my self esteem, but at times it can be difficult. I've made some serious mistakes, career wise, in my life, and now I'm paying for it. I have no one to blame but myself.
    I was glad I'd worn my old mountaineering boots, the snow covered the pavement tourist trails 15 minutes from the car. I slogged up to the first good view and set up on a patch of warm dirt beside the busy trail. As usual, I instantly became one of the star tourist attractions. For about an hour, I had a large extended family of Mexicans sitting 8 feet away, chattering loudly in their native tongue over the view, my painting and the grades junior was getting in school. Sue says I am being racist when I complain about the tendency of Mexicans to be coarse in groups. This is unfortunately not the first time they have made my outdoor painting uncomfortable.
    Most tourists, when they see an artist working, maintain a respectful silence, murmuring quietly amongst themselves, occasionally asking for permission to take a photograph, or telling me how much they like it. The children are often the kindest, they walk right up and stare in wonder. Their questions are usually:

• How long did it take you to do that? - 3 hours
• How long have you been painting? - Since 1988
• Do you do that just for fun, or do you sell them? - Yes and yes
• Did you learn to do that in college? - No, self-taught

I love them for those questions, usually asked with a wide eyed innocence that touches a warm spot in my heart. The large groups of Mexicans are an entirely different matter. It usually starts with a shout. The first one sees me, then they all come huffing and puffing up the trail to enjoy the spectacle. Soon, I have 10 fat, noisy people talking, laughing and shouting in a foreign language close enough to spit on. They settle in for the long haul, bringing out bags of chips and beer, happy to have found something as interesting as TV, here in the great outdoors. Sue and Lisa watched in amusement from 30 yards away. They'd seen it all before.
    Finally they left, when the chips ran out, and abandoned me to the singing wind and the sound of a distant waterfall across the Nisqually glacier. After that, I was able to complete the painting, and by 6 o'clock was enjoying the occasional tourist, since I had something decent to show. I may still have some finishing touches to do on this piece. I am considering adding my standard deep blue sky behind the mountain, and the trees could stand some improvement. I'm unhappy with the ability of my Olympus D-460 digital to capture highlights in my paintings. Instead of showing them as hot white, it displays the white pastel as a milky gray. My older images are all shot with a film camera, then scanned, which captures a far more accurate color range. However, until I get the film developed in my "real" camera, this image will have to do.

7-4-01
Paddling as hard as we could, the shore, 200 feet away, seemed to be moving forward...which means we were moving backward. The wind, gusting above 20 knots, had not been so apparent out in the open water, but now that we were rounding the point near Boston Harbor, it became painfully obvious that we were making only incremental progress. Dad is still pretty strong at almost 80, and my right arm is pretty good, but my left one was feeling the strain of constantly paddling on that side to force us off the lee shore. Several hundred yards ahead, Sue, Clint and Lisa seemed to be making much better headway due to the lower profile of the rented 3 person sea-kayak. Sue could also spell Clint on paddling, whereas Mom, sitting between Dad and I in the canoe doesn't paddle at all, even if Sue didn't have her paddle. At one point Dad asked, just to make conversation:

"What time are you going to work in the morning Mark?"

"That depends on when we get this canoe to shore," I replied.

"Ha, you're a pessimist!" he laughed.

I'd started out the morning feeling nauseous and a little dizzy thanks to my trick ear. Going canoeing wasn't the best idea under the circumstances, but I'd promised Sue I'd spend some time with the family. My ear had improved a lot by the time we got out on the water, but the wind wasn't a happy thing. We'd not had the sense to paddle upwind on the way out. Now, we had to paddle the entire several miles back to the marina against the gusting afternoon winds. Now that we are all safely back home, I guess it was kind of fun, or at least different. A poor mans boating adventure.

 

7-1-01

Two rusty old bolts held me seventy feet up the steep cliff. There was nowhere to stand so I had been forced to do a hanging belay. As I pulled up the extra rope prior to bringing M up, I pondered the absurdity, and danger of the situation. I had climbed very smoothly up the 5.8+ route. But while lead climbing, the bolts are just there for protection in case I fell, which I hadn't. For some idiotic reason, the people who put up the route passed by a perfectly good belay ledge 8 feet below, and put the two anchor bolts on a blank vertical face, which was where I was now hanging, preparing to belay M as he cleaned my lead. Even worse, these bolts weren't real stainless steel climbing bolts. They were hodgepodge Ace hardware cheapies. Instead of using a seven dollar stainless steel climbing hangar, he had drilled the hole, put an extra long bolt in the rock that stuck out far enough to attach two links of thick chain by way of some some wide washers. It looked as mickey mouse as it sounds. I was trusting my life, and that of my partner to the mankey affair.
     Common sense told me that people use these anchors all day long, year in and year out, but instinct told me they needed replacing. I had not brought my drill, and the job is usually better left to those who do it regularly. As usual, I was worrying over nothing. The bolts held just fine, we rapped off and belayed his son up the route from the safety of the ground. I've been fighting off a cold for the last 3 days and was surprised that I could climb at all.

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