Despair.com

It's a toss up between "Wishes" and "Delusion".

http://www.despair.com

Civil War in San Diego

Well - Civil War among climbers anyway.

For some time now, there have been rumors about Art Messier, self-proclaimed defender of climbing routes and ethics of San Diego, chopping bolts down at Mission Gorge (local sport climbing scene). Then after El Cajon Mtn (ECM) was open to the climbing public, more rumors surfaced.

Then, I got a letter from an angry climber to the climbing population about Art Messier. I read it and decided not to forward it till I heard Art's side of the story. I looked for articles online and asked people who knew him personally. I couldn't find anything or anyone that could defend his views definitively so I just waited.

And now, Art has pulled the plug on the San Diego Climber's Coalition website. So judging from the following actions:

• Renaming bolted routes to his liking in guide books
• possible ransacking of other people's gear
• suspicious patrolling of San Diego climbing areas (most likely to see bolting / climbing activity)
• pulling the San Diego Climber's Coalition website from the 'net
• supposed threats to shut down ECM, a climbing area open to the public, if he does not have full supervision of any future bolted lines at ECM
• Chopping of other people's bolted routes for no explanation

I've decided to throw my lot in with the Anti-Art crowd.

Until Mr Messier can give a logical explanation to all of this (other than the apparent desire to have ownership and control of all new and existing climbing routes in San Diego), I'm planning on not holding back my tongue during conversations about his activities. Up to this point, I've tried to play devil's advocate as best as possible, but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

It's really too bad. 99% of climbers I've met have been open minded, friendly and most of all level headed... for the most part. I'm worried about where the future of San Diego climbing is going to go...

Apparently, I've joined the girls' club

I've always been amused with how I seem to blend into the background at social gatherings. I presume many times I just don't have a strong presence and people forget I'm there. I think in certain social groups, it might be something else...

Take for instance, how girls seem to always forget that I'm around. Ever since my second year of college, I've noticed that if I'm the only guy around, girls would start talking about tampons vs maxipads, what kind of guys are hot, etc. At my current job I have lunch with my coworkers, and being the only guy there I've noticed the same trend. Just a couple of weeks ago, my co-workers were discussing boob sizes, how to get fitted for a bra, how everyone thought this one person's boobs were bigger than they are (she's pretty skinny so I guess her breasts look bigger), and what brands of bras everyone wears. That got a little uncomfortable when people were pulling up their bra tags or something(I started looking away...) to show each other what brand they were wearing and proving their boob sizes.

This past Friday, there were two drunk women at a table during a semi-formal party I went to. They started poking each other's boobs and commenting on firmness and body figure. That got a little weird and I decided to leave at the next opportune moment to join Steph at a different table.

Most of the time, I'm amused at the topics of conversation - I suppose it satisfies the voyeur in me: "the secret life of women that men never get to see". But I think a select few of these conversations are: a) unusual in themselves and are no indicators of "normal" girl conversations b) provide Too Much Information (TMI) at times c) tempts me into joining the conversation for social reasons, which in turn would make the conversation even weirder i.e. "I don't know - I think your boobs seem pretty firm. *poke poke* yeah - you're right, hers are firmer than yours"

So here's my statement to the opposite sex: PLEASE BE AWARE THAT I AM A GUY. THE OCCASIONAL GIRL CONVERSATION IS OK, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE AND COURTEOUS WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE

Thanks for reading

I AM boring

I've been perusing some of my old entries and compared them to some of my peers' blogs and realized something: my blog lacks a lot of updates on my day-to-day affairs. And this in turn makes it seem kinda dull.

The truth of the matter is, nothing really happens to me. I usually have to go out and find something to happen to me - hence the lack of reporting about what is going on. I'm being completely honest when I answer the "what's up" question with "nothing much".

For example, yesterday's events went something like this:

7 am: woke up, helped steph get ready for work
8 am: played halo online with spot
9 am: left for work
2 pm: ate lunch with co-workers. co-workers discussed celebrity gossip. I took a nap instead.
6 pm: left for work. Thought about going to Ranch 99, but the traffic was so bad I came home instead
6:30 pm: came home. Home was dark. And cold. Turned on fireplace, changed out of work clothes, turned on lights and played on Forza Motorsports on the Xbox.
7:30: Taryn came home. Played Halo with her.
8:30: started cooking
9 pm: steph came home, ate dinner with her.
10 pm: went to bed.

Hmmm... maybe my perceptions of "interesting" is different from others. I suppose others might make an entry about playing Halo with a roommate who *never* plays video games, or about how I feel bad for my girlfriend working till 9 pm. Or maybe even about the horrid traffic on San Diego freeways.

In any case not much to talk about.

Venting vs Complaining

When should a person listen to their friend vent and when should they just sit the other person down and tell them to stop complaining?

I see the need for human beings to vent from time to time - it's not healthy to let aggravating thoughts simmer inside forever. But I feel like complaining is a waste of time - I kick my butt into action whenever I see myself doing it, and as a result, I feel the need to kick other people's butts into fixing whatever they're complaining about.

I suppose "venting" is more about having someone listen to you while you sort out the logical cause of your negative feelings, while complaining is just saying to the world what you don't like without the intention of trying to attempt resolution.

Am I wrong in this thought?

And I do see the irony of me venting/complaining in this post.

I'm a legend!

During an excursion to REI last night, the cashier (Chris) happened to be one of the 15 or so people I trained with when I was briefly hired by REI (see previous post). We started chatting for a bit while he rang up my replacement gloves (my old ones had a split seam) and other stuff.

During the conversation, he mentioned that my name would still come up every now and then with the other people I trained with. It would apparently go something like "What ever happened to that Obi guy? Was he a figment of our imagination?".

I only talked to these guys for a matter of 13 hours MAX. And that was 4 months ago. If that isn't legend status, I don't know what is.

Test Drive Successful

So the test drive at Bishop was successful and the Subaru passed with flying colors! I was able to fly through dirt roads I've always had slowly pace myself with in the old Tahoe. Ob = happy.

In other news, shoulder is doing better. Managed to climb a bit on Sunday at the Happy's to my joy. And I think it did wonders for my shoulder - it ached less and was not as immobile as on previous days!

And finally, as a sidenote, I've reluctantly given Jack Osborne (sp?) the benefit of the doubt as a climber. Late last night, I was reading Climbing magazine's little blurb on his experiences and I identified with something he said. It was something along the lines of "when I climb, my mind quiets down a lot. And for me, it's usually pretty noisy". :)