Thumbs up and thumbs down

Thumbs up: Silent walks through the rain, eagerly awaiting the movie "Silent Hill"

Thumbs down: Basic Instinct 2

Let's take a moment to reflect. Basic Instinct was the movie where Sharon Stone was highlighted as a sultry, sexy movie icon. That was nearly 15 years ago. 15!!!! Sharon Stone may be good looking, but I really don't want to think about another beaver shot of her at her current age. She must be desperate to want to do the sequel. A SEQUEL! Sequels almost always bomb!!!

Two thumbs way down.

Slightly later

Day 2: 5 minutes later

Once again, proof that the military tries to make things idiot proof. They pass out these cards to Air Force personnel to ensure proper identification of airborne objects.

Slightly less bored

Day 2:

Taryn never came home last night. She had fun without me. Only companion was boredom. I damn her ovaries. It's ok - I'm definitely the prettiest one in the house now.

Slightly less bored today. Took shower. Shaved. Shaved again. Raised temperature of water. Scalded myself. Not fun, but less boring that standing in shower of lukewarm water. Mental note: find new hobby in shower.

Steph coming home in about 3 hours. Boredom should subside once she comes home. Have errands to run until then. Hopefully errands will run instead of walk. Have riding crop just in case.

Read Spot's email about his work. He works in Hell. Due to this new empirical evidence, cannot stay atheist. Will convert to Discordianism. This way, I can be a Pope... or was it poop?

Still bored

Day 1: 5:35 pm

attempts to contact outside help have failed. My only companion, Taryn, has left me for dead. Am afraid this splitting headache will split my head.

Took shower. helped with pain. Made nausea even more persistent.

Eating ramen. Less bored. Currently trapped in house. If you get this message, please send help in the form of amusement and greasy foods. Carls Junior is just down the street. If you can just throw the fries and burger up here, that'd be nice.

Mental note: drinking juices from berries a bad idea when hungover from wine. juice tastes like wine. wine tastes like nausea.

Military INTELLIGENCE just isn't what it used to be

Day 1: 11:24 am

Still bored. Posting pictures. Still nursing hang over. This sucks. Am antsy as scheduled. Requirement for smashing rising. May call Spot - perhaps smash clone troopers and aliens with him. Or just backstab him with a light saber. Hopefully Spot will not read this before backstabbing occurs, otherwise plan will be a failure.

Hung over and bored

Day 1:
Saturday morning. Stayed home instead of climbing. No need to risk further injury. Plan on healthy mix of socialistic and antisocialistic behavior. Not sure if those are words. Will wait till they become words to use them again.

Had Erin come over last night. Taryn, Erin and I drank 4 bottles of wine and chatted till 4 am. Conspicuous use of the number 4 used, as if for neferarious purposes. Used a homonym of the number 4. Odd.

Currently nursing hang over and extreme boredom. Ate a grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg in it for breakfast to take care of hangover. Had half an avocado with a pinch of salt for dessert. Had half a nalgene of water for a drink. Got hungry again in 30 minutes. Ate rest of avocado. Drank rest of nalgene. Need to poop. I said poop.

Searched web for silly pics I saw in lab yesterday. Found them and posting them on my blog.

Where to go, where to go

I have a problem. It's friday and I don't know what to do with my weekend. I can either go solo bouldering this weekend in jtree or stay at home and play video games all weekend.

If I go to jtree, it might aggravate my wrist and shoulder problems. Plus the boulder routes I want to do require a spotter... grrr. On top of that, I'm not sure if I should spent the money to get there.

If I stay at home I'm going to feel very... sedentary. And antsy. And needy - needy to smash! Obi smash! Gwaaaarrrrggghh.

What's a guy supposed to do? Climb or smash?

Time lapse trauma response

This past weekend a bunch of us went out to Jtree (surprise surprise). But what was a surprise to me was this surge of nervousness being on a rope. This isn't your typical "I'm nervous about leading this route". No - this was "my mind is calculating 1000 scenarios a second about what ifs and worst case situations... while top roping/rappelling". This was definitely an irrational fear of climbing on a rope and having to trust the gear.

I know it's irrational because I've seen the statistics about climbing gear failures - astronomically low relative to the amount of use they see. But I keep envisioning the rope sawing across a sharp edge, or a bolt revealing itself to be a 1/4" piece of pro or any number of scenarios where I fall to my demise. Or worse yet - live but be permanently injured.

The only thing I can see is a combination of two factors. 1) Jon's injury nearly 6 months ago where he fell 20'. 2) An overactive eye for safety and potential injuries due to working in the outdoor education industry. I know Jon's fall wasn't directly due to my negligence. And I know the statistics are low. But that's why this is an irrational fear isn't it?

Talking to a few people, they tell me that it's not unusual that these things come in waves, and that these fears can be delayed. Still not much consolation... I think until I talk this thing to death (or find a climbing therapist) and the fear has subsided, I'm going to restrict my climbing initiatives to bouldering. I'm still willing to be a belay slave (although belaying is causing me some duress too) for the social aspects... but I think a hiatus is good till I get things sorted out.

Sex, art, workers, singing asses.

Last night was the sex worker's art show. No, seriously - UCSD's price center was where the annual "Sex Worker's Art Show" was held. If only UCSD people knew about it... it'd cause a bigger outrage than when SRTV had its student made porn movie.

It was a really good show. It was graphic, but skirted around being too pornographic (for the most part ;) ). Some of it I didn't understand (therefore it's art, right?). nearly a dozen performers did some 10 minute act - some exciting, some not.

Not necessarily the best act, but the one that is forever etched into long term memory: girl does a strip act to Judas Priest's song "Breaking the Law". In the final moments, she's butt neked, turns so she's mooning the audience - and then she starts parting her ass cheeks in tune with the lyrics "Breaking the law, breaking the law!". It was kinda like Debbie Does Dallas meets Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Not even my old roommate James Peters could have crossed the line to that point...

The artists basically attempted to cross established societal lines regarding human sexuality by pretty much vaulting themselves past it till they couldn't see the line anymore. And then they redrew the line and used that as a sling shot to get themselves past it some more. It was all very uncomfortably entertaining.

Who clipped my wings?!

God damn it - now somehow I've injured my left wrist while climbing on slopers. Let's review my current injuries:

Right shoulder. Potential impingement. Can climb, but limited range of motion.
Left wrist. Unknown injury. Hurts like hell.
Left knee. Occasional pains.
Right middle finger. Limited range of motion. No monos for that finger.

So basically, I'm fine in climbing if I can do something that uses left elbow hooks, pulling straight down with my right hand, with all my weight on my right foot, while all the while not using my middle finger at all.

I'm a gimp. I'm starting a club now. Who wants to join?

Valentine's Partner Swap

I had three valentines today.

12 - 3 pm: Elise
3 - 6 pm: Taryn
6 - 12 am: Steph

Three girls, one day. Go me.

I'm waaay too Vulcan sometimes

So today during a work meeting, the presenter had an epileptic seizure. At least, that's what it looked like from 15' away - the presenter complained she was feeling a little ill, paused for a second... then another second... until her face went blank and started slumping over in her chair. Fortunately, her colleague caught her before she fell onto the floor. 10 seconds later, she came to with a perfectly placcid face and told everyone that she's fine - she's just feeling a bit ill. As we all politely ended the meeting early, I noticed that she started sobbing as we filed out. I guess she didn't realize what happened and the disorientation had set in. From what I could tell, she suffered a petite mal seizure, possibly triggered by the stress of presenting to a bunch of people she didn't know.

What I found interesting while introspecting was my own cold demeanor. I sat in the opposite corner of the conference room with a few rows of chairs blocking my passage to her, not to mention the large conference table. When she mentioned she was feeling ill and became silent, a red flag went up in my mind and all emotion washed away. The emergency WFR training surfaced and I quickly calculated how best I could act. Should I run over and assist? Should I sit still? Should I yell what to do from across the room? No - I just sat quietly with my own arms and legs crossed and watched. I knew her colleague would catch her - everyone watched her. I what she was suffering from and realized there was nothing I could do but let the attack take its course. I knew we needed to give her some privacy and some space while she collected herself. So I did nothing.

Or was it that I was too scared to act in public? Getting in front of crowd is nerve racking - putting yourself out there, proclaiming you're the medical savior of the day and possibly looking like an ass is even harder. So I asked myself which one was it today? Was it the cold calculations of realizing that I could best serve by not getting in the way, or was I too scared to act?

I think, like most of the time, the answer is somewhere in the middle. I think I was scared and looking for a good excuse to sit back and do nothing, which is exactly what I found. I'd like to think that I am willing to jump into the fray if I'm needed, but it's not exactly what happened.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on myself? At least I know that I can act as needed - I did help Jon as best as I could according to the training I received when he was injured.

Oh well - I guess I'll know next time something like this happens.

Random update

Apparently, I'm having Taryn's baby. She's spreading weird rumors about that. No no - she's not having my baby... I'm having *her* baby. And Steph is apparently ok with it.

It all started when my metabolism got a jumpstart from my climbing abilities. Now I've been unable to sate my appetite. This evening at work, my hands were shaking from low blood sugar after not eating for 5 hours.

In terms of cravings, I've been craving steak. Burgers don't do it, and neither does tofu or other protein alternatives. I'm almost at the point of dreaming about steak while I'm awake.

Ever seen "Madagascar"? Well, I'm Alex the Lion. Yeah - in a matter of days I'll start dreaming that steaks are falling from heaven, imagine that lemurs are food and start biting my best friend's butt during a bad hallucination. Go see the movie and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Oh - and Taryn sees our living situation as akin to "Three's Company". Apparently, I'm Janet, Steph is Chrissy and Taryn is Jack. Don't ask. I'm just planning on eating one of them if I don't get some steak in me soon.