The State of Pickles

I have no idea why I would ever get sweet pickles on a sandwich, but I did. Who ever thought of that? It seems that pickles really aren't all that good anymore; they just don't tast like they used to when my grandmother made them, or when you would find a barrel full of them in the local hardware store. I would eat one of those. Really. Even the best pickles these days are somewhat disappointing.

The state of pickles isn't quite what it used to be. Some things aren't quite as good as they used to be.

I am pretty sure I am not going to be disappointed in having bought one of these. I can't wait for it to get here.

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... I'm Grounded

The finger injury has me effectively grounded. Period. No climbing. The mushroom girl and I spent the day with her bike. Fixing it up , and buying stuff for it. Well we didn't buy a rack. And lthen we didn't buy tires. And we didn't look at used bikes. And we didn't find a new wheel.

We did tweak on it, oil it a bit, adjust the brakes, and generally spend some time learning about the MGirl's bike and caressing it. We avoiding lunch and then took it for a ride.

today's miles: about 20

temp: warm and windy.

We took the route out by the bay.

It was good out there but the wsurf was up. We rode the ten miles down without breaking a sweat -- talking and chatting. We turned back and into the wind and the conversation stopped. The wind roared and it was a hump getting back. The Mgirl demonstrated her youth by leaving me behind immediately, and I never saw her again until I was back at the truck. At one point I was trying to catch her -- but there was no way for me to bridge the gap.

It's cool though. The Mgirl's bike worked well and the wind gave us a big workout and it was all fun.

Angel and the Mgirl had a birthday tonight. So we drank a bit and shot cutthoat at the pool hall.

The Tapeworm is Angry

Some of you may remember this about the ultimate in easy to carry eat snack foods, the quartOfIceCream™ and about a tapeworm. I am sure none of you know, however, how all of the jokes and extra laughter about Shawn's tapeworm got started.

I sat across from my boss every day for about eight months and at about 2:30 it would start. The foraging. I would begin to prowl around the kitchen and work areas, looking for uneaten carbohydrates, ice cream bars, or an occasional cup of moose stew, which was often, damned hard to find, in that office in San Francisco. Frankly, I was hungry, and it was obvious.

One day, after a late lunch, my boss looks up at about 3:15 and says, "How's the tapeworm doing?" There was an eff-load of laughter right after that. I said, "Wha?" "Your tapeworm. Howse he doing?" More laughter. Hmmmm.

So the other night I was eating ScreamingEffingHot™ with chunksOfHabanero™ Thai food with my friend, and I belched rather profoundly. He said, "I think the tapeworm is angry." More laughter.

The Mushroom Girl and I are going to Berkeley tomorrow shopping for a used bike. so maybe after that I can tell the story about the elder brother and the Atkins diet, and about the guy who got fired for hoarding hot chocolate in his locker at work, and how if you wait for the potato chips to be put out at work you'll starve to death, because -- after all -- those are *bad* for you, ... mmm ... they're carbs, so we don't want you to have them all the time.

Pass the pasta please.

Pacific Orchid Exposition 2008

shawnkielty's Pacific Orchid Exposition 2008 photoset

San Francisco De Asis Church in Taos NM

Joshua Tree National Park Winter 2008

Oregon Snowshoeing

... in December. Here

Pale Sun Playlist

http://rhap-app04.int.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=3763916&type=playlist&title=Pale+Sun&from=real

1. Por Un Amor - Linda Ronstadt
2. Pale Sun - Cowboy Junkies
3. Good Friday - Cowboy Junkies
4. When It Rains - Tish Hinojosa
5. The Redtail Hawk - Kate Wolf
6. Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
7. Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode
8. Sister Morphine - Marianne Faithfull
9. Faithless Love - (with J.D. Souther) - Linda Ronstadt
10. Southland In The Springtime - Indigo Girls
11. You Finally Said Something Good (When You Said Goodbye) - Teddy Thompson
12. Deperado - Linda Ronstadt
13. Hunted - Cowboy Junkies
14. As If Your Life Depended On It - Juliana Hatfield
15. Closer To Fine - Indigo Girls
16. Blasphemous Rumours - Depeche Mode
17. Hickory Wind (Alternate Version) - Gram Parsons
18. Jesus, Take The Wheel - Carrie Underwood
19. Secure Yourself - Indigo Girls
20. If You Were The Woman And I Was The Man - Cowboy Junkies
21. Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood
22. Our Song - Taylor Swift
23. Good Friday - Cowboy Junkies
24. Policy Of Truth - Depeche Mode
25. Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning - Cowboy Junkies
26. Aquella Noche - Tish Hinojosa
27. Welcome Me - (live) - Indigo Girls
28. Murder, Tonight, In The Trailer Park - Cowboy Junkies
29. Walking After Midnight - Cowboy Junkies
30. Pushing The Needle Too Far - Indigo Girls
31. Sellout - Juliana Hatfield
32. Losing My Religion - R.E.M.
33. Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode
34. Something In The Rain - Tish Hinojosa
35. You Finally Said Something Good (When You Said Goodbye) - Teddy Thompson

Proximal Phalange, Left Hand

Ring finger, middle joint; my first real damage. I was working on a bouldering route at the House of Pain™ when I matched my left hand to my right on a fairly small hold, and loaded up my body's weight on to the ring finger of my left hand. It made a noise that reminded me of a dog eating a chicken and I hit the crash pad.

I am wondering right now if it's broken, dislocated, or just all torn to crap, and I've taken some Ibuprofen. As you can see it really isn't swollen all that much, despite a fair amount of pain -- so maybe I am just a wimp.

I did continue to climb with it for about an hour. I might regret that.

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Tabata This

Well -- over at Peninsula Crossfit last night I did a workout called "tabata this" which involves 8 each of 20 second intervals followed by 10 second rests. 8 sets in a series of as many squats, rowing, pull ups, sit ups, or push ups that one can do in 20 seconds. Score is the lowest number of all the sets in a given exercise. After each exercise comes a one minute break.

I think "tabata" is an Andromedan word meaning "to cause pain to." Eight sets of sit ups with a score of seven might come from a series of 8, 9, 7, 8, 8, 8, 7, 8 or 63 total sit ups. A score of 4 like mine in the push ups, for example, absolutely indicates a total of at least 32 over 8 sets (4*8=32), but doesn't reflect the actual total, which could be much higher. 10, 8, 7, 7, 7, 5, 4, and 4, for example, totalling 52. If you had asked me before last night if I could do 50 push ups ... I would have said "No way."

Jump-fest with Peninsula CrossFit

Went out with Saul and did a little workout on Saturday. Saul's Saturday workouts are free -- so be sure to check one out.

Focus: Cardio
Warm-up: Jog 800 M then 5 x FlowFit
Skill/Specific Warm-up: Review KB swings

WOD:

2 rounds for time:

50 M Broad jump or bounds
25 Push-ups
50 M Lunges
25 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
50 M Bear crawl
25 Sit-ups
50 M Frog hop

ok -- so -- I'm in pain. But I did manage to complete my first 5.10a route over at the house of pain™ yesterday despite uncooperative fingers from crawling across 100 yards of astroturf.

Phoenix' Seven Summits

That's Phoenix behind me. From the top of Camelback Mountain. Photo compliments of the Happy Hiking Buddy -- © 2005.

Described here, the seven summits. Simple problem; climb each of Phoenix's seven summits. No sweat. Easy. The farthest of the lot is 7 miles to the top of South Mountain and back. I've already done Camelback.

But that's pretty casual. Just to make things interesting, let's do it all in a single day, especially since I am not really close by.

Here are the details:

Shadow	1 mile	440 ft climb	Moderate
Lookout	1	475	Strenuous
North	1.6	614	Moderately Strenuous
Shaw Butte	5	670	Moderately Strenuous
Piestawa Peak	2.4	1190	Strenuous
South	7	1310	Strenuous
Camelback	2.3	1300	Strenuous
	20.3 Miles	5999 feet uphill

Seems like it might make for a compelling hike. Some time in March, while it's still cool. Care to join me?

Bikathalon Training

Who knew.