shame on me

Well today is the last day of January and despite my good intentions to blog regularly I have fallen behind (again!)

I've done quite a bit this month. The first weekend of January was beautiful... sunny and about +5 degrees. Erick and I went to Welsford to do some easy trad climbing and since the sun was shining on the rock all day the rock was warm and it was an awesome day. We did Reindeer Land (5.5-5.6) by Gollum's cave, Mr. Clean (5.6) on the Pyramid wall, and Snake Peel (5.7).
This was my first time seconding trad, and I found it pretty fun, although when climbing harder stuff I can't imagine hanging onto a tiny crimp with one hand and trying to take out a nut with the other! I took lots of pictures, and I will post some of them here soon.

I also got my first shipment of stuff from steep and cheap - salomon trail runners, a mountain hardware softshell, and an arc'teryx sweater. I'm addicted now... This stuff is so warm!

This month I've begun training a bit for the trip to nevada. I've started running, and I'm working my way up to 5K. The plan is to be able to run 5K before I leave for nevada and so far I'm on track. Next week will be training at the wall with a backpack on, and learning how to set up anchors and learning other useful things I'll need to know to do multipitch rope climbs.

I had an interesting thought the other day, brought on by a conversation had with Erick, Mark, and some others I had a few weeks back. You know how some women will tell you "oh, I don't get along with women - I don't really like talking about girly things, I just like hanging out with the boys!" These women usually don't have many female friends, and they might feel a little awkward talking to women they don't know well. Most of their friends are men. Likewise there are women who don't know how to interact with men. These ones have lots of female friends they are perfectly comfortable with, and not so many male friends. Then there are the women who seem perfectly comfortable with people of either gender. The same goes for men. There are men who have more female friends, men who have more man friends, and men who have both. Now you are probably wondering where I am going with this, and you may possibly know where I am going having figured it out for yourselves, but for those of you who don't know and haven't given up reading yet I am approaching my point!

It seems to me that a person's preference in the gender of their friends is directly related to which gender they spent the most time with while growing up... So people tend to choose for their friends people of the same gender as their SIBLINGS! Women with brothers and no sisters will be more comfortable with male friends. Women with sisters and no brothers will have lots of female friends. The key here is not the siblings themselves, but the interaction between them. For example, my sister is 10 years my senior, so we never played together much. My brother and I are closer in age so we played together all the time, and as a result most of my friends are male.

So it would seem for one's children to be optimally socially adapted one would either need to have at least four children (two boys and two girls, and all within the age to play together), or repeatedly put your children into a situation (such as daycare, co-ed summer camps, etc) where they are forced to interact with either sex on a regular basis. I think if I ever have children I will choose the latter option! ;)

the year in review

Well I thought that since I have made it through another year that I would post some pictures which illustrate what the year was about, for me. So here we go. Are you ready?

How it began... Just after midnight, Jan 1st, 2006

Jan 1st, 2006.. sometime after 12:30am: Brother Sean, trying to get people to take off some clothes for a shot of toxic blue stuff out of the big bowl

Slacklining Fun in January

Good times at the pheonix

Lucky Me!

Kissing boys!

The first of Tyler's martini parties

Vy and I souped up for the Latin Dance night at the SUB

Serbian New Year... boy... THAT was a night!

Fooling around on the way back from the Rogue

Vy and Jeff styling it up at Boom

Jeff and co with Jeff's famous pineapple mug. vy Loved it.

Vy and I at the pita pit one Saturday night

Adam at the rogue one Thursday night

Norfolk climbing at the UAC

Me climbing at the UAC with an excellent spot... first time on real rock

My first time on rope, this was in May 2006

View from Welsford, near Joe's Garage I think

Vy at the SUB cafeteria.. during lunch one day in spring

Me riding Prussia in the first Cindy Ishoy clinic

Owen (my brother) and Renee at their wedding:

The crew waiting for the boat to take us to Dover:

Me on Oranguatan

A big wave at Dover

The van on the way back from Dover

Prussia and I at the awards ceremony at the provincial championships

Me at the top of the empire state building

Time Square, New York.. first night I was there

Rock School! My second time on rope :)

View from Welsford, early October

The crew at Sunnyside on my Birthday, Oct.15th

Erick and I dressed up for Halloween

Christmas chocolates


Well this ends the picture tour of 2006. I see I've been derelict in my picture taking duties since October, but there you go. Hope you enjoyed the show! :)

Back at it

Well this is long overdue. Just a quick update because I'm at work...

I had a great christmas break. I spent the first three days making chocolates. I made 230 altogether... which boys and girls is more than 6 pounds of chocolates. I took pictures of them too, so I'll post those when I get home after work.

I needed something to keep me busy when I first got home, because my life in Fredericton is fairly hectic, and I've always got something on the go. After that the slow pace of my parent's place can make me a little antsy, so chocolate making filled that role admirably. If you're reading this and I haven't seen you since before Christmas, chances are there is a little goodie bag of chocolates heading your way! :)

Christmas day was fun, as always, and marked by lots of chocolate, presents, turkey, and general laziness. My favorite present was what I gave to my dad... He is a dry and cynical individual who likes to drink, so what I got him was perfect. I will post a picture later of him with his two christmas presents from me.

My mom was quite pleased with the prana yoga mat and accompanying hemp carrying bag I gave her. Ah, the perfect re-gifting experience! I won the yoga mat and bag in a climbing competition in October, and giving it to my mom was the ideal thing to do with it. I guess everyone else in her yoga class has a special bag for carrying their mat, but my mother didn't. So now she can prance in there with her prana bag looking very much the yuppie. :)

My Christmas break also featured a trip to the Rossmount Inn for dinner (the restaurant where I worked for 4 summers). I ate something which could only be described as raw duck liver... Kind of a Canadian equivalent of foie gras. It was tasty, but its a good thing they keep the lights down in that place because some things just look like they are not meant to be eaten. I'm pretty sure it looked like a raw organ on a plate with some potatoes and fancy decorations. I'm trying not to think about it though, for the sake of my stomach. The rest of the meal was very tasty, and following the pattern of my usual christmas overindulgences, I ate too much. I still haven't put on any weight though, which is a bonus.

New Years was interesting. Erick and I hung out at Jeff's place by ourselves for about 40 minutes, until Jeff showed up, followed closely by Vlad and Jess, Vlad's cousin, and a friend of hers. They all got so busy talking about something that they didn't notice midnight had passed. Erick and I did, though ;). After they realized they had missed it, they staged a countdown in the kitchen, at like 12:05.

I don't really make new years resolutions, or rather, I don't see why new years is the only time for making them. I make resolutions far more frequently than that. Improving your life is all about taking small steps that you can maintain, rather than big ones that you can't. But anyway, a conclusion I have come to is that I want to focus on climbing for the next two months, as well as improve my cardiovascular fitness, and get used to hiking. A whole crew of us are going to Red Rocks in Nevada in March for rope climbing and bouldering, so you can bet your boots I want to be fit when we go! :)


Happy New Year everyone! :)