not much to write about. just another day. in which i slept in until 4:30pm because i can.

well i don't have that much to write about but i thought i would blog. i just hung out with my older brother joel for the last time for this month until christmas. we had pizza night at jerry's and then headed over to growlers. the only time i can drink there is when it is crowded, which it wasn't so i had a red bull, which is now accellerating my typing speed as we speak. he needs to shave! here is a picture i just took now. see?

Have you ever done yard work and looked over at the neighbors yard and think, they need to do some yard work in their yard too? Well I think that’s what the neighbors think of our yard. Our bamboo trees are dying. The garden is a mess. The blackish yellow carcasses of once glorious tomato plants are draped over the neighbors yard to the left. To the right, the blueberry bushes have gone skeletal and grass grows tall around it. Occasionally our dog Abby snacks on the long grass when she feels the need to vomit in the backyard. In the garden patch by the house, several cucumbers have started to dry out. Unlike gourds, they are black and squishy.
ok that's all.

i'll go climbing tomorrow right before work at 3pm. i'll go running tomorrow maybe, but it's so l;kasjdfl;ksjf cold!

Writing of Bermuda

Last April I went backpacking to bermuda and I found some writing of it, so i will post it here. In other news, i just climbed my first V5 the other day :D :D

My Travels: each and every of my trips are out of the ordinary and take a little more creativity, nerve and guts then the typically comfortable route of the american tourist

so here it is: the travels of i

the world as my backyard

chapter 1: backpacking in bermuda

so the initial plan was london. stewarts fam was this time around situated in the grand ole uk and it only took a 20 mile hiking trip to come to the idea for spring break.

it was... not called for- you know, the usual conversation college students engage in, places they want to go, countries to visit, cool people of places met, etc

i had driven out from gaithersburg md to purcellville, va, about an hour's drive for a long day hike on the AT. we were going to start at Raven's Rock and make north for harper's ferry, come home and make a meal or something. it was tim raveling, sophomore at patrick henry college and stewart lundy, a junior, also at phc. i had done this hike 3 or more times with tim and other phc students before. i was a little apprehensive- it had been more than 6 months when i last hiked more then 15 miles. i was a little late, even though i left home early, but we did eventually set of on a decently overcast morn around 9:30am. we walked. that's it. and while walking, talked. about the current status of our lives, school, people we know, music, movie, books, and history, and things we wanted to do and see and places we wanted to go to, life after college, careers, etc. aka, the typical conversation.

blast. geez, their shower was dirty. but it felt good to be clean after hiking up 18 miles of grime. it was an icy then muddy walk, various landmarks laid out etch a sketch my year before at phc. good times.

tim was making dinner - it smelled good and i think i picked to often at the red onions simmering in the jack daniel's sauce

stewart... or was it tim? sat up and said, 'what if we just... go somewhere for spring break?' stewart wanted to go to ethiopia. the laptops before us said no- ticket prices to africa were hefty. we tried asia. the same. europe? tickets to the uk were not too bad. "we could hike hadrian's wall" stewart i swear almost giggled at showing up on his parents doorstep during spring break, what a surprise that would be. dublin? irish pubs, hell yea! but still we were looking at around $500 per person. then, us, n our innocent youth, derived NOT to purchase any tickets whatsoever, but the moment class got out, head over to the local airport in the morning and demand to be sent out of the country, (with fingers crossed for great britain.) it was february? middle of the month i recollect.

in the next few weeks i tried to keep my excitement and plans on the down low, telling nobody. i requested off work for that time, with the excuse that i was probably going caving in west virginia ( i have never been caving). in my mind, i laughed silently at my insanity. we were 3 poor college students, deliberately choosing NOT to plan! it was madness, and brilliance! i had no idea AT ALL what would happen during spring break, or even more importantly where the hell we were going. it was comfort to me, and carried me through- dropping all my classes- one which i dropped by accident, and it occupied my thoughts, even when i got to go rock climbing outside, something that i rarely get to do. yet i was crazed, silent, smiling, imaginative. it could have easily gone nowhere. and that's what we thought when

one bright morning, the 19th of march, i asked my mother to take me to dulles airport in sterling. the coolant pipe in my car had broken off, causing coolant to drain from my car, and causing the engine to overheat within 30 minutes of running. so i was screwed, especially looking into the cost of fixing it- i had to buy another coolant tank, running around $300 for the part itself. i doubted i could install it myself, but when you're broke, that's kinda what you have to do- scrounge around for tools in the house, and utilize to the maximum the powers of google and internet car repair forums. at the time i needed to fix my car, which had just broken a few days before spring break, i had almost no money in the bank, probably about $200 with all my accounts combined. so i loaned 200$ from my parents, and crossed my fingers. the night before the drive to the airport, i had fled scuba class because i had left my bathing suit at home and was also tired from a long shift at work. all in all, i was a broke quitter, hiding from everything important. if i didn't go on this trip, which i had knowingly no idea what it held i knew things could blow up for me, i was due and ripe for disaster. so the break was also going to be for me a flee, an escape from responsibility and necessity. good.

it was early and cold! i was glad i brought a wind shell. all i had packed up was in a 40 liter backpack on my back. i also brought running shoes and a digital SLR camera. so i felt a little shamed when i saw that tim and stewart had packed much less. it was a day ago that i talked to tim on the phone and he told me that max shrumpf, their roommate decided he was coming too. i didn't tell my parents that i was planning to flee the country with three boys. oh well. it just sounded strange, i knew each one of them was fine and cool. still, it felt a little strange.

with packs strapped on our back, tim, stewart, and i entered the dulles airport. apparently max was still awaiting the arrival of his passport and didn't come this time.

it was awkward at first, but after the first try, it got easier.

"Hi.... we're basically 3 poor college students who want to fly out of the country for spring break."... "um specifically? the uk we hope... oh. okay. thanks. bye."

the airport was filling up. we were there at how early? 8 or 9 am. not too early. it was bustling. there were no tickets to be found. instead, most desk attendants at the various airlines, advised us against what we were doing- or rather the method of it. the internet, the commended to us. sigh. back to square one.

but another hole to crawl through was found - airline 1-800 numbers. from jet blue to taca to united airways there were 3 various youth buzzing of by windows with packs, requesting to be sent anywhere.

i called taca. an airline like ... taco. apparently they only had flights going out to countries in south america. and all the tickets to south american countries were gone. PROOF of the vast amounts of illegal immigrants in the US the freaking airline sells out!

then tim called jetblue again. rebecca? the name of the phone attendant...? she found tickets to a place called bermuda, for 525 dollars, leaving in 3 days on sunday, tim cupped a hand over his cell, and called out to stewart and i. all that went through my mind was a book when i was ten or twelve. it was about the bermuda triangle, a mysterious whirlpool that swallowed up ships and sea worthy vessals. it's out there in the carribean, said tim. okay, i'm in i said after maybe 2 thoughts - the recollection of the book and the color of the water there.

525$ is a lot of money to pay for a plane ticket. but then again, it's not the death. at $500, the ticket beckoned to me, it's vitality. it wasn't a $500 ticket to puerto rico or costa rica. it was "bermuda" to me an island aligned with scientific mystery. excitement is worth $500. i could survive $500. yea... yea, i could!

----

bursting out in the rain: the moment we landing in bermuda, i unbuckled and popped up. i was excited and wanted out. i looked up the window, already i knew it was stormy and at a minimum raining. we had experienced turbulence on the way in. ii put on my raincoat, caught a breath and with a heave pulled my pack over my back and buckled up, bursting out of the plane in the pouring rain. it was warm, not hot, not cold. nyc was cold. sterling was windy. bermuda was warmish. and rainy. as we entered the terminal, we walked by a middle-aged native man, set up by tourists i love you and your money, wearing a hawaiian shirt, and playing jolly ole island music on a small guitar. the americans before and behind me were happy by this show of hospitality. we checked out, all of us passing through customs, lying through the teeth that we planned to reside at "aunt nia's inn" we exited the airport and taxi drivers hailed us, trying to get us to enter their miniature vans. a lively elderly black man succeeded in apprehending us and led us across the street to his vehicle. he had a strong british accent and his car played island music from the 1950's. "where to?" "are you heading to St. George?" "what hotel" "where in st. george do you want to go?" "are you going to st. george's club?"

"uh... sure" said stewart, not sure what he was saying sure to. so the taxi drive took us away from the airport, across a bridge, to a little hotel / cottages in the town of st. george, called st. george's club. max went inside and got maps. it just hit me now, that i never entered the hotel the taxi took us to. i just waited outside each and every time we found ourselves there.

every time we passed a cluster of loitering happy locals, i kept thinking of the lines in the jack johnson song, holes to heaven, the part when they sweet talked local officials and bribed them with cigarettes and booze. and after a trip to one of the many many liqueur shops within the second day, during stewart and max bought aged bacardi rum, the words were quite fitting, as we found havens from the weather around the island, in trails and on the beaches, with obvious markings of local hangouts- many butts and bottles, and cartons for seats. tim carries tobbaco, paper, pipes, and pipe tobacco, max a variety of cigarettes, and every time we sat for a bit we brought out the rum and the tobacco. we didn't carry food, just the essentials, as you can see.

...tbc.

The Obsessed Me: Climbing

Hi, my name is Lily Cornett and I like climbing. No, I love climbing. Right now i'm writing with a bit of a grimace because my right hand and elbow is sore. For reasons unknown. Undoubtedly, climbing related. I'm a novice climber and my main passion lies in the wicked sport of bouldering. (Climbing short routes or boulders that consist of single or few problems, ropeless, and more focused (I think) then toproping or trad climbing.) I'm writing this not because I'm an expert of any sort, but because I'm in the process of learning the art of climbing and I think it would be helpful to document my attempts and my trials of error.

I don't really know why I started climbing. I was mainly a toproper in a gym in Rockville, committing about 2 times a month from January 2008. But from June I started going twice a week, and I was passionately hooked. During the summer I had a decent share of toproping out at Carderock, MD with some friends. Climbing outside, I learned a lot about balance and using tiny holds, since Carderock is mostly slanted rock and you climb better that way. During this time, I was climbing solid 5.9's and V1s at Earth Treks.

I took a break from climbing to travel to Japan for two months in August 2008. I had been climbing for two months. But even in Japan, I found people to climb with. I bouldered twice a week. When I came back, the wall at Earth Treks had been done over and none of the climbs had been rated yet. I worked on V3s and some V4s (unknowingly). Not knowing the ratings is a beautiful thing. You learn to focus on the climbs for what they are, not blindly following a botched rating system.

I left Maryland for two and a half weeks to campaign for a friend's political race in rural South Dakota.

When I came back I went back to Earth Treks, and progressed to being a solid V2 climber, solid 5.9s and shaky on the 5.10s. I sent most V3's and also, as of recent, 2 V4s. My goal is to be by the end of this year, a solid V4 climber. I like V4 rated climbs better than V2s and V3s because they are getting more technical and more like a fun puzzle. I am learning a lot by attempting V4s. I don't really care what ratings I climb in the long haul. I just want to possess the techniques required to climb them.

The reason I think I'm shaky on the 5.10s but more confidant on V3s and V4s is because the holds are smaller on 5.10 climbs and the routes are longer. I think with a little physical training, I'll become a solid 5.10 climber. My goal by May is to be a solid 5.12 climber.

Here are some of the things I learned so far:
Chalking Up:
Chalk up, but AFTER you tie in. Focus on what you are doing and you won't end up doing prep work out of sync before a climb. Plus, you'll probably climb better. Don't overchalk. If you are working on a sloper, then fine, chalk up. But when you are at the gym, most likely you're just overchalking to build unnecessary friction. Rely on proper technique and weight distribution rather then blindly chalking and throwing clamp holds. Do you really need to squeeze that hold so much it'll pop?

Rope:
Trust it. That means, with confidence, commit to the next move and go for it. But don't use a rope to constantly break or lean back on it to pull over a lip. Find a break spot without leaning back on the rope and you'll get better at finding rest spots should you start trad climbing.

Legs:
Other than using proper footwork, ever know what the leg where your weight isn't on doing? Is it flagging? Is it just flailing around? Are you using it to scrape your way up to the hold that's just out of reach? Pay attention to what you usually leave up to the unconscious mind. If your like me, a novice climber, it's probably not doing the best thing it can do. Why not? Well you don't have proper footwork down as a skill. Most people don't. If you dont focus on doing it the right way or using it at all, you'll most likely waste the extra leg, or worse, make it more difficult to complete the move. Rather than letting the leg hang on some moves, use the idle leg to assist, by flagging, scraping up, drop knee, whatever and try to use all those limbs that God gave you to make the next move.

Visualize:
Focus on what hand will reach for what hold before you climb. Visualize how you will climb a route. BUT ALSO visualize what footholds are going to allow you to reach which holds. Footholds, I am slowly learning, are the key to reaching handholds properly. And this varies person to person. So in light of your height and your reach, visualize what footholds are good and when to use them in hand with handholds.

Finger touch:
If you can just make contact with a hold, with even just a finger, you can wrap around to reaching the hold. Trust me, just making surface contact you'll stick to the hold. And if you can reach a finger, put a little more oof into it next time- stick your knee further over a hold and reach, and you'll probably tag the hold this time around.

Stick it:
Just force yourself to stick it. Keep your arms straight. You'll be surprised that you have the strength to hold a move. IT'S SOOOO MENTAL! Remember, that when you keep your arms straight you are using your skeletal structure and not muscle and you'll last longer on the rock. Also, when you get up there sometimes you'll be like, whee I can't believe I got this far. I am GOING to send it. Let yourself get determined and more confidant as you are climbing. It's really not that hard!

Falling is okay. That's what pads are for.

Downclimb:
Take a moment to find yourself. Rest your hands. Look down at the holds. Then downclimb. You'll be surprised at how confidently you take most of the weight with your feet. If only we climbed up this way!

Slopers:
I love what little slopers I have worked on. They are good for you. Good for learning proper pull and placement. they force you to concentrate on how you hold them, and where you are pulling/placing your center of gravity. Try to keep you arms straight, and weight pulling down directly under them. Otherwise you can slip off.

Step into:
Step into a foothold and reach with confidence. If you step and then reach your body may fall back and you'll miss the hold. Well if this happens in some cases then you are not relying on your feet. But on overhanging walls, you need to reach as you are stepping. Use the momentum, for a reach, and not waste energy pulling with the other hand.

Deadpoints:
These require stepping up with confidence and carefully flagging the idle foot. I suck at these and am still learning. But I love deadpoints because of their dynamic nature. I really am alert when I commit to them.

Rests and Confidence Building:
Take rests. Don't just keep climbing and pumping out. Work on a climb with a straight head. That way you'll climb it in 2-3 tries and not 15. Focus on what you are doing, but also build a commitment that you are going to climb a problem. Be confident and smart as you plan your next method. And then climb the route with such confidence, head-on-straight manner, and thinking progressively as you climb. If your like me, technique is not yet second nature and you have to think as you go, but also, commit to sending the route. Don't muscle your way up there though! This is easier to do in the gym.

For Rizzle is the Shizzle:
Climbing outside is harder, and more scary because of the lack of padding. However it is Better. Yes, it is. Climbing outside has more crimp holds and slopers, requires more dynamic movement sometimes, and you have to think consciously about how you are going to use the holds in relation to footwork and where you body weight will be pulling. Climbing outside requires a lot of conscious technique work. The holds are not just freebie clampers like all the man made ones in the gym. If you want to build technique, I'm telling you, because I learned the most out of climbing outside- Outside is best. Plus you get to grapple with the rock, struggle with it, and come to love it.

No Obsessing:
Don't dream about and obsess about climbing when you are not. Have fun. Otherwise you'll end up like me and start blogging about all the little tiny things you are thinking about climbing related. It's baaaaaaad.

And that's just a little about what I am learning while climbing. I can't wait till my older brother Joel gets home tonight and my arms heals so I can hit up the rock or the gym again with him!