Stuff David Does on the radio!

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by David Gaffney-Rosenfeld of This Joyful Noise. David broadcasts live from WHCR 90.3 FM and streaming live at WHCR.org every Monday from 2 to 3pm.

We talked about music, fighting bears, and technology and the wilderness. At some later date, his broadcasts will be available in downloadable form for your listening pleasure.

David and I have known each other for a good portion of our lives and I can call him a close friend. Due to this, whatever I say about him is inherently biased, but I still think that I can say the following with some objectivity:

Keep a close eye on him, he will be doing amazing things before you know it.

In closing, some fun I had with a photo editor recently:

Paletas! (Spatula-things)

I made a run of 5-6 of these 5 years ago, and I loved how they turned out so much I made another 5. They are great for cooking.

I was given the wood by my dad when I saw him in Venezuela recently. He still had the template I made to cut them out last time. Here is the comparison of the older (left) to the newer (right):



The older one is slightly smaller than the new...not sure how this happened, considering I made them from the same template. Part of it may be that the edges of the older run were initially sanded with a belt sander, removing considerably more material. I had no belt sander on hand this time, and used a palm sander. Both were finished by hand sanding them to a nice finish.

A difference in color is also apparent; this is due to dryness/oils absorbed. The older one has been used for the past five years in the kitchen and thus has absorbed a good amount of oil. It also has shown surprisingly few signs of wear; no splitting, splintering, or cracking at all! This wood, red oak, is amazingly resistant to heat and wear.



That being said, remember to oil (mineral oil is best) your wooden kitchen tools regularly, if they don't come in contact with oil already, and never put them in the dishwasher.

Venezuela, Mi Patria Querida

I recently spent 4 days Caracas, Venezuela, the city I was born in, to attend my cousin's wedding. Some highlights:

-Caracas has horrendous traffic nowadays. At it's worst, it took us 50 minutes to drive something it would have taken 5 minutes to walk.

-I got to play First Responder at the wedding. My younger cousin's girlfriend got possible hypoglycemia/dehydration and being diabetic, I had a source of sugar (I carry a squeeze tube full of molasses and honey) but the water resulted being much harder to find. I finally ran into the limo driver for the newlyweds, and he served me the water from the cooler in the limo in a champagne glass. Classy!

-When you are at a wedding, and there is a beautiful Venezuelan woman standing all alone, seemingly waiting for you to walk up to talk to her, like it is straight out of a movie and you are the protagonist, you are mistaken...she is waiting for her boyfriend to arrive with that pack of gum she asked him to get earlier. Let's just say when he showed up and introduced himself it got a bit awkward.

-As cars were milling about in front of the church after the wedding ceremony, I ran into the street to catch a Jack Russell puppy that had gotten away from two boys. I can tell you that chasing a Beanie Baby-sized dog through traffic while wearing a suit is not as easy as you'd think.

-I had the opportunity to drive in Caracas for the first time ever. In this city, lanes are guidelines (if the lines are even visible), turn signals are an invitation to be passed at high speed, and running red lights and stop signs is standard operating procedure...due to the fact that stopping puts you at risk of being carjacked at gunpoint. You simply slow down a bit as you approach the light...look right, look left...and gun it.

-Another fun thing to be done in a suit: Dance to reggaeton and salsa in 85 degree heat.


Myself, my cousin Anabel, my mom, my grandmother and her husband.

Origami Crane Earrings

I saw a pair of these in a store and thought to myself, "I can make those." So I did.

Cutting.


Folding.


Lacquering (clear nail polish, really).


Installing gold hardware.


I folded these cranes from origami paper purchased in a Japanese bookstore nearby. With full-size cranes, you can get away with thicker paper, but these tiny birds needed the thinner paper. Plus, the patterns make for some pretty earrings.



The origami paper was originally 6" square. I cut it down to 1.4" in size. Once folded, I applied 3-4 coats (lost count, really) of a clear nail laminate, making the cranes stiffer and more durable, with the added benefit of giving them a glossy look. The jewelery hardware is 14k gold plate. From cutting to the hardware, each crane took no more than one hour.

Wooden Gymnastic Rings - Complete(?)

Finally got those coats of spar varnish onto the rings. They are a little slippery but with gymnastic chalk the friction improves quite a bit. I've only did a couple pull-ups on them with a false grip (necessary for doing muscle-ups) and that was pretty tough, but then again, I haven't hung from a false grip or done muscle-ups in months. The upside is they probably won't tear your wrists up when transitioning down from the dip to the pull-up portion of the movement.

Regardless, the rings are gorgeous. I expect the surface texture to improve as they are used more. Voila:

The Tough Mudder 2010

The Tough Mudder is a footrace...well, kinda. It's a footrace if you just count the 7 miles up and down steep ski runs...but then you also have to consider the log walls to scale, icy ponds to cross, and the FIRE you must run through near the end of the race!

According to the website, the Tough Mudder is the "toughest one day endurance race on the planet." I registered for their NY/PA state event, one of twelve events that are qualifiers for the World's Toughest Mudder Series Final, location to be determined...

Anyway, the NY/PA race is being held on May 2nd at the Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Macungie, PA. If you are up for a good challenge, you should sign up now! There are also spectator tickets available. And NO, I'm not being paid by the Tough Mudder organizers to say all this, I'm just genuinely PSYCHED to be in a race where I get to swim through mud and hang from rope bridges!



See you at the starting line!!!

Joshua Tree - Part Two (The Storm)

Continuing on the meeting people groove, I met Kevin and Kim and did my first couple climbs in the park. Kevin led the classic hand crack Double Cross (5.7+) and then I led Orphan (5.9) which started with stemming, then went from a finger crack all the way to a pretty nice offwidth/flare. Good times.

I climbed with a new partner just about every day, doing routes like Super Roof (5.9),The Flue (5.8+), and Pigpen (V4).

Also saw some folks set up a highline between two formations; I got this cool shot from below.



Then came this sunset, foretelling some pretty nasty weather...



And the rain started to come down. And kept going...and did not stop for nearly a week. My new friend Joel and myself hid in our Kiwi friend Diane's tent for the first two days, but when we were told the system was going to last for at least a few more days, all three of us got a ride out of the park and rented a motel room for a couple nights. By the time the rain stopped, it had rained more than it had in the past FIVE YEARS. Pretty intense.



It had snowed in the park! Still a bit of clouds...but then they cleared!



And then it started snowing again. Joel and I hid in a cave. Better not to get too excited yet.



With the next couple days showing some promising weather, Joel and I gave our best shot at routes like Fisticuffs (5.10b), a burly overhanging fist crack, and O'Kelley's Crack (5.10c), which had everything from finger jamming to wide hand jamming. I onsighted the first, but we fell our way up O'Kelley's...and every inch of it was 4-star material.

While we felt a little worn the next day, we decided to hitch a ride out to Geology Tour Road, where 4-5 routes in the guidebook had caught our interest. We met a couple from Vermont, Hilary and Brad, and convinced them it would be a great place to go climbing! Also, to please give us a ride.

We managed 4 routes that day: warmed up on Thumbs Down Left (5.9), then Joel led a wonderful stemming corner called Lightsabre (5.10b). I was up next, groveling my way up Between a Rock and a Hard Place (5.10b), which involved one of the most grueling exit moves I have ever done; a bit like squeezing through a vertical drainpipe with nothing to pull on with your hands or push on with your feet.

We finished up on the imposing Centurion (5.10d)...or more accurately, it finished us up. We were both extremely tired by this point and flailed quite a bit. I had an exciting moment: when halfway up the route, with no more cams to place, all the rest of my cams flipped sideways and were rendered useless. Joel had a hell of a time cleaning them, too, as the rope was pushing them deeper and deeper into the crack.