the friday post of glee

[sixbeforelunch]

In the future this post will have a better name and format. For now, I have five minutes before I have to leave for work.

Post your climbing glee here. Accomplishments, yes, but also just those moments when you had a blast. There are no rules about what makes climbing glee. If it's climbing related and it made you proud or happy, it belongs here.

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

I sent a V1, avoided making negative progress on the cave, and beat a purple boulder problem thing with only four holds, the top two of which are really far apart. Woot!

[rydra_wong]

\o/

[rydra_wong]

I went climbing again and managed not to stress out my rotator cuff strain!

I back-and-footed across a corner, all the way up to the ceiling, without touching a single hand-hold! (I have a tendency to invent these weird little projects for myself.)

I got a "Jesus, you're fast!" out of someone watching while I did a loop round the easy circuit on the overhang (my smug, let me show you it).

Also, the new shoes are now millimetres away from perfection. Which, at the moment, means millimetres of PAIN, but I have been reliably informed that they will stretch that tiny bit more.

[sixbeforelunch]

Go you and your mad climbing skills!

Also, the new shoes are now millimetres away from perfection.

Sweet!

[rydra_wong]

Assuming they make it those last few millimetres, yes. *glares at them*

But they really suit my foot shape, so if they break in a bit further, they're going to be both technical and tolerably comfy.

[cofax7]

Hmm. I don't have any current glee; I'm only climbing irregularly right now, so I'm struggling to get back to the point where I can reliably climb 5.10d.

But last summer I took my 15-y-o niece and her 16-y-o friend out climbing at Donner Summit, which is in Truckee, CA. My niece has climbed a bit, mostly indoors, but the friend has a fear of heights and hasn't really climbed. So I set up a top-rope on a 5.7 sloping crack, with a lovely view of Donner Lake and the mountains, and we had a blast. It had been a while since I'd climbed outdoors, and you know how outdoor climbing is always just ... weird compared to indoors. You have to get creative with the holds, nothing's off-route, and often things are really awkward.

But the kids were great: the friend did a wonderful job, even though she was kind of scared. And my niece belayed me for the first time, as well, while I ran up & down the crack a couple times.

Fun times! It's great fun introducing kids to climbing.

[sixbeforelunch]

Oh, that does sound like much fun.

One of these days I must go outside and climb an actual rock. *g*

[rydra_wong]

Venturing onto Actual Rock is one of my tentative goals for this year. Though it's complicated by the fact that pretty much the only Actual Rock in the vicinity of London is a very small amount of legendarily awful sandstone.

But there are some excellent-sounding "plastic to pebbles" day workshops for boulderers in the Peak District, which I'm tempted by.

[sixbeforelunch]

Pennsylvania has lots of good outdoor climbing. (It's not as great as out west, but we do okay.) I would be more gung ho about going outside but I have yet to find people to go outside with me. So, if you ever make it across the pond... ;)

[cofax7]

I lived in Baltimore for a while, and there was a lot of great climbing at the local crags. I really liked that. It was actually better than what's around here, I think.

[rydra_wong]

and you know how outdoor climbing is always just ... weird compared to indoors.

I don't know! But I plan to find out. (It's one of my vague newbie-climber goals for this year.)

I have not found myself head-jamming yet, but I did send a problem by hip-scumming the other day *g*.

[pellucid]

It's probably bad that my current climbing glee has more to do with this comm existing than anything I've actually climbed recently, yes? Bah! My schedule is getting the better of me, and my climbing has been super-irregular. When I was last at the gym (over a week ago), I was fighting with 5.10a's, and I was not inclined to be gleeful. Hmm.

Glee-worthy, however, is the fact that it is finally warm enough to bike to the gym again, thereby significantly cutting down the amount of time this activity eats out of my schedule. And next week kicks off a slight respite in the craziness of the schedule, so I have big plans to be back in action soon! YAY!!!

[sixbeforelunch]

Glee-worthy, however, is the fact that it is finally warm enough to bike to the gym again, thereby significantly cutting down the amount of time this activity eats out of my schedule.

That is definitely glee-worthy. I just pulled my bike out of the garage and got it tuned up for the express purpose of the biking to the gym. Won't save me any time (it'll take longer than driving, actually) but I think it will be a good warm up.

[pellucid]

Out of curiosity, do you know if there's something I should have turned on in order to be getting comment notifications? Because I wasn't notified of your reply, and I don't know if that's just a temporary bug, or if it's something I've got set up wrong with my account. And I get the impression you know more about this than I do!

[rydra_wong]

Check your comment notifications setting (Organize --> Manage Account --> Notifications). But if it's set to notify you and isn't doing so, then it's a bug -- e-mail:

the_bosses AT dwscoalition.org

[pellucid]

Yes, it was the notifications. I didn't want all the comments piling up in my DW inbox (I must admit, I hated those inboxes when LJ introduced them, and I'm now even more annoyed by DW's version--the one thing I've found so far that isn't completely awesome in every way, so I'm sure I'll live!), so I'd turned off the "notify me in my DW inbox" button, not noticing that that also turns off the "notify me by email" button. And there doesn't seem to be a way to get only email and not DW inbox. I think. Which I find annoying, but will live with. Or will ask someone about. The latter is no doubt the better plan anyway.

[rydra_wong]

And there doesn't seem to be a way to get only email and not DW inbox.

Ah, yeah. That's part of the code they inherited from LJ -- if you have a look, you'll see that the LJ inbox actually does the same thing (it used not to, but now it does).

(There's some complicated technical reason for this which vanished from my brain the moment Syne finished explaining it to me.)

I find it annoying too, but the inbox does automatically start deleting messages once they hit a certain number. I just go and "Delete All" occasionally because it makes me feel better.

[sixbeforelunch]

*points* What Rydra said.

You might notice too that GMail threads your notifications all funny-like. Instead of them being nicely threaded by entry, replies to comments you left on multiple entries sometimes get threaded together. Or they do for me, anyway. This isn't a DW thing, it's a GMail thing, but I think the DW folks are trying to figure out how they can make GMail like them. So you might want to check that you aren't losing track of comment replies that way too.

[rydra_wong]

Ooh, I have belated glee! My shoulder was being twingy again today, so I worked on my one-handed climbing, and actually managed to send two easy problems one-handed!

Yes, I am a pathetic Johnny Dawes fangirl.

It turns out to be a really interesting exercise; I think I'm learning all sorts of things about momentum and body position.