Grampians trip - numero 7

I am not sure if this is my seventh Grampians trip or my eighth, but I have decided that it's my seventh, for two main reasons:
a) seven is just so much better than eight
b) I feel much better when saying that I've done only seven trips to the Grampians (and still have not sent Master Bates) than saying that I've done eight trips and still have not sent it.

Anyway. This trip was part of what Marian thinks is my sekrit plan to kill him: it rained very heavily on the way in but then we had absolutely gorgeous weather: cold but dry and sunny!!!

We explored Kindergarten on Saturday where N. got on Spanking the monkey bars (V8) and I tried A Horse is a horse (V4).

It is a really really nice problem, starting waay low under in the little cave and then continuing with a biiiiig move to the left

followed by a hook match affair on this rail:

I nearly sent it, whereby "nearly" I mean that I did but I dabbed a bit as N. had lifted the mat to catch my fall.

I couldn't repeat it as it felt very tiring ...

The next day Marian sent Lygon Street Massacre, only six months after declaring it impossible! I got on the send train but got off before it reached the Master bates station ... Sigh. Nevertheless, the trip was a success: I got on Wimmel Friedof, probably the best V5 in the Grampians, I now know what i need to do for Master Bates, and I nearly sent A horse is a horse! Progress!! ROAR!!

One picture Tuesday

Probably the best picture of this grampians trip. The rock at kindergarten (a grampians area) is just beautiful!

Easily demotivated these days

Running wise, I mean. I was supposed to run a trail run this Sunday and I nearly backed out because running and I these days are having some problems in our relationship.

To be honest, running sucks. Or at least, it sucks to me. It's hard to get going and very easy to loose endurance with only a week of slacking off. In truth, trail running is THE THING to do, but the thing with trail running is that it tends to be uphill, so fucking hard to begin with.

To be honest, running is awesome. It takes you places. And, having run enough for the endorphins to kick in, the running high you get is kind of addictive.

I ran the Sea to Summit this Sunday. Unusual for me, I didn't run the main event (the 30 km run), but ran with the wusses in the 15 km run. Boy was it cold. And boy was it uphill - sea to summit, duh!! But boy was it beautiful!


I got to see parts of the Adelaide hills that one does not usually see on foot and also I got to find another training ground - training starts in July, after I get back from Thailand! I have a sekret plan that involves walking with a backpack on chambers gully and in belair park in the wee hours of the morning. This would train my cold tolerance and also my stamina. And, to further confirm to Marian that I sekretly want to kill him, I plan to involve him mwahahahhahaaa.

Anyway, coming back to the run. I can understand why Sea to Summit is a qualifier for the Six Foot Track Marathon. It's fucking hard, that's why! But that being said, I'm a bit apprehensive of the distance: 30 km is not 45 km and the elevation does not make up for the fact that in Six Foot you would have additional 15 km to run.

Regardless, I have just confirmed that I do qualify for the 2014 six foot track marathon, having ran the 2013 race. Hm.

Today's weather update: challenges aplenty but sucking at motivation.

One picture Tuesday

From phdcomics.

So what I'm doing is called channelling your inner three year old or CYITYO. 

La Sportiva Solutions

I used to think that Solutions were only for the V9+ climbers. That I, being old, fat, and, most importantly, WEAK!, do not deserve such shooz. And then I destroyed my second pair of miuras on Master Bates - they are still wearable (and I'll wear them for a long time from now on) - and I went to Canada.

In Canada I went to MEC, mostly to buy tiles for D. , but also to check out some shooz. And check them I did. I bought two pairs for D. and I bought a pair for me as well. I bought La Sportivas again, mainly because I think that La Sportiva (as a brand of shoes) is God's gift to climbers. And I bought Solutions, because the moment I put them on they went "Slurrp!" and sucked my feet in. My eyes bulged a bit (they were a bit tight), but the subsequent wear proved to me that I had found soulmates for my feet.

At the point of purchase, the Solutions were the most expensive piece of gear I had ever bought (with the exception of the tent) (Of course, I went on and bought a down suit so yeah, hm ...). I will probably never climb V9. And I will never do these shooz justice. I will probably, treasure and respect them as they deserve: I wore them twice and each time I brushed them before putting them back in!

Sigh

The end of the semester is upon us! Dear fuck, if I have to go through a semester like this one ever again, I will quit my job and start on one of my numerous backup careers. Or just go home and climb full time because FUCK THAT.

Here's to never teaching three courses at the same time, on top of doing research, admin, and supervising students.

One picture Tuesday

Sorry, I had forgotten it is Tuesday today, what with the long weekend and all that.

This is what I call a pre-commit in distributed systems terms. Or, in budget terms, THE MOST EXPENSIVE PIECE OF GEAR I HAVE EVER BOUGHT ZOMG*!!!

* and yes, it's hot in there.

Not a totally lost weekend

We were supposed to have a looong weekend in the Grampians this past long weekend but then fate intervened and my plane was delayed in Melbourne and then asbestos leakage was identified in the Grampians campground!

Marian decided that obviously this was a sign and we should spend this long weekend at home. I upped the bet and said that we should go to the grampians next weekend.

Marian's sekrit plan was to spend the looong weekend doing nothing but re-compiling his droid kernel - I put a stop to that immediately: we climbed at Morialta on Saturday, tried to boulder at Bachelor's Pad on Sunday, and climbed at Carcrash Quarry on Monday. This sounds good until you find out what we actually did:

1. Morialta
We got there a bit too late in the day and the most popular route was busy. I was sekretly planning to do laps on it, so I was a bit miffed when a top rope was on it but nobody was climbing! Fuckers!!! Nevertheless, I trad led an 11 and literally spent the entire climb shitting myself out of fear: the route was dirty and I had drank too much coffee before that. I set up a top rope and we spent the whole day doing laps on a 19 (I'm training endurance, hence all the laps). The surprise of the day was meeting the Motherfucker (aka Rose Petals) - what was more surprising was seeing him climb as bad as before: STRONG, POWERFUL, ROAR, but with shitty technique. Ah well, some things never change.

2. Bachelor Pad
It would have been a great day for doing endurance at a bouldering area had I not had a brain fart and taken my NEW shooz to climb: how can one do endurance laps (15-20 mins at one go) when one's shooz are soo tight? So, after hiking all the way up to bachelor pad with Stalin, we hiked down after 45 minutes of my eyes popping out of my head.

3. Carcrash Quarry
Again, getting there late in the day (there might be a theme here) meant that all the nice/easy routes were taken. We put up a toprope on a 23 and settled on it for the day. Dear fuck, it was hard!!! By our powers combined we figured out the beta after flapping around for about an hour. We got the entire sequence just right for all present body types, which were: tall & skinny; skinny & flexible; old, fat & weak (I'll let you figure out which one is me, pfft). I managed to give it three strong laps before retiring for the day - I felt good at the end and also felt I could do laps on it ad nauseam so I guess there is some improvement there.

Two years!

Today marks the two year anniversary of me joining the university. Wheeee!! Had my contract not been extended, I would be clearing up my office now, instead of being evil and harsh to students mwahahaahahahaha 

In other insignificant career news, two things happened today:

1. I have an email in my inbox from Bertrand Meyer, he of the design-by-contract fame (ignore this if you are not a cs person or you never took a software engineering course)

2. I have just been made associate editor of the most prestigious journal in my PhD community.

I have fooled them once more!

One picture Tuesday

Today's guest post is from Sandra, describing my favorite place in the whole wide world, ie a place where durians just fall from the skies!!!

Realization. Part 247

Last night I found my black alter ego. We were watching one of Whoopi Goldberg's first movies (Jumpin Jack Flash) and I realized that her number of swear words per minute roughtly matches mine! Here's one but you really have to watch the entire movie.

Now, if I'm even 1% as charming as Whoopi then I'm not half bad methinks :) Here's for the power of swear words!

IR stoopid

Let's say, for the sake of things, that somebody we know went for a walk in mont royal park in Montreal on a Saturday morning. Let's further say that said person also took her street walking shooz for the walk, instead of her more suitable running shooz.

Let's also say that she may have at some point decided to go off route in the park, while descending and in a rush to get down. She may have also suddenly realized that she was going to be late for a breakfast (this was 6 am after all).

What would normal people do? I'm not really so sure, but I guess what they wouldn't do is break into a sprint, downhill, on what is obviously a single track downhill slope, while wearing their beautiful, city, green shooz.

Sigh. Anyway, as I was running downhill through the woods I looked at my feet and, just as I was thinking to myself that maybe these shooz were not good for running in the woods, my foot slipped. I did half a 360 (what I guess is conventionally called falling flat on my face) and grabbed a tree right before kissing the ground.

I tried to get up but could not stand on my right foot. I had stoopidly sprained my ankle again. Of course, young academics are invincible, so I dried my tears, sucked it up (?!!) and started to run again - after a while the pain got bearable, which also allowed me to see where I was running (always a plus in the woods). I got to the meeting on time, only to realize I had gotten the day wrong and the breakfast was on the next day.

Now I can barely walk without an ankle guard and running is painful (although for some reason I still do it). I am seriously considering going to the doctor (voluntarily: i know, I'm softening up!! Must be the Australian relaxe lifestyle!! It's not broken so I shouldn't go!) to get an MRI. I think I may have fucked it up some more, which does not spell anything good for my future plans. Damn it!

Oh and also, climbing didn't make it to the Olympics. Fuck that!

One picture Tuesday

I'm back and I'm seriously jet-lagged. Like zzzzzzzzz . Will post photos from Montreal as soon as possible, but until then, Dachshund UN! I bumped into this while roaming the streets of Montreal. Dachshunds galore! Dachshunds for parliament!

One picture Tuesday

The McGill campus is right there at the top of the list for the "Best campuses ever!" together with Cambridge and Harvard. I guess I'm a sucker for old buildings. Anyway, no photos of the campus yet as I'm preparing for my talk, but here is what was at the entrance of the campus:

There's more to this statue than shown there and I'll post up more later. But wait! Tulips!

Life is better with squirrels and tulips

Because there's nothing like spring. I went running today in Parc Mont Royal. I met 12 squirrels on the way. Life is just good with squirrels.

in a daze

arrived in montreal after 25 hours of flight, excluding connection times. Achievement of the day(s?!): 50 minutes transfer time in LAX because FUCK YOU that's why I wear my running shoes. My head feels heavy and dizzy and people have to repeat things to me. I tried speaking French and nobody was killed so I guess there's still something left in me. The hotel is beautiful and there was a platter of fruit waiting for me that I polished faster than you could say "WAIT!". The hotel is beautiful except for one thing: the lift beeps loudly (like bomb tick loudly - the movie ones that is, not the ones that really kill you) at every floor, which would be allright if my room wasn't on the 28th floor. I start praying for my life about 6 floors before my destination and dash out of it as soon as it stops. I went walking for ten minutes before the crash started unfolding. Montreal seems beautiful, with lots and lots of people on the street: that's because it's still Friday! I found a Starfucks (boo!) and a H&M (yay!) and there's a very very steep hill right opposite the hotel, which i'll explore on Sunday. 

Geeks R Us

My anniversary present:

His anniversary present:

* Ultra compact size with full metal enclosure
* Quad core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore
* 10/100Mbps Ethernet with RJ-45 LAN Jack
* 2 x High speed USB2.0 Host port
* Audio codec with headphone jack on board
* Android 4.x & Ubuntu 12.10
* Community-driven projects & supports

Beware of geeks. They R eberywhere.

One picture Tuesday

Two years ago M. and I got married. But most importantly, two years ago all four of us went backpacking around Europe for a bit. I have many many dear photos of our time there. This one is one of them:

Notice how high the dodo bird can fly.

My sekret plan ...

... to get Sandra to visit Adelaide is to randomly show her photos of how awesome Adelaide and its surroundings are. I forget to do that sometimes, in that I always end up taking the crappy phone instead of the good camera, but here you have it, McLaren Vale:

Life is better with stationery

Because it is, really. Say hi to my new paper reading diary, because I'm old school lidat. My old paper reading diary is right under it. Check out the sticker as well (I went crazy in Hamburg in a sticker shop - I kid you not, there's a shop in Hamburg that sells stickers and cool t-shirts).

Life is better with stationery but LIFE IS AWESOME with a rock climbing backpack! Say hello to Mammut Neon 45 litre climbing bucket (google its awesome features as I am too tired to list them)!!!! And my nasty office carpet.