Assorted Desert Rock Pics

Some desert rock art. I've always wondered if these were really masterpieces painstakenly created by a local legend, or some grafitti on the side of the Piaute equivalent of a 7-11 (Damn kids!). Regardless, they are pretty cool to look at.

D-Tron and Chris gettin' slab-happy

Matt on a great/funky 11.c that incorperated some bizarre stems


Looks comfy to me

The Superfluous Campaign 2009

Exhibit C: Making Creme Brulee with an Oxy Acetylene torch

Rana

The wetlands near my place are rife with activity, particularly later in the day. The red wing blackbirds dart this way and that and the female mallards can be heard everywhere. The cattails are starting to emerge, The fruit trees blossoming and the wild roses budding. (Begin nerdgasm) Invertebrates of all kinds can be found in moments, and Rachel and I saw a leech there recently (awesome!).

However, around sunset the life form with the greatest presence is without a doubt the frogs. The noise of their calls is DEAFENING. To get close, you have to pad silently into the main cattail pond area. Then, wait for the ones near you to decide that you are not a threat (amid the cacophony, they can hear your footsteps surprisingly well) and they will eventually return in full surround sound. Sometimes I swear it is a few decibels shy of hurting my ears. Also, even when you can hear a frog within a few feet of you, you can seldom see the sneaky little buggers.

My old Canon A540 is not equipped with the latest sound recording technology, but I took some video all the same. In a month or two the shallow ponds will be quiet and well on their way to being dried up, and those of us who frequent the boardwalk will have to wait 'til next year to hear them.

P.S. I've noticed that the Green Heron that lives in our neighbor's tree seems nice and plump these days...

An Oldy

I stumbled across some of my old backcountry ranger pictures while cleaning out my OSU storage. Summer's almost here people!

Red Rocks 2009

Some of you may be detecting a pattern here. Though I am loathe to let any sort of routine sneak into my life, going to Red Rock canyon has become sort of habit forming for me during spring break. The trip was, as it usually is, sunny and filled with some steep sport climbing, enjoyable long routes (for the most part) and many laughs.

Many aspects of this excursion were not routine. A few off the top of my head include

• I ate a lot of steak
• Except for a moment, I never set foot in Red Rocks campground (Thanks Mikey!)
• I went to a place called Cactus Joe's. They sell cactus. More at 11
• Got wicked scared on a 5.7
• I witnessed human feces get on a climbing rope on a multipitch *shudder*
• As I scrambled up the side of Mt. Wilson for 3 hours, I was impaled on yucca plants, my arms were raked by desert scrub oak and kept myself from falling by holding onto some grass only to bail at the base of the climb because it was so cold I could not feel my hands (cool view though, I'll be back)
• Ate more steak

I won't post an entire synopsis tonight, but needless to say, the trip was enjoyable. Instead I'll post pieces here and there the next month or two, not because I'm lazy (well... maybe), but it'll keep me occupied while I write a few term papers. Here's to some hard crankin' this April people!

Beater

There are some things in life that you just can't get rid of. Let me rephrase that. It's not that you are actively trying to rid yourself of the object, but more you wouldn't be heartbroken if it were to, y'know... lose itself. But then somewhere along the way you get attached to it and the nostalgia that accompanies the toy becomes larger than it's monetary worth.

Exhibit A: My old Specialized Rockhopper. I bought it with paper route money (and some help from the folks) the year before I entered 7th grade. By my calculations I have had the thing for over 15 years. I bought it because before I had ever mountain biked, I desperately knew I wanted to be a mt. biker. As an aside, curiously I knew I wanted to climb before I ever did that as well; our teenage selves can be surprisingly perceptive at times. Anyways, in that time since it has never been stolen, and much of the bike consists of the original parts. I took the 'ol beater down to the Cyclery here in Corvallis, and the diagnosis brings a tear to my eye. The replace list includes:

1. Bottom bracket: still spins...err grinds. I have my suspicions that the ball bearings are long gone, and the thing somehow makes use of crushed rock that has infiltrated it over the years.
2. Headset: Requires hand tightening mid-ride. Otherwise a mid-ride handlebar/stem removal would occur. Upon application of grease converts said grease to road tar within days.
3. Derailleurs: Front derailleur is irreparably cracked. The rear is starting to do that ghost shifting thing.
4. Shifters: Replaced numerous times as my knees (long legs) tend to deliver devastating upper cuts. The front shifter is circling the drain.
5. Brake pads: I probably have put a dozen on over the years. Same goes for the chain.
6. Brake Levers: Amazingly the bike still has the original levers. I may carbon date them someday.
7. Saddle: Originates from that gel seat craze in the early 90's. Still amazingly squishy, maybe too squishy as it's like riding on a water bed sometimes. The seat post looks like it was attacked by a wolverine.
8. Wheels: The front hub and rim are, astonishingly, the original. The rim is wafer thin due to excessive mashing in my many attempts to endo early in my mountain biking career. The bike has seen two tacoed rear wheels, one of which was courtesy of a parked car.
9. Tires: Long since replaced, the "new" slicks once resembled a rubber like substance.
10. Frame: 3 huge dents on the toptube but since it's steel I'm OK with that. Numerous chips in the paint. Chain stays exude rust.
    

To borrow the metaphor, it's a "face only a mother could love" would be an understatement. To fix all of these problems would cost me about $200, on a bike that I couldn't give away. But I'm fond of the beater. Having a bike that looks like a shipwreck has its benefits too. Nobody is going to steal this thing when there's a flashy Bianci parked right next to it at school. Is it worth 200 bones? Probably not, but it might last me another 15 years at this rate, and pedestrians can be thankful that they can hear my fenders rattle as I careen through intersections.

Tower Work

This is more than a little belated, but this last fall I got a job working on radio towers, courtesy of my buddy Greg who hooked me up with one of the coolest bosses ever: Joe Harrington of Harrington Tower services. How might a semi-pro slacker like Jake get a job like this, you might ask? Well, a major prerequisite is that one not be afraid of heights, because when you are on top of a 300 foot AM self support tower, that sucker sways like bamboo in a spring breeze.

Most often I was painting and pressure washing with coworker Tyler "Mooner" McAdams (painting effects seen below), but at times I had the opportunity to learn how to install coaxial cable, microwave dishes, FM bays, and to work on my ratcheting skills. Sometimes the weather would get pretty nasty on us, as condensation from a cloud tends to make a tower "rain," for lack of a better term. But it was those clear days, the days when you could see all of the Washington peaks lined up that made the job more than worth it. It was one more reason to like hanging out in a harness for long periods of time.



Towers are usually located up in the high places, which tend to have rather protean weather. For illustration, below are two pictures of a tower near Olympic national park, taken 5 minutes apart. Don't be ashamed if you can't see it in one of them, because I could hardly see my work boots right around then. Five minutes later the sun came out, it warmed up by at lease 25 degrees and I could see the ocean, which was a score or more miles distant.