Citizenship Interview

Went for my citizenship interview this morning. Just like on the application they still ask if I am or have ever been a member of the Communist party. If I was, which I don't think I am, would that preclude me from entry?

I had to write the sentence, "He is going to his brother's house where his sister will be too." Luckily I did well on the rest of the test and passed overall. Too bad though, as a security check is still being run on my big scary name.

Fellow climbers to the rescue

Jordan and I finally got our act together and, with the help of Adam's gear, headed up to the Gunks to do some climbing on Sunday. It was a gorgeous day and we decided to hit up Shockley's Ceiling, a 5.6 with an amazing third pitch part of which is a nice little ceiling, overcome in either an elegant high step or slithering knee jam.

I lead this pitch last year with Adam using the knee jam - you basically swim up the damn thing. Well this time I didn't make out so well, probably because I haven't been to the climbing wall in months. In fact, I think the last time I climbed was in May.

So anyway, I made two grunting attempts at the ceiling resulting in my first two lead falls ever which despite my yelping wasn't so bad. I was more annoyed than anything as I'd gotten over with no real issue last time.

After two attempts I was pretty drained which put us in a bit of predicament as Jordan doesn't lead trad routes yet. Luckily some two nice gents had come up right behind us and were happy to trail our rope up and belay us as we simul-climbed the last pitch. I snapped a few pictures of their ascent.

Once back down we top-roped Hurdie Gurdie which was fun and sapped the last of our energies leaving me with forearms that are still sore two days later.

An update and some new galleries

I've reworked some of the internals of the site recently as well as adding two new galleries, the first from a trip to Brazil in June for a percussion workshop and the second from a trip to England and Scotland for a wedding.

I haven't finished updating the site fully yet so some of the older galleries won't look so hot... ah but who looks at 'em anyway?