Well I'm writing this in June so my memory is a bit shaky, but fortunately I have a bunch of photos to jog my brain cells a bit. So the first week of March, I picked up some tickets off craigslist for the San Francisco Symphony. It's something that I've wanted to do for a long time, and I finally found someone to go with me, my good ol' friend Rebecca, who's always down try stuff out. Since this is a bit more of a formal affair than we're used to, we got all dolled up for the event. I wore a jacket and slacks and Rebecca wore a vintage ball gown, which was a real hoot since her friends Kate and Candice gave her a little makeover. Rebecca's not the type of girl that wears makeup, dresses up, or does much grooming of any sort for that matter, so this was a special treat to see her all dolled up.
We had dinner at Suriya Thai Restaurant, which was very good. We headed towards Davies Hall and had just enough time to pee and find our seats, which were on the second row balcony, center stage. The performance itself was actually quite impressive. The soloist was Christian Tetzlaff and he played Tchaikovsky Concerto in D minor. and there was a premier of a piece by a composer named Kissine. I haven't seen too many professional violinists, but Tetzlaff was the most impressive violinist I've seen. I would definitely recommend seeking out recordings of his. Anyway, it was good experience and nice cultural break from all the dirtbagging I'm usually doing. I think Rebecca would say the same thing too.
The next day, the music continued. This time Jeff, Jordan, and I headed to Tetsu's place near Davis and had a good jam session.
Hmm, this is weird. My photos say I went skiing at Heavenly on Sunday. I guess I went with Poppy for one last hurrah on the slopes. I recall the snow being quite good, but a little sticky.
Wow, that was a busy weekend. The next weekend I vowed to do my taxes, but didn't. A bunch of people went to Bishop, but I declined to go because I had no money and was going to Red Rocks the next weekend. This Bishop trip was notable because Scott B. went ice climbing with Bev and she dropped him on belay! Fortunately he wasn't hurt, and it seems there was some blame to go around. The rope was too short, no knot on the end of the rope, and inadequate attention to the end of the rope coming up. Lesson learned - pay attention dummies!
The following week was our big Red Rocks Rendezvous trip. The gang included, Dave F. C2, Rebecca, and me. Poppy joined us later for a day. We flew out on Thursday and stayed in a hotel that C2 was able to snag for us gratis becuase she had a bunch of leftover award points. Score! This was much better than my trip last year when we stayed in the makeshift parking lot camp ground, which was uncomfortable and sandy the whole time. We also stayed till Tuesday this time to get in some actual climbing. Last year we really didn't do any climbing at all.
Day 1 we head off to the sport climbing area, the Black Corridor, and coincidentally ran into Dave J. and his friend Sarah from the gym.
Day 2 we headed off to the festival and took our clinic. I took an intro to aid climbing class, which was informative.
After the clinics, we went to the festival and checked out the dyno comp. The festival was not so great this year. Not many freebies or famous pros, but I did see Sharma and Alex Honnold yakking it up near the beer truck, which was really cool. We got dinner down the street at a nice italian restaurant and met up with Dave and Sarah. Later that night we hit the strip and got pretty drunk, played DDR, won fake tattoos doing skee ball, and got stuck in the parking garage. Rebecca put her tattoo on her forehead that got quite a few stares. This was inspired by that woman Jesse James cheated on Sandra Bullock with.
Day 3 was a bit of a rest day. Dave and Rebecca decide to take a complete break and Courtney and I decide to climb Cat in the Hat. We only got to the first pitch because we took our sweet ol' time. But we vowed to come back the next day and finish the climb.
Later that evening, Poppy crashed at our hotel after having driven all the way from the South Bay. Knowing that her car has a salvage title, I think that's crazy, but I guess she was determined.
Day 4, Poppy and Rebecca pair up and C2 and I pair up to finally tackle Cat in the Hat.
Some Canadians who were following us got a rope stuck and we had to help them out a bit. They had to leave a rope but I later was told they made it back up and recovered it. Nice. We made it back to car, a Prius, as the sun was coming down. We celebrated our successful climb with a Buffet Dinner at our new hotel, Circus Circus!
Day 4 was our big climb day. We got up before the sun was up to tackle Solar Slab. Well when I'm tired, as I was this day, I tend not to do my due dilligence. We got lost trying to find the start of the climb. We probably spent a good 2 hours wandering before actually reaching the start. This time C2 and Dave paired up and Rebecca and I paired up. Poppy didn't want to get up that early. It should be noted that Dave was pretty injured for the entire trip. He could barely walk with a hernia and a bad ankle. But he soldiered on and managed to climb most of the climb. We went up the gully route but had to bail at pitch four of the actual slab. It was starting to get tricky and the sun was coming down.
We eventually had to rappel in the dark, which is never a good idea because you can't see the rap rings too well and it's easy to accidentally rappel off the end of your ropes. Compound that with being tired and having relatively inexperienced rappellers and injured people in the mix, I feel pretty fortunate that we made it down without too much trouble. I had trouble finding the rap rings on one pitch, but overall it was okay, just slow. We get back to the hotel exhausted and decide not to go out afterwards. We order takeout pizza.
Day 5 We wake up slowly. I lend poppy my nut tool in the morning since she forgot hers (incidentally she still has it) C2 and Dave decide to hit the strip and get some buffet food and drinks. Rebecca and I try to squeeze in one last climbing day. We head towards the Willow Springs area and climb the Ragged Edges Area. This day was a fun climb day with some spicy routes and some easy stuff mixed in. We celebrate with beers at the top.
We pick up Dave and C2 at the strip and then head off to the airport for our quick flight home! This was a really great trip and hopefully we'll be back again for more.
The next week, inspired by all my learning from clinics last week, I convince Rebecca (or was it the other way around) to head up to ring mountain in Marin and practice some aid climbing. We've talked about doing valley big wall and aid climbing skills are essential for doing these climbs. However, they are a bit of a tedious skill to learn. Although I enjoy it, most people don't.
Later that evening we go to the Great American Music Hall and see some Death Metal style band called Dead Meadow with Natassja and Natassja's UCLA friend, Sey Won (sp?) . We got yelled at by the usher for trying to swig some whiskey in front of the venue, but the guy seemed kinda contrite about the whole thing. Later he and rebecca shared a smoke outside. The band was more of a prog rock band than metal, but they had some solid skills and rocked pretty hard. We later head over to Sey Won's (sp?) place to sober up and listened to some great soul music on vinyl! Cool man. I still need to find out the name of that album.
The next day I went up to Castle Rock to do some bouldering with Wade and Rebecca (again). (Crap, don't we ever take a day off.) We ran into Yoko and her friends there and worked on some bouldering problems.
Phew. Well that was March as far as I can remember it.
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