Carl's personal blog

In June of 2008 I started rock climbing at a local gym, and instantly got hooked. I still can't fully explain the fascination I have with climbing, but it certainly includes an aspect of solving a three-dimensional puzzle. When I started, the easiest routes in the gym (graded 5.7) were difficult for me, but satisfying.

Within a few months I had already acquired a fair amount of gear, and I had the chance to climb outdoors (on toprope) with a good friend, (Scott DV), who was rediscovering climbing, (having climbed in Idaho years ago). We both found that there is some fine climbing to be had in the Portland area. We were just disappointed that we hadn't started sooner, because Oregon's wet season soon started interfering with outdoor climbing.

I got through the winter months by being lucky enough to find a climbing partner, (Scott D), willing to train with me 3 times a week, (and helping to motivate me to get up at ridiculously early hours to climb before work). We both took technique classes that took our climbing up a notch. By the time we were ticking off routes at 5.9, we took lead-climbing class and starting leading in the gym in January 2009.

An unseasonably cold and wet month of March kept us in the gym, where we kept at our routine, leading at 5.8/5.9 and toproping at 5.10- (with several 5.10+ projects). In April, the sun finally came out and we took the first chance we could to get outdoors with a road trip to Smith Rock and some of the best climbing in Oregon. Our first experience leading outdoors was very satisfying, (and very different than in the gym), with each of us succeeding at 5.8 leads.

Back at the gym two days later, we decided that if we're going to start leading at 5.9, we'd better be working 5.11 in the gym. So we started working our first 5.11- project. It was grueling, (and we didn't make it through the crux without cheating with some weight on the rope), but we did get to the top, and it was a blast.

One of my favorite things about climbing is that the routes are graded on an open-ended scale. It's fantastic to know that no matter how much I improve there will always be routes ready to punish me and put me back in my place.

We had a fantastic time on our first climbing trip to Smith Rock. We drove down on Friday and camped at the base of the rock. Scott D. was anxious to beat the rush and set an alarm for 5:00 AM. When that alarm went off it was still quite dark and the temperature was just below freezing(!). The thought of ice-cold rock on bare hands was enough to keep us in our warm sleeping bags for a while longer, but eventually we did bundle up for the approach hike to the rock.

We got onto the rock at about the same time the sunshine did, and fortunately it warmed the rock very quickly. In fact, by afternoon we were desperate for shade to escape the heat. Large temperature swings are expected in the desert, of course, (note: next time, remind everyone to at least pack some socks). Getting to the rock early did work out quite well. We didn't see another climber for over an hour, so we had the chance to choose any route we wanted. Later in the day the most popular routes had lines long enough to make things feel a little bit like Disneyland.

Since this was our first time leading outdoors we decided to start with the easiest routes we could find in the guidebook, and work up gradually. We found some nice beginner routes in the Cinnamon Slab area just before the Dihedrals. Everything went great, and we each had a successful lead behind us well before the mobs of climbers started showing up. We might have stayed more impressed with ourselves if we hadn't seen that the next climbers on our first route were parents setting up ropes for their 5 and 6-year-old children. Look close in the picture and you'll see that just behind Scott's belay stance there are a couple of kid-size shoes, and a tonka trunk. Ah well, a little humility might even be good for us, I suppose.

Leading on this rock outdoors was very different from anything we had done in the gym. The most obvious change is that there's not any tape showing exactly where to put your hands and feet. So we all found ourselves shopping around for a while at each stance, always looking to see if we could find better holds.

And for me, at least, the psychological difference between top-rope and lead was much wider outside than in the gym. That might have been because these routes were not very steep, so any lead fall would have certainly meant a fairly quick swing into some very rough rock. I didn't realize how much I was staining, over-gripping, over-thinking and neglecting technique until I got onto toprope of a route I had just finished leading. Suddenly I was relaxed, comfortable, and moving quickly and smoothly on a route that moments before had my leg shaking wildly. So I'll definitely need to improve my ability to relax, use good technique, and just trust myself.

We stepped up the difficulty a bit when we moved over to the "Peanut" and confirmed the rumors that Smith routes have tough starts. On all of our routes in the morning the hardest moves were right at the beginning. We were glad that Scott D. brought his stick clip, (in spite of being afraid he might feel like a goober carrying around such a long pole), so we could get into that first bolt while it was still 15 feet up and have some ropes protection for the first tricky moves. And rather than seeing him as a goober, climbers nearby were grateful that Scott was happy to share his stick with them. Have I mentioned before at how friendly people seem to be in the climbing community? Everyone we met at Smith was very nice, and they didn't even make fun of us even though we were obviously beginners, (our gear was all obviously unused since it was still so shiny).

By the afternoon, we were getting a little tired of knobby face climbs on wickedly abrasive rock. We got some variety on the "5 Gallon Buckets" route, a ladder of pockets so big you could sit down inside most of them. Scott DV was anxious to lead this one and found the underclings in the pockets extremely gratifying. Just take at look at how confident he his flashing those pearly whites while on lead.

Here's a run down of the six routes we climbed. All three of us climbed each one of these with (almost) no falls at all.

• Night Flight (5.5) Carl, Scott D., and Scott DV. each on lead in turn.

• Easy Rider (5.6) Scott D. on lead.

• Lichen It (5.8) Carl on lead.

• Ginger Snap (5.8) Scott D. on lead.

• Hop on Pop (5.8) Carl on lead.

• 5 gallon buckets (5.8) Scott DV. then Scott D. on lead.

Next time we go we'd like to lead some 5.9 routes, (and maybe bring a friend to put up some rope for us on some 5.10). One thing we didn't find was any terrain steep enough to make us comfortable to take any practice falls. I think Scott D. really missed that---sometimes I almost wonder if falling is his favorite part in this sport.

See the complete set of photos from this trip.

A little over two weeks ago, I described Scott's first time standing, along with my hope that he'd be walking by his second birthday which was just five weeks away at the time. He went ahead and amazed us by taking his first five steps just one week later.

And just like his first time standing, he took his first steps at his physical therapy appointment. Now, we love Becky, his physical therapist, (and Julie, his original therapist now on maternity leave), and she loves Scott. So I'm really happy that she got to see him both stand and walk for the first time. But I couldn't help feeling a little bit left out that I missed both of these events. Particularly since, (from the descriptions I've heard anyway), these were things that Scott just decided to do that were fairly incidental to any therapy going on at the time.

In the two weeks since, we've been trying to give Scott lots of opportunities to walk at home, but he hasn't been extremely enthusiastic about it. He would take a few steps every once in a while, but he'd also be just as likely to just laugh and sit down instead. So I hadn't even succeeded in getting any decent footage to post here.

But then, this afternoon, a friend came over and happened to set her 13-month-old son down to crawl around on the trampoline in the back yard. Scott wasn't going to be left out of this and insisted on joining in.

He immediately realized that this was a nice safe place and he started standing, laughing, and walking as much as possible. And I suddenly realized how foolish I had been. Of course he tried things out at physical therapy before trying them at home---at physical therapy he gets to play on thick, soft pads instead of the relatively hard carpet, tile, and hardwood he has to deal with at home.

So, finally, here is a short clip of Scott walking on the trampoline:

Again, see the video instructions if you need help getting the video to play.

What a difference the trampoline made! As soon as we came inside he kept walking all over the tiled, kitchen floor. He's still fairly wobbly and falling down every 6-10 steps or so, but he clearly gained a lot of confidence from his short time playing on the trampoline. We'll definitely have to get him out on that more often. (But we're off to the coast for the next three days---so we'll have to see how he responds to walking on sand.)

Thanks to everyone that has expressed their concern for Scott in words or in prayer. We really appreciate it.

Since I have 6 brothers, and they're all quite close to me, I have to take care in singling out any one. But since I do talk about so many technical things here, it was only natural that Richard's name would come up fairly early.

[[!img cairo_logo.png size="150x150" class=left"]] Richard has artistic skills where I have none. He designed the original beetle-shaped cairo logo, and even successfully rendered it on a pumpkin. He also knows an awful lot more about web-design than I do, (again, he's got the artistic sense for it, but he's also spent several years doing web-related work professionally where I haven't). So Richard's the guy I go to whenever I've painted myself into some difficult corner with CSS or something similar.

Richard has recently started a technical blog and he and his wife also have a more personal blog as well.

Clicking the above image will probably play the video just fine if you're using Linux. If you're not, then see these video instructions first.

When Scott was 9-months old he wasn't putting any weight on his legs. (He also didn't crawl, but developed his famous bum-scoot that has warn out the seat of many pairs of pants.) Together with his pediatrician we kept an eye on that until he was 15-months old and the situation hadn't gotten any better. At that point, we were referred to a developmental pediatrician who diagnosed Scott with tethered cord syndrome.

We were next referred to a neurosurgeon and we went through the mixed-emotions of having our 18-month old receive surgery in February 2007. Scott did gain a new friend, his blue bear, Philo, at the hospital.

The surgery was quick and smooth, and within days we saw some tremendous progress. Over the last 5 months, (and with the help of physical therapy), we've seen exciting new things every week or two. First came putting weight on his legs, then standing with assistance, crawling over obstacles, crawling upstairs, and even walking while holding our hands.

Today at physical therapy, without any prompting, Scott got up from sitting and stood unassisted for the first time ever. When Stacy came home and shared the exciting news, Scott obliged us by repeating the performance and I was able to catch it on camera.

Now, Scott keeps standing with the cutest, little proud grin you could imagine just to get us to applaud and cheer for him, (his older brothers are very accommodating in this way). He's standing comfortably for at least 15 seconds at a time or so. I've got high hopes he will be walking before his second birthday, (just over 1 month away now). Stay tuned!

Last Saturday, Kevin and Debbie staged a rather impressive backyard carnival for Ethan's 5th birthday party, (inflatable jumphouse, bean-bag toss, petting zoo, etc.). I was invited to volunteer as the balloon animal guy. I'd never done balloon animals, but Debbie figured "if he can fold paper, he can certainly twist balloons".

The Basics

So I picked up some balloons a few days before the event and started twisting. The basics were easy enough to discover:

• Don't try to inflate the balloons with lung power, get a little hand pump.

• Don't inflate the balloons all the way.

• After inflating the balloon to the desired length, let a little air out to make it more flexible and easy to work with.

• Don't be afraid—just start twisting and see what happens.

The Party

And it was easy enough to make some simple shapes, (poodle, wiener dog and sword), without looking at any specific instructions. As it turns out, the kids at the party were more than happy with these—and there's definitely an advantage to sticking to models that are really quick when there's a line of kids waiting.

I'd meant to do at least some googling and find something more interesting to make, but I neglected to do that until just before the party. So I didn't have time to look at more than one site. I learned a baseball cap model there, and also a really intriguing volley ball from three balloons (pictured here). It's slick because none of the balloon knots or twists are visible—plus it actually works pretty well as a ball for bouncing around in the air.

I was feeling unprepared, so I kept twisting things in the car on the way to the party, (fortunately, I didn't quite cause an accident—no I wasn't driving, but the growing pile of balloons in the front seat did start distracting Stacy while she drove). On the way I figured out how to do a nice flower, (which, later at the party I made into a flower hat), and I also invented my first original design—a frog hat with oversized lips that can be squeezed to make it "talk". (Sadly, I was too busy doing balloons to actually take any pictures that day—and I'll have to figure out how to post video clips to do that one justice.)

The Project

Anyway, the party was a lot of fun, and I was glad I could help out. When I got home I still had a couple of packs of balloons and I was still intrigued by that ball design, and wondered if similar ideas could be used to make something more elaborate. As with origami, I seem to be drawn more to the intricate geometric models rather than anything more organic like animals, (I think that's because my non-artistic brain can deal with "fold in half" much more easily than "fold at an angle that looks right for the beak").

My thoughts landed on Tom Hull's fantastic five intersecting tetrahedra origami design which I'd constructed once before as a gift, (I'll have to do it again and take a picture). So my pointless project for the weekend became recreating the structure from balloons.

I started by twisting each balloon into thirds, hoping I could get by with just inflating 10 balloons, (2 each of 5 different colors). But it was quite easy to see that balloons would be too thick at that size. It was also really hard to weave each tetrahedron while having to hold three different balloon segments to keep them from untwisting.

So next I attempted with full-length balloons. This would require 30 total, (6 each of the 5 colors), but would make it much easier to assemble, since each beam could be threaded independently, (much like the process with the origami model). But as soon as I built one tetrahedron, it was plain to see that the balloons were too thin at that large size and the whole structure would be far too loose, (but the kids did like using the resulting tetrahedron as a playhouse for the afternoon).

So the final structure uses 15 balloons, (3 each of 5 colors). Each balloon is inflated nearly all the way and then twisted once in the middle. This makes each segment in the final structure just short of 2 feet long while the balloons have a diameter of about 2 inches. And now that I'm typing instead of twisting, I actually went and read that Tom's origami design also uses a 1:12 ratio. So I could have saved myself some work experimenting by just reading that first. I did consider solving for the perfect ratio before starting with the balloons, but it's not easy for me to grasp the 3D geometries. Anybody care to help me solve that one? Tom also leaves the perfect ratio as a problem for the reader.

It's really a beautiful structure when complete. A single picture probably doesn't capture it very well. It's much more pleasing to be able to examine it in person and view it from many angles. Also, assembling the structure is actually a fun puzzle to solve, and I think forces the solver to gain a new appreciation for some of the symmetries inherent in the design. It had been 2 or 3 years since I had done this in origami, and I really had to learn the model all over again before I could get everything threaded correctly.

So Andrew had his [[!Big Show|andrew/big_show]] recently. We had a great time watching him perform in his four gymnastic events, but not so much fun waiting 20-30 minutes between events. Without any suitable flat surface, the other boys and I couldn't play any of our favorite icehouse games, but we did at least have pen and paper. If only we had a great, engaging game to play, (and I'm not talking about tic-tac-toe).

I think SCRIBE is the perfect game for a situation like this. Mark Steere invented this game in October 2006, and I discovered it in a recent issue of GAMES magazine. It's really a fantastic game, so I thought I'd give a brief overview of it here.

Rules

First, draw 9 3x3 grids in a 3x3 pattern. That is, make a 3x3 pattern of tic-tac-toe grids something like this:

 | |   | |   | | 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
 | |   | |   | | 

 | |   | |   | | 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
 | |   | |   | | 

 | |   | |   | | 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
-+-+- -+-+- -+-+- 
 | |   | |   | |

(Amusingly enough, the coloring sheets the kids got at a restaurant last night were printed with nine grids exactly like this.)

So there's a super grid with 9 mini grids inside it. Now, each player will take turns putting their symbol, (+ or o), into one of 81 possible spaces. But, here's the trick, the position you play within the mini-grid of one move mandates which mini-grid you must play in for your next move. For example, if you play in the upper-left corner of the center mini-gird on your first move, then for your second move you must choose one of the available spaces from the upper-left mini-grid, and so on. (Each player puts a slash through their last symbol played to help keep track of where there next move must be played.) If the mini grid you are supposed to play in is full, then you can select any mini grid with empty squares for your play.

The goal is to win the most mini grids by earning more points in each mini grid than the opponent. Points are earned for symbols that form one of the following 19 glyphs (reflections and rotations count of course):

1 point:          * Single

2 points:        ** Double

3 points:       *** Line

4 points:         * Pipe        *** Squat-T     ** 4-block
                ***              *              **

5 points:       ***              *
                 *  T           *** Cross
                 *               *

6 points:       ***             ***               *               *
                *** 6-block      ** Bomber      *** Chair       * * J
                                  *             * * (or Llama)  ***

7 points:        **              *              * *             * *
                * * Earring     *** House       *** H           * * U
                ***             ***             * *             ***

8 points:       ***             ***
                *** Ottoman     * * O
                * *             ***

9 points:       ***
                *** 9-block
                ***

Note that subsets of a glyph do not count for anything. So if you end up with a shape like:

*
*   L is not a glyph (0 points)
***

you don't score anything for this shape, (you don't get any points for the pipe that appears within this for example).

So here's an example of a completed mini grid:

++o   Pipe = 4 points for +
o+o Double = 2 points for o
o+o   Line = 3 points for o

And o wins this grid 5 to 4.

At the end of the game, the player who has won more of the mini grids wins. (Or for a more advanced game, score the super grid according to the same glyph rules as used for the mini grids.)

OK, so that wasn't so brief. I suppose I should have just linked to Mark's original complete rules (PDF) in the first place. Also, see this printable board which conveniently contains diagrams of all 19 glyphs in both margins. But also, I've found that after playing a single game, most players will find that all the glyphs are committed to memory, (just remember that there are 19 glyphs and draw them out before you start playing to make sure you remember them all).

Comments

I won't comment too much on strategy since I don't know much yet. But I will say watch out for the end game. There's not a lot of freedom at the end, so both players may find themselves making moves they don't want to make. Also, look out for chains of forced moves that can lead you (or your opponent) to ruin several mini grids in a row.

In general the way that the current move is intertwined with future move possibilities gives the game a lot of rich tension, and I've found it extremely satisfying.

Background

Cameron has a good friend named Anika Willis. They first met as toddlers when we lived in student housing at BYU. Matt and Andra moved in shortly after we did, to an apartment with doors that opened just across from ours onto the same porch. More often than not, in the summertime, both doors were open and Cameron and Anika would move back and forth quite freely. We all got to be very close friends.

Since then, we've stayed in good touch with the Willis family. While we were in Virginia, they were in New Jersey which was just close enough that we were able to spend some great Thanksgiving holidays together. Now, we all miss each other terribly since we're in Oregon while they're in North Carolina.

The turtle

A couple of months ago, we received Anika's Traveling Turtle in the mail, (look at the adorable message she wrote to introduce it). The plan was that we would write an entry about an animal and mail it on to someone else to do the same. We even took it with us on our Spring Break trip to the coast with full intentions to add an entry right away. But "the best-laid plans" and all that. Cameron did make a nice entry on the life cycle of a frog, and Hyrum did the same for salmon. But we didn't have time to let the turtle do any more traveling, (at least not through snail mail).

Thanks for the help

This web page was our last chance to help out Anika by letting her turtle do a little bit of virtual traveling. Several people responded by writing up various animals, (bobcat, Tasmanian devil, etc.), and sending those in. We really appreciate that!

Stacy has now sent the turtle back to Anika, and hopefully it arrived there safely. So we don't need any more animal reports. But thanks again for the help.