Lumpy Action
My buddy Rob Kepley and I were up at Lumpy Ridge last Saturday, June 27, for a nice day of climbing in the moderate temps and gorgeous setting of Rocky Mountain National Park. It had been nearly a year since I was last up at Lumpy and as luck would have it that trip was also with Rob. After picking him up in Westminster we quickly knocked out the 1.5 hour drive and then ambled out of the parking lot after racking and packing for the roughly one hour approach to the Book vicinity. We warmed up on Joy and Tribulation which is a one pitch variation to the top of Fantasy Ridge that sits just left of harder routes like Between the Sheets.
Climbers on Bookend formation routes Lumpy Ridge near Estes Park, CO.
After hemming and hawing for what seemed an eternity about our next route we hiked over to the Book and tried Corner Pump Station. I had heard much about this route lately as Rob tried to onsight it last year and it has a reputation for being a quality climb. Well, I failed on my onsight attempt, but it was a great battle and nuggets of knowledge were obtained for a future redpoint attempt. I’ll be back for sure as this was a quality climb.
Lourdes Vacation
Heather and Joe St. Micheal's Gate Lourdes, France
My wife, Heather, and I just returned last week from a two week vacation (see the slide show) to Southern France and Northern Spain to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. The trip concluded with a five day pilgrimage to Lourdes, France site of St. Bernadette’s 18 Marian apparitions in 1858. The main reason for going was to experience Lourdes, but with Heather getting two weeks off and me being unemployed we figured the chance for a lengthy trip of this nature might not come along again for a very long time. We splurged on a car rental which in hind-sight was great as it give us the freedom to play the travel game at our leisure.
NFP application
I am starting to put more time into a current project to build an NFP application to do basic NaProTRACK™ biomarker charting. My main objective is to build a charting tool that my wife could use in addition to her regular pencil/paper approach. I think e-charting holds a couple of distinct advantages:
- Beginners make lots of mistakes and the first few cycles usually end up being a mess trying to read.
- The paper approach does not have much room, chart wise, for teachers and/or students to make notes about mistakes and easily re-arrange biomarkers.
- Stamps placed over other stamps due to errors, mistakes, etc… are hard to denote. Notice a trend developing here?
- Paper charts don’t calculate anything for you meta data wise. No post peak phase, total cycle days, etc…
- Paper charts don’t tell you when you are making mistakes while your in the process of charting.
Envision an e-chart that has history for every biomarker including all changes, mistakes, and dates available at a mouse click combined with auto detect logic that senses when the user is making a mistake and prompts them with the correct data input and reason. Pencil/paper is hard to argue against for the bare bones approach, but a web solution done right would be a great learning utility for all NFP practitioners.
The current NaProTRACK™ tool I have built is still in the early beta phase (FYI - more like Alpha in reality). Architectural ground work, data model, and CMS have all been completed and integrated. Just a matter of flusing out the functionality with robust OOP code and a boat load of testing - always easier said then done! I’ll be back with an update in August.
General Musings
I know - it’s been way to long since I posted an update. Been really busy with the Holy Trinity website cranking out new releases every two weeks or so for the last few months. I plan to slow things down on that front now and am looking forward to ramping up on some other projects. Mainly, I would like to work on an idea I have for a NFP application to track bio markers. I have mocked up a data model, but need to do some more research on using some sort out of the box version of RAILS that would give me a fairly granular UI for administering user accounts. I am sure someone has built a modular code base already, but having trouble locating anything so far that fits the bill. Also, it would be fun to build a Google Maps mashup of the existing ArchDen parish data for more of a visual presentation that I would think could get more folks to Masses on weekends. Now that excites me!
Holy Trinity website launches
It took two years and three months, but it finally did happen. Thanks to the help of the good God and everyone who supported me along the way as they say in mountain climbing circles “it’s in the bag!” Along the way I learned a ton about CMS’s especially Drupal and WordPress. After working on this project with Drupal for two full years I jetisoned it for WordPress and couldn’t be happier. Not that I am down on Drupal as it’s a great CMS, but for this project WordPress gave me and the site users/admins what we need faster and easier. I think out of the box, currently, WP is just more likely to fit the typical blogging cross informational website needs better and there is no denying the UI is superior.
I’ll continue to update the Holy Trinity site probably for another few releases until I can get the look and feel to a certain baseline level - probably another few weeks of work. Currently, I am working on a new layout to accomadate some typography changes that must happen along with setting up an active tabbed navigation and putting in a nice visual header/splash. Can’t wait!
Thy shalt not trad fall, period! AKA slower is faster.
I remember last Saturday, Feburary 7, pretty well. Steve Annecone and I hooked up in the lower Eldo parking lot and headed out to do some multi-pitch trad climbing on Lower Redgarden wall. We settled on Evangeline into South Face of Tower One. After warming up on Temporary Like Achilles Steve launched off into the first/crux pitch of Evangeline and then continued past the usual belay where most parties bail and aided out the seldom done roof to the next belay putting us in position to tackle the upper face climbing pitches. Steve lead
Eldo Action
Rob sent Practice Climb 101 January 18, 2009. I am sure Steven will send soon too. I am hoping to hook up with him this weekend and if we have enough time give the fourth pitch a go in addition to the first three. Steve Levin confirmed about a month ago that the entire route has never seen a complete free ascent of all four pitches in one go. Rob and I went up to very over hung Kloof Alcove last Wednesday. Kloof was a great on sight and I am really jazzed to give Sequential a try soon. Rob dropped a TR on Superfly and this looks like the next long term project. Very bouldery and I will have to come up with some sequence to fit my long frame into this tight boxed in problem.
In the meantime between outdoor climbing stints weather permitting the usual winter beat downs happen two or more times weekly at the local gym. I have been mixing in brutal Spot sessions once a week that require two to four days to recover from properly. Hopefully, this will bring back my power. R&J North is working it’s usual magic to get the endurance back up to par. If I can just keep from getting injured it should be a great Spring ‘09!
Iowa Christmas
Heather and I are on vacation for Christmas in Missouri Valley, Iowa staying with her Mother. The weather has been cold in general, but every few days the sun pokes out and it warms a tad and feels like sunny Colorado ever so briefly. Our days are spent visiting family members at various Christmas related activities which has been a great blessing. Particularly, it’s been wonderful to see her 96 year old grandmother who is the rock of the family and witness to Christian living. May God bless her. Anne, Heather’s mom, as usual is a great host and has bent over backwards to make us feel at home. I am feeling just shy of a stuffed turkey food wise.
Tuesday we leave for Colorado. Can’t say I am excited for the nine hour haul, but it will be over before we realize it. Maybe when we get back the weather will warm up for some outdoor climing with my friends Rob and Steven. I am anxious to assist them on Practice Climb 101 in the send quest. Also, the Holy Trinity web site project needs more time - a few more months and I am sure it can be wrapped up.
Firewall work complete
Tour de Firewall just concluded and I am happy to report that it’s been fully up-graded. What a war! Spread out across two full months I can’t say things were easy. But, with some new docs in place maybe next time it’s just a battle and not a full blown war. Due to general security concerns I’ll spare all the details and suffice to say it’s ship shape. Thankfully, back to the Holy Trinity web site project.
Update on Life
Just updated the site to the latest version of WordPress and figured a shout out to everyone was in order. Climbing has resumed as my finger injury from late summer has healed and Rob, Steven and I are hooked on trying to send ‘Practice Climb 101′ .12c S on the West Ridge in Eldorado. A few more trips up to it and I think I might be able to send. It’s very hard and would be a great accomplishment.
The Holy Trinity website project took a back seat the last few months as a long overdue home firewall wall upgrade has been in progress sucking up all free time that climbing doesn’t already consume. Another week or so and I hope to have that wrapped up and back working on the website.
Heather’s Mom, Anne, was in town for ThanksGiving and it was great to hang out with her and Heather. We will most likely be visiting her in Iowa for Christmass. Gotta run. Peace and blessings to all.