Digesting Big Spurious Perms

Something about Greeley has made me question my identity lately, or maybe its the fact that I'm not coaching or setting, not going to dance classes, not sitting at the Shambhala Center, as was the life of old, but maybe it's the rows of corn and the milky mid-west skies that seem to pester me in a sort of Devotcha-Megadeath-Sigur Ros tone: "do you speak in tides or grains or sand," and when pressed I think the answer is more of solid state.

I spent the last month of my summer in Inpatient Medicine at Denver Health. Before showing up my first day I wasn’t sure if I was going to be getting my hands dirty doing colonoscopies, discussing constipation, or dealing pain drugs to those of chronic need and disability. In short, this was one of those rotation that I was a bit anxious about: 1 because internal med involves loads of labs and labs, to date, are not my strength but also; 2 because there is so much to learn from inpatient medicine that I felt like I had to take a deep breath before diving into this tome of practice.

Below is Sock Hands on a pile of an boody-dragger problem that almost tore my LCL.
My experience was top notch, in fact one of my favorite rotations so far. The patient volume was low but there was a huge emphasis on detail and understanding the patient and his/her labs through and through, being able to confidently explain the differential and make a diagnosis. I saw a million chest pain patients, worked on my spanish with the “emergent” dialysis patients, saw a crippling gout attack, saw a 36 year old women with alcoholic neuropathy and osteomyelitis of 3 of her toes that required amputation... and I got my first wif of Clostridium Difficile in the ED. Last, my attending at DH for the last 2 months were so inspiring I continue to ask my self if I may want to go down the MD path.

In the meantime I finished up on Resonator (13a... the contrived but cooler way), the Orb13b but maybe a/b if one uses a rubber knee as I did, or two as others have done, and Mirror Mask (v10, not v11 as it has been called),

made a trip to independence pass (see www.independencebouldering.com for Greg's work towards developing the rock up there) with Brent, Terra, Clink and Katie Whipple who took a big fall on her bum, tough girl, shook it off and got on the most amazing 11a I’ve ever been on; pumpy, amazing holds, slopers, slab, heal hooks, dyno, jugs, perfect, and at 11a called Baba Fats,

"Well, that is that," says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone, Facing another thousand years of talking to God, alone. "Yes, Lord, it's always the same...old men or bright-eyed youth... It's always easier to sell 'em some shit than it is to tell them the truth."

Shel Silverstein

I’ll post on the Greeley experience and working in youth corrections next. Climbing goals for this fall are limited but I want to get back up to Tiempos de Ciegas (13c) in Boulder Canyon and wrap that up. I also want to finish Gorillas (v10/11) in area B at Evans. That’s would wrap up a darn fine season and send me off to Vail in style.

Below is a little thing that I climbed above Dave Grahm’s Big Worm, I’m calling it Big Perm, V4 (probably done already but if not... call it Big Perm V4)...8 in-cut crimps up slightly overhanging rock to slopey top out, but if you’re climbing v4, climbing this thing would be down right foolish, falling from the top moves, the crux, would break something... and you know this. I scrubbed and did all the moves on the problem to the left of Big Perm but couldn’t commit up high, the crux is up high and off balance on this thing, big supper cool and about v5 over all, start in the underclings and go up.