Assorted Atrocities

Recently Peter Beal made a post on his blog about the soul of climbing. I agree with Peter in that one of the most characteristic, novel, and life changing aspects of climbing comes with the combination of subtle movement, a quite mind, a feeling of understanding of the connection between you and certain rock, within a committing and possibly dangerous situation (a few things I miss about trad climbing in Eldo, "The Church")... which can all be easily be lost in the pursuit of hard problems. Below is a video of me on a problem I've been working on in the Post Office that embodies the soul of bouldering: so much prep', so little time on the wall, so down-right stupid looking sometimes. I'd like to call it Famous Anonymous Nowhere (v10), but I can't link a few of the moves, got all the moves, not the link. This is an attempt after sorting all the moves out... on a not so strong day. Oops, video is at the bottom of the blog.

This is Ben Elkon on the new V6 "Yoda" near F.A.N., I thought it was v5 but then Ben (solid v10, recently sent v11) fell off it a few times.
This is Doug committing but failing on the V4 "Goldfish Tombstone" in Area B on the Hume boulder, spotted by Ben Collett. Collett was trying to wrap up on Bierstadt but was looking a bit water-logged and pickled from his time at the beach, ahh next season.
John Thiel, looking a bit hung-over and disheveled on the v10/11 "Gorillas in the Mist," Area B, Mount Evans. He and I both sorted out our own beta that day but neither sent. I ended up completely changing my right foot beta and using the arch of my right foot on the arete as I saw Schulte do in his video, this gave me the extra length to get to the lip... after a year of trying everything but this.
F.A.N.

This last month I spent in the Emergency Department where I saw more trauma and got more hands on experience with procedures than in any other rotation. Of biggest concern to me was the use of the emergency room for non-emergent situation. For those without insurance of those who only have medicaid it seems that the ED is the place to go if you are concerned about flu-like symptoms. This is so unfortunate given that these patient have no patient follow-up, receive/charge the largest bill imaginable for the symptoms, spread viruses to patient that are emergent, and receive very little patient education, all because they are in the ED and not seeing a primary care MD or PA. The fact is that there are clinics available; somewhere there is a breakdown in the understanding of how our health care system is supposed to work, or simply there is a refusal to make and keep an appointment, an inability to organize one’s life, or a laziness that takes people to the ED where patient know that they can be seen and treated. All that said, it was an amazing rotation and I'd consider returning as an employee. At this time my top fields are: ED, Ortho, Adult Inpatient Medicine (no really, I dig this stuff), and Psych.

Update from Vail and Joe's coming soon, my schedule up here is more chill than its been all year.