Loose Ends

“A problem arises only when you try to manipulate a situation to your advantage or try to ignore it. Then you are violating your relationship of trust in the phenomenal world” Chogyam Trungpa

First off, I want to give props to my boy Al Lew. I omited a very impressive send by him a few weeks ago in Joe's. You may know Al as the guy who warms up on 5-Spots at the Spot or maybe the guy who is building rockets for your next space mission, either way he sent Worm Turns (v11) second try on or last trip out, making it look like v5.

Below is a v5 called Corkscrew in Red Stone that a crew of 5 strong climbers, including myself, couldn't get close to figuring out.

Today I'm heading down to Boulder for the Spot Highball comp with the Vail team. These kids are keeping me psyched even though I've been feeling a little burned out this week.

Here's a quote from The Impact of Inequality: "Powerful modern analysis on the contribution of status considerations to the pressure to consume have recently been proved... both show the extent to which material consumption is fueled by its power to signify position.... Between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s surveys showed a doubling of the aspirational incomes people thought they would need to live as they would like to... people saved less... and were more likley to get into debt"

Ok, all that above is from a post I intended to post couple weeks ago.

Above is another v6 from Redcliff.

The Spot comp was dope; one of the best comps I’ve been to in a long time, vibe was good, problems were stellar, peop’s were good. I didn’t climb well, but climbed better than expected, was feeling very off, kinda-anxious, tired-post-long-week feeling, and feeling the need to be outside. Then I coached the Vail team at the kids comp and ran into kids from the BRC team that I used to coach and are now crushing and saw kids from the Spot team that asked me when I was going to return and start coaching again and also saw kids from the old Spot team that I coached and are now the Movement team and all these kids turned my day’s frown upside-down. Still with the itch for stone, I ran up to Flag’ for 4 quick laps on the Monkey Traverse (normally v4 but v5 because the end was covered in ice and a bit dicy) and ran back to the Spot and flashed A1-A4 and A10 then only had time enough before getting pumped and the comp being over to pull off O2, all stellar problems. The comp got me psyched to train for the next Spot comp. The Vail gym has a super steep wall that is damn fine for training so watch your laurels wreaths, I ain’t setting the next comp, I gonna weigh in... I think that it’ll be good for my coaching if nothing else.

The next day, folks were heading to RMNP to do come backcountry so I headed to Vail Pass for a solo mission to check out conditions. 3 hours of touring led to 2 decent runs and a big glowing smile on my face with frozen boogers and psych for the storm that came that night. The next day I was sent home early from the hospital (unheard of) and I got to ski from 1-3... skiing nearly to my doorstep where I responsibly went back to studying. Don’t feel bad for me.

I’m now done with the 6 week Pediatric and Women’s Health portion of my rotation in Vail. My spanish esta mejorando and my certainty that this is not my field of choice is 100% solidified. My preceptors were superb but, lord help me, I can’t do well child checks or pre-natal visits, not my things, go bonkers, straight toxic bananas and bonkers. On monday I start in Family/Internal Med at the same clinic where I did my last 6 weeks, psyched for some labs and pharmacology.

Next post will have snow and hopefully a report on the Vail backcountry snowpack. I’ll try to get one more post in before I head down to Silverton and the Farmington to visit family for the holiday.

Settling into New Movements

That's Will Cole (3rd year med-student) on my favorite v6 in Joe's (Planet of the Apes) taking a weekend off to join me and Al Lew and a few others down in Joe's. The weather was stellar, as always I was hoping to crush but as usual I got served by Joe's. I'd been sick with the swine for the last week and was just recovering. Saturday was a complete waste, no energy, still lots of coughing, fell off the top-out of Team Effort "sit-start." Feeling a bit better on sunday I went back to Team Effort thinking that I may be able to warm up on it; second try I tore half of my finger off on the dyno-ish move to the pinch. Ugh. The rest of the day was cool but hampered by a mummified middle finger.

Below are 2 videos from Red Cliff. I love this place. This was probably the last session up there of the season.

Lately I've been doing a lot of meditation, yoga, and reading. I have free daily yoga at Vail Athletic Club because I coach there so I have no excuses and it's felt great to get back on the mat, it's been a long time since I had my yogi flow.

I'm reading "The Impact of Inequality" by Richard Wilkinson. The book looks at the effect social relations have on our health, essentially the sociology of health with a focus on how disparities in income effect health outcomes. Very academic.

I've failed to find the links to medicaid policies and emergency medicine but that info is coming soon.

Medicaid and a ABS comp in Vail this weekend

Note: in my last post I should have wrote "medicaid" not medicare. I have corrected this. I will post an explanation soon. I have recently learned of why there is so much use of the ED by immigrants that has a lot to do with how our laws are written. I will write about this in my next post.

Also, I'm coaching and setting for the Vail Athletic Club for the next 4 months. This saturday is an ABS comp that I'm psyched to be part of. Come on up and play in the valley.

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.