a bit lost in the shuffle/the send-train almost came to town!

yup, i converted to the hustle and bustle of face book. i always thought i would just hate it, that somehow having one of those things would be an overall negative experience. although i'm still rather new to it, i like the fact that all these people i know can be reached from one place.
where that has left me is in a place where i'm not really sure what to do with this page anymore. i keep finding that now i'm showing up on pages other people write, photos of me end up online before i even see them. i don't wanna be just copy pasting, but...

here's a little copy-pasting! check out the teNgaiolator's account of our venture.

to elaborate a bit on that, we almost got to see the magic that is the send-train, where each person consecutively crushes his/her current route.

to start off, each of us had not-so-inspiring first goes.
i got to that last move again, my forearm just decided to quit grippin for me, and i was left thinking, "ahh man... i could be in for the long haul on this route..."
teNgaio looked super solid on al's diner, but took a few hangs here and there.
and ricardo was battling with the unnamed 11d we unofficially dubbed "the virgins of howe".

so we all hung around for a bit. in reference to teNgaio's link up there, i'm often found guilty. i think that is what blew my first attempt. i was just thinking about it too much, getting all nervous, and a little bent out of shape. but when i lowered down from my first go, i felt great really. my right arm was so pumped with lactic acid that i couldn't undo my knot, but other than feeling like the route might take a while to climb clean, the nervousness was gone.

then matt decided to give the route an honest go, and destroyed it. he came down, i tied in, and fired it. there was so much good energy floating around that ricardo jumped on the unnamed 11d. he looked super strong, climbed the hard bit no problem, and then slipped off...

rick jumped right back on, climbed the rest of the route, and when he came down to the ground, he didn't have his redpoint, but there was a smile on his face.

other than "the best climber is the one having the most fun" lesson, another big part of redpoint climbing is to turn off your brain, and breathe.
by which i mean:
-it's not my first go (hence redpoint), i've been on this route before, i have the sequence worked out, i've done all the moves
-the next step is to just focus on the climbing.

when i started up "al's diner", i was singing to myself to calm my nerves a bit, and someone said, "remember to breathe", so i quit singing, found a rhythm to my breathing, and entered that headspace where my only focus was each move (the song was "red right ankle" by colin meloy, in case you were curious). i think everyone was being quiet, but really i have no idea if anyone was yelling encouragement to me while i was climbing. basically, everything went smoothly, and i got to the last hold, not pumped, found the key foothold, and that was that really.
not to be the harsh critic, but after rick climbed the crux of his route, it appeared he lost that headspace, which was ultimately why he popped off.

so you might be saying to yourself, "jeez louise tom, what a round-about way to tell us that, and i still really have no idea what you mean... can you just put up a photo now?"
which is totally cool, because i'm right there with ya. so thanks to facebook, via tyson hallbert, i have a nice photo of the send.

firing the crux of "al's diner" 5.13a