Archive for January, 2009

I’ll tell you this.  Spending three weeks in the arctic wasteland known as Minneapolis during the dead of winter is not something I’m going to do again.  

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be heading back to San Francisco and that can’t come soon enough.  It’s “only” 50 degrees out there, but that’s going to feel damn tropical compared to this cold I’ve been enduring. 

And it’s just not the cold, but the dry itching crackly skin I’m getting all over my body.  It drives me bonkers.

So yeah.. San Francisco, here I come!

About to lay the smack down.

Ever since World of Warcraft came out several years ago, I’d played a warlock.  I’d dabbled with a few other classes, but always came back to the warlock.

Then the expansion, Wrath of the Lich King hit the servers and with it, came the first entirely new, playable class to be added since the original release.  The new class is the Death Knight, an plate-wearing two-handed weapon wielding ass-kicking, face-bashing melee type with a few nasty spells to back it up. 

I decided to check out the new Death Knight starting area for a couple minutes before I got to work on leveling up my warlock to 80.  

I rolled a female draenei Death Knight. I gave her a cute white side-ponytail hairdo and called her “Brutallia”. 

And I was hooked.  I played her for hours and hours.  I’d leveled her up from 55 to 60 when I asked myself… am I going to even level the warlock?

And I kept on playing.  I never looked back.  Over the last weekend I made a big push and got her to level 80.  

Brutallia and me.  We’re going places.

I had this idea for starting off this blog on 2009 and I’m already three days late with it. Not a good start, but since I’m neither inclined or keen on waiting another 362 days to have a clean start, I’ll just post this up for the last three days and move on.

I’m not really one to make resolutions. I prefer to just start doing whatever I think needs improving. No better time than the present, I say. But I did want to do more of two things for 2009. Blog more. And take more pictures.

So I asked myself if I could post a picture everyday. I tried that before and failed miserably. But I’ll just try again. I’d like to close out this year with at least 365 pictures spread over the year’s entries. There’ll be days when I can’t post and I’ll either advance post, or catch up like I’m doing now.

2008 was a very interesting year for me. It started off with me shivering in MN, but geninuely excited about my upcoming road trip that would take me on a circular route from Minneapolis, down to New Orleans, then trek across the southwest before jogging north and rolling to a stop in the small town of Bishop where I’d make a life for a few months.

The Road Trip of 2008 was every bit wonderful as I’d imagined it. I spent hours and hours in my car, but I saw so many things passing by my window. I visited a few friends along the way and made a few more.

Ten days after I left Minnesota, I found myself in Bishop. Within a day, I’d gotten my own house and was quickly settled in. I fell hard for the town. The amazing winter dawn as I walked down W. Pine street for my coffee. The snow-dusted mountains that stood guard over the town. The laid back attitude of the locals and most of all, the world-class bouldering that sat only miles outside the town.

I was in climbing heaven for months. I’d start work early, finish up early, and then throw my crash pad in the truck and drive up to the rocks and climb for a couple hours before the sun fell behind Basin Mountain and the air would get cold instantly. I’d get one more climb in and then head back to my home where I’d cook a small dinner, read a book or play a game online, then go to bed.

March 17, 2008 – I’ll probably never forget that date. The day I went up to the Buttermilks with every intention to tick off Jedi Mind Tricks, and came down a man with a broken foot.  

As painful as breaking my foot was, it was not anywhere as painful the feeling of shock and depression that I struggled with, coming to terms that my climbing days were over for a while.  All the preparations I made over the year, all the anticipation and energy I put into moving myself out to Bishop was all, in that very instant – thrown asunder.  I had to will myself through each day.  I wanted to be *better* now.  I wanted to cast off that damned air-cast and just get back to what I was doing.  But that would not happen.  My foot would have to slowly heal itself.  Every day was slightly better than the previous.  I could not look at yesterday and say I felt much better today, but I could look at the previous week, or the previous month, and say, yeah – it’s improved since.  It was such a slow, gradual recovery process.  

I left Bishop in May and went back home.  I spent some time with family, before joining my Aunt out to San Francisco.  

I’ve been in San Francisco for six months now.  I’m still figuring out what I want to do – I’m not ready to talk about it fully yet.  But I’m pretty sure I’ll be sharing it with all of you pretty soon.