I broke my wrist, kinda.

I did the drive to california and was off on my predicted arrival time by 15 minutes (over a 10 hr drive, thats a pretty good estimate). I then went up to san francisco to chill with the homies, and chill we did! Drank a bunch at a friends house and then decided to go out into the street (SF is famous for its steep hills) and longboard said hills. My first run was awesome, I carved the shit outta that street! The second run, I was doing even better, ...and then I was sliding across the pavement. My skateboard trucks found a HUGE pothole that I drunkenly didn't see and I went flying, landing on my left side and getting roadrash like none other (I gotta say though, I have a lot of respect for arcteryx stuff now. There was skin on the inside of the jacket but not a single thread was torn or scuffed on the outside of my softshell.) I landed on my wrist and it immediately swelled up to the point that I could barely move it. I went to the doctor the next day and she looked at the xrays and said that my radius was fractured near the end. So I got it all splinted up and was planning on going in to get it put in a cast on monday. Then on sunday the same lady calls and says that the head radiologist took another look atthe xrays and decided that I had just sprained my wrist really badly. Hooray! now I can go on the RedRocks trip again! And then I found out that Bryan cancelled the trip when I got back to Oregon. Grrr...

Tons of fun

I had one (possibly the most) fun day at work on saturday. As they cut trees down for timber harvesting on the school forest the limbs and whatnot get piled into huge (10-20ft) piles. Then, after they have dried out all summer, they get burned to release nitrients back into the soil and also to make room for seedling planting. Well, being a pyromaniac, I was ecstatic when the guy incharg of burning asked me and a few others to come help. Our tools for the job were simple; gallon ziploc baggies filled with gelled gasoline (napalm grenades), a backpack sprayer filled with diesel (flamethrower), and a leafblower (to really get the fire hot!). Man, I have never had so much fun. Do you have any IDEA what a leafblower on high power does to a 20 foot tall bonfire!?! It is AWESOME! And there were nearly 100 piles to burn. Man, what a day.

Now I am off to Cali for a week to visit folks for thanksgiving, and hang out with buddies. Man I hate that drive!

Reading is good for the... the... Well, it sure kills time!

Colleen, being a language arts teacher, has gotten me back to reading books lately. I finished "A Walk In The Woods" by Bill Bryson recently. If you havent heard of it, it tells of his mission to hike the AT with a friend and their adventures along the way. I, along with the New York Times best sellers list, found this to be a very funny book. Col also went to the library and grabbed me "Adrenaline" from 2001. Its basically a collection of short stories(good for sufferers of ADD) that are generally connected by the theme of adventure. There is the first hand account of Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden's being taken hostage in Pakistan, a man who was a first responder to an Ebola outbreak in Congo, and several climbing stories. I found a brilliant quote which I think can apply to many climbers (well, males at least).

"Like, say, fighter pilots, surgeons, and hit men, climbers have a prizewinning talent for disassociating from emotion, a quality that is useful in the mountains. It is considerably less useful in relationships." -Jack Turner

Oh, and another thing. I recently joined Gmail and have a new email address. It is now roth.ian(at)gmail(dot)com

Lets see here. Now where is a good photo to add to the post? From a kayak trip on the Salmon R. :

Keep on keepin' on

I do still exist, but you wouldn't guess it by checking this blog. Whatever, me and my busy, busy life (Yea right!) have very little time to update this. There will be a fall party soon to celebrate the fact that through a group effort, we produced around 8 gallons of hard cider courtesy of Cody's apple press. A real theme for the party is still necessary and you can submit suggestions in the commments section at the end of the post.
I got a new job at the forest for the next 6 months or so. I will be working full time for 2 nice guys named Brent and Rich. We are going to be doing reforestation work at the various forests owned by the school. I get to supervise planting crews :P and measure seedling growth to make sure the clearcuts are growing up properly. Basically, it is me walking around in the forest, in the rain, in the mud, avoiding wild animals all day. Oh well. It pays.
In the last two months I have gone rafting climbing, hiking, fishing, scuba diving and biking. Colleen and I raced in the Flying "M" Ranch "adventure" style duathalon. She ran and I biked. Despite a 20 min detour on my part (I was mildly lost compared to some I found out later) we placed first in our team category (out of 3 teams total). I was just stoked to make it to the finish. I carried my bike at least 1 of the 11 miles due to the clay-like mud that liked to clog up tires.
Ok, I need to do some work, seeing as I am at work.
Peace out.