Chillin in Idaho, Climbing in Oregon, aaaand the holidays begin

Not much to report here in Boise. Just watching a tractor drive back and forth reseeding a burned area. "Project Management" I guess you could call it. I call it nap time. Depending on where I am in the work area, I can poach wireless signals form houses nearby, so that is what I am doing.

For once, my family had a pleasant, low-friction Thanksgiving and I am contributing most of that to Colleen's presence. Everyone was trying to impress. While with the fam, I found out that my younger brother is headed to Oxford for winter classes (rock on Alec) and Fritz is headed into two surgeries this holiday season to fix a shoulder and broken foot (continued to play football for 2 weeks after breaking it, then getting it stomped on in a game).

On my way out here (before Thanksgiving) Sam, Jimmi and I climbed at Trout Creek in Central Oregon. It is a crag with the best collection of splitter cracks in OR. We tried to better acquaint ourselves with wide crack climbing with some very bloody results. Nevertheless, it was really good to get out and bleed on some real rock. I also must talk up Sam Mackey just for a second. I have never seen someone take to cracks, OW specifically, as smoothly as he did. James and I FLAILED up two 5 in cracks, with 10+ falls and on both cracks, Sam didn't fall once. Not once! Granted, when he came down, his ankles and fingertips were absolutely shredded, but god damn son!

I had to leave for Boise just as Greg D and Graham M showed up to the crag but I at least got to trade some choice comments about their shoddy climbing technique and them just being all around wankers!