We went to the show last night -- specifically to see The Mad Caddies but also got to see three other bands. Each was quite unique which was kewl.

Opening was The Flipsides. They were a local (to San Francisco) group. They were decent -- better then many opening bands I've seen -- but you could kinda tell they were still "green under the gills". Their drummer was quite amazing though... one of the better drummers I've seen. He was relaxed and always seemed to have extra time. In Piano we were tought that in big jumps on the keyboard, you move your hands fast so that you have time to make sure you moved to the correct spot. I was reminded of this while watching their drummer.

Next up was the Real McKenzies. They are (in their own words) "modern-day celtic bards" from Vancouver, BC. They were a blast -- they all wore kilts (several of 'em without anything underneath their kilts) -- had a bagpipe player -- and spoke with a scottish accent (at least their lead singer did). I have to say that bagpipes in a punkish type band was very fitting. As Missy put it, they were like the Pogues on speed. Quite a fun group to watch (even if they were a weeeee bit wasted by the time they left the stage).

The third group to take the stage was Rise Against. Now, since this is my overview, the following is my own opinion. I could have done without this band. The lead singer never sang in tune and simply screamed most of the time. They broke 4 mics in the process of their 30 minute set -- do you have any idea how hard it is to break mics they use in those types of shows? However on the other side of that was the fact that the hardcore punkers in the crowd really seemed to enjoy them. So who knows -- they might have been good -- I really was counting the minutes until they got off the stage so that the headliners could come on stage.

The headliners of the show were, of course, the Mad Caddies. It was a blast getting to see them perform -- 2 horns (trumpet and trombone), guitar, bass, drums, and a singer. They put on a great show! Playing songs from all of their albums (including the soon to be released album), there weren't any songs that I wanted to hear that they didn't play. From "Preppy Girl" to "All American Badass". Hey -- they even mentioned the fact that they were from Solvang!! Hah!

After the show I picked up a couple shirts and then waited around to see Sascha, their guitarist. He, along with Carter (who is no longer with the band) attended the same middle school I went to -- we were in a class of 8 who graduated from the 8th grade together. He was pretty far gone but he's interested in arranging some music in the 30's/40's style with like a lead singer and three backup singers. I had mentioned that I've done some similar arranging before so he had several questions. He took us backstage (a first for me!! Being backstage at a fairly decent-sized show like that at least) and asked a couple questions. He kept getting interupted though and eventually we lost him in the crowd as they were leaving. Ah well -- thats what email is for!!

So -- a fun show overall -- I highly recommend catching the Fat Wreck Chords 2003 Tour if it comes to your city -- if nothing else then to see the Mad Caddies and to see the Real McKenzies!

I took some pictures at the show, as well as some short videos. I'll post 'em later today once I get some free time to clean up the images

--B--

I thought I was sore yesterday. Man was I wrong! Today I am sore.

I tried some new climbing problems on Monday. They were on the slab wall and not rated that hard -- but they had some very awkward moves on them. Like 5 holds and then you are at the top type problems. 5 holds to go 25+ feet. But it was only a 5.10c...

It was just mantle up, match feet & hands, mantle up, match feet & hands, mantle up, and get your feet right below your hands that you then had to balance on -- anywase, the manteling just totally wrecked my arms. There were another two problems that had simular problems -- a 5.10d which I got up and another 5.10c which I also got up (I never got up the one with only 5 holds). My legs are pretty beat too -- but that was a combination of climbing/biking big hills.

So today I am sore -- they always say that it takes a couple days for it to really hit and they sure weren't kidding!

On the funness side of things today, Missy and I are going to see The Mad Caddies. They are a ska/punk band. Why are we going to such an odd band for our typical musical tastes? Well not only is their music pretty damn fun to listen to, but I went to school with two of the founding members of the band -- and I know four of 'em. Plus anyone who writes songs about the cops in Solvang or not wanting to be in Goleta -- well you have to be familiar with the area but it's where I grew up!! As they put it, "puttin' SEX in sextet", check out their preview for their latest album, Just One More

So -- we're heading down to San Francisco tonight to go see them perform at Slims.
Maybe I'll go climb tomorrow and work out the kinks I've gotten!
w00p
--B--

Well -- for about two and a half weeks, THE server (also known as SQ-WEB01 which hosts squeeek.com, trombone.org, and a couple other domains) was receiving bad sector reports in the Windows Event Log. It was typically three or four messages a day, but it seemed to be growing.

So I ordered a new HD (a bigger HD with an 8mb cache) and decided to go ahead and take care of it today.

I took the system offline around 1:30 and after some initial upchucks (I was using Ghost to copy the HD and it wanted the existing drive to be in perfect condition with no files on bad sectors -- so I had to get Windows to run a media-level checkdisk) it got under way. It was down for about 2 hours even though I had the new hd up and working in about 30 minutes. I wanted to run offline defrags, install some updated software/services, etc.

The system was up and down during this time so my apologies if you were trying to access something that was on this system!! In a week or so I will be taking it down once more to install a new tape backup unit. Hopefully this will be a real quick reboot or two.

But this was to save me time in the long run. Imagine if the HD had completely failed!!
Time to go climbing soon.
Yay!

--B--

Missy had some lady email her from the Boston Globe yesterday asking about her website, called Missy Williams - Hair Metal Queen. With the Great White show going up in flames (literally) the lady was trying to find out how "big" the 80's cheese/hair metal scene still was.

So anywase, Missy's quoted several times in the article so check it out!
For aging headbangers, 'hair metal' still rocks

--B--

It's sorta like the day-after pill. Only this is the day-after-a-build bugfest.

We posted some new code yesterday that would send us an email whenever the webserver returned any type of error. Someone types in a wrong url? We get an email saying there was a 404 error. Someone hit a directory? We get an email about the lack of permissions to display that directory correctly.

All in all it's going to be a good thing. However, today, the first day after a build, we have already found three broken images on pages that affect all sites, another crystal reports "oddity" (it occasionally returns an error about the file being in use by another process after it's said it's done creating the file), and several other minor mishaps.

So we've posted two emergency updates and have another three either on QA or almost there (two on QA and another one that failed from my QA Build point-of-view).

I still plan on leaving AT 3:00 today...

A mentally draining day after a mentally draining day.
--B--

I got my Moccasyms back from being resoled!!

yay!!!!

The rubber was litterally falling off the shoe. I had gone to the Rubber Room last time -- this time I went with a guy who does this all by himself, Barry's Resoles. I sent him two checks -- one for the resole and one in case the rand of the shoe needed to be fixed -- he sent the second check back with a note saying the rands looked just fine.

Nywase, they look brand new they are so well done -- in fact I think he replaced the entire length of the shoes' rubber -- not just the half-shoe like they normally do. If he didn't, he roughed it up to look like the rest of the new rubber.

I'll let everyone know how I like the resoles and if I recommend 'im -- so far it looks great tho!

--B--

TMBG Concert
San Francisco, CA
Great American Music Hall
April 28, April 29, April 30

w000000p!
Need I say more?
--B--

On Sunday, Jason and I took a trip to a couple other climbing gyms. It was lots of fun and makes you realize just how spoiled you are when you get back to your "hometown" gym.

We started off by going to Touchstone - Concord which was larger then Vertex but we had several complaints. The bouldering area sucked ass. They tried to make it more realistic by having you top out on an entire streach of climbs. This just doesn't work for indoor climbing I don't think. At least not the way they have it set up. The bouldering problems also had all naturals on for hands or feet which was a completely different thought process from what we are used to. Not sure if thats better or worse but either way it was different.

So then we decided to top rope. The ropes are spread out (like all other Touchstone gyms) about every 4 to 5 feet apart. That means that if you swing on a fall and anyone is climbing next to you, there is a good chance that you will take them out -- or at least run into their rope. I mean, even at Vertex, when there is someone climbing within 8 to 10 feet of you, I'd rather sit it out and wait. Luckily it wasn't busy (we got there around 11:30am-ish) so we were able to get on pretty much any route we wanted. Jason climbed a couple in the 5.8 to 5.10a range and I climbed (let me see if I can remember) -- a 5.8, 5.9, 2 5.10a's, a 5.10b, and a 5.11a. The raitings there seem to be easier then the raitings at Vertex as a 5.11a should be right about my limit -- however beyond a endurance issue, it wasn't very difficult.

We also noticed (either at this point or slightly later when we went to Berkley) that the routes don't challenege your thought process much. A 5.8 is all jug holds. A 5.9 is jug hold, bad hold, jug hold, bad hold. A 5.10a is jug hold, bad hold, bad hold, jug hold, bad hold, bad hold, etc. The climbs at Vertex, as they get harder, not only throw more sloper holds at you, but also make you think about them more -- body position, weight shifting, heel hooks, etc.

So we left the Concord gym and decided to try the Berklee gym. We stopped for lunch at a yuppy "Bistro" something-or-other. VERY good food. VERY yuppish. Then it was off to the Berklee Iron Works. Now this place had potential. It was HUGE! Probably (according to Mark from Vertex) 4 times the physical space that Vertex has. Where Vertex tops out at 35 feet in the highest point, the Iron Works tops out at 45 ft. It's hard to judge the bouldering area as they had it streched out along a wall -- it felt HUGE compared to Vertex but it could easily have been the same amount of space (or close to it) as Vertex's bouldering area is two rooms that are squarish in nature (as apposed to one long wall). It is no wonder that very large bouldering comps are held here though -- they had some great potential climbinb areas.

Again I didn't climb anything harder then a V3 in the bouldering area as I was saving myself for top-roping. Jason was still pretty beat up from more then our normal 2 hours of climbing (we had climbed for a pretty solid 3 hours by the time we started to top rope) so he didn't get to do all that much climbing in his NEW FiveTen Moccasyms (which he purchased at the Iron Works of course -- donut tell his wife tho!). I managed to climb a 5.9, a couple of 5.10a's, 5.10d, and struggled up a 5.10c (my last climb) during which my brain shut down and I had a good fall when my foot slipped off a hold.

We watched some crazy d00der lead-climb 6 climbs ranging from 5.12b through 5.13c without so much as a break (it was climb, get down, pull the rope through, start climbing again). When we left he was doing it again and was on climb #5 or so. It was way crazy (these were LONG -- HARD lead routes).

Big complaints about the Iron Works? It was super busy. About 90% of the ropes were always in use -- and being 4 to 5 feet apart, made it scary while climbing something beyond your ability (worrying about falling into someone else). That was really the biggest complaint besides the route setting issues mentioned above.

Got back to Santa Rosa around 6:30ish. All in all a fun day!

And I can honestly say that I'm still glad that Vertex is my "home gym".

--B--

This is a test post on v2.62 of Movable Type

Well -- I've been sick now for a week...
It's sucked. I'm feeling better each day but I have a serious lack of energy. I've gone to the climbing gym the past two nights and struggle on V3s. Ah well -- it'll come back.

Gotten quite a bit of work done on the Climb Vertex website.

Work has been work -- not great -- not terrible -- honestly quite boring and ... well ... depressing I suppose in some way.

*ugh*
Ah well...
--B--

Being sick sux ass

--B--

Did a superlap tonight. A superlap, for those of you newbs out there, is when you lead up and over the lead wall to the tall wall, down climb a route on that wall, climb back up and then back down the lead wall. In the past, the farthest that I had made it was up the lead wall, down the tall wall, and back up. Tonight I pushed myself and finished down-climbing the lead wall again. It's damn hard to unclip the carabeaners as you downclimb with hands that don't obey. My arms were so pumped at the end my GOD!

I think I'll try and do it once a week -- I had to take one break on the way down as I just couldn't unclip. But Jason made me keep goin' (thanks!). Now for some fud and then on my bike for an hour or so.

I'll sleep good tonight!
--B--

So...
Jason and I have mentioned our "Double Secret Project" once or twice in the past couple weeks. It's finally close enough to being complete that I got permission tonight to tell everyone about it.

Vertex is the climbing gym where we both climb. After talking to the owner and convincing him that he should have a new "style" of website (that site hasn't been updated for two years now), we are about 95% done with the site. We are doing it as a "blog" so that it's easy for them to update in the future. And Jason and I will be maintaining the "news" section of the website -- posting new climbs, updated staff information, etc.

So .. you want to see what we have come up with so far?
Well check it out already!

We are deffinately looking for feedback as we are going to be "going live" in approx. two weeks from tomorrow. So lemme know what ya think! There are minor code tweaks that we are going to do but like I said it's about 95% complete -- well maybe closer to 98%...

w00p!
--B--

Finally got up a 5.11b/c tonight. That is officially the hardest top-rope climb that I have completed.
I did it with one fall so it's not officially "sent" yet but hopefully tomorrow -- now that I have all the moves worked out. The climb is probably 5.10d until the last three moves which are prob. 5.11d -- they are VERY hard.

I plan on starting to lead more as well -- they have a 5.10a which is the hardest that I have lead -- and a 5.10c and then a 5.11a. The 5.11a looks really hard so I'll do the 5.10c first. But hopefully those will start goign pretty well .. as well.

yay!!
--B--