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