I felt like I learned something about Hispanic culture in Los Angeles from this movie, which is a measure of success even for pure fiction. A Quinceañera is a girl’s fifteenth birthday, and the introduction plunges you into a youthful world. Characters who identify with their cellphones are plunged into adulthood when confronted with a pregnancy, fundamentalism, gay culture, and the gentrification of their neighborhood. Worthwhile.
It feels like it will be a hot day, so we go to the Dark Side to look for shade. The views and flowers at The Bank Campground are enough to make me giddy. Bright sun shines on many wildflowers, while the snowy Sange de Christo mountains loom over the southern horizon.
It turns out that the north-facing Dark Side wall gets sun well into the morning, but it’s pleasant enough to start in the sun with the relief of shade on the way. We spend the whole day here, weathering a few brief thunder showers.
The routes:
I’ve been fighting a cold all week, but I’m determined to make it down to Shelf Road with Ann, Doug, Liz, Kate, Mark and many other climbing friends for the annual gathering at Cheesehead Ranch, a generous climber’s spread near the crag. I’m still watery-eyed and runny-nosed as we set up camp Friday night. Saturday morning I’m feeling a little better, and by the time we arrive at Mural Wall in The Gallery I’m feeling up to some climbing. Everyone ends up getting their fill, and Doug sends his first 5.10 lead outdoors. Then it’s back to the ranch for smoked tenderloins, beer, games, a distant lightning storm, bright stars, and a brighter moon.
The flowers are always a highlight here in this subalpine desert landscape in the spring. Today I see one that’s new to me in an arroyo. It looks reminiscent of a columbine to me, but I later identify it as a variety of Evening Primrose.
My climbs for the day:
An ideal movie to watch while sick at home and writing some simple code for a project. The vision of a future world buried in garbage and with a professional wrestler as president of the US is great, but you have to sit through too much formula without enough of this kind of good stuff.
Referred by Slate
We had planned an attempt to climb Mt. Sherman with my Dad, but upon reaching Kenosha pass we decide it looks too snowy and stormy. Instead we drive in to the South Ben Tyler Trailhead and follow the Ben Tyler trail up into the Kenosha Mountains. There are some thunderstorms, but the hiking remains quite pleasant. At about 10,500 feet the snowdrifts become pretty deep and soft, eventually driving us to leave the trail and bushwhack up the ridge. We’re provided with a grand view of hundreds of miles of Continental Divide before we head down again.
We camp a couple of miles from the trailhead. This is national forest, and there is a plethora of fine campsites to choose from. The Colorado Trail runs through here, and we there are many more opportunities for good hikes. I have a feeling we’ll return here.
A few more bug fixes, some that appeared in recent Google Maps API versions. I’m getting close to a new beta release with some fun new toys, so don’t think that 1.0.x is the end of the line for Geo Mashup. The new goods:
I like this movie better after letting it sit in my mind for a while. As with most Jim Jarmush movies I feel like I’m missing some things, but it did give me a distinct impression of how the mind can operate. I’m reminded of Robert Anton Wilson’s theory of the Thinker and the Prover: what the thinker thinks, the prover proves. His example is that if you can convince yourself that you have a great ability for finding quarters, that you were meant to find quarters, you will start finding quarters everywhere. Yet, in the end, the prover never really proves anything with certainty. This movie is a nice illustration of that, and has many other nice touches too.
Not that they don’t still scare me, but I’m starting to gain just a little confidence on 5.7 Vedauwoo cracks. Sean and Colin join Ann, Kate, and me for some more quality time on the Nautilus. I start out on Ted’s Trot 5.7, which looks like an endless, grueling offwidth. To my relief it’s fairly civilized, takes smaller pro, and offers beautiful hand and fist jams in addition to the groveling. The crux is a scary move through a roof on a fist jam, terrific fun. I follow Colin on Cornelius 5.5, a perfect diagonal finger crack on a slab, then lead Lower Slot Left 5.7, a gripping finger to hand to fist crack. We’re all doing better on these cracks, falling less, but man they still tax me. I keep thinking I’m done with them, then I find myself wanting to try one more…
Ann and I part ways today. She’s participating in a women’s climbing day, and I’m off to tramp around Vedauwoo. It doesn’t take long for me to reach unfamiliar terrain north of Reynold’s Hill. I find some roads and trails that go my way for a while, then turn away to parts unknown. I don’t see anybody on any of them, much less going cross country through sage and stands of aspen. I’m making my way to Twin Mountain, a pair of rocky peaks that have tempted me for years. As I approach I scan them for a route to the summits. I try the northeast twin from the east ridge, nearly reaching the top but opting to descend and top out via an easier scramble on the south side. The ridge traverse between the two is fun, with a very pronounced spine in places. The southwest peak offers the best route on the east side, with a really satisfying move at the top. The day is blissfully sunny and warm. I continue southward through some jumbled terrain, a meadow with a giant ant colony, and finally a heavily wooded climb up to the ridge of the Sherman Mountains. There are now some thunderstorms forming, and I watch distant lightning strikes and soaring buzzards while I eat my turkey wrap.
Descending south I rockhop to a drainage headed west with a light game trail through the aspen. A ways down this I find a trail going back east. I can’t resist following this, then bending south at a fork. This soon brings me to Crow Creek just south of Reynold’s hill, familiar terrain for me. I take my wending back up the hills to my campsite where a cold beer is waiting. Life can be hard in Vedauwoo. When will I ever have time to find out where all those enticing roads and trails lead?
It was the perfect time for me to read about the life and work of Kurt Gödel, the mathematician who shook mathematics so violently at its foundations in 1931 that there is still widespread disagreement about where it has landed. Of course I encountered his name and theorems in my own investigations of the origins of mathematical thinking, but I was fortunate not to get too embroiled in the chaos he unleashed. Rebecca Goldstein does a marvelous job of placing Gödel in philosophical, historical, mathematical, and social context. Her central tenet is that both Gödel and his friend Albert Einstein were intellectually exiled Platonists in a sea of emerging postmodern thinkers, and I believe it. The contrast between his results and the widely varying philosophical interpretations of them is worth examining, as is the small collection of evidence of his strange personality that is deftly presented here.
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