Advice: Racking up with Ebay

So a college buddy living back on the east coast called me this morning from REI. Abe has been kind of into climbing for a while, and we even climbed a bit together back in Boulder during college (that would be at least 5 years ago now). He is looking to cut his trad climbing teeth on a 3 pitch route in North Carolina that he'd be near to on an upcoming vacation.
"dude, so I'm at REI ~sound of little kids screaming in background~ I'm looking to buy some passive pro, are the BD stoppers any good? What are stoppers, are those the same as nuts? What about cams, why are they so pricey and should I buy a whole rack or just a bunch of the same sizes. Can I get away without them?"
O.K. so all of the sudden I'm the advice go-to guy for gear, which in all honesty makes me feel all at once uneasy and all powerful. I could say, "Here's what you do, hang out at the crag until someone comes along, and then ask them to tow your rope up the climb, they can then set up a toprope for you and you'll never have to lead anything. Or if it's a multipitch, be really chummy and see if their second could tow your rope up each pitch and belay you and your girlfriend up that way. Have a ready supply of Powerade, salami, laughing cow and Cliff bars that you are willing to share, and people will do anything for you, climbers are really nice, er thrifty, er downright cheap like that."
With that, I'd like to introduce the first in an installment of how to get Abe off the ground on trad gear without breaking the bank.
One good piece of advice about buying a first rack that I offered to Abe was to check with Ebay. This is a great resource to get yourself some good gear at a great price. "But you really shouldn't climb on old or used gear, right?"
Well yes and no. If you go out and buy a brand new cam at $70.00, take it up a 5.6 and place it twice you cannot sell it as new any longer. While the integrity of the piece is as good as the day it came out of the display case at the gear store (assuming you didn't fall on it), you couldn't call the piece "new" anymore. So when you are Ebay, how do you tell the difference between a safe new piece and a not safe new piece? Here is how I do it.
It's all in the pictures: Every veteran ebay seller knows that quality item pictures are crucial for used items. This is especially true for climbing gear. I recently sold a few cams on Ebay, and this is the picture I posted for one of them. Of course a picture of the entire cam is included in the auction, but this is the money shot. The key here is that I featured the cam lobes in the photo (another photo features the opposite side as well). You can see that this cam has just about zero nicks in the cam teeth, which is a good indication that it hasn't been placed much and definitely hasn't taken any falls. Don't buy any cams without seeing a picture like this. If it's not in the original auction posting, ask the seller for one.
A caveat is that storing or carrying a new piece in a rack with other pieces will necessarily wear down the anodization (coloring) on the edge of the cam lobes. So a bit of discoloration on the edge of the lobes shouldn't discourage anyone.
A lot of times individuals will be selling their entire rack, or the rack of some friend or relative who has given up climbing (I love the postings that say "trad climbing is just too dangerous and I've decided to sell my whole rack"). This probably means the individual has always found it relatively dangerous, and didn't spend a lot of time falling all over his gear attempting routes over his/her ability level. Again, with any posting, if the seller hasn't done so, make sure to request an up close and in focus picture of the cam lobes before placing any bids, this will help ensure the cam is new or has been placed a limited amount of times without falls, which is the max amount of usage I'd want anyone to accept in a used cam.
These "entire rack for sale" sales are often a great way to get a bunch of stuff for a great price. Often times you might score yourself a bunch of new carabiners, a new nut tool or other random, but useful items. Beware of ones that include items like Figure 8 belay/rappel device, chuinard oval carabiners or old school leather hightop climbing shoes, this shit belongs in a museum or up on your wall, not in your climbing rack.
When it comes to having the latest and greatest gear, well you will have to pony up a little more, even for slightly used new stuff. However the truth be told, cam technology appears to be changing a lot more than it actually is. All cams are built on the same mathematical algorithm and so the basic design from the old school rigid-stemmed Friends to the brand new Camalot C4's follows the same basic principles. That being said, BEWARE any cam being sold that is not UIAA and CE (the gear certification agencies for climbing gear). Stay away from brands you've never heard of or without these certifications. "Certified by the Slovenian National Climbing Committee" should be a pretty good signal to stay away from that brand. Check out the Trango Cam Cup entrants for some interesting homemade cam designs and what NOT to purchase.
Stay tuned for the next posting, I will compare the virtues of BD versus Metolius cams, both of which I have used. I'll try and set up a table of pros and cons and see which are best. I welcome feedback.

We are all bloggers Y axis

"... By writing books, the individual becomes a universe.... And since the principal quality of a universe is its uniqueness, the existence of another universe constitutes a threat to its very essence..
A person who writes books is either all (a single universe for himself and everyone else) or nothing. And since all will never be given to anyone, every one of us who writes books is nothing. Ignored, jealous, deeply wounded, we wish the death of our fellow man....
The proliferations of mass graphomania [blogging] among politicians, cab drivers, women on the delivery table, mistresses, murderers, criminals, prostitutes, police chiefs, doctors, and patients proves to me that every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself and that all mankind has every right to rush out into the streets with a cry of "We are all writers!"
The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in the indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."

Milan Kundera. "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting." 1979.

Given the fact that I don't have a single known reader of this blog, and may never am I just writing this for myself? and putting it out into the public mind to make it something real? I imagine if I die soon someone may dig this up, "oh he had a blog, but mainly kept it to himself. well maybe we should look into it." then maybe someone would read it, and take an excerpt out of the words herein for my eulogy. Would I smile from my place in the ether, smugly content that, yes it had all been worth it because now there is an account, albeit one made of electrons in a medium that doesn't even really exist? Why do I write this? .

Z Axis "I'm Sailing!"

Life is full of dilemmas. Obviously one of the big ones for me is to take a serious job or to keep on bumming around planet earth for the foreseeable future? And if I do take option "B", how the hell do I keep it up. I can't buy an RV, i couldn't afford it and even if I could I'd have to run it on biodiesel to not feel guilty about it. I can't go take out a mortgage on a house, because that pretty much kills your travel ability ( oh yeah, and I'm broke at the moment as well).
To get to the point, it occured to me not to long ago that the ultimate mobile lifestyle, and one that would allow me to chase that "endless summer" would be to live on a boat. More specifically a sailboat (the whole fuel cost/greenhouse gas emissions of running a motor all day wouldn't really sit well on the conscience).
Also, because I'm an addicted rock climber, it seems at first blush that being in the ocean makes it slightly more difficult to access a lot of rocks, (that is unless I were to pioneer the sport of underwater rock climbing. Given the fact that the largest mountain ranges are underwater I could put up more first ascents than anyone in history. Of course i could also alter my gravity settings with my SCUBA gear, but given the fact that I'd be climbing in flippers I'd say it would just about even out in terms of difficulty....) ANYwhoo after some serious thought I've given up on the idea of underwater climbing because I realized that there is a wealth of good rock near the ocean. Here's a list of places i've thought of.
-Southeast Asia (Tonsai/Railay and all of the Thai Islands like Phi Phi, Lao Liang and Ya Noi), also in SE Asia, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Philippines.
-Squamish, BC- You can sail right into Howe Sound and be at the crags in a short bike ride (the boat should have bikes) Tons of granite crack climbing at my fingertips.
-The Mediterranean- Between Spain, France, Mallorca, Turkey, Croatia and whatever other amazing places i've just left out, there is a lifetime of boat accessible climbing here.
-Maine Acadia National Park
-California- The lost coast
-New Zealand- Golden Bay.
-All of the other awesome places that I couldn't think of

Another Dilemma: I have no idea how to sail and I don't own a boat.
Solution: It turns out that you don't have to own a boat to get on a boat sailing around the world.
Back in 2003 I stayed with this couple in New Zealand. The guy was from England but had gotten to NZ, where he now lived via a boat that he hopped on in the Panama canal. Yachty types apprently flock from the pacific to the Carribean like clockwork every year, a lot of them going through the Panama Canal and looking for a few extra crew members. Anyhow there is vast opportunity to hop on boats that way.
I did some research recently and there are website devoted to hooking up potential crew members with captains looking for crew. Below are some of the links. (one of the links is for a boat where as crew you promise to teach english at the many stops along the way.
-floatplan.com
-the peace boat

Needless to say I've got a posting on floatplan already promising to trade climbing lessons for sailing lessons. Lets see if I can't get all Bill Murray-ish like in What About Bob, I'll keep you posted.

Anasazi V2 Blancos my review

So this weekend I test drove my new shoes the Fiveten Anasazi Blanco V2. How did an unemployed graduate end up with such a steamingly sexy, svelt and expensive pair of shoes? Well, It all started with a trip to a children's consignment shop in Squamish Canada last year where I picked up a pair of red warmup pants and a bright red top both made to fit a 7 year old.

Said items were then worn to a "tight and Bright" party hosted by the Squamish Mountain Festival. Being one of the tightest and brightest, as was my lady, we were invited to the front of the party late in the evening to gather support from the crowd in the form of cheers to hopefully score some new shoes. Lets just say the crowd was somehow too distracted by all the sexy climber-esses (that's female climbers) in spandex to really give a shit about me. So with one pair of free shoes left the DJ announces, "OK first handstand gets the last pair of shoes." Now i'm no handstand expert, and I was probably a little too close to the turntables to be pulling any inverted drunken moves at this point, but I somehow pulled out a handstand fast enough and long enough to qualify and get the free 5.10 certificate. Boooyah!

Given that I've gone through 3 pairs of Anasazi velcros (with resoles) and am halfway through a pair of mocassyms, i feel pretty well qualified to speak to the virtues of these beauties.
I like them. The C4 rubber, which is not featured on the Velcros (they have Onyx) is unnaturaly grippy, or at least was on the granite this weekend.
I sized them as small as possible, when trying them on in the store, I couldn't even put my foot into a size 10. So 10.5 being the smallest I could fit into, I went with them ( I wear between an 11 and 12 in street shoes, and my velcros are size 11, while my Moccasyms are 10.5). I'm really hoping that with the synthetic uppers there won't be a lot of stretch.
What about the heal? I know you are asking. The legendary slingshot heal that is either loved or reviled by would-be 5.10 wearers works awesome with my sledgehammer heals. I think for people with zee gurly-dainty heals, this may not be the case. Anyways, when I slip into these things, I can feel the heel cup pushing my foot forward and into a seriously aggressive stance. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bunyons.
How do they climb? So far, so very good. I'd go so far as to say confidence inspiring. The slightly stiffer sole (I think this is what they call a rand?) worried me at first in that I might lose sensitivity, and I did feel that a little bit. What was lost in sensitivity was made up for in overall climbability. The V2's stiffness allowed for me to put more weight on marginal footholds than usual, and then keep my power focused on the front of the foot through the slingshot-heel action.
I hate laced shoes, just because I lack the patience to sit and evenly pull each lace, and often feel like just putting them on actually gives me flash pump. While these shoes were laces, and they do take time, and I do hate the waiting and lacing, actually taking the time to lace these things up was worth it for the perfect baby in a papoose, joey in a pouch, hot dog in a bagel (dog?) snugness that envelopes the entire foot; a feeling that is definitely lacking in the previously mentioned Anasazis.
I don't know, maybe all of this is BS and I'm just climbing better because I have cool white new looking shoes on my feet and brand new edges, But those are my two cents on the V2, a shoe review, take it or leave it, I'm only writing this in hopes of getting free gear one day anyways.
OK PEACOUT.

Index Town Walls & Goldbar

I've always said the Northwest is like a beautiful girl who rarely smiles. Well this summer she is smiling and wearing a skimpy schoolgirl outfit and making very suggestive eyes at me. In short, it's glorious.
I took the opportunity to head up to Index town walls and Goldbar this weekend and sample some of the NorthWest's Finest granite, I haven't been to any of these places yet.
First off, it only took me 1.5 hours to get home, and would have been similar getting there if we didn't f*** up the directions.
Getting in a little later, we decided to do some bouldering at Goldbar. Warmed up on a V2 on the Camp Serene Boulder, did that a few times then moved onto the next easiest line, which was a beautiful v4 highball, topout about 20 ft up. . Worked it a few times then decided we needed a safety break. Mowed down on cheese/hummus/avocado (my specialty) sandos, got safe and then I strapped on my brand spankin new anasazi v2 blancos. Sent it 2nd go, F yeah, go new shoes. W, my partner hopped on the train and sent just after.
All throughout the weekend I have been presented with opportunities to trust myself and the universe with mixed results. For one, we pull up to the boulder, and W says do you have a brush. "No man, I have no brush" then I open my trunk and low and behold, my snow scraper/brush. which works perfectly (see pics).
Later, I ran back to the car for chalk, about a 5 minute roundtrip, but still annoying when you realize that you had the chalk in your bag at the boulder all along. trust the universe, Bobcat. Next we hit the beach boulder, W did the jump start to the classic v4 first go, no splash landing for him. we did the v2 slab, i did it again barefoot, in full wet boxer-thong splendor for the camera, and for a group of river running tourists heading down the river. Then jumped from about 20 ft into about 3.5 feet of water, that was fun.
Camping: If you camp near index, the Reiter road as lots of place to stay, but beware of getting really close to "the gravel pit" on a busy weekend. This area is sketch if not just for the abundance of Rainier Beer swilling offroad fanatics driving very fast between roads and gravel trails.
This area has no good campgrounds, but lots of little side roads that for some reason you are allowed to camp at. besides climbers, there is one other user group that frequents this area, the ORV'rs. The offroad vehicle crowd is a slightly different bunch than us climber hippies, and throughout the night, as W and I cooked beans and drank beer under a tarp in the rain, what can only be described as restructured Jeeps with tires the size of ponies and 2 foot lift kits kept wizzing by. I don't know if the same guy kept jumping on different trucks, but it seemed like a bald headed guy with a cutoff t-shirt, and a beer in his hand was standup up, leaning over the rollbar of every redneck vehicle that rolled by.
"W, this might be the last night of our lives. The rednecks are going to kill us and make cloth tops for their jeeps with our skins. Lets have another beer."
We didn't die, and next day, after a quick stop in Index town proper for a bathroom stop we hit the walls.
First wall we came to had 6 parties on each F***ing route it seemed like, and I got discouraged. Well, Godzilla is nearby, the classic 5.9 crack, but I'll bet it's busy too. Mounting frustration, flipping through the book, not knowing where I am I hate this shit. Just then a funny little guy who may have been related to sasquatch came through and suggested that Godzilla was open, if we wanted it. Trust the universe.
The line was great, though after about 30 feet i was in full sun, and being the sweaty bastard I am, couldn't really jam anything as I would just slime out. I ran out most of the climb, not wanting to spend lot of time in the sun, and not having enough in the .4/.5 size range. It was great though.
After that it was over to Aries, took our safety meeting and then climbed the first pitch or so until I set up a belay in full blazing sun. Not wanting to climb the second pitch flaring chimney in full sun, i ran around the corner to set up an alternate belay. After setting it up, I realized i was dripping with sweat and there was no way I wanted to climb anything. "W! It's so f**ing hot here man, I think we should bail and get lunch. Indeed, so we did. good call because at the base of the route was a little cave with ice cold air blowing out of it, F***ing perfect air conditioner, trust the universe, Bobcat.
Finally, we hit up The Country wall, which looks like a station from the TV show Lost (check the photo). It was all shade, so though we actually intended to go to a different wall we decided we shouldn't press our luck. We eyed a sweet looking sport line and I managed to onsight, as did W. Both of us were guessing mid 11's for the grade. On our way out I gave an oldtimer a belay on a 5.7, which he climbed in like 2 minutes place 2 pieces in about 70 ft. He called our route a 10d citing "Index grades". Shiiiit that was hard. This place definitely grades more stoutly than anywhere I've been except Yosemite.
Anyways. that's the trip report. Great weekend out with a good friend, awesome.

At this point,

How I got here, the X axis

I just graduated from a master's program. The Evergreen State College was kind enough to bestow on me a masters of environmental studies. That's great, right? I think so, however it was a hard road being that Evergreen is located in Olympia, a town that finally showed me that I can't happily live everywhere and anywhere on earth. Having grown up in Boston, lived in Boulder Colorado, New Zealand, Southern California, Austin TX, and Various other locations for short periods of time, i've been pretty spoiled and loved the hell out of everywhere else I've lived. Until now.
So at this point I find myself living in a town I don't like, without a job and though I could probably get a job working in state government, I've got no desire to stay in Washington itself at this point. At this point my money is running low, and I've been working at getting a job (applying to positions, calling contacts etc... everything the books tell me to do) and have come up with basically nothing at this point except for a couple of phone interviews for a job that I didn't get. This obviously weighs on a person a bit. Is it me? Is it that I don't live where I'm looking for a job? does my resume look bad? Is it because I graduated from Evergreen (that hippy school)? seriously. WTF?
So what's up in the air at this point? I've go about 1 month left on my lease and hope to be moving either to Portland, San Francisco, Boulder, or maybe New Zealand. I don't have a job and will really be needing one before I move or I'm in trouble. In the next 2 months, I'll be living somewhere new and working at a new job (my first out of grad school). Basically my life will look completely different than it does at this point. Completely.

First post

The X axis: This is the events of my life that follow the linear progression of daily activities and what how my life unfolds.
The Y Axis: This deals more with my obsessive passion for the vertical. Rock climbing is something I cannot live without, and will be writing about here.
The Z Axis: This stuff doesn't quite fit in either, pop culture, good internet finds and other random tangents that don't fit in the other categories.