Broken Foot Happens
I went out climbing w/ Gabe after work today. I gave Suspended in Silence (v5) a few tries before firing up the final top out. Its really an awesome problem, requiring an steady focus and careful climbing. After climbing down, I pronounced it my new favorite v5 problem!
I wanted to get one last climb in for the day, and I was feeling pretty good about my chances, so we headed over to the classic highball, Jedi Mind Tricks. After figuring out the tricky start, I found myself easily climbing up the flake edges. I reached the top and what remained was a little sidepull to the right and a move for the lip and I’d be done for the day.
Then my foot slipped. I found myself plunging downwards some 25 feet. Normally this isn’t a problem if you hit the crash pads right. Which I didn’t. My right foot hit the edge of the pad and rolled right off. I felt the intense shock and pain shoot through my foot. I knew immediately that I’d probably broken it.
In the fog of pain, I saw Gabe coming up to me to ask if I was allright. I was okay, but my foot wasn’t. Fortutiously, a runner happend to run by, and Gabe scrambled to flag him down. I tore off my climbing shoe and started thinking awful thoughts such as, “Shit, I wont be able to climb for months.” I was more pissed about potentially being put out of action for so long than anything else.
After a couple minutes, the pain started to subsidize and I started to entertain thoughts that I might have just badly sprained it, but my foot just didnt look right. I wasn’t kidding anyone, especially myself.
The runner and Gabe helped me hop back to my truck and we drove back to town and rolled into the emergency room. The nurse who came to my assistance, you could immediately tell that she’d seen this a million times already. She quickly asked, “Were you climbing? How high? Did you hit the crash pad? Did you roll your foot off the edge?” After confirming all her suspicions, I was wheeled in for a X-ray.
Shortly after, the doctor confirmed my worst fears. I’d seriously busted my damn foot. It was broken in several places on the heel and the bone above the heel. The doc then added, “you’ll need to consult an orthopedic and most likely will need surgery.”
Great. Just great!
So, this amazing climbing run here in Bishop is going to be on hold, for a good bit - while I get my foot fixed up. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do. I could stick around here, or head somewhere else while it mends. A lot of this will depend on whether I’ll be able to drive after the surgery.
Rockin’ the Reward Mine
With Gabe’s is-it-sprained-or-is-it-broken-toe, and the skin on my middle fingertip down to its last layer, we took a day off from climbing. Gabe found some information about a old abandonded mine about 40 miles south of Bishop. We headed out there after lunch to take a look around.
I have a camera bag, with two DSLRs, and mabye six, seven lens. And what I take with me? Just the 5D and a 35mm prime. I’m just really simple like that. I thought it’d be fitting to run the pictures thru with a sepia effect as a shout out to the old skool days!
New Furniture for a Jackson
When heading back from an afternoon of climbing @ the ‘milks, Gabe spotted a sign for a yard sale on US-168. We veered off to check it out, since I’d been complaining about the lack of furniture in my place.
We found ourselves at a little stucco house sitting right next to a huge Edison Power relay station. With all that scary talk about terrorists attacking our power stations, or copper-bandits stripping valuable metals and getting themselves electrocuted, I was bemused to note that the gate to the relay station was wide open.
While checking out this lovely little table sidepiece, a small lady came out of the house and we quickly established some rules.
We couldn’t understand what she was saying, and she would be limited to just flashing dollar amounts for whatever we pointed at.
I point to the table sidepiece and she flashes five fingers. I point to another shelf/dresser combo and she flashes three fives.
Rummaging around, I find this cute little day-glo orange pyrex serving bowl that clearly dates to the days of my birth. I offer the lady $20 for the two pieces of furniture and the serving bowl. I probably could have negoitated her down but I was feeling generous. While loading the truck, she throws in another shelf and tries to get us to take a bed mattress and an office chair. I decline politely, and we jump in the truck to head back to my place.
Now the hard part — figuring out where to put the new stuff.
On The Way to Vegas
Here’s some of the stuff I saw along the way to Vegas.
Dreaming in Vegas
Still Alive
Been in D.C. the last week and haven’t had time to blog. Now am waiting on my flight out of DC to Las Vegas. I can hardly wait to get back home!
Bigger Is Better
New theme. I’ve moved the sidebar navigation to the bottom of the page, so that I can post larger pictures (740px wide instead of 500px wide), which should allow all of you to enjoy the pictures more. 
See the post below this one with the new, bigger pictures… woot!
Still cleaning up and tweaking the layout here and there. Pardon the dust.
The High Road
Whenever I go climb at the Buttermilks, I drive from my home to W. Line Street, which takes me out of Bishop and turns into State Highway 168, and I’ll drive along that road for a couple miles before turning off on the Buttermilk Road. 168 continues straight on ahead into the mountains - and over the last month, I’d been wondering where it goes, where does it end up?
So today I grabbed my cameras and drove up 168, resisting that reflex to turn right on Buttermilk Road. I continued on for about five more miles and the road continued to climb higher and higher in the mountains. I found myself in the Inyo State Forest.
Much to my suprise, people do live up there, in small villages cradled by the mountains.
With the day’s light fading, I headed back to town. There are so many things to see around here, and hardly enough time to explore!
DSLRs, Travels, Perishables and Old Haunts
Got a new 40D last week. This is how it looks with my rock-star lens, the 35L mounted. The 5D still will be my primary camera, but I was starting to get annoyed by having to swap lenses all the time and I also wanted to have a backup camera when doing gigs. I did a little shoot comparison between the 40D and the 5D. Funny how even when the 5D is three years older than the 40D, it still makes a better picture. I’d have loved to get another 5D, but just didn’t have the money for it.
Tomorrow I’ll be driving down to Las Vegas to catch my flight to DC. I’m shooting a wedding there on March 8th. I’m both excited and anxious about it. I’ve done weddings before, but I still get nervous every time because I want the bride and groom to have the best possible pictures. Having the 40D with me will definitely help me capture both the wide shots and tight shots without having to swap lens.
I’m also feeling a little odd about heading back to DC. Seeing all my old friends, all my old haunts and the “big-city” feel that I left behind me. I’ve been adjusting to the quiet home-maker life here in Bishop, its going to be a quite a jolt, thats for sure. But I definitely am looking forward to seeing all my friends!
I looked into my fridge this morning to figure out what I should buy at the food store - and it occured to me that I’d be gone for a week. And there were a ton of things in there that were perishable. Chicken meat, fruits, vegetables, and a whole loaf of bread. So I have to eat everything I have in there by tomorrow morning.
I also have a pound of ground beef that I was thawing out. Would it be horrible to re-freeze it?
See? All of those things, I never had to worry about when I was living in DC. I ate out every day. Whole Foods was my kitchen. I bought only what I needed for that meal and nothing more. I kept nothing in the fridge…
A couple nights ago, I headed up to the Buttermilk Road to do some test night shots. I wanted to get an idea of what kind of setup I’d need to get for taking pictures of the mountains when it was utterly dark outside. There was no moon out at the time, and I could barely see anything. But even when it is dark like that, there still is light, and if you keep the shutter open long enough, you’ll get an exposure.
I don’t have a remote shutter release, so I was limited to a maximum 30-second exposure time. I shot this picture at f/2.0, ISO 1600 and 30 seconds. Obviously, I want to shoot at f/11 and ISO 100 for best image quality. That’s a full 4-stops slower on ISO, and 5-stops slower on aperture, for a total of 9-stops.
Each stop is twice as much light, so 30 seconds would come out to about 256 minutes. Or a bit over 4 hours. Mabye I’ll just make it ISO 200 and f/8, which would make it 64 minutes…
Other problem is that at 64 minutes, those stars are going to be star-trails instead…
