Thanksgiving :)

Is there any snow yet?! No, not quite yet (or not enough at least), but maybe soon.
But it is Thanksgiving soon, and it looks as if we may get some snow then. And along with that, I can at least be thankful for coming to an end of a crazy year for Chloe and I and being almost done with school! Thank you to my mom and dad for their support and a little financial aid at just the right time through this year of craziness, as well as their patience with my unrelenting schedule. Thanks to Corine and Olivier for their support and in helping us acquire a computer at a critical time (essential to my schooling this year). Of course thanks to Chloe for being the most exceptional person I know, in helping me and still accomplishing amazing things on her own.
...But enough of the touchy feely thing: we went climbing last weekend!!
This posting is pictureless, which is kind of sad, but I apologize for forgetting the camera on our last little excursion this last weekend. We went climbing at Joe's Valley which is lost in the middle of Utah near a small town by the name of Orangeville. Not much there in the way of city life, but a kick ass place to climb indeed. The climbing here is bouldering (as opposed to routes). We were there all weekend and took advantage of some great climbing weather, as long as we were in the sun that is. With the clear blue skies of winter over us, the sun warms the rock nicely, and makes for perfect midday climbing conditions. Chloe sent a classic highball (meaning high) V6 called "Wills of Fire" and I did some some random stuff and got really close to a couple classic V10's called "Beyond Life" and "Trent's mom." I'll have to go back to finish those for sure. As the sun would lower in the sky, the shadows would reach accross the valley and blanket us as early as the mid-afternoon, in some places, and unleash upon us the frigidness of winter. Just as an idea as to how cold it would get, on our last day there, at the end of the day (about 5:30pm), I flashed (meaning did it first go) a fun V6 with a big dyno (jump) move near the top. I stuck the move and cruised to the topout of the boulder using the good final holds. By this time it is so cold that one's fingers freeze almost instantly, and one simply just gets used to the burning feeling in the finger tips as they rewarm right after the climb. It was after all my other digits had rewarmed, that I noticed my left middle finger was oozing with blood. As it turns out, when I stuck the dyno move, a sharp portion of the rock ripped out a nice little chunk out of my middle finger pad. In climbing, this is called a "flapper" when the piece of skin is still loosely attached. I rinced my finger with some water out of our water bottle and by the time I was done washing it (a couple minutes), the water that had fallen onto the crashpad and the ground was already frozen solid! Chloe braved the cold for couple final climbs and then we hike home (to our truck w/flip pac) with the final rays of light, and had ourself a good classic climbing dinner: pasta with chilli, cheese and wine. Oh, and lets not forget the Eclairs for dessert, or did we have some chocolate "rochers Suchards" that night? Well, we eventually had both anyways.
I'm currently finishing up my last few hours for my internship at WECAD, and then next week is my last week of class, and testing!! Wish me luck, and hopefully all goes well.
Oh, and Sunlight mountain (where we patrol) opens on Friday December 5th: let it snow!!
Happy Thanksgiving, or just happy days to all!!
-Brendan

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I have to take a moment in this post to thank our faithful followers and for their always entertaining comments...although the mockery that ensues from a botched automatic translation is unacceptable. Don Pedro: we must exchange some serious words :-[
Anyways... ;) I got to visit Chloe's apartment in Grand Junction last weekend (see pics above). Yes, in case you weren't aware, we had an argument and she decided to move out and live among the meth heads and weirdness only known as Grand Junction. No..of course not...Chloe does have an apartment in Grand Junction though, that she uses for when she works three days in a row. It is a very nice place about a five minute walk from the hospital with two other lady roomates who are also nurses at St. Mary's, and one that actually works in the same unit as Chloe. Pretty nice set-up really.
We climbed on Monday, since it seems we haven't done that in so long ;), and then I started some work up on the mountain (Sunlight mountain), to make a little money and get ready for the ski season. Getting a mountain ready for a ski season is pretty varied in the duties necessary. I ran and drove up and down the moutain a whole lot putting on tower and post pads so that all those oh so skilled skiers (and boarders, lets not be decriminitory here) can run into everything in sight while they tumble down the mountain, and can't sue the mountain saying we didn't try to protect them from that enormous obvious black metal tower in the middle of the run that they didn't see. Transporting the pads up the hill can be quite a trip sometimes. Aside from a quad motorcycle, one of Sunlight's key workhorse "trucks" is a chevota (combination Chevy and Toyota), that must be left over from WWII (see pics above). Driving that thing is always an adventure. The driver's seat is only a frame and your ass actually falls into the seat as opposed to onto the seat, and forget about adjusting the forward/back position of the thing, so hopefully you can reach those nice smooth polished metal pedals. The thing is actually an automatic, but the dial to put it into drive and reverse fell off, so you just have to count the number of clicks as you move the handle to put it into drive, or whatever the hell else you end up in. Since this "vehicle" is quite old, going down hill requires a special aproach. When braking, the rear wheels do not stop turning, so as the front wheels lock up (back when this thing was made, I don't think anti-lock brakes we're even a twinkle in dady's eye yet), the back wheels keep turning like there's no tomorrow, and you quickly find yourself driving sideways down the ski run over snow ice and rocks headed for a grouping of apsen trees: interesting. So, you either you need to go downhill fast, or pop it into neutral (if you can find it of course) and hang on for the ride. Besides fourwheeling up and down the hill with a two wheeling antique relic, I spent time going through medical equipment, putting the patrol shack in order, and digging and installing new posts that didn't survive those skillful skiers (and boarders) from last year.
I do a shift at WECAD tomorrow and then we're off back out to Utah for some...climbing (you know, been a while) for the weekend.
Our mountain is ready for the snow to come, so lets see what happens: it's always a surprise. Until our next post: behave (and if you don't, at least post some incriminating pictures so that we may all laugh at you).
Cheers,
Brendan

Thursday I drove down to Denver, went climbing in Boulder, and then picked up Chloe at the airport...yeay. We went climbing in Rifle on Friday and braved the glacial wind that was blowing that day. It is pretty much winter over here, as long as it is nice and sunny, climbing is possible (in the sun), but if it's a little too cloudy or windy, the air and rock can freeze your fingers to a nice hard feelless state: makes it kind of hard to climb when you can't feel the rock, to say the least. So we climbed what we could despite the less than ideal conditions.
Saturday was training day for Sunlight Ski Patrol, where went over basic mountain operations and practiced lift evacuations (which is a good idea given the age and condition of our lifts ;). It was fun to reunite with all our patrol friends that we haven't seen since last season and start getting psyched on the rapidly approaching ski season.
Looks like we'll go climb some on Monday, and then I work most of next week on the mountain, getting it ready for the season and at WECAD (the ambulance company near where we live).
For me, it's time to study my ass off and get ready for my two major national registry exams for Paramedic in the beginning of December. I really don't want to fail those exams, so I'll try to do it right the first time. After that, I will finally be free from my year of sacrifice, and be free!!! I am very excited with the idea.
Cheers.
Brendan

Keeping busy

Well, these last couple weeks have been varied. Chloe left for a trip, leaving me all alone here while she visits family. Luckily she returns this Thursday! Otherwise, last Thursday was a first taste of winter coming in. We got a few inches of snow at our place, and I had lots of snow coming down on the road around around me while I was driving to Grand Junction to spend some time with the fire department there for my internship time. I worked a 24 hour shift there, then Thursday morning (when I got off) I drove out to Moab for a day of bouldering in the beautiful winter sun in the desert. I did the good ol' sun shower thing, drove back to Grand Junction, slept in the flip pac, and then fired off another shift with the fire department on Friday. Finally Saturday morning, I drove back home, met up with my good friend Jack (who is also a patroller at Sunlight mountain), and we went climbing in Rifle for the day. The day was a little chilly, but turned out to be a good climbing day. Jack has been doing a lot desert crack climbing lately, and reported that he felt like his forearms were going to explode after having climbed the day at Rifle. Rifle tends to have that effect on people not used to climbing there, because it is quite a powerful place to climb, and takes some getting used to. Anyways then it was back to GJFD for Sunday. That fire department has the most retarded schedule....but whatever. I had a tougher time dealing with the people who work there: lets just say that if Colorado consisted of only Grand Junction, Colorado would have been a red state...yikes!...but luckily Colorado is bigger than that, and yes, happily, I was here to help with the color of the this state :)
I only have 48 hours left to do for my intership time (two days). I will actually finish those final days doing some paramedic time at WECAD, the ambulance company where I work.
We're getting a little more snow outside right now: kind of exciting! We'll see how much we got in the morning!
I think this is going to be a good winter :)