I Like My Job

So I might only be working part time still, but I can't complain much more than that. We are back in the swing of things at the Bistro, so I'll be nice and busy now-a-days. We have had a couple of cool events since the last post too. on September 10th we had an event at Neiman Marcus called Fashion's Night Out. It was a nationwide event at all Neiman Marcus locations. Jazz St. Louis was one of two not-for-profits that took part in the St. Louis event, raffling off a $500 NM gift card and putting on a concert with Good 4 the Soul and a few of our kids from the student groups we teach. The event was a lot of fun, featuring runway shows every 30 minutes, open bar, and hors devours from some of St. Louis' best restaurants. It was pretty nice spending the night around rich people and hot models....

This past weekend tops that though. On Saturday, we presented saxophonist Sonny Rollins at the Touhill (a performance hall on the campus of Univ. of Missouri StL). For those of you who don't know, Sonny Rollins is commonly referred to as "the last living jazz legend." He has played with EVERYBODY: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Max Roach, you name 'em, he played with 'em. Anyway, Rollins is now 79 and still touring, but mostly overseas. It was a huge show for us, with 1400 people turning out for this once in a lifetime experience. I spent all day backstage helping out the band and got to meet and talk with Sonny a pretty decent amount. It was quite an honor talking to such a legend in the jazz world. The best part was that he was sooo down to earth. He could easily be a huge prima donna, but he definitely was not. Its great working with the best artists in the business when they are actually nice people. Pat Martino was the same way. But then there are people that are terrible to work with who 99.9% of people have never heard of. Oh well. Anyway, the concert was incredible and he signed my all-access pass after the show! Good Stuff!

As far as MY band goes, I have only been to one rehearsal so far, but it was a lot of fun. I just got my friend Steve to join as the tenor and bari sax player, so we now have two horns. We are playing a lot of great tunes: some Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Joe Cocker and other stuff in that vein. Our gig is still two months off, but we are hoping to book some more stuff around that time, so that should be exciting.

In other news, I have been REALLY lazy with my climbing, but hopefully will really get back into it now that the weather is starting to cool off, which means Bouldering Season!!! Also, this past Friday we had our housewarming party (finally). It was a good time, but the turnout wasn't quite as good as I would've hoped. We did have some neighbors join us though, so that was nice.

And last but not least: HOW 'BOUT 'DEM BEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope everyone (ESPECIALLY Tony) got to watch the awesomeness that was Da Bears incredible defeat of the defending Superbowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Talk about an intense game.

Sorry if this post is a little disjointed and rambling, but I am in the middle of watching a marathon of The Office on TBS....Hopefully next time I will have some pictures for you! Talk to you soon!

It's 2:20 AM and I'm finally going to try to write something...

So it has been a grueling couple of months here since my last (non-picture filled) post. I have been swamped with my part-time job, waking up by 11 AM to catch The Price Is Right, and honing my combat skills and knowledge of modern weaponry and warfare by playing LOTS of Call of Duty 4, not to mention committing countless hours to catching up on all of the great TV shows out there before the new seasons start....so I hope you can all understand my lack of this completely superfluous act of "blogging". Anyway, enough of my sob story...I am committed now! This past weekend I got to see my whole family (probably 99% of my readership, so I should just say: "I got to see you!") which was very nice, even though I would've rather it been this weekend and not for the same reason. I got to catch up with a lot of them (you) but there is plenty that I have left out since my last blog, so I decided I would make a list of the goings-on over the past couple of months:

1.) I found out that hyphens were, for the most part, removed from the English language, but are still accepted, so I should've said 'goings on' instead of 'goings-on.'
2.) I recently went up to the Chicago Bears training camp with my friend Amanda. She worked there for a few weeks this summer and made friends with a few of the players. The night we went up, we went out to the bar and about 1/2 the team showed up! Alex Brown bought us tequila shots and I talked/hung out with a few of the Bears players. Fun stuff!
3.) Today I had to yell at some Asians for backing into my car and walking away. Apparently the stereotype is true... and luckily there was no damage.
4.) Ben and I had our cars broken into outside of our apartment a few weeks ago. My iPod was stolen. Fortunately I didn't use it much and all my climbing gear was still in the trunk.
5.) FOOTBALL SEASON IS UPON US!!!
6.) Unfortunately, I've made only a couple of trips down to Jackson Falls since my last post.
7.) Fortunately, one of those trips involved my hardest climb to date: Spiders From Mars (5.10b). Those of you that have been keeping up and didn't skip the long section about climbing in that last post will know that Spiders was a long time nemesis/project for me...I'm glad it is finally over!
8.) The next trip down to Jackson I on-sighted Gully Gee Whiz, a 5.10b, making my hardest grade to date seem like a joke. If I can on-sight 10b, I should be able to red-point at least 2 grades harder....
9.) I am out of climbing shape and I live only 5 minutes from the rock gym...I need some motivation....hopefully the cool temps will help!!!
10.) My climbing partner, Andrew, and I are planning to go to Pere Marquette State Park this weekend in search of boulders/climbable rock. We know it is out there....but where? First Ascents here we come!
11.) I have been asked to play in a 60s funk/soul group...I haven't played my sax in 7 over 9 months (mom, don't show this to dad) but I have a rehearsal Monday night and hopefully I remember how to play....it's just like riding a bike...I hope...
12.) I am a Colonel in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and very proud of it...
13.) I am still getting along great with Ben and Nicole and enjoying life here in St. Louis. I do hope to start getting out more soon and start taking advantage of all the city has to offer though. Life is good, but can always be better.

Here are a few pictures to leave you with tonight...well, this morning...

The Family on my 22nd b-day in South Africa

The Jazz St. Louis Family (minus Gene and Kate) at one of our fundraisers

Me 'hang-dogging' (or hang dogging) and rehydrating on my big project: Flingin' Hog (5.11a)

The Furnished Apartment

Hey! Long time, no blog. I know you are all pretty upset with me for my lack of communication these days...and for that, I apologize. I've had a fairly busy month and a half with Ben and Nicole moving in (2 different days), a couple of weekends climbing down south and a fair amount of sitting around doing nothing.....I mean....being productive. Anyway, I'll get into some more detail soon (and I promise...soon) but for right now, I want to get some pictures of the apartment up. I hope you like what you see:

The St. Louis Life

So I've been in my new apartment in St. Louis for 2 whole weeks now and I am really liking it. It's soooo nice to be only 7ish minutes from work as opposed to 35! I no longer have to worry about falling asleep on the interstate while driving to work in the morning...so that's a plus. Also, now that school is done and I still don't have job #2, I am going into the office every day, but for shorter amounts of time. It has filled out my weeks pretty well, and works better with my schedule of going to sleep at 2 and getting up at 10! I know I promised some pictures of the furnished apartment, but it is still looking a bit depressing, so I'm going to wait on that until Nicole moves in and brings all the nice, big stuff that will really fill the place out. It was really bad until Ben and Nicole came down this past Tuesday and brought a couch! For a while, my downstairs consisted of a beautiful kitchen table (courtesy of my friend and co-worker Phil) and my ugly recliner. It was actually pretty creepy looking for awhile. They also brought a few other items: desk, bookshelf, TV stand, which helped as well. After moving stuff, we went to dinner at Ricardo's Italian Café, which is just a few blocks from our place. The food was really good (I had the penne in a vodka cream sauce), but the nicest part was the 1/2 portions you could order, which was a good amount with our appetizer of calamari. Ben really surprised me by ordering the pesce cannoli, which was chock full of mussels, lobster, and shrimp. We also got him to try the calamari by not telling him what it was until after he had a couple. He ended up liking it all. We then went to Square One for a beer. None of us liked the beers we had this time as much as the first time we went there, but they were still good. It was nice to have them come down and keep me company for the night, but it will be better when they are here to stay.

I'm actually heading up to Iowa City this (extended) weekend for the Iowa City Jazz Festival. Chris Potter, an incredible saxophonist, is playing in two groups at the festival, including my favorite jazz group: Chris Potter Underground. Check them out on YouTube....it's great stuff.

Two weekends ago I went with my friends Andrew and Adrianne to Jackson Falls in southern Illinois to do some rock climbing. We left St. Louis around 8 pm on Saturday, putting us at Jackson around 11 that night. After setting up the tent, we decided to go out for a little night bouldering session. In the planning stage of this trip, Andrew and I were really excited about this part, but it didn't turn out quite as planned. First of all, about 1/2 way into the hike to get to the boulder area we were heading to we realized I forgot my brand new bouldering guidebook in the car, so that was a bad start. To make things worse, it was still very hot out and even more humid, which made both us and the rocks sweat like crazy. It also meant that the bugs were out in full force. However, after a lot of chalk and brushing, we were able to get the rock dry enough to have a couple of goes on it. Andrew and I both sent (climbing from ground to top of boulder) a classic Jackson problem called The Ghetto Life, which is a V2. Now I know most people reading this have no idea what I am talking about, so I'll try to provide a brief explaination on climbing grades:

Bouldering grades range from V0 (very easy) to V15 (disgustingly hard). Generally, V0 problems are not usually very overhung and only have big, easy to grab and hold features, while the problem gets harder, the holds get smaller and the moves get more technical. The hardest thing I've climbed so far is a V6 called Chalk Wagon down at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas this past winter. However, even though I prefer bouldering to sport climbing (climbing with a rope and clipping in to pre-placed protection as you go up) I don't get to spend as much time doing it. My goal for the end of the year is to be climbing V6 fairly consistently and possibly one V7.

As for sport climbing, grades use a different scale and range from 5.6-5.15b. After 5.9, each number is divided into 4 parts: a, b, c, d. For example, the hardest I have successfully climbed from ground to anchors without falling is a 5.10a. The next hardest grade is a 5.10b, followed by 5.10c, 5.10d, and 5.11a, etc.... In relationship to bouldering grades, a 5.9 is equivalent to a V0, 5.10a=V1 and so on. If you haven't been keeping score, this means that since I've climbed a V6, I should be able to climb a 5.11b. However, lots of factors play a role in this inconsistency: lack of endurance, lack of time spent on real rock, and poor head game (a.k.a. me being scared). For some reason I feel perfectly comfortable making hard moves 10 feet off the ground while bouldering, but when I have a rope to catch my fall, I'm still scared of making moves I know I can do. Anyway, I'm explaining all of this because after our night of bouldering, we went out the next morning and after warming up, got on a route called Flingin' Hog 5.11a. Recently, I talked with Andrew and expressed my feelings about our lack of progress, grade-wise, and we decided to get on something we should both be able to climb, and project the hell out of it. Projecting a route is just like it sounds: working it enough to where you are comfortable with all the moves and have the strength and endurance to make a redpoint (climb the whole thing without falling). Flingin' Hog is what we decided to project. We ended up spending the whole day on that one route. I started off by getting 3 bolts (permanent eye bolts drilled into the rock that you clip a quickdraw into to put you're rope through) into the route before having to come down to rest up and let Andrew have a go. Andrew got up past the 4th bolt on his first go, but was pretty spent as well. His wife, Adrianne followed him and surprised both of use by making up to the same place as Andrew. After I had been off the rock for about 2 hours, I felt good and got back on. I started from where I had left off and ended up finishing the route, but not without taking my fair share of falls. Andrew and Adrianne both ended up finishing out the route on top rope (rope is clipped into anchors at the top of the route, like what you see at a climbing gym). All in all it was a good day of projecting and we are all excited to get back on it soon. Hopefully after a few more days of projecting, I will have a new personal best! We ended the day by taking a cool shower in the North Falls of Jackson, which couldn't have been a better end to the hot, muggy day. If you want some visual help with understanding what I'm talking about, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlcQ3mxlNfs&feature=fvst It is the world's best climber, Chris Sharma, climbing a crazy hard route called Dreamcatcher-5.14d. He talks a bit about projecting and you can easily see what sport climbing is. There are thousands more YouTube videos out there with climbing and bouldering if you want to know more!

So I know that wasn't the briefest of descriptions, but I hope to have more climbing to talk about on this blog, so I tried to take care of a big chunk of it here. Sorry about the length of the post in general....I know it's a long one, but it'll keep you busy until I can pump out SA Part 3...hopefully coming soon. I really need to get better about posting!!! I hope everyone is well and I'll talk to you soon!