verge: thoughts on 2008; hopes for 2009

In short, I didn't get out climbing nearly as much as I would have liked in 2008.  Things started out  promising enough (see events - at least the first one or two) and then come May, i.e., the full kick-off of the climbing season here in the Mid-Atlantic, I was wholly waylaid by work and the Project To Nowhere (PTN).  The PTN sucked alot out of me - motivation being the first casualty.

So my climbing season went something like this, a trip To TN, a fun day at Seneca, another, and then one after that. Or thereabouts.

Sad, indeed.

But even in a lackluster year, I'm enorousmusly grateful for those with whom I climb and trust:

• For Bruce: in whom I find a partner who shows the faith in me that I lack in myself


• For Cat: in whom I find a freshness of prespective - and more than a little jealousy of aptitude


• For Danny: in whom I find the inspiration for making the impossible, possible


• For Ben: in whom I find the steadfastness of pursuing a goal


• For Porter: in whom I find a brother-in arms. Wait, did we even see Porter this year?

Thanks for being on the other end of the rope.

So here's my retrospective of the year (I've only included that which I witnessed - add your own comments below): 

• A rockin' good trip to TN: bouldering at Pot Point, climbing at TN Wall, caving at Howard's Waterfall, and the holy-crap-OMFG bouldering of Rocktown
• Watching Bruce rock his way up "Marshall's Madness" while the rest of us (save Danny) flailed (and I thoroughly bloodied myself) 
• Watching Bruce style up P1 of "Ye Gods" only to turn to me on P2 and remark that he was backing up the pin through the overhang (ha-ha) - and then proceeding to ping-off with  decent-sized fall (which may be the only real fall I've held at Seneca)
• Sacking up [of my own volition [if only a tiny bit]] to do P3 of "Prune" and then having muscle spasms on P4 
• Hollerin' at everyone scattered all over the West Face of Seneca on a beautiful summer day
• Watching Danny style his way up "Back to the Front" 
• Filming Danny on "Bring on the Nubiles"
  
  
  
  
• Making another great day of what should have been a mess at the Chili-Cookoff (and another tiny sackup on "Bee Sting Corner") 
  

It was a better climbing year for some of you vs. me.  I hope to remedy that in 2009.  I look foward to climbing and seeing more of you all.  I'm also hoping I can put behind some of my issues and enjoy climbing as much as I enjoy all of you.

Climb on!

yer own shit

Everyone hates supporting another's code.  It [someone else's code] is invariably spaghetti, ill-conceived, and poorly executed.  In short, you could have done a far superior job.  But nowhere is this disgust so foul but in the realm of HTML.

Blech.  I hates it.

I am so wildly happy that my present job renders HTML as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Hurry back you holiday revelers so that I may go back to my enclave of well-ordered, typed code.

i can haz install?

This screen

was not easy to come by.  Were it not for the whole livelihood thing, I'd probably have given up.  

I'd already had to wait a ridiculous amount of time for the MSDN subscription, so when the DVDs hit my hot little hands I was more than a little excited.  But then, there was saga.

The VS 2008 install went fine on my desktop.  The laptop had issues with copying one of the preliminary files off the DVD so I eventually had to share the DVD drive (yep, I just wrote that) from my desktop to my laptop.  So while that install was going on I switched back to the desktop to install SP1.  And then, the wheels came off.

Permission errors to C:\Config.msi even though I was running as Administrator.  Failing installs that would bomb out at different points with [obviously] different error messages.  Meanwhile I switched gears and tried to install SP1 on my laptop.  One failed install (it ended with one green block to go) and then it worked.  No idea why.

The most frustrating thing about the desktop was the amount of time it took to find out it was failing.  Found some tips on getting the full 3.5 install package, then making sure it was local... none of it working.  A lot of others issues revolved around beta versions or installs of a few other applications/KBs - none of which were applicable to me.  I eventually just gave up and uninstalled anything 2008/3.5 related and started over.

And still a failed install for SP1.  Bit of a low point there.  And then I installed the latest windows installer.  And suddenly (well not really suddenly, the fucking install takes forever and I'm watching and waiting for the green bar to suddenly go in reverse as I'm watching a video about ASP.Net MVC which I can't use because SP1 won't install) it works.  See the screen above for proof.  Was that it?  Was that the key?  I have no idea and even though there's a small part of me that want to know the real why, that just ain't gonna happen.

And now I have the opportunity to be frustrated in a whole new way.