Conversation point #1: I graduated college. After 5 long years they finally kicked me out with a degree in psychology with a minor in political science from the great University of Kansas. That felt amazing for a minute until the boozey haze of graduation weekend ended and I realized I still had to figure out what to do next. I've made some big steps in that direction lately and should be out of the midwest quite soon, more details later on that one.
Woot! Graduated.
Regardless graduation weekend was super rad. Mike Draper and myself hosted a co-kegger grad party. The Fink family unit made the drive up and I had all of my climber family mixed up with the old Lawrence crew and the girl for the night. Felt great to have all of my best friends in the same place for the night. It was a true rarity for my collected memories and if you came than thank you, it made my grad weekend. On Sunday I walked down the hill and enjoyed the lovely tradition that all of us Jayhawks can forever bond in, celebrated with my family and then went on a 2 man pub crawl to re-live our (now) college past.
Conversation point #2: What's a college graduate to do when they are still working at a coffee shop with no real life obligations? Go climbing of course. So last weekend I headed back to the ranch with the trio of Carol, Rachelle and Jess to send some gnar rock. John Waller was already in the great state or AR so he joined us as well and we went to sendin'. Not too much to report on the whole climbing front. I almost onsighted another 5.11 and have high hopes that .11a will be my onsight grade by the end of the summer, sounds kinda lame and sport climberish but I have come to terms with the fact that that's all I currently am for now until I get a job, build a rack and hit the mountains.
J-Dub cut his teeth on his first outdoor lead climb ever on a pretty stout 5.10b at the prophecy wall. It was a very impressive first send on the sharp end and just goes to show that once again John "Good at Everything" Waller can get the job done. I'm pretty sure if you have a conversation about it with him he will mention something about it being less hard than I am making it out to be, but a .10 for your first time out on real rock is damn impressive (don't let him tell you anything else). Overall the weekend ended up being a great way to gain some composure. We climbed in the morning, swam in the Buffalo in the afternoon, climbed again in the dark and attended a most rad wedding reception in the HCR barn.
Conversation Point #3: This was a while back but I know a lot of you who read this have participated in this event in the past so it's worth a mention. David Neidinger hosted the Biro 3.0 at his pad and team WallerSlate dominated. Johnny Giles' team almost showed up with some good competition but in the end proved to be choke artists. So I now have the shirt to show that I belong on the hall of fame wall with the likes of Bundy/Kristen and Schroeder/Hemphill.
So here's to growing up, climbing rocks, and combining the great sports of beer drinking and bike riding.
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