Flashes can be so much fun! Especially when you get them off the camera and get the lighting on your subject from a different angle than you’re taking the photograph from. Built in flashes are for suckers!
Shadows, well lit areas, DARK areas… so fun! Check out the rest of the pictures here.
I used my Canon 40D with a 430EX flash set to manual with a cheapo $30 remote flash trigger bought off ebay.
A couple of months ago, I hit my one year anniversary of working at OpenRain. Actually it kind of went past unnoticed by me, but Marc and Preston noticed and made sure to get me an awesome anniversary gift. Unfortunately it took several weeks to make and deliver, but that only added to the mystery as they told me my “gift” was coming soon! So without further ado, here’s an unboxing of my one year anniversary gift from OpenRain:
Meet Bobble Head Ben. Thanks guys, I’ve had a great year working at OpenRain!
The infamous Misty Murphy posted a picture of a cafepress climbing shirt I designed. I’m honored 
Hey Misty, you might like this shirt too:
Check out more pictures of shirts I’ve designed.
This picture of my awesome girlfriend Erin, pretty much sums up the summer life of a teacher…
The full story however doesn’t end there….
Kiddy pool from Fry’s: $7
Two blocks ice from QT: $3.50
Massage after getting a sore neck from cramming yourself into a kiddy pool for a couple hours: $65
Telling your friends you can’t climb because you injured your neck in a kiddy pool: PRICELESS!
My poor blog, it gets so little love. Today I give you back your old wordpress theme, elegant grunge (with some modifications of course) and a picture of Flat Stanley helping me at work today.
So the old host of my blog closed up shop (damn you economy!!) and I’ve moved my blog to a new host. As you might be able to tell, things look super lame right now. Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll have everything looking pretty again and better than before! Standby for changes.
A month or so ago I was at PRG and came across a flier asking for people to participate in a survey of nutrition for climbers. It sounded interesting and I’m always up for helping fellow climbers in endeavors like this.
When I went to the url on the flier I found not only the survey, but a whole blog dedicated to “Sport nutrition for rock climbing”! Sweet sauce! This is the first online resource that I’ve found for climbing nutrition outside of various informal forum posts. There aren’t may blog posts yet, but what’s there is gold. I’ve learned about oxidative stress, good practices for hydration, and recipes for great climbing meals.
The blog’s author, Krystal Merrells, does a great job at explaining everything. Often times I find that when experts in the nutrition field start seriously talking about nutritional concepts, everything quickly goes over my head. This is not the case here. While Krystal does have a recently publish research paper titled “Following 2 diet-restricted male outdoor rock climbers: impact on oxidative stress and improvements in markers of cardiovascular risk” that goes into these crazy details of nutrition and climbing, her blog makes everything understandable to even noobs like me.
Check out her blog, and if you find the information useful at least take her survey. Keep up the good work Krystal!
When a development team runs into some sort of road block or issue with their project, how should the tech lead find the best solution? The following is my opinion after working under several individuals with great technical leadership:
1. Brainstorm: Find out what problems the developers are having, and brainstorm possible solutions. Get a list of the pain points the developers are experiencing. Don’t make any decisions now, just get a list of things going badly and ideas for solutions.
2. Research: From the brainstorming session research possible solutions to the problems. Use the notes from the brainstorming session as a start but don’t let them be a limiter. Test out the solutions within the project itself.
3. Implement: Pick the best solution. Create examples of how this solution handles the pain points the developers were having. Present it to the developers with real working examples of it being used in the project.
4. Feedback: As the developers start using the solution, ask for feedback and continually reevaluate the solution to make sure the right one was picked.
5. Refactor: If the new solution has too many problems, go back to step 2. Don’t get stuck with another solution that sucks in different ways.
6. ???
7. Profit
A friend, and local climber/biker to the Phoenix area, Casey Kelso was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. To make matters worse, Casey’s medical insurance IS NOT paying for his treatment! This Sunday, the Phoenix climbing community is coming together to raise money for Casey. Phoenix Rock Gym is waiving all entrance and equipment rental fees. They will be accepting donations to go toward Casey’s chemo fund. There will also be a raffle and auction to help raise money.
So if you’re a climber, you would like to try climbing, or just want to support a fellow human being during a hard time, PLEASE join us at PRG on Sunday the 11th from 7pm-10pm. Have fun, climb, maybe get some swag, and do something to help a climber in need.
For more information check out the flier for the event and the Cure Casey website.
