disjoint thoughts

Marty Karabin is a local climbing legend and a really nice guy to boot. He’s put up hundreds of routes and published lots of guidebooks as well. He’s brought me to secret crags, and even taught me how to bolt a route.

Unfortunately, Marty’s fallen on some hard times and is in need of financial support for medical bills. I’ll let Greg Opland’s post on mountain project explain the details:

First off, Marty is alive, so this isn’t a horrible post.
Too many of those lately.

But, Marty was bouldering last week up by Salt Lake City while he was there for the OR show, and cratered into the pads. They saved his head and shoulders, but his leg augered in under him and he came out with a badly broken femur. He was in the hospital for a bit while they plated and screwed his leg back together, but he is expected to make a full recovery. He is returning to Phoenix sometime today.

Now for the bad part… Marty didn’t have medical insurance. Friends have set up an account in case other friends and partners in the community want to donate to help him out with what I’m sure are pretty horrendous medical bills. I believe the PRG guys are working on a couple of fund raiser projects as well, so stay tuned for info on those. Marty has spent a load of his own money over the years putting up a boatload of great routes in the Phoenix area (and elsewhere), so maybe this is a good time for some of us to pony up and help him out.

If you’d like to help Marty out, here’s the account info:

Marty Karabin Recovery Fun
Wells Fargo
Name on the account: Robert Olson
Acct Number: 9613232793

Note: To donate to the account, you need to provide the name on the account and the account number. The name on the account (because he set it up) is Robert Olson.

Here’s a couple of pictures of poor Marty recovering…

Get well soon Marty!

I just purchased a BlackRapid R-Strap for my 40D (review will be forthcoming). When searching for a place to purchase the R-Strap, I found that most places online were sold out of the RS-4 which I stupidly assumed was the latest, greatest and best version of the R-Strap. It wasn’t until I looked at ePhotoCraft’s description of the R-Strap that I actually learned the differences between the different models of R-Straps:

“The difference between the RS-1, RS-2, RS-3, RS-4 straps:

* RS-1: Black fabric, slim design, no storage pockets.
* RS-2: Black fabric, Front flap opens and has a zippered pocket on the inside for storing small things like memory cards. Front external pocket is good for smaller cell phones (not compatible with Iphones or PDAs).
* RS-3: Camouflage Ripstop fabric, Front external pocket is good for smaller cell phones (not compatible with Iphones or PDAs). Does not have flap that opens like the RS2.
* RS-4: Black fabric, front zippered pocket for storing small things like memory cards or business cards

Sizing:

The R-Strap is very adjustable. RS-1 & RS-4: 60″ (30″ from top of left shoulder to right hip). The max circumference of the RS-2 & RS-3: 72″ (36″ across torso top of left should to right hip bone.”

I ended up getting the no-frills RS-1.

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!

Let the snowboarding season begin!