Here I am, standing in a Faraday cage (trusting in Gauss' law) with a couple of medium sized Tesla coils (Brian Basura's and Ross Overton's) zapping away on April 15th...
These are mostly climbing and summit photos, that I scanned and posted because someone asked about it. I can't say that I truly enjoy hard core rock climbing; I think you have to like pain for that. For me, it is a way to get to the top. The artistry of a fine climb isn't as much a motivator for me as getting to the top. On a good day, I can climb 5.7, 5.8, which was doing fairly well back in the '70's, but these days is a walkup.
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Climbing at Tahquitz Rock in 1976, "The Trough"
(A really easy route, 5.3, as I recall) |
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Top of Mt Whitney, October, 1986(?)
L-> R: John Vafiades, Tom Jedrey, Jim Lux |
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Top of Mt Agassiz (near Bishop Pass), August 1987
L->R: Dave Untrauer, Jim Lux, John Vafiades, Pete Seemsen |
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Top of Mt Baldy (aka Mt San Antonio), Februay 90(?)
L->R: John Vafiades, Jim Lux |
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Top of San Gorgonio, Fall 1990 |
Climbing is an activity more suited to the young and single without other time committments.I was spoiled in that I learned to climb in Tuolumne Meadows (in Yosemite) on nice clean granite. The local climbing in Los Angeles is on grimy gritty sandstone, with copious bird droppings, bees, dust, broken glass, and all around grunge. Of course, now that I have a nice clean climbing wall in my backyard, maybe I'll get a bit of practice.
I am unconcerned enough about it that I still climb in a pair of "EB"'s from 1976 (you can see that I don't climb enough to wear the gear out). And, when I show up at the local crags (like Stoney Point or Pt Dume), other climbers are shocked at my ancient gear: I have a veritable museum collection of Chouinard Hexes, old straight carabiners, etc. I don't think they'd be more surprised if I pulled out a hammer and some Lost Arrow pitons, but I started climbing just as "clean climbing" was becoming fashionable.