Laundry List of Prizes

So for the past year I have gone to every Spot climbing competition. The cost for the comps have been 125 dollars. I also spent 35 for an Access membership. For the cost of that I got to climb, drink free beer and eat pizza. At the end of every competition there has been a raffle. Out of the last 5 comps I have one something at everyone except for the Halloween comp. Here are the prizes that I have one over the past year.

At the finals last February I won

Rope – Mammut Revelation 9.2

The comp this past November I won

Coffee Mug, Bag of Chalk and T-Shirt

Then a couple weeks during the December comp I won

Climbing Shoe from LaSportiva and I choose a pair of Katana

Last night at the competition I won

Sleeping bag – Mont bell Down Hugger 2

Hat – LaSportiva Beanie

Day 2.1

So the first morning I woke up in England was a beautiful overcast morning. It had rained the night before but I didn't here it rain at all. For breakfast I had crumpets and tea. It was a slow morning compared to home.

After breakfast, I walked with Ben from his house to his office. We walked by the pub down the street from his house with a cricket field next to it. The paths we took did not seem to be the most direct path but it was enjoyable to walk paths instead of walking along the street. We walked down one wooded section which if I remember correctly Ben said was called Legless lane. The path gained this name because some time in the past supposedly someone found a leg on the path. We saw people walking their dogs and the most prevalent breed was german shepards.

We also walked across what used to be part of a park but is now used as a parking lot for when the university has recruitment or orientation. It was really disappointing and when Ben was pointing it out I tried not to think about it but I agreed with Ben that it was really sad. It would be nice to have seen it as part of the park. You could see where the paths came in and there was a statue at one end.

When we arrived at Ben's office, we made arrangement to meet at 4. It was 9:30 or so when we got there so that gave me over six hours to wander and have fun. I had already decided I was going to try and get over to the climbing wall in Leeds. So I started walking in a southerly direction.

I walked by some of their city building which one building had 4 lion statues out front. The building were covered in netting which I assumed was to keep birds from landing on the buildings. I walked by this small little park with a statue in the center. This statue caught my attention and it was my first picture in England. The reason the statue caught my attention was that it was a statue of a woman with three boars around her. I did not find out the significance of the boars but the statue caught my eye and was when I decided I needed to start taking pictures.



After taking this picture, I stopped in a bagel shop for an egg bagel sandwich. I ordered an everything bagel and was mildly amused that the girl behind the counter checked to make sure garlic on the bagel was ok. Walking while eating my sandwich, I was entering an area that had a considerable more amount of traffic. I walked by the Olympic swimming pool that was located in Leeds and I was coming up to some large traffic circles. I was on a path that entered into a very small park area and was not sure what way I wanted to go when the path split. I saw that one of the paths went under the train tracks in front of me. So I decided to take that path. I get to the entrance of the tunnel and it was approximately 6 and a half feet tall and I could almost touch both sides of the walls at the same time. I walked down this tunnel and when I come out I'm in what seems like a warehouse. I have a couple forklifts driving around and I'm surrounded by pallets of stuff. I had suddenly gone from a nice little park to an industrial area. I turned around and took a picture of the tunnel because it transported me to a totally different area.

Kera the expectant dog

Ever since I brought home new frozen raw food for Kera and Fitz. Kera needs to run to the freezer everytime I go to the beer fridge and indicate that she wants food. She gets extremely excited when I give her some every night like it is the best food in the world. I just wish she would stop jumping in front of the fridge everytime I went to the garage.

Tables

I have mentioned to some people at work that when my parents have visited the last couple times they have made me some tables. I really like these tables an thought I would put up some pictures.

Fitz and the heat vent

Fitz has found a new favorite place to sit when he can't sit on my lap. He really likes to lay on the heat vent. The problem I have with this is that when he does this he can stop all heat from coming up through the heat vent.

Day 1

The flight over to England was probably one of the best flights in coach you could have. The plane was half empty. Scotty and myself had 4 seats for to ourselves. Having the extra room made it very easy to get some sleep on the way over there. We arrived at 8/9 in the morning and as soon as we were through customs we separated. Scotty had a ride to Wales and I went to figure out how to get to Leeds.

I got my train ticket validated and found out that the train I wanted to catch was not running at that time due to problems. So I took the train to Victoria station instead of King’s Cross and had to take the tube over. When I got to King’s Cross, the next train to Leeds left in five minutes. I decided to just get on incase there were more train problems getting there.

I’m glad I made that decision because I don’t know what the tornado that went through London did to the train schedules. While on the train I talked with a couple guys who the day before went to the Science museum and the “Game On” exhibit. The Game On exhibit was a couple rooms full of video games in a sort of progression of games through time. You were able to play all the games though. Listening to them, I decided that when I met up with Scotty, I would put in a vote to go play some games.

Before I knew it I was in Leeds and about 2/3 hours earlier than I expected. I decided I would try and find Ben’s office. So I obtained a bus map and started walking to the university. The weather was grey and there was a bit of drizzle. Walking from the train station there were walking malls with lots of shopping until I hit the university section. It seemed that every city I went to, the center of the city seemed to have a lot of shopping (Bristol seemed to have the least). It took me about half an hour to get to Ben’s office. When Ben answered the door, it seemed like I had just seen him a week before hand not 8 years ago. It was good to see him. After catching up for 15 minutes or so, I dropped off my bags and went out to wander a bit while Ben finished up his work.

I wandered back the way I came and wandered around downtown Leeds. There seemed to be a lot of covered walking malls. The inside of these malls looked like you were still on the street except if you looked up there was a glass ceiling. In one of these malls, I talked with these two nurses who were raising money by walking around the one of their legs tied together. They asked me for money but at that time all I had was a couple 20 pound notes on me so I had to tell them I didn’t have anything at that time. I tried going back later when I had some coins but they weren’t there then.

After a bit, I found the market area. I really liked the markets in England. The one in Leeds had a huge covered area. There were all kinds of food stalls and a section where the butchers were. Walking by the butcher shops was the first time that I heard people talk that I couldn’t understand a damn thing they were saying. It was not like any language I had heard before.

Around 4 o’clock I met back up with Ben and we took the bus back to his house. I really liked his house but more on that later. The night progressed nicely after that. I met Brigid, Ben's girlfriend but, didn'tget to see much of her that first night because she had to work. Ben made a curry dinner, while I took a much needed shower, and then we walked to the pub and had a couple pints. I really liked the walk. The temperature outside was nice around 45/50 F, it was really moist and it was my first chance to really walk through a residental area. The pub reminded me a two story coffee shop. Can’t remember the name of it, will need to find that out with a couple other things next time I talk with Ben.

Firetruck

Christmas time in England did not seem as prevalent and it is in the United States. I did not see many houses with Christmas lights on the outside. Houses did have trees in the window but that was the extent of decoration on the houses. In Bristol, I guess there was some lights up but they looked like normal lights on some sculpture thingy. The one event that did make me realize it was the holidays was when I was walking around Bath. In Bath, we were walking down a street in the shopping district when this fire truck comes down the road. It was around 6 o’clock at night and all of a sudden you hear the load speaker turn on the truck and one of the firemen start singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas”. Scotty looked at me and we both laughed. I don’t think I will ever hear that song again without thinking of the fireman sing over the loud speaker as they drove down the street.

Wind

The wind is killing me here. Last night, it took me over an hour to drive home because 93 was closed due to blowing snow. This morning I was foolish and drove to work. It took me 2.5 hours to drive and over 50 miles. Seemed like I went in a huge big reverse C to get to work today. Maybe it seemed that way because that is what I ended up doing.

Blue things

While wandering in Leeds, I came across these containers. I have no idea what they were but they were under a train bridge right across the street from a church. There is a car in the background to give you so sense of scale. I think they are storage units but they looked totally out of place in the area. It may have been because they were blue or it could be they looked like some giants toys shoved under the bridge but I really liked them.

Gargoyle

While traveling around England I would notice gargoyles on lots of the buildings. They seemed to far away get a really good look at them like in the picture I took in Leeds. But besides them being prevalent on all the buildings. I only saw one place that sold gargoyles. The store was in Camden markets. Which were fantastic but more on that later. The stores selection was very sparse. They did not have any that I would consider purchasing so I came back from my trip without any gargoyles.

My favorite gargoyles of the trip were on Westminster Abby. I only was able to get two reasonable pictures of ones that I liked but they are examples of gargoyles that I would like to have around the house.

Biggest piece of Naan

While in Birmingham, Scotty had his first taste of indian food in England. We went to this restaurant with a friend of his named Neil that we meet on the last trip. We decided to order some garlic naan. So when the waiter took our order we asked for enough naan for the three of us. What he gave us was the biggest piece of naan I had ever recieved. If you look in the corner you can see a section gone. This section was the size of 2 regular piece of Naan that you would get in the US.

New Year

So the year ended and began with me riding my pedicab. I rode 14 hours over New Years Eve. I’m glad that I rode for that long. It broke me from my lazy habit that I have had since I got back from England. After the lazy day on Monday because I was so tired from only 4 hours of sleep, I have had an active week so far. Tuesday, I went climbing and today I rode about 15 miles outside to work my legs a bit and exercised some at home.