climbing journal 26 January 2015

A beautiful day in January in the Hills, sunshine, no clouds, wind about 10 mph.  Rapid City was 74 degrees this afternoon, broke the record by 10 degrees.

I met Mark at the Wrinkled Rock Climbing parking lot at 11:30 am and we hiked into the South Seas climbing area, maybe a quarter of a mile.  The South Seas area is about a mile or less west of Mt. Rushmore.  We climbed on a rock called Shark's Tail, three climbs, Shark's Breath, Shark Bait and Shark Attack.

Shark's Breath is a classic climb with 4 out of 4 stars with a difficulty of 5.7, which means that it is a moderate climb and 110' in length.  The climb goes up an arete to the top.  Mark led the climb and I followed.  There are a couple of thin spots which make up the crux, I had to stop several times but I figured it out without hanging on the rope or falling.  Mark had asked if I had climbed this before and I said no but later noted in my climbing guide book that I had climbed this in September.

20 feet to the left of Shark's Breath is Shark Bait, a climb rated at 5.8 with 3 out of 4 stars and 110' of length. This is a face climb.  Again Mark led the climb and I followed. It was far more challenging and I did have to hang on the rope on several occasions to get my strength back into my fingers but made it to the top without any AG (anti gravity - that is Mark didn't pull me up the rock). I was pretty much done for the day after this climb.

20 feet to the left of Shark Bait is a 5.11 called Shark Attack.  5.11 is a pretty difficult climb, not within my range and may never will be. It has 2 stars and is 100' in length.  Mark opted to use a top rope technique to complete this climb.  He stated that some of the crystals have been broken off and that the climb has become more difficult.  Mark struggled at points but was able to top out.

Thanks Mark.

Got home about 3:15 pm.

Washington DC

Over the past 30 years both Carol and I have been to Washington DC on numerous occasions for meetings.   Taking a few hours or an afternoon to see the sights... I recall one afternoon I literally ran around the Mall taking in all the monuments and another afternoon running through several of the Smithsonian buildings.

Carol and I have been planning this trip since before I retired, getting a chance to leisurely stroll through our nations capitol taking the time to stop and smell the roses.

Monday: Our first adventure was a 3 hour Segway tour of the Mall with Capital City Segway Tours.  There were 4 couples in our group, a younger couple from Singapore, another couple from England about our age and then another couple maybe 5 years older than us.  Carol thought that I would learn to ride easily because of my good judo balance and she was right, it was pretty easy for me.  It was pretty easy for everyone, and in a few minutes everyone was riding like a pro.  We took off down the sidewalk and into the street where we took up a full lane and off we went to see the White House.  Contractors were installing some additional security equipment when we got there.   Our guide was a political science graduate student and he was great.  Then we took off to visit the Capitol building and stopped there for some pictures.  Then we headed down the Mall with stops at the WWII Memorial and then the Lincoln Memorial where we got off for a 15 minute stroll.  Carol and I visited the Vietnam Memorial... it always brings tears to my eyes.  We mounted our Segways and headed back to Capital City Segway Tours.

Walking back to our vacation home rental by owner apartment we walked past the Albert Einstein memorial just off the Mall.  It is one of my favorite statues and he is one of my heroes.

Tuesday:  We took a tour of the White House.  I got to see the East Room where Teddy Roosevelt set up a Judo mat and practiced Judo.  I will have to say that as a mansion that the White House is quite elegant.  In the afternoon we had a guided tour of the Congress courtesy of South Dakota Representative Kristi Noem's office staff.  Our guide gave us an excellent tour of both houses of Congress, the old Supreme Court Chambers and other special sites.

We got to stand on the balcony overlooking the spot where the new president's are sworn in.

Here Carol poses with Jeanette Rankin, first women in the United States Congress, one of Carol's early heroes.  This is one of hundreds, if not thousands of statues in the Congress.

When we were shown the House Chambers, where the President gives the State of the Union speech, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.  It is a heady experience to be standing in the same place that the work of our nation is conducted.

We strolled down the Mall and had a leisurely walk back to the apartment. I was just fascinated with all the architectural detail everywhere you looked.

Wednesday we toured the Smithsonian.

I have been fascinated with space travel and aeronautics in general since Commando Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe (I guess that tells you how old I am!).  Carol was surprised that I could point to almost any rocket and know that it was a V2 or X1, and know when it was flown, who designed it, etc.  I wanted to be a space cadet when I was a child, some may say that I got there and stayed there all of my life!

I also like trains.

Carol enjoyed viewing a recreation of Julia Child's kitchen.

Thursday:  We toured the National Gallery of Art, the National Gallery Sculpture Garden, the Freer/Sackler Gallery.  The Freer/Sackler Gallery display a lot of Oriental art.  That evening we attended a presentation of the play, 'Driving Miss Daisy' at the old Ford Theater.  Sat in the balcony and saw where President Lincoln was shot.

Friday:  We toured the National Geographic Museum, just a few blocks from our apartment.  It was the only museum that we paid for and it is, in my estimation, one of the best museums in Washington DC.  The exhibit was about food, our food supply and our growing need for other food sources.

Saturday:  We took a down day.  We both had sore feet.  Walked around our neighborhood, took a late lunch and just hung out.  That evening we attended a Shakuhachi concert (Japanese bamboo flute) at the Freer/Sackler Art Gallery.  It was delightful.  Rode the subway home.

Sunday: We went to Arlington National Cemetery by the Metro subway.  We watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.   It is a very moving memorial to all those who fought for our great nation.  The guard walks very precisely, at a very somber pace, pausing at the end of his walk for about a minute before he begins walking the other direction.

Down the treed corridor, at the bottom of the hill is a fountain that lines up with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  The water flows from the top of the fountain while the guard is walking and stops when the guard stops and turns around.

Here I am posing with the flags of the United States, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.  I was in the Army during the Vietnam Police Action.

We walked over the bridge from Arlington to the Mall and visited the Korean War Memorial.  We were in Washington in October, a perfect time to see the trees change color.  It was beautiful.

Carol is listening to one of many radio addresses by FDR.

And I am standing in line trying to get a job, destitute and poor.

The George Mason Memorial is one of Washington DC's least know memorials.  Mason was the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and inspired Jefferson during the writing of the Declaration of Independence.  Mason argued to include individual rights as part of the Bill of Rights.

Our last memorial was the Jefferson Memorial.  We particularly liked the following quote by him:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

Ware Tada Tari o shiru

This is a picture of the water basin in my garden in Fargo, in Japanese it is called a tuskubai. This one is a copy of a famous tsukubai that sits near the monks quarters behind the famous Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

Water flows continuously into the small basin.  At Buddhist temples in Japan tsukubai are used by visitors to purify themselves by ritual washing of the mouth and hands.  The low placement of the basin requires visitors to bend a little to reach the water suggesting supplication and reverence.  The shape of the stone, which looks like an old-fashioned Chinese coin, the circle represents heaven (yang) and the square hole represents earth (yin).

The characters, kanji, written on the surface of the stone are read in combination with the square hole in the center.

 


This is a Zen saying that translates as 'Refrain from attempts to fulfill many hopes and be satisfied with nothing."

Surprise!

This past Saturday the Judo clubs from Dickinson and Bismarck surprised me good!

It is Saturday morning, about 10:15 am… I was getting ready to meet Ken, Mark and perhaps Nick at 11:30 am at Wrinkled Rock (a mile west of Mount Rushmore) for an afternoon of climbing.  It is about a 45 minute drive from here so I was planning to head out about 10:40 or so.  Ken called to say that they were just completing some work and would be a bit late, Carol suggested that we watch some of the NDSU – Iowa State football game until I had to leave for Wrinkled Rock. 

I had set the DVR to record the game so Carol and I could watch it later that evening.  So I went to the beginning of the recording and when the first commercial came on, I did as I always do – fast forward thru the commercial - which also cuts the sound, except this time, there was sound in the background.  “What is that?” I said aloud.  “Radio?”… where was that sound coming from?  “Maybe its the computer?”  But it didn't sound like it was coming from down the hallway.  It sounded like it was coming from outside in the back yard and what ever could that be?????

 

Standing up, much to my surprise, there were people in my yard, setting up a judo mat!!!   Ken, Dakota, Ruth, Nick, Mary, Steve, Jeff, SEAN & CANDICE??? (Whom I haven't seen for years!)  And kids.  WHAT IS GOING ON????

By this time I had made it to the deck, thankfully the deck had a railing as I really needed something to lean on!!!


Nick had made ninja arrangements with Carol to surprise me with an impromptu judo workout in our back yard.  They brought all the food and beverages and mats and people!  Carol had turned off the driveway alarm so I wouldn’t have a clue and suggested watching the football game.

It didn’t take much time to set up mats and get people into judo gi and onto the mat.  We had a nice 2 hour workout in the morning before a nice lunch put on by Mary, Candice, Ruth, and Carol, wives of those working out on the mat.   We took a bit of a rest after lunch to let things settle.  Carol invited the neighbors to see what judo was all about; they arrived as we started the afternoon session. 

And I got to throw everyone!

I  have been working on an esoteric component of the martial arts called haragei, a term that roughly translates as “the way of the stomach”.  In the West we talk about the heart being the seat of our emotions.  In Japan the hara, or stomach is where emotions come from… in addition, and very importantly it is also the center of gravity of the body.  Japanese martial artists will talk about taking control of the hara, or center of mass.  Once you have learned to control your hara you can take control of another’s hara. 

And ultimately this is what you learn thru the study of martial arts: haragei, the control of the center of gravity AND the emotions, it carries a moral obligation… interestingly enough morality is learned in the day to day exchanges between the students as they work with each other… at times it is like being thrown into an emotional blast furnace.  Students learn to care for each other and how to deal with fear and anger in a positive way.

At about 4:00 pm we decided we had had enough sun and too many breakfalls - it was time to ameliorate the bumps and bruises with some liquid refreshment, food and laughter!

The party lasted late into the evening and it had been dark for some hours when everyone decided it was time to hit the road.

What a day!  Carol and I finished up the day by watching the rest of the NDSU – Iowa State football game.  Bison won 34 to 14.  Go Bison!

Thank you everyone, I want you to know that you very deeply touched my heart today (and hara too!)

Anderson Gardens

Anderson Japanese Gardens is in Rockford, Illinois, about 90 minutes west of Chicago.  The Japanese Gardening Journal rated it as the second best Japanese Garden in the United States and it is well worth visiting.  Pictures tell the story.

Auction Sale

Monday, the18th of August, Carol and I attended a country auction sale, the first one Carol had been too.  Down 20 miles of road with the last 10 miles populated with limestone cliffs, thick Ponderosa pines, juniper and not much else. The limestone dust hangs in a cloud over the road a quarter mile back... nary a breeze to clear the air.  Then we traded the main road for a rutted path for four miles, to a pasture of mostly trucks, hundreds of them.  We had arrived!  Cowboy hats and boots in abundance, lots of men and few ladies too.

The day was hot, the sun beat down on the ground, not a drop of moisture to be had, dust in the air.  I was thinking that maybe a long sleeve shirt would have been a good idea!  Carol and both had hats anyway.

On the auction block were cars, trucks, back hoes, trailers covered with tools and supplies, farm equipment: red, blue, green, orange, and even an old worn out road grader, a big one, that the rancher used to keep his 4 miles of road cleared of snow in the winter.  Everything that you needed to work in such a secluded place.  We were there to take a look at a backhoe attachment for my Kubota tractor.  We found it at the bottom of the hill with the rest of the scrap metal and another backhoe that had seen better days.  It became obvious that the auctioneer was going to sell the stuff on the higher ground first before they made it to the backhoe I was interested in... it was going to be a long day.

The model 1199 backhoe attachment I was looking at was manufactured by Long Mfg. Co in North Carolina in the 1960s I would guess.  It was sitting forlornly under the trees, two hydraulic cylinders missing, its hoses falling apart from so many years of exposure to the sun light, the paint peeling.  Although it was standing pretty straight it looked like it was on the verge of falling over.  I felt that it would make a good winter shop project if I could get it for the right price - a new backhoe attachment is over $12,000 so I was thinking somewhere in the area of $1,000 was my limit with another $1,000 for repairs.

As luck would have it the Long backhoe attachment was the absolute last thing to be auctioned off, it was about 4:00 pm, we had been standing out in the sun since about 9:00 am, were about fried and had been hoping for a bit of energy for a couple of hours.  Finally the moment arrived, I auctioneer asked for $500, then $250, then $100... I bid $50 and immediately someone else bid $75, we went back and forth, $25 dollars at a time, but in the end I won with a bid of $425.  I looked at it again, shook my head and wondered how intelligent of a decision this was... and now I needed to figure out how to get it home.  One of the other bidders told me that he had one of the missing hydraulic cylinders on his pile of steel, I ended up giving him $5 for it.

Tuesday morning we called a neighbor and borrowed their trailer, loaded the Kubota on the trailer and filled the old blue pickup with tools, rope, chains, railroad bar, scrap lumber, everything I could think about to get this thing loaded.

We got back to the ranch about 10:00 am, it felt even hotter than the previous day.  Carol had prepared for the day, with several bottles of water, or so we thought we were prepared.  A job that I thought would take a few hours morphed into a long day of hard work, I thought I was going to Ralph from the heat and exhaustion on several occasions.  With two cylinders missing, the oil had been drained so there was nothing keeping the cylinders in a static position, so it would flop around like a wet noodle when we tried to get it hooked up to the three point hitch on the tractor and then it flopped flat on the ground.  We did judo with it for a while and finally I took off the bucket, then the arms that supported the bucket and provided the digging geometry, then the stabilizers, hydraulic cylinders and hoses.  The pins were over an inch diameter and had frozen in their bores from years of inactivity requiring the use of a large sledge hammer and a drift pin (a piece of steel about 5/8" in diameter, I bent it!) to knock them free.  As we got the pieces free I would rig them up with chain to the tractor loader and Carol would operate the tractor and put the pieces in the back of the old blue pickup.  Even with the tractor it was back breaking work!

We continued to judo the main part of the backhoe for at least another hour, but finally we got it hooked up to the 3 point hitch, loaded the tractor with backhoe attachment onto the trailer and headed for home.  I was sweating profusely!  The sweat continued to pour out of me for the next 45 minutes even with the AC going full blast and then when I dried out I was extra sticky and dirty, oh man, I was covered with grease, oil and dirt from head to toe!

We just parked the pickups, unloaded the tractor and returned the trailer.  We left all the stuff in the back of old blue (until this morning.)  The shower felt wonderful, Carol and I went out to the Bugling Bull Restaurant for supper as neither of us had enough energy to cook.  Moose Drool was well received!!!

Gear head notes:

I got a good chance to look over my purchase today.  There are no bent pieces, nothing out of alignment, all the valves operate freely, all the hoses need to be replaced, one cylinder needs to be refurbished, I need to purchase a cylinder to operate the bucket, and of course there is some rust.  I am planning to have all the painted pieces sandblasted and I will prime and paint them before reassembly.

April 2014

Four months have transpired and I have written nothing to my blog... so much for the New Years Resolution.  And the longer I wait the harder it gets.  I do have one small excuse to lean on, my computer interface with Blogger has been giving me an error code for a couple of months, I changed over to Mozilla a couple of weeks ago and the problem is gone!!!  I really need to spend a weekend reformatting and reloading the hard drive.


I presented a 2 hour seminar at our 17th Annual Kangeiko (Judo Winter Training Festival) in Fargo on the 1st of February.  There were about 50 participants.  I will put pictures on my new judo blog that I will share with you later this month.

While we are in Fargo for Kangeiko, Carol got notice that her aunt had died so we headed home on the 2nd of February, repacked our suitcases and headed for Illinois the next day.  We met Carol's three sisters there.  The funeral was very nice and it was good to catch up with family.  We returned to Custer about a week later, anxious to sleep in our own bed.

Let me catch you all up on the progress of the house.

On the 6th of April, two years ago, we started the excavation for the house foundation.  Carol and I hosted
Easter dinner for the neighbors, the guys and I stood outside in shirtsleeves in the warm sun and watched the excavator dig.  Last year we worked through the winter, there were some cold and snowy days, I think we took 3 or 4 snow days.  This year Mother Nature has not cooperated with us, cold weather, wind and snow have been the norm and nice days have been rare.

"All Weather Roofing and Repair"out of Rapid City installed DECRA shingles on the garage on the weekend
of 29 and 30 March.  It was a matter of finding a couple of nice days in a matrix of cold and windy weather.  They set up scaffolding on Thursday afternoon, we had a snow day on Friday, they showed up early on Saturday and Sunday morning and with a crew of five guys got the roof completed by late Sunday afternoon.

Anyone in this area need a roofer?  We were VERY pleased with the work that
All Weather Roofing and Repair did for us.  They showed up when they said they would, dressed appropriately, were soft spoken - we didn't hear one discouraging word while they were on the job site, they worked efficiently and in harmony with a great amount of craftsmanship and cleaned up when they departed.  We highly recommend them.

While the roofers were installing shingles I completed the railing on the deck off the sun room.  I used the "cable rail" system manufactured by Feeney, Inc., special order from Lowes.  A little expensive but a very good product that is easy to install and has a very good look. Best of all, Carol and I can sit in the sun room and our view of the property is not blocked.


In mid March we traveled to Pelican Rapids to help my mother move from her condo to assisted living, she will be 92 years old this year.  She is doing well.  It was great I got to see my sister Diane and her husband Rich whom I haven't seen in about a year and a half.  We came home with a pickup load of family heirlooms as did each of our kids Brittany and Brady and Kristen and Gabe.

I have been cleaning up outdoors when the weather has allowed: picking up rocks, burning sticks and small scraps of lumber, raking out the ground and planting some grass seed.  The ground  was finally firm enough to pull the old Caravan up the hill with the tractor to the parking area with Gabe's help

(Gabe and Kristen were here for the weekend).  I am hoping to get the old travel trailer moved in the next week or so.  The Caravan will go to salvage and we are hoping to sell the old camper.  We hauled two loads of steel scrap to A1 Steel in Rapid City.

When the weather didn't cooperate this winter I spent my days in the shop, starting my day building a fire in the wood stove... it is a great place to keep a cup of coffee hot.  I built book shelves on the east wall of the shop and started unpacking books.  It was great seeing my books again, I immediately selected several books by Donn Draeger on the history of martial arts in Japan and started rereading.... what a joy.

In the last few days got the kitchen light wired up to the switch and installed two sets of track lights in the pantry - before there was only one light and it was inadequate.  I cleaned the garage for the 20th time I think, throwing out cardboard, consolidating loose items in boxes and reorganizing boxes - we are down to about 15 boxes in the garage.  I reorganized the shop and at the end of the day yesterday we had the new pickup in the garage and the mustang in the shop... we heard there was the possibility of a thunderstorm in the forecast.  I spent today cleaning up lumber left over from the construction... sorting like items and placing them on pallets.  The place is beginning to look pretty good.

Things are going well for us, we hope things are going well for you too!


Van