Come one Come all - To DENVER

If you cannot find Denver - click on the link above.

Okay people. The weekend of April 10th-12th is the second opportunity of (potentially) three this year to hang out. That's right we get to make a giant fucking ruckus together 3 times this year.

On to the good stuff. My birthday is April 13th - the Monday. Kind of on a whim, last year Ajay and Zhi came out as well as another one of my friends from Spain, named Kate. This was a freaking blast.

So the tradition was born - or I hope it was.

Kate has already booked her ticket for round two.
As I said when we hung out in NYC over the new years holiday - you ALL should come.

IF you have never been to Denver - its an awesome place
If you have been, then you know how awesome it is.

I have space for folks to stay - there is a chance we may go camping one night - but i have gear and stuff (last year we went climbing -definitely a good time - and in the cards for this year as well).

Please let me know if you need help with timing and stuff.
I suggest you try to come in fri night and leave sunday or monday morning. But anytime around then is good.

Potential activities include:
rock climbing
hiking
camping
(ice climbing!!!)
skiing
eating
drinking
hanging out

(I swear to god - I will actually plan this one!!)

let me know if there are other things you want to do.

Love,
Jew

Telescope Peak 2009-01-09 to 2009-01-12

A lot of people have asked me how this hike was. In short, it was one of the hardest things I've done. Not just the hike itself, but the training in preparation. In fact, I was depressed when it was over, because I had lost the motivation to train. I had lost the thing I was looking forward to, thinking about, and preparing for over the last 6 months. The long story? I'm not sure yet. I know I had a great time with le Marc and Boris, and I"m really happy to have done it. Will I do it again? Maybe, but certainly not soon. I also know I need cheaper hobbies. Anyways, I may put up more thoughts later. I'll send out pictures separately given that I don't want to post the location of my photo server on a public blog.

No we didn't make it to the very summit. Yeah, when I know how I feel about that, I'll write about that as well.

I want to thank le Marc and Boris for coming on this journey with me, and especially le Marc for motivating me throughout my training and during the hike.

Mistakes:
- Did not get a 4WD vehicle, so there was an additional 6 miles to hike into the canyon
- Took too long to break camp on Sat morning, on Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon
- Stopped too early on Saturday
- Underestimated how long it would take to do final ascent
- Took too little water on final ascent (no knowing how long it would take)
- Did not eat properly during final ascent
- Took the wrong route on one of the climbs
- Too slow on the last few climbs
- Under-estimated how much snow would slow us down

Notes:
- Looking up at the moon as we were climbing near vertically on the snow covered face of the mountain, it looked like we would be able to reach up and touch it. It was beautiful.
- On the hikes I took this year, I realized something: not a single advertisement. It wasn't just the lack of civilization, it was the lack of advertising. No billboards, no slogans, no logos. Of course there were the labels on our clothes, but if you weren't looking down there was nothing. I've hard that you see 3000-5000 ads a day, on average. Combine that with every logo on every product you use or see on an every day basis. Being in a place where it wasn't there for a while. It was refreshing.

Trip Report: 2008-12-31 to 2009-01-04

Time: 2008-12-31 to 2009-01-04
Reason: New Year's Eve, Ringing in the New Year, Hanging
Location: New York City, Ajay's Parents' House
Attendees: Ajay, Alex, Azim, Fu, Jack, Zhi
Activities: Drinking, Eating, Golf Simulator, Video Games

Notes:
- Thanks to Ajay for putting this together last minute and hosting us at his parents' house
- Props to Azim for coming up with the idea of an impromptu NYE celebration
- Props to Jack for booking Aureole and Ajay for finding John's Pizzeria
- Props to the Jew for bringing those bottles of wine
- The next time Jack says "jacket preferred", I'm going to take that to mean, "fuck off, Jack"
- I'm never drinking again
- The golf simulator was 'wicked' fun, as the Jew would say
- Fu, I've never seen someone puke so much, so violently my entire life
- NYC is pretty awesome. Where else could we stay out until dawn every night of the week?
- Apparently I had a cigarette. My first in over a year. Again, never drinking again
- Azim: S Bar. Hit that! Then let us know how it was!
- The photos from this trip I sent to you via email. I hesitate to post the URLs of the photo server to public places, and I recommend you are also careful with that.

Future Plans:
- So pretty much Chicago is decided for this summer, probably also around Independence Day (a Saturday in 2009). There was also interest in going to Denver in April for the Jew's birthday.
- I think a point was made that while many places would be cool to go, for now, because of everyone's budgetary and time constraints, we'd have to pick places that are feasible for 3-5 days, with some local affinity (i.e. someone knows it well enough to lead and plan), and also having a place to stay for free or cheap is a huge plus.

General Observations:
- Can we try to not average 1.5 fights per day whenever we all get together? I know I'm probably the cause of many of these, and I'll try and keep that in mind, but it just seems like every time we all get together, some subset of us end up getting into a shit-fest over really dumb shit.
- Destination Dining should not be a huge part of our plans because it's not everyone's cup-o-tea. Let's build more flexibility into future plans so that people can do what they want a little more freely.

At some point, I may want to flush out this writing from the current crappy bullet point format, but I'm too lazy right now. Any of you could also do this, so please feel free.

Anyone else want to add something? You can all either edit the post or make a comment. Alright, I'm out.