tmo's blog

so, yeah, i was in st louis last weekend. and, yeah, i didn’t tell too many ppl. but that was on purpose: i was in town to visit family and washu/harambee/nsbe folk. it was only for the weekend, so i did a flyby (too far for a driveby). if i ain’t see you, then i’ll catch you on my next trip in may.

but, anyway, i came in town for my uncle’s 80th birthday party. my parents hosted it at their house, and there was plenty of people, food, and fellowshipping. i got to see all my family in st louis, which was pretty convenient :-).
my dad put together a live jazz combo in our living room for the party, featuring him on guitar, some of his friends on bass (eric moore), drums, piano, and vocal. and i also got pulled into to play piano on a couple of songs :-). it was fun though; it’s been a while minute since i played music alongside my dad.

i dipped out a couple of hours into the party to go to the Visions Concert at Graham Chapel the 560 Music Building (i say graham chapel out of habit :-). i was a little late though, as in i missed the first half of the concert, including dishon’s performance during intermission:-/. but, of course, the choir was bangin, and i had a good time.

but an ever better time was had with all the washu folk that i got to catch up with: OH-SEVEN! we was rollin deep, between those who were already in stl and me and carl flying in for the concert. it was good to see some of my WU07 classmates, even though there are quite a few that i know would have liked to have been there.
and apart from the concert, i got a chance to catch up with my peoples from Harambee, Men of Integrity, and NSBE (FIIIIIVE DEEP!!), all of whom i miss and am so excited to see do big thangs at washu and beyond. quick shout out to ‘09! i’m proud of y’all!!!

of course, it wouldn’t be a trip back to st louis without some kind of strange weather. well, it was clear and sunny when i arrived friday night, snowed saturday night/sunday morning, and brightened back up sunday afternoon. if i had told you that it snowed, you probably wouldn’t have believed me, but i have footage of one of the remaining patches of snow before i left on the left…

so, yesterday, i went bouldering. the weather this past weekend was gorgeous: hardly a cloud in the sky, temps in the 60s, and no humidity. and in some places you can literally see a mountain at every point of the horizon (the cascades, the olympics, rainier, or baker). straight up breathtaking.
anyway, back to bouldering: dave im’d me sunday morning to ask if i wanted to go bouldering with one of his friends phil. he likened it to rock climbing, but said that there are no harnesses. hmm…….
dave and phil (intervarsity connection—both of whom were on staff with IV at some point and have wives currently on staff) picked me up sunday afternoon on our way to gold bar, wa, which is east of seattle toward the cascades. our ride to the boudlering site became much more adventurous as the terrain got much more “gnarly” (according to the phil’s bouldering guidebook), which basically translated to not being able to take his minivan that far up the trail. so, we hiked the rest of the way. the view that we had along the way made it worth it.
phil was our bouldering subject matter expert, so he demonstrated what to do. at first, it looked like just climbing a rock, but it became more clear that it’s a bit more than that. more time is spent in figuring out how it can be climbed (again, no equipment, no harnesses, no hooks or carabiners). but, we did have one piece of equipment: we had a landing pad that we placed on the ground under the climber to drop to if the climb becomes too difficult.
i managed to climb the first boulder (pictured below), but it was also the last boulder i climbed successfully. we went to about 4 boulders. phil seemed to effortlessly maneuver up the boulders while dave and i soon realized how out of shape we were. needless to say, it was good times, and i got to do something i’ve never done before :-). and i’m sho ‘nuff motivated to stick with my strength training. what if i get stranded somewhere and the only way i could live was if i could climb some big ol’ rock?

peace…