To build a fire

When a good friend of mine, James, noted that the weather was cool and perfect for busting, I just smiled and nodded. What, weirder things had come out of my NJ friends' mouths. When he proposed that he show me that night, I again nodded, determined not to hurt his feelings. Little did I know that when he showed up for dinner, he was going to thoroughly kick my ass in busting... a fire! The process includes three sticks, a string, a rock, some chapstick and a whole lot of muscle. After sawing for 30 seconds, James had an ember and with ten minutes a roaring fire. Me on the other hand had to give up after ten minutes of mediocre sawing and call it quits to watch the flames. It took him an entire week of camping to perfect the technique, so I'm shooting for getting it before school.

Sequence of my life

While doing some balance work on my paddleboard, my dad (of course) kept egging me on, so I started attempting handstands. Luckily, he captured the results: a mini millisecond of a handstand!

Don't worry, I talked him into trying a running mount (wish I got a picture of that splat!)

can you say paradise?

This is the view from the dinner table at the the lake in Jersey. Nuff said, huh?

Some serious beach BBQ

As it goes, at my house during the summer, good weather means good water volleyball. The worse everyone is at it, the better the game! Last weekend, we had a blast playing with family friends. Of course, with my SUP on the porch, we were able to get everyone AND my amazing grandma going!

brown suede shoes

Like anything, people always notice when you have new shoes. After seeing a pair of really cool moccasins at a farmers market, I have been itching to make a pair for a while. Yesterday, I finally just sat down and did it. The process was two hours of cutting up little pieces of paper then taping them back together for the template and an hour of annoying the neighbors by punching elk leather over plywood with a nail then putting it all together.

The results were a great pair of super supple shoes. I have been wearing then nonstop since and everyone has a comment to add. I can't wait to try another design!

Manual driving, legless

"So," I asked Tommy, the amputee whose car I had just jumped in on our way to a climbing crag, "Is it hard to drive stick without a leg?"
"Its illegal"
"Oh"
Apparently, the only thing that is bad about driving stick with an above knee amputation is that you burn through a lot of clutches. Its not like I can pull my foot back, he pointed out. Duh. To combat the cost of burning through a lot of clutches, Tommy learned how to install them himself. I think I should do the same!

As an amputee, his story was different from others. He never went through a depression or drug abuse. Actually, he wonders from time to time whether he is the same person as he was when he was in the army. He has no recollection of anything before his accident and has a hard time remembering things still. As a result, everyone in the climbing group jokes with him as he is on his way stuffing his prosthetic foot in a crack whether he knows what he's doing.

Another member of our entourage was from Japan and would lead climb (clipping himself into the bolts) really hard stuff. Completely blind.

I felt honored to be a part of such a group and along with the inspiring and sometimes nuts stories were some pretty good climbs!

there are NO BARRIERS

Yesterday, I attended the No Barriers summit for disabled in Winter Park, Colorado, to gain some perspective into a world that I might want to go into: prosthetics. It is amazing. Most of the people I met have to expend more energy to do the same things I do (like wearing a 60lb pack that you can't take off), but most of them were better and went farther. In my midst was a high school soccer player with one leg (below), an iroman athlete and blind mountaineers. It was really amazing how even quadriplegics could get a taste of climbing on the contraption that I am using above, which, like most things they breezed up and I struggled on big time. Whether or not my path eventually leads to prosthetics, I will never see one as a barrier again.