Climbing again

Yesterday at lunchtime I joined a few colleagues and met Simon at the private bouldering hall in Adliswil. The problems there are pretty difficult and I hadn’t been climbing in more than a month. So I was not too surprised to find that I couldn’t do much. Still, I had a good time and finished a few problems. Today my hands and forearms are sore. I should really climb more often!

Lucia 2008 in Stockholm

_MAL4843, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I just returned from my first trip back to Stockholm since moving to Züruch two months ago. I was in town on business for a couple of days, teaching a TWS course for IBM. I extended my stay to include the weekend and Monday so that I could spend a bit more time in my old home and visit with friends.

Friday night I went the Klättercentret’s fifth anniversary party. The evening began with a bouldering competition. I enjoyed it very much, especially when I surprised myself by completing not one, but 4 black-graded problems—and this after months without any regular climbing to speak of! After the competition, the climbing came to an end and the real party began. Thai food and beer were served, and later in the evening we toasted to KC’s success with Champagne. Around one o’clock in the morning, a bunch of brave men took turns leaping from the central tower to try to grab a trapeze hanging at eye level about two meters out from the platform. I managed to grab the trapeze with one sweaty hand; but did not manage to hold on. The guy after me was the first one to nail it. It’s not easy to jump straight off a platform fifteen meters up in the air, even if one does have a rope to catch one’s fall! A live band consisting of several fellow climbers provided entertainment throughout the evening, and I saw so many of my old friends there. Being back at KC was bittersweet. I really miss the place. In the evening, I caught a ride from Helena back to her place. She was kind enough to let me crash at her apartment for the weekend.

On Saturday, I had dinner with Shahyar and Farzhaneh, the couple who are leasing my apartment in Bergshamra. Farzhaneh is an excellent cook, and prepared seveal tasty Persian specialities. In return, I helped get their internet connection up and running.

Later in the evening I met Lotta on Gamla Stan. We went to the Lucia concert at Storkyrkan. It wasn’t as good this year as in years past, but I still enjoyed the concert very much. This time of year, and Lucia in particular, will always remind me of my first visit to Stockholm in December of 1999. After the concert, Lotta and I had cake and coffee in the cellar of Chokladkoppen, a hip and cozy little café on Järntorget located in a building that must be at least five hundred years old.

Saturday night after the concert, I joined Helena and went to O’Leary’s in Sundbyberg, where Salsaakademien was throwing a Christmas party. I had an absolute blast at the party, dancing with so many of my friends from the Stockholm salsa scene. It felt just like old times, and everyone seemed glad to see me. Some of the best dances of the evening were with the ever-lovely Alexandra. The Sacuye gang delivered some great dance performances too, including one by Ibi and Marina that left me with a bewildered grin on my face for the next ten minutes. Those two have talent!

Sunday morning I met a couple of friends for brunch at Café String, and in the afternoon I went to Karbin for a bit more climbing. There, saw Emma and Bobo, and I made two new friends, Michaela and Alex.

Monday morning before my flight back to Zürich, I met Åsa downtown at the main train station. After a quick coffee, we took a walk in the brillinant morning sunshine. It was cold and windy, but we endured the cold with ease, soaking in the light and warmth of the sun. We walked down to Stadshuset and to the edge of Lake Mälaren.

I’ve lived several months now in Zürich, and I am finally beginning to feel like it is a place I might someday call home. However, Stockholm is stil home, and this trip was reassuring, if a bit bittersweet. It’s nice to know that the city and friends that I know and love are just a few hours away, and ready to welcome me again any time I choose to visit.

Thermography

Paula-visual-infrared-h.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last week I had an opportunity to play with an infrared camera. Ayse, who works at FLIR Systems, was kind enough to bring one of the testing units from her office to Klättercentret, where we did some bouldering and took photos of one another.

The camera we used was a P640. This camera’s lenses are not made of normal silicate glass; they’re made of an oxide of the element Germanium. They are silver in appearance and are opaque to visible light. The camera is sensitive in the long-wavelength (8–15 µm) infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Warm objects emit IR radiation in this range, with a wavelength inversely proportional to their temperature. What you see is a picture of the heat being emitted from the body. For this reason, photography in this range of the EM spectrum is often referred to as thermography. 

In the photo composite above, you can see Paula’s profile in both visible and long-wavelength infrared light. The visible light photograph was taken with my D300. I’ve posted many more thermographs from the evening to a new Infrared photo set. All of the photos from that evening, including visible light photos, can be viewed here.

Oh baby!

_MAL8275.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Friday night I joined Isabelle and Patrik for a bit of climbing at KC. I had bouldered there for a few hours the night before, so I didn't expect great accomplishments this night. Even so, I completed a white-graded problem that I'd never seen before. It's probably only the fourth white problem I've completed. Yay!

Here, Karthik climbs a black-graded problem that involves a big leap at the end. Well, it involves a leap for him. I can pretty much do it statically. I think I did well this night because I warmed up properly, starting on the blue and red problems and only proceeding to the black and white ones after the first half hour or so.

Climbing at Karbin on Sunday

_MAL7044.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After brunch, Udo gave me an several others a ride to Karbin, where we climbed for a while. Diana, the American I met on the subway a few weeks ago, joined us too. I climbed ropes for a while with Diana, and was again impressed by her ability. She climbed a 5c without any trouble. Cool!

After Diana left, I climbed ropes with Sara for a while and then did some bouldering. I repeated several of the fun problems from Friday’s boulder open competition, including the one of blue-and-yellow holds in the above photo. (Thanks to Sara for taking the photo!) I also completed a black-graded problem of orange-colored holds that I hadn’t quite been able to manage during the competition.

Overall, the climbing went well despite the fact that toward the end of the day I began to feel like I was coming down with a cold. My neck and shoulders were sore, I was getting slight chills, and my head didn't feel right. After a while, I stopped climbing so much and resorted simply to taking photos. I’m particularly pleased with the photos I captured of Christian, Josefin and Jenni.

Here are all twenty-six photos from Sunday’s climbing.

Boulder open #62 @ Karbin

_MAL6485.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Friday night I joined Linda and some of her friends for a bit of bouldering at Karbin. We participated in the boulder open competition and had a lot of fun. I completed twenty-seven out of forty problems, a new record for me. I placed seventh out of thirty-two in the rankings.

Here are forty-five photos from the competition.

A bit of bouldering instead of salsa

_MAL6041.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Wednesday night is normally the night that I have my salsa lessons at SalsaAkademien. However, this week there are no lessons, so I had to find something else to do—preferably something equally strenuous. I decided to get a bit more climbing in before Friday’s boulder open competition at Karbin. I generally prefer to take a break from climbing the day before a competition, but climbing on Wednesday before a competition on Friday seems okay.

I climbed last night too, so I wasn't expecting much. Even so, with a bit of perseverance and a bit of advice from others, I managed to make some progress, including conquering this fun problem of yellow and purple colored holds. The trick is to match feet and flag with the right foot just after the first move up to the edge. Maybe that’s obvious to some, but it wasn’t obvious to me until Peter suggested it and I actually tried it. Thanks, Peter!

Here are seventeen photos from the evening.

Climbing with Diana et al

_MAL5072.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last week on the way to a customer meeting I sat across from a cute girl on the subway. I noticed that she had Pearl Izumi shoes and a JanSport backpack, so I figured she must be an American. We struck up a conversation an exchanged email addresses just before the train arrived in T-Centralen. A few days later, she joined me for a bit of climbing at Klättercentret.

Diana's from Boulder, Colorado, and went to school in Oregon. These are two of my favorite places, so I knew she and I would get along. Diana insisted that she hadn't climbed at all since September, but I found that hard to believe ’cause she did so well. For me, the climbing was much better than on Tuesday. I managed to climb a 6b+ on the tall wall start-to-finish without stopping.

After climbing toprope for a while, we bouldered a bit with Matt, Lisa, Anna and Johan. Diana took all of the photos of me. She's got mad cam skillz, I'm tellin’ ya. Here are nineteen photos from the climbing session.

Back to bouldering

_MAL4784.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After few weeks away from climbing, I returned to Klättercentret last night for a bit of bouldering. I invited Kalle along, and he brought a couple of his friends too. I met Kalle through Emelie while skiing at Kittelfjäll over the weekend. Lisa H. was there, as well as Anna J. and several other friends. Jens from the ski trip was there too, and I learned today that he also knows Johanna, a girl I often see climbing at Karbin (and occasionally dancing salsa at La Isla too).

Well this night was not a spectacular one for climbing. My strength had been sapped by three days of skiing, not to mention three weeks of not climbing. It's now Thursday—two days since the bouldering of which I write—and my forearms are still sore. Oh well, at least I had fun. I saw Libby there and realize to my surprise that she’s from Australia. For some reason, I had just assumed she was Swedish. Her boyfriend Jerk was there too, and I got several good photos of him, including the one above.

I was too tired to remember to ask someone to take any photos of me. And besides, I wasn't climbing very well. Next time. I'm planning to go climbing tomorrow evening too. Here are a bunch of photos from Tuesday night’s climbing session.

Boulder open #61 @ Karbin

Last night I participated in boulder open #61 at Karbin in Västberga. I completed 22 out of 40 problems, better than my last showing of 16, but still a bit off my record of 26. I met some nice folks there, including Joakim and Sara, whom I learned are also friends with Josefin, a girl I met at Karbin a couple of weeks ago.

Update: The results from the boulder open #61 have been posted. Andreas and I tied for fifth place.

_MAL3283, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I arrived late at the competition, and as a result, I didn't have much time left over for taking photos. Still, I managed to get a few. In this shot, Isabelle conquers one of the problems on the back wall. I posted thirty-five photos from the competition.

_MAL3465, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After the competition, I joined a bunch of climbers at Judit & Bertil near Hornstull, for a few beers. The bar has Samuel Adams Boston Lager on tap, so I was happy. Here are twenty-three more photos from the pub.

Sunday afternoon at Karbin

_MAL2116.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I spent a few hours Sunday afternoon at Karbin, mostly climbing with Elin, Emma & David. I also ran into several other folks there, including Fredrik and his sister Christine, pictured above. I climbed with them for a while, and them climbed a bit with Frida and Ewa.

To capture many of these photos, I attached with a sling to an anchor at the top, and used my 70-200mm lens pointing downward. It takes a bit of preparation, but I have the routine down pat: the camera is on its own sling attached to my harness, and the backpack in which I carry the camera has a carabiner on it so I can quickly attach it to the anchor when I reach the top. It takes only a minute or so to hook into the anchor and prepare for photography.

Here are the thirty-four photos I posted from the day.

In the groove

_MAL1372.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Now it’s beginning to feel like climbing again. After a couple of months in Austin, I had lost a bit of my strength. I’m proud to say that I’m now almost back to where I was before my trip to the States. It helped too, no doubt, that I got a full night’s sleep last night. Alex had been trying his usual annoying tricks, meowing and clawing papers in order to keep me awake an get attention. But last night I had finally had enough, so I locked him in the kitchen.

This black problem that had vexed me for weeks, and that I first managed to solve with Rami’s advice last week, was actually quite easy tonight. It’s amazing what a good night of sleep can do.

I climbed tonight with Elin, her sister and her sister's boyfriend. It was nice to see them. They usually only climb at Karbin, which is a bit out of the way for me.

Oh, and guess what? On my way into KC tonight, I bumped into Helena, a girl I met on the slopes at Kittelfjäll a few weeks ago. Apparently, everyone is a climber in this city these days.

Here are all the photos from tonight. By the way, these are the first photos I’ve taken with my new D300, which arrived yesterday. It’s amazing, and represents a bigger improvement over the D200 than I had expected. I’ll have more to say on this topic once I’ve had more time to play with the new camera.

Saturday afternoon at KC

_MAL6797.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Saturday I biked to KC for a bit of climbing with Emma & Henrik. I brought my 70-200mm lens and had fun capturing some photos from the top of the tall wall there. Photos taken from above the climber are often the most interesting, because the face and hands — usually the most interesting parts of the photo — are clearly visible.

I also saw Miranda’s sister Josefin there. I imagine Miranda and Kalle are back in Lund now, resuming their studies this week.

After climbing with Emma and Henrik on the tall wall, we all did a bit of bouldering. It was then that I ran into Stefan & Anja, two regulars from Karbin. They're both excellent climbers, and it was fun just to watch them and to see how they approach each problem.

Speaking of Karbin, the results from boulder open #60 have been posted. I finished 16 out of 40 problems, placing 23rd out of 50 participants. Not bad, but I'll have to get back in shape if I'm going to place in the top 10 again. Actually, I think the problems must have been harder than usual this time around. Dan S. completed just 26 problems, and he’s a lot better than I am.

After bouldering for a while, I joined Daniela, Robban, Kjell & Maja for a bit of Thai take-out food. I hadn’t eaten a proper lunch, so the meal was tasty and welcome.

Here are the 14 photos from the evening.

Thursday evening at KC

_MAL6659.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Thursday after work I took my first spin on my new winter tires, and made it safely to Klättercentret without slipping so much as one centimeter on the snow and ice. I met Emma and Henrik there, as well as my new friend Anna whom I met at Karbin at the boulder open a couple of weeks ago, and lots of other friends I had not seen since October.

I wasn't really feeling in top form, but even so, I somehow managed to complete a couple of quite tricky black-graded bouldering problems. I also started on one on the upstairs bouldering wall that is quite vexing. It'll probably take a while for me to tackle that one.

Emma kindly took some photos of me doing this fun problem of pink-colored holds. There are twenty-seven photos from the evening.

Boulder open #60 @ Karbin

_MAL4718.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night was boulder open #60 at Karbin. I did the best I could, but it was certainly not my best performance to date. I completed 16 problems, a bit off my record of 26! Still, I had a good time and completed a few tricky problems. Here are a bunch of photos from the evening.

Climbing with Miranda and friends

_MAL4417.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Tuesday evening I went to Klättercentret for a bit of bouldering. It was the first time for me to see Matt & Lisa since returning to Sweden. Lisa and I an planning to thrown a combined party for our birthdays sometime soon. Our birthdays were in November, but the party probably won’t happen until mid-January at the earliest. Stay tuned.

The bouldering problems were a lot of fun. I conquered a few that I had tried last week but hadn’t managed to finish then. Pierre gave me some good tips on several tricky problems, and I think I’ll be able to complete a couple of them next time.

Miranda & Kalle were there. They’re up from Lund for the holidays. I gave Miranda the climbing gear I’d brought her from the U.S. and she seemed pleased. She said she plans to put it to good use when she goes climbing in Spain in a couple of weeks. I’m jealous!

Here are the nine photos I posted.

Miranda’s sister Josefin was there too, and she took lots of photos with her camera. She posted them to Facebook, if you want to see them.

Climbing at Austin Rock Gym

_MAL0099.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night I joined Ethan and Dave for some bouldering at Austin Rock Gym. It was my first time to do any indoor climbing in the U.S. The bouldering problems here are graded according to the ”Hueco” grading system, developed here in Texas at the Hueco Tanks State Historic Site.

In this photo, Ethan does a hand-foot match on the way up from under the overhang. Last night was Dave’s first time climbing. He did alright considering that!

Prior to last night I hadn’t done any climbing in more than two months. My strength has deteriorated noticeably and the skin on my hands has lost some of its toughness. Even so, I was pleased with the climbing. I even did a couple of rather tricky problems. I have missed climbing! I'm looking forward to returning to my home turf and resuming my routine of climbing twice or three times per week.

Weekend recap

I've just stepped out of the shower and brushed my teeth, and I'm looking forward to laying my head on my pillow in just a few minutes. I'm really tired after a fun and eventful weekend.

The original plan for Friday evening was to go climbing and dancing with Åsa R. Unfortunately, she found out at the last minute that she had to work late, so I changed my plans a bit. I skipped climbing at Klättercentret and had dinner at home instead. I was actually partly relieved to have a little time to catch my breath and wind down a bit after work. Around 10 o’clock I went down to La Isla for a bit of salsa dancing. Some other friends who had planned to show up never did, and the place was really dead. Lots of the folks from the Stockholm salsa dancing crowd were on a Baltic cruise this past weekend, so maybe that's why the place was so empty. Elin was there with her new dance partner Paolo, and I danced a few dances with her. I also saw Niklas and Suzanne there — two of the folks from last weekend’s Sailsalsa after-party. After a while I saw that Janaki was there with some of her friends. We danced a bit, but after just a few dances, the D.J. started playing only reggaeton and disco music. We decided to try another club, Mojito, instead.

Mojito was packed, but not as crowded as the last time I was there. Plus, with the cooler weather, one could actually breathe. It wasn't a sauna this time, but it was still hot and sweaty. We danced until closing time. It's fun to dance at different clubs because each one has its own crowd. The crowd at Mojito is definitely Cuban and Central/South American: much more relaxed and easy-going than La Isla, but also a bit less serious about dancing.

Saturday I spent most of the day just lounging around and relaxing. I went outside for a while to take some photos of the flowers in Vibeka’s garden. I had mixed success because of the clouds that obscured the sun much of the afternoon.

In the evening I took the commuter train out to Johan K.’s parents’ place in Spånga for his 28th birthday party. I met some nice folks at the party, including Tennessee native and MIT graduate Katy, who moved to Stockholm two weeks ago to begin her post-doctorate work — something related to finance and mathematics. Inger and Eva also showed up after a while. It was through Inger (and Elias) that I met Johan three years ago. A few hours into the party, a bunch of folks went down to the basement playroom to compete in a dance-based video game. One plays by dancing around on a mat on the floor that's connected to the game machine (a Playstation 2). It was a lot of fun, and Johan’s sister was the best of all of us. I dind’t realize how late it was getting, and before I knew it, the time was after 3 in the morning. The trains had long since stopped running, so I called a cab to take me home. During the drive home I chatted with the friendly driver, a man from the Kurdish region of Iran who has lived in Sweden for 30 years. I finally got to bed around 4.

Sunday morning I was awakened around 9:30 by a phone call from Åsa B., reminding me that the “IBM Day” at Gröna Lund was about to begin. IBM reserved the amusement park between 10 in the morning and midday, and bought tickets for all of its Stockholm employees who wanted to come. I managed to make my way down to the entrance on Djurgården just after noon. Once inside the park, I met up with Åsa and Patric and went on a few rides with them. We rode the blue roller coaster and then rammed into one another in the bumper cars. Åsa and Patric had been in the park riding the rides since just after 10, so after those two rides, they went home. Left to amuse myself, I rode the roller coaster again, and then rode the fun catapult tower that shoots you up to the top of the tower (sort of like an inverted free-fall tower). It was quite cool outside, and after a while it started to rain. The cold weather and a slight hangover discouraged me from riding any more rides, so I took out my camera and started taking photos. I took a few photos of people and the rides; but mostly I photographed the park’s nice flower arrangements. I was reminded then that I had met a girl on the subway a few months ago who told me she worked maintaining the flowers and plants at Gröna Lund. I can't remember her name, but I do remember that she was friendly. The flowers were lovely, so she must be doing her job. I'll post some of those photos soon, by the way. I also met a fellow Nikon SLR owner (and soon-to-be Mac owner) who was there taking photos of her friends. Her pictures from today are already online, so you can take a look at them to see what the weather was like today.

After a couple of hours at Gröna Lund, I went down to Karbin for a bit of climbing. I had expected to see one friend there, but she never showed up. Instead though, I ran into lots of other friends, including Sara, Elin, Emma and Ewa. I wasn't really in top form, so instead of climbing intensely, I make more of an effort to get some good climbing photos. I went up to the top of the wall, tied in with a sling, and took a bunch of photos pointing down as my friends climbed up. With the help of a new friend named Joachim, I also got some photos of myself. Also climbing with us was another new friend named Jessica. She comes from Canada, and despite being relatively new to climbing is very good at it.

The rain was still coming down outside when I walked across the street to the bus stop. As I sat and waited for the bus to Liljeholmen, another fellow climbing walked up and sat down. We started talking and I learned that his named was Alexander. It turns out that he has an American fiancée and plans to move to Denver soon.

When I arrived home around nine P.M., The Bourne Supremacy was just starting on TV. I watched it on-and-off while answering emails and fixing dinner. That film is pretty good: better than the third, but not as good as the first.

Well, that’s it. That was my weekend. Lots of activities and very little sleep. Of corse spending half an hour writing a blog entry doesn’t help the balance of my sleep account very much, now does it? But what are you going to do? Over and out from Stockholm.

Boulder Open at Karbin

_MAL1188.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Friday the 31st of August was the last boulder open at Karbin and I'm just now getting around to posting the photos from the evening.

_MAL1317.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Here, Kjell tackles a tricky but fun black-graded problem. With his advice I also managed to complete it.

I wasn't climbing my best that night, and managed to complete only 18 out of 40 problems. I usually complete a few over 20. First of all, I was still recovering from a cold, so I wasn't really firing on all cylinders. Also, there were a lot of good climbers there. These days, folks are returning from their summer vacation, and with were more competitors, it's harder to place high in the rankings. I think the problems were pretty hard this time around too. I placed 16th, down a bit compared to my recent showings. All things considered though, I'm quite happy with my performance.

_MAL1400.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

After the competition, a bunch of climbers went to the Tre Vänner bar in nearby Midsommarkransen. There we had chips and drinks. Here I am with my climber friend Elin. Take a look at all 27 photos from the evening!

More lead-climbing at Salveo

_MAL2153.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Thursday evening I joined Matt, Lisa, Daniela and Robban at Salveo for a few hours of climbing. While there, we made some new friends named Stefan and Tina. In the photo above, Tina leads a fun 6a+ route. I tried it later on in the evening and really enjoyed it.

This was only my second time lead-climbing indoors. The toughest one I saved for last: a 6c that's just really pumpy at the end. The overhang is tricky and by the time you get there, you don't have much strength left. I had to rest on the rope a few times on the way up, but I finally made it to the top.

Tomorrow if the sun shines as currently forecasted, Matt & Lisa & I will return to Ekoberget for some more lovely outdoor bolted lead-climbing.

Here are the 29 photos I posted from last night's climbing.