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At the moment, the plan is to go out there and climb with some climbing buddies that I used to climb with in New Mexico and Colorado. However, I might also sign up for one of the many good mountaineering courses offered in that area.

While I’m a half-decent rock climber, I’ve not done very much ice or snow (I’ve lead on rock, but not on ice or snow). And I do not have much experience doing technical snow and ice climbing, glacier travel or such things as crevasse rescue. So, I figured that the best way to learn this stuff is either to go out there and climb with folks that know such things, and take some mountaineering courses where you get to do these things.

Right now, I’m looking at Alpine Ascents International — they have an eight day intermediate mountaineering course, as well as a 12 day comprehensive mountaineering course, both in Alaska. As for the Cascades, they have a 13 day course and another interesting one aimed at preparation for climbing Denali.

Apart from the training, the 13 day course at the Cascades aims to summit some of these peaks — Mt. Shuksan, Twin Sisters, Forbidden, El Dorado Peak, Torment, Buckner, Logan, Sloan Peak and Glacier Peak. On the other hand, the 12 day course at Alaska aims to summit these peaks — Control Tower, Mt. Frances, Mt. Crosson, Kahiltna Dome and Point Ferene.

Although I’ve summitted peaks that are at least 2,000 feet more than the tallest in those two lists, those have been technical rock routes. I’ve not really done a lot of snow, ice or mixed climbing, so it would be interesting to see how well I do in comparison.

The other peaks that you could try for include Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, Mt. Daniel, Sahale Peak — and of course — Denali itself, which I would like to try before 2010. Ideally, I’d like to hit at least one each of the 15, 16, 17 and 18ers in the Alaska Range before the end of 2008.

The other problem is one of weather — the only good season to climb is from mid April through Mid June, which is a particularly small window to do any climbing. And of course, there is the small problem of equipment — a good mountaineering boot or Gore-Tex suit can be so very expensive that I’m going to have to save a grand every month to buy my equipment. Even if I rented out most of the stuff, I would still need to spend a significant chunk on some equipment (no use in renting it every time, when you are likely to be using it often).

But, either way, my tentative schedule is probably to depart around mid/end May and return after 2+ weeks in the mountains. I do know from the emails that some of my climbing friends (well, not these kind) read my blog. And of course, The Cydonian and I have been trying to talk about climbing either Mt. Fuji or Kilimanjaro.

So, if anyone is interested in joining me, do drop me a line.

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Faucet off, with no water flowing.

Faucet on, with water flowing from the tap.

Do you see the picture above? Good, now, turning on the big knob gets the water flowing. Wonderful. This is great for taking a bath. But how do I get the water flowing to the top?

Now, while I’m not a blindingly insightful and brilliant genius, I’m not particularly dumb either, I think. But honest to God, I was baffled. How the hell do I stop the water flowing out of the tap and make it flow out of the shower. How on Earth do I take a goddamn shower?

So, on my very first day, I took a bath. Oh, it was far from unpleasant, but can you imagine waking up every morning and waiting for your tub to fill so that you can take a bath? Do you even have any idea how girly that sounds?!

*shudder*

Finally, I gave up. One of my friends had come home and we got talking — and I told her about my troubles with the shower. Her first reaction, of course, was to burst out laughing, much to my dismay. Of course, when she saw the faucet, she was baffled too.

And in the end, we figured it out. Mind you — this took two people, with at least 4 (on the way to 5) degrees between us to figure out. Bad usability!

So, how do we turn the shower on? Oh, it’s very simple, really.

Faucet in default position only turns the tap on.

Once the tap is turned on, pulling this will turn on the shower.

Faucet in the first position will just run the tap. And once the tap is running, pulling down a tiny little thing at the mouth will shut off supply to the tap and turn on the shower instead.

Of course, nobody reads the manual, and I had completely missed a note that was very kindly placed on my table by the house maintenance folks that explained how to turn on the shower. Complete with a diagram, explaining the operation in detail. The only thing missing, of course, was a note of apology for having used such a retarded piece of equipment.

Very usable. The idiot who designed this probably won an award, even.

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At the outset, it seems simple enough — a simple mounted helicopter with a set of levers and a rotor controlled by a motor. However, this simple toy can be a lot more entertaining than you’d think.

Simple but fun toy chopper.

As for the controls, you have two — one for pitch and the other for throttle. Basically, the pitch control changes the angle of the blades, and consequently changes the direction of flight. Push it up and it goes forward, pull it down and it goes back. The throttle, on the other hand, controls the amount of power that goes to the chopper rotor. Pulling it down gives it more power and pushing it up gives it less power. Pulling the throttle all the way down also causes a rise in altitude of the chopper.

Intuitive controls.

Flying with minimal throttle and very little pitch.

Chopper rising.

Of course, sometimes, the simple things are the most fun. This toy is an excellent example — your first thought would be, okay, so it can do all this. What next? Well, the thing is, these two simple controls can be used in infinite combinations to do the weirdest of things.

For instance, quickly alternating the pitch causes the chopper to jump.

Jumpy chopper.

And doing the same for the throttle while keeping a constant pitch can cause it to act wavy.

Chopper on a wavy trajectory.

There are also two tiny “cargoes” that you can try lifting with the chopper — coupled with what this thing can already do, adding weight makes it more “acrobatic”, so to speak. And do not make the mistake of keeping it on your desk, because you will be tempted to lift every other thing with the chopper.

At the end of the day, a lot of good fun and a great toy! These things are made by Jasman Toys, and more details about them can be found at the Command Force Toys website.

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Of the places that we visited, the first one was a wonderful French restaurant called Jeanro, located in downtown Cincinnati. They have some wonderful food, and their poached pear desserts are simply fabulous. Apparently, so are their pork chops, dipped in apple sauce. For the vegetarians, there is a fantastic vegetable platter that’s made with sauteed vegetables thinly layered with cheese. Their steamed green-beans sides are awesome, too.

The only sad/funny thing during this whole exercise was an old couple sitting right by us making out. While we were eating. You have no idea how disturbing that is. On the bright side, the waitress was awesome and she joined us in making fun of them — obviously, she gets enough in tips to not worry about some impolite old couple (what made it worse was the fact that the woman was French and was talking about her husband while making out with this random old dude). Delana found it funny because she could look away, I found it icky because I could not.

No, I assure you that we were not on a train.

The next fun place that we went out to eat at was an Italian restaurant called Prima Vista. The best part about Prima Vista is the view — the place provides you with a wonderful aerial view of Cincinnati, the Ohio River and the stadiums in downtown.

They have some good food, but what I loved the most about the place (other than the view) was this fun drink called Bellini, made out of Peach Schnapps and champagne. It was quite nice, and the only thing better than the drink was the view.

Apparently, something is very funny.
(someone called this picture Beauty & the Beast)

She elbowed me!

The idea of this picture is to make me look like a stud, but the truth is that I’m between the devil and the deep sea — my girlfriend and my best friend on either side. One is in the military and is totally awesome, and the other wins martial arts tournaments.

The other fun place that we ate out at was Morton’s Steakhouse, which has some of the best steak in the country. However, even if you are a vegetarian, they have some nice veggie stuff — their salads and steamed vegetable platter are quite delicious. Unfortunately, they did not have any good wine — we both usually prefer a good Riesling (or a good Chardonnay), but we found them to be too dry for either of our tastes at Morton’s. But their steak is apparently extremely delicious and very tasty (if you are into that kind of thing).

Now, the best part about Morton’s is their dessert. Lana loved their Crème Brûlée, while I thought that their raspberries and cream were the best I’ve ever had. Their creams have actual vanilla beans, which makes it particularly tasty and very smooth. Great salads, great steak and even better desserts.

And finally, on to the medieval times. The Ohio Renaissance Festival has been going on, and a bunch of us decided to go ahead and live it up. Rebecca and Delana dressed up for the occasion in some fancy clothes, which made them look awesome.

Karthik and Delana at the Renaissance Festival.

We went with a couple of kids that we’ve been trying to help through Habitat for Humanity and AJ and Shriram joined us at the festival. The festival was loads of fun; they had an entire village-like setting straight out of the medieval times. They also had a castle and lots of artists and artisans with their stuff.

There were weapons-makers with a lot of really cool weapons — axes, lances, swords of every kind you can imagine, shields, bows and arrows, chain mail, armour, helms and helmets, lances, truncheons and weapons whose names I cannot be bothered to remember now. And there were artists, jewellers, sculptors and all kinds of other artists and craftsmen.

Delana got some Mehndi done on her hand, which was extremely pretty. She also got herself a nice-looking tiara, that was really cool (and made her look totally gorgeous).

Mehndi on Delana’s hand.

I got to have some wonderful mead that was most definitely the best drink I’ve ever had in my life. And of course, Delana went ahead and got herself a Turkey leg and we had some tasty Apple dumplings (I know, mouth watering, isn’t it? You see, we have a deal — she has all the meat and I’ve all the vegetables, and we’re both happy! :)).

We also saw a really interesting jousting tournament, complete with folks dressed up as knights in armour. They rode horses and quite literally tried to throw off each other using lances — honestly, it was awesome to look at but scary to think of being subjected to.

Knight in armour on horse, with a lance for the jousting tournament.

Two knights at it for the jousting tournament.

We then stumbled upon some wonderful paintings by an artist called Lawrence A. Williams. We purchased some of his matted prints, one each of Arthur and Guinevere, one of a beautiful Mermaid and another of an armoured knight slaying a dragon. His work was so good that we ended up going online and ordering his rendering of Morgan Le Fey.

Arthur B&W by L.A. Williams.

Guinevere B&W by L.A. Williams.

Morgan Le Fey B&W by L.A. Williams.

The Calling by L.A. Williams.

The Black Knight L.A. Williams.

And finally, I got myself a couple of nice banners — one of a Griffin set on a red background with a green tail and another of a Welsh Dragon set on a maroon background.

They look quite delightful, and are presently adorning my living room and bedroom respectively.

Griffin Banner.

Dragon Banner.

At the end of it all, it was quite wonderful — and although I was quite sad to see the lass leave, we had a wonderful time! Now, on to my boring, drab life.

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