Dave - Babble

Note that much of my babbling now happens in my Trip Reports.

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Catchup

The time lag between entries will indicate to the attentive reader the amount of attention I've paid to my website lately. Interesting things: I haven't climbed much lately, though I've had a few fun trips out on the ice over the last few months. In general, I've been doing less climbing and more running since moving to Boston last year; it seems like the appropriate way to adapt to the circumstances. Besides, it was a nice chance to run the Cape Cod Marathon in October. And a nice chance to overtrain and annoy my I-T band, from which I'm currently recovering. :-) Assuming recovery goes well, I'd like to run the Boston one of these years, but we'll see what happens.

Sun, Feb 21, 1999: Wow!

I got a phone call from Hari Balakrishnan at MIT the other day that mentioned that they've accepted me in to their graduate program. *dance*. I got a similar call from Dan Wallach at Rice mentioning the same.

This is happy. This is very, very happy. I even found some Climbers at MIT.

Climbing

It's been taking up most of my free time lately; hence, the lack of entries.

Tue, Oct 13, 1998: Toys!

I've finally realized that REI is the devil's personal emmisary on earth, sent to tempt me. I've also realized that I may as well give in. This is a good realization for me, because it meant that I got to go crazy at the REI Fall sale - which I did, with a vengeance. Needless to say, I'm now completely set for winter to do its worst (well, okay, I could still use some crampons, an ice axe, and some new thermals, but you can't have everything. :). I think my resolution for the winter is going to be the same as my resolution for this summer - not to spend more than 50% of my weekends in the city. This may be a harder goal, since I'm not as experienced at winter camping, but it'll be a great way to learn.

On a school note, I finally realized that I graduated in June, and withdrew from the class I was taking this semester. I'm happy about this - relaxing, having time to play and climb, and enjoying life suddenly seem more important than taking a class.

Friday, May 8, 1998: Appreciation

It's funny. I've lived in Utah my whole life - doing the requisite outdoor activities one would expect, but it seems like I've never really appreciated the outdoors here, until now. For some reason, this year is different..

I feel crazed with the urge to go play outside. I see mountains and I want to reach the top. Trails tempt me with the promise of undiscovered travels. Any excuse to get out and clamber about suffices.

And I'm not really sure why. Perhaps it's the knowledge that I'm leaving soon (in the year and a half sense). Perhaps it's simply that I've changed. Whatever it is, I like it.

These days, I wake up and wonder, "What new place will I find today?"

Friday, April 10, 1998: Mass Consumerism Makes the Seasons Change

The pseudo-spring we're experiencing right now (it's sunny, it's snowy, it's sunny, lather, rinse, repeat) is enticing me into temptation in a hopeful attempt to hurry the onset of spring-like weather through mass consumerism. I'm not sure that there's a necessarily causal relationship between buying stuff and the seasons changing, but at least it's kind of fun. To date, this includes a new pair of running shoes (christened and used tonight - tres cool), new sunglasses, and lots o' miscellany. Now about that new bike I've been thinking of...

School is going fairly well so far this quarter. I've taken a new goal upon myself - to clobber my compilers class - and so far it seems to be working out pretty well. I'm not sure that I'm really in to this compiler stuff, but it's fun.

Listening to Enigma in a darkened room is a good thing.

Monday, March 2, 1998: A new dream

A while ago, Jay (my boss. el boss-o. Jay runs the Flux research group where I work) asked us to come up with a list of goals and such for the next year, and I was thinking about it a bit tonight, and I've decided on a couple of goals for the next year, the most interesting of which is to:

My dream, for much of my older childhood, was ArosNet. I didn't realize it at the time, but my persistent idea of creating a huge BBS to connect people, etc., really did blossom into both my involvement with the Lower Lights, and then, when I actually had the ability (and the luck of falling in with excellent partners) to carry out my dream, into ArosNet. I believe that a dream is something that facilitates excellence, and without it, the best one can really achieve is "good", or some variation thereof. I need a passion, something I can focus on and dive into with the same passion I dove into ArosNet in the early years. (No, Aros doesn't hold that passion for me anymore. I believe it got wearied away by too much stress, and my not realizing that I was under too much stress. Ahh, youth. :-)

This obviously needs some thought, but I'm not really sure what the right process is to discover a dream. My dream is to find a dream? It doesn't sound right, because I'm not passionate about discovering a new dream, because I'm not really sure how to force something that's at its essense an intuitive/creative leap. I think that experience and play are the most likely candidates which will help me find what I'm looking for.

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