Insomnia Hat

October 29th, 2009

I call my most recent knitting accomplishment my insomnia hat.  After some difficulty falling asleep, I decided to knit a couple rows on this hat every night before going to bed.  It helped a lot, and now I have an awesome hat.  I picked the yarn to match my favorite scarf-- a plaid cashmere that my grandma gave me for Christmas.  I also modified the pattern to add a button flap on the side.  Find the super-simple pattern here, and my project on Ravelry.

Book Doctor

If there's one thing my new job has taught me, it's that you really can judge a book by its cover.  I work in the basement of Olin Library repairing books that come in damaged from circulation.  In this workshop, all the restoration of rare manuscripts and obscure texts takes place, but not by a new student employee like me-- I'm working up to it.

So far, my work has included taking books after they go through the "cleaning" process, which is basically where the covers and spines are separated.  It's my job to reinforce the "text block" (the chunk of pages without the covers and spine) by drilling and stitching it, then gluing on a spine liner.

As I add the covers back on, using linens to secure them to the text block, the book starts to come back together.

Next I choose a color of buckrum (the thick durable sheets we use to reinforce the spine) and apply it to the outside.  Finally, I trim what's left of the spine label and glue it on top of the buckrum.  The reconstructed book looks something like this:

This is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the thickest book I have repaired to date.  I've also repaired such well-known titles as the Jungle Book and such obscure things as math texts in some unrecognizable script and fine arts books on gardens western Europe in the 18th century.  The amazing part about the obscure books is that since all the books I repair come out of circulation, someone has actually just checked out every book I get.

I've come to identify books based on the type of wear and tear they get.  Because the spine label is the last step of the process, I can go through almost the whole repair without knowing the title of the book.  I've discovered that I can tell the genre before reading the title based on the "shoulders" of the book (the place where the covers open out).  Books read cover to cover (novels) have deep shoulders at the front and back, while non-fiction books tend to have a deep shoulder in the front and almost no shoulder in the back, indicating that they are opened most often near the front.  I thought I had found a flaw in this theory once when I worked on a book that had a deep shoulder only in the back.  As it turned out, this was a math text book with an answer key at the back, so of course it made perfect sense that people often opened it to the back.  Ah, what you can learn from books.

Urban/Rural Camping Adventure

October 10th-11th, 2009

Buttermilk Falls, Ithaca, NY

With no good form of transportation, Illika and I decided to camp at Buttermilk Falls as a little getaway.  After much hassling and irritated looks, we managed to get there by bus with all our 

Illika, laden with stuff at the bus stop

baggage.  A further hike brought us from the base of the falls to the actual campsites, which we grossly overpaid for (ah well, what can you do).

The waterfall is really quite pretty, especially with all the fall color peeking out.

The hike within the park was quite pretty, full of little streams and views of the colorful foliage.

The one not-so-pretty part of the walk: we were disappointingly close to civilization.  Hello, Home Depot.

We built a lovely fire and roasted some surprisingly delicious hotdogs, as well as the obligatory marshmallows.  Then, very well bundled up, we crawled in to hammocks to brave out the night's 35 degree low.  I ended up amazingly comfortable and toasty all night long, and Illika's only complaint was cold toes-- the perpetual problem in chilly weather.

Our view waking up.  So refreshing.

Illika all cocooned in her sleeping bag

My very useful hat!

The next day, after a bit of an adventure navigating our way back with the unreliable buses, we returned home safe and sound.

The rural half of the trek back...

...and the urban half.  Much less pretty.

Fall Garba

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Ithaca, NY

Illika took Tahra, Hillary, Melissa and I out for Fall Garba, a Hindi festival celebrating harvest season.  Although, when Illika was asked to explain the exact reasons for this dance celebration, she mostly responded that Indians just really like their festivals, and that at any given time of the year there's some sort of celebration happening that warrants a large dance party.

Illika, of course, was far more decked out than we were in a full traditional outfit, while we just borrowed shirts.

So, once Illika had provided the proper attire, we set out to learn some hindi dance moves.  For this event, the dances were large group dances, not partners.  There were some dances where each person had a pair of sticks and clacked them together, or on someone else's, or on the floor as part of each dance move.  There were also a lot of dances of large groups of people doing the same jump, skip, or spin steps around in a circle.  One dance was remarkably similar to the electric slide.

In spite of us being in an extreme minority of non-Indian people, it was a really fun and interesting experience.  Plus, they provided some awesome Indian food.

Tree Climbing, Fall 09

Day -1: Monkey Run Rigging

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Monkey Run, Ithaca, NY

The preparation for our first tree class is supposed to be the easiest of all the riggings for the whole course.  Unfortunately, all did not go as planned.

Julien, Lilian, and Rob lead climbed the two trees at Monkey run, with Evelyn, Sean, and myself belaying.  After Lilian placed the anchor in the tree we were working on, I decided to climb to check the anchor out, but mostly just for kicks.  I started to climb, then, while making a reach with my right hand, said something like, "Oh good, and this is my bad shoulder."  Cue dislocation number two.

Lilian lowered me down, and we all made our way very slowly back to the vehicles, me in a makeshift webbing sling.  Then on to Cayuga Medical Center, where I got some funny looks from forgetting to take off my harness... oops.  Several hours of waiting, some x-rays, and a big dose of morphine later, my arm was properly back in its socket.

Day 1: Hand over Hand

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Monkey Run, Ithaca, NY

Once again, as is the curse of day 1, we climbed in the rain.  I also had the privilege of teaching with one arm, as the other was still in a sling.  All in all though, it was a great day.  Our students showed excellent enthusiasm, despite the weather, and a genuine interest in what we were doing.  Always a good sign.

A couple of students working their way up a sycamore

Melissa and Katrina, smiling in spite of the rain

Day 2: First Ascensions

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Fischer Woods, Ithaca, NY

This is one of the busiest days of class, with a lot to learn.  Once again, our students  showed a lot of interest in the knots and the methods involved, and (obviously) loved playing with the big shot.  We had one little freak-out moment when a VERY large branch somewhere nearby broke off with a VERY loud crack, then came crashing to the floor.  Luckily, no one was near by.  It made our students a little nervous, because the branch was healthy and green, so we took it as a teachable moment to talk about tree selection and safety procedures.

Day 3: Big Tree Day

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Hoffman Challenge Course, Varna, NY

We had some issues rigging for this day, but eventually we had no problem getting everyone up and hanging out in some really tall trees.  Everyone except me, that is, who got to play ground crew thanks to my still not very functional shoulder.  Julien, Dana, and Evelyn got to try out the new tree saddles, which they were very thankful for after a lot of time literally hanging out.

Day 4: Motion Lanyards

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Stuart Park, Ithaca, NY

This was our first time trying motion lanyarding with all the students at once.  Thanks to some donations to the tree climbing program, we now have enough motion lanyards for the whole class, so we decided to give it a shot.  Everyone really loved this method, since it allows for some real tree climbing instead of rope climbing.  It was great (and a little nerve wracking) to see everyone getting off the ground and moving around independently.  Motion lanyards are a complicated system, with a lot of knots and hitches to tend, but I think the way we ran the lesson made it a manageable and safe situation for the students.

The sycamores at Stuart park have great canopies for climbing

There were a lot of people (and ropes) hanging from the trees, which made for some interesting interaction with the normal park-goers-- one guy who saw us as he walked past is now planning to take the spring tree climbing course.

Once they got the hang of it, the students made it up quite high in the trees

Dana, instructing from the ground

Apparently there are train tracks RIGHT next to Stuart park-- when the whistle blew, it was so loud that everyone about jumped out of their skin.

Overnight-- Oh wait...

We sadly had to call off our overnight, thanks to cold, rainy weather, much to the disappointment of our students.  I'm beginning to think I'm cursed as an instructor-- this is the second overnight I've had to call off.

Us Friday Tree instructors made up for our loss by pranking Saturday Tree's overnight.  They had perfect, beautiful weather, so we thought they deserved a little mayhem, involving some late-night surprise guests and a bear costume.

Tree Staff Training, Fall 09

Day 1: Alternate Ascension and Motion Lanyards

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Hoffman Challenge Course, Dryden, NY

Before tree staff training, an email went out to all COE instructors from Mark (head of tree climbing) saying:

"I have received a number of requests from folks about attending the Fall 09 Tree Staff Training.  If you are interested in learning to tree climb, the best thing to do is to take the class.  If you are interested in teaching tree climbing, either PE classes, camps, or private lessons, you should come to the training."

Apparently, lots of people wanted to come to the training just to try it out.   We ended up with 17 people coming, which is only really shocking if you know that basically the entire tree staff consists of 8 people.

To accommodate the large number, we split into groups of more- and less-experienced tree climbers.  My group went with Keith, one of the original pioneers of tree climbing, to the platform that we use for the tree overnight.  Here, we played around with the yo-yo, frog, and unicender methods of climbing, rather than our usual Texas kick.  These basically just involved different pieces of equipment, with each methods having its own pros and cons.  I tried the yo-yo method, which involves using a gri-gri.  Lots of people enjoy this method, but I found it irritating.

Sarah, one of the instructors this year, getting set on her motion lanyard.

After ascending, we used our motion lanyards to rig the platform tree with some hammocks for those at the training who were spending the night.  Me and some others who had already slept in the platform several times bowed out so that the tree could accommodate all those who wanted to try it.

Lilian, another co-instructor, rigging hammocks

Day 2: Rescue Scenarios

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

HCC, Dryden, NY

For breakfast, we met up with those who had spent the night in the tree.  Then we split back into our groups, with my group going to the platform tree again.  Our morning wake up was a race using gri-gri direct aid, a method that allows you to lead climb a tree with no branches on it.  After that, we all headed up to the platform again.

Today, I got my chance to try the unicender.  This very unique piece of equipment is the brain child of Morgan, a friend of marks who is both a tree climber and a machinist in his spare time.  He developed the idea for this piece of gear that would allow you to go up and down easily and auto-lock, and that can be used to ascend or in a motion lanyard.  Once he had the idea, he hand machined all the parts himself, resulting in a very limited number of very expensive pieces of equipment.  I found it very convenient to ascend on, as it is auto-advancing.  I also enjoyed the new foot locking method that I learned from someone else at the staff training who spent a lot of time as a canopy photographer in Costa Rica.

Ascending under the platform on another beautiful day

We ran through some rescue scenarios while on the platform-- what happens if a student get knocked unconscious and rolls off the platform durning the overnight?  After successfully saving the helpless student with a haul system, we wrapped up for the day.  On the way down, I asked if we could test out our evacuation drill, which involves trying to lower several people at once.  In theory, this is a very safe and easy method.  In practice, I'm glad we tried it out.  I was one of the people being lowered, and it was more nerve-wracking than I thought it would be.  It was hard to get us all off the platform together, and once we did, all the extra weight on the rope made the tree groan.  However, the person on the ground lowering us had no trouble with the added weight, and we all got down safe and sound (after they suspended us in mid-air to take some pictures-- we looked pretty silly.)

Kayak Rolling Clinic

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Bebe Lake, Ithaca, NY

Bebe lake, with a crane sitting on the edge of the waterfall.

After my little adventure with sea kayaking at fall all-staff training, I managed to convince some of my friends to come to a clinic with the cornell outing club.  This meant an evening paddling around Bebe lake, then practicing some of the same rolling exercises I had learned before.  We used white water kayaks this time, which I found much harder to steer in a straight line.

Between the spray skirt and the helmet, kayaking outfits rank among the most stylish of anything I've worn.

As we packed in our kayaks, the moon rose up big and beautiful.