For those of you keeping track at home, I’ll be attempting my summit of Mt. Rainer this week. Here’s what it’s looking like.

• Saturday, Day 1: The Climbing School. On this day, you will be introduced to a number of skills, from the basic techniques of efficient mountain travel (rest-stepping and pressure breathing) through cramponing, roped travel, and ice axe arrest practices.
• Sunday/Monday, Days 2 & 3: The Summit Climb Beginning at 9:25am, the summit climb begins. It takes place over the course of two days. On the first day we hike to the hut at Camp Muir (10,060’), and on the second day we make the ascent of Mount Rainier (14,410’). The hike from Paradise to Camp Muir is nearly 4.5 miles and takes most of the day. The hike travels through alpine meadows and onto the Muir Snowfield, named after John Muir who climbed the peak in 1888. The Snowfield is climbed for some 3,000 vertical feet. Accomodations at Muir consist of a small mountain hut with bunks and sleeping pads. Early the following morning we don ropes, crampons, helmets, and grab our ice axes. Our route beings with a rising traverse across the Cowlitz Glacier, and ascends the steepening switchbacks of Cathedral Gap. This allows us to gain the Ingraham Glacier; one of the mountain’s largest and longest glacers. We then climb onto the steep ridge known as Disappointment Cleaver, the namesake and physical crux of our route. The remaining slopes and hours are whittled away as we zig and zag through the many crevasses of the upper mountain.

Thanks to all who have donated - I finally reached my goal yesterday and will be making a nice ~$5000 donation, with the help of Microsoft, to the Washington National Parks.

Climb on!

Well I just wrapped up the last day of the job today and I’m sitting in my corporate housing trying to pack up all my stuff. Oddly enough, I still won’t be back in Chicago for a while. I’m going up to Whistler this weekend to do some awesome downhill mountain biking, then it’s off to Vegas for a con. And then I’m back in Seattle to climb Rainier and a little downtime/recovery days after that and then off to somewhere else exotic! But only a few people know where that is. ;o)

For now - I must continue procrastinating my packing.

So I happened to mention to somebody that I was considering a new camera - my old Pentax S4I didn’t start up fast enough and there were often times when I would be taking a picture with a flash that it wouldn’t take the picture the first time. This somebody happened to mention that the Fuji F30 was a fantastic low-light camera. And being particularly frustrated with the lowlight quality of my S4I, I decided to just dive in and pick it up so I can get some pretty pictures for my Rainier climb.

So what’s the verdict you ask? As often is the case, words cannot adequately describe the difference. So here are a couple pictures taken with no flash - the first from my old S4I and the second from the new F30: f30/IMGP2942 f30/DSCF0008

Yea, those pictures speak for themselves. I have yet to dig into it, but this camera already amazes me with it’s great low-light capabilities! Unfortunately, however, it does not fit into an Altoid tin.

aka: 50ft to 10,188ft in 6 hours. aka: Your last chance to donate!

camp_muir_01/IMGP2920

This past Saturday, I did a training hike halfway up Rainier to Camp Muir in preparation for my coming attempt to summit Mt. Rainier on August 5-7. I figured it’d be good to have some idea of what to expect. I awoke at a moderately early 4am in my apartment in Seattle. After making some (what would be) delicious PB&J sandwiches for lunch, my colleague and I left the city and its near-sealevel altitude behind and embarked on the three hour drive to Paradise, in Mt. Rainier National Park.

Paradise is at approximately 5,000ft elevation and we hiked up to Camp Muir at 10,188ft. The first part of the hike (2.3 miles) is through subalpine meadows and on a well-established path. It’s steep, but no great challenge. After that, is the Muir snowfield - 2.2 miles, and 2,800 ft of elevation gain. Needless to say, that’s a bit of an incline…all on snow. It was a good hike, though, and I can’t wait to do it again in a couple weeks.

On the way back down, I partook in glissading, which is basically just sliding down the mountain. Makes the descent quite a bit easier!

After reading my mother’s post about my dancing (Thanks, Mom - I am having the time of my life!) I remember sitting there during the formal dinner just completely amazed at the spectacle of it all. There were 500+ dancers competing at the event this past weekend. During the formal dinner and in-between rounds of the professional competition (pro-comp), there was general dancing. Waltz, foxtrot, cha-cha, swing, hustle…all were played and each time hundreds of people would get onto the ballroom floor and get lost in the crowd. It was a huge ballroom, but even with all those people it was still extremely crowded. Everybody danced, and I even got the opportunity to “warm up” one of the finalists of the pro-comp with a waltz and foxtrot. What an honor! It really was an amazing weekend. And sitting in my office at work, despite the dual monitors, seems rather…boring to how I spent my weekend. I can’t help but think back to it every few minutes and smile.

Well if you saw my sister’s comment, you already know that my first Dance-O-Rama was a success! As you can see, my instructor and I took first place in my division for our solo routine in Tango. CostaMesa_DanceORama_2006/IMGP2899

What an awesome and amazing time I had. I arrived Thursday morning, but of course the rooms weren’t ready so that gave me some time to hit up the mall and the pool and relax for a little bit. Thursday night, dinner and a show were put on for those that arrived early.
Friday came early with a 7am breakfast and the competition beginning at 8am. This was the day of “closed” competitions, which meant you had to dance your school figures in variations. As mentioned before, I competed in Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, Salsa, Samba, Hustle, Merengue, Rumba, Swing, and Cha Cha. It was a bit nerve-racking, but I made it through the day without too many problems and had a great time. The main competition ended at 5pm, but there was still more to come. The all-around competition came just before dinner where you danced two dances, but they didn’t tell you what they were until you were out on the dance floor. Pretty nice rush. Then dinner, then the finals for the all-around (which I didn’t make…this time) and then a variety of other competitions until midnight. Then sleep for a bit. Saturday morning comes even earlier as I roll down to the 7am breakfast. The first bit of the day was my tango solo at 8:24am. I was completely psyched to do it and when I hit that last line, I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. That got me pumped up for the rest of the day which was the “open” competition, where I danced the same 10 dances as the day before, but I didn’t have to stay within school figures. This was a lot of fun and I made it my day to just enjoy myself and let loose a little bit. Apparently that included throwing out some steps I haven’t even learned yet. Again…this day went to 5pm, and then we had a formal dinner, awards ceremony, and the amateur and professional competitions. I sat pleasantly through the awards ceremony expecting nothing but to watch all the seasoned Dance-O-Rama veterans accept their awards. They were announcing the winner of the associate bronze solo routine and just in jest, I say out loud to my table in an announcers voice “Damon Cortesi”. Next thing I know, I’m hearing my name being announced as the first place winner! I was completely floored and couldn’t believe it. I nearly bowled over the judge that was presenting the award I was so excited.

So that was Costa Mesa Dance-O-Rama 2006 in a few short paragraphs. For now, I must return to my regularly scheduled 9-5 job as a computer security professional…until 5:30, that is…when I’ve got my next lesson on the dance floor!

Many thanks to the Bellevue, WA Arthur Murray studio, the many employees there who got me ready for this competition, the management that convinced me to go, and in particular my instructor who put up with my unending stream of nervous energy while in Costa Mesa. I cannot express how grateful I am to have had this opportunity both to experience such a competition as well as to work with such talented people. Thank you.

Stop. Breathe. Listen. Breate again. … Resume your daily routine.

Apologies in advancing for not posting in a while. As I previously mentioned I have been taking dance lessons for several months now. Soon after my graduation, I made the decision to participate in the upcoming Dance-o-Rama competition in Costa Mesa, CA. Since then, I have been taking no less than 5 lessons a week, sometimes 8. So between that, training for Rainier, working, and just living life…I’ve been a bit overwhelmed.

But the competition is this weekend. I will be dancing two dances each of Foxtrot, Waltz, Salsa, Samba, Tango, Hustle, Merengue, Rumba, Swing, and Cha Cha, as well as an awesome solo in Tango. So wish me luck in Costa Mesa, it should be a great time!

On another note, I’m a little nervous to go back to Chicago when this job is over. I’ve really extended myself out here (see above!) and have had a great time. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I’ve never really had a job that’s kept me in one place for four months at a time. So I’ve been able to take 5 lessons a week. I’ve been able to join a soccer team. I’ve been able to go rock climbing and hiking after work. I’ve been able to meet people and make friends and do things on a regular basis. And I really enjoy being able to do that. Just the ramblings of an East coast boy displaced to the other side of the country while currently living in the middle. Time to go practice some more. :-)

My mother posted today about where she has been for the 4th of July fireworks. My list is a little smaller compared to hers, but kind of interesting.

Many times at a soccer field where I grew up. Lime Rock State Park for a few times thereafter when fireworks got banned in my hometown after one went sideways into the bleachers and injured several people. Some park in Rochester during college with my girlfriend’s aunt and kids…I can’t remember what I did the other years.

And then Chicago… From the back of a taxi my first year there when I valiently tried to make it into the city to meet up with Lindsey and took the train - it was packed to the gills and late. Through the sunroof of my car from the side of lake shore drive where numerous other cars were pulled over with the girl of the hour. That was a pretty cool moment - standing up out of the sunroof pulled over on a fairly major road in Chicago. Down by navy pier with friends. Over by Millenium Park with YAG (yet another girl ;o) (this was probably the first time I ever had a good view of the fireworks, thanks to her).

And now, Seattle… The rooftop of a friend-of-a-friends condo in Belltown.

Tag you’re it - where have you spent your 4ths?

I use maildrop to do some of my filtering on my email, mostly with another domain that I used to get a lot of mailing list messages sent to. It’s also useful for filtering the results of various spam tools. In the past year, I started using a specific email address from this domain on certain sites where I wanted to use the dcortesi address, but didn’t want to put my main email on line. Ever since, I’ve been receiving nearly 50 spam emails a day. iMail on my mac does a good job of filtering those out, but I frequently access my email using other means including webmail and from my phone where iMail has no effect. So I needed a server-side solution, and decided to use my current maildrop setup. The only problem was I needed to forward mail from one domain to the other and then back again as maildrop is just set up for a specific user on my other domain. Once I did that, though, it was a piece of cake to filter out the cruft:

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if ( hasaddr(spam_catching_email@) )
        if (/^X-Spam-Flag: YES/)
                to Mail/webd_spam
        else
                to "!my_real_email@"

Cool - now my phone/webmail inbox is a lot cleaner. :)

Sometimes you catch life, and other times life catches up to you. Such was the case the other morning after a couple late nights out. I got up, got dressed and went to work. Then, as I was changing into my shoes at a lesson that evening, one of the instructors looked at me and said “Damon, are you wearing two different socks?”

And so I was.

At least it wasn’t as bad as the time I wore two different shoes to work and didn’t even notice until the end of the day when somebody pointed it out to me. The funny thing was that as I was putting on my second sock that morning, I actually double-checked(!!) and thought to myself, wouldn’t that be funny if I put on two different socks.

sigh

Perhaps I need to slow down a little bit…