Date: April 30th, 2009
First off, some poetry. I’m normally not a big poetry fan, but have a listen to this. I think it’s pretty good writing about living a risky life. If that link doesn’t highlight Nanci Lee’s poem then scroll down to listen to her Icarus poem. Yeah Icarus! I heard Nanci Lee perform it on satellite radio while driving back from Jasper, it actually got me fired up to listen to it again. I haven’t listened to any of the other poems on that page, one good success with poetry is a good day for me.
Here in the Rockies spring showed promise, then utterly failed to get the sprung part done. In fact, I think it’s still frozen in place. If I were a poet looking for an image of spring I might say that spring this year is a returning robin who died when the water in the bird bath froze fast around his legs while he drank. Good thing I’m not a poet, but spring is ugly in the Rockies this year.
I’m stuck between seasons right now, and not liking it. I love training, but it’s unclear what to train for at the moment–there is a civil war going on for my summer plan. Climbing, flying, kayaking, the factions are armed and fighting fiercely for their agendas. There’s a river up north, an ocean to fly over, a mountain range to climb. I’d like to do all three trips, but each idea is a battle that will will be won after some mental blood is spilled. The crux of trip planning is not how much of what goes where but developing the “why” of the trip, the seed of an idea that grows into something so big and cool that it sweeps you along in its wake. I’ve always done trips that I basically thought would be cool to do, and then planned the logistics from there. Maybe that’s just a short local ski tour, or a longer trip to a foreign country, but the idea is always, “Wouldn’t it be fun to…” Spring normally sets some of those plans in motion, but the ice climbing is still better than the rock climbing, and the rivers have more ice than water in ’em.
I’ve had some fun getting the “hype”, also known as PR, part of my life re-sorted. Th new demo reel is finally done, and after a long battle a new website (after dealing with several “designers” I got annoyed and put up something basic at www.willgadd.com, I’ll refine that more but good enough for now). If anyone knows a web person who doesn’t need to work with a designer, a coder, some proprietary BS software, a gaggle of elves and a blank checkbook to produce a solid site please drop me a private email, but I’m bitter on the subject at the moment and my interview process with any “web designer” will be confrontational and likely short. I did my first web sites back in the early nineties, on Frontpage. “Professionals” absolutely hated that program, maybe because it did as good a job as they could at the time, but it worked. Apple’s latest offering, iWeb, is several years behind where Frontpage was in about, oh, ’98. I used a pirated version of Dreamweaver for Gravsports.com, and rely on a friend I work with to do gravsports-ice.com. I’ve decided pirating software is lame, so I spent four hours yesterday downloading Rapidweaver, Komposer and several others with the hope that they would work half as well as Dreamweaver. I fired each program, they all suck compared to Frontpage ’97… Anyhow, I’m getting well off topic. I used iWeb for willgadd.com, it does work but is a typical Apple consumer product in that it only wants to do what it wants to do, not what I want it to do. I like Apple’s “pro” products (Keynote, Final Cut Studio, Aperture) but iLife drives me nuts, I know iWeb is headed to the same garbage can as iPhoto, Garbage Band and the rest of the junk in iLife.
Anyhow, it’s time to go hike up a big hill as fast as I can, that usually improves my attitude and fitness level. I hope spring has sprung where you are, ’cause it’s late to the party here.
Posted in: Blog
Date: April 16th, 2009
My friends Scott Simper, EJ Plimley, and I shot some video when we climbed Hunlen Falls in Tweedsmuir provincial park. Discovery’s Daily Planet decided to do a six-minute piece with the footage. I selected some footage and sent it over, they cut a really nice six-minute piece–click here to check it out!
Doing climbing shows for television can be a risky business; there are a few small liberties taken with the footage and climbing, but overall I’m really happy with it as I think it shows the experience we had accurately–fun, a little dangerous, and in an amazing place with good people! Thanks to the crew at Discovery for doing a good job with a subject I really care about it.
WG
Posted in: Blog
Date: April 6th, 2009
My friend Shane recently hucked and it didn’t work out. I’ve had a real down week thinking about his death and so many others over the years. I smile when I think about Shane (I don’t think anyone who ever hung out with him for more than 20 minutes doesn’t smile when thinking about Shane), but the aftermath for his family must be rough. Shane wasn’t a super-tight friend, but we did some cool stuff together over the years through Red Bull, and had some ideas for trips in the future. I’m damn sorry it didn’t work out for him, not because he died, we all die, but yet again for his family (wife and young kid).
Posted in: Blog
