Projects Sent

Stacey and I had a great 3 day weekend of climbing this past Friday through Sunday in Little River Canyon, AL. We both have been working on a couple climbs and sent both of them on the same day. I sent a route called Hooligans (13b) and Stace sent Outpatient (11d). I had put a lot of days into Hooligans and was very happy to complete this climb. It's a very short and steep powerful climb (only 5 bolts long), but it packs a lot of power into that 40 ft. Stace sent her climb first try on Sunday, and made it look very easy, unlike me.

Unfortunately, we don't have any pics of the climbs, but here is picture of the Concave where my route is found. Hooligans climbs out the far right side of this cave. The climber in the picture below is on the left most route called The Word (13a), a route I sent a few months ago.


For all of you waiting to see a wall update, sorry for the delay, but I haven't received any of my holds yet from ETCH climbing. As soon as they get her, I'll post pictures of our new gym.

Sick again

I'm sick again, I don't if it's a cold, the regular flu, or the swine flu. This the second time I've been sick though in a month and it's starting to really p#ss me off. I had to take a half day at work today cause I couldn't keep up with a bunch of 3rd graders. Freakn' pathethic.

Well done Marathon Man!

My dad ran the New York Marathon today.
Very impressive. I hope I can say I've run it someday.
Oh and Happy 29th birthday sis.

Famous Birthdays!

With many of my family members birthdays taking place at this time of the year, I thought it only appropriate to post other famous people who share the same birthdays. I picked my favorites.
If you're interested in finding out how I learned all this you can find out here.

Date and Family Member : Famous Person with your Birthday
Sep. 20th - Robert Blackford --Dr. Joyce Brothers
Oct. 12th - Kate Blackford -- Kirk Cameroon
Oct. 23rd - Meredith Spivey -- Weird Al Yankovic
Oct. 25th - Preston Blackford -- Bobby Knight
Nov. 1st - Mary Prosser/Jack Spivey III -- Jenny McCarthy
Nov. 17th - Stacey Spivey Blackford -- Danny Devito
Dec. 29th - Stacey Hamilton Blackford -- Jude Law
Jan. 7th - Bob Blackford -- Millard Fillmore (13th Pres. of USA -Last member of
the whig party and only President for 3 years, also actually never elected by the people)
Feb. 13th - Aidai Ashrbaieva -- Jerry Springer
March 8th - Me -- James Van Der Beek (Dawson of Dawson's Creek)
April 4th - Anne Blackford -- Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates from "Pyscho" the movie)
July 8th - Derek Prosser -- Kevin Bacon

As far as the other Spiveys go, there are just too many of you for the list.

Wall Update Number 1!

Well, Stacey and I are very happy rock climbers at the moment (despite Stacey having a really bad head cold). Today, the two guys I hired to build my climbing wall finished the initial construction of the structure and layout of our home climbing gym.

It's one of the coolest looking bouldering walls I have seen, and exactly what I had in mind. It's also right downstairs in my garage. My only complaint is that it might be too steep (overhung) for a little skinny weakling like me, but hey, that's my own fault because I asked for it to be built this way. Another reason the wall is so steep is because the garage is only nine feet tall so the angles had to be between 50 and 70 degrees overhung in order for it to be a good training wall. Needless to say, it will definitely make me and Stacey much stronger climbers and hopefully get me closer to achieving the ever elusive one arm pull-up (actually I'll never be able to do one of those no matter how much I climb on this new wall).

Next week, the guys will put up the plywood paneling, and then the wall will be ready to have the holds put on. Climbing holds aren't cheap though, so it will take some time for us to cover the wall completely. In the end I'm hoping the wall will be completely covered in holds of all sizes and shapes, so that I can try any type of movement feasible.

Here are the pictures of the wall so far. It runs the entire length of the garage.
(If you're wondering about the mattress in the pics, it's the first of many I plan to collect so that when you fall off, you come down onto a plus little pillow top.)

View from the garage door opening:
View from the garage stairwell:
Side view one (it's really steep huh!):
Side view two (from the other side):
The view from looking at it straight forwards:
A shot from the middle looking out toward the end:
We're very excited to say the least, and I'm sure many of you, (especially those of you that aren't climbers), must think we're a bit crazy for building this in our basement, but instead of building a media room with a movie theater type set up or a gaming room with a pool table, foosball table and even a ping-pong table we went with this.

First Vacation pictures!

Stacey and I had a wonderful trip to Colorado and South Dakota. We went climbing at a relatively unknown place near Mt. Rushmore called Victoria Canyon and met some great people from Rapid City, SD. From the time we spent there, I've decided that South Dakota might be my next home. The Black Hills of SD are a hidden gem of this country and great place to visit whether you're an outdoor enthusiast or someone who just likes visiting new places.We were there at the perfect time of year as well since all of the Aspens were changing color. We also spent a few days in Fort Collins, CO climbing and staying with my friend Ben and his wife Sue.

Here are some of the photos from the trip:

Rushmore
Stacey getting close to the Bison on the Prairie:
Stacey sampling all the beers at my favorite place in the world--The Odell's Brewery Tap Room
Me on a climb called Black Streak 5.12d/13a in the Poudre Canyon outside Fort Collins
I'll post some more pictures from our trip soon.

Vacation Colorado and South Dakota

I'm on vacation in Colorado again, and Stacey is flying in tomorrow.  We plan to drive up to the Black Hills of South Dakota and do some climbing and sight seeing.  Fall is just beginning hear and seeing the Aspens change is beautiful.  I'll post pictures and news about our trip when we get back home.