.I have tried to update this thing a few times this summer, as I have traveled far and wide, taken thousands of photos, and done a fair amount of climbing. Every time I try to post, it seems that uploading large photos makes blogger crash on my slow connection, so I then get frustrated and don't post. But inasmuch as it has been like four months since I posted, I figured I should.

Here's what I've been up to:

May: Finished the semester on the 4th. I started the summer with a week-long trip to the Grand Canyon and Zion with my close friend and fraternity brother Zac Feltoon. Here are some photos (of the hundreds I took).










roadside bouldering





Upon returning from that trip with Zac, I headed to Israel on a Taglit Birthright trip. I saw a ton of the country with a great group of now close friends. Check out some of the pics:






Yes climbers, that limestone is of very good quality.

And THIS is why Israel can never give up the Golan.


Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

June: After our Birthright trip ended in early June, I extended my stay for an additional ten days and spent the time in Tel Aviv and doing even more traveling around Israel. Here are a couple pics from that leg of the trip.






After returning to New York I headed to Vegas, spent a few days in LA, and then close to a week in Bakersfield with my grandfather. Almost as soon as I got back to Vegas Maya joined me (after working in New York for a bit) and after just a couple of days I drove her to LA and spent a few more days there.

July: That's right, more traveling. Waaaaah? After chilling in Vegas and climbing at Mt Charleston for a little bit, Maya and I met up in Idyllwild, California and visited the summer camp for the arts where we met years ago and hung with our old teachers, John Brosio and Richard Godfrey. I even got in a couple short afternoon bouldering sessions in the Idyllwild area:


After returning to Vegas from Idyllwild I only had a couple days to play around with ... er carefully babysit my brother's 2006 Subaru WRX wagon (someone else's) before heading to Richmond, VA for a Kappa Sigma leadership conference. by the end of that I was certainly ready to do some rock climbing for a bit

August: After Leadership Conference Maya came to Vegas for a few days and I only had a little time to climb before heading up to the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City, UT (august 7 - 11), where I spent much of the time fielding questions at the Evolv booth and got to see a bunch of climbing friends from far and wide that I hadn't seen in a while: Susanica Tam, Brett Ashton, Buck, Fish, Paul, Daniel, Laura, and many others, as well as meet some new people in the industry/community, many of whom I would now call friends. Bouldered one afternoon with the entire Evolv posse at Little Cottonwood Canyon, and had a generally great time staying with this guy Mike Imperiale at his home in SLC. Since then I have sent a 13a at Charleston called the Energizer, spent a few days in LA to return my brother's car to my dad's garage, broken down in my 88 Sentra on the side of the I-15, and climbed a little with Susanica up at Mt Charleston.

I fly back to New York on the 26th and I guess I'm psyched to get back to school, and back to climbing on plastic once a week and scrounging for rides up to the Gunks. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.