Isaac's Blog

Games

2008-12-27T02:42:00.000-08:00

Well I have found a new addiction, Ipod Touch games. Yeah I know this probably makes me a bit of a nerd but truly these apps have helped me survive hours upon hours of mind numbing boredom.
For those of you unfamiliar with Apples latest technology, the Ipod Touch is an amazing little device that allows you to access your email, browse your photos, surf the internet, check your calendar, update your Address Book, check the weather or the stock market, even get directions, check traffic, etc... and of course play a bunch of amazing games. The Ipod Touch comes with an accelerometer that detects when you move the Ipod (side to side, flat to upright, back and forth, etc...) and a touch sensitive screen. All the applications utilize these features to provide a very unique interactive gaming experience.
There are thousands upon thousands of apps in the Itunes Store, so to help you out I have outlined a few of my favorites below.

My most absolute favorite Ipod Touch game of all time would have to be Toy Bot Diaries (all 3 are great games). The latest, TBD Entry 3, is an awesome game filled with some intricate puzzles.

In Toy Bot Diaries you use an electromagnetic grappling hook to swing around levels, pick up obstacles, and maneuver through often times hazardous mazes. You also have magnetic boots which come in very handy. For $3.99 you will be paying pennies for hours of enjoyment.

There are a few other games that I have on my Touch as well, such as:

Chopper

This is a very entertaining game with a lot of levels (I am on 15 and I still haven't beat it). There are 4 levels (pacifist being the hardest) and the missions can be quite difficult to master. You will need a blend of quick relexes, agility, and foresight to beat many of the levels. Look out as you progress in levels and difficulty the missiles fly faster!

Strategic Assault

This is a fun strategy game where you collect resources, build vehicles such as tanks, helicopters, and even boats. The on screen navigation was a bit frustrating at first but Xen Games has released quite a few updates that resolve those issues. The one gripe I have about this game is that I have been stuck at the 5th level for months now. I cannot seem to figure out the correct sequence of building units to taking over resource centers. The enemy starts attacking within seconds of the game starting and my units will often return to the home base leaving my resource centers unguarded, my frustration is further compounded by an enemy with 2 times as many resource centers than I possess from the onset of the game. Alas, the Marine Corps rank structure sold me on this game and honestly if I just sat down for 30 minutes I could probably beat the level.

Cannon Challenge

This game, while not action packed or played with Touch specific controls, is still a fun game and worth a download. Try hitting all the targets with 1 shot, it's harder than you would expect. One hint try setting the elevation to 69 and the speed to 69 you almost always hit a target.

Stay tuned as I will keep updating this blog with more and more of my favorite apps!.....

5.10's New Blog!!!

2008-10-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Well the blog isn't really new, it's been up for awhile. But to be honest it was pretty lame until recently. We should be updating almost daily with trip reports from 5.10 staff and athletes, product reviews, event updates, and even demo schedules.

I even have a few posts of my own up on the blog too!

2008-08-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

I know I have not posted in a long time… I tried to post a little more regularly than every month (okay couple of months) but to be honest I just haven’t felt the urge to in a long time, but to get thing kicked off...

As usual I have been having quite a few adventures and many climbing trips. I made it to The Needles for 3 days back in late June. That was amazing! The rock just blew my mind, perfect splitter cracks, bomber rock, unbelievable formations, an amazing approach, beautiful views, great camping spot, and all located in one of the most beautiful settings that is within an easy 5 hour drive from Redlands!

This was the view from our campsite!

The first glimpse of The Needles from the approach trail. It was a helluva lot bigger than I anticipated.

We had to hike up a sketchy creaking and cracking stairwell to get to the look out tower.

The view from the top, mind boggling!

After three days without a shower hiking in and out of The Needles I needed a bath.

I graduated from college shortly after that (well almost I was allowed to walk even though I had one class left). It was an amazing experience being in The University of Phoenix Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona. I was very happy to discover that the air-conditioning was cranked to full blast as July in Phoenix was super hot.

Sunset on the drive to Phoenix from So-Cal.

Graduation!!

Mrs. Tait & I

Somewhere in the mix of all this "action" I had my birthday. I turned 25, it is wierd being 25 I am still not used to it. In fact when I was at the grocery store tonight buying some beer I told the checker that I was 24, force of habit I guess.

Me and my 3 brothers on my birthday at the new Hanger 18 in Riverside (from left to right: Joshua, Nathan, Isaac, & Luke)

On the early morning of my birthday I got up super early and drove out to Tahquitz with Kevin Newell and we did Super Pooper 5.10a/b. We swaped leads all the way to the top. The crux pitch was amazing, great exposure, and a funky thrutch of a mantel to get over the crux. I had the distinct pleasure of leading the 5.8 splitter crack pitch which was amazing! Perfect finger jams and crisp edges all the way to the top (not to mention it ate stoppers all the way up). It was also a bit of a sentimental trip too, because on my 12th birthday (13 years earlier) I had climbed White Maidens Walkway 5.4 with my Dad. It was my first multi-pitch route and my first climb on Taqhitz.

Right before I left for the Tradeshow, Rhondie and I did get out for an amazing day of climbing at the 8,000 foot crag (any guesses on why it is named that?) It was a beautiful day, there was quite a bit of ominous clouds overhead but it did not rain!

The crag!

Our amazing Honda FIT, the ultimate road trip vehicle (43 Hwy MPG!!).

The Tradeshow

I won’t go into much detail as you all are probably sick and tired of getting all my emails and/or hearing about the tradeshow. Let it suffice to say that they Athlete Lunch kicked ass! And the tradeshow was a huge success! Check out Sonnie Trotter, Ethan Pringles, and Colette McInerny’s blog to see what they had to say about the tradeshow.

Nancy and I.

The Team!

The 5.10 Booth!

And to top off this great summer, I got in another moonlight session at Joshua Tree! The full moon was amazing and I crushed a variety of problems in my Guide Tennies. The screeching owl was great as well, not to mention Kevin Newell fell asleep on lead while jammed in a chimney, I was stuck below belaying him wondering what the hell was going on. He eventually woke up and now I have an idea of what it is like to belay on a big wall (sorta)

Well until next time, be safe and double check your knot...

Memorial Day Weekend!!!

2008-05-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

Well it has been an exciting past couple days here in California. It all started on May 18th when I took our new car to get it hand waxed. About three and a half months ago, my wife and I got a Honda Fit and it gets on average about 32 mpg, and on the freeway it gets 40 mpg! We can fit both our mountain bikes in it, all of our rock climbing gear, and with the seats folded down we can sleep in the back. It also has decent ground clearance, just ask Harry Robertson or Tyler Landman. Overall it is a kick ass car and we are most definitely suffering from new car syndrome but anyways to to get back to my little story; I took my car in to get waxed on Sunday and by Wednesday afternoon forboding storm clouds were rolling in. Thursday morning it was raining (there goes the wax job), the streets were flooding, their was hail, snow in the mountains, and even two tornados that flipped a train and a few big rigs on the 215 freeway!

I got that photo from the LA Times, those two tornados touched down about 15 minutes from where I live and a funnel cloud did form over Redlands! Freakin crazy weather. However one good thing did come out of the bad weather, Memorial Day Weekend was nice and cool!

So on Saturday my wife and I loaded up the car and drove out to Joshua Tree, normally by Memorial Day weekend the temps in J-tree are over 100 and the park is packed with tourists. However with the forecast of thunderstorms in Joshua Tree and temps in the very low 60's. The park was deserted and a perfect place to spend the day climbing.

It was a cloudy day, but the temps provided perfect friction and the park was pleasantly empty, no queuing up even at Intersection Rock! The warm up route was Poodles Are People Too 5.10b, not a bad warm up for me especially for this trip (more on that later) After the warm up I got on Overseer 5.9 An amazing pitch, long, fun, with sweet kick ass finger jams at the crux where you pull a nice bulge with a zesty amount of air under your feet!

Later on I got on The Flake 5.8 (a super fun route, complete with a chimney, hand crack, finger crack, lay back, and slab climbing.) Super cool! I spent some time wandering around stalking the family of ground squirrels trying to get a good picture. Here is a good one...

I finished off the day by leading (the first lead on my new 70m! Thanks Tony!) Papa Woolsey 5.10b. My climbing buddies told me it was 5.8, and when I got to the base and scoped I was sure it wasn't a 5.8 but what the heck it looked pretty darn cool. So I hopped on. About half way up there is a sweet no hands no feet rest. At the top I set a bomber anchor, it was a text book Camalot placement, the epitome of perfect, compressed about 75% in a perfect slot that was narrower at the mouth so it was passively placed as well. I wish I had my camera up there so I could have taken a picture and shared it with you all.
Anyways enough about my bomber cam placement, this was my first climbing trip in over 5 weeks (5.10 day, May 10th, doesn't count because I spent about 90% of the time belaying and the rest climbing, so it was more of a belaying day) because when I was in the Marines I injured my neck and 5 weeks ago my old injury resurfaced. I wasn't able to do much for weeks. So needless to say I was super psyched to get out and get some climbing in after a month off!

I figured it might be cool to show you some of my photos from my tour in Iraq, back in 2003. It was a record breaking summer in Iraq with temps climbing over 150 degrees for most of August! It was so hot we could light a cigarette on the armor of vehicles!

I am the skinny white guy on the left, throwin' a gang sign... actually it is an upside down M for Marines. hey what can I say everyone was doing it. The guy on the right, is Henry Reyes, I owe him my life because he saved my ass more than once over there. One of the greatest men I know, he was the best man in my wedding and will be the godfather to my kids. Anyways enough of that sappy shit.

Here is a picture of us destroying some of Saddam's SCUD missles... One of the last missions I did in Iraq before coming home. Must have been late August...

Here is a photo from the worst day in my life, I was driving that Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) that is stuck. Thought for sure I had bought the farm when the road caved out under my vehicles weight.

Henry Reyes took that picture, and my other good friend Scott Hutcheson, another fine Marine and good friend, was the one who came and rescued myself and the vehicles crew.

Finally here is one of the Marines from my platoon, I cannot tell who it is; we all looked so different from the massive amount of weight we lost from the dysentary, fleas, bad water, no food, and way to little sleep. We used the motorcycle to sneak up on insurgents because it was quieter and smaller than our LAV's so they never saw us coming till it was to late.

That is a USMC Cobra, a very welcome sight in those days. With one of those flying overhead you had nothing to fear. They can unleash a massive amount of firepower that saved many a Marines life during the war.

Well that was over 5 years ago (to the day...) Here is a picture of my wife (she was my fiancee when that picture was taken) and I celebrating the Marine Corps Birthday in Prim, NV last year. Isn't she gorgeous? Still can't believe I managed to marry such a beautiful woman :)

Well I think that will do it for now, until next time...

2008-04-27T22:54:00.001-07:00

This is INSANE! Looks super fun too!

Random Musing

2008-04-26T07:28:00.001-07:00

Wow! It has been awhile since I last posted, I really need to get on it.

When I am bored at work (which is almost never but occasionally it is known to happen) I browse some of my favorite blogs. I really like Colette’s blog, her style of writing is very engaging and her trip reports are awesome. Check out her latest video too!
I also enjoy reading Sonnie’s blog, there is some very pertinent info on his blog about a virus, that the Center for Disease Control has issued an alert for, that most climbers tend to be immune to. Read up on it, it may save your life (not to mention 5.10 heavily promotes the eradication of this horrible virus)

I was planning on going climbing this weekend but a sesh at the new local gym has left me with a very odd neck injury that makes it hard to move my head, so I may end up laying around this weekend. Total bummer as I took last weekend off, feeling a bit burned out and now I won’t be able to go climbing. To add insult to injury I was supposed to go to Yosemite last night, but my climbing buddies bailed on me, and with the outrageous prices of gasoline we cannot afford to go up there by ourselves.
Thought this was pretty funny

Well that it is it for now, see you out there on the rock.

Climbing Trips

2007-12-03T21:49:00.001-08:00

Well it has been a long time since I last published on my blog. But that does not mean I have not been getting out and having fun. I have been visiting the local gym Hanger 18 (with the time change it is about all I can do since it gets dark way before I get off) but I have managed a few trips to Joshua Tree & the Bishop area. This was my latest camping trip to Joshua tree this season, it was a beautiful day as you can see.

While I was climbing on the Old Woman I spied a young gentlemen (who we later found out was Joe De Luca) soloing on Intersection Rock. If you look close you can see him, just to the right of Left Ski Track 5.11a***

Rhondie snapped this picture of Kevin (5.10's new Assistant Global Sales Manager) and I climbing the SW Corner of the Headstone in Ryans Campground.

Those were just a few of the highlights of my trip to Joshua Tree. Even more recently I was able to get out to the East side of the Sierras for 6 days! It was amazing, climbed in Owens River Gorge where I onsighted quite a few 5.10's and had a blast on a few 11's. I had spent a lot of time training for power and not endurance so I got thoroughly spanked. I met Jim Thornburg, Lonnie Kauk, and Nicky Dayl in ORG as well. Here is a photo of Lonnie clipping the anchors on Darshan 5.12b for his warm up

We got an amazing campsite at Pleasant Valley on the road to the Happy Boulders. This trip was the first time I had been to the Happy Boulders, my buddy Tyler and I walked up the trail by moonlight one night and bouldered there for a few hours flashing V1 & V2 in our approach shoes. I was totally blown away by the Happy Boulders, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was amazing, there is nothing like onsighting a highball in your approach shoes under a nearly full moon. Absolutely breathtaking. Here is the view from our campsite.

These trips were so much fun but there is still more to come, I am still hoping to make it to Yosemite next spring and visit Red Rocks and climb Epinephrine. Both of these places I have never climbed at before, so it is sure to be a life changing experience. Until next time....

Adventures in our backyard

2007-09-03T20:36:00.000-07:00

It was 4pm and the thermometer hovered at 105 F. It was time to get out of the valley and into the mountains. Rhondie and I stuffed are climbing & camping gear in the back of my trusty Bus, and headed into the mountains. As we entered the canyon to begin our ascent into the hills we noticed ominous storm clouds billowing on the horizon. As we came around a bend we were met by a strong head wind that slowed our forward progression to 35 mph, much to the shagrin of everyone behind us. As we gained altitude the clouds grew darker and darker and within seconds we were enveloped in a torrential down pour. Boulders were rolling down the hill and into the road in front of us and we were fording through streams flowing across the highway! As suddenly as the rain had started it stopped and we emerged into a scene straight from a fairy tale; rainbows crisscrossing, rain dripping from trees, and that oh so heavenly scent of a forest after a heavy rain. We stopped at a lake to take a walk. It was a beautiful day and after we had stopped to watch the ducks play we got back in our Bus and headed off to find a nice spot to camp. It was nestled in the trees not to far from the lake. We boiled our Tortilini and sipped Hot Chocolate while we played Scrabble by latern. It was nice to fall asleep listening to the sounds of the forest instead of sirens, cars, and various other noises of civilization.
We awoke and leisuraely ate breakfast & packed up before continuing up the highway. We were headed to Onyx Summit, at 8,443 feet it is the highest highway pass in Southern California. Donna (my Bus) putted up there in grand style. The forest, meadows, and vistas rolled by and as we crested the pass Mt. San Gorgonio came in to view. At 11, 499 feet it is the highest mountain in Southern California. We spent the morning climbing. The rock was beautiful, the vistas stunning, and the company pleasant. And a lazy half day of climbing passed by while we enjoyed the cool breezes and watched clouds build up. When it was time for lunch we drove to a meadow and munched on canned tuna and gold fish and dozed off while watching little birds vying for bug spotting perches and deer bounding through the grass and wild flowers.

When we awoke the clouds were getting darker, and so we decided to follow the river down back to civilization and chicken strips and fish and chips. As we cruised down the highway at 75 mph (an exciting thing in a VW Bus) the air got hotter but our spirits weren't dampened. The adventures the 3 of us had experienced together were still fresh on our minds.

Until next time....

Moonlight Ascents

2007-08-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful night. The full moon was glinting off the spinning blades of the wind turbines that coat the desert like an odd martian flower-scape. The windows were rolled down all the way and the warm night air was blowing through my hair. I bubbled with the anticipation of climbing in one of the most awe inspiring National Parks, Joshua Tree. I got to the parking lot at 10:30 pm and having sipped on various cornucopia's of energy syrups I was running down the trail to the base of the first climb. The granite felt warm beneath my finger tips and the chalk felt strangely refreshing, it was like visiting an old friend that you had not seen in a long time. The full moon provided enough illumination to climb without headlamp, while the bolts shimmered like welcoming beacons, beckoning you to keep climbing. Jackrabbits scurried from bush to bush looking for a rare tasty morsels in this harsh landscape as route after route fell beneath our frenzy to taste that, oh so addictive, coagulation of fear, adrenaline, joy, and ecstasy. As the time kept ticking onward our frenzy started to simmer, due to the disruption of our normal sleeping patterns and our crashing sugar highs. The last route was a slightly overhanging flared crack. The last move was pulling an overhanging roof via a laid back finger crack, delicate footwork, and a very awkward mantle to the table top summit. After a few false starts I pulled through to the top and took in a few deep breaths of victory. I had fulfilled my fixation and was ready to head home to a warm soft bed and the loving arms of my wife. I coined the phrase endowed by so many REI shoppers as I started down climbing, Life is good...

Until next time

Change is on the horizon

2007-07-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

I am turning 24 in 2 days! I don't know how to feel about it though. I used to be excited about my birthdays, but not so much anymore. We just went out and got mywife her first mountain bike today. She loves it and begs for us to take the bikes instead of the car almost everywhere we go. We were supposed to go camping this weekend but financial "stuff" came up, and we decided it would be more prudent to stay at home. I remember when I was younger I would pack up and go anywhere as long as I had enough money for gas and some top ramen. Although last weekend my lovely wife and I headed up to the Tram way. Up in the San Jacinto Mountains. It was amazing, there is rock everywhere and we had so much fun exploring. Not to mention my ticket was free because I am in the Marines, so it was cheap as well. I am getting out of the Corps in 2 months! After spending 6 years faithfully serving my country, I am getting ready to close that chapter in my life and begin a new one. It is a very odd feeling. This fall is going to be a fun one I can tell. I am planning on heading up to Yosemite for a week or two, try my hand at some bigger walls. And then in February I am pondering heading to Thailand for 8-10 days. Airfare is not to expensive, not to mention the beaches look amazing and the rock looks phenomenal.

Until next time.....