Landon's Feed

Chauncey makes US Climbing Team

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-07-17T19:12:15-06:00

Chauncey placed 4th in sport and 3rd in speed climbing at the USA Climbing nationals in Sunnyvale.

Change OS X screenshot location with OnyX

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-07-17T19:02:08-06:00

I still haven’t found a good screen capture tool which can capture directly into iPhoto. Grab, SnapZ Pro, and the built-in OS X screenshot tools will not snap directly to iPhoto. What’s worse is if If I snap with the built-in tools and use the command sequence for saving a snap to a file, it will automatically save the shot to the desktop (something I hate with a passion.)

Use OnyX to change the default location of the builtin screen shot save directory.

Different generations

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-07-08T20:11:28-06:00

What a difference a couple generations of Mac makes. Here’s a side by side comparison of my parent’s eMac with the iMac they just got:

Ali's Big Ride

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-07-08T20:03:07-06:00

Ali’s been learning to ride a motorcycle....a Yamaha YZ-85 to be precise.

Pics from ABS9 Bouldering Nationals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-02-29T15:13:21-07:00

My buddy, Steve Woods, was kind enough to shoot some shots of Chauncey in the ABS finals - her debut in the pro/open category. I put a link to the gallery of these shots on the left ABS9 2008 ABS Nationals. There's also a very nice pictorial video of the event up on the Climbing Magazine web site.

American Bouldering Series USA Climbing Nationals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-02-18T19:31:11-07:00

We just got through with the American Bouldering Series nationals in Boulder, CO at The Spot. This year Chauncey and Taya both qualified. Chauncey's in the 16-17 year old category and Taya is in the 12-13 year category. The climbers were culled through a regional championship process and came from all over the country and even some from Japan and Canada.

This is from The Spot's web site and gives a panoramic of a crowded night at the spot.

Citizens Weather Observer Program

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-02-04T21:08:14-07:00

I started experimenting with reporting wind data through the CWOP (Citizens Weather Observer Program). Using OSCirrus, my open source wind speed and direction package, I've been collecting wind data for a long time (nearly a year) but have never contributed the data.

CWOP is an organization which uses a ham radio data protocol called APRS which has provisions for reporting weather data either through a ham data channel or directly through the internet. Since I'm not a ham operator, the internet channel was obvious.

I created a Ruby program which reads the wind data feed my device pushes to my web server. It then tracks average wind speed and maximum gusts over the sample period, formats the CWOP data string and sends it to the CWOP servers. Those servers in turn track the historical data for a time and it's possible to see a web page of graphs divvied up by various time intervals.

Ring Training

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-01-15T21:36:52-07:00

Chauncey's climbing coach, Chris Wall, at the Boulder Rock Club likes training climbers with gymnastics rings. There's a whole exercise regimen built around this idea and you can find it at ringtraining.com.

I ordered a pair and installed them on Sunday in our climbing gym. I installed a beam across the short width of the gym which is about 12 ft off the floor. Then we slung the beam with climbing anchor cords and attached the rings to those with carabiners. It's solid as a rock and even me, "gigantor" dad, can hang upside on the rings and do some of these exercises. What a great workout this is.

New Year

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-01-11T20:14:03-07:00

My buddy, Steve, has pulled out miraculously and is even back to work starting in the first part of January here. So, that is great news.

Buffalo Bike Ride

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-09-20T06:44:00-06:00

We took our bikes up to Boulder and Chauncey, Taya and I rode in the Buffalo bike ride starting at CU. Chauncey rode the 30 mile loop with Kim and Taya and I did the 10 mile loop. Here's a shot of our pickup with all our bikes...we have 5 fork mounts on the toolbox and one on the end gate to take all 6 bikes

Steve Clark

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-10-23T06:26:46-06:00

My buddy Steve Clark was seriously hurt in an accident over the weekend - he was riding his bike up Mt. Herman road not far from where we live and was hit by an SUV. He's in serious condition in a medically induced coma at Penrose in Colorado Springs. Please pray for him, his wife Sandy, and their kids.

Here's a few shots of Steve and me on a trip to Moab, April 2002.

Nationals results

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-07-06T20:58:42-06:00

Day 3: Chauncey was disappointed that she got stuck on a spot and blew a lot of energy. She finished out of the running for the US Team in sport climbing and finished 8th, but the flip side is she won 1st place in speed.
Day 2: Taya climbed well but didn't make it to finals. Chauncey went on to finals in sport climbing. Chauncey also ran her qualifiers for speed and made it to the finals in speed.
Day 1: Chauncey's going into the semi-finals tied for 1st place. Valerie said Chauncey climbed very strong.
Tayanita made it into the semi-finals - looked like there were about 3 clusters of ties in the top 15 or so.
Nakoa unfortunately didn't make it to the semis, but for his first time at nationals did well.

The results can be found here:

http://www.scsnationals.org/07/details/index.htm

2007 Climbing Nationals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-07-05T21:06:56-06:00

The 2007 national climbing competition starts tomorrow in Ann Arbor, MI. Chauncey, Taya, and Nakoa are all competing. Ali's up in Wyoming riding horses and having a blast setting off fireworks :-)

The above picture is Chauncey in the 2006 nationals in Portland, OR.

Divisionals - Finals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-06-10T12:50:24-06:00

Today was the finals of the southwest divisional climbing championship. Climbers from Southern California to Colorado competed for invitations to represent the southwest division at the nationals in Ann Arbor in July.

Divisionals - Day 1

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-06-09T20:53:10-06:00

First day of qualifiers at the southwest divisional climbing championship in Albuquerque is finished and Chauncey, Taya, and Nakoa all did well and advanced to the finals tomorrow. Chauncey crushed it and got first in her category, Taya climbed great and got 3rd, and Nakoa was on two really stiff routes and made it by the skin of his teeth at 9th.

2007 Teva Mountain Games

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-06-06T13:38:08-06:00

I took Chauncey up to the Teva Mountain Games in Vail last weekend. One of the events is climbing (bouldering to be precise.)

Chauncey entered both the High School climbers exhibition and the amateur competition. She won her category of the amateurs, but by raw score she would have won overall female competitors (and most males, too.)

This pic is of her before her first climb.

OSCirrus - an Open Source weather station

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-06-05T07:14:36-06:00

I built a wind speed and direction system out of some parts from Fascinating Electronics and Spark Fun. The results of the project I open sourced and are available at http://oscirrus.see-do.org

I also have a technical project site at http://sawdust.see-do.org which is mainly a place where I keep notes on some technical stuff I'm doing.

With those sites, I'll focus on technical content. This site is mainly for personal and family info.

LandonCox.com Site Reset

lcox@landoncox.com — 2007-06-04T13:41:34-06:00

It was inevitable. After about 4 years, I've decided to completely overhaul my personal site and jettison GeekLog software. GeekLog served me well for years, but themes and other amenities just didn't stay fresh, so it was time to let it go.

The relevant content of the old site is in a couple of PDF files that are available in the Files download section of this site. My last entry on that was the end of my trip to the youth world climbing championships with Chauncey in Austria August 2006. Here it is June 2007 and I haven't updated. So, hopefully, I'll more easily keep this new format updated and timely.