Landon's Feed

Chauncenia, 2nd Place National Womens Open

lcox@landoncox.com — 2009-02-16T16:14:15-07:00

Photo appeared on deadpointmag.com

Chauncenia placed 2nd in the women’s open category at the ABS Nationals 10, February 14, 2009. Open is the category for any age 16 and older, any status, professional or amateur. Generally speaking, it’s an adult competition.

Chris Wall, Chauncey’s coach from the Boulder Rock Club, has done a fantastic job training her over the last year and she worked very hard leading up to this competition. Robyn Ebersfield of Boulder also did some late tune-ups on Chauncey the last two weekends before the ABS Nationals. We appreciate the great coaching she’s had.

After getting skunked on the first women’s open problem, Chauncey was hopping mad and fired back flashing problems #2 and #3. A flash is when you top the problem on the first attempt. She was the only woman competitor to top problem two and only she and Alex Johnson flashed problem 3. Alex Puccio topped problem three but not on her first attempt. All three women made it to the zone hold on problem four. Alex Puccio and Alex Johnson both topped problem one, which Chauncey got skunked on. So, that gave all three two tops. The margin was just attempts made and it was a very close fight between the top 3 women.

Here are some videos of Chauncey’s climbs:

The first video is of the women’s second problem in finals. Chauncenia was the only one to flash and top this problem.

Problem 3:

Problem 4:

Speed finals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-31T04:23:08-06:00

The final day of the world competition was today. Chauncey went into today’s speed event in 9th place. That matched her against her team mate, Amanda Sutton, in the head-to-head bracket which was unfortunate.

Chauncey and Amanda both raced really well and it was very close. Amanda beat her by 0.3 seconds in the two combined route times. It was a great display of sportsmanship and I was very proud of Chauncey’s racing - she raced with heart and all her effort.

The winners side of the bracket plays out head to head, but after getting knocked out, they rank the ones who got knocked out based on time. That gave Chauncey 10th overall in speed.

So, the final results for the world championships for Chauncey were 24th in the difficulty event and 10th in the speed event.

We’re going to check out in the morning and then take the train into Sydney and stay there for the next two days. We head back on Wednesday morning. This may be the last update I make for a bit, not sure what kind of connection, if any, until we get back to the states. Thanks for reading.

Catching a breath

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-30T14:24:08-06:00

Sorry for the terse updates lately, there just hasn’t been a spare moment and we’re not as mobile as we would have liked to be - the gym’s a long distance from the hotel and reachable only by bus or train (taxi’s are ridiculously expensive.)

I wanted to fill some things in from the last several updates.

One thing, on Chauncey’s 2nd qualifier, day 2, she was on deck to climb - maybe a minute away - and pulled the strap of her shoe (a Sportiva Solution shoe), and the strap broke. So, there was a last-minute panic to fix that. One of the US team coaches, Mike Doyle, jumped on it, found some athletic tape and had her strapped back together in time for her to get on her route. Chauncey had been a little nervous up to that point, but said she thought that actually helped her because it released some tension when it got fixed and she was all ready - afterall, lightening just struck and she survived! :-)

She had a second pair of shoes but not with her in her bag at the route. So, lesson learned there - keep both pairs with you. She switched to her 2nd pair for semi finals.

The semi-finals route was just atrociously difficult, especially the first half. It was tiny crimps and slopers on a slight overhang (see the album). She was completely pumped by the time she got to the first major feature, she she skipped a small crimp on the underside of the roof (a point hold), and launched for the dish over the lip of the roof and missed. So, she actually made it as far as at least half the field, but because she didn’t control the crimp on the hold below where she got, she didn’t get points for that hold. So, that left her exactly where she came into the semis, in 24th.

She’s getting ready this morning for speed finals. As I mentioned in the last update, she has to go head-to-head with another US team mate, so one of them will get knocked out this round and one will advance to the next round. You keep climbing as you win, but when you lose a matchup, then they rank the losing side of the bracket by time. That’s what I’m told anyway.

I just heard a scream out of the bathroom as the girls were getting ready this morning. The 240 to 120 converter just blew up while Ali was blow drying her hair and flames were coming out. Everyone’s alright. Defied death again.

Photos from Semi finals lead.

Semi-finals

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-30T06:07:08-06:00

It’s after 10pm right now and we just got back to the hotel from the finals in lead/difficulty.

First semi-finals, girls 16-17, Chauncey ended up 24th and didn’t make the 8 cut for finals. Sasha, Marah and Tiffany made it to finals. Of them, Sasha did well and got high on the route. I think she finished 4th but I haven’t seen the official results.

In speed climbing today, Chauncey and the US team did well. Chauncey ended up 9th coming out of qualifiers. From here on, they go head-to-head elimination brackets. They take the top 16 and bracket them 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 and so on. Unfortunately, that pitts her against Amanda Sutton (TX) in the first round tomorrow. So, only one of them will get to go on.

We have another early morning tomorrow for speed finals, so need to get this posted and go to bed.

Chauncey Q2 Sequence

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-29T05:29:30-06:00

I broke down the video of Chauncey’s Q2 route into this sequence.

We get up at 5:15a tomorrow, 5:45, breakfast, 6:15 on the bus. Chauncey will climb early in the running order tomorrow unless it’s stacked (younger category goes first on the same route.) We won’t know until tomorrow when the comp starts.

The gym has been like an ice-box in the mornings. It’s been warmer outside than inside. So, she goes into isolation by 8a and will need to stay warm. She’ll be ready with extra layers.

In the sequence of shots I just put up you can see she wore a long sleeve T under her uniform top today and it was more comfortable for her and was able to stay looser and warmer today than yesterday.

Qualifiers 2 results

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-29T04:12:54-06:00

Wanted to put this update out real quick - don’t have time right now to handle pictures.

On the US team 16-17 girls, all the girls except Jesse Youngwerth made the cut for the semi-finals. Chauncey was at 25th after Q1 and improved today at 20th. Based on all the other competitors results, that put her at 24th for both Q1 and Q2. They take 26 into the semis.

Like yesterday, there were quite a few flashes and so, even if you got very high on the route, competitively that knocked you down a long ways. So, despite being at 24th overall going into the semi finals, there is not a tremendous separation in these girls yet.

Tomorrow is a marathon day. We leave at 6:15a for the gym. The semi-finals for lead are in the morning. The qualifiers for speed are in the afternoon and the finals are in the evening for lead. They only take 8 to finals from semis, so tomorrow is another huge cut. They run finals for speed on Sunday morning.

We have a team meeting in a few minutes, so will try to get Chauncey’s climbing sequence knocked out tonight before I go to bed so you can see what the climb looked like.

US Female A for Q2 running order

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-28T13:58:58-06:00

The US team running order for the Q2 route today for female 16-17 is:

Tiffany Hensley 27
Marah Bragdon 30
Jesse Youngwerth 34
Chauncey Cox 36
Sasha Diguilian 39

So, instead of all being up front today, they’ll be towards the end. The advantage to being near the front of the running order is you don’t have to wait and are more fresh. The advantage to being at the back of the running order is that you can watch an learn from those ahead of you.

For this “flash format” for the Q1 and Q2 routes, there is no isolation and competitors are free to watch the routes of their fellow competitors. Once semi-finals starts, then isolation begins and they are not allowed to watch any competitors until they’ve climbed the route themselves.

This running order will put the US team girls climbing late morning or early afternoon.

Forgot to mention yesterday that Chauncey was spreading what she thought was Nutella on some bread for breakfast and it turned out to be vegimite. Wow, you should have seen her reaction to that! :-)

Qualifiers 1 results

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-28T03:18:02-06:00

The US Team with only a few exceptions had a solid performance today. The competition itself is running very well and on schedule. Today started with a pretty low-key opening ceremony outside the gym. The spectating was actually much better than I thought it would be which I’m relieved about. The gym is accomodating the onslaught pretty well. The walls themselves are very tall - no doubt, world-class and will work these kids good. Also, the wall where they will do speed is very tall and wide, front and center, so I think the speed climbing will be a very good event from the looks of it. The qualifiers for speed don’t start until Saturday.

Chauncey’s 16-17 category had 42 climbers in the field. The Q1 route they climbed was very technical, mostly vertical and very little separated the field today. For example, Tiffany Hensley timed out on the last hold of the route, so she completed everything except the last clip and came out of Q1 in 16th. So, there were quite a number of flashes. For non-climbers reading, a “flash” is when a climber complets the route without a fall.

Chauncey and Jesse Youngwerth are tied right now at 25th and both had solid climbs but came off about 3 holds from the top. Just that much made a huge difference in placement given how competitve the field is.

I have a sequence of Chauncey’s upper half route in the photo album from today, if you want to see a non-video sequence of her climb.

Others on the US team, Marah Bragdon and Sasha Diguilian, both flashed. Here’s Marah on Q1:

and Sasha:

We’re hoping they’ll give an overhanging, burly route to them tomorrow, because even some of the girls who flashed today (not US), did not look as strong as our girls and I think a good, powerful, endurance type route would really play to our strengths and adjust things again.

They’ll be taking the top 26 into semi finals and the combination score of Q1 and Q2 are evenly weighted. So, it’s live to fight another day mode tomorrow.

Chauncey’s friend from Boulder, Kirky Olsen, in the 18-19 category, finished Q1 in 21st.

After the 16-17 girls US team had all finished, Chauncey, Ali, and I figured out where the train station was that was nearest to the gym, walked to the train, and figured out how to get back to the Olympic Park from the gym. So, we came back around 1:30 and it took about an hour to get back. The entire team had taken two chartered buses to the gym about 6:15 this morning. The buses weren’t coming back until after the round was finished this afternoon.

When the girls and I got back, we went over to the Aquatic center for a late afternoon swim. The girls just floated around mainly in the fun pools. I was able to swim in the warmup pool while they had the main pool closed for team use. Then about 4:30 they opened up a couple of lanes in the main pool and I swam in it again. I could get used to having an Olympic pool available.

Pictures from Q1 events today.

US Female A Running order

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-27T13:37:30-06:00

The running order for the USA girls in Chauncey’s category, A, for the Qualifier 1 (Q1):

4, Tiffany Hensley (CA)
7, Marah Bragdon (NY)
11, Jesse Youngwerth (CO)
13, Chauncey Cox (CO)
16, Sasha Dijulian (VA)

They’ll have 6 minutes on the climb. Q2 is on the following day.

Saturday, the lead semi-finals are in the morning, then speed qualifiers, and then lead finals Saturday night. Saturday could be a marathon day.

Sunday morning is speed finals.

Sydney Day 4 - Featherdale

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-27T02:03:14-06:00

Today we trekked out to Blacktown, a western suburb of Sydney (even further west than where we are in the Olympic Park.) Our destination was the Featherdale wildlife park which touted kangaroos and other Australian animals. We went with Holly and Shannon Lochridge (TX) and Kirky Olsen (CO). Kirky’s going to school at CU/Boulder. Here’s a shot of Kirky and Chauncey on the train ride to Blacktown:

It exceeded all our expectations mainly because it was so up-close and personal with the animals. We were able to pick up and hold a wallaby which is like a kangaroo, but smaller with coarser hair.

Sydney Day 3

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-26T00:24:56-06:00

Today wasn’t a huge touring day. At noon, the US climbing team shuttled off to a gym to workout together this afternoon. So, this morning the girls and I walked around the Olympic Park some more. About a city block from the hotel is a track and field venue, though it doesn’t look big enough to have been the main track and field spot...maybe a warmup track. Outside the venue was a huge sculpture, The Sprinter which was really nicely done. It was moved there after the Olympics - during the Olympics apparently it was with several other sculptures of gymnists and other sports figures and they were perched on 30 meter pedestals.

Sydney Day trip #2

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-25T04:13:36-06:00

We had a great day again in Sydney. This morning we headed into the city by ferry east on the Parromatta River from the Olympic Park and our destination was the Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) in downtown Sydney. On the east side of the Circular Quay and Sydney Cove is the Opera House.

Sydney Day trip #1

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-24T15:28:23-06:00

I just put a few pictures up in greater resolution of our day trip into Sydney yesterday. The city is awesome - everything it was touted to be (including expensive :-)

Also, just put up an album of some shots at the Olympic Aquatic center across from our hotel.

We Made It to Sydney

lcox@landoncox.com — 2008-08-24T04:59:11-06:00

I had to get this Latitude Longitude captured on my GPS. It’s taken all day to even let it sink in that we’re in Australia.

Our flights were all on time, thank goodness, and we have a generally smooth time all the way. The girls slept well on the plane.

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.