I finally got some extra insurance

Dear Diary,

today, I had an appointment at the bank because they have some special offers for employees at the university. They basically cut the costs of my bank account by 50%. Which is nice but not super dramatic because I pay something like 3.50€ per quarter.

However, they also offered a 12.5% reduction for the costs of certain insurances. So I finally got additional insurance! One for all the stuff in my house/apartment (inboedelverzekering) and one in case I break other people’s stuff (aansprakelijkheidsverzekering).

I probably should have done this about 3 years ago. But better late than never, I guess. :)

DIY standing desk using cheap stuff from Ikea

Dear Diary,

after googling around a little bit yesterday, I found a great do it yourself (DIY) website that uses Ikea parts to build a whole bunch of things that those Ikea parts were not intended for.

I copied one of their most simple ideas: buy a Lack table, buy an Ekby Viktor shelf, screw them together, done. You put the whole thing on top of your desk et voila, you have a standing desk for less than 15€. Here it is:

It’s a bit hard to take a decent picture because it’s so nice and sunny outside. But it’s nice because I have half the desk to stand on and half the desk to sit on. The table is bright green and the shelf is bright red which brings some color to my office. :D

Now I am curious how it is to work standing most of the time in the coming days and weeks.

Squash was a bit too much

Dear Diary,

I went to my regular squash training last night but my shoulder was holding me back quite a bit. Normal shots were no problem but anything over my head was a bit awkward and especially quick reaching movements were a bit painful. So i just took it easy and only played shots that I could get to easily and kept it very simple. I paired up with a team mate that is a bit worse than me and tried to compensate for my limited options by running more and moving into positions in which I could play easy shots. Which was actually a good training in itself.

But yeah, i think I’ll skip Wednesday’s training and give my shoulder a week of rest from squash.

Playing around with a standing desk

Dear Diary,

I’ve been having some issues with my neck lately and I think it’s because of the fucked up way I sit in my chair all day. I am really not very good at sitting. There, I was thinking: I should have a standing desk!

We have a department in the university that is responsible for the work space related items but they don’t give out standing desks unless the university’s doctor says you need one for medical reasons. :/ Thus, I looked around in the neighboring offices and gather a small table and a card box and build this ghetto version of a standing desk:

I’ve been standing at it for about 2 or 3 hours today and I think it’s something I could get used to. This just takes up a bit too much space on my desk and I’ll find a better solution. This was more of an experiment or “proof of concept”. I’ll see.

My shoulder is holding up well

Dear Diary,

this morning, I went to the physiotherapist. He was happy with how my shoulder is doing and so am I. I can still feel it a little bit every now and then but it’s much better. He gave me one of those elastic bands and showed me some exercises I should do to strengthen “the little muscles that stabilize the shoulder”.

He said I should take it easy and watch out for pain. I told him I went to Belgium for some climbing but downplayed how much I used my shoulder. Since I am doing fine, I’ll now go and see how playing squash feels like. :P

I’ll be careful and don’t play anything that’s above my head. But I want to move.

500 posts!

Dear Diary,

WordPress just let me know that I’ve made 500 posts on this blog. Well, 501 now. That’s a lot of posts.

First trip to Freyr

Dear Diary,

I spent the weekend in Freyr. Freyr is a beautiful climbing area near Dinant, close to Luxemburg in Belgium.

We stayed at the campsite that overlooks the cliffs. The cliffs are right at the Maas which makes for an awesome view. This it he view from the look-out at the campsite:

And looking to the right, overlooking the most impressive cliffs:

We left Groningen early on Saturday morning and had great weather. I went with my buddy BB and his friend MP. They are both taking an exam for a certificate to take inexperienced climbers on multi-pitch climbs. Multi-pitch means that it’s longer than half your rope length so that you can’t climb up and be lowered down. You do it in pairs: one person climbs up, secures a “base” and the other person climbs up to where the first person is. Then you climb up the next “pitch”. That way, you take turns climbing and take the rope all the way with you. This obviously requires that you know a thing or two about rope safety etc. and know how to fix things if someone messes up. Here are BB and MP going the easiest route: three pitches that make a total length of about 80 meters (or a little more):

This trip wasn’t about climbing hard routes but about them getting to know the area and checking out possible routes to take the exam on. And it was great that they had someone with them that knows very little about climbing (me!) so they could practice teaching. It was actually really awesome. I wanted to be careful with my shoulder so I liked the idea of only climbing easy stuff and I really want to know more about multi-pitching. Because, one day, I really want to climb up one of those 300-500 meter rock faces in the Alps.

On Sunday morning, I woke up around 7:30 and went to the look-out point again to find this:

Pretty damn awesome. Then the first sun light came over the tree tops:

And slowly but surely, the sun cleared out the valley:

We had breakfast on the look-out spot, following the progression in real-time. It was beautiful and an awesome way to start the day.

Then we went to explore the area and look at the cliffs and possible climbs. I carried most of the climbing gear (incl. the rope etc. which was a total of at least 15 kg) for most of the day and we hiked around for about 5 hours. Exhausting but fun: awesome cliffs and people climbing them everywhere.

Towards the end of the day, we found one route that MP wanted to climb (he was in Freyr the weekend before and didn’t manage to finish this one). BB lead-climbed it and put up anchors so we could top-rope it. MP managed to make his way through the route (didn’t redpoint it, though) and then it was my turn. I was supposed to take down all the gear which means I had to do some knot-magic at the top and, more importantly, actually get to the top. The route wasn’t easy: it felt like an 6a+ or maybe even a 6b and I didn’t trust my shoulder so I took a lot of rest. But I eventually made it.

Then, at the top, the rope situation was a lot more tricky than anticipated. I knew exactly what I had to do to get all the gear off the rock while not untying myself but the anchors were very small and I couldn’t clip in all the things that needed to clip it. I also cut my arm on the way up and was bleeding like crazy. There was blood all over the place and I had to double- and triple-check everything I did because I couldn’t follow the procedure that BB and MP had taught me. It must have taken me about 20 minutes to solve the situation and get all the gear and ask MP to lower me down. But I did it. I was weirdly proud of myself and BB and MP were a bit worried. Then asked me to walk them through every step I took, every knot I used and what I tied it to etc. Apparently, I did well. It made me stupidly happy to not have disappointed them. They also did a really good job of letting me do my own thing and shouting up that I should take my time. It’s kind of hard to communicate when you’re 30m apart and can’t really see each other. It’s kind of scary because you’re dangling up there and if you mess up, there’s always a chance you fall. It gave me a lot of confidence in the abilities that I accumulated over the last couple of months that I didn’t panic and knew exactly what to look out for and make sure that I wasn’t in danger and that I always had a save system with some redundancy.

Overall, this trip was fantastic. It certainly wasn’t the last time I went to Freyr – it’s an amazing place with many, many more stuff to climb!

Trip to Belgium this weekend

Dear Diary,

my buddy BB is going to Belgium this weekend to get familiar with a climbing area down there. He’s going to take people there to give instructions (he’s collecting hours to get a specific sport climbing training certificate or something). It’s pretty sweet because the climbing association here needs more people with that certificate and he’s one of the few people experienced enough to actually get in reasonably quickly. So they are paying for the travel costs down there.

He’s going with another dude and I’ll tag along. We’ll be driving down there with my car but I’ll get reimbursed for the fuel costs. So it’s basically a free trip. We’ll mainly be hiking around the area (I think) to check out the climbing spots etc. We might do a very simple multi-pitch. He said it’s perfect that I know nothing about how to do that because then the two guys can teach me – because that’s exactly what they’ll have to do when they take other climbers down there.

My shoulder is doing much better. I did some push-ups this morning and there was no pain. I can dead-hang on the pull-up bar without pain and can do both pull-ups and chin-ups without problems (well, the problem is my weakness… :D ). I’ll still take it very, very easy, of course. But I’d love to learn how to multi-pitch and if it’s non-overhanging 5a climbing, I should be fine.

So: we’ll be driving down to Freyr tomorrow morning. It’s close to the French border so we’ll have to drive through all of the Netherlands and most of Belgium. It’s still only going to be a 4 1/2 hour drive. You got to love Europe. :D

I am really looking forward to getting outside once more. I’ll take my hammock and a book. The weather is supposed to be good and it should be a relaxing weekend with a little bit of climbing.

More money!

Dear Diary,

I love the fact that I make enough money to sustain my lifestyle. The fact that I don’t have to worry about money at the moment is really awesome. I really don’t care about money and the fact that I don’t have to check my bank account often contributes to my overall happiness a lot.

This is why I totally forgot that during my PhD, I get a little bit more money every year. Since the last year has officially started on September first, this month’s salary was 70€ more than last month’s/year’s. Huge a huge difference, of course, but pretty nice!

My shoulder is much better

Dear Diary,

yesterday, I was a bit depressed and pretty concerned about my shoulder. My range of motion was very limited and there was a dull pain in my shoulder even when I was just sitting and not moving it. The pain wasn’t very extreme even when I moved it in painful ways but I could definitely feel that something was wrong.

I took some ibuprofen and had a good night’s rest. When I woke up this morning, my shoulder was much better. My range of motion is still a bit restricted but there’s almost no pain anymore. I am curious how this will develop further. If the pain is even less tomorrow, I’ll go to the physiotherapist again and ask whether I can use the shoulder over the weekend or not. Because otherwise I’ll just have to sit around all weekend like an idiot.