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It was another great Halloween night. Started out the evening with some trick-or-treating then spent the evening in our haunted house; The Madhouse. We had a great crew of people – all friends from Rocktown! Billy, Morgan, Brent, and Natasha all showed up to play a part and they all did an awesome job.

Four of us were psycho-orderlies; myself, Brent, Billy, and Natasha. Lisa was a zombie-looking nurse, and Morgan played the part of the mad psychiatrist locked in an isolation chamber. Then my mom managed the front and the entrance door. We had between 100-200 kids and parents walk through the scenes and almost everyone appeared to be scared.

This year I think we must have set a record for crying kids. Not so much on purpose, but I think it was scarier than years past.

The idea of having a room with three closed doors and apparently no way out was both good and bad. It certainly had the effect on people of not knowing where to go. Most people head only in the direction they are looking without the thought of looking behind them. In fact, the door was right behind them. On first appearance the exit door would be open but then during the scene it would open. Many people had to be directed towards the exit. And some, who were too busy holding their face in their hands so they didn’t have to look up, would have to be coaxed or lightly “guided” towards the door.

The funniest and oddest moment during the night came when a girl wearing an aquarium costume – complete with swimming fish inside – walked into the main scene. Her costume was this huge box that she was inside of and the front appeared to be glass. So I reached out – as a crazy person – reaching for the fish inside the aquarium tank and instead broke through the “glass,” which was really just clear plastic film. I think I instinctively broke character and said, “I’m sorry.” She was screaming and squealing trying to leave the room but her box-shaped costume wouldn’t fit through the exit! She kept banging into the door way, like trying to fit an over-sized piece of furniture through a small door-frame. I grabbed the top of the box and turned her 90 degrees so she fit through the door sideways, and gave a push, promptly expelling her from the room.

As with every year, we’re left with a garage filled with black plastic and plywood. Once again I have to break it all down, figure out how to pack it all up and stash it all away. Until next year.

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The Madhouse haunted house. Gibson Residence. Halloween 2010.

Once again we have created a haunted house in our garage – this is the 5th year running, and each year we seem to step it up a little bit more. This year we are calling it The Madhouse. The idea is an abandoned psych ward where the patients have escaped and locked the staff – the doctors, the nurses, and the orderlies – inside. Now they are the ones that have gone crazy and have been experimenting on themselves.

Part of what makes a really good scene is the sound – and I’ve found the perfect soundtrack for this year. It’s the soundtrack from the film Session 9 – in my view, one of the best “asylum” pictures to date. And the soundtrack is fantastic. Just listening to it creeps me out.

I’ve been working in and on haunted houses since I was a kid and have always enjoyed it. And since we began building one at our house the neighborhood kids love it and look forward to it every year. For me it’s just another opportunity to do something fun and creative.

We’ll have some practice runs tonight and then the real deal is tomorrow. We’ll take pics and I’ll post them.

Happy Halloween.

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I’ve spent the past few years working on everyone else’s sites. That, and spending the majority of my time working at (or for) Rocktown.

In my “free time” I’ve had the opportunity to accomplish several of my dreams: make a film (like, a real film), write some screenplays, help out some friends, enjoy time with my family, take a climbing trip here or there.

All good things.

Yet, I get hassled – by you – for not updating this website. I understand. And I can respect that. And I appreciate your concern, if indeed, it is concern from which you speak. If not, that’s cool too. It’s out of love, I know, you hate to see this site go stagnant. Just because I’m not doing daily….or monthly…or….(yearly? really, yearly posts?) Man, this is getting ridiculous….

So here I am, folks. Keep in mind, I’ve been working hard. Real hard. Which is why I haven’t been HERE. Here, posting updates. Visiting my own forum (which, by the way, I am delighted that many other climbers enjoy). Keeping tabs on this site, and what everyone is up to.

Excuses. Excuses. I know.

But now! Now it’s all going to be different (isn’t it?). Well, I’m not making any promises, but I’ll give it a try.

So here’s to you, dedicated visitors of this, tried and (somewhat) true website! I congratulate you for sticking it out, for coming back here time and time again to find the same OLD crap – and nothing – absolutely NOTHING new.

But again, this lull, this time apart will be rewarded – for, I have stuff to share. Time spent offline means more stories, more videos, more postings later.

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Wow. I almost never check my own site any more. I have too many other sites and things going on. I just decided to post a new blog entry because I thought the last one from January was a little out-of-date.

One day this place is going to get an overhaul. Then you’ll all be surprised.

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Happy New Year.

I’m working on a new site for fusionfortyseven. Just finished the new Rocktown website.

I’m posting on my other blog at f47productions.com

Finished the Chesapeake Climbing Wall and should have the Rock Island Climbing Wall Company website up sometime.

Yeah, I’ve been busy.

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Things have been going really well at the rock gym. We’ve been busy every weekend since we opened last year on Nov 5, 2007.

What we did was take a gym that was on its way out and turn it around so that it is now on its way up. Everything about the gym has changed for the better.

This was our first year running a climbing gym and it has been an incredible amount of time, work, and sacrifice but my hope is that our investment will pay off – not only in revenue but in community impact.

I went a step further this year and started another business with a friend. After building a new wall at the gym I was approached by an architectural firm about designing a climbing wall for Chesapeake Energy. I took the job and found that the path lead me closer to a non-existing market in the midwest – professional climbing wall design and building. The design job soon lead to bidding on construction of the wall and the need to start a company. So my friend Eric and I partnered up and started Rock Island Climbing Wall Company. We are a little more than halfway through our first major project – the Chesapeake Climbing Wall – all the steel work and plywood sheeting is complete. The next phase is texture, which we will begin on Monday.

On another note, the Oklahoma Climbing Team is competing in their first USA Climbing ABS competition this Saturday in Frisco, TX. Currently we have 10 kids on the team ranging in age from 8 to 18. This is a new experience for most of them – only 2 of them have ever competed before and most have been climbing less than one year – but we are hopeful that they will have a great time and continue to progress as they gain experience.

So things have been busy. I haven’t got to climb outside much – except for the 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell comp in Sept. But next year….there’s always next year. I think things will calm down and I’ll have more time to climb. Or at least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.

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The gym has gotten off to a great start. We’ve been open since Nov ’07 – just 3 months – but things have already taken off. Seems like I work twice as much and twice as hard as I did at my previous career but this is way more fun.

I am reminded of a session I had with my Adviser my junior year at OU. I was on a pre-med track until that time and one day just before meeting with him had realized a crucial detail in being a physician: you work in a hospital. I hate hospitals. Can’t stand them. Why the hell would I want to subject myself to such a thing? I didn’t really want to be a doctor! And I told him as much. So he asked what I did want to do. I must have made some off hand comment about a job in rock climbing (as I tend to make those). Who knows, maybe I was half-serious. But he went off on me. He start talking about how he liked sailing a lot but that didn’t mean he could make a career out of it. (Why not?)

His comments always stuck with me. Not that I knew that I would someday own and operate a climbing gym and climbing would be my full-time job and lifestyle but now that I think about it maybe it was in the back of my mind.

I think that those things that come naturally to us and that we would do regardless of if we made money or not are the ones that we can have the biggest impact in and the ones that make us the happiest.

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Hello fellow climbers. This is a not-so-formal announcement that Lisa and I along with our partners, Andrew and Nicole Hunzicker of Touchstone Youth Project are buying OKC ROCKS Climbing Gym in Oklahoma City. The official closing/change-over date is Nov 4 and our first open date will be the next day, Monday, Nov 5. The new name of the gym is ROCKTOWN.

Plans for this have been in the work since March but we’ve been keeping it a secret as things progressed.

We are having a GRAND OPENING DAY/PARTY on Saturday, Nov 10 and EVERYONE is invited. We have some special things lined up for the day.

There are going to be some major renovations and improvements to the gym over the next several months. We are just getting started and already the change is evident – but just wait and see what the future brings! I think everyone will be very impressed.

The structure and mission of Rocktown will be heavily influenced about our non-profit side, Touchstone, where we will continue the worthwhile venture of working with under-privledged youth through rock climbing and mentoring. I think the program is going to add value to the gym and the community atmosphere.

Currently, I am working full-time on getting everything ready for opening day. It’s a lot of work and is stressful at times but it is very exciting.

I hope you all will come and check out the NEW gym when we open. A website is forthcoming and will be online at http://rocktowngym.com when the time comes.

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On Saturday and Sunday Chris and I competed in the 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell climbing competition at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas. The competition consisted of teams of two climbing as many routes as they could in a 24 hour period – from 10 am Saturday to 10 am Sunday. Each climb was given a certain amount of points and additional points were given for climbing at least one route per team member every hour.

Our team name was The Amoebacorns (“The rarest, smallest, and most elusive of mythical creatures.”) The idea for the team name came from a comedy cartoon sketch by comedian Dimetri Martin (props). Chris and I developed a plan by which we would accomplish our personal goal of 100 climbs – we named it Operation Mythical Science. When people asked what our strategy was we would reply, “We would explain it to you, but you wouldn’t understand. It would blow your mind. The plan must have worked because we were able to achieve 112 climbs by 10 am the next morning.

So you might be wondering, what is it like to climb for 24 hours straight? The answer: It is everything at one time or another. There are those times when you feel at the top of your game, as strong as you can be, of sound mind, hopeful, energetic, unstoppable! Then there are those times when you think, what am I doing here? This is absurd! This is crazy! I should be asleep right now. There are times when you can’t remember the last sentence you said, when your palms feel like the skin is on fire, when your mind swims in a sea of blackness as you search for the next clip 50 feet above the ground – your only source of light a slim beam emitting from a headlamp. Tunnel vision takes over. Muscles cramp. You no longer laugh at things that are normally funny. You are focused not only on the next handhold but on keeping your mind tethered to reality. The reality is that you are climbing, or that you are belaying, or that you are staring off into space waiting for the next hour to arrive so that you can get credit for the 4 am hour climb. Nothing seems real except for those few moments when brain chemistry coalesces in just the right way to make things seem normal if only for a moment. Then the moment passes and you are back in the void of the early morning brain fog.

When dawn arrives the sun spawns a newfound energy in the climbing zombies. You shake off the pain – or simply ignore it – thinking that you might have just a little bit more energy to go on another climbing spree. Just one more push before the magically 10 am quitting time. And so you pop an ibuprofrine, guzzle an energy drink, choke down whatever form of carbohydrate you can muster and tie in form another climb. “On belay?” “Belay’s on.” “Climbing.” “Sure.”

This is one of those events that will take a year to forget all the little painful elements that make you think at the time – I will never do this again. Then the next year arrives, you have forgotten how difficult it was – only remembering how fun it was and what do you do but sign up again. I can’t wait.

Chris and I had a great time. It was one of the most unique climbing experiences I have ever had. It was great and I would love to do it again.

I think our goal for next year is going to be 200 routes in 24 hours.

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I wrote an article for the September edition of Access Fund’s e-news. It is about the WMCC’s ongoing effort to protect climbing in the Wichitas pending an upcoming Comprehensive Conservation Plan(CCP) and compatibility review process. Not much has been announced publicly about this until now as the WMCC Board members have been working directly with the Refuge and other officials. But it is time to educate climbers about what is going on…

Read the article at http://www.accessfund.org/pubs/en/e-news83.htm#_Climbers_Working_to

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