Winter Grit.....My Antisocial Way

So that was the winter past and I did it my way, mostly antisocially. Although not entirely, sometimes I managed to outwit the Gapescrote plan to shiver my blubber off on prolonged belays on drizzle-blasted obscurities and actually get him to do something suitable for a grotty gale-ridden winter season, sometimes I met fellow obscurists and sometimes random people which worked particularly well at Scout Hut (I only walked in after driving through a sodden Widdop valley because I needed a piss and it turned out to be bewilderingly dry and another dude was reccing and his mates turned up with loads of pads, sometimes the luck goes my way).

Anyway even though I often spend the routes seasons begging around for partners, trying to get anyone interested in similar exploration and able to give off the right vibes for my tradding, when it comes to bouldering I seem to be quite happy on my own. Sure the occasional highball warrants and rewards a pad party of send train bellends, but for actually getting stuff done, the simplicity of my own schedule and pacing suits me well. Following inspirations with all focus and no distraction, and then the more sociable days out tend to feel fun in comparison.

So this is how it happened, lots of cool problems that might be quite familiar if you've been living 15 minutes away for the last decade, but I think are pretty explorative for someone who has been living 4 hours away for the last decade and has his first grit season in 10 years living locally. Even though the meteorological theme for this grit season was "wank on a stick", the relentless winds that brought in all the fucking rain also brought in some surprising drying speeds as well as making far eastern and tree-shrouded venues invaluable. So in the end, by a lot of forecast checking and venue divining, I got a decent amount done....







...and now it ends. Has the grit season ended? When did it end? What time is it? What day is it? Who the fuck knows. I still have my winter grit beard on because I don't know what to do with it.... Well it ended before I could really get to grips with many routes, before I could at least *try* to put reasonable grit bouldering momentum to test above runners instead of pads. Sobeit. I probably feel something about that but I'm not even sure what. So instead I can look back at the times above as a bit of a retrospective celebration.

Operation Upgrade Yorkshire is in effect.

Sort of. Certain comedy performance art pieces in the climbing scene recently have got me thinking about bouldering grades and the possibility of nudging them towards the remotely accurate. I've been going up to West Yorkshire a bit partly because the journey time is hardly much longer than going to Peaks grit, but is much cruisier being motorway for most of it compared to trudging through Stockport or Glossop, and partly because it's quite good and varied and thankfully not Almscliff. Return trundles along the M66 or M62 have given me time to ponder on the grading and thus here are some thoughts / corrections:

Recent dabblings:

Brimham:
Arthur 6C+ (E3 6b, 6a) [attempted] - This is a weird one. 6B+/C start to a hands off rest, then very rounded and committing scrittle-grovel over the top which is very morpho but probably not that hard. Not nearly as good as it looks TBH.
Perky 6B+ - seems spot on.

Brimham Outliers:
Boris Or Bust 6C - Spot on. Not too hard but precarious and tenuous. Great feature!
Fiddlesticks 6B+ (6C) - As hard as BOB, did it just as good conditions, but was warmed up more and more confident with the landing, and it took me longer.

Gilstead:
Eldwick Direct 6B+ (6C) - Very hard reachy crank on a tiny crimp, I did this in perfect conditions and it was still a hell of a move. I suspect this is the same as the imaginary 6C next to it that doesn't have holds. Lovely little area of problems there.

Scout Hut:
Needle Of Dreams 6C - Easy climbing and a move that would be an easy flash at ground level, but at that height feels well goey. Absolute classic.
Dodger 6B+ - Nowhere near as hard as the photo of JP makes it look.
James Dean 6C (7A) [attempted] - Tried this repeatedly after warming up on NOD in perfect conditions with good skin (before trying it!). Might be a bit morpho but deffo two grades harder than NOD, I couldn't do a couple of moves let alone link them.

Earl Hitching Stone:
Bryony's Arete 7A - Spot on. Really cool problem. Suited me well as it's a gaston move with good feet, but I'm not going to go off on some arbitrary downgrade even though I did it quickly.
Rimbosity 6A (6B+) [attempted] - tried to do this as a warm-up in the most perfectly crisp conditions. Desperate. Gave up after a few attempts, as did someone who climbs Font 7C moves on hard-but-safe routes.

Shipley Glen:
Rudolph 6C -  spot on. A bit cranky to start, a bit goey in the middle, good value.


Previously on FiendTV:

Pebble Wall 6C+ - spot on.
Not My Stile 6C+ - spot on. Think I did it when it was V6 but easier than that.
Whiskey Galore 7A (soft 7A) - a bit soft but still maybe creeps in to 7A.
Deepfry 6B - spot on.
Murky Rib 6C (6B?) - I think I did it when it was V3/4 and felt okay at the grade?
Pair In A Cubicle 7A - spot on.
Pommel 6C+ - spot on.
Fat Punter's Roof 6C+ - spot on.
A Little Sparkle 7A - spot on, and amazing.
Sulky Little Boys 7A+ (morpho, hard 7A+ / 6C) - weird one this, absolutely desperate for the short who have to jump to the rugosity gaston on the arete, completely trivial for the tall who could reach it with feet in the break before the Font 6B/+ rockover to pocket. One of the hardest single moves I've ever done.
Mansons Wall 6C - spot on.
Red Baron 7A+ - correct I think?? I did it in 6 goes using the "John Dunne knee" beta and could have flashed it if I'd got my left hand higher on the first attempt. Does this mean it's suddenly 6C? I think not. Just the luck of the day and suiting me at that time.

Finally to compensate for this necessary but tedious dross / science, have some oldish photos:

Start as you mean to go on....

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Regain trad confidence as follows:

> Falling practise indoors (and outdoors if suitable)
> Stamina training
> Complementary training (fitness, flexibility, calf raises)
> Don't get sucked into too much sport climbing
> Make use of sport climbing for falling practise
> Avoid trad climbing with people who walk up my lifetime ambitions after I've backed off them
> Keep up with easier trad routes in uncomfortable styles to work my weaknesses
> Sometimes boulder / train on vaguely relevant terrain for particular trad routes
> Aim 3. below as it's a big hinderance physically and emotionally

2. Use confidence to tackle inspiring routes.

3. Focus more regularly on healing digestion.

4. Do more climbing trips away.

5. Keep flexible with conditions and venues/styles.

6. Keep up theraputic exercises, stretching etc.

7. Go to more hardcore / dnb nights.

8. Keep decluttering and selling stuff.




(Based on what's gone well and what's not gone well in the last year, posted mostly to remind myself esp. in case 7. rots my brain cells further)

Outliers

Here's a video with strictly NO big numbers, no epic first ascents, no tales of struggle and victory, no scintillating exposition about the philosophy of the bouldering journey, and of course no drone footage no close-ups no slow-mo no choppy edits no coffee-making and no driving to the crag.

Just 39 off-piste Snowdonia classic boulder problems from 6A to 7A in 32 minutes, set to a soundtrack of uplifting jungle, serious techno, and bassy ambience.

Here's the deal: The "Outlying Crags" section (i.e. away from Llanberis / Ogwen) in the new fantastic North Wales Bouldering bible has grown 20-fold in the last decade or so. So whilst you could be queuing up to get run over after falling off The sodding Edge Problem, you could also explore a vast number of areas from the reasonably well known to the fully off-piste. And that's exactly what I did, and I had a bloody great time, and I wanted to show it off to other people. There's a few more things I wanted to fit in but ran out of weather, and thus maybe there will be a follow-up at some distant point. One thing I learnt was that the quality and variety in North Wales Bouldering is truly great, even if the conditions aren't quite as convenient as Albarracin ;).

The video kinda says it all, solely by the medium of pure simple climbing footage. The only other thing to add is that I'm pretty chuffed with the (hopefully accessible) soundtrack which took quite a bit of effort to segue etc but makes it a lot more fun I think.

Since this early Autumn excitement, the weather got terrible, I got manflu and then injured my back doing weights on de-oxygenated legs after running to the gym, then all of the above cleared up and I went out on the grit recently and it was mostly terrifying but I'm pretty psyched to keep going at it during winter and early spring...

The state of climbing 2019.

A factual analysis:

PROS:

• Ground Up guides - especially the North Wales Bouldering bible but also in general. Elegant, functional, and characterful, I like the consistent subtle prose and descriptions.
• The amount of indoor bouldering walls around - God knows we need them with this weather. Hurrah for commercial populist bandwagons that actually provide some good fun and good training.
• Beta chalk - getting harder to find because like all good things people want generic crap instead, but still as deliciously crunchy as ever. I had to go back to using Metolius SuperChalk when I ran out of Beta and it was like finely powdered butter on my fingers. Drying agent my arse.
• IFSC - constantly entertaining throughout spring summer and autumn. Production values are now nearly matching the exceptional climbing and (mostly) setting values and even Baldy Boscoe's commentary has transcended tolerable and is actually sometimes good. WTF did I watch before this was on regularly??
• South Stack - still the illest. It only took one route to remind me how deeply wonderful Red Wall was. My plan to live their for 2 months over the autumn failed dismally though. The best "roadside" adventure in the UK if not the world, and all quite amenable too.
• Peaks / Yorkshire sport climbers - quite surprising given the  pointless, miserable, unaesthetic, repetitive, puritanical work ethic sub-genre of climbing they're so addicted to, but actually mostly a nice and welcoming bunch. Being able to mix and match and share ropes and chat (blah blah polished crimp blah minging undercut blah blah polished knobble etc) with random strangers was a relaxed sociability I'd almost forgotten about.
• Building patios - a bit naughty but oh so nice. Not talking about Hayward's "let's build decking structures the size of a Swedish chalet in a sensitive nature reserve and then make sure they're hidden in all the topo shots" at Fontainfawr, just common or garden reshuffling of ground level blocks and stones. It's the closest to gardening I come these days thank fuck and sometimes more fun than the climbing. I particularly enjoyed dismantling the patio beneath My Private Idaho (hard lineless eliminate) at Crafnant and rebuilding it beneath Riley's Arete (mid-grade classic prow) - redistribution of patio For The Many, Not The Few!
• The amount of techy slopey weirdness indoor problems - generally because it means that walls are setting with half decent holds not the dismal old style Core and Holdz shite. But also they're quite fun and sometimes fat weak people with some outdoor nouse can do them.
• Dogs at crags - far better than people at crags. Infinitely better than squawking kids (how did those idiots get their trio of rampantly shrill grubs down to Moat anyway??) Apart from that one Buster at Trollers, he was a bit of a dick.

CONS:

• Alan James - gets his knickers in a twist because I post a polite but critical reply about the content of an article. Bans me on the basis that all I do is post negativity BUT SOMEHOW KEEPS THE OFFENDING POST UP - perhaps because it's got far more total likes/dislikes than the original article post AND has caused enough discussion for my name to crop of 41 times in the replies. Hope you're liking those page views, user engagement and advertiser views that my "ban-worthy but not censorship-worthy" (how the fuck does that work??) post was getting you. Then demands me to justify why I should be let back on the forum. Tell you what Alan, if you just apologise for your double standards and using my post to keep the discussion flowing whilst simultaneously banning me for it, I won't ask you to justify how you can get away with abusing forum moderation (I reviewed the UKC forum guidelines to know full well that I didn't contravene them) that much.
• The amount of indoor wall boulderers around - cunts, the lot of them. I don't know what's worse, that they all got into it indoors and are all vacuous shallow gym bunnies who aspire to go to the Plantation or Almscliff and think that Malham is the epitome of adventurous roped climbing (and clearly don't know how to brush the fucking holds indoors nor out if they ever get there) or that because they all got into it indoors, they're all far far stronger than I'll ever be, regardless of age, gender, body shape or stupid floppy hipster haircuts. Arseholes.
• Videos full of choppy editing and shoehorned slo-mo - I'm amazed this is still a thing, but apparently "unwatchabley annoying" is still an important ambition for today's budding Youtuber. What part of their brain thinks "I am filming this problem, and the movement looks really cool, so midway through I'll chop out random sections of the move and glue the rest together so it looks like my camera was malfunctioning, yes great idea. Maybe I'll slo-mo one hand slap out of the remaining 50% of unedited movement just to make it more jarring". Because I want to carve their fucking skulls open and burn out that part with acid until they actually use some fucking sense. Also special shout out for anyone doing a trailer for a po-faced pretentious bouldering film and then a teaser FOR THE SODDING TRAILER. You aren't making a $500 million Hollywood movie, get a grip.
• The weather - two days of heatwave or occasional dryness followed by two weeks of pissing wank isn't weather, it's shit on a stick. Where the stick is also made out of shit.
• The Climbing Hangar - One of the 3 out of 37 indoor walls that I've been to that enforces a strict shirt-on policy (presumably they don't allow girls just wearing sports bras either), and since the other two are council / general sports run, the only one apparently run by climbers, but clearly not for climbers who actually want to train, on a damp warm summer's day, by pulling hard. The reason behind the rule?? "It's just wall rules" Why?? "Because it's the wall rules".  OH JUST PISS THE FUCK OFF. Incidentally on the subject of how intimidating shirtless males must be, out of all the possible choices at The Boardroom (good wall, no stupid rules, go there instead), a dad and young daughter chose the shirtless meathead to ask to take a few photos of them in front of the wall. Oh the intimidation! Oh the horror! FFS.
• Mundane shit VLogs - The great thing about the internet is anyone can make and share content. The terrible thing about the internet is anyone can make and share content. And yes that applies to climbing VLogs too. Climbing footage is fine, personal videos are great, but if you're going to wrap it up as some heavily commentated fucking "lifestyle" diary, it better be remotely interesting and exciting. The same old same old with a lot of filler and some fucking blethering shite into the camera - FFS get your snout off my screen, if I wanted talking heads I'd watch some TV chat show, I want to see cool climbing, not some over-hyped dross. Bonus anti-points if you're spamming it all over social media without the slightest though to it's relevance or value. 
• Road cyclists - One of the main things putting me off moving down here. What's the point having 20,000 Peaks and Yorkshire crags on your doorstep if it takes all day to get there because you're stuck behind a flotilla of matching-logo lycra-clad cunts swarming like a cloud of road-based midges on their poncy fucking roadbikes that cost more than my Audi and weigh less than Paul B's toe, weaving around to ensure than any attempt to get past them and get to a crag in the same day you set off results in a head-on collision with a tractor and the self-righteous twats videoing it to smugly post on a Indignant Road Bikers 4 Justice 4 Ever facebook group. Thank fuck I can go the other way to Helsby or Wales. As for climbers who have partly given up and are focusing on road cycling more....don't get me started, there aren't enough swearwords (I'm running low already).
• Bog - I moved down to Scotland to avoid this malignant entity*, and yet somehow it's floated down after me. Wankerish stuff. Particular fuck off to the bog that I trod in in my freshly re-proofed £35 Decathlon waterproof shoes over the ankle twice, so they filled with brown slurry and the waterproofing must have worked because it wouldn't drain out. (* actually the malignant entity I moved down to avoid was Scotland itself).
• The lack of old school board-style indoor problems - Jesus fuck does EVERYTHING have to be techy slopey weirdness these days?? What if you actually want to train by pulling on holds and don't want success entirely dictated by hypothetical conditions in some grimey warehouse sweatbox, combined with a specific 3 minute window after setting when a hold has been chalked but before it's caked in gank, plus some bloody yoga-like flexibility and teetering on some random textured skin-scraping shelf. You can have too much of a good thing, try adding some actual holds FFS.
• People missing off UKB - You know it's in a bad state when people actually start replying seriously to Mr ScrapeScroat's threads the poor buggers. Bring back Dense, Dave, Cofe, Scouse, Jasper, Sloper and several others, I miss their banter and discussions. I'd even tolerate the return of Slackbot as long as he didn't actually post anything.
• People who don't go trad climbing - you're all disgraces. Do you think I want to be scraping lichen and moss off with my teeth, just because you're so lazy and cowardly that you'd rather be polishing up the Catwalk or burying Trackside under chalk ALL THE SODDING TIME instead of getting any variety and breadth in your climbing. I've been in away in Scotland for years and you slackers have let everything slide into the over-eroded vs neglected-and-filthy dichotomy. Rubbish.
• Speed ""climbing"" - the biggest piece of turd in the history of colossal pieces of turd. It's scarcely worth my contempt - but it gets it anyway.

So there you go. Objective science. You read it here first.

Two Years Of Total Yuck.

Hopefully this won't be reposted in 8 years time and entitled "A Decade Of Disease" or some such horseshit. It's now two years since I contracted gastroenteritis and never fully recovered - and still am not, although I am recovering (very slowly, mostly the nausea bouts have been sparse enough that I can stockpile prochlorperazine - at least until last week when I had two sleep-deprived nights in a row, ugh). Still it's been two fucking years and I'm not exactly thrilled about that, apart from generally feeling unpleasant, I feel like a reduced version of myself. Fiend V2 (post-DVT), sure there's 30% remaining leg fitness and 15% additional weight gain, but the spirit and sanity is generally intact. Fiend V3 (post-GE) ...is not quite himself. Not so much a shadow of his former self, but a slightly greyscale version.

People often highlight the silver lining benefits of going through injury and illness and indeed that is sometimes the case. For me, going through DVTs encouraged a fight and determination that I was previously convinced my flaccid moral fibre lacked. The bad soft-tissue leg injury at the same time as GE - I found patience dealing with it, and doing a steady job of healing, and trained my upper body well. Double tennis elbow - frustrating but I found some cool slabs.

The GE and subsequent "Post-Viral IBS Of The Upper Digestive Tract" (a catch-all term for something in your upper gut is b0rked and no the NHS has no idea what to do with it), well let's look at the pros and cons of that:

Pros:

+ Learnt a bit about the sensitive and complex workings of the gut that I never wanted nor previously needed to know.


Cons:

- Reduced sense of self
I just don't feel like myself. A bit wishy-washy maybe, but it's a constant feeling that I'm not me, I'm me with this disease inside...somewhat unclean (even more than normal), and inhibited.

- Reduced reliability
Because I can struggle to plan in advance of my insides are bad, and have to change and cancel plans.

- Reduced energy
Just more tired and less physical (and sometimes mental) energy.

- Reduced levels of activity
Due to less energy but also timeouts due to queasiness / indigestion, and making less big plans than before.

- Reduced pleasure in food
Mostly being on a much more restricted diet, with occasional general wariness about eating.

- Slightly increased weight
You'd think a restricted, healthier, lighter diet would help me to lose weight, but no. I've gained a bit, presumably because my body isn't digesting food properly and putting on weight rather than giving me energy.

- Inconvenience of trying to eat on the go
Obviously convenient snacking isn't usually healthy, but hey it's convenient and works fine as part of a normal diet. Unless of course you can't do it. Food out and about is more of a pain.

- More susceptible to stomach bugs
For obvious reasons.

- Increased food expense
Having to avoid cheap staples and cheap enhancements, and buying more "luxury" healthier food to make it remotely palatable. Added to the cost of nutritionist, naturopath, counsellor, etc......

- Increased depression and vulnerability
A combination of feelings about many of the above factors, along with a direct emotional effect of when I have nausea bouts, which can be debilitatingly prominent and upsetting.

- Reduced sociability
Because a fair bit of my socialising revolved around good food and good coffee. I'm not a boozer, but I relish sharing a good meal, a fun pub dinner, a nice strong coffee and pastry. Or rather, I did...

......

(In fairness there's a few things it doesn't seem to affect - I don't seem any more prone to illnesses like common colds, nor injuries (the tennis elbows were down to plain stupidity), and my cognitive faculties are fine as are my sleeping habits (despite needing a bit more)).

None of these issues, apart from maybe the lower energy and depression, are major in themselves, but culmulatively they actually make the post-GE situation more inhibitive and harder to cope with than the at-the-time "life-threatening" and subsequently "crippling" DVTs. Thus is the nature of the gut (and brain).

Yes this is me moaning again. Yes get a whole fucking orchestra of tiny violins (they can be the soundtrack to you clicking the Back button on your browser). Yes people are in much worse situations - and they can write about that themselves. But for me, as a dedicated climber, this is part of my situation and part of my climbing (which partly got wiped out by it in spring/summer 2018 and bits of early summer this year). Do all those cons above sound good and beneficial for the climbing lifestyle?? Errr. No.  Am I getting "used to it" and plodding on?? A little bit. Am I still healing?? A little bit. Am I healing quicker than I'm getting used to this bullshit situation?? I fucking hope so. I've accepted being Fiend-with-DVTs, I've no intention of accepting being Fiend-with-perma-PVIBSOUDT - because that greyscale version really ain't me.

Well maybe just occasionally...

Levels of engagement.

This is something I have been pondering on for a wee while. When we go out and climb, or attempt to climb, a route, it's often not as simple as that. There are ways to dabble and test the waters, and ways to be fully committed to a determined ascent, and ways in between. Simultaneously subdividing yet simplifying, one can characterise 5 (possibly not definitive) levels of engagement with a route:

1. Just looking:
Visiting the crag, seeing the route in the flesh, inspecting from different angles, learning about aspects and angles and conditions, and quite probably pondering deeply on it all.

2. Playing around on the start:
"Playing around" as in starting the route with a distinct possibility and likely intention just to see how it feels, learn a bit more, and cleanly downclimb and leave a more determined attempt until another day.

3. Engaging without expectations:
Starting the route but this time continuing without a fixed expectation of success, only an expectation of giving it a good effort and seeing what happens, balancing out a desire to succeed if possible with an acknowledgement it might not happen.

4. Getting to the top:
The "normal" one. Climbing the route - cleanly, onsight, of course - and (hopefully) succeeding in getting to the top and doing the whole thing, without any particular standards of smoothness or elegance.

5. Climbing the route "well":
Not just getting to the top, nor just underperforming and climbing so far within your limits that something looks effortless. But rather, having a good challenge, and doing a good job of doing it right: the optimum tactics and attitude, a good battle, and a pleasurable experience.

All of these have their merits, whether it's for being a canny climber, going on a journey, aspiring to good style, tackling a challenge. But of course there's different mindsets, different rewards, different suitabilities for different situations. Getting stuck in particular approaches may not always be as beneficial as flexibility.

One thing I've personally noticed is how I tend towards particular engagements more than others - and why:

I do a lot of 1 and 2, ostensibly under the guise of clever tactics and gathering information, but often more honestly because I'm scared of committing, scared of the challenge, scared of the stress, scared of failure (even though deep down I know how wonderful fully engaging will be). So I convince myself I've done something useful while "onsight inspecting" a route and walking away, and sometimes that is genuinely the right decision, sometimes it's avoiding the issue, and often I don't know which.

I also, when I've got bored of the faff and run out of reasons to put things off, do a fair bit of 4, once I've got the level of challenge and conditions (personal and external) just right. Often with a fair bit more faff up and downing en route, the usual panic and sketching until I realise that it's okay. And that's still great in itself. Very rarely, I engage with 5, where I get things right and do a "bloody good job old chap" and feel that my personal performance and pleasure on that route was spot on. That's nice when it happens, but there's plenty of mental clutter and clart that gets in the way of it.

One level of engagement I almost never do outside is 3 - engaging without expectations. Inside, sure, I mix up many route sessions with a couple of 7a++s where I deliberately set off saying "I'm almost certainly not going to do this, but I'm just aiming for a massive pump and a good fall" (often swiftly followed by actually doing it). Outside, only in redpointing do I say similar "I'm going to give this a good burn, climb as well as I can, and if I don't get to the top, I'll have got the sequences smoother, maybe refined my beta, and got a good workout". In fact I said EXACTLY that the other week when I was trying Haslam (without the off-route rest ledge) at Trollers, on my 5th redpoint burn of my 2nd session. I actually did the route, but success on the route paled in comparison with my success in my attitude before starting.

But for onsight trad....engaging without expectations.... Hmmm. Where I might fall and fail and blow that precious onsight?? (Or, maybe, might have a clear-headed enough determination to do it??) Gulp. I haven't mastered that yet. I don't think I've even tried. I did briefly have it in mind a month or so ago on a minor, tricky, and very inspiring route. I said it to myself before I set off, but the idea lasted until it got a bit tricky just on the cusp of no return, and I managed to grovel back to the ground and my comfort zone of Engagement Level 2... Sure there were some factors like tiredness from bad warm-ups and sore skin. But at some point it would be beneficial to try it seriously (serious fun?!). It's a tricky one because firstly onsighting routes is genuinely, deeply, and fundamentally the most pleasurable to me - it's no shallow ethical posturing, it's a real gut feeling about how right and rewarding that experience is. So it's hard for me to be as casual and carefree about that aim as might be ideal. Secondly, it's a difficult balance - I'm always treading a fine line balancing out challenge with the likelihood at success, and I've got pretty good at that tightrope act (no, not that sort of "tight rope" you bellends), in particular aiming for and being inspired by challenges I have a decent chance at. Choosing routes that are tricky (and safe) enough to engage without expectations, whilst amenable and desirable enough that I stand some chance of doing them and thus can give them a good determined effort (rather than flopping off at the earliest "I know this is way beyond me" opportunity) will take some of that off-resorted-to pondering.

But you never know, I might get there some day. Always something to learn, even if it's an old dog struggling with new tricks....