Happy Flippin New Year

Well, another year is gone, another year to come...guess i should update this at least once more before the big pretty ball in Times Square drops.

So to start with wrestling, December was a crazy month, the majority of our matches were in Dec. and overall, my boys did great. They, for the most part have individual records of around 0.500 which is just plain spectacular given that they are all first year wrestlers. We still have yet to get our first team win, I hope that that comes soon for the sake of my boys' moral. But overall they are happy with what has been happening. Now in this wonderful month of January, we have 4 tri meets and 4 tournaments....so this will be a great month to prepare the guys for the post season coming up in February. I'll be sure to keep you all updated (all one or two of you that actually read this).

A great spin-off of me coaching wrestling is, i have lost a bunch of weight. I'm down 15 pounds from when i moved into Petersburg. This, really causes me to get excited about climbing in the coming months. I figure i'll keep workin' at physical shape till wrestling is over in Feb. and after that i'll start really kicking in training for my big trip this summer in June (still hoping to hear from kids about who want to go; first day of climbing being June 21). This trip will last till I'm sick of climbing, or flat freekin' broke. Also, to help me train for this, i got a hangboard for christmas, so now i can get my calluses back and even work on my climbing endurance. Gotta get the blood vessels built up and stop the pump from killing me.
~~~One an important side note PLEASE COME CLIMB WITH ME THIS SPRING

Teaching, well that will be getting back underway this Wednesday. And to be honest i have completely forgot about it over the past week. I haven't even bothered grading most of the work that needed to be done. Ohh well, i'm sure it will be fine.

On the kayakin' side of my life, i almost went the one day when i was home, but the water was still only about 3.5 feet, a full 2 feet lower than i would have liked so i didn't feel like freezing my balls off for "so-so" kayaking.

Hope you all enjoy this quick update. Have a safe and happy new year. May you make a resolution that you can actually keep unlike the vast majority of Americans. And if you are curios about mine, it is:

In the coming year of 2008 C.E. I plan to:
(A) Purchase a house here in the Moorefield/Petersburg Area
(B) Continue my physical training and continue to lose weight [goal is 165lbs (not part of my resolution, simply a goal)]
(C) Climb at least one of the following or greater V5 and 5.11a

Now i have proper record of my resolution, and we can all look back to see how i do.


Keep Kickin Ass,
Bails

Snow in WV

Well, it's official, WV sucks at removing snow. We had 3 inches of snow yesterday ending at 8PM and we didn't have school today.....wow, what is wrong w/ the crazy WVDOT people that can't clear 3 inches of snow.

As for that first match, it got postponed to a later date.....so now our first match is Saturday (hopefully nothing stops that).

Guess i'll update you all then as to how the little lads do that day.

Let's Go Jackets

So for those of you who care to know, tomorrow is the first wrestling match for the Moorefield High School Yellow Jackets in nearly 40 years. And already the criticisms fly: "your kids don't have fundamentals," "They don't know enough moves." So on and so forth....jackasses, the kids have had 3 weeks to learn what many wrestlers have had years to learn. I'm flippin' proud of them. Hopefully at least one guy will win. That will be a moral victory for my guys. I'll be sure to post in the next few days to let those who will be sitting on the edge of their seats w/ ulcers from the suspense how they did.

As for climbing, i just have one question to let you know how that is going. "What is climbing, and how does one do it?" it's killing me driving past a really cool bouldering area every day. I have yet to really try the area out, it's right along the road and i just noticed it once the leaves fell off the trees. I just can't wait to sink my hands into what looks to be a sweet (painful) hand crack running out the apex of a 20 foot roof. The offwidth dihedral crack tapering off to a seam leading to that roof hand crack. Then the lip of that roof which would make for a sweet 50 foot traverse which will end up being a bit of a high ball, this roof tops out at or slightly above 20 feet. All-in-all i can see (while driving by at 50mph) about 15 lines that would keep me entertained for atleast a month or so this spring once wrestling is over. The best thing about this, it's only about 2 miles from my house, so i don't have to drive hours to get there (infact it might be the same distance as the wall was from my apt. in lewisburg.

I guess while i'm on here i should update you all on teaching. Wow, it's getting to be interesting. The students have pretty much made up their minds that they refuse to do work outside of the classroom; which does not go well with my "college preparatory class" i run. They will not be prepared if they are not doing any work outside of class. Last night 2 out of 22 did the worksheet they had for homework. And i thought i was a slacker.....wow this is amazing. Outside of that, the behavior has been much better than past weeks.
Climb On, Rock On......

And on one last side note, i haven't asked any professional athletes if they were in line to shit recently.

Climb On