Ice Fest '08

Last weekend, I ventured to Munising, Michigan for the 2nd Annual (for me, for Munising it was the 25th Annual) Ice Festival. The details of my adventures at last year's fest are here. Once again, Mark and Felicia (whose fascinating adventures of life on a boat can be found at Life Aboard Mazurka) loaded up Stella the amazing boat of a car with snow tires that can get through anything, and picked up me and Colleen for the adventure of the season. This year had a lot of the same sorts of fun- a bevy of somewhat healthy snacks balanced with stops for not so healthy food, fascinating conversations, lots of dudes in beanies, two very friendly guys named Ron, fun attempts at climbing, interesting presentations from extreme climber types, and lots of great people.

Here I am scaling at least 2 feet higher than last year.











One of the things that stuck with me after the weekend (aside from the flu. Thanks for the gift, baby Sophia!) was a presentation given by Stephen Koch. Stephen has snowboarded from the highest peak of every continent, except Everest. He attempted Everest but because of those pesky weather systems, wasn't able to get to the very top. He got pretty darn high though. Many years ago, I climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro that dorky way- where you have a porter and go up the boring 'ol trail. Having stood at the top of that big guy, I can NOT imagine, in a gagillion years, snowboarding down it. It's absolutely terrifying to think about. (Let's not get into the fact that I can't snowboard down a bunny hill.)

Stephen's detailed account of how he almost died in an avalanche in the Grand Tetons had me on the edge of my seat. Actually, I was laying on the floor about 7 feet from where Stephen was giving his presentation. I was tired from a long day of climbing hanging daggers. But, if I was on a seat, I would've been at the edge of it. I just don't even know where to begin with this story. He was alone. He was about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. His snowboard was on his back. Avalanche hits. He gets knocked over and is sliding down the mountain on his back- snowboarding. He's losing gear along the way. Little things, like his backpack. And an ice axe. But chill out folks, he still has one ice axe left. Tumbling occurs. He hears one of his legs do something very wrong. Now his leg is in an L shape. That's not supposed to happen. Still tumbling. Tumbling stops. He's relieved. Until he realizes he's in mid air, going over a cliff. Oh sweet Jesus. Hits the ground. Back does something that is not right. Bowling balls of snow and ice are still flying down the mountain so he had to get out of the way. He wrapped rope around his gimpy leg, and rigged up a way to get himself out of the way. His friends wouldn't be expecting him until late, so no one would look for him until morning. That meant he had to get through the night. With a completely gimpy leg, the other leg with a torn ACL, something broken in his back, and a few broken ribs. And virtually no gear. He sat crouched down, and breathed quickly, in and out, like a woman in labor, so he could keep his energy up. He did this ALL NIGHT. Thankfully a helicopter did come find him the next morning. And, after a ton of surgeries and rehab that year, he went back the next year. This time he took someone else and had more avalanche savvy about him. He made it to the top and snowboarded down.

I'm fascinated by the psychology of people that do stuff like this. In one way it seems so selfish and insane. But, on the other hand, it's nutty and he's putting his life in danger a lot, but it's his life. And maybe his extreme riskiness inspires others to take risks in their own lives. One person's snowboarding down Everest is another person's decision to run a 5k.

Here's Stephen snowboarding down Everest.











Maybe he's just crazy.

Obama's "War Room"

That's what it's called on the event posting online. It was actually a room on the 11th floor of a building in downtown Chicago that looks like every other giant room in a downtown building. It was home to the Obama campaign's voter hotline.

The stomach flu kicked my butt Sunday night but I was feeling better yesterday. Still tired and kind of weak but okay. So, I headed downtown on my first major outing since I was sick. Felt a little out of it, but okay. I arrived at about 4:30pm and entered a room packed to the gills with people with laptops and phones. I set up my laptop, got a 10 minute training on what to do, and was on my way. As the Obama staffer predicted, 90% of the calls were from people who needed help finding their polling location. That just involved looking it up on the Obama website. About an hour after I got there, I felt a fever coming on. It hit like a ton of bricks. I felt absolutely loopy by 7pm, but couldn't bring myself to leave. Obama fever seemed to trump my real fever, and I stayed until the place closed at 10. My sincere apologies if I infected any of the kind volunteers around me.

I talked to a lot of cool people. There were a few Republicans who wanted to know if they could switch their party affiliation and vote for Obama. Unfortunately, it was too late in their states but Obama has their vote in the general election. A guy in Idaho was checking on his polling place. I gave him the info and he said that was an hour away and there was a blizzard. He said it's usually right in his neighborhood. He was so bummed out. He said it was the first time in 24 years that he hadn't voted. I checked the stats on Idaho and told him that if it was any consolation, Obama was creaming Clinton in Idaho. He felt much better about that.

Then we had the hilarious woman in El Cerrito, CA. She was trying to find her polling place but got lost. I used to live in Oakland, and shopped at the El Cerrito Target, so I was familiar with the main streets around there. She was so frustrated but cracking me up. "If this man wants my fuckin vote, then he should make it easier to get to this fuckin place!" I said, "If you give me 10 minutes, I will get you to that f'n place." She agreed. I told her that the google map said she was 2 minutes away. "Now how can it be 2 minutes, when I been talkin to you for 10?" Good question. Real good question. But alas, about 4 minutes later, she said, "OH. MY. LORD. There it is." She was beside herself with happiness. I just love that she crabbed the whole time but she clearly wasn't about to give up. Yes she can. And did.

Adding to the fun were the volunteers surrounding me. The woman next to me was cracking me up all night. Academic type with an incredible sense of humor. She was making calls to California to remind them to vote. After a long normal chat with someone, she hung up the phone and said, "I just talked to a 5 year old." Never too early for a Civics lesson, I guess.

Then I tune in to young New York Ben's conversation and I hear him say, in all seriousness, "He is a very special man, isn't he?"
At one point I heard Ben analyzing Edwards' hair with someone.

Sef, the Kenyan guy across from me, said people in Kenya think Obama already won. Sef gets calls from Kenya asking what President Obama is doing to change the United States of America. I find that so heartwarming.

I also got a couple calls from people in California who had just received reminder calls from an Obama volunteer. They called to find out where they needed to go. It's great to see that making those calls actually works.

I had a woman call and report that she voted in California and that her name was already marked off in the book. They worked that out, but then after she voted there was nothing to protect her vote so the volunteers at the polls could see who she voted for. She was told, "We're not using those sheets this year." Then the guy put the ballots on the ground because "the ballot box was broken." VERY fishy. That type of info got forwarded to the legal department.

I was really impressed with how well organized, calm and helpful the Obama staff was. The phones rang non-stop but it was a well-oiled machine in there. Any time a state was called for Obama, everyone would burst into cheers. I happened to be on calls during most of those, and I think it helped energize the person on the line. I really thought that there was going to be weeping when Connecticut was called for Obama. (Thanks, Marian!).

It truly was an amazing night and I feel lucky to have been a part of it. AND, I think Obama is in a VERY good place right now. He's won more states than Hillary, he has more delegates pledged, and he obliterated her in some of the red states. This is what we need. A Dem who can turn red states blue. (I love that song by Crystal Gayle: "Don't it make my red state blue...")