Welcome to May. I sure have a hard time updating this thing.

Some catch-up: The third weekend of April started with Nina and I bailing on Caballo due to weather before we even got out of bed. We instead climbed along seven-bump mesa but out towards the end (on the slopes of bump 5) we got caught in a lightning storm. There was hair standing on end and everything. We had to take shelter in a really uncomfortable shelter cave just above the cliff face and wait out the storm while lightning struck the mesa and it hailed all over us. And to think it was really sunny when we started...

Rocketry the following day was awesome. Perfect weather. Here are some pictures from the launch.

I went caving again last weekend. Again assisted with the impact mapping in Hell Below Cave. There was a lot of aggrivating caver politics that cropped up this time, and I was very annoyed by it. I'll go into detail on that some other time. But the cave was great and I got some good survey experience. I'm filling out my application to get on a LEARN expedition to Lechuguilla Cave this fall. Wish me luck!

On the following day, I went rock climbing at Last Chance Canyon with Carrie, Briana, and Jake. It's been a long time since I had done any outdoor climbing. Again the weather was great and Last Chance is a wonderful spot for a climb. Tons of good bolted sport and trad routes.

Nina started at the lab this week, finally. She's really much happier now.

So ever since I got to graduate school I haven't been covered by my parent's dental insurance. And MIT doesn't give their students any. And I had no money. And I'm a pussy, so I never went and got any cleanings/treatment/etc. For 4.5 years!! Oh my goodness am I an idiot or what!? Well, anyway, so now that I am a full-time employee of the lab, I have lab dental. And I went in for my first cleaning yesterday.

No cavities.

Now how is that possible? 4.5 years with no checkups and a pretty lazy approach to dental health? Parents: don't tell your kids this is possible. But hey, I'm stoked! A little cleaning with the horrible gritty stuff and they look a lot better, and they tell me that I'm dentally healthy. Cool!

And here I had saved up all this money to pay for the thousands of dollars worth of fillings I thought I'd be needing. I went home last night and promptly bought a new computer.

Well, part of one anyway. I bought a new motherboard, CPU, heatsink, fan, RAM, and HDD for the arcade machine computer. I am really very excited about setting that thing up now.

I'm going to try again at climbing Caballo tomorrow with Carrie. It's only about the 10th time I've tried. Every time there's a last-minute conflict or bad weather (or the first time, when I had just arrived from Boston and the altitude totally handed me my ass). If the weather is anything like it is today, the hike will be awesome.