This keyboard layout is unlike any I´ve seen before, so this is going to be brief.

James and I have arrived in the sleepy town of Amecameca, just east of Mexico City. For the last two days we have been staying in a refugio alpino on the slopes of Nevado de Toluca. Yesterday we successfully reached the summit of the volcano, some 15,300'+ in elevation. This marks the highest summit I have ever climbed, though the hike itself was not particularly difficult. No snow or ice, warm weather, clear skies (above the smog of Mexico City).

With any luck, I'll break that altitude record the day after tomorrow, when we climb Izta. Right now we´re awaiting the arrival of the other two climbers in our team, Sarah and David, who are coming in from California this evening. In the meantime, we´re eating blue corn quesadillas made from scratch in the local market. Yum. I may gain 10 pounds before we leave for the mountain tomorrow morning.

Sadly, this internet cafe does not feature computers with SD card slots, or I´d upload a picture or two.

Anyway, so far the trip has gone very well. Wish me luck on the hike to the Ayoloco hut the day after tomorrow; this will probably be the most difficult day of the entire trip, because I´ll be carrying a full camp pack, including 8 liters of water, up approximately 600m over 4.5km, with a final elevation of 14,900' or so (pardon my units mash).

After that carry, assuming I make it, the summit push will be done with a light pack and from the looks of it (I can see the mountain from where I´m sitting), there is only about 80m of glacier ascent to worry about.

So we´re off to eat more local cuisine, off I go.

There is a certain amount of consternation regarding a two-week unguided climbing expedition to a country where I don't speak the language. And because we can't bring fuel on the airplane, we have to do some shopping once we get there. I'm going to be relying on James for this, as he is reasonably fluent in Spanish. On the first day, we'll be tooling around the town of Toluca, trying to find a grocery store and somewhere that sells white gas. All of this will have to be done with our ~70 pound packs in tow. I'm not very excited about that. Once we get our supplies and then find a cab that will take us to the climber's hostel on Nevado de Toluca, then it's all good. The guide book for the volcanoes makes it sound like it's really easy/common practice to get a cab to come pick you up at the hostel (30 miles outside of town), though these arrangements have to be made in advance.

I still can't shake predictions of the nightmare scenario where we finish the climb and have no way to get back to town, and no one is there to give us a ride. But of course this is peak climbing season in Mexico, and Nevado de Toluca is also a popular state park-esque destination for the locals. I don't expect a problem, but I'll still worry about it a bit, since I have zero control over these arrangements due to my not habla-ing the espanol.

Here's the itinerary, if anyone is interested:

Dec 26: I drive from Los Alamos to Las Cruces, NM, and meet climbing partner James at his house. We drive to Juarez, Mexico, and get a hotel for the night.

Dec 27: At the unreasonable hour of 3am, we get up and drive to the Juarez airport to catch our flight to Mexico City, which arrives at 10:30am. We catch a bus that goes directly from the airport in Mexico City to the town of Toluca. We attempt to find food, water, and gasolina blanca. Then catch a taxi to the Nevado de Toluca climbers hostel.

Dec 28: Alpine start, climb Nevado de Toluca (15,016'). Return to the hostel and rest, meet other climbers, etc. Spend a second night here to acclimate (the hostel is at approximately 13,000').

Dec 29: Catch a taxi back to the bus station in Toluca, then a bus to the town of Amecameca. Check into our hotel, stash gear, buy more supplies, meet climbing partners Sarah and David, who arrive from San Diego that morning. Evening on the town.

Dec 30: Take a taxi to La Joya, stash some food and water for the bivuoac after the climb. Hike to the Ayoloca hut, a 4 hour hike with 2,000' of gain, ending at an altitude of about 14,000'. Hope that there is room in the 6-person hut for all four of us. Unlikely. If not, some/all of us will set up bivies outside of the hut. Spend the evening acclimating.

Dec 31: Alpine start, climb Iztaccíhuatl (17,158') via the Ayoloca "glacier" (it has largely disappeared this year, leaving a 3,000' morraine/scree slope to climb). Return to hut, collect stashed sleeping/cooking gear, walk out to La Joya. Bivy here for the night.

Jan 1: Slack day. If weather is bad on Izta, we may push the schedule forward a day. Otherwise, we may just take a rest day either at La Joya or in Amecameca.

Jan 2: Take busses to a small town near Orizaba whose name is currently escaping me. Stay at the climber's hostel. The hostel hosts sell supplies and make us dinner. Spend the night at the hostel.

Jan 3: The hostel provides 4WD transport to the Piedra Grande hut on Orizaba. This hut sleeps 60 people and should be able to accomodate us w/o the need for a bivy. Spend the night at the hut (~14,000') acclimating and meeting other climbers.

Jan 4: Alpine start, ~2:00am, climb Orizaba, return to hut, meet hostel host for 4WD trip back to the hostel. Dinner and sleep at the hostel again.

Jan 5-6: Slack days/rest days. No specific plans.

Jan 7: Return to Mexico City, fly back to Juarez, drive to Las Cruces, crash at James' house.

Jan 8: Drive back to Los Alamos.

During his annual visit, Mike brought his Wii over and I got my first taste of the new console. My observations, after a full evening of Wii Sports, Zelda Whateveritscalled, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion are as follows:

1) Mike should never have purchased Trauma Center: Second Opinion. What were you thinking? The anime cutscenes are so out-of-place. I feel like the next operation is always going to involve surgically removing some sort of... tentacle. And whenever you are about to go to surgery, it looks like Dr. Stiles is casting some sort of voodoo curse on the patient. Lightning bolt!

2) The Wii controller is revolutionary, if you will. I am really impressed with the IR imaging sensor in the remote as evidenced by the IR sensitivity calibration screen. Between the absolute orientation information derived from this sensor and the relative movement information from the accelerometers inside, there is a tremendous amount of data available to the game developer. I was particularly impressed with my ability to "aim" my shots in Wii tennis without thinking about how to do so; it was very natural, which I gather is the point.

2b) The controller, when used to play downloaded and emulated classic console games, blows. We played some Sonic the Hedgehog and determined, conclusively, that the remote is really uncomfortable when held sideways. Sonic is infinitely more enjoyable on my arcade cab. Plus, the relative sparsity of buttons on the controller means that it can only fully emulate the oldest of consoles. To be fair, Sonic is a Genesis game and the Genesis had six buttons. Sonic only uses two of them, so it works out OK for the Wii; but the number of games that can be emulated is somewhat limited by the minimalist controller.

2c) We didn't break anything in the house or injure each other in any way. However, when boxing, if you bring both hands up really fast to guard your head, you can smack yourself in the face with the cord. Nice work, me.

3) I still don't like 3D games very much. I recognize that the nature of the Wii controller lends itself to 3D gaming very nicely, I just don't care.

4) The existing games for the Wii don't justify its cost to me. I expect this will change, as the price is reasonably low and developers are just starting to wrap their heads around the possibilities the Wii remote makes available. It is notable that my lack of immediate need for this console has nothing to do with its "shortcomings" in the graphics department. I applaud Nintendo on their choice to pursue an innovative interface, rather than just cranking out more polygons.

5) The composite video input on the back of my TV seems to be bortinated. Mike and I spent a long time figuring this out before I discovered that I have conveniently-placed RCA inputs on the front of my TV... that was embarrassing.

Last night, on a highpointing mailing list I read, someone posted a picture of their GPS on the summit of Aconcagua in order to settle a dispute over the actual elevation of the summit. This is all well and good, however, the author has a tendency to be a total blowhard and for some reason decided that including the following comment would be appropriate:

The photograph has the advantage (over simply a written report) of being _absolutely_indisputable_ owing to the indicated position. Pictures don't lie.

Of course I couldn't let that go by without having some fun with it, so here is my version of his image, showing the 22,847' peak somewhere in rural Texas:

Photoshop and the alias tool are your friends.

Spent the morning off-roading in the snow with Minesh and Laura. It seems that they have purchased an exact replica of my truck. They got the '07, but as far as I can tell it is the same. Same options, same color, everything. They're even going to put a cap on it and possibly a carpet kit. I told them they should get a vanity plate that was exactly like my stock plate but off by one digit.

Tonight (as usual) it's arcade games, perhaps some Katamari, and random guests. I'm cooking all-bean chili and kinderpunsch. Minesh and Laura are bringing some green chili cornbread, and Christina once suggested that she might make me an ice cream cake, but she's a huge flake and will probably not show up.

My gift haul this year includes Ninja Bandaids. Fear that! (thx Nina)

The trip is going really well, though work is keeping me pretty busy. I haven't gotten out to take as many pictures as I'd like, but here are a couple, as promised.

This is Nina on Graben, one of the major pedestrian thoroughfares in the old city of Vienna. This gives you an idea of what hanging cristmas lights means here. Those are giant, rotating chandeliers made of ordinary christmas lights.

Next is a view of the Schonbrunn Palace facade and the Kriskindlmarkt out in front, featuring giant tree and choir. This palace was the seat of the holy Roman empire for awhile, was the birthplace of Marie Antoinette, Napolean lived here, and, more recently held the famous meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev. It has significant historical weight, and is a really really really big building. And it is also Rococo-o-rama.

Sadly, with the exception of the weekend, I go to and get back from work in the dark, so most of my pictures were taken at night. But we're having a wonderful time here and eating entirely too much schnitzel.

I am alive and well here in Vienna, home of the Wiener. Arrived almost without a hitch. It turns out that when Mike made our hotel arrangements long long ago, it was for the original dates of travel which eventually got pushed forward a day. He didn't reconfirm the dates with the hotel, so when he showed up this morning (three hours before me), it turned out they had given our rooms away. They still had one room, which they gave to him... yeah.

Anyway, the embassy scrambled and found me another reservation and left a message for me at the original hotel, so it wasn't really any extra hassle for me other than having to walk my suitcase 5 blocks through the old city. And I guess the whole city's hotel system is booked, because they put me in this short-term apartment thing. I have a full kitchen suite with a dishwasher and everything. So this is a good thing.

Nina arrives tomorrow; getting her the info on the new location was a challenge, since she left for the airport just after I arrived here. Just barely made the connection, though, so everything should be good.

In other news, the small Alitalia puddle jumper planes all have names, and today I flew the Enrico Fermi from Milan to Vienna. By the way, this flight, taken early in the morning on a clear winter day, is probably one of the most beautiful experiences available to mankind. You skirt the southern edge of the Alps and the low-angle sun catches every ridge, snow contour, etc. in high contrast lighting. The Alps are so incredibly rugged and enormous compared to the Colorado Rockies. They just go on forever!

And I got to see Monte Bianco (or, as they say in Caracas, Mont Blanc), highpoint of the Alps, as well as the Matterhorn at close range from the air. Thems is some fine-lookin' rock. Especially the Matterhorn. I mean, come on. Look at this thing. Wow.

Anyway, trip went well and I'm here. I'm off to meet Mike for dinner. And possibly Kinderpunsch.

Oh, and I have internet in my room, so you'll get to hear me jabber on.

I'm leaving for Vienna next Tuesday. I'll be there until the 21st. Set all phasers on nachtwurst and prepare for kinderpunsch.

Due to recent events at work and the impending trip, you probably won't hear from me much until then. Note that, once I return, I'll only be in country for five days before leaving again. So, everyone, have yourselves some great holidays. I may or may not have sporadic access to ye olde internetz between now and January 8th.

Note: I will be back briefly around my birthday, so if you are one of those people who randomly stops by my house on my birthday for arcade games and general nerdosity (read: Mike and Dan), feel free to do so. I'll be jetlagged but present.

Was in the living room getting ready to go to the annual rock & gem show down at the wacky Masonic Temple... when I look out and see a coyote walking across the back yard. He picks out a nice less-snowy spot, and curls up for a rest. I took a bunch of pictures:

Then I went up onto my balcony to try to take some pictures from above, but he ran off at the sound of the door opening. I did get a couple shots of him trying to find a break in the fence.

He eventually just jumped right over the fence in a really awkward fashion.