Skipped 3rd Year like a HO!
Other than Kelly, some things I did for fun included Hiking and Rock Climbing. The University of Virginia is a great
location for both of these hobbies, especially due to it's close proximity to Old Rag mountain which is one of the
best hikes in the east and a site for tremendous granite rock climbing. Kelly never came on these excursions
but we still had plenty of friends eager to tag along. Here's a picture of Gavin, Zach, John and I when we first made
it to the ridge of Old Rag:
Another awesome hike was Rose River Falls. This hike began on Skyline drive and consisted of following a small river
up a sequence of cascades. We left the trail a few times to do some freelance hiking and climbing. One of the
greatest pictures I've captured in my professional career was on this hike:
Both Gavin and Zach barely made it into the frame in time. As is the tendency in our current metaphysical paradigm,
the weather usually turns shitty in the late fall. Thankfully, mother earth gave us a few great days right around
Halloween so that I could wear as skimpy an outfit as possible. Check it out:
Zach had an accident and he tried to blame it on the refridgerator:
Zach had a terrific fall semester. In one two week period, he managed to hook up with three different girls, all
of which wanted more and all of which he managed to abandon immediately. He also met a tremendous girl named Vicky
at a pool party that we all organized. We all hiked White Oak Canyon together and they were inseperable for the entire trip.
Even I couldn't believe how similar they were in tastes and philosophies. It all ended up working out well for Zach,
and they are together to this day:
Sometime during the semester I had the pleasure of meeting the coolest looking guy ever. His name is John Mann and
he is always found with his sweetheart Meredith. If Mann isn't a cool enough last name for you, then you MUST
concede ultimate coolness to John's favorite T-shirt, which reads 'Moon Om'. I still don't understand, and neither
do you. Anyway we threw a ton of get-togethers at our townhouse, and here's a pic of the Mann himself at one of them:
Sadly on this particular occassion, he was not wearing that shirt.
After our Halloween romp, things became a little
rockier between Kelly and I. Nothing against her at all, but we held onto very different morale philosophies and
often got into disputes. Usually, these disputes consisted of me yelling at her and her not doing anything wrong
to deserve my abuse. Regardless, I questioned why she put up with my crap and realized that things really were not
healthy after all. We had a few talks about these problems and decided to allow more time for us to figure it out.
In retrospect, it would have been better to end it there, but it dragged on for another month before I broke it off
just before finals. It was the first time I had ever broken up with a girl, and oddly enough, I felt I was doing
it for her sake.
To get my mind off of these issues, I began engaging in what will be my biggest lifelong hobby. I found a cozy little
indoor climbing place called Rocky Top Climbing Club in Charlottesville and John Wunderlin, John Bates and I all
got memberships. Here's a picture of me tackling a 5.10 called Mantle Madness. It was actually my first 5.10 and
a very important step in my development as a climber:
The owner of the climbing shop is perhaps the happiest and coolest person I have ever met. His name is Bill, and he
will be featured in some of the movies i will post up here on a future page. Unlike the past two semesters, this one
ended without me getting a new tattoo. However, the finals were brutal, and without the help of John Bates, I never
would have survived Econometrics with John Pepper. In my Distinguished Majors Seminar, we all wrote the first part
of our theses. I decided to write mine on the Shipping Gouging strategy found on eBay to determine weather it is
empirically justified and profit maximizing. My results were conclusive that it is a sensible strategy and this
research continued into the spring semester.