craggin'

up and down day. my gators lost.

i built a bridge yesterday. that's right, i built a bridge. as part of adopt-a-crag, the mid atlantic climbers and the access fund did some trail work yesterday at carderock. this was the sixth year for adopt-a-crag at carderock, and in the past, i'm told it was little more than spreading mulch. from many scout service projects, i recall that spreading about 60 cubic yards of mulch is not what most would call fun. i was bound and determined to get on the crew that was building and moving and digging rather than the ones that were pitchforking and dumping load after load of mulch.

it was slow going at first, beset on all sides by subterranean rocks to prevent setting the rebar. we managed to find some gaps and with some creative cutting, we managed to level out our twelve foot bridge with some simple trigonometry from an engineer and pure grunt carpentry. predrilling nail holes became the modus operandi. my nail setting skill returned from my decking days with rance and didn't need the predrill, much to the chagrin of the dewalt-wielding fellow builder.

the bridge treads didn't lay out perfectly. there was going to be a big gap that wasn't quite wide enough for one of our foot treads, but far too wide to space out the rest of them to fake it. so i had to rip one of the treads to 2 5/8". perfect with the circular saw. the teammates were summarily impressed. i'll find the pictures online somewhere and share them with y'all.

that aside, i went 7-3 in my college picks. i've been having a good season. georgia lost. 'bama won. ohio state won. illinois looked good, but penn state won. that took the sting off a little bit. being surrounded by rabid fans who think by appearance that you're one of them makes any game fun. it was especially so yesterday among the happy valley faithful at rhino bar. espn kept showing our gator lowlights though.

at least i built a bridge.