Sony Ericsson w810i WSOD fix, 4/29/08

I've had my sony w810i phone for over 2 yrs now, and it has taken a lot of abuse, but the other day I thought it'd been dropped for the last time. It took a pretty impressive slam to the ground, and I wasn't too surprised to see the flashing white screen of death (WSOD). I tried flashing it with the sony update service (SEUS) firmware: SEUS, but that didn't work. Browsing support forums I discovered the wotan server: wotan. My EROM was RED CID49, and the firmware that flashed successfully was: R4EA031 AMERICA_1 (W810_CXC1250324_AMERICA_1_R4ED001_RED49.w03). After 2 wotan flashes (14 EU/~$23 US) and several hours of work, my w810i recovered! Minus the free games and cool applications that came with it (I'd bought it used off of ebay), but hey I still got all the tunes, photos, and phone numbers which were on the memory stick.

Next time this happens, I will probably check out Xs++ first xs++ because it looks like an application that is similar to wotan but flashes for free(?) if you can find the firmware files online.

Useful sites for replacing applications and games:
4shared.com
getjar.com

Lamark Col, Sierras, 4/25-4/27/08

Dave M., Ken, and I met up with Ken H., Bill, Leslie, and Kevin in Bishop for a back country ski adventure. We skinned up from North Lake at the end of the 168 to camp at about 10,500 on Friday and then went up to Lamark Col (just under 13,000) on Saturday. The ski back was super fun! We stopped at Alabama hills for some quick climbs on the way home.

Canon Tajo, Mexico, 4/18-20/2008

We'd been planning to go to Vegas this weekend to climb at red rocks, but we decided to take Rudy up on his offer of a free ride to Mexico. Jenny came too! The three of us met up with Scott and Rudy at about 6am on Friday and got to the campsite around 12pm. We were tempted to check out the climbing but decided on hiking out to the Pan Am wall with Scott and Rudy instead. They were planning to spend most of the weekend aid climbing this 1,700' wall. About 4 hours and 5-6 blisters later, we were back at the car and getting out our climbing gear. We did a couple easy slab climbs and did the same the next two days, with a lot of rock scrambling and one cool crack climb mixed in. Overall, it was a pretty cool place, and we were psyched to check it out, but not sure we'll make the trip back. It is a pain to cross the border, fairly expensive (between gas + insurance) and the crag is mostly slab and lacks a guidebook. There are more pictures on Ken's picasa album.



Mexico at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks

Tahquitz aka Lily Rock, near Idyllwild, 4/13/08

Ken, Dave and I climbed Coffin Nail and Trader Horn. After Trader Horn we took a new exit and a human sized block came down. Luckily, it was pulled down now rather than in the summer when Tahquitz sees much more climbing traffic. Our friend Skater Dave was on the 2nd pitch of Fingertrip at the time and he said it flew right over him, fortunately no one was hurt.

Coffin Nail was a sustained, challenging 5.8 crack, and Trader Horn had a really cool horn to sit/stand on. To protect Trader Horn Ken has a clever technique of throwing a hex into the exit crack about 5 feet away while standing on the horn. This provides a bit more protection for the balancey traverse over to the exit crack. I got some great photos of Ken and Dave on the horn that I will try to post soon.
Route_13_04__Taquitz_ at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks
Trip Stats
Duration: 9 hours, 22 minutes, 27 seconds
Length: 2.4 miles
Max elevation: 7875
Vertical up: 2270.5 ft
Vertical down: 2283.6 ft
Average speed: 0.3 mph

Hanging out w/Ram, 4/11/08

On Friday night 4/11, Ram came over and wrote a bash/curl script for automating posting of gpx files to everytrail.com. It runs ~ every minute on the human genetics server, looking for new files to upload. Everytrail.com has a feature where you can embed maps on web pages, so it is easy to add gps maps to my blog. Thanks Ram!

Wayfinder active - free software for gps tracking via cell phone

Here are some stats on my walk to work. Wayfinder active (free phone software) allows me to record the route on my cell phone and then e-mails me the map and stats. My cell phone doesn't have internal gps, so I bought a bluetooth gps recorder: i.Trek M5+ ($49.99). The M5+ has a battery life of 28-30 hrs, a 51 channel MTK chipset, and automatically enters a low energy mode if it is left on but no bluetooth device detected.

I stop at 7-11 for coffee, so that's why the speed is 0 for a bit near the beginning. :)

Start time: 19:30
End time: 20:05
Total duration: 00:35 h
Total distance: 2,653 m
Average speed: 4 km/h
Calories burned: 127.22

Owen's Ridge, 4/5-6

Paul, Ken and I climbed at Alabama hills on Saturday and then met up with Joanne in Ridgecrest Sunday morning to climb at Owen's Ridge. We did the first pitch of a 5.8 that went to the right of a block on rock II, and then did a 5.9 and 5.7. We were the only people there, and the climbing was fun but the rock was often covered in a loose grainy layer.

Ken's trip report:
It was an interesting day and pretty fun. We climbed on the South
Face of Rock II we were shooting for climbing the right side of the
huge block in the middle of the upper face. We climbed a nice short
hand crack then short ledges to a tree on a ledge. From the tree we
were hoping to cross the face but it was too bold a slab climb for me
about 30 ft to the bolt so I tried the thin flake to the overhanging
flake up and right again it seemed a little too bold so I tried
traversing to the right into ?Gundarg Notch? but it didn't look too
easy going and since the wind was picking we bailed back down to the
ground. We headed around the bases of the face and found a good
looking right facing dihedral that ended at a pair of bolts. My
friend Paul battled up it but finished it, it was probably about
5.9 but took good gear and was fun but physical. I went exploring and
found "Dihedral" which had a great 5.7 crack for 70 ft, it looked
like it would have been great to move left into a chimney to the right
and take it up another 100 ft but our day was ending.