Are your knees over your toes?

That's where they're supposed to be. Don't turn 'em in. Huh-uh. No, no, no, no, no.

A Nature Walk in Turkey... on the Main Road

Just some more amazing tufa climbing here... (We haven't even climbed here yet.)

Extreme Turkish Wildlife, Parts 2 and 2.5

Just when you think it's safe to wash your underwear...

Untitled from Christine Balaz on Vimeo.

Untitled from Christine Balaz on Vimeo.

We're Not in the Gym Anymore: Extreme Turkish Wildlife/// Episode One

A new life stlye series.

Extreme Turkish Wildlife I from Christine Balaz on Vimeo.

The Swedish Warmup Strikes Again!

Turkey/ JoSiTo

Getting ready to head back to Arlanda/ Stockholm by bus
Karlstad bus station
E 18

Waiting for the 2:45 am first flight to Turkey

Visa

Batman

Busting out of Antalya, heading for the hills

En route to the mountains/ JoSiTo

Favorite beer here

Catching some shut-eye

Checking out the Umgebung

Post 45 or 50 hours of travel in four or five days

Getting ready for Everest

Man in the bar

Manning the bar

Home for seven weeks

Post red-eye from Sweden, 95F/ 35 C

Working in the kitchen

Haircut

Sverige

Arriving in Stockholm/ Arlanda

Driving to Karlstad on the E 18

Swedish Countryside

Making whipped cream.

Late evening fika.

Pride

Strange Swedish culture

En route to the 50-year-olds' birthday party

Goodbye Montana; Hello Sweden, Turkey

Tomorrow I'll take three planes to Stockholm, Sweden. Will spend a few days there, and then head right to the Antalya region of Turkey to climb and stay at the climber hostel/ camp, JoSiTo for seven weeks. The climbing there looks amazing...

After that, it's back to Sweden for November/ early December.

More soon!

BOOK 3.5 DONE

("Book 3.5", as in: prior to this [1+], I've written two other first editions [2+] and one 2nd edition on another of mine [+.5= 3.5]; therefore...)

Next stop: EUROPE and some posts of actual interest!

100 Push Ups

David and coworker, Hasse, decided (somehow??) that they were going to train to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups.

There's a website,

www.hundredpushups.com

that claims, no matter how many push ups you can do now- in six weeks, you should pretty much be able to do 100 in a row.

The first step is taking a test: how many can you do right now?

Based on that, there's a regimen for each of the three different ability groups (0-5; 6-10; 11-20). Three different workouts, three times a week. If you can complete each workout, you can move onto the next week.

To my surprise, I could actually do 17 yesterday - which was a BIG surprise, because there have been recent times when I couldn't do a single, normal pushup... (David did 55 because he's rude.) And today I started doing the actual workouts; I started with the 3rd workout of the week, so I could be on schedule with David and Hasse (11, 15, 9, 9, max - all separated by 120 seconds). I got through the first part fine, but had a hard time finishing the set!

Here are some videos so you can check out the dog hair on the floor.

Long Time, No See// Sweden-Bound

View from near Snowbird summit, Utah.

It's been so long since posting that (oopsie-poopsie) my blog doesn't come up in my own URL window.

Pete's Hill, Bozeman

That's because I haven't been doing anything exciting -no climbing, almost no travelling. Rather: working, working and trying to not climb.

View of Hyalite Mountains From Baseline Road, North of Bozeman

But just a few days ago, I booked a flight to Stockholm, Sweden (Sept 8-Dec 6).

The last couple of 3 or 4 years have been nothing but a landslide of seemingly unrelated injuries. Some old, but most totally new.

So this summer, I've been staying up in Montana. Writing an iPhone app and a book, and healing.

In the Near-Final Throes of Editing

But I've been putting lots of money in the bank, so to speak. Running and road biking to keep up the cardio. Yoga and stretching to strengthen and stretch. Lifting weight to work the antagonists. Living in a house and eating well. Still not really taking showers, though.

I've (carefully) crossed my fingers for a kick-ass autumn in Bohuslän!