Once again I find myself stymied and then amazed by Apple. I've really liked for a while now that when you receive an e-mail that contains pictures in Mail.app, there's a handy "Slideshow" button beside the "Save" button, and if you click it you get a full-screen slideshow of all the pictures in the e-mail. Brilliant. If you receive an e-mail with pictures, you want to look at them, right? Apple understands this. They don't over-do it and automatically play the slideshow for you, they just offer what you want, when you want it. Which is where the stymied part comes in. The two buttons, as I've said, are "Save and "Slideshow". Save, well, it saves the picture files on the file-system in a folder you select, just like Save always does. But I don't keep pictures in folders like that... I keep them in iPhoto. How can it be, I think, that there is no iPhoto integration? Apple usually seems to understand how I do things, and the next thing I want to do with the pictures after I've looked at them is bring them into iPhoto. But there's no "iPhoto" button, and nothing in a drop-down menu. I can save them all to my Desktop and then drag them into iPhoto, but why should I have to perform extra steps? That's so... Windows. Then I have it. I'm still thinking like a Windows user. What would a right-brained Mac user do? Click and drag, my friend, click and drag. OK, I think. What can I drag?
How about the paperclip? Sure enough, I drag the attachment paperclip on to the iPhoto icon in the Dock. Presto magico. All the photos from the e-mail are now in iPhoto. Every time I think I'm mad at Apple for not understanding me, turns out I'm thinking too left-brained. I still think there should probably be an "iPhoto" option in the Save dropdown, but I'm happy enough with my occasional right-brain epiphanies. After all, Apple's brilliance with interface is what prompted me to make my latest purchase... a MacBook. As Denny says, "The white one like all my friends." Except, of course, those friends who have fancy silver. We shall not speak of them lest I lust for more than I have...
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Soon to be world-famous not as a climber, but as a knitter... see unconfinedmind.com and look for me in the trailer...
"In the sport of rock climbing, 5.12 is a magical grade. Looked upon as the "door" to the elite levels of difficulty, 5.12 is thought by many intermediate climbers to be out of their reach..."
The above was lifted from here as it encapsulates how I've always felt about climbing 5.12 grades. Often tantalizingly close, but always out of reach, even with more than ten years of climbing under my belt. Admittedly many of those years contained only sporadic climbing as I tried desperately to entice potential climbing partners to join in the fun, but still. 5.12 was a gateway, and the doors remained closed.
About two weeks ago Andrew belayed me on Dog Town, a 5.12a in Rockwood, which was my first outdoor 5.12 redpoint. Some terminology clarification may be in order. In climbing parlance, one successfully completes a climb only when it has been completed without ever falling or sitting during the ascent, and this is generically known as "sending" a route. If this is done without having ever seen the route on a first attempt it's referred to as an "on-sight". Seen someone else climb it or got some tips (aka "beta") but still bagged it your first time? That's a "flash". If you've worked it a few times before managing to "send", it's a "redpoint". I'd worked some 5.12 routes before, but this was my first outdoor send.
But then the doubt started to creep in. Some folks at the crag referred to the "interesting" way we had climbed the route, and noted that it wasn't the way they "had intended it to be climbed to make the grade." I interpreted this to be fancy talk for "you cheated and didn't really climb a 5.12". Andrew assured me that it was a 5.12a regardless, but still, the seed was planted, and had plenty of fertile ground what with all the self-doubt I have floating around anyway.
No more.
Today I redpointed Weak and Fat (Will Work for Asparagus), rated 5.12a/b, and Fear and Loathing, rated 5.12a. Even I now have no way now to wiggle out of it and convince myself that maybe I don't really deserve to be trying to climb 5.12.
Today I am a man.
Many thanks to Andrew, Patrick, Chris and Gillian for being there to witness...