A few weeks ago Zoosk closed a third round of funding and we all ended up renting a boat to do a great boat party.  There ended up being around 35 people in attendance with a DJ and a full catered dinner.  It was really an eye opening experience to see how our celebrations have progressed to just a few of us having pizza and a beer at a shop across from one of our apartments to a full party, suits, boat, limo and all of the other little pieces which go along with it.  Sometimes it is hard to gauge a sense of scale of the company when you are working in the same office for a long while.  Even though the number of employees has ballooned (18 now I believe) the impact that we feel from customers is a bit isolated from me.  There are a lot of big challenges over the course of the next year to overcome, not the least of which is really understanding what our customers need and making sure that we can deliver a product which will enable them to get the greatest benefit from Zoosk.

The next few weeks I am starting to ramp up my climbing traning again, so expect to see more posts on my climbing blog.  I have around six months to get to my personal climbing goal for the year (send a V10 outside) and I am getting stronger without any form of structured training.  The other day I did two V8s while sick.  Now it is time to get back on track!!

Brad

Currently I am living with three different people that I had never met before the beginning of the month and have only seen a total of about ten minutes, almost entirely a result of my schedule.  It makes the whole prospect of getting an apartment for myself seem entirely unreasonable.  What comes next?  Most likely continuing to live on the town, build Zoosk up to the next level and maybe find a solid roomate to move in with…

One of my major goals for 2009 is to climb a V10 by the time the year is out.  I started out this year by doing some training and making a few doctor appointments to make sure that everything was healed properly etc…  Unfortunately I was told that my tendonosis has not healed from late last year and I am going to have to spend the next 2-3 months recovering from that.  Over the course of the next few weeks I am mostly going to be focusing on running and perhaps yoga instead of climbing as I had planned before.  It seems like as I get older my body just doesn’t seem to hold up as well as it use to.  I have been dealing with one form of injury or another consistently over the course of the last year and a half.  Hopefully doing the right things for my body for the next few weeks and focusing on physical therapy I will be able to get my body to the point where I can focus on being active and climbing again without a high risk of injury.

The last few weeks in San Fran have been quite interesting.  As always Zoosk has been the main focus of my time, but I have also been starting to climb with some consistency again.  A few weeks ago I got in a bit of a bike accident where I ended up tweaking my thumb, shoulder and hip, but thankfully only real residual effect has been my thumb.  I’m starting to get my movement and onsight skills back in climbing more than anything else.  I have recently been re-motivated by watching some of Ben Moon’s old climbing videos and also by knowing that Bishop temps will be improving over the next few months.  Here’s to hoping that I will be able to get out there for a few days at some point in the Spring.   It is that time of year to make a winter working/training regime and to start following it.

Training is one of those things which seems to factor into all different parts of my life.  When I’m focusing on climbing I’m eating better, usin gmy time more effectively, reading more etc…  It’s interesting that having a few things which focus your energy have widespread ripples throughout everything else that is going on in someone’s life.

Music I’m listening to a lot lately:

• Biosphere – Substrata
• Move D – Misc
• Amplifier Machine – Amplifier Machine
• Sam Amidon – All Is Well
• Deadbeat – Roots and Wire
• Helios – Caesura
• Eric Cloutier
• Mike Shannon – Memory Tree
• Various Christmas Music (A Charlie Brown Christmas etc…)

I have found a home in the SOMA district which is very close to the Financial District so I am able to walk or bike into work daily.  Unfortunately I haven’t made the time just yet to really get intot he swing of things with this city, but I have been able to start climbing again after spending a few months doing PT.  Amazingly, sitting in a chair for 12 hours a day somehow hasn’t completely killed my ability to scramble up mostly plastic.  I’m going to be trying to blog more in the near future, but I thought it would be good to at least put out a quick “hello”. 

I’ve been really excited to get out to Leavenworth and have made a few project lists for Goldbar, Leavenworth and Squamish. I should be spending four days this weekend out at L-town with Ari starting to tick off projects and doing some easy trad on the rest days.

I’m not really sure which places I will be going to over the next few months, but I am looking forward to Bishop and hopefully Joe’s Valley.  Once I hit the road fully life tends to get into a good rhythm and I have a better feeling as to where I will be going to next.

Here is a short video of me climbing at Mickey’s beach down near San Francisco a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Untitled from Brad Henrickson on Vimeo

Last Friday I ended up entering into a climbing competition and was happy with my performance.  It is incredible what three good weeks of training can do along with a little preparation and motivation.  It is going to be great to get back outside again regularly when I get back from Washington.