COURTESY PHOTOS
Sports
living p. 29
CLIMBING UP THE WALLS: Washington Elementary’s Colin Emmerson is heading to the U.S.A. Climbing Youth Speed Climbing National Championship in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, on July 11.
Speed-Climbing ‘Spider-Boy’ Qualifies for National Championship
C
olin Emmerson , a 10-year-old Washington Elementary School student, is quickly — and literally — rising through the ranks of competitive indoor rock climbing. The incoming 5th grader, who started climbing at the Santa Barbara Rock Gym with his family about four years ago, recently qualified for the U.S.A. Climbing Youth Speed Climbing National Championship in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, on July 11. Speed climbing is one of three types of competitive indoor climbing; sport climbing and bouldering, Colin’s personal favorite, are the other two. As the name suggests, the goal of the speed event is to make it to the top of a 10-meter-tall wall as quickly as you can. You wear a harness and use an auto-belay, a device that allows you to safely climb, fall, and repel on your own. There are multiple hand- and foot-holds spread throughout the wall that the climbers grab onto in any desired order, as well as weight sensors at the top and bottom that precisely time the participants’ journey upward. “It’s our first season with him actually competing, so we’re kind of figuring everything out as we go,” said Colin’s mom, Lindsay Emmerson. “We’ve learned a lot about indoor rock climbing this year, including that it’s a new Olympic sport as of next year in Tokyo.” In order to qualify for the National Championship, Colin had to place well in regional and divisional
COURTESY
Education
Watch a video of him in action at independent.com.
TECH-SAVVY: Shain Cox is the founder of AnyTechCA.
Computer Goes Kaput
M
y teenage daughter’s face flooded with anxiety as she uttered the words any father fears to hear. No, not those words. But still, not good: “Dad, I think I spilled water on my computer.” I snatched up her 2017 MacBook Air and quickly tapped a random sequence of keys before thumping the space bar a bunch of times with one thumb. When that failed to revive the drowned machine, I held down the power button for a long time while reattaching the power cable. Still nothing. My amateur toolbox empty, I decided to call a pro. Shain Cox was born and raised in Santa Barbara. As a kid, fascinated with computers, he tore apart his dad’s 2005 IBM laptop and put it back together. In college, at the University of Redlands, where he earned a degree in business administration, he enjoyed fixing his friends’ computers. Encouraged by his housemate, Cox started charging for his skills, which now range from home computer repair and data recovery to network problem-solving and home-theater installation, plus a sizable menu of business services. In 2015, Cox founded AnyTechCA (anytechca.com), and he recently hit his two-year anniversary running shop out of a downstairs desk at Impact Hub on State Street. Cox prefers PC and Linux devices because “they’re easier to customize and maintain,” he said. “But I mostly service Apple devices since they are so commonly used. Repairs done by Apple can be very costly, and I can offer lower rates and a faster turnaround than their Genius Bar.” Whatever the device, he added, “I’d recommend that everyone use a cloud backup system for their data, since local storage is a common point of failure, especially with mechanical hard drives.” He also recommends establishing a relationship with a tech professional who can monitor the health of your devices over the long term, similar to finding and sticking with a dependable car mechanic. Cox didn’t hesitate to give me a call with updates on the repair of my daughter’s computer. He also set her up with a generic loaner while hers was in the shop. I’d like to think she now has a greater appreciation for her decal-covered MacBook Air, and I know she learned a valuable lesson: —Keith Hamm Computers and water don’t mix.
Incubating Green Ideas into Reality A
BRIGHT IDEA: Simone Pulver created UCSB’s new Environmental Leadership Incubator.
competitions. Until that point, he’d only competed in the sport category, which emphasizes difficulty and problem-solving routes. “We had a hunch that he would be good at speed climbing, so we signed him up and he did very well,” said Lindsay. Colin set his personal record in the divisional race, completing the —Ava Doré course in 13.36 seconds.
When Your
PAUL WELLMAN
Tech
n app that tracks your carbon footprint. A scorecard for the sustainability of clothing companies. An outreach campaign to excite teens about the Green New Deal. These are among the projects being pursued at UCSB’s new Environmental Leadership Incubator (ELI), a place where big dreams to better the world are nurtured into reality. Environmental Studies professor Simone Pulver built and now heads ELI, which just wrapped up its one-quarter pilot phase and will officially kick off this fall as a four-unit, year-long course open to any sophomore or junior. Ten weeks
of lectures will lead into two quarters of independent work under the guidance of advisors. “There is so much energy and passion and creativity here, particularly among undergrads,” Pulver told The Current, UCSB’s public affairs site. But before ELI, there was no way for them to pursue their ideas. “These are the years when you navigate what could be and what can be, that tension between big dreams and reality,” she said. “It’s a time to take risks, to be bold, to try something new and different and to seize that energy of, ‘Hey, everything is still possible. How can I turn it INDEPENDENT.COM
into action?’” Pulver has secured funding to run ELI for three years from donors Richard Landers, Terilynn Langsev, Greti Croft, and Chris Fletcher, “without whom ELI would not exist,” Pulver said. She’s open to any project that advances environmental causes, whether in policy, business, technology, social justice, or activism. “Ideally, I want it all,” she said. Long-term, she wants to establish ELI as a centerpiece for undergrad environmental leadership at UCSB, then help replicate it at other universities. “And how great would that be?” —Indy Staff JULY 3, 2019
THE INDEPENDENT
29