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The 100 Club
Some 4 months ago Yours Truly took his first tumble from a perfectly good airplane, and He saw that it was Good. Two orders of magnitude later, the PseudoLatino is here to reaffirm His earlier pronouncement of Truth: skydiving rocks.
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Early on this day of American Independence, in the Year of Your Lord Two Thousand Six, I set out on my now-familiar Saturday morning sojourn to Skydive Dallas. My objective: plummet earthward at least 5 times, accelerate each time to a speed of nearly 120 mph, execute various precision maneuvers during freefall, deploy my Sabre2 190 canopy, proceed to the holding area and execute, to the best of my abilities, a standard left-hand landing pattern . . . culminating in an exciting swoop and touchdown. By 3:30 in the PM, my objective had been accomplished and I had reached a milestone in any newbie skydiver’s progression: my first triple-digit jump. Number 100. Skydiving is a sport which cherishes milestones, celebrating firsts of all kinds by requiring He Who Firsts to provide large quantities of beer to the skydiving community-at-large. Your first solo jump? You owe a case of beer. Your first successful group formation? Case of beer. First exit from a new type of aircraft (skyvan, helicopter, hot-air balloon)? Yup . . . a case of beer. First time you jump a parachute you packed yourself? First time you land off the dropzone? First time you have to cutaway your main? All these firsts demand the purchase of brewed alcoholic beverages . . . a toll that the one collecting the new experience is only too glad to pay. Usually, at least. Already a sport with a rather hefty price tag for entry, it is often said that the cost of taking up the sport is nearly doubled when beer purchases are factored in. This is no doubt an exaggeration, but it is certainly true that a newcomer to the sport runs quickly through a lengthy list of first-time events . . . and the Beer Tithe is anything but insignificant.
But . . . like I said . . . one is generally only too glad to pay. I mean, how can you put a price tag on personal growth?
All of this to bring you, my Dear Readers, a bit more up to date after my long silence and to provide you with a backdrop for today’s accomplishment: I completed my 100th skydive after four months of hard work and dedication. I hold an A-license from the USPA and am a hop, skip, and a jump away from a B-license; the skydiving communities at Skydive Dallas and Skydive Spaceland have noticed my efforts and have been encouraging and supportive; I am at that wonderful point one reaches in any new endeavor where basic skills have been acquired and one resembles nothing so much as a sponge, sucking up information like water.
The centennial jump itself turned out to be a 5-way, with Chuck, Char, Pam, Brett and Yours Truly. The other four jumpers are all experienced RW divers (RW stands for “Relative Work”) with multiple-thousand jumps each, but they kindly included me in their planned jump (like I said, skydivers place a lot of emphasis on firsts and other milestones). Suffice it to say that I did ok, though I hosed the exit launch, and that we did manage to complete a couple points of the planned dive despite my inadequacy and an unexpected reduction in exit altitude (an approaching storm front forced the plane to drop the jump ceiling from 13,500 feet to a mere 9,500 feet--a reduction in freefall time of roughly 25 seconds). It was my first three-digit jump, my first successful 5-way, and my first reduced-altitude multi-way. Excellent. I got a thorough debriefing from all four of my co-jumpers, who provided out a large number of subtle points that will help me in future jumps.
So now I'm officially "in," and have the community's blessing to get involved and start REALLY learning how to fly.
Not a bad way to spend the Fourth of July, eh? I hope you and yours had a great holiday as well.
Blue Skies,
Your Humble PseudoLatino
Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
In Memoriam, Mariann
On Saturday, July 22, 2006, Mariann Kramer--a regular fixture at Skydive Dallas and all-around nice girl--was killed in a skydiving accident in Longmont, CO. (A news report, including some video of the event, can be found here). Although the official details are still under investigation, the bottom line is that both her main and reserve canopies malfunctioned during a routine jump from 5000 feet while participating in a Pro Swooping Tour (PST)competition. Yours Truly was just beginning to get to know Mariann, but just a few weekends' worth of jumping organized loads under her friendly, knowing tutelage was enough to inspire my admiration, my respect, and my gratitude.
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My last contact with Mariann was on the Saturday evening a week before her untimely demise. I had jumped with her five times that day, and more or less held my own (see photo) thanks to her constant, unbelievably detailed feedback. Regardless of my many mistakes, her comments were always extremely constructive and encouraging; she was completely devoid of the arrogant posturing many long-time skydivers display towards fledglings in the sport. She was sincere and enthusiastic, and generous with her time and talents. After the final load of the day, she made sure to invite me to join her and some of the other regulars for beer and conversation--an invitation I declined in order to attend yet another drab, lifeless Milonga back in DFW; an invitation I'll never have the chance to take her up on.
Even after such brief contact with her, I was starting to plan my jump days around her schedule . . . I wanted to take every opportunity to learn from her and to get to know her better. After my rough day jumping with advanced divers, she reassured me with her plans for this coming saturday: an entire day doing small loads with beginning-to-intermediate divers, 2- to 4-ways, drilling basic maneuvers and building simple structures. We were going to spend the whole day mastering stars, diamonds, and donuts, and I have no doubt that's exactly what would have happened. As it is, there will be a dropzone full of friends and admirers dedicating their jumps to her memory, telling stories of her exploits (many of which were legendary before her death, and will now become much much larger than life as they are retold in her absence), and--after the last load of the day--a celebration of mythic proportions that will make the most raucous of Irish wakes seem like a chaperoned graduation party at the end of Vacation Bible School.
If you can all forgive me the usual cliche:
Blue Skies, Mariann. You made a difference in the lives of those around you, you had an impact all around the world, and you had the courage to pursue your dreams . . . how many people can really say that?
Humbly and Sadly,
Your,
---pseudoLatino
Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)