Tag: Boogie

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Atmosphair’s 20th anniversary… Sun… Wind… Weather hold…

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It seems like the theme of the season is “Weather hold”. Once again, my plans to skydive have been thwarted by the weather.

I arrived at Parachutisme Atmosphair on Friday evening just in time for a lasagna dinner at Marquis’ restaurant on the DZ. Had a couple of beers with friends, then went to bed so I could be up bright and early to get on the plane.The staff were nice enough to lend me a camper to spend the weekend in comfort. Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of the Caravan taking off for a 16 000 foot jump (the load was completely booked before I even finished work on Friday, so I took advantage to sleep in).

With the sound of the plane flying by, I hurried to get dressed and get myself manifested on the second load. Once manifested, I noticed that there were a bunch of people preparing for a big way and asked to join. Niklas Hemlin was load organizing and I didn’t want to miss this. This pushed me onto the 4th load for a 10 way.
The weather was looking nice, but there were still some clouds out, nothing to worry too much about. We went up and managed to get 4 very solid points done. Niklas was great at identifying peoples’ strengths and weaknesses while flying and was quick to help correct them.

After the first jump, I had myself manifested for another big way and we did our dirt dive for an 8 way…

Then it happened…

It started to rain….

Then it started to pour….

We could see the holes in the clouds mocking us but they were being blown towards us. The rain stopped. We prepared ourselves to get on the load when it happened “C and D licenses only, wind is up to 21 MPH”.
Those words tore a hole right through my chest. I had been looking forward to jumping for weeks and haven’t gotten to because of the weather and here I am, at the DZ waiting to get on the plane… What a kick in the pants!

As everyone prepared to get on the plane, the microphone blares “weather hold”. All the C and D licensed skydivers’ faces turned red as they were already geared up and ready to go. They put their gear away and I laughed at the irony.

This pattern happened several times over the next 8 hours. Needless to say, we waited a LONG time for our next big way.

In the meantime, I took advantage to converse with Niklas about life, his experiences, how he ended up living in the US. It turns out it was fairly simple: He wanted to skydive. He was born in Sweden which has similar weather to Canada. Summer time, you could skydive… When the weather permitted of course. The rest of the year just sucked. So he decided to move.

While we waited for the weather to improve, Pierre, one of the DZOs and I gave out several participation prizes that were graciously donated by our friends at Deepseed and UPT (Thank you both!!!)

At around 5 pm, the clouds were all gone and the wind was dying down, so we prepared ourselves and got a 12 way going. Once again, we got 4 solid points and had a good time doing it.

We had just enough time to get one last jump done, just in time for sunset. Niklas decided to make us work harder on this one, a satellite formation. We all had a MUCH harder time with it (myself included), but it was a lot of fun. 3 points and nearly a 4th again. We clearly won’t be winning the world competitions with this kind of performance, but I must say that I had an amazing time doing them.

The day was followed by a steak dinner at Marquis’ which was very welcome as I was famished.

I must commend the team at Atmosphair for their organization. They set up a boogie with some of the lowest prices ever seen in Quebec (20$ + tax for a jump) and managed to pull off an amazing event regardless of the weather. My hat’s off to you guys!

Blue Skies!

Adam

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Welcome Lance, to the US of A

So, as you can imagine (based on how long this has taken me to get around to), State-side has kept me busy.

For the most part, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that is not skydiving related that contributed to this post, but this is more about the experiences and adjustments that come with moving approximately 8453 miles around the world to follow my skydiving dreams.

I would have to say that the biggest unforeseen “slow down” would be financially. Although it should have been obvious to me, I didn’t expect the fact that I have no credit history in the US to be such an expensive problem. Paying cash for a car was expected, but having to pay for 6 months of motor insurance up-front at outrageous prices was not, nor was paying a $500 deposit for a cellphone contract. I will not dwell on the financial side of the move because I’m sure you get the idea; it’s been expensive. haha.

I’m extremely thankful to my family here in Florida for the support they’ve given me so far, it definitely makes the move a lot easier.

To date, I’ve made a total of 22 skydives (in 5 months [sad face]), The first 8 of which were out at Elsinore over November 2012 when I flew over to meet one of my South African friends who was there. Southern California is amazing, after landing in LAX and meeting up with my buddy, one of his friends from Elsinore, as well as a South African chick that flew out for 2 weeks or so, we headed out to check out Venice beach. WOW, that was an eye-opener. Awesome. Amazing. Weird. Unique. The night ended up with a bunch of slightly drunken skydivers running amok in Wal-mart while I buy a tent, sleeping bag, beer and other necessitates for the weekend. Unfortunately I ended up buying a kiddies sleeping bad that was really only good at keeping my legs and feet warm :/ Uncomfortable, sleep-less nights aside, Elsinore is a FANTASTIC dropzone, I met a lot of really awesome people, tried a lot of new things in the sky and had a great time. Blue Skies Mag were not joking when they voted Elsinore #1 for the hottest female staff 😉

After returning from Elsinore and a month or so at my new job, I decided to head out to Sebastian for the world famous “Invasion Boogie”. For those readers who skydive but have not yet been to the Invasion, this is one trip you HAVE to make. If I were to go into detail about all the awesomeness, naughtiness and craziness that goes on there, you’d still be reading next week. And that does not include the skydiving side! Just do it, I’ll buy you 5 beers if you don’t have an amazing time. I met people from all over the States, as well as a few people from other countries. We had great parties together, amazing skydives together and loads of beers together! Trust me on this, it’s worth it!

My South African skydive membership expires at the end of March 2013, which means that unless I renew it, I will no longer have a C-License to jump on. As a result, I’ve been frantically trying to get all the paperwork and requirements sorted out to get my USPA C-License, one of which is a basic canopy course to complete the B-License requirements (besides the written test which I have not studied for yet). After reviewing Skydive Cities calendar of events, I decided to hop on the next available basic canopy course which was about two weeks ago. Although the instructor was awesome enough to help me help me improve my high performance landings, he also helped to re-affirm many of the basic (yet essential) canopy skills required by a good, safe canopy pilot. This was a great learning experience for me as, until now, I have not have such in-depth, intense canopy instruction. I am very interested in canopy piloting and this was a great introduction to the quality of instruction that I can expect with future courses.

Now some of you might tar and feather me for this, but I’ve always said that the act of skydiving (for me) is only about 35% of the reason I skydive, the other 65% is the social side (and everything else that can’t be bubbled); seeing your really good friends every weekend and every other chance you get, having beers after a good (or weathered out) day of jumping, weekday safety meetings at your favorite pub with your skydiving buddies, and of course all the shenanigans that happens in-between. This being said, I’ve lost 65% of the reason that I skydive. I generally love irony, but in this case, I do not. Who would have thought that the very reason I moved 8435 miles to pursue my love for skydiving would be the same reason why I lose the enthusiasm I’ve always had for it? Don’t misinterpret that, I’m certainly not about about to sell my gear, let my USPA & PASA memberships expire or even put my rig bag away in the cupboard, I’m simply frustrated with the fact that I no longer have my friends by my side, and because of the fact that I’m still slugging away at the debt I incurred through the move here (plus the car, cell phone, auto insurance, medical insurance etc. etc), my goals of meeting new people at the DZ and getting mad skillz have slowed down drastically.

So, I am not one for negativity and like to end things on a positive note as much as possible: Due to the fact that I have only been here for less than 6 months, the IRS gave me back all of the tax that I have paid so far…and it’s going towards a brand new LiquidSky jumpsuit 🙂 🙂 🙂

 

Blue Skies and Happy Days!!

~Lance

 

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Awesome weekend!

Hey everyone!

Just spent the weekend at Parachutisme Atmosphair for Boogie Fest which is still going on until next Sunday!

Had an AWESOME time there, participated in a few big ways that were organized by the lovely Katie Woods. I’ll have a story about the entire event up soon.

Here’s a few previews for you though:

They managed to get Deland’s twin otter so there was a caravan and the twin for the weekend so we got to do two plane big ways.

There was also a wingsuit camp organized by Paul Litherland and Scott Bland, so more details about that to come also!

Keep your eyes to the skies everyone! I should have an update out this week with pictures and possibly some videos of the event!

If you have the opportunity, head out there next weekend, they’ll have a helicopter to jump from!

 

Adam

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Balance – What’s That!?

S#1t – Life (skydiving) has been keeping me busy lately, REALLY busy!! My apologies to everyone for being so slack with blogging.

As I am now on my skydiving club’s committee, lots of hours at home are spent working on club newsletters and helping redesign the website. When I am not working on committee / club stuff I am researching my new *possible* project (more about that just now).

I am glad to say that my jump numbers have been racking up very nicely – after this past weekend, I am up to 70 :-). I know I am still in the very early stages, but hey – it’s not bad since I’ve only been jumping since March!

As I mentioned in a previous post – I’m waiting for my CI’s approval to jump my new 150 Hornet, although my wingloading is less than 1:1, my CI just wants to ensure I don’t break myself on a 150 canopy. Personally, I feel very capable of flying my canopy – but he’s the boss! His requirement of me, is to get my B-Licence and he might then agree to let me jump my rig 🙂 so – like an excited little boy on Christmas Eve (I used to open all my presents and re-wrap them and stick them back under the tree), I am doing everything I can to get my B-Licence. I passed both CAT 2 jumps this past weekend and am hoping to do my CAT 3 by the end of next month at the ABSOLUTE latest – I have a bit of practising to do in the mean time! Since I found my new jump partner (Maryke), that moved to my DZ when she found a job nearby, not a jump has passed that we aren’t both working on something (both in freefall and under canopy). So this weekend I guess I’ll be exiting slightly later than her so I can practise chasing her down and pinning the base for my CAT 3 jump :-).

We are planning a Boogie between Christmas and New Year at one of the towns on the coast line that always buzzes with parties over this period. Again – this is driving me to get my B-Licence, there is no way I’m going to sit and watch on the beach while everyone else lands on it!!

Sorry – I digress.

I have also been spending lots of time helping my coach (Michael) with a Power Point presentation on a First Jump Course, which you can imagine, is quite a bit of typing!

Tonight I am off to Michael’s place to drop off the loan 170 rig that I have been jumping as he sold it, and to pick up my new loan rig.

🙂 My *possible* new project 🙂

I have decided that South Africa needs a Vertical Wind Tunnel, and who better to build / buy one than me!? Well, probably lots of people, but I want to do it!! So I am investing huge amounts of time and effort researching, meeting with engineers and talking on the phone to suppliers in the States and Latvia.

My main concern is whether it will be financially viable to build one in South Africa; our population is tiny in comparison to other parts of the world that have a wind tunnel, furthermore – the percentage of the population that this would appeal to, is smaller still!

I am determined to do this though, even if it goes belly-up, it will be a good learning experience, but at a cost of about 60 Million Rand, a very expensive one!

I have been trying to decide if it would be financially beneficial to have local engineers design one in South Africa, verses purchasing one from overseas. I have come to the conclusion that yes, it might be Slightly cheaper, but why save a few pennies and not have the years of experience and trial and error, when for a little extra, I would get all the backup support and a state of the art 14 foot wind tunnel capable of flying a 250lb person on his/her head very easily??:-)

My next big step is to secure financial investors, but this still requires a lot of work to put a financial and business plan together for my proposal.

So – as my heading suggests, there is no balance – I find myself arriving late to just about every function that happens over a weekend because I want to squeeze in just one more jump before I have to leave.

On weather hold days, I am at the DZ watching BASE and skydiving videos, packing and re-packing 150 that I can’t jump yet.

I no longer party on the nights prior to jumping (unless it’s a Saturday and I’m drinking beer at the DZ with my jumping friends), I can’t even remember what I used to do with my weekends before I started skydiving!

Before, I never liked not being in a relationship, now – I don’t mind being single and have given up on the idea of finding a girl that would be happy with me spending me all my time, money and energy on skydiving! I want a skydiving chick! 🙂

Needless to say, I LIVE skydiving! My career goals and ambitions have changed, my personality has changed and just life in general no longer contains even a smidget of my previous life – AND I LOVE IT THIS WAY!!

Balance – WHAT’S THAT!?

Blue Skies and Happy Days!

Lance