0
kevin922

2003 Mardi Gras Boogie - A Kevin922 Report (long)

By kevin922, in The Bonfire

Recommended Posts

kevin922    0

kevin922
I bought my ticket for the Mardi Gras boogie months ago – the Mardi Gras boogie is something special for me, not only is Gold Coast my old DZ but also MS is where I’m from. I don’t make it back to MS much, so getting back there to see old friends is always a plus. I began counting the days, and as the day got closer I started looking at the weather – it was bad, didn’t look like it was getting much better either, but I had my ticket so I was going rain or shine.

I haven’t traveled much commercially with my rig since September 11th so I was a little worried. I got USPA letters, TSA letters, SSK letters, everything I could find to take with me and prepared for the worst. I packed my gear in a carry on suitcase and away I went. I put my rig up on the xray, walked through the walk-through xray, and waited for my bag to re-appear on the other side. Unfortunately it didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped. To start off with, when the X-Ray screener got to my bag his words (and I kid you not) were “oh shit” almost as if he had just found a bunch of plastic explosive or something. They shot the bag out the side said “we’re gonna have to open this up” so I of course was thinking “here we go” so I open it up, pull the rig out and then they say “well we’re going to have to x-ray these 2 items separately” so I’m like okay whatever… he walks back to put the rig back in the x-ray and the x-ray technician notices it is a parachute.. he turns around and says to me “You jump at skydive orange???” Boy was I stunned! Was he a jumper??? He tells me he’s a marine (or former marine) and was thinking about coming to make a jump at my DZ. So I’m thinking man this is going to be easy! He’ll let it through and I’ll be on my way – well not exactly. He did let it through but unfortunately 3 other TSA reps came over and look at it scratching their head and asking “is that a parachute??” I responded with “yes, and they are okay to take on” to which a reply of “I’ll have to check with my supervisor, please hold” he came back and started to say it was okay as long as there wasn’t one of those “automatic opening dev…” I interrupted him and said “it doesn’t have any compressed air” and he said “oh okay” and off I went. So whew I made it! Off I go to my connecting flight in Charlotte, NC. We start taxing to the runway and sure enough hold-up number 2 comes. The pilot shuts the jets down, comes over the PA and says “folks, there is too much turbulence between here and Charlotte, we’ll have to sit here for a while” – I’m thinking GREAT now I won’t be able to make my next flight. We finally get going I make it to Charlotte, run to the gate and find out my flight has been CANCELLED! What now?? Mechanical Problems.. we’ll have to put you on a flight to ATLANTA! Ugh! So I go over to get on a flight to Atlanta which is now full and there is no room for carry on (yes, my rig). I tell the lady I’m not checking it, so I take the rig out and give her the bag. So she checks my bag and now I’m walking around with a rig. Go through ATL with it on my back and get some strange looks but get on the plane to mobile and away I go.

I get to mobile and call my friends from Orange only to find their bus broke down 50 miles from the DZ so I end up taking a $55.00 cab ride to the DZ. Skies were.. well covered in industrial haze, ended up making one jump, talked to the PD reps about demoing a stiletto, so they hooked up a 120 to my rig.. no more jumping for today but tomorrow was looking better. The next day (Friday) I get on a load to do a hop-n-pop (test out the stiletto). I jump out of the plane dump and what do I see?? A stilleto 120! What’s weird? IT IS ON BACKWARDS! (video) I could not believe my eyes. I had a weird feeling this exact thing would happen, but figured “well PD hooked it up I’m sure they knew what they were doing” so I cussed it a few times then decided to play around with it a while – the uppers were kicking and I knew if I cut it at altitude I’d never see it, or more importantly my freebag, again. So around 3 – 4k I chopped it, dumped my reserve and stood the landing up. I believe I was the 1st or 2nd cutaway of the boogie.
Kudos for PD for taking full responsibility – they paid for the reserve repack, 2 jump tickets, AND had their HQ fedex next day a vengeance (what I originally wanted to try) for me to take home and demo.

While my reserve was being repacked the cool guy from Jump Shack handed me a rig with their new elliptical canopy the “FireBolt” to try out. I went up did another hop and pop and was impressed with it – had a lot of flare. It was a 128, I also tried their 110 both are very responsive.

I did a birdman Jump with Kevin from PD (birdman-kim’s boyfriend) very fun – very nice guy. Did a smoke jump with the birdman that really didn’t work that great (the smoke was outdated, didn’t really smoke that well).

Met a lot of DZ.comers, can’t list them all but some that stuck out were Lolie, Sunshine, Chili, N2, Travis.. jumpergirl was there too but I had met her back on my X-Mas trip. Lolie had never been to the big easy so she agreed to go with me and some of my old friends who had come down to see me, so after I landed on the beach I dumped my gear in the trunk and away we went! We hit up Café Du Mon (sp?) first, Lolie had her FIRST ben-yay which she enjoyed and after flashing the café du mon workers, we hit up burbon street – lolie earned her beads, learned that Jesus loves her, and learned what a hand grenade tasted like. Back to café du mon we went where my friends decided to see what snorting powder sugar was like. Yes the delirium was officially here.

We spent the night in New Orleans, in the morning we were greeted with overcast skies. Made the trip back to Moss Point (most of which Lolie slept during. ) and just hung out and bitched about the skies. My parents came down from Jackson to see me so we went and saw a movie and ran some errands. I made it back for the wicked party (got a lot of good video, including a few tipsy DZ.comers (jillr, lolie, etc..) and a lot of boobies!

The jumping sucked because of the weather, unfortunately this may be the 10th and final Mardi Gras boogie for GoldCoast due to similar outcomes with previous MG boogies.

For anyone I forgot, I’m sorry! It was great fun, I now have some nice new friends and can’t wait to jump with you guys again! (or for the first time for those of you who never got the privilege er opportunity to jump with me because of weather.)

The trip back was much easier – didn’t have to go to 4 airports, and the TSA guy in Mobile actually knew what the hell he was looking at. I overheard him telling the xray screener “see that right there, that’s the deployment bag” and was explaining other things about the parachute to the person who had summoned him over there. They didn’t even ask for me to open the bag up.

A lot of pictures are posted here and more video is to come.

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Vallerina    2

Vallerina
Quote

So around 3 – 4k I chopped it, dumped my reserve and stood the landing up.


Congrats! :)
Quote

learned what a hand grenade tasted like


Doh! I forgot to stop by that place with the hand grenades this time around. Man! They're deadly!

Quote

unfortunately this may be the 10th and final Mardi Gras boogie for GoldCoast due to similar outcomes with previous MG boogies.


:( That's a shame if that's true. Mardi Gras is way too much fun, and having an awesome dz that close by rocks! I think more people would've stuck around and paid the registration fee if he would've had it during the actual Mardi Gras events/parades. I know many people took off for FL since there wasn't much else to do. There were also a few other jumpers who went for just Mardi Gras and stopped by on Sunday to make a few jumps (I even ran into and jumped with some cool people from Sky Knights that I jumped with this past summer.)

Glad you had a good time! We had a frickin' blast! I only got three jumps in, but the festivities in New Orleans made up for my lack of skydiving! And gumbo rocks! I will post some pictures later!
There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

n2skdvn    0

n2skdvn

nig noggery was in full effect up until the verry end.

will post about it later... but i have one thing to say... if you have seen a skyvan pull a truck out of the mud... raise your hand.........:o

--

if my calculations are correct SLINKY + ESCULATOR = EVERLASTING FUN
my site

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

kevin922    0

kevin922
Quote

nig noggery was in full effect up until the verry end.

will post about it later... but i have one thing to say... if you have seen a skyvan pull a truck out of the mud... raise your hand.........:o

--



Are you serious!! I missed that?? jeez.. I did see chopper john get the dually stuck in the mud during a drunken party.

Got that on video :-)

Kevin

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

mountainman    0

mountainman
Quote

I jump out of the plane dump and what do I see?? A stilleto 120! What’s weird? IT IS ON BACKWARDS! (video) I could not believe my eyes.



I hate to say it, but I was laughing out loud here in my classroom while watching that. Just your yelling and stuff when you saw it made me watch it 3x. LOL

Thanks for sharing, Kevin and I can't wait to see the rest of the vids. (read: boobies) ;)
http://www.brandonandlaura.com

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Craig    0

Craig
Quote

Quote

I jump out of the plane dump and what do I see?? A stilleto 120! What’s weird? IT IS ON BACKWARDS! (video) I could not believe my eyes.



I hate to say it, but I was laughing out loud here in my classroom while watching that. Just your yelling and stuff when you saw it made me watch it 3x. LOL

Thanks for sharing, Kevin and I can't wait to see the rest of the vids. (read: boobies) ;)


Ya, I watched it twice just cause of of the yelling.

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

sunshine    2

sunshine
Quote

Great to meet you too! Maybe i'll see you in rantoul.. found out that I can take tank on amtrak as long as he is in service dog mode :-)

Can you pick me up?



I'm sure we can figure something out. Just in case something happens, I'm now an expert in the finding a ride in an emergency/last minute type situation. :)

___________________________________________
meow

I get a Mike hug! I get a Mike hug!

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Viking    0

Viking
did you get my wake up call? all i got was your voice mail when i called at 3:30 in the morning my time.
I swear you must have footprints on the back of your helmet - chicagoskydiver
My God has a bigger dick than your god -George Carlin

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
0
Go To Topic Listing