Taikoen

Since English is the only language I can carry on a conversation in (unless you count random vulgarity), I only learned a couple of weeks ago that some languages do offer a difference. I knew that languages with different genders (like la and el in Spanish) probably had this built in, but at work a few weeks ago an Indian co-worker said her "cousin-brother" was visiting. I work for a mostly Indian company and I had to defend English not having a gender distinction in cousin. Mostly, I don't care.

It's awesome when it ices and freezes in Texas. I live right off the Dallas North Tollway, so I can go stand outside my apartment and watch the cars slide all over the road. My roommate was watching some guy practice 360s, right up to when he ran up over a curb and almost into the building he worked in.

I had two people grab me at the end of the meeting, walk me to one of their desks, and start giving me breath mints and stuff because they could smell it. Luckily, I was a one man team at the time and just sat around in my cube until about noon. I tried putting my head down on the desk, but when I did that the whole world started spinning around in circles. Now I'm a contractor and just "work from home."

Since I've been on DZ.com every day at work for the past two weeks or so, I should probably introduce myself as an attempt to be polite. You know, before I tarnish myself for the entire internet to see with my smartass humor. I made my first jump for my 18th birthday, and then took five years off because school > skydiving, based on average income for doing each of the two (positive versus negative) and that it is in fact legal to do the first when it rains. I started back up a little bit over a year ago, slowly, because I was technically still in school, and took it slow as I paid off student loans and well, not eating turkey sandwiches every day. After getting my A License, I've stuck to jumping enough to stay current until I found gear of my own, at which point I'd probably become some demonically obsessed guy who never left the drop zone because I didn't have to pay for student gear any more. Right now a rigger is looking at a rig for me to see what needs to be done to get it back in jumping condition, and I hope to be in the sky much more often very soon! I live in North Dallas and jump at Skydive Dallas (although my first jump was at Skydive Temple). I plan on doing a couple hundred fun and/or RW jumps so that I look less stupid before I do anything else. The fun thing about skydiving is that it's like practicing sex...Maybe we should try that dock again?

That was the worst game ever. Romo is amazing in that he can be both the best and worst player on the entire team.

I heard it was 8 spiders every year.

As a Texan, should I be concerned when someone named "moodyskydiver" posts that he's FINALLY glad he got his concealed handgun license because he's bi-polar and on meds...? I'm new, so please don't hunt me down and shoot me.

I'm looking at buying a rig from someone, but the rig has been sitting around for a while without being used. He says that his Cypres is over ten years old and hasn't been maintained, which makes me wonder how that situation is handled. If a Cypres has a life span of 12 years (+ 3 months max) but hasn't been used in say 5 years, does that in any way add on to its life span? It has obviously missed its 8 year maintenance but stopped being used halfway between the 4 and 8 year maintenances. Does this mean that I could send it back for maintenance and get four more years out of it, or I should just try to trade it in now and buy a new AAD? Or is the last time a Cypres is advised being used is DOM + 12.25 years period (kind of like how my auto insurance goes down on my 25th birthday...magically). Is a rig with a Cypres easily able to accommodate a Cypres II? Minor modifications don't bother me (maybe the rigger that does it, but he gets paid).

I caught my mom off guard when she asked what I wanted for my 18th birthday and immediately said "skydiving." She didn't understand, but it turns out that the only one that was really against it was my girlfriend. In fact, through some divorces, my mom rallied four of my "parents" together and we all took the FJC. She fainted in the door at altitude (falling inside the plane), but she did make an effort to get involved. My family's intensely curious, which I think is a part of why they understand to a certain point. However, I am not allowed, under ANY circumstances, to buy and/or ride on a motorcycle.

I live in Dallas, and I occasionally run into people who have done a tandem jump at Skydive Dallas. They all did their tandems with Ernie and talk about him like he's their best friends :P Without Ernie, I'd be falling like an idiot. Now I can spin in circles while I fall like an idiot.

I wouldn't say it's that unreasonable to get an A license in six days. Unless you're in extremely good physical shape, you will most likely be very sore after the first weekend. As a student, I did as many as 7 coaching jumps in a day, and just because you don't pass every AFF level on your first try doesn't mean it's wasted - you will learn something from every jump, and every jump counts towards the 25 you need for your A license. The weather will really be the largest factor working against you. I tend to be really hard on myself and over analyze everything. An instructor of mine helped me realize that it's important to practice everything on the ground and see it all working out in my head before I do the jump. When I don't think about what my arms and legs are doing and just do it I find myself much more successful. Most of the responses you're getting seem to be negative about people saying that you're crazy and that it's can't be done. I know that people have gotten licensed in as few as six days. If you want it to happen, put forth your best effort, visualize every jump, practice as much as you can on the ground, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough to let your physical and mental preparation reward you with the jumps you need for your A license. However, if it doesn't happen, don't let yourself get down. For most people, it does take a while to get good at this skydiving stuff.

I scared my mom at one point of time because I told her that driving was too easy. I preferred when it was pouring down rain and the road was barely visible. That made driving a little bit more of a challenge and enough to keep my attention full.

I went to the doctor this morning for some completely unrelated issues. I have a family history of migraines. Luckily, I only get really bad headaches but never skydiving related. I was working on getting a prescription refill when the doctor asked me if I flew a lot. My answer was, "Sorta...I skydive. I went on Saturday." He replied by telling me that I had dried blood in my ear. I had one of those Wtf moments because yes, I had showered (and washed my ears - my mommy would be proud) and been around friends since then. No one else saw this blood. Since I have no experience with pains and my skydiving, he said it wasn't a problem. I still can't believe that I had been bleeding from the ear and never noticed.

As racer42 said, you don't get as much practice as you do with other sports. I'm very hard on myself as well and was advancing through my jumps well (of course with a few stupid mistakes) when my instructor put things into a better perspective for me. I played a lot of sports growing up, and sometimes I'd spend up to 20 hours a week practicing for just one sport. However, at the time I only had 18 minutes of skydive practice. After this realization, I didn't feel so critical towards myself about not getting my "upwards" movement perfect the first jump. I'm surviving, enjoying myself, and learning - That's all I need.