wildfan75

We jump all winter long at Wissota in Wisconsin. and a hell of a lot of fun!

2 years, 3 months and 3 days. Not sure how I'm going to handle it.

I thought I'd share some more memories and stories of Todd. There's been quite a bit of story telling in the last couple of days and its been rather theraputic for me, so here goes... Todd did all the mowing at our dz (well, most of it anyway). I could always tell that he had been mowing during the week when I would show up on Friday afternoon and he would be sunburned from his shorts line to the top of his knees. One weekend clouds were low and Todd decided to finish up what he didn't get done during the week. I see him go over to his locker and pull out his jumpsuit and Factory Diver. The next thing I know Todd is riding around on the tracker with his jumpsuit and Factory Diver on so he wouldn't get anymore sunburned that he already was. Any normal person would have just grabbed sunscreen. But Todd was far (very far) from normal. This last New Year's eve I came down with the flu (and no, it wasn't the bottle flu). We were in the middle of a Road Show (bar hopping on the Gang Green bus) when I started to really get sick. While everyone was in the bar having a good time, Todd sat with me on the bus the entire rest of the Road Show. I instisted that he go in, join the others and have a good time, that there was no sense in both of us to have a crappy night. He wouldn't leave and told me that there was no other place that he'd have rather been at that moment. The stroke of midnight came and after a short discussion on who's watch was the right time, he leaned over to kiss me. I reminded him that I had been puking my guts out the last hour and a half and he replied, "I don't care. Kiss me. It's New Years. We had a newer jumper that had a pilot chute in tow on his first jump on his new-to-him rig. Ryan lost his freebag/pilot chute, his reserve handle and maybe his cutaway handle too (I can't remember). Todd ordered in new parts and it came to a couple of hundred dollars. Todd and I talked about it the week everything came in and Todd was flored that this jumper, who just spent all this money on his first rig was having to dish out a crap load of money after one jump. Todd told me that he wasn't going to be able to live with himself if he added the cost of a reserve pack job on top of that. So Todd packed it for free. Todd worked out 4-5 days a week, and it was a good thing because his eating habits were horrible. Every Monday morning he'd go down to the clubhouse and check to see how many frozen pizzas were left from the week that he was going to get to eat during the week. He loved pizza and often talked about how there was no bad time to eat pizza. Everytime we went out to eat someplace, he's always order his meal and then ask the server to bring him a piece of apple pie, right away, before his meal. He'd often stop at the corner grocery store and buy an apple pie off the day old rack and eat the whole thing and never cut a piece. He is the only person that I have ever known that takes his pizza out of the oven and puts it in the freezer to cool down, and takes his freezy pops out of the freezer and puts them in the microwave to warm them up. I went to secure his car at Baldwin on Friday night, and there in the back seat was a partially eaten 16" apple pie and a used plastic fork. I guarentee that he sat with that apple pie on his lap and ate it as he drove to Baldwin that morning. At some point this weekend someone opened the microwave to use it and inside were about 8 freezy pops that he had forgot about. I'm sure that I'll write more later.

This is going to be the hardest post by far I have or will ever have to make. 37 hours ago I lost not only the love of my life, but my best friend. I am very lost, very lacking sleep and complete devistated. I'm at Todd's place (the hanger at the dz with the 2 C182 in the "backyard"), which was suppose to be our place sooner than later. When Todd and I first started dating, he didn't have a phone (cell phone included). We didn't know about AIM or MSN Messenger, and we used to PM via dz.com each other "in real time" while I was at work and he was at home. Being the total sap that I am, I kept most of those PMs, and one day soon I'll have the strength to go back and read them. Being on dz.com is a sort of connection to him right now. He was a huge dz.com fan. He was a huge skydiving fan. His obsession sometimes made me trying to keep our relationship and skydiving seperate difficult. The funny thing is that he ended up finding someone as into skydiving as him (well, almost as much as him). 75% of our conversations were around skydiving, whether it was about the "you're not going to believe this thread on dz.com", or "you have to see this tandem video I did tonight", or "is there anything I can do for you to your rig?", or "I'm still stoked about that four way we did this weekend". Shortly after Todd and I got together, we had the all important "What if" conversation, at my bringing up. I knew that he would never, ever give up skydiving, and statisically, I probably wouldn't make past 1,001 jumps and 5 years in the sport. What if I stopped skydiving. By the time we had this conversation, I had become active in our club, helping with students and manifest and Saturday night dinners. I knew even if I stopped skydiving, I would love to continue to be around what had become my extended/skydiving family. He called "Deal!" on that. The second part was what if we didn't work out. We both agreed that we would need to still be friends (he was pretty much my best friend before we got together), and it not only needed to be okay for both of us to be there and not be ackward, but it needed to be okay and not ackward for the rest of our skydiving family. Todd and I never had a real fight. We always joked about it. I can remember riding in his car with him in a blizzard with his shitty "high performace tires that I just had to have" (high performace for Florida, but zero traction in snow). We (and by we I mean me) were discussing the merits of his tires and his driving technique, and after about the sixth back and forth sentence, he blurted out "Is this our first fight???" Of course we both laughed and that was the end of that conversation. We may have gone over some road bumps along the way, but we never went to bed or said good night angry. If something was bothering either of us, it just brought up and worked out. It was how I always imagined the perfect relationship being. Todd loved skydiving...period. He loved rigging, he loved flying, he loved videoing, instructing, coaching, competing and he loved showing people (including me) how to get that slippery POS in a bag the size of a roll of toilet paper. Every skydiver in this world has lost "one of the good ones" with Todd's passing. But for as much as he loved skydiving, there were two things he loved more than anything...his daughter and son. Of course one of the proudest moments of his fatherhood just had to include skydiving. Skylar, Alex and Todd were on the boat on Lake Wissota, a mile or two from our dz. We have one airplane that is very loud, 76X. Todd and the kids were out on the boat one weekend day, and the dz was flying 76X. Skylar looked up to the sky and said, "Dad, if we keep flying 76X the neighbors are going to complain". I'm not sure if he was more proud of the fact that she recognized that it was 76X or the fact that she recognized the fact that 76X is a noisy bitch, but regardless, he was proud. Todd also had a third "child", Jedei, his dog. In true skydiver fashion, Todd volunteered to take the last puppy of a liter at a WFFC, and in true skydiver fashion, named that dog after his canopy (he was jumping a Jedei 120 or 105 at the time). Most people think that Jedei is actually Jedi, named after Todd's love of Star Wars (more so the books, less so the movies). Todd liked sci-fi stuff. Whenever we were on the phone and he seemed to have the attention span of a 1st grader, I always asked "Are you watching Battle Star Sea Gate Wars Galatica?" If it wasn't Star Wars, it was Seagate. If it wasn't Seagate, it was Battle Star Galactica, etc. He was a total geek, and not many people knew it. You truly have to love the one you're with when you don't get mad at getting bombarded in the head with missles from a toy Milennium Falcon at 6am on a Saturday. Todd was also know for his off color t-shirts. One time he showed up at my office with his "I don't need a condom. The AIDS will kill the baby" t-shirt. I immediately made him turn it inside out and did the "Now babe, do you think that is appropriate for a professional working environment?" He was the master of answering a question with a question when he knew the answer but didn't want to admit to it. His response was "Well, I don't know. Do you think its inappropriate?" I didn't realize that Todd was famous for his t-shirts until we went to Skydive Iowa in May of this year for the first NPSL comp and the Jump Start Boogie. Chromy was the coach for that meet and about the second sentence out of Chromy's mouth was "Now Todd, let me see your t-shirt. Is it a good one?". Todd flanted his strengths, and stressed over his weaknesses. This summer he got his AFF-I rating. He was so proud of that accomplishment, but I think I was prouder (even though we had to get over "our first (Beer!!) weekend apart). We only really offer S/L here at Wissota, and so he started trying to get in "the in" at Baldwin so he could use is rating. Our second to last conversation included a discussion about him trying to do too much with working at Baldwin, doing the rigging and mowing at Wissota, working his full time job, and keeping up with working out 4-5 times a week. I got accepted to the September Big Way camp in Perris and was struggling to come up with money (we had previous discussions about this). Thursday night he told me "After we get your big way camp figured out, I can use the money that I make at Baldwin to go back to Wissota and make more student jumps there." We at Wissota are a non-profit club dz. Instructors pay their own slot and don't get anything but the satisfaction knowing that we're contributing to this great sport, and more experienced jumpers to jump with, and eventually future coaches and instructors (something greater than money could ever buy). Todd never had enough money to do the amount of student jumps at Wissota that he wanted to do. It seemed terribly ironic that he was going to use profits from his AFFI jumps, to be able to jump with more students. If you could ask Todd about this, he'd give his usual response...."That's what I do". There are a gazillion stories about Todd and what a great person he was. I would give up anything right now to have one last minute with him. Sorry about any spelling or comprehension errors. I'm on my 47th hour of no sleep, and the ticker isn't going as well as it normally goes. Todd--"I will always love you, childishly, 'cause you've got something."..BSBD Buppers.

Do you know who took that picture? It is Todd's background picture on his computer. He loved that picture.

I'm still in shock so this will be short, but here is a picture of Todd as requested. It portrays is the cheesy grin he always had after landing, regardless of what kind of jump and regardless of how the jump went. I will forever love him.

Yep, all the way to the ground, into the grass. Not sure if camera stopped working, or they cut the video short when being burned on to either the DVD or VHS tape, but you see the blades of grass and then it goes black. I'll have to see if Todd can upload it somewhere and we'll post the link.

We have video from an escaped camera at my dz. Its hilarious (and sad) to see it spinning around and around while seeing the horizon get higher and higher.

I've found them at Walmart and Walgreens. I was just at Walgreens this AM and you can get a 2 pack for $6.99 (here in MN anyway). Right now you can save $3 when you buy 3 packs.

On free fall #6, I accidently dislodged my reserve handle on deployment, 2 out. Then landed my reserve (after cutting away) downwind while doing the properly landing pattern/direction for the previous week. Flared too high on jump #17 and landed on tailbone. I literally rolled out of bed for three weeks. Jump #11, 12, 18, 19, 21, 22--I became the master of "The Uneven Flare", paving the way for my now great crosswind landings.

Fixed it for you

And my point is that he doesn't necessarily need to go to a turbine dz to do that. He just needs to go to a dz that does that, regardless of what aircraft they are jumping.

I'll be at the big way camp too (but not the 100 way$). I'd be more than happy to help with plan B.

I don't think it should be a requirement for a USPA rating but its definitely a good idea to have a few people running around with some first aid knowledge. A good thing for not only instructors, but I'd also include manifest, packers and pilots to that list. We have a two doctors that jump at my dz, along with a handful of first responders. We updated our emergency plan this year and upon reading it, I discovered that our club will pay for first aid training if any jumper decides to persue it. A first aid course would be a good safety day activity, and a good way to hit "the masses".

I'd take that challenge. I'll put up any skydiver from my dinky little dz against anyone from a turbine dz. Last year we attempted a women's state record at Couch. The girl with twice as many jumps as me all out of a turbine took out the formation...twice (including tracking under it when she went low). I got to my slot (multiple times after being taken out a couple of times by those turbine-goddess (tongue in cheek)). I was doing multiple point 4 ways, and 8 way formation loads before I had 50 jumps, and never once had I set foot on a turbine dz, more less an actual turbine aircraft. 4 of us underpriviledged Cessna kids put together a 4 way team last year. Our average jump number was about 275 and 1 1/2 years in the sport. We ended the year ranked 4th nationally in the A division. Not too bad for having a total of 2 Otter practice jumps (which ended up being our only Otter practice jumps) before our first competition. JustChuteMe did a better job at explaining my point. It's not what you're jumping out of. Its the "quality" of instruction (and your ability to respond to corrections) available. But to think that you HAVE to go to a turbine dz to find quality instruction/coaching is just absurd and rather offensive.

And at about 40% more the cost. 55 jumps at Skydive Chicago =$1375 and about 50 minutes of free fall time using the figures above. $1375 at the price of where Ryan jumps gets him about 48 1/2 minutes of free fall time (and as a bonus, 21 more canopy rides). Another tool that can help is find out if there is a local skydiving league. We have the NPSL, as JustChuteMe mentioned, here in the MN/WI/IA area. I don't know if its just because Sandy Grillet is awesome, but we have world class coaches come to those meets. They help us engineer, dirt dive, and give us the secret shit. As an added bonus, we get to spend 1-2 hours with the coach the next day debriefing. Try to get a pick up team together, or email your league's director and see if he can put word out that you are looking to put together a rookie or A division team. You'll learn a ton, and have a blast.

What does jumping out of a Cessna vs. a turbine have to do with flying ability/fall rate? But I agree with getting a suit that fits you properly. It will make ALL the difference in the world. I even had to buy a second new suit to get a proper fit, and it has made a huge difference. And a bit of time in the tunnel is totally worth it. I know of a cheap tunnel camp in August in Denver if you're interested. Contact "rehmwa".

Can anyone give any good advice on an inexpensive (and moral) way to get from the San Diego airport to Perris? Or Anyone attending the camp headed that way and care to share the cost of a car rental or ground transportation? I'll be attending the big way camp from Sept 11-14th. I fly into SAN on Wed 9/10, arrive around 7pm and my return flight leaves on Mon 9/15 at around 2pm. Thanks in advance for any help!

Was it your first save? If so, then yes, you owe beer. Congrats on the save! :8:0 Battled a cold and/or sinus infection all weekend. I managed to get through round five of our 4 way competition on Saturday before I had to throw the towel in(Sorry guys!). Special thanks to manifest at Skydive Twin Cities for the endless supply of kleenex.

0-100 5 months 101-250 6-7 months I should be able to go from FJC to D license in 2 years and 3 months. Not bad for a non-working-weekend-warrior skydiver. I have willingly given up a lot to start at that pace and continue, but I have also been rewarded with so much.

All toggles, pilot chute, d-bag, reserve pilot chute/freebag, and all handles are part of the container. Do not send them with the reserve. I've heard the packing card go both ways (container or reserve?). Make a copy of the reserve card and ship it with the reserve and keep the packing card with the container. Anyone---please feel free to correct me I'm wrong.

Because I hope that in 500 jumps some of my logs now will be as funny to me as going back and reading logs like "Flared early a couple of times but did a nice, soft stand up landing" from one of my first jumps.

Ditto! Thanks Jim, April and Bob. I learned a ton! And hopefully you came away from the camp with more than just a better understanding and appreciation for the definitions of beer fridge and wind socks! The hangers available for lodging anytime! Damn winds though!

:2:1 Did a CRW camp with Jim Rassmusen. Beer owed for my first official CRW jump. I got to dock a bunch of times for 2 stacks, fought off the start of a wrap and even nicely stood up both landings on the Lightning. Damn winds though!! We were grounded about 75% of Saturday and all of Sunday!

The do-see-do with a freefly exit works great for naked jumps...I mean jumps in shorts and t-shirts.