13,000 feet, part 1

just before Peru i jumped out of a plane, for the second time. the last time was in 1999 (roughly), so i'm on track to do this about every 10 years. that's probably a good spacing if you ask me.

i went with Genevieve and Arti, and it was a bit of a struggle for all of us. one of us was sick, another was sleep deprived, and the third was hung over. i think on the way up to Sky Dance we were all waiting and hoping for one of the others to say they weren't up for it but none of us would be the one to back out.

after we handed over our groupons (hate that word) we watched out instructional video from the inventor of tandem skydiving. we estimated it took him 2 years to grow this beard.

then we waited for an hour and physically and mentally prepared ourselves (Doritos and Sunkist). we also got to watch some guys rehearse their air routine on roller thingies. they ended up being on our jump but they went out higher and before us so we didn't get to see their aerobatics in action.

it turns out i'm not frightened of jumping out of planes, especially when i'm fastened to someone who's done this hundreds of times. i get a little nervous, though. so i cut the tension with humor, in this case by telling our instructors dirty jokes (what's the difference between jam and jelly?). they didn't see that one coming.

i didn't get any photos taken of the jump, but i do have the VHS of some random guy's 1999 jump that got switched with mine, if you're interested.