Jumps 17-19.5

Today was fun. I got to the drop zone about 9:45 and there were already a lot of people there. The little building was filled with people, mostly family watching a few people doing tandem dives, and some were hanging out outside. I brought over the leftover carrot cake I had made the day before, and most of it got eaten during the day, which is good. I got my chute, jumpsuit, helmet, gloves, and altimeter and made the first load. I jumped alone; I really just wanted to practice being in control and turning.

My first jump was solid. I had no problem doing 90 degree turns either way, I was in control the whole time, and I even practiced my technique in turns and turning by moving my legs instead of my entire body. I tried moving forward, too, by straightening my legs a little to push me forward. I was very happy with the dive. My chute opened fine right at the correct altitude. I bled off altitude and worked my way down to 1000 feet before starting my landing pattern. I should have waited even longer because I barely ended up on the field. The wind had died more than I expected and I got a lot more penetration than I thought I would, but I still made it on the field and stood the landing.

The place was so busy that I had a hard time finding someone to watch me pack the chute, and I missed the second load, but I eventually got it all sorted out and packed and got onto the third load. I called Doug right before I went up and he came by with his fancy new camera to take pictures. This time I tried doing 360 turns both ways and was able to do that, though it was a little shaky by the end of the turn. Then I tried a back flip. I got one, then kept spinning around and did another, then kinda floundered a little more until I was back to stable. I really hope I get these back flips figured out. This time I was better about starting my landing pattern lower, but I still overshot a little, and of course since Doug was taking pictures I didn’t stand my landing. Oh well.

I got my chute packed again, even more by myself, and was on the fifth load. This time I tried more of the same. I’m getting really comfortable with my altitude awareness, turning, maintaining stability, thinking while I’m in the air and watching around me, but these back flips are still elusive. This time I only did half a flip and ended up on my back. I tried flipping forward to get back on my belly, but couldn’t manage it, so I flipped backwards the rest of the way. This time my landing was good, and I stood and had no problems.

I packed for a fourth jump, this time entirely by myself (but I did have someone check at the critical steps). It was getting windy, and I was wondering if it would be such a good idea to try. Unlicensed divers can’t jump in more than 14mph winds, and when I got in the plane Larry said it was at 12-14mph. When we got to altitude, they radioed down and got a reading of 15-20, so another student and I couldn’t jump. We spent a long time getting set up for the other jumpers because it was windy and there were clouds. Right after they all jumped, I closed the door, and the plane dropped. For a couple seconds I was in free fall in the plane, which was pretty cool. I moved forward and strapped myself in and enjoyed the ride down. We had some really tight turns on the way down and I could see the ground almost right below me out the window and feel the weight of the turn. That was pretty cool.

I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to jump the fourth time today, but I’d rather be safe and able to jump another time than injured and out of commission. Besides, it was interesting to take the ride down. I think tomorrow I’ll go skiing. By comparison, it’s much cheaper, and skiing is not cheap at all. Eventually I’ll be licensed and the price will drop dramatically, and I’m looking forward to that.

Welcome Back to Softball! WHACK

We had our first softball practice of the season yesterday. Everyone wants me to be pitcher again. This year Nick is playing with us, which should be great. He seems to be a great hitter and he’s awesome in the outfield. Plus, he wants to practice pitching, so I can catch some relief occasionally and I won’t HAVE to go to every game (even though I probably will anyway, it’s nice to know there’s a backup plan).

Anyway, for two hours yesterday I pitched to people as they practiced batting. By the end I was tired and it was getting darker to the point where there wasn’t enough contrast to distinguish the ball from the background, which was getting dangerous, so I was glad when we finally stopped. About 45 minutes into practice I took a ball straight to the knees. Yes, both of them. I think what happened was that I turned my legs so that the ball wouldn’t hit the knees dead on and it hit one, bounced off it and hit the other, then flew up into the air. I think that since my legs were turning at the time of impact the blow wasn’t as forceful, but it was still quite a wallop. I essentially just sat down and took a few deep breaths. It didn’t hurt as much as I expected, but it was bruising immediately. I took a break for a bit and let the coach pitch while I walked it off and relaxed. The rest of practice I was a little gun shy, so I was careful with anything that was bouncing along the ground or hit directly to me.

Today I was sore all over and my knee is really sensitive and has some neat bruising indicating EXACTLY where the ball hit me. I guess I have a few months of abuse to look forward to.

Sleepless in DC

For the last week and a half I was in the Washington D.C. area for work deploying some software. Some of it still hadn’t been written yet, some of it required that I be there to work on it because it was on a different network that I couldn’t interact with unless I was there, and some of it was because we wanted to be able to adapt it to suit the users better. I worked so much while I was there that my whole sense of time got screwed up. It was so weird to come back to the hotel and see that the papers for the morning had been distributed already. Or to give up at noon to sleep for a couple hours. I was essentially working 20 hours at a time, then I’d get a few hours of sleep, then another 20. Then every few days I’d get 12-16 hours free. I hardly ate at all, and since the room where I was working was locked and required a few hoops to get back in, I didn’t even drink water or go to the bathroom much. I was a code-writing machine while I was there.

The good news is that I managed to explore a tiny bit. I was in Reston, VA, which is not D.C., but is near it. There is nothing to do or see in Reston. It’s very boring. All corporate office buildings and quick restaurants, with some townhouses and condos. Traffic was binary; everybody was on the corporate schedule so the streets were either packed or empty. This didn’t affect me much because I was on the opposite of corporate schedule. I managed to have some interesting food, too. Some great sushi, kabobs, etc. I mostly survived on trail mix, though.

The other good news is that I managed to more than dig myself out of my hole at work as far as hours. I had been at -30 for a while because I didn’t have enough budget to charge my time at the Supercomputing conference in Tampa, and before the trip last week had managed to eat away at that to get up to -12, but after this trip I’m at +40, which is fantastic, and I didn’t even charge all the hours I worked. In case this doesn’t make sense, we have flex time at the lab. We have to average charging 40 hours per week. Of course, they like it when we work extra hours and don’t charge them, too, but that’s another story. So if I’m at +0, that means I’ve averaged 40 hours a week for the fiscal year so far. If I’m at -20, then I’m behind and need to make those hours up some time, usually through longer work days or weekends. Being at +40 means I can essentially take a week off without using my vacation time. That’s what’s so cool about flex time; I can shift hours so that I make my own vacation.

Anyway, I’m back now and things are returning to normal. I really like travel, even if I end up working the whole time. It’s great being in different places, seeing new people, doing different things.

Flying and Climbing and Rappelling

Saturday was so much fun. We started off at 9am at the Richland Airport. 11 of us met there. We had three planes between us, so we split up and got in. After a little difficulty getting two of the planes started, we were in the air and away towards Wenatchee. Our plane was the fastest, so we went up to 8500 feet on the way over. I got to fly part of the way. It is incredibly difficult to keep the plane level and on heading. I was able to keep it within 100 feet of 8500 and within 20 degrees of our heading, which is alright, but I can definitely see the usefulness of having computers handle all the fine adjustments in commercial planes. What would have taken a couple hours of driving took us 50 minutes of flying, and it was great scenery the whole way. We had a nice landing and Emily’s family picked us up at the airport and drove our group back to their house. From there we took a short ride over to the base of the trail. A short bit into the trail AJ and I broke off to head more directly up the hill, which was an exhausting effort, but we beat everyone else up the hill by a few minutes, even with our frequent breaks.

Once we got up the hill, Craig and Ryan secured the rope to a huge rock and rappelled down to test it out. They had done this many times before, so were comfortable with it. We spent the next few hours having fun rappelling. We threw another rope over the other side of the cliff and did some rock climbing up it. I had my climbing shoes on, and it’s incredible what a difference they make for walking on rock. It’s also very different climbing on real rock instead using some sort of gym. I had to test the rock to make sure it wasn’t loose before grabbing it, and the handholds weren’t nearly as friendly. Still, it was great fun. At one point almost at the top the other half of the rope swung by my face and pulled my glasses off of my face. They bounced down the side of the mountain to near where AJ was belaying me. I finished climbing to the top, then came down, and some people searched for my glasses (I wasn’t exactly in a position to search for them). Miraculously, they were found completely unharmed. No bends, no broken lenses, not even any scratches.

We played around some more and figured out how to hook up our gear for rappelling aussie-style, which is facing forward and walking down instead of sitting down and going backwards. It was a little unnerving before I started, but once I was completely on the rope and looking straight down it got a lot easier.

At around 4 everyone went back to the house for a barbecue, but I stayed with AJ and Craig and we tried ascending the rope using some simple gear. I tried it, but couldn’t get past a bit that stuck out from the face, and decided to let AJ give it a whack. He struggled over that part, too, but once he got past it he made pretty quick progress up. Since it was starting to get late and clouds were coming in, we pack up our stuff and went back down to join the barbecue with the rest. Then we went back to the airport and headed back to Richland, making it back at about 6.

It was a great trip, and it is so cool to have friends that fly and do cool things. How many people can say “yeah, some friends and I flew over to Wenatchee and went rock climbing and rappelling for the day,” or anything like that?

Jumps 13, 14, 15, 16

Sunday was beautiful. There were only a couple thin clouds in the sky, the wind was very light, and I felt good. It was a great day to go skydiving. I showed up at about 10, but everyone else had partied a little too much for St. Patrick’s Day, so we didn’t get rolling until 11. I went up to 13,500 feet and jumped out first with Larry, the owner of Richland Skysports. I was supposed to work on my left and right turns, but I was still struggling with them. I did get some turns in before the back flips started. I would do one back flip on accident, then two more before I could get things straightened out. Then I’d try turning again and I’d flip all over. Fortunately, I was watching my altimeter, so I wasn’t in any kind of trouble, and I straightened out long before I had to pull, but I was still frustrated that I wasn’t getting my turns right. On the plus side, it’s a lot of fun to do back flips in the air.

The second jump was more of the same, but I was definitely in a lot more control. I still flipped on accident a couple times, but was doing much better at turning, and was a lot more stable. I was still sliding some, but I think I’ve got it mostly under control. I’d like to try a jump where the instructor stays stable and I just try to stay in the same position and maybe even dock with him.

The third one (jump number 15), was a little different. This time I was supposed to flip in between my turns. I did a left turn, then went back, then a right turn, then back, then a flip. Only I was a little gun shy from doing multiple flips in a row, so I broke out of my flip early and ended up on my back. No big deal, I just finished the flip, but still.

The final one of the day I didn’t do any flips. I was in a lot more control as I did my turns. Still not perfect, but I’m getting there, and fine tuning now.

Most of my jumps were stand up landings, and I had no problems finding a spot on the field. On one of the earlier ones I wasn’t watching everyone else as much as I should have and was oblivious to a close call, but he told me and I’m now watching everywhere as I get closer to landing.

I’m also learning to pack. It’s a little frustrating because I’ve been watching them pack all along but as soon as I get the chute in my hands I forget what needs to be done, and I have a long way to go with getting the techniques down so that it’s not so tiring. I did pack my parachute and jump with it and it opened just fine, but I’m definitely glad I have the instructors watching me the whole way.

I’m really sore now, though. I have a couple bruises, and my ears haven’t finished popping, and on one of the jumps one of the risers hit my sunburned neck, but I’ll recover quickly and be back at it again soon.

Jumps 10, 11, and 12

A little over a month ago I jumped from 5000 feet and had about 10 seconds of freefall. I thought it was awesome. Every little step that I make in learning to skydive is fun and exciting, like I’m a baby who’s aware of my progress growing and learning to walk and talk. Yesterday, though, was like the way some people teach their babies to swim; by throwing them in the pool and making sure they don’t drown. That’s not a complaint at all, just a comparison.

When I arrived at the airport in the morning, there were already a few people. Within an hour, there were ten. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Almost no clouds, beautiful sky, very warm, and light wind. Larry asked me what I had done last time, considered a moment, and then told me I would be going all the way to the top with everyone else and learning to do 90 degree turns. This meant I would be going up to 13,500 feet and jumping out of a plane completely unfamiliar to me, falling for almost a minute, with 9 other people. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. I was going to have an instructor watching me the whole time, and falling 9000 feet isn’t very different from falling 1000 feet, but just the idea was a little mind-boggling.

We all got on the plane and figured out the jump order and opening altitudes and all the important stuff, took off, and made our way up to 13,500 feet. They opened the door and a blast of colder air reminded us we were a couple miles above the ground. The first group went out. I counted a few seconds and followed after them with my instructor and another jumping out right after me.

In short, I thrashed for a bit. I was able to get mostly stable, but it was very tenuous. When I tried to turn, I couldn’t control it, and I would end up flipping over onto my back. I’d right myself and try again, turning a little, then losing it and turning a lot, then flipping again. It was crazy. With only a few thousand feet left before I was supposed to pull, I figured things out a little better and was able to get in control and make small turns. Then I stopped turning for a thousand feet and maintained a stable position with one heading, waved off so others knew I was going to pull, and pulled my pilot chute.

My first reaction after my chute opened was that it was awesome. My second, only a fraction of a second later, was intense pain in my ears. My third, another fraction later, was the realization that falling 9000 feet in a minute must really screw with the pressure in one’s ears. I got things sorted out and took stock of where I was and where everyone else was and where I needed to be. The wind had changed direction, but the people who had jumped before me hadn’t taken it into account, so they ended up landing with the wind. The people who had jumped after me had faster chutes, so they landed before I did and they landed into the wind, so they had no problem. I set up my pattern and made some modifications on my way down and enjoyed the ride and landed only a couple feet from where I had intended to land. It was pretty slick.

In the debrief, it turned out that my arch wasn’t the best ever, which was part of the reason I was flipping. Also, the suit I was wearing was too loose, and I’m a tall and skinny guy, so I was floating a lot, and the instructor had a hard time staying with me. Finally, while my fall wasn’t ideal, it was pretty average for a beginner.

I was immediately ready for my second jump. It was the same drill this time, except I was supposed to not suck. We were the last out. This time I was in a different suit that was tighter and didn’t have any wings at all, so it was better, and I had a better arch, so I didn’t flip at all. But for some reason I couldn’t stop spinning. I was always turning clockwise and I couldn’t figure out why or stop it. I would try one thing and it wouldn’t help, so I’d try something else and I would spin faster. I was really struggling to figure out what I was doing wrong. Then I got into a much faster spin and had to really twist to stop it. When I looked at my altimeter I was already 500 feet past where I was supposed to deploy so I quickly waved off and pulled at 1000 feet below my target. Under canopy I did fine and I landed standing, but I knew it was a bad jump. The instructor talked to me afterwards and said that the spinning wasn’t so bad but that I wasn’t doing the right things to start and stop the turns. However, it was not so good and could have been dangerous that I hadn’t pulled my chute at the right altitude. By falling too far, I was starting to get into the airspace of the people under canopy who were moving a lot slower than I was, so a collision could have been deadly for me and someone else. I wouldn’t be able to jump on the big plane until I showed I could have some altitude awareness.

That’s when we got the smaller Cessna 206 started up. This was the small plane I was used to. We waited for the big plane to go up and drop a load before we went up so we wouldn’t interfere with them. Two other guys, the instructor, and I went up. The two guys jumped at 8000 feet and we continued up to 11,500. This time I jumped out and had a good arch. I maintained my heading fairly straight for a while, then tried turning. I wasn’t in complete control of my turns, but I was a lot better than the previous jump, and I was a lot more aware of where the instructor was and what my altitude was. It also helped that I was looking up at the horizon and looking in the direction I wanted to turn. I waved off at the right altitude, pulled my chute at the right altitude, and had a great stand-up landing. I was happy to end the day with a good jump.

In the end I had racked up a little over 2 1/2 minutes of freefall and learned a lot about controlling myself in the air and watching my altitude. I suppose I could have been a quicker learner and not screwed up that second jump so badly, but I can’t do it over again, so I’ll just learn from all those little mistakes and not do them again. I’m really glad that I’m learning at this drop zone. Everyone here is concerned about safety and making sure you’re comfortable but challenged, that you know what you need to do to improve, and that you have the right equipment and good training.

Soreness is how your body remembers fun.

Sunday was a good day of skiing. I went to White Pass with two friends. I felt a little bad because I said I wanted to leave at 7:30 fully expecting that both of them wouldn’t be ready that early, but if I had said later, it wouldn’t have mattered. On the other hand, I was right; we didn’t get out until 8. When we were almost there we came across a bunch of birds that flew out of the way as we approached. If I hadn’t hit the brakes, though, a very large bird of prey (falcon, hawk, or eagle), would have become familiar with my windshield. We didn’t miss him by much; we could clearly see every detail of his body.

Once we got up there, Katie started on her snowboard while Ben and I went to the top on our skis. About an hour later, Katie called and switched to her skis. After that, we all skied together. The weather was great. It snowed in the morning, so we had some nice powder, and most of the runs were groomed. It wasn’t very fast skiing because of the powder, but it was still fun. I had fun going through the trees, too. And I intentionally attacked the jumps; weak at first, but more aggressively by the end. There was one fantastic spot where Ben had gone down first so he could watch. I went straight down a steeper hill to gain speed then hit a small rolling hill right after that and caught some great air, had a perfect landing and stopped right in front of Ben, scoring my best spray stop ever and covering him to the top of his hat in snow. He gave me a high five. By the end the jumps were taking their toll on me, and I still hadn’t figured out how to land right, so my toes were being thrust against the boot quite painfully. One of the toenails even turned purple, but it looks like it’s not going to take the nail off. It’s definitely darker than it was yesterday, but it’s not going to last long.

On our way home, we stopped for the traditional Miner Burger in Yakima, where the burgers are wider than a dollar bill (they’re huge!), so we gained back some of the calories we had spent skiing.

It was a good day, and I’m better at jumping now than I was at the beginning of the day, but I did have a few falls and some ungraceful landings and moguls.

Cooking is all about the timing

And getting the timing right on dishes you’ve never made before is TOUGH. Tonight I tried three things I’ve never done, and somehow it all managed to work out. The first part was the pork loins, which I had never done in the oven on broil before (I recently got a broil pan, so I’ve been experimenting with it). To go on that I prepared a red wine, shallot, and butter sauce. As a side dish I made broccoli with cheddar cheese. In the end, it all came together, and I had a delicious meal, but it was rough deciding how long to do each thing and when to start and stop processes.

The red wine sauce was the hardest. I started out with a little butter and cooked the diced shallots until they were darker. Then I added about 1/2 cup of red wine and reduced it. Finally I added a stick of butter and mixed. Unfortunately, the butter melted too much, so it was a softer sauce than I wanted. I put it in the freezer to harden a little. Meanwhile I had boiled some broccoli, put it in a glass pan and shredded cheddar on top. It went in the oven, which was already broiling the pork, and doing a fine job of it. Since I give myself permission to criticize my own work, I have to say the cheddar could have used a minute less in the oven (it was underneath the pork, so it wasn’t getting the brunt of the broiler, but it still melted the cheese a little too much), the fat around the loin was slightly crispy, and the wine sauce was slightly runny. But if I was sitting at the table and someone set the plate in front of me, I would have thought it was a fantastic meal and wouldn’t have even noticed. This is definitely one I’ll be repeating.

Have I Seen This Before?

Lately I’ve been watching the original Twilight Zone episodes. They were created by Rod Serling from 1959-1962, in black and white. I don’t think that I’ve seen any of them before. It’s possible that I saw some rerun episodes when I was very young and don’t remember them. The crazy part is that I know these stories very well. Almost all of the episodes that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen over 40 in the last couple weeks, are familiar to me, and I can even quote from some of them the first time that I see them.

One could say it’s rather ironic that this strangeness would be happening with a show like the Twilight Zone, but I have an alternative explanation. The Twilight Zone is a set of great stories that have been told and retold in television and cinema for decades. You almost can’t see a horror film that doesn’t have some element of a Twilight Zone episode in it. Almost every Simpsons Halloween Treehouse of Horror episode has a spoof of a Twilight Zone episode. These stories are pervasive in our culture and our media. In the future they will be as revered as Aesop’s fables, Shakespeare’s plays, and Greek and Roman mythology.

So it is a good thing that I am watching all these episodes. While watching I am frequently reminded of movies and television shows that draw on that episode. It’s like a whole network of relationships is materializing, and it’s helping me appreciate video and get jokes that I didn’t get before.

Surgery on my baby

Yesterday my projector was acting up in a very unfriendly way. There was something wrong with the lighting. It was uneven with a couple lines through it. Worse, when I moved the projector, the lines moved, and I could hear a part moving around inside. Eventually, percussive maintenance no longer affected any change in the image. My only real option was to take it apart. Projectors aren’t cheap, and they are built of complicated and sensitive parts, so I was reluctant to open it up. My first thought was a flaw in the light bulb. I took the bulb out and examined it, cleaned out some of the accumulated dust, and tried again. No luck. Then I removed the case to expose the inner workings. I couldn’t see any problems immediately, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. Since it was approaching 2am, I decided to call it a night and worry about it the next day. Just in case, I ordered a new bulb, which will be delivered early next week. It turned out that the bulb was not the problem, but it’s too late to cancel the order, and it will be nice to have a backup bulb anyway.

Today I decided to give it another try. I dismantled it again, and this time turned it on while dismantled. It is incredible how much light comes through a tiny aperture. I could not look at it without some kind of protection. By following the light path, I was able to discover the problem.

The light goes through a very small square, perhaps half a centimeter wide. It enters this light tube composed of four small rectangular mirrors. The tube is about 3 centimeters long, and the four mirrors are attached along the long edges with some sort of glue. What had happened was that the heat from the lamp had weakened the glue, and one of the four sides of the square had dislodged. This led to the dimming because the mirror was no longer directing the light, and it explained the lines because the mirror was partially in the path of the light.

I was able to extract the square and, using scotch tape (bless the stuff), reconstruct the square tube and replace the fourth side. I am concerned that the scotch tape will melt or otherwise not hold, but if that happens I’ll look for a more formidable adhesive. I put everything back together, and my projector worked as well as it ever had.

It was a little intimidating working with an expensive piece of equipment whose mechanisms were mostly unfamiliar to me, but I’m glad that I was able to figure it out and fix it without damage.