my Thanksgiving weekend as it happened

[aruan]

Thursday: Woken by brother, then dragged bleary and half-awake to watch footage of him jumping out of perfectly good airplane last Sunday. Mutter interested syllables, then try to mean them when he starts dialing phone numbers to put me on the list for Saturday's group jump, on which my mother is already signed up. Then ate Thanksgiving dinner. Twice. Oy.

Friday: Slept in after going to bed around 11 (that's a.m.) and so avoided any Black Friday shenanigans besides Circuit City, where my mom saw fit to, in the spirit of the season, spring for the new Franz Ferdinand CD and the box set of Harry Potter DVDs. [heart] Then, something unprecedented - I had bad coffee at Starbucks. Suppose that's what I get for straying from the righteous path of The Gingerbread Latte, but still. Quite a shock to my world view. But an encore viewing of The Incredibles went far to assuage that wrong.

Saturday: Let me sum up:



Me (eyes are not closed, for the record) and jumpmaster!Mike plus photographer!Dan, about 13,500 feet in the air, tumbling toward the mottled greens of Central Florida at near-120 mph speed. Then there was the interminable wait at The Clock for our lunch about eight hours after we got out of bed - none of us having eaten breakfast of course - then passing out for about three hours on the living room sofa. Woke up to catch the end of Love Actually - did you know Alan Rickman's character is named Harry? *snerk* Also, the movie has my trifecta of Englishmen. *drools a little* Had yet more leftovers, this time with previously undiscovered pecan pie remnants, wrote something (*choirs of angels sing*), then read Harry/Snape fic until my eyes burned (and can I tell you how fast one's standards lower once one comes to favor a pairing), which took about nine hours, bringing us to...

Sunday: Got out of Dodge around 4:30 p.m. Got into Gainesville at 2 a.m. You do the horrifying math, then snicker at the Turnpike plaza restrooms being declared unisex, marvel at how walkingshadow and I lived to tell the harrowing tale of playing five games of Uno in traffic, praise the goodness of Godiva truffles and oh, hello, that's 43 degrees of winter just for us upon arrival.

Comments

[ihearthings-ii.livejournal.com]

!!!! how friggin' awesome!!!

[jenbeth78.livejournal.com]

You are INSANE woman, INSANE LOL

[whynotsaylove.livejournal.com]

crazy!!! i would NEVER do that!

[karasevda.livejournal.com]

OMFG! you are absolutely CRAZY!! But I gotta admit, I admire your guts. Jesus. I wouldn't do that if you'd pay me.

[callsigns.livejournal.com]

Brave you! Lucky and brave you! Back to the grind, now, missy.

[krissi518.livejournal.com]

Oh! I would LOVE to go sky diving! How was it?

Bad Starbucks?!? I can't believe it! What did you have? I'm now in love with the peppermint mocha and the eggnog latte. Yum!

[trickyjazzer.livejournal.com]

You are very brave!

[angel-q.livejournal.com]

OMG! I wanna go skydiving! How was it?

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

*g* It really, really was. I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone at all. Funny thing - it's nothing like falling. Like, there's no bottom-drops-out sensation, no elevator queasiness, just the surreal feeling of fairly flying (or at least being suspended) in midair.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

This fandom has taught me many things, one of them being that the undertaking of seemingly insane propositions usually yields the most favorable results.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Why not? Is it a height thing? Because it's only scary when they have you sit on the edge of the cabin door and you get to watch your feet dangle above the clouds. The rest is easy - breathe calmly through the thin oxygen for the first swiftly passing minute, then open the parachute and enjoy the view!

[whynotsaylove.livejournal.com]

no it's not the height... it's the free falling to your uncertain death thing that gets me! the chute could fail! i am just not a daredevil at all. i already worry about dying doing every day activities... i don't think i could willingly put myself in danger, hah.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

You know, it was really, really okay. All of it. There was a scary moment when I realized oh, right, going up very high and to get to fall, you have to jump out first. And the general survival instinct anxiety of OMGparachuteworries. But really, it's mostly the jumpmaster who decides the when and how, and they talk to you the whole they're suiting you up, then on the ride up, then on the way down after the parachute opens. Tons and tons of fun, I assure you.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Well, I got to watch them roll and pack the parachutes and asked about their safety record - 20 years they've been in the business, and the only fatalities were the very first day they opened: Two experienced skydivers collided in midair. However, since then, parachutes are now also equipped with altimeters, which, if you're in any way incapacitated or don't pull your rip cord, deploy automatically after a certain altitude. And landing is a dream.

As jumpmaster!Matt said, the most dangerous part of your day is the drive there and back.

[whynotsaylove.livejournal.com]

well that is comforting. however, i don't drive either. hah.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

Definitely lucky, don't know so much about the brave. Mike had to remind me twice to keep my arms crossed in front of me until we were freefalling because I was grabbing onto various parts of the hull of the plane. There isn't much time to allow yourself to ponder or worry once they open that door, and until then, they keep you well within the belly of the plane and away from the windows.

*sigh* Alas, this is so. But my mom loved it so much, she promised we'll do it again when I come home for winter break. *g*

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

It was incredible. The Earth is round! I know this for a personally verified fact now! *g* The first few seconds out of the plane are a bit scary, but it's really singularly amazing and nothing like you'd imagine. Which doesn't tell you much, but there it is. I'll write more when I get my pictures back.

I know! Actually, it was an Eggnog Latte. *shrug* Maybe the coffee was old, but I really wasn't feeling the taste of the syrup at all. To each his own and all that, but yeah, it was bizarre and disappointing. Starbucks is just one of those things I thought would never fall from grace. *lights a candle* Not that any of this will keep me from getting more the first chance I get, but for the moment, I'm making a sad face.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

It was really not as huge a risk as everyone thinks. One of the jumpmasters (yes, that's their official title) said the most dangerous part of your day is the drive there. The technology is pretty much perfect at this point. I'm going to write about watching the roll and pack the parachutes and talking to the manager about their safety record. I bet more people are injured bungee jumping/rock climbing/heck, even running - this is just jumping out of a plane. Even the landing is a dream. And when you're tandem jumping, it's not even your call when you jump out of the plane, and so long as there isn't much time to worry, there's really nothing terribly brave about taking a plunge with the world's best insurance against bodily injury on your back. :)

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

I'll write lots more as soon as my pictures get here (this is actually by the photographer who did my mom's pictures and video - we were in the plane together and I jumped first, an experience no mother should have to go through, IMO) but suffice it to say it was both amazing and nothing like I expected it would be - there's no sensation of falling at all - if anything, you feel suspended in the air. Like swimming, only with clouds. *g*

[jenbeth78.livejournal.com]

well see I am TERRIFIED of heights, so I get dizzy even thinking about that LOL

[ihearthings-ii.livejournal.com]

I want to believe me. soooo bad.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

The only scary part, really, was sitting on the edge of the door with my feet dangling over nothing but clouds as far as the height thing. I get vertigo, too, and there's not really any good way of explaining this, but it's nothing like falling. There's no stomach drop like in elevators or on rollercoasters, and once the parachute is opened, it's more like drifting than the out-of-control sensation of standing on a ledge. Weird, I know.

[tallories.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's amazing!

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

That's a good word for it. I'm having trouble coming up with accurate ones, but that'll do for a general mood of the experience. :)