WHAT A RUSH!

Today I went up for my first Tandem. In town they only do tandem once a year during what they call "May Meet". It's a sky diving event where people come from all over. It's the only time they do tandem in town b/c the club has no one registered to perform tandems. I decided to do a tandem as my second jump b/c I figured it's the closest to the real thing without having to work up to that point. I figured that this will be the deciding factor if I wanted to take up skydiving as a hobby. Now that I officially love skydiving I can go through the Progressive Free fall training to where I'm able to jump out on my own, experience lots of free fall and pull my own chute.

For the tandem it cost about $260. Unlike my first jump the training only took 15 minutes. Plus I also paid for it to be filmed and photographed, which was another $125. So as I was free falling I had a guy right in front of me filming the whole thing. I don't have a copy of it yet but I got to see all the pics and video before I left. It was absolutely worth it. I would have paid twice as much for it. What they are going to do is edit the film together with some neat effects and music and mail it to me. When I get it I'll try posting it online for all to watch. The free fall this time around wasn't scary at all. I didn't get that feeling of "falling in your dreams". I think it was b/c we jumped out of the plane sideways and fell stomach down. Whereas for the first jump your falling backwards. I'm not sure how long the free fall was. It could have been a minute, but it also could have been more and even less. It did feel like we were falling for quite sometime. During the free fall we started to do some 360 spins. I wasn't expecting them so it was cool and freaky at the same time. The great thing this time around is I didn't have to worry about making sure the chute opened. It may have taken a burden off my shoulders but then again I'm trusting my life in the guys hands. The glide down was spectacular. Before I did one spiral and at a slow pace. This time around we did a bunch of spirals and did them super fast. Since it's a tandem you don't land on your feet. You actually slide on the ground with your butt. I'd compare it to doing a baseball slide. I thought we were jumping from an altitude of 10,000 feet but I found out when we landed it was actually 15,000 feet.

Things went perfectly for me. However I can't say the same for some people. On the plane load before me one the skydivers had to release their main chute and pull their reserve. It was scary at first watching the main chute fall to the earth by itself, b/c it wasn't opened all the way and I though the guy was still attached. Then I found out that the lady who was siting beside me on the plane had a bad landing. I'm not quite sure what happened but the pros come in very fast and I think she hit some sort of sign. I think I over heard that she broke a rib.

With all my days working I'm glad I managed to take a few hours off and do this. I had to work this morning and then I took an extended lunch break, jumped and them went back to work. Today was my 25th day straight. Unfortunately or fortunately I won't be breaking my record of 35 days this year. I checked out my schedule and found out that I actually get Wednesday off from both my jobs. However with my luck I'll probably get called into one of my jobs that day. This last week our Entertainment Coordinator was sick so I got to be the acting Entertainment Coordinator. It was fun and freaky all at the same time. There is still quite a few things I haven't been training how to do, so I was sort of making it up as I went along.

"If you want the ultimate, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price" Bodhi from Point Break.