|
|
 I’ve packed and jumped parachutes for an awfully long time … almost half of my life, and I’ve made my share of misjudgements. Today was one such occasion.
I’m wanting to reinvent my style in the sky, so I thought I’d go for a solo stiffly jump, reacquainting myself with the basics of body flight. The beauty of skydiving by myself lies in the ability to jump on my own terms, learning at my own pace and opening at an altitude that is safe in the situation. Being the only fun jumper on the plane (the rest were tandems), I pulled slightly higher than normal. 3,500 feet to be exact. Boy am I grateful for that little bit of extra time! Turns out, when I unhooked the demo Pilot canopy on the weekend, I did a complete switcheroo without repacking my Spectre main 7 cell canopy. A friend helped me with the exchange whereby all looked and seemed intact with no misrouting. In this instance, I put too much faith in another, and I really know better in such circumstances. Rule of thumb: repack my gear whenever the canopy is released (cutaway) from the container, regardless of whether I’m in a hurry or ‘certain’ that everything looks like it’ll work out fine.
Well, on this opening, I started spinning rather rapidly under a tightly wound cascade of line twists that reached up a good 5 feet. Bicycle kick extraordinaire had me under a semi-normal canopy. The first thing that I looked for after flying on heading was in which direction the nose was pointed. Funny you might ask, but the initial thought that went through my head was that the canopy had been reattached backwards. In fact, I’ve seen slaDE purposefully land a backwards attached canopy. He just did a 180 under his risers and landed like that. I wouldn’t have the same sort of bravado or courage to land a backwards flying parachute! Rather, it turned out that I had a triple twist in my right riser housing whilst the left riser had a single twist. You got it. Misrouted reattachment. But with enough altitude above my set hard deck of 2,000 feet, I deemed the main canopy safe to land (it was surprisingly stable and docile despite the large number of riser twists) and decided against cutting away (even though the conditions and spot were perfect for a reserve deployment). What went through my head was: “Why spend an extra $70 for a reserve repack if I didn’t need to?” I had enough thrills for the day and was happy to safely set down lightly and with ease. Big sigh of relief. Next time I jump a demo, no matter who hooks it up, I’m repacking my main canopy just to triple check that everything is kosher!
 What a busy day! Amy is, as of today, now considered “full term” in her pregnancy (meaning that if she were to go into labor now, the baby’s lungs would likely be mature enough to fully adjust to life outside the womb). So you can imagine the excitement in the house, with so much going on beyond what any of their friend’s could imagine. Celebrating in this happy occasion was vitally important to us. And today, I wanted to be useful in any way that I could. After making a phone call to secure our new fridge, I could focus on the tasks at hand. Clean, clean and more cleaning, followed by a family photo session with Amy, Nate and Zan. Happy to be of service!
 So when the boys decided to go longboarding with Tubbs, Amy and I casted her burgeoning belly with plaster of Paris. I found a pre-fabricated roll of the plaster strips at Hobby Lobby in a convenient pack called ‘E-Z Form Plaster Cloth Wrap’. I bought two rolls, uncertain as to how much we would need. Through the whole process, I found that one roll was enough, especially when using triangle pieces to mould over her beautiful bountiful belly. Much to our delight, the process went smoothly, evolving in to a truly magnificent form and shape. So happy to create a lifelong memory for Amy and her family (they have future plans to decorate the casting with their children — fab!).
 Our Airstream (named ‘Airabella’) is 20 years old this year. A remarkable feat for any trailer which resides in tip top shape, considering the age. But Airstreams are well constructed beautiful icons that have a history and reputation for being well built, retaining their longevity, appeal and salability. However, as with many things of maturity, whether it be the human body or an appliance that has worked hard (faithfully and diligently serving its owner), age takes its toll and pretty soon, components need to be replaced after their useful function. It was late afternoon when I decided to fetch an afternoon snack from the fridge. Upon opening the door, a horrendous smell of a bleach-like substance overpowered my senses. At first I thought that perhaps my sprouts or greens had gone off? However, the smell was far more toxic than anything food could release. Immediately, my thoughts went to the possibility of an ammonia leak. It was only recently that I learned more about the 2 way refrigeration process of our Dometic RV fridge (ironically when our neighbour lost his own refrigerated RV unit due) and the workings of the ammonia cooling process for LP / AC (vs Frion gas electric). It was from these gleanings that knew our fridge had suffered a fatal blow.
 It being a windy quiet Sunday, today seemed like an opportune time to research what type and model of fridge we needed for our trailer and where we could find the best deal on a new replacement. Although attempting a repair of the cooling unit would be considerably cheaper than upgrading to a contemporary unit, such an overhaul is not recommended on the old ammonia refrigerators (especially when there is a leak due to age and corrosion, as is the case with ours). There are a handful of RV Repair and Service facilities in the Houston area, but very few actually stocked the Dometic RM2820 fridge we were seeking. As a matter of fact, after researching different dealer prices, the only local on-the-shelf model happened to also be on sale (aka the cheapest option). BONUS! PPL Motorhomes happen to be one of the largest RV superstores in the USA. Lucky for us, the drive is under 2 hours for pickup = big savings on shipping costs. And with slaDE anxious about installing the fridge himself, that potentially means another savings of several hundred dollars. The timing of the fridge dying is probably the best possible considering that we have our generous friend Bob’s RV fridge to store our cold-storage food in until we have our ailing unit replaced. I love it when things fall together so well, considering the other options (i.e. waiting weeks for a fridge with no access to refrigeration in the interim).
After targeting a fridge, we headed in to Katy to spend some time with the Wernigs, celebrating Aiden’s 10th birthday with our skydiving family and friends, enjoying our final days in Texas with Amy before the baby is born. 
 Today was another hot day in Texas, with the temperatures soaring high above 80 degrees fahrenheit. When I awoke this morning, the skies were absolutely clear and the wind was calm. A complete opposite forecast from my weather research of yesterday. I was thrilled at the prospect of jumping the demo canopy Lescek had lent me — Aerodyne’s Pilot 124. I’ve spent the last 500 + skydives jumping a 7 cell canopy. Trust me when I say that my Spectre 135 has treated me well, especially having jumped many of those with a camera mounted on my head, but I now believe it’s time for me to downsize and re-explore the limits and capabilities of a 9 cell canopy. I need confidence re-instilled in my ability to jump in higher winds. My accident 5 years ago took away my bold conviction and nerve.
So, on the first load, I decided to pull high at 5,500 feet, giving me an opportunity to play and test the Pilot canopy. I should have figured out that 43 knot uppers at opening altitude would hinder any prospects of leisurely sashays, turns and canopy testing. From the moment my canopy deployed (gorgeous on-heading openings by the way!), I was facing in to the wind and speeding backwards at an alarming rate (or maybe part of the visual was the swift moving feathery cloud layer beneath me). Dang it, I truly dislike that feeling of wishing I was on the ground when I’m in the air. It doesn’t happen very often, but when I am praying to be affixed firmly to terra firma whilst under canopy, it’s not a very comfortable sensation. For 5,000 feet I sailed backwards like a wind dummy, despite my front-riser input. However, lucky for me, the spot had been calculated for the tandems on board the plane, and I was happy to gracefully kiss the ground in the desired landing area. Woohoo! Next time, I’m paying more attention to the uppers before exiting the plane!
(Skydiving terminology 101: Uppers - The upper winds, or winds at exit altitude. The “uppers” are often much stronger and occasionally from a different direction than ground winds.)
 Having the day free to do our weekly shopping trip and perhaps attend a yoga class before the afternoon Cirque du Soleil show, we enjoyed our morning visit  with Rhonda before jetting to a spontaneous class at Cherryblossom Yoga studio. There we met the vivacious owner and yogini Sara. So happy that we made the effort to check out her studio. It was glorious to be a part of a new instructor’s first class at this studio … Maxwell did such a tremendous job!
With lightness in our hearts, we were completely stoked to attend a circus Grand Chapiteau experience, found in the performance of ‘OvO’ by Cirque de Soleil. slaDE and I have been to two other Cirque du Soleil shows: ‘Varekai’ in Toronto (with a backstage tour by my friend and show percussionist Paul Bannerman) and ‘Allegria’ in Calgary.
When we arrived, we made our way to the box office to purchase tickets for the show … we had planned to buy in advance, but the $19 service fee per person kind of swayed us to just show up, paying for whatever tickets were available. For whatever reason, I quickly headed back to the truck, leaving slaDE in line, and when I returned, slaDE had this huge cheshire cat grin on his face. I waited patently to see what was up … and as soon as we were seated, he told me that a Lady had approached him whilst in line and offered him free passes to the show (the seats itself were worth about $90 each). WOW! For whatever reason, good fortune was rewarding us in grandiose splendour! I know slaDE would have gifted her with yogaFLIGHT right there on the spot if he could have  , but a hug and a big thank you had to make do however.
 The 3 hour show was an incredible feast for the eyes and senses. As in all of their other productions, the performers thrilled and entertained us with feats of physical endurance, stamina, flexibility, enhanced by shocking visuals of gymnastic colour, grandeur and flight. It was awe-inspiring to see such prolific and presses skill. Enough to get the heart racing and soaring. The vibrant music embraced the performance with a reverberating hug, seamlessly weaving a magical experience defined by the theme of life in the insect world: ‘OvO’, a must see!
About this time last year, we meandered our way through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A crazy tourist mecca, but a beautiful part of the country nevertheless.  I was reading this story about a Wastewater Treatment Plant spill in Gatlinburg Tennessee and couldn’t help but wonder, how does something like a sewage leak of such gigantic proportions happen in this day and age? 1.5 to 3.2 million gallons of waste leaked into the rain-swollen Little Pigeon River and two workers bodies were recovered. To think, the basin that collapsed was only 15 years old! If such a facility collapses with age due to structural failure, imagine the repercussions of an earthquake, mammoth storm or Tsunami on an area that is unprepared and structurally unsound?! This is a wakeup call to us all: kind of like a literal domino effect. When something such as a treatment plant overspill happens and untreated sewage flows unencumbered in to the water system, envision the environmental devastation plus both the animal and human impact and toll. Food for thought, especially right now when we hear about environmental disasters, such as what recently has enveloped Japan and the oil spill in the Gulf. Tragic and life changing, in all ways and forms. Are you prepared for a natural disaster or environmental emergency in your community? What can you do to to prepare? Here’s an Emergency preparation guide to get you started, or at least thinking.
|
|
