Operation Freefall - part 1
Apr. 28th, 2009 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elionwyr(This IS the update you're looking for!)
The day started with me being late. Which I'm sure is a shock.
I'd not been able to sleep the night before...not from nerves, but from 'oh poop I didn't get these dreamcatchers completed!' (I was to give a bunch to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cypherindigo, as she has graciously agreed to take them to Balticon for me to put in the art show.)
I went to bed around 6AM. Lurk tried valiantly to get me out of bed around 8:30, but I was very convincedmewschangeling would be late/lost, so..*stretch* *hit snooze* and shush you silly cat, I'm sure I can get a little more sleep..
mewschangeling pulled up at around 9:05. AAAAAAAAAACK! I pulled on a robe and gestured frantically from the door for her to pretty please wait just a sec. Which was more like 15 minutes, I think. I gifted her with a gerber daisy plant (because she is awesome for doing this jump, and she deserved flowers!) and zooooooom we were off!
My jump time was 2PM; hers was 4PM. She had the foresight to call ahead and make sure the jumps hadn't been cancelled, as had happened at other drop zones - but no, we were all go! Yay!
The drive was a wee bit longer than we hoped, though we didn't stop for very long. I required coffee early on, and we did grab some lunch around...ummm...11:30? 12? Despite her best efforts to get us there around 1PM, we didn't quite manage that, and our cheering section got to the drop zone before we did. *d'oh*
A happy surprise was havingcontrary74 realize she'd be able to join us, too! Oh, I was a VERY happy and lucky squirrel.
The drop zone was at a very tiny airport. VERY tiny. As in, we couldn't find it; and once we did, there was no chance we could miss where we were supposed to be. We did manage to find the airport with the assistance ofcypherindigo, and I told them to please please tell the drop zone folks that they could swap me out with someone else jumping later if that made things easier.
hughcasey, cypherindigo, trillsie, and tickly_girl were all waiting for us, hiding from the much-too-bright sun. As it turned out, our late arrival wasn't that big a deal, because wind conditions had caused all jumps to be postponed for a bit. A while. HOURS! But! It was a beautiful day, spent with good friends. Who had thought to bring water...thank the gods!!!
contrary74 and LJ-less Charles showed up; trillsie and cypherindigo had to leave around 4:30, so they didn't get to see the jump. :(
mewschangeling and I were invited to come on back and watch a training video and fill out some 'please don't sue us' paperwork. The guy on the video told us we could ask our instructor about anything not covered by the video.
"Dude, I'm totally asking about aliens."
...mewschangeling handles my varied insanities pretty well. (My favourite quote from her from day, I think, was her saying that my babble in the car was like having me on shuffle. Yay random access brain!)
We then went back outside to wait some more. Yay? I noticed our names had finally been written down on the schedule, and that it looked like we were the last jumps of the day. A definite yay was that the pilots had been given the ok to start taking people up again...woo! (Much later, the owner of the place pointed out the stacked clouds in the distance and told us that there were major thunderstorms about 30 miles away and planes had been detoured into our neck of the woods at varied points during the day to avoid those storms. So I'm doubly glad we got to jump at all!)
I should also add that, at some point during our waiting period, the owner of the place started talking about how a hearse had shown up a while back in their parking lot.hughcasey shot me a look; I started laughing, because this is exactly how my life works...random shuffle on. We then heard part of a story about how two guys were trying to shove a body bag into the baggage compartment of a Cessna - in this photo, the baggage door can almost be seen in front of the "D". Again, much later, I asked for all the details, which included the owner and a coworker jumping in to help them get the body out of the baggage compartment and into the main area of the plane..the corpse's head ended up resting between pilot and passenger, and they managed to get off the ground and on their way before an incoming storm screwed up their travel plans. Quite something..
(And on to part two - suiting up!)
The day started with me being late. Which I'm sure is a shock.
I'd not been able to sleep the night before...not from nerves, but from 'oh poop I didn't get these dreamcatchers completed!' (I was to give a bunch to
cypherindigo, as she has graciously agreed to take them to Balticon for me to put in the art show.) I went to bed around 6AM. Lurk tried valiantly to get me out of bed around 8:30, but I was very convinced
mewschangeling would be late/lost, so..*stretch* *hit snooze* and shush you silly cat, I'm sure I can get a little more sleep..mewschangeling pulled up at around 9:05. AAAAAAAAAACK! I pulled on a robe and gestured frantically from the door for her to pretty please wait just a sec. Which was more like 15 minutes, I think. I gifted her with a gerber daisy plant (because she is awesome for doing this jump, and she deserved flowers!) and zooooooom we were off!My jump time was 2PM; hers was 4PM. She had the foresight to call ahead and make sure the jumps hadn't been cancelled, as had happened at other drop zones - but no, we were all go! Yay!
The drive was a wee bit longer than we hoped, though we didn't stop for very long. I required coffee early on, and we did grab some lunch around...ummm...11:30? 12? Despite her best efforts to get us there around 1PM, we didn't quite manage that, and our cheering section got to the drop zone before we did. *d'oh*
A happy surprise was having
contrary74 realize she'd be able to join us, too! Oh, I was a VERY happy and lucky squirrel.The drop zone was at a very tiny airport. VERY tiny. As in, we couldn't find it; and once we did, there was no chance we could miss where we were supposed to be. We did manage to find the airport with the assistance of
cypherindigo, and I told them to please please tell the drop zone folks that they could swap me out with someone else jumping later if that made things easier.hughcasey, cypherindigo, trillsie, and tickly_girl were all waiting for us, hiding from the much-too-bright sun. As it turned out, our late arrival wasn't that big a deal, because wind conditions had caused all jumps to be postponed for a bit. A while. HOURS! But! It was a beautiful day, spent with good friends. Who had thought to bring water...thank the gods!!!contrary74 and LJ-less Charles showed up; trillsie and cypherindigo had to leave around 4:30, so they didn't get to see the jump. :(mewschangeling and I were invited to come on back and watch a training video and fill out some 'please don't sue us' paperwork. The guy on the video told us we could ask our instructor about anything not covered by the video."Dude, I'm totally asking about aliens."
...
mewschangeling handles my varied insanities pretty well. (My favourite quote from her from day, I think, was her saying that my babble in the car was like having me on shuffle. Yay random access brain!)We then went back outside to wait some more. Yay? I noticed our names had finally been written down on the schedule, and that it looked like we were the last jumps of the day. A definite yay was that the pilots had been given the ok to start taking people up again...woo! (Much later, the owner of the place pointed out the stacked clouds in the distance and told us that there were major thunderstorms about 30 miles away and planes had been detoured into our neck of the woods at varied points during the day to avoid those storms. So I'm doubly glad we got to jump at all!)
I should also add that, at some point during our waiting period, the owner of the place started talking about how a hearse had shown up a while back in their parking lot.
hughcasey shot me a look; I started laughing, because this is exactly how my life works...random shuffle on. We then heard part of a story about how two guys were trying to shove a body bag into the baggage compartment of a Cessna - in this photo, the baggage door can almost be seen in front of the "D". Again, much later, I asked for all the details, which included the owner and a coworker jumping in to help them get the body out of the baggage compartment and into the main area of the plane..the corpse's head ended up resting between pilot and passenger, and they managed to get off the ground and on their way before an incoming storm screwed up their travel plans. Quite something..
(And on to part two - suiting up!)