New "Gay Way" World Record with me as Load Organizer (Rainbow Boogie 2009)

[virgin-burner 1]

and i even watched your AFF-vid.. and stil couldnt figure it out!

but what i really wanted to say: gay skydiving, be them dudes or girls, fucking ROCKS!

that comment will probably get this moved to SC, but anyway, keep up, keep defending, and that alone, makes you RUCKING FOCK!!!

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[mdrejhon 8]

That comment is just so gay.
And since it comes from me, that makes it okay.

Back on topic, I'll say there is very funny picture coming in Blue Skies magazine from the Rainbow Boogie, one that is beyond Parachutist's editorial guidelines, but within Blue Skies's guidelines. Go subscribe if you want to find out.

[freakyrat 1]

Max

I've offered to spring for the colored jumpsuits to do the dive if I would know who is coming to the boogie ahead of time so I could get them made well in advance. It would take a lot of advance planning but would sure look pretty cool in the air. This all started with 7 skydivers on a Yahoo newsgroup and an idea to get together and jump together. Mark took the bull by the horns and ran with it. and he deserves a lot of credit for putting it together. Plus the Cross Keys people were just great and personally I've never been to a more friendlier DZ than theirs.

Hey after screwing up on the first 12-way attempt and than changing slots to one I fly best (floater) I was able to fly that with relative ease and the 12-way came together nicely.

Incidently I'm 8 jumps away from 2000 and I would love to come back to Houston and make my 2000 with all my friends.

Chris

[mdrejhon 8]

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Plus the Cross Keys people were just great and personally I've never been to a more friendlier DZ than theirs.

I agree with that assessment. I was surprised at the welcome we got, they literally organized most of the ground activities well before I arrived, from the T-Shirts, the beer swoop-and-chug, the hangar party, and generous organizer slots for Tim and myself, as well as put up way more rainbow posters (that they created themselves) than we did.

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Hey after screwing up on the first 12-way attempt and than changing slots to one I fly best (floater) I was able to fly that with relative ease and the 12-way came together nicely.

That was a good slot-reassignment call we made (Tim and I simultaneously came to that conclusion in our heads before we talked to each other).

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Incidently I'm 8 jumps away from 2000 and I would love to come back to Houston and make my 2000 with all my friends.

Congratulations
I should hit my 500th shortly. (I have a dozen of tunnel hours too as well)

[freakyrat 1]

There were 10 guys and 2 gals on the load

Chris

[freakyrat 1]

"One person in the closet were glad to have showed up, and I have used a nickname out of his request"

Yeah and he rocked with just 37 jumps. And my flying partner had less than a hundred jumps also and he rocked.

Chris

[pinkfairy 0]

Sweet!

I'll show this to my gay skydiving friends, I'm sure you'll make an even bigger formation next year!

Relax, you can die if you mess up, but it will probably not be by bullet.

I'm a BIG, TOUGH BIGWAY FORMATION SKYDIVER! What are you?

[mdrejhon 8]

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Yeah and he rocked with just 37 jumps. And my flying partner had less than a hundred jumps also and he rocked.

To tell you the truth, I was not going to put A-license jumpers in the 12-way, but I specifically designed the formation with the possibility (4-way star with zippers, a highly recommended easy and flexible formation for turning a zoo 12-way load into a minority-record-breaker jump).

We test-jumped the highly-current frequent-jumping lowtimers in smallways including 4-ways that were FAR more challenging than this 12-way, and he performed certain point transitions that were better than mine during my 100th jump. I changed my mind and assigned him to the base. I had the opportunity to track next to his radial to make sure he was tracking and clearing his air properly, and he was doing no worse, and even better, than some of the steeper-tracking base flyers I've seen in the Perris 100-way camp, looking up, waving, and then pulling. Okay, he's in the 12-way I thought, and others agreed to include him.

The double-gripped funnel-proof 4-way star consisting of 2 lowtimer and 2 strong jumpers (me and either Tim/Joseph), was all we needed to make the record easy to achieve in just 2 jumps of official record attempts after unofficial funjumping the day prior. (We only did two official record attempts, and one rehearsal attempt the day prior)

Actually, we did match the Gay Way World Record with a 3-point 10-way the day prior (Friday), before two additional jumpers arrived for Saturday. That even involved the 2 lowtimers too.

We would have had lots more if the disaster (Harry BSBD) at Skydive West Point did not happen. They all had to stay. Jason the president of the parachute club there, among a few other West Point regulars, would have been Gay Way Record members, as well as a few economy-challenged men who had to cancel due to working during the weekend, or not affording the flight. We could have already done 17-way record attempts, otherwise, with the "Yes" RSVP's that changed to cancelled RSVP's. Next year, 20-way record attempts, is realistic, and we might have to go multiple-plane within 5 years if we are able to grow this boogie into something more major -- who knows.

[mdrejhon 8]

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I'll show this to my gay skydiving friends, I'm sure you'll make an even bigger formation next year!

[shameless plug]
(For new readers to this thread, and others too.)

I am hoping for a 20-way Gay Way World Record next year. We'll organize 2010 much better. Multiple organizers for other kinds of jumps, as well as tourbus to Atlantic City/Philadelphia for all the spouses as well as a rain-date alternate plan (better planning for bad-weather). We unamiously agreed to come back next year, so we have done an unprecedented pre-announcement of Rainbow Boogie 2010 for August 2010 in all magazine articles we submitted already, and we now have a mailing list of 75 experienced GLBT skydivers to draw from. We had 5 countries visit during Rainbow Boogie 2006, but only 2 countries during 2009 (even though 2009 was vastly better than 2006, with a massively larger number of straights joining in Rainbow Boogie 2009 -- including almost 50 gay rainbow "I can't think straight" T-Shirts sold to straights!!!!). The better economy and the long-range preannouncement should help make a big difference... That said, we want to also be welcoming to all skydivers, as long as it's a positive environment. So, we have the tagline "100% Hetero-Friendly" (pun of gay-friendly, you know) -- who knows, we might actually become a major boogie within a few years that way, we wouldn't object to that, given the silly fun that happened at Cross Keys...

4-way and 8-way teams with gay members are welcome to train at Rainbow Boogie 2010; no need to participate in boogie activities except during the evenings -- if that is the only way to bring these busy jumpers to the dropzone. Great prices for teams when including organizer slot -- provided even to teams as small as 4-ways plus video (5 jumpers). Plan your competition training at Rainbow Boogie 2010, frequent loads. No problem!

We constantly run into people who never knew about us, the GLBT skydivers worldwide are very highly fragmented and don't know about each other, but I now estimate are at least 200 gay experienced skydivers worldwide (licensed, and whom have jumped within the last 5 years) of which about 75 have now joined our Rainbow Skydivers Facebook group, which I will broadcast updates about about our upcoming Rainbow Boogie 2010 for August 2010 at Skydive Cross Keys. I'm Chief Cat Herder for the gay skydiving community, doing all the web design, Facebook page operation, mailing list maintenance, etc.

We have a website at www.RainbowSkydive.com that links to both our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and we also have a

We have almost 100 Rainbow Boogie photos in this Rainbow Boogie 2009 Facebook Photo Album. Not all of the 1,000 photos we took (air and ground), some exclusives have also been submitted to the magazines in full resolution, including a semi-NSFW one to Blue Skies Magazine. (Hint: Photograph involves straight girls who have given permission for the photo to be published.) Go subscribe if you want to see it. Keep an eye out for the September issue of Blue Skies, and the October issue of Parachutist.

[/shameless plug]

[rdufokker 6]

Dude you need to chill out, it sounds like you're getting ready to go "Chris Crocker" on us. First there are two different aspects of this record. The size of the formation in and of itself is no big deal because there is NO physical disadvantage to a gay skydiver over a straight (except maybe the wrist). What was noteworthy here was the organization of a multitude of levels of skydiving skills that all were of a minority group.

I think it sometime hurts a group when they FORCE the separation from the overall group. It's like I'm a straight white male, I'll never be part of a special group so I can't be proud of some ??? accomplishment.

I don't care who I jump with and I don't treat ANYONE different. Hell, there are women that can kick my ass skydiving,back in the 80's in Raeford there was a great Black skydiver, called himself Skykoon Wallace. When we did a big formation we didn't footnote it with 16 way with two women and one Black guy.

Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

[MichaelG 0]

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And my flying partner had less than a hundred jumps also and he rocked.

Chris

Thanks! I appreciate that! I sure had a blast!

[freakyrat 1]

Mike

You did great and I was real rusty haven't done RW in over a year. But if I fly my floater slot I do just fine. I was a little worried I would leave the plane to early or to late and have the base bump me going out. That didn't happen though. The base was trying to get me to move over towards the side of the aircraft but I didn't know if the camerman was next to me or to the right of the base on exit. Anyway it worked out great for all of us and I was just elated especially under canopy.

I got the group picture plus the second point of the dive and the picture that someone took of my Samurai collapsing after landing and had them enlarged at Wolfe Camera and I'm framing them at Arron Bros. and puting them up in my hallway.

Again good job and it was fun jumping with you. Let's do that 20-way next

Chris

[mdrejhon 8]

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And my flying partner had less than a hundred jumps also and he rocked.

Chris

Thanks! I appreciate that! I sure had a blast!

I bet you'll be getting more invites to 10-ways and bigways now that you've jumped in the Gay Way World Record. I know I did, after my first 9-way on jump #100 in September 2005 at Skydive Gananoque. You're already ahead of me RW-skills-wise back when I only had 100 jumps. During one of the jumps that funnelled (a funjump that didn't involve those strong double-gripped funnel-proof stars), you were the first jumper to dock on the rebuilt base!

Mind you, half of my lifetime jumps (250+) have now all been in the last 16 months, as my jumping pace has increased dramatically since I'm hoping to be on The World Team... Among 2 other RainbowSkydivers I go to bigway camps with, and one RainbowSkydiver I personally know jumped in the 400-way World Record as one of the few sub-1000 jumpers there (and another RainbowSkydiver who did video for that 400-way, from what I heard).