peacefuljeffrey

Fortunately, JadedLady survived to tell the tale of her refusal to yield to greater experience. Yes, I'm as surprised as you are that she got back into the plane for another jump on the same day, particularly with injuries. But as I said, she survived -- and the important thing is I'll bet that NOW she is more familiar with the notion of letting more experienced skydivers guide your decision-making. I'm a low-time jumper -- 54 as of this weekend. I have the benefit of being a private pilot, so skydiving never really did scare me, being in the plane never scared me, and canopy control, as has been said, came quite naturally. But there have been days when others have told me "don't jump." In particular, Dave Cole and J.C. Perren have been two instructors who KEPT me from jumping when I was hot to do so and probably would have, unwisely. I made a sort of mental decision to force myself to remain open to guidance from those I KNOW are more knowledgeable and experienced than I am. You will never know what might have happened on a windy day when they advised you not to jump and you didn't jump: what you will know, is that you will be able to jump on some other day. I'm usually a go-forward person, strong in my belief that things have a way of working out, so it was difficult for me to accept that there are just many things I don't yet know about this sport, and ONLY time and jumps will teach them to me. Allowing that learning to proceed at the pace it naturally adopts has been a wonderful life-lesson for me. Skydiving is actually making me a better person. Back to the subject: JadedLady is probably a lot more understanding of why it's best sometimes to let the experience of others override your enthusiasm for getting up right now, today, winds be damned. And because of her experiences, she'll probably carry that wisdom into other areas of life. One hopes, anyway. ---Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

Hello everyone! Since this is the place for introductions, I'm here to introduce myself. My name is Jeffrey. I live in West Palm Beach, Florida, and was born and raised in Smithtown (Long Island), New York. I've been in WPB for 7 years. Back in 1991 I was in college, and did a static-line jump from 3,000 at Skydive Long Island. Then I did another one at Duanesburg, NY later that year, and then another jump, this time AFF I. (I had not known of the existence of AFF-type jumps!) Alas, it was too expensive for me at the time, so I didn't do another jump until '96, back on L.I. I did two that summer. Fast forward to the recent past. In 2001, I found myself financially able to finish working on my private pilot's license (which I had begun in my teens, ca. 1989!). I got my license on September 21, 2002. While I was training, I used to fly out to Pahokee a lot, so one day I rode the Skydive America bus back to the hangar and asked questions and got a ride in the red, white and blue Otter. (That was a blast! I had jumped only from 182s!) I didn't begin training, though, until summer 2003, and I did AFP jumps in a sort of informal program with Dave Cole, formerly of Skydive America (now defunct). He and some others were keeping things alive at Pahokee, doing occasional tandems to keep a plane in the air. They hung on just long enough for Ron and his crew from Tecumseh, MI to make it down here with their Super Otter, and now things are hustlin' and flyin'! WE HAD THE FIRST SKYDIVE SOUTH BEACH BOOGIE THIS WEEKEND!!! It sure was a lot of fun. Lots of people were there to jump and spectate, and Mirage and Birdman and some others were there, plus Brian Germain of Big Air Sportz (he is one great guy. Brian held a canopy flight seminar and Q/A in the FBO after Saturday's skydiving. He's super-approachable and super-knowledgeable. He's also the designer of my new used Lotus 170 (airlock). That's right, after renting renting renting, I finally have my own rig, a Javelin and a Lotus. Yes, don't worry, I did buy beer. I have nothing but intensely happy and positive things to say about Skydive South Beach. The staff have expanded into the hangar that I'm told used to be used for skydiving some years ago. People were saying it was like old times. There are even still black diamonds on the door from when Olav had his office there! If you find yourself able to, make sure to get to SoBe (not to be confused with the South Beach by Miami -- this one is out at the SE corner of the big lake in the map of Florida) and jump there. If you could only have seen the sunset we had last night, on the second and last day of the boogie... you would have made arrangements to move here. I look forward to good learning and good times as a skydiver, and as a friend of other skydivers. Peace. ---Jeffrey -Jeffrey "With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"