dmcipod

haha there were people that got flinged out of the plane. I was one of them (i never got a solid grip on the second person)

Oh trust me I am well aware that there are pies waiting for me when I come back down from the load. My coach has already started taunting me on FB. Bucket of chicken from KFC does sound really delicious, especially since I usually don't eat while I'm jumping. Might be able to finish the whole bucket. Undie Hundie might be a consideration. Just checked the weather right now and it says its gonna be a high of 96 degrees. Naked jumps on the other hand might not be an option as there is gonna be a small boogie that day and there might be little kids running around. Don't want to scar them for life having naked people flying in from high above. Hula hoop jump would be an awesome jump. I did do one before but got stuck half way through the hoop, so I would love revenge on that. Only thing is that there are houses nearby and dzo wont allow for toy jumps Hybrid jump was sooooo 50th jumps (hehe) but was fun none the less. It might be cool to do an 8 way hybrid though. And to be honest most of the experienced jumpers that would be on the load mainly focus on freefly, and they all keep telling me that they aren't as good on their belly as they wished they were. Since I can only fly belly, it might be something that will go to crap anyways but still would love to get some ideas. Thanks guys for all the suggestions, you kept me laughing and entertained while at work. Keep em coming ...

So I am about to reach that special milestone in every skydivers heart ... the 100th skydive, and I couldn't be more exited about it. The only thing .... what kind of jump do I do? What were some memorable 100th jumps in your eyes and did they go according to plan or did they do to crap right out the door? I'm ok with the traditional BFR but I just didn't know if there was anything else that would add that extra touch to it. Some background info of what we have to play with. My home dropzone has a Caravan so ideally I would have the whole plane to my jump. I'm gonna talk with the DZO to see with we can get the cessna 182 up in the air at the same time. At 96 jumps, surprisingly I have stayed away from freeflying and I have pretty good belly skills IMO. I will be going out to the dz this saturday to get the last 4 jumps in. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks guys in advanced.

After coming back today they said first week of April. Second week of April at the latest.

Doing my AFF and 45 jumps at Taft, I really gotta say that the people keep me coming back. Granted I have only jumped in 1 other dropzone (Mesquite) but I enjoy my extended family there. There is plenty of people who would do a belly fly with you. On the down side, they did just sell the Otter and are currently running Cesnas only. They said that by April they were gonna get a Caravan. I don't know how much that will affect your decision but feel free to do a tandem at each place before committing. Alex, Joey, Mike, Ty, Voodoo, and all the other instructors are all really great and able to help at a moments notice

living in the SFV, i love love to drive out to camarillo. If the commute is stopping you from jumping at Taft, just let me know if you wanna carpool. Currently I usually go up with at least 1 other person. Just let me know.

http://www.skydivecoastalcalifornia.com/ is the drop zone there. From what I hear its your traditional tandem factory. They say they are friendly for experienced but from what they say is that they will fit you on a load IF they have the space, and tandem is priority. Living in the SFV, I wish too that they would be more open but yeah... If you do end up going there and its different, please let me know. I'll take a 40 minutes drive out there instead of 2 hours to Taft (I gotta say I do love Taft though)

WOW, you donated platelets on your FIRST blood donation?!?!? I'm impressed!

So apparently there are different types of blood donations. Whole blood donations require the most time to recover from. There is also plasma and platelets donations. I donated platelets. Less than 24 later I am 100% fine. The main restriction that they mentioned to me was not to lift anything heavy for 4 hours after donating. They mentioned that I could resume doing my normal activities the next day. Some information that they gave me stated that in 3 days I will have regained all the platelets that I have donated, but a friend of mine in med school mentioned that my body will have reproduced back to normal in about 7 days. I guess that it may be anywhere in between. As far as jumping, I should be able to jump right away. I will wait a couple of days regardless just to play it safe.

Thanks for the heads up guys. The place that I am going to lets you donate every two weeks. I believe that they do take the plasma, but I will double check. I'll be sure to ask them and see how I feel afterwards as to how I feel about jumping. I have no problem jumping out of an airplane, but I'm kinda nervous about giving blood.

So as I dive more and more into skydiving, I definitely have to take other consecrations before I jump. Tomorrow I will be donating blood for the first time. I recall seeing a warning on my DZs homepage about not donating blood prior to skydiving due to change in altitude and what not. But they didn't mention for how long. Is there a golden rule for how many days before you can skydive after donating or is it more of a "if you feel capable" type of thing. With my lack of knowledge being fresh off of student, I wanna make sure I'm not overlooking anything

thanks for the link. my friend later pointed out to me that that song was used for a contest and was available for download but I wasn't able to find it. Thanks again Blue Skies Mag and cfarina for the link

Awesome video. What is the name of the song you used. I would love to get a copy of the whole thing if possible