If you're gonna be dumb, ya gotta be tough

If you're gonna be dumb, ya gotta be tough

Beth and Tim finally arrived yesterday. Beth had been distracted by
something shiny at the side of the road. It was one of the 10 pools or 4
bars at the 5 diamond Hyatt Regency resort in Scottsdale. Tim didn't want to
leave. Ever.

Beth works for the chain, and it cost them a couple of cases of empties for
the night's stay, including the Lincoln Town Car that picked them up at the
airport.

I'd a given them a hard time, but a few years ago I was distracted by
something shiny myself and it took 4 days to get from Phoenix to Eloy, which
is about a 45 minute drive. It was called Las something or other. Very
shiny, very noisy, and the bars never closed. Ever. I liked it.

I hadn't planned on doing any tunnel while I was here but they had booked a
15 minute block for Monday evening and invited me to join them. I figured
what the heck. I've got loads of tunnel time doing hard-core 4-way and
drills, and while I don't have an over-inflated opinion of my skills I knew

I felt I was pretty hot shit in the tunnel and was looking forward to the chance to
just go in and play. Man, was I in for a surprise. I seemed to spend most of
my time bouncing off the glass, the grate, or Beth and Tim. I do have a lot
of tunnel time, but none of it has been lately. I was quite apologetic when
we exited, but Tim seemed to think I didn't do any worse than they did,
which wasn't the point. I didn't do as good as I thought I should have, so
when Liz invited me to join her for a half-hour session on Tuesday and
Wednesday night with Todd Hawkins and Doug Forth I jumped at the chance.
Those 2 should be able to make anybody look good.

Ty (Beth and Tim's friend who's loaning us the trailer) pulled the trailer
into the parking lot and hooked it up to the post for us so we'd have power.
But nobody bothered to ask manifest to turn on the power. We figured we'd be
okay, after all, how cold could it get?

After a joyous reunion, involving many toasts to everybody we could think
of, we finally crashed in the "Air Streak", which is a knockoff on an
Airstream trailer. From the outside, there is no apparent difference. Until
I woke up in the middle of the night, and had to pee. Which is when I
realized how cold it was. And how badly insulated it was. But I really had
to pee. So when the pressure became too much, I finally gave in, and went
outside to water the desert. I was wearing my freefly pants and a t-shirt. I
gave a big sigh of relief as I finally started to relieve the pressure. I
was immediately engulfed in a cloud of steam. By the time I was half-way
done I was starting to shiver. By the time I was completely done I felt like
I was holding an automatic weapon and was machine gunning the desert. Damned
cold!

When I made it back into the trailer I pulled on all the warm clothing I
could find before I crawled back into my sleeping bag. The shivering took so
long long to stop that I thought I was going into convulsions. It was the
second coldest I've ever slept in my life. You know there's a problem when
you wish you'd put on gloves before you went to bed.

The next morning when I finally managed to straighten my poor arthritic
bones out enough to be able to actually drag my sorry butt out out into the
daylight I was surprised to discover that it was actually warmer outside the
metal tube than inside. Only by a couple of degrees but it helped to restore
the feeling in my extremities. As soon as the sun comes or goes down this
time of year the temperature leaps up or plummets.

After a leisurely breakfast (to let things warm up a bit before we jumped -
we didn't come down here to freeze our asses off, Beth Tim and I wandered
over to the main landing area to see if any of the locals were up and about
and wanted to play. Which is when we saw the Life Flight Helicopter circling
the field. One of the Australians that I'd panhandled money off of earlier
in the day to get money for coffee (whole other story) had smacked in. He
was broken up enough to rate a helicopter ride but should live. He did 2,
360 degree spirals, paused, then started another but didn't make it all the
way through before he got a planet stuffed up his ass. "If you're gonna be
dumb, ya gotta be tough."

Eventually Tim went back to have a nap that lasted most of the day while
Beth and I went to jump. Shortly after we entered Camp Canada Lyal grabbed
my arm to introduce me to Ken, who was looking for a level Coach 2 to sign
him off on the jumps he needed to qualify for his "C" license. When Beth
asked him how many 4-way jumps he replied "One". "Oh I wanna be there for
this, count me in!" She said. We promised to hook up with him for some jumps
later in the day, but I planned on asking him a lot more pointed questions
about his skills and experience before we actually started planning a dive.

I probably had over 1,000 4-way jumps before I started working on my C cop.

We were in the Otter half-way to altitude when the word came back from the
pilot that "The south landing area is closed." That's the landing area we
were using right in front of Camp Canada, and not a good sign. It usually
means somebody is getting scraped up and put on a stretcher. Turned out it
was Ken. He had just downsized from a Sabre 190 to a Sabre 170 to a Katana
the size of a bedsheet in around 70 jumps. He was on front risers all the
way to the ground, accelerating to max speed, and when he released them he
had just started to pull the brakes when he hit. He'll be fine, just some
lower back pain, but they took him away in an ambulance as a precaution. "If
you're gonna be Dumb..........."

It's 10 o'clock on Tuesday morning, the sun is shining, the Otter is flying,
and I sky is calling, so I must go.

Larry