Manitoba Morphine

If you're gonna be dumb, make sure you buy travel insurance.

Turns out Ken has a fractured vertebrae. When he was telling the ambulance
attendants he didn't want to go to hospital it was because he had no
insurance. So now he's on the hook for the ride, X-rays, and god only knows
what the hell else. At least he got first aid from Diane, who administered
some Manitoba Morphine. That's when she whips her top up, and vigorously
rubs her breasts back and forth across the patients face. It doesn't dull
the pain, but it distracts him for a while.

The highlight of the day was a 4-way with Beth, Tim, and Paul. It was
smokin'. Stair step Diamond, Side body Donut - Side flake Donut, Satellite,
Open Accordion. The launch was solid, we were quick, clean, smooth, no
grabbing, and it was just lovely. We turned a whole pile of points, but our
camera guy sank out on us so we have no proof.

The most entertaining moment of the day was supplied by Ed, who was front
float on an 8-way. I told him to go into a hard track as soon as he launched
to get a little above the formation and then settle into his slot. I guess I
shoulda' told him to track for just a second or two, because as soon as we
left I was treated to the sight of Ed tracking as hard as he could, shooting
up past the base and disappearing out of view like he was trying to catch up
with the plane and get back in . We never saw him again on that skydive. He
was only the first to go, every time we went to another point we lost
somebody else. If we'd had enough altitude I'd have wound up on my own doing
a style set.

Liz and I spent our half hour in the tunnel with two of the gods of the
sport, Todd Hawkins and Doug Forth. The briefing started off with Todd
bitching me out for not having all the blocks and randoms memorized by their
letter and number designations. It's almost a tradition. He's been telling
me to do that since my first skills camp here 5 years ago. Every year I
explain how I've been too busy, and promise to have them down pat for the
next time I visit. And every year I never seem to find the time.

The tunnel session itself was a blast, WE ROCKED! Turnin' and burnin',
crankin' and bankin', 30 minutes of tunnel heaven. It also had a couple
moments of high comedy when the tunnel rat (spotter), for no apparent
reason, suddenly stepped in to shove Doug over beneath Todd, causing them to
pancake on each other. Todd promptly shoved me over beneath Liz, and she
landed on me. As soon as I could get untangled I went after the tunnel rat
and dove between his legs, so he wound up rodeoing me, and when he was
trying to get off I wound up vertical against the glass, shot up about 10
feet, came straight down on my head, and wound up back-flying. There was
some kind of shoving match going on on the other side and the tunnel rat in
between us all trying to get everything back under control with a look on
his face that clearly said "What Have I Done!``

My back hurts, I haven`t had to arch that hard or that long in years. My
knee banged the tunnel wall and Liz`s head often enough and hard enough on
the Bipole Bipole block that I`m walking with a limp. But I`ll be jumping
today, and back in the tunnel for our second half hour tonight, and I`m
looking forward to both.

Diane even managed to score some free tunnel time when she offered to help
out Aidan when Lyal came down sick and couldn't`t Coach. She got a lot more
than she bargained for when Aidan handed her 2 students with absolutely no
instructions about what to do with them. She made it up on the fly, and I
think she did pretty damn good, despite her own opinion of her abilities. "I
can`t fly, and I can`t tunnel, the only thing I`m good at is drinking
Beer!``

It's now Wednesday morning, the sun is up, and it's time to go play. The fun
goes on......

Crazy Larry