"Are my balls crushing your rig?"

That's the question I asked of the 230 pound weigh lifter who was sitting in
my lap as we loaded for jump 7. We get packed onto those planes as tight as
sardines. Once I got him to move forward a little, I leaned back and said to
Rhonda "I think your boobs are crushing my rig." She obliged by moving back
a bit, and with the people in front of and behind me moving away from me, I
was left with the most comfortable seat on the plane.

I have no idea how it happened, but no matter where we were on the
formation, adjacent to each other or on opposite sides, every time we got on
the plane, I wound up sitting in Rhonda's lap. She'd climb aboard, turn
around, sit down, spread her legs, look up, and there I'd be with a silly
grin on my face. Again.

I have come to a decision. I wanna be trailer trash when I grow up. If I
grow up. we have been living in trailers and cheap hotel rooms for a couple
of weeks now, the truck has been stationary for so long it has become a lawn
ornament complete with it's own crop of weeds growing up around it. We did 8
great skydives today and it's 3 degrees and raining back home. Every day
makes it tougher and tougher to justify returning to reality.
There's a party of some type every night, and between all the trailers we
have rented we have all the mod cons if we want to cook our own dinner. I
also got a great tip from Graham. If you're going to dump a glass of wine in
your girlfriends lap, use white wine, not red. It stains less. Sorry
Nathalie!

We took last place in the 20-way Speed competition, we had a bust on the
first point in round 2, otherwise we probably would've won. As prizes we got
frisbee's and springloaded guns that shot foam bullets. The second place team
got a case of beer, and the first place team recieved a selection of Liquor
and $500 cash. They gave half to the judge.

Friday morning, Day 2 of Z-Team 2009
I looked around during the dirt dive this morning and it suddenly registered
that everybody but me was wearing a t-shirt with some
variation of "World Team, Team Elite, World Record, Sequential Record, or
Pops Record" or had a crest stitched or embroidered onto their jumpsuit
saying something similar. I was reminded of how lucky I was to be here. Then
we went out and did a 3 point 30-way. It was smooth, clean, and worked so
well it was like a dream. Again, I was reminded how lucky I was to be here.
I've never had the opportunity to jump with so many people of such high
caliber before. On one level it's quite intimidating, on another it takes a
lot of the stress away because there is so little of the boogie type of
skydives that more often than not include bodies colliding with each other
and raining from the sky like puppets tossed off a balcony. Every time I get
introduced to someone else the name sounds familiar, and I can half-way
recall reading about them participating in some significant event or
record.

On the first jump of the day I hadn't properly locked my visor down before
the exit. As soon as I left the plane the visor slammed open all the way,
catching air and snapping my head back. My eyes were immediately filled with
tears and I reached up to slam the visor shut, only to have it snap open
again, get slammed shut again, snap open yet a third time, and this time I
used both hands to haul it down and pound it into place. The skydive went
well, but the guy who followed me out the door was still laughing when he
landed. He said the first time it popped open he had to slam on the brakes
to keep from hitting me when I came out of my dive to close it. When I went
back into a dive trying to make up time and catch the base he dove after me only
to see it open again and have me slow down again as I closed it, and by the
time it came up the third time he figured that was just my way of warning
him that I was going to be slowing down again. He said I was bobbing up and
down like a porpoise.

Friday afternoon, 2:30
We've done four 30-way skydives so far today, and the first 60-way has been
briefed and walked through, but clouds have moved in at around 10,000 feet
so we are on a weather hold. The plan is for a kind of 60's era kaleidoscope
effect with whacker lines sliding back and forth, the whole formation
changing shape until it becomes a huge circle of skydivers. I'm in the base
between Guy and Marcel, and I'm sure even I can find and fly that slot.
Nathalie is in a hero slot again, the sort of slot she's had all day having
proven her abilities years ago, and is the last diver coming out of our
plane. We're in a Skyvan so by the time she runs the length of the plane and
throws herself out the door the base will already be at least a hundred
yards away and accelerating. She's gonna have a looong way to go.

Friday night. Late Friday night. Very late.
We have a 7:00 o'clock call tomorrow morning, after having had a lovely day
today, including a new personal best, a 60-way Skydive, beating my previous
largest formation by 1. Ahhhhhh. Nathalie also hit a major milestone: 36
hours and 15 seconds of freefall time.

The plan was to dive like Hell, and fly like F***, and that's what I did. On
the first attempt we fell through a layer of cloud that was a few thousand
feet thick. I've gone through clouds lots of times, but never with 60 people
plus 2 video guys. I'm hoping to get some pics tomorrow from the
videographers. The sight of all those bodies silhouetted against the
background of clouds and fields was spectacular. There were a few people who
didn't make their slots, and there were some level problems as well. On the
second attempt I was on Guy's arm within a few seconds of leaving the door,
then it's "Arch!" as hard as I can until it's time break off.

When we got down from the first one Nathalie beckoned me over with a huge
grin on her face. The 2 guys she was rushing the door with had done back
flips as they launched, and she was planning on doing the the same on the
next one. I think the part that appealed to her the most was sneaking in
some freestyle stuff that would normally be forbidden on something like
this, the same way that a cookie you sneak out of the jar always seems to
taste best. They did it, and still made their slots fast enough they had to
wait for the build.

Saturday morning we go for a 3 point 60-way. It's gonna be cold up there,
we're going to 16,500 with oxygen.