Put the "if" back in life

Chapter 2
Nationals 2009

The drive from Chicago to Burnaby took 10 hours, and all my willpower. I
really didn't want to leave. When I left Chicago Friday morning the weather
was "Severe Clear". That's pilotspeak for light winds, warm temperatures,
low humidity, and not a cloud in the sky. Everybody was sitting on the deck
outside the Swamp, finishing their coffee, arguing about who funneled which
skydive the day before, and how many points we would have gotten if we
hadn't started doing full-body-contact, Combat RW. It's all great fun until
somebody loses an eye, and then it's absolutely friggin' hilarious.

When I'd arrived at Skydive Chicago I hadn't even come to a stop before
Kelly put a beer in my hand, and in Burnaby I hadn't even come to a stop
before Nathalie intercepted me to invite me on a skydive to attempt to set a
new Ontario Provincial POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty) record. They had to
hold the load while I did my paperwork. It didn't build, but it sure was a
fun way to get welcomed back to Burnaby. Nathalie forgot to put on her
weight belt, and I remembered to put on mine but should have left it off
because I was a late diver, consequently there was a four foot difference in
height between the grip in my left hand and the one in my right. You try
flying like you're pretending to be the Karate Kid and see just how
difficult that is. The whole time I was praying that someone else would take
out the formation before I couldn't hold that pose any longer and send 20
plus people scattering across the sky. At least I finally got to meet TOP
POP Carey Peck (son of Gregory), he was organizing the load.

The Team - 4D
Point - Josee Leblanc, 600 jumps, no tunnel time before we started training
for this, one trip to Nationals, member of Team Pink 2007, which set a new
Canadian women's formation skydiving record, Coach 2, and her parents own
the DZ in St. Frederick, so she certainly has the pedigree.

Tail - Philippe Morin, 500 jumps, about 10 hours of tunnel time, no ratings
or endorsements beyond a basic B license, and in 2005 when he had 110 jumps
his team earned Bronze in OPEN 4-way at Nationals, member of Team Canada in
2006 which set a Canadian Formation Skydiving record that still stands,
member of Team Elite 2008 which set a multi-point formation skydiving world
record, and the kid continually demonstrates an ability to visualize and
plan mirror-image slot-switcher dives and explain it in terms even I can
understand.

Inside Center - Nathalie Gaudreault. I don't have time or space to list all
the stuff this girl has accomplished so I'll just give the highlights. 2,200
Jumps, PFF Instructor, freefall videographer, member of Team Elite, Z-Team,
every World Team as far back as I can remember except for the 400 way in
2006, member of Angels Fall - former Canadian Women's 4-way champions, plane
captain and organizer of Team Pink, Member of Jump For The Cause, and the
list goes on. She also happens to be my girlfriend. In a side note, as her
fund raiser for Jump For The Cause 2009 to raise over $1,000,000 for breast
cancer research and simultaneously set a women's world skydiving record she
and Debbie Lovegrove have put together a calendar featuring women skydivers
that they are selling for $20 each. Apart from the fact that it's for a good
cause, if anybody would like a calendar of tastefully done semi-naked
skydiver girls, just contact me and I'll fix you up.

Video - Paul Wing, can you think of a better last name for a video flyer?
950 Jumps, no ratings, but 4 gold and 1 silver medal at Nationals in CRW,
member of the Canadian CRW record 2008, and an all-round nice guy. He
started flying Tandem Video 2 years ago, and we were very happy to have him
for the video slot. That is, until he actually started flying the video
slot. I forgot to ask him one very important question: "Have you ever done
4-way video?" He seemed to feel it was important to continuously perform
structural integrity tests on the formation shortly after launch, but he
eventually got that sorted out so we decided to keep him.

Coach - Richard Bisson, our secret weapon. Former member of Evolution (he
was tossed off to make room for one of Michel Lemay's kids), medals medals
and more medals, the calming hand that has patiently guided us along the
path to where we are now. A serious team in serious contention to not make
complete fools out of ourselves.

Me - Crazy Larry - Outside Center. I won't start talking about myself here,
I'd never shut myself up.

Team Goal for this competition: Beat any team with matching suits. We could
actually pull it off.

Our plan was to train on Saturday, just 4 jumps done at a leisurely pace to
get our brains up to speed, party on Saturday night, and then take Sunday
off. We rented a cottage in Lowbanks on lake Erie complete with beach and
hot tub, so that would be a rest day.

Saturday night Tara Pitt brought in a Celtic Rock band that sounded like a
cross between Aerosmith and Great Big Sea. The party went on into the wee
small hours of the night. Dan and Casey showed up on their way from Ottawa
to the wedding in St John's and their theme for the evening seemed to be
"Dan's Last Days Of Freedom Tour". They were travelling with a whole circus.
The trailer, the bikes, the ferrets, Harley the Dog, and lord knows what
else.

It was good we hadn't planned to jump Sunday morning as we woke up to
pouring rain. We left the DZ around midafternoon to take possession of the
cottage and and Nat's phone rang soon as the weather started to break. The
POPS group had done 3 days of jumps trying to set a Canadian Record and were
still coming up a couple of bodies short. We grabbed our rigs and ran back
to the drop zone as fast as we could. They stuck us on as late divers and up
we went, out we went, and a new Canadian Pops record was set. 32 Young at
heart Boys and Girls built and held it for 8 seconds. We should have briefed
a second point. Something else to add to my Skydiving resume. I felt sorry
for the people that had put 3 days of effort into the record just to watch
Nathalie and I waltz on, do one dive, and it was done. Maybe I should let
Home Hardware know. That's gotta be good for some free publicity. After all,
I had the HH logo that was covering up the RCMP crest at my Dad's funeral
stitched onto my jumpsuit.

Friday night some Guy called Rob Laidlaw from some place called Skydive
University and his sidekick Eddy R pulled us aside and volunteered to coach
us since our own coach was unable to make the trip. We thought about it for
all of about a half-a-nanosecond before saying YES! Rob is a skydiving
pioneer of some minor note (though not as minor as a certain videographer of
a team named after sushi) who moved to the states years ago, but still calls
Canada home. Eddy R is ......well, Eddy R.

The opening ceremonies are scheduled for Monday morning at 10:00, and then
it's Game On! The results of 9 months of planning preparation and training,
frustration anger and joy, bruises contusions and tunnel rash, all decided
in 10 -35 second skydives.

Internet is pretty spotty here so I don't know when you will get this, but I
will post the results of 4-way as soon as the judges are done.

And I heard that Al Nadeau helped to set a new Head-Down record in Chicago
after I left. 108!