"Poor people are crazy...."

"Poor people are crazy, I'm eccentric." Dennis Hopper in the movie "Speed"

And like any other boogie, there are plenty of eccentric people kicking about this drop zone. A guy came walking into the hangar yesterday carrying a giant inflatable penis that was going to be ridden out the door by 9 bikini clad young ladies. I hear the dive went according to plan, with the girls winding up head down with the penis trapped above them by their crossed legs. The guy who was organizing it didn't warn them that the excess speed and aerodynamics of flying head down would cause their tops to get torn off, which was of course the intended result.

The heat and humidity have been brutal, with temperatures of 42-43 degrees everyday plus humidity. In 5 days I've only done 22 jumps. By mid-afternoon the thought of pulling on a jump suit and rig cancels out any possible positive medicinal effects of a skydive. Add in the fact that as soon as our jumps start to grow beyond our circle of friends the fact that half the people in the world are below average becomes all too apparent. It takes far too much effort to do a skydive under these conditions to spend 70 seconds chasing stuff around that doesn't build. We've split off several times from the larger groups to do very successful 4-way, including the last jump on Wednesday where Larry D, Diane, a guy named Chuck and I went out and did a fast moving, turning, spinning dive that left us all with huge grins. Chuck was especially impressed, he had met Diane and I just minutes before the jump and when we did the post-dive his comment was "Nobody warned me I was going to be jumping with a professional team!" I hadn't had a lot of compliments lately about my skydiving so I was happy to accept this one.

The heat proved to be too much, so we adjourned to the pond for the rest of the day. There were more people floating around in the pond than there had been in the hangar. We spent the hour bobbing about on pool noodles and drinking beer. And feeding the fish. But not intentionally, they were just helping themselves. I had been warned that the fish would nibble on you if you didn't keep moving. I pictured something like you see on the news where little guppies nibble on peoples feet and remove dead skin. No. Not even close. I'm bobbing along with 2 pool noodles trapped between my legs and my beer in my hand, peaceful, relaxed, minding my own business, with no idea I was being stalked by Jaws' baby brother. Suddenly I was nipped just below my right armpit. I let out a shriek and thrashed around so much I almost spilled my beer. Everyone around me started to laugh, and I was told I had just been introduced to Skydive Chicago's own Loch Ness monster. I calmed down after a couple of minutes, (and another beer). Every few minutes, somebody would let out a screech or a yelp, followed by drunken giggles, and you knew that "Nessie" had snuck up on another victim.

It's now Thursday afternoon, and we're in in a motel room in Beaver Dam Wisconsin. The forecast for the next couple of days is mostly crap, so after we drank a breakfast of half coffee and half Baileys this morning, we knocked down our soaking wet tents and headed to an airshow going on to our north. It's on her way home, so Diane has come along as well. It's being held in a town called "Osh" something.

I just got an email from Trevor back at Mile High checking to see if anybody was available for Tandems this weekend. I told Gerry to send Trev an email saying "Sorry Trevor, but Larry's not done with me yet."
There's still 4 days left of our vacations, nobody has to be back at work until Tuesday. We've got 2 coolers full of beer, a large bottle of Vodka, a whole bunch of cash, and time to kill. Summerfest may be behind us, but the party's not over yet.