"It's okay, I caught it all on my T***Ts!"

The first hint of trouble was the sound of a small body retching coming from the living room. The second hint was Mathieu diving across the kitchen to grab a roll of paper towels before he dashed out to where his wife was nursing Xavier, their 4 week old infant. I turned to Philippe and asked "Isn't she sitting on your leather couch?" That's when Kim called out that everything was under control, that she had contained the mess in an inventive manner, and the couch was safe. No doubt Mathieu was thorough, and thoroughly enjoyed, cleaning up her... um... food stations.

In the laid back casual way that comes so easily to Philippe he took another sip of wine, shrugged, raised an eyebrow, and said "Yeah, I'm in no rush to have kids." An understandable sentiment considering the circumstances, but I'm counting on him and Josee to deliver at least one member of the 4-way team I have planned.

 Xavier will be Outside Center, Derek and Kat's baby girl will be flying point, and after Philippe and Josee have made their contribution all I will need is one more to have the next world champion 4-way team in hand and ready to start training. Here's the plan: A 4 way team comprised of 4 infants that learn how to fly in the tunnel before they can walk! This won't be without a number of technical problems such as finding teeny-tiny helmets and wee little RW suits with itsy-bitsy grippers, not to mention the difficulty of communicating with and coaching the little munchkins, but think of the possibilities! They'll be hard wired to fly! They'll clobber everybody in all the tunnel competitions and when they're old enough to actually skydive they'll be unbeatable! Sponsors of every description will be lining up to throw money at them! I'll be the coach, Derek can be in charge of physical training, Kat will be responsible for diet and health, Philippe will take care of dive flow and exits....... I've got it all worked out. Any skydivers who are planning on having any children in the near future are encouraged to apply on their behalf.

But I digress. I'm seated at the bar in my favorite Skydiver Bar, The Bent Prop Saloon in Eloy Arizona. I have an almost empty beer in front of me with another on the way, and this is where I will be spending the next 6 or 7 hours until Beth comes to collect me and we check into our room at the Super 8. We're here for the Arizona Challenge, a high quality invitational skydiving event that has earned a reputation as a particularly difficult and, of course, "Challenging", event. Ten years ago when I was here was the first time I heard of and saw video of the Challenge, and ever since I have been angling to earn one the highly coveted invitations to the event. No matter how high the bar has been set in previous years the organizers still manage to outdo the last Challenge. I checked in with manifest as soon as I arrived to pay my outstanding balance and was presented with my event T-shirt which had the final planned skydive plastered across the back. The plan calls for a bizarre combination of 80 people building compressed accordions in such a complex formation that I know no matter where I'm supposed to be I'm going to get lost on at least half the dives! I studied it for a few moments, and when the girl at the counter informed me that I couldn't have my money back I decided the best course of action was to get just as plastered as the shirt. 

I didn't really want to jump today anyway, during the entire 1 hour drive from Sky Harbor airport there were always at least half a dozen dirt devils in sight moving across the desert, some of them up to a couple hundred feet wide and reaching a couple thousand feet into the air. Columns of air moving unpredictably at high speed in a tight circle don't mix well with parachutes. To cap it off the winds were blowing at a near gale when I arrived and that alone was more than enough to convince me I didn't really need to jump. 

So here I sit at the bar, a couple of feet from the popcorn machine, one ice cold bottle replacing another, and for lack of anything else to do, I'm planning my quest for world domination of the sport of 4-Way Formation Skydiving while I wait for Beth to come rescue me. All I need is one more baby......