Last Updated: Saturday November 4 2000
So I'm at my business class at Ohlone College, and I'm chatting with my friend Nick. I ask him if he's doing anything this weekend, and he says, "Skydiving with you". I say ok...
So I end up waking up really early on Saturday morning to go jump out of a plane. 7:45. I suppose I didn't get too much sleep, because I was awake when the alarm went off. Pager's vibrating. Hmm. Three messages, saying that their RAS server doesn't work. Let's call the RAS DID to see if it's really b0rken. Nope, I hear V.90 tones. I call the client, telling them to try it again. They say it works now. They ask me, "What did you do?" I grumble, "I woke up."
Nick calls, says he's on Blacow, near my house. I kiss Jo goodbye and we take off to the Parachute Center in Acampo, CA (near Lodi). 680 to 580 to 99 to-
*beep* *beep* *beep* Hello!
Me: Nick, what was that?
Nick: That's my stereo. Here, watch this. *beep* *beep*
Nick's stereo: Hello! Please speak now.
Nick: Wild 94.9.
Nick's stereo: Please speak again.
Nick: Er.. 104.9.
Nick's stereo: Sorry. Goodbye!
Me: Hey, that's cool. Does it ever get mad at you?
Nick: No, but it can speak French. *beep* *beep* *beep*
Nick's stereo: Bonjour!
Nick and I got off the freeway and were in total hicktown. Pretty bare area. Trees and fields full of nothing for just miles and miles around. There were commercial zones with McDonalds and Chevrons and Safeways and stuff, but it was mostly just brown and green and blue. On the second curve to get to the Parachute Center, we passed a little pond about one or two acres in size with a huge mound of dirt in the middle. I can't even speculate why that could be; there were no construction projects or anything around it, just a big mound of clean dry dirt in the middle of this huge pond. I do mean in the middle, too; I'm trying to picture a method of getting it there without making a big mess or getting the dirt wet, and I can't come up with a reasonable one.
The skydiving place itself is a pretty large gray corrugated metal structure in the middle of a field. Nick parks his Acura next to a rotting log and a rotting metal oil barrel that's pretending it's a garbage can. There's about 2-3 dozen other cars there, and Nick says that it's not busy at all.
Now we're at the Parachute Center, and they make me sign a waiver saying that they're not responsible if the parachute fails or the plane blows up or the pilot goes insane, and so on. There's all these little boxes that I'm supposed to initial as I read this thing. I had to scribble my initials in about 7 or 8 little boxes alone to enumerate the different parties that PARTY AGREES TO HOLD NOT LIABLE.
I learned in one of my real estate classes that California (and I believe Federal) law says that there's an element of contract law that states that no matter what happens, an individual is unable to sign away their right to recover damages in the case of negligance or malicious intent. I believe that the trick here is to trick the person who's about to jump out of a plane that they really have no rights, and so they won't even bother consulting with a lawyer, who would know these sorts of things.
Now they show me this video of a guy in a suit with a beard that's grown all the way down to his navel. He starts talking about how this is an experimental system (eh?) and it's not approved by the FAA (what?!) and that I agree to participate in this study to determine the effectiveness of the tandem jumping system (WHAT?!). He goes on to say that this study should be completed in the early 1990s (but...) and that skydiving is a high-risk activity and could result in personal injury or death (insert clip of ambulance and actor feigning broken leg).
So now that they shake my confidence about it, they put on another video describing the tandem system and what fun it is. Some guy named Bill describes how I'm supposed to put my feet on the tandem instructor's ass as we jump out of plane, and about that time someone comes and turns off the tape.
Other guy: Yeah, yeah, whatever.
Me: Uh, hi!
Other guy: Hi, my name is Willie, and I'll be your instructor today.
Me: Ok... aren't I supposed to fini-
Willie: Nah, don't worry about the video. I'll tell you everything we need to know in the plane. You need to go to the restroom?
Me: Yeah. Wh-
Willie: Bathroom is outside the hanger.
I take a leak, and go back to meet Willie. He puts me in a harness, and tells me to stick my feet on his ass when we jump out of plane, and not to touch his arms.
"Why not?"
"Because if I can't move my arms, I can't open the parachute."
Oh.
"Willie, has anyone ever died doing this?"
"Yeah, sure people have died."
"Was it because they were morons, or because something broke?"
"The last two that died were suicides."
Hmm. "Oh, I get it. If you report the deaths as suicides, then you don't get written up, right?"
"No, they really were suicides. They didn't open their parachutes."
"Didn't or couldn't?"
Nick pipes up, "They could tell that they chose not to open their parachutes."
Willie shrugs a shoulder strap on and says, "That's why they call it a suicide, buddy."
We head out. Nick tells me that the guy, Bill, in the second video was actually the world record holder for the number of hours in freefall. Bill supposedly has 300+ hours of freefall in more than 30,000 jumps. I try to do the math, and figure that 30,000 is the equivelent of 10 jumps a day for 10 years. Bill looks like a older fellow, too; about 40's or so. He's wearing a black suit and pack, and we all get into the plane. Willie sticks me in the co-pilot's seat.
An old fart gets in and fires up the plane, looking very bored. I find the vertical climb gauge and figure we've got 10 minutes until we reach 12,000 feet at the rate that we're going. At about 9,000 feet, Willie leans over and tells (er, yells) that at about 10,000 we're going to get ready, and that at 11,000 I'm supposed to sit in his crotch and have him buckle me in.
Up until this point, I had tried to keep from letting my imagination come up with anything at all. I figured that if I didn't picture what was going to happen, I couldn't be afraid of it nor disappointed. Now I was actually in this plane, and I was actually getting attached to Willie, and oh my god, the door is open and people are starting to hop out like little bunny rabbits.
My stomach started doing flip-flops, and I realized that Willie was about to shove us out the door. My eyes started telling my brain that according to the parallax data they were receiving, we were pretty f*cking high off the ground and there was no floor in front of us. I was totally calm and ok with the idea of doing this up until this point, and now my imagination kicked in and realized that we were about to-
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