Welcome
I am currently moving my old page and projects to Trac. This will take a while so meanwhile there are some links:
Projects I have been or am working on
A whole lotta skydiving
I've been pretty much jumping every available weekend, weather permitting. It's been fantastic and I have learned a lot. Most of my jumps were 2-ways with Debbie Sanderson. We had a good mix of plain flat flying, improving our skills, and a bit of mucking about. We did start jumping with others, too, and did some 3-ways and 4-ways. And I even did a 11-way tracking dive at the end of one evening with the sun setting at the horizon.
The following video is Andy Moss. We ended up doing our spin a bit early, but it was good fun! I am the one in black with black gloves and blue container with pink writing on it.
The next one was a 4-Way wit Debbie, Tracy and Andy. Our exit was a total desaster and I think very well captured ;).
Jump 93 was a 3-Way with Debbie and Andy. We did a bet with Richard Head of the Phobia team that we could do the formation and it all went pretty much as planned and we won a ...
Barge Trip
Kate and I had planned to go on little 3-day barge trip for a while. Unfortunately our breakup changed the plans a bit. I did end up going with a few of my colleagues and friends.
We got to Lee Valley Boats Center early Friday afternoon and checked out our boat, Emily. A 68ft long canal boat!!! It would have fitted 10 people but we were only 6, Duncan, Roger, Jarkko, Tina, Kym and I. So, there was going to be plenty of space just in case we would not get along ;).
Before leaving though, we had to quickly buy some food and booze! This was when the first rain poured down on us... nothing like a british summer weekend!
After a few driving lessons we took off north to the first lock and on to the next... We had to do all the lock handling ourselves, which turned out to be quite some fun and by the end we had a good "team setup".
The weather started clearing up and it started getting ...
Two Eventful Months
I did more wakeboarding, almost twice a week since I got it. Unfortunately the bindings broke due to a material fault, but I got them replaced for some better ones. I am learning a few tricks like jumping kickers with 180 turns, doing spins, ... but it is all going quite slowly. It is a lot of fun though and a good balance for my rather inactive job.
End of July Kate and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend to see a Tom Waits concert. It was fantastic and one of the few live concerts I truly enjoyed.
The rest of the weekends, weather permitting it, I went skydiving. I have joined the Skydive Weston club, a much bigger drop zone than London Parachute School. In the last 2 months I did more jumps there than the entire year before.
The dropzone is open from Fr. afternoon until Sun. night. Going back to London on Sat. and return early Sun. morning seems pretty silly, so ...
Picking up a new Hobby
I went to my sister's 30th birthday a couple weeks ago. Besides having a great party we decided to go wakeboarding. It was to be my 3rd time. Marvin, Urte's boyfriend lent me his kiteboard and off we went.
I did have some starting difficulties ...
... but soon made it around the lake without much difficulty.
I can also jump in from the side.
And even did a run together with Urte.
My posture on the board clearly needs some work :)
Since that weekend I have been to the Princes Club in London. And after trying it out on the weekend I decided to get a membership and my own kit. If I go after work I could be on the water within 45min, and getting home takes about 1:15h, so I am planning to go twice a week and if the weather is not good for skydiving then on the weekend too.
...
Skydiving Lessons
After a little winter break it is time to fall out of planes again.
I used the good old AFF student kit for my first two jumps this year. It has a big 280sqft canopy, so it was no problem getting back into it. The first jump I did alone and for the second one Mark joined me to give me some FS1 (Formation Skydiving) coaching. To get to the next level I need to pass my FS1, so I figured the earlier I start practicing the earlier I get to the next level.
On our first two coaching jumps we just practiced getting out of the plane together and doing some slow and fast falling by de-arching and arching. The goal for me was to stay close to Mark after he lets go. The fast falling was not a problem. I just arched a lot, which made me drop faster and catch up with Mark. But, as you can see in the video, de-arching is a different matter. It took me a while to figure it out and it still looks wobbly.
On our third jump, we practiced ...
