August 03, 2008

Skydiving with Yodle

A bunch of my co-worker got together on Sunday morning to go skydiving upstate at The Ranch. It was my first time. Whoa.

We met up outside of Yodle's offices...

...and piled into the van we'd all chipped-in to rent! Fellow Yodlers Jason, Todd, John and Michelle.

Alex drove.

I was so excited I felt like I had a swarm of bees in my stomach.

The drive through Jersey was white clouds and blue skies...

...but when we crossed over back into New York State, there were clouds out and it even started to drizzle a bit. Rain = no skydiving. Nooooo!

But things had cleared up and the sun was back out by the time we reached the Ranch around 3pm.

As soon as we pulled in we noticed that they sky was filled with tiny colorful dots...

...that turned out to be people with parachutes that were landing in the field constantly!

John Berk!

After signing a couple of forms, we were all hustled into a storage room turned makeshift-class room to watch an instructional skydiving video narrated by a guy that has the most epic beard ever (even Rick Rubin would be envious of that jam).

If you forget to open your chute, an ambulance will have to drive across the field to retrieve your remains.

They even have a little grim reaper statue below the TV to underscore the severity.

My magical beard wishes you luck!

Congratulations on successfully watching a 20-minute VHS cassette! You are now qualified to skydive!

Check it out! I found the beardy guy video on YouTube. The video was made by the manufacturer of the tandem parachute you wear when you jump with an instructor. Awesome.

Time to suit up! Jason...

...and Todd opted for the traditional "highly visible" jumpsuit.

I, on the other hand, decided to just don the harness over my regular clothes.

I did, however, opt for sweet, 1920s leather football helmet.

Alex! This guy's jumped a bunch of times already!

Ammon strapped to his jump master.

Me and John.

John's jumpmaster securing googles over the pair of light-up sunglasses John had recently purchased.

Ready to jump.

After suiting up, we got split into groups. My group was picked to go in the second plane. Here's the first plane with people we know in it taking off.

A couple minutes later, they started falling from the sky.

Safe.

This is Van. He was the guy I'd be strapping on my back and falling out of a plane with! He was really nice. He told me he had over 10,000 jumps under his belt!

Here's the perfectly good airplane we were about to jump out of.

Freefall Express!

I love this photo. I paid something like $75 extra to have them take both video and stills of my jump. Totally worth it. I remember so clearly watching the photographer step out of the plane on to the wing and turn around to take this photo of me. While I was watching him, I remember feeling my body going up and down several times. I remember thinking to myself, why am I bobbing up and down, and why is Van counting to three? I figured it out right when he got to the number three and my very next thought was...

...HOOOO-LEEEEE FUUUUU-KING SHEEEEEE-IT.

Perfect.

Thumbs up.

Fingers crossed.

Skydiving is incredible. If you're not terrified of heights, you should definitely give it a try. There really aren't words for how amazing this experience is.

Hahah. Look at my hair. One of the most memorable things is the loudness of the wind in your ears as you fall to the earth at around 120 MPH.

That and the fact that the wind passing over your body at 120 MPH causes your skin to RIPPLE.

Oh, you know. Just two ripply-skinned meat-bags plummeting to earth and smiling.

Amazing. Kudos to the dude who shot all these pics, great job. He had two cameras mounted to his helmet and he triggered the still camera's shutter by way of blowing into a little tube he held in his mouth.

Looking at these photos and remembering what this way like causes my heart and my palms to moisten every single time.

Switching to the ground cam for my landing.

Incoming.

It took like 20 minutes for that smile to leave my face.

Nice to meetchoo. Thanks for taking sure good care of my, Van!

Here's a vid of the jump. (The audio is disabled because Youtube automatically detected that they used a bunch of music that they didn't have the rights to. WE LIVE IN THE FUTURE.) Fast forward to about 2 minutes in for the good stuff.

I got to watch the next group go up and come down! Here's Jason coming in for a landing.

Thumbs up.

Michelle.

This looks like the last scene in a really awesome 80s movie about kids away at summer camp.

Say yes to life.

Not today, friend. Not today.