...And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return...

I was a bit nervous, but I assume that's normal for anyone who is about to jump out of an airplane for the first time. By the time we took off, I didn't feel nervous anymore. The jump went as planned. Skydiving is awesome.

My brother was making his first two jumps this day, so I went to watch him, and I decided to jump with him on the second jump. He went out first, and I got to watch him from above on the way down. It was really cool to watch.

I should mention that my jumpmaster for this jump, Ken Buckley, later died in a skydiving-related plane crash. Blue Skies, Ken. You'll be missed.

What can I say? Forty-five seconds of freefall at 120 mph is awesome. You really feel free. And cold. Even though it was a hot summer day, it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit at 10,000 feet.

My sister, Jeanie, took the lessons on this day, and we got to go up on the same flight. I jumped first, and after my canopy deployed, I got to see Jeanie under canopy above me. I landed, took my gear to the hanger, and went back to the landing area in time to see her land. She felt a little ill after the adrenaline rush, but since she had never even flown in a plane before, you have to expect that.

I had a good jump, and everything went by the book except that the radio didn't work. I still had a great landing. But then, after I had landed and was gathering my gear, I twisted my ankle in the grass. Darn the luck.

My canopy only opened about 1/3 of the way because of a combination of a line-over, bad line twists, and my jumpmaster accidentally tethering me to the plane on my way out. I was spun so hard that my arms got tangled in my shoulder straps and I could not reach the cutaway handle. My arms were tied (literally), so I couldn't get the chute to open any farther. Luckily, I hit a tall tree and destroyed half of it on the way through, slowing me down a little before I slammed into the ground. The ambulances were there really quick. I signed a "refusal of care" form and the paramedics left. Incidentally, the two female paramedics were "drop dead" gorgeous (pardon the pun).

Notice the 21 month gap since the last jump? After what happened on my previous jump, do you blame me? I always wanted to start jumping again, but it never happened until now. I got a new log book when I switched drop zones.

This was a cool jump. I had a slow open, and my altimeter flipped around so that I couldn't see it, but I fixed it on the way down. Other than that, the jump went by the book. Unfortunately, an experienced jumper was injured while doing target practice, so I drove him to a hospital in Kansas City. He'll be fine, but he can't jump again for a while. That was the first injury that MRVS has had in a long time, and it was a relatively minor one. If you're in the Kansas City area, this is the DZ I recommend.

As Dave (my jumpmaster from Jump 8) would say, "Wahoo!" On this jump I really realized how much I missed skydiving over the last two years. Tom Dolphin, owner of the DZ, was on the radio to guide me down. As soon as I deployed, I heard him say "Ok, jumper number three, give me a left turn... Oh, that's you up there, James, isn't it? Well, feel free to do some 360's and stuff if you want. Just be sure not to do any under 1500 feet. You don't want to set off your AAD." As soon as he said that, I went into a right hand turn as hard as I could. The first 360 degree turn was fairly slow, but I swung around fast as I started into the second. I used the speed I'd gained to go into a hard left turn. I swung up a lot higher than I expected so I eased up on the turn. I fell backwards a bit and spun around. I was startled for a second but then thought to myself about how AWESOME that was... I gotta do that again.

I'm doing PRCPs (Practice Rip Cord Pulls) now, meaning that I pull a fake rip cord after exiting the plane. This sport causes some people to have sensory overload, and they could forget to pull their rip cord. Consistently doing good PRCPs shows that you won't freak out and forget to pull.

Yawn... A second good PRCP. Only one more before the real thing...

Another good jump. I was cleared to do a "clear and pull" on my next jump. That means I get to pull my own rip cord. Wahoo! :)

This freefall jump didn't include more than a few seconds of actual freefall time, but I got to pull my own rip cord. It's cool when you know that if you don't the rip cord yourself, you're gonna bounce. Once the door was open, I looked for the airport, the jumpmaster had the pilot cut the engine, and out the door I went. I climbed all the way out, hung from the strut under the wing, gave the guys in the plane a quick smile, and away I went...

I've been out of town pretty much all month on business. I flew back to Kansas City, arriving at KCI early this morning. Even after all that time out of town, and with only a day before I had to leave again, you know where my priorities were. I didn't go home for rest, to unpack, or do laundry. I drove straight from KCI to the drop zone, because I wanted to skydive!

Terry jumpmastered for me on this cold day. We normally kid around before we jump, and this time I waited until I was hanging from the bottom of the wing at 5000 feet. Then I looked back at Terry and stuck my tongue out until we were right over the target. I had time for five seconds of free fall before pulling. Freefall is weird; you feel like you're going down head first for a moment.

I took the retrain class for skydivng on Saturday, but the weather was cruddy and I didn't get to jump.

Sunday, I went out to the drop zone and, after being on a "weather-hold" for a couple hours, I got to jump. Terry and I were kidding around as usual. While hanging from the wing at 3500 feet, I stuck my tongue out at him. Then he smiled and gave me the finger. So I just stuck my tongue out again, and he gave me the finger again and nodded. That was my cue to jump, so I went! I hope the weather is good next weekend, I want to get back to free-fall!

The weather was great, but high winds had put us on a weather-hold by the time I got to the drop zone. Some more experienced jumpers use smaller and faster canopies, and are allowed to jump in higher winds. From the ground, I got to see an attempt at an eight-way formation. I was able to spot the plane while it was on "jump run." Normally, you can only see jumpers with the naked eye after their canopies open, but because of the lighting and Spad's white jumpsuit, I could actually see him from the ground as soon as he left the plane at 9,000 feet (maybe higher, I'm not sure). I used Spad as a reference to spot the other jumpers. I could see all eight of them with my naked eyes as they fell through 45 seconds of free-fall. Previously, the only time I've seen jumpers in free-fall was on video (which just isn't the same), and on one jump from 10,000 feet where my jumpmasters free-fell on either side of me.

At 7:15pm the winds had died down enough that we could jump. I was at a point where I needed to make one jump and do a PRCP, get my jumpmaster's approval, and then make one free-fall jump. Since there were only 45 minutes till sunset, the DZ staff raced to get me geared up. They re-arranged the jump loads so I was the first one out on the first load. When I jumped, I burned off altitude and landed as quick as I could. Meanwhile, Spad radioed down from the plane that he approved of my PRCP, and I was cleared for the freefall. I went back to the packing area, dropped off my rig, and put on another that they had waiting for me. I was quickly back out the door and into to the waiting plane. This time, it was just Spad, the pilot, and myself. We went back up to 3,800 feet, and I jumped again.

Since it was getting dark by this point, I sat through the night-jump briefing (no, I'm not going to make night jumps anytime soon, but Spad was giving the briefing, and I waited until after the briefing for him to sign my jump log). Afterwards, we waited until it was completely dark, and then each jumper bought two chemical glow-sticks, which they strategically placed so they could see their altimeter (and possibly their canopy) during the jump. The night jumps were a lot different than daytime jumps. The plane took five loads of four jumpers to 9,000 feet. You can barely see anything, so only one jumper is in the air at a time to avoid mid-air collisions. Since you can't see the wind socks, we parked two cars in the landing area with their headlights pointing in the direction of the wind line. This was the only indication for each jumper as to which direction the wind was blowing, and which direction they should be facing when they land. The pilot radioed down when each jumper was away, forty seconds would pass silently in the dark, then we would hear the "whooomp" sound of their canopy opening. Then a couple more minutes of silence would pass, and finally, when the jumper was about 10 or 15 seconds from landing, we could see the chemical glow-sticks adorning their gear. I stayed until about 11:30pm, at which point I left in search of food. One cheeseburger had been my only source of food during the whole day.

Have you ever been upside-down, falling out of the sky at 120mph? No...? You should try it sometime. It's pretty cool. :P

After the first jump, Terry cleared me for the next level. Just before the second jump, Spad commented that he'd be out of the plane "shortly after" I was. I assumed that meant he was going to evaluate my jump, then he'd jump. Instead, I jumped and he followed immediately. I looked up, and Spad was less than ten feet away.

When you're going that fast, a subtle change in body position will change the air flow over your entire body. Every time I looked down at my chest-mounted altimeter, I tilted a bit head-down. Freaky... Another cool thing was the clouds. There are regulations about going through clouds, so we had problems getting to altitude and finding a place to jump from. After circling for a while, we found a good place. Both jumps sent me between clouds, which is quite a spectacular site while you're falling...

Sorry, no description available for these jumps.

I took a Live Water Training class near the Drop Zone. We were taught appropriate procedures for safely parachuting into water (rule #1: don't land in water), and then we practiced what we learned.

One at a time, we dressed in full gear, plunged into the deep end of a swimming pool, and jumpmasters would drape a parachute over us. We had to survive the process of getting the chest and leg straps undone, getting out of the gear, and swimming free of the hundreds of ropes dangling below the canopy.

Bear the following in mind:

• Full gear includes shirts, jeans, shoes, helmet, skydiving goggles (not watertight, they just cloud your vision in water), rig, harness, and parachute.
• 280 square feet of wet nylon clings to wet people.
• The lines get sucked into you as you try to swim. The harder you try to swim, the faster the lines wrapped around you.
• The parachute above you prevents you from surfacing for air.

Everyone was required to do this several times to be eligible for certification.

A friend from out of town is in KC this weekend. We decided to go skydiving, and on the way we stopped at Enterprise for them to rent a car for a day. Since we were both going to the drop zone, we decided to just take one car. I was gonna leave my car at Station Casino (it's on the way and has HUGE parking lots), but they suggested that since Enterprise had plenty of extra parking out front, we could just leave my car there and get it when we got back from the DZ. When we got back, Enterprise had their entire parking lot locked up tight. With my car inside. They don't open till Monday. Taking their "fence" apart would be easy. It's just a steel cable around the whole lot, and it can be unfastened by removing four nuts. Then I could drive my car out, and put the four nuts back on. However, I'm sure they noticed my car in their parking lot when they locked up, and when they open Monday and notice it's not there, they'll know I disassembled their fence to get it out. And they have video surveillance on the parking lot, so they'd have it all on tape. If I did it and they wanted to press charges, I could go to jail for tresspassing, breaking and entering, etc. The police verified that, and said I can't do anything until Enterprise opens on Monday. I should have gone with my idea to park at Station Casino. They never close and lock their parking lot up.

If I didn't jump this particular day, I would have had to go through a refresher course. So, even though I'd had minor surgery on my right index finger only a few hours before, I went to the DZ to jump!

It was time to jump, and I was hanging from the wing of the plane at over 7000 feet. Then I noticed warm liquid running down my hand and arm. The wound on my finger was bleeding. Oh well, nothing I could do about it at this point. I just went through the jump as planned. At least I tried to...

About 10 seconds into free-fall, without realizing it, I defensively pulled my right arm in a little to protect the wound. I became unstable and started rocking all over the place. I managed to stabilize myself, but decided that I should probably go ahead and pull a couple seconds early. When I reached for the pull handle, I went unstable again. I ended up doing a complete flip. After the flip, I managed to stabilize again, and I pulled, right on time.

Although a little scary, the jump was quite fun.

Six days after jump #25, I met Jennifer, a girl that I thought was "the one." I quit skydiving while we were dating because I was so happy in the relationship that I didn't want to put my life in jeopardy. Also, it wasn't fair to her for me to be risking my life.

Although Jennifer and I eventually broke up, I don't know if I will ever start jumping again. Part of the reason I got back into it after jump #6 was to prove to myself that I could stare death in the face and not back down. I jumped 19 times after the jump that should have killed me. I don't think I have anything more to prove.