Canopyflyer

Can I talk to you my lord and god… Skydiving?

Nothing you do in the air will ever be cheap, but jumping out of planes is a lot cheaper than flying them.

My wife is a knitter and has been for decades. She literally has a closet full of sweaters that she and her mother knitted over the years. At one point she got a bit burned out, but still wanted to knit, but not commit to something complex like a sweater. A friend of her’s, whom my wife actually taught to knit, told her to knit socks.

Socks knit up quickly, so they are satisfying to make and they are easy, especially compared to something like a sweater.

I’m a bearded guy too and love to cook. So knitting isn’t a stretch, my wife loves to do it and it is very relaxing after a long day.

30 years in IT here, but didn’t get my degree until about 13 years ago.

Certs that I have (obsolete or not).

CCNA/CCNP/ Network +

MCSE

CLP (most certainly obsolete. Who runs Domino any longer?)

LEAN Six Sigma Green belt.

ITIL v1 Foundation, Incident, Problem, Change, Config, Service Delivery.

V4 Foundation and Incident

Of all the certs it has been ITIL that has gotten me employed the most and why I’m currently employed as an Incident Management Process Owner for a very large manufacturer.

In my skydiving days I loved to take jumpers just off student status and help them become full fledged skydivers.

The student progression will teach you the basics of how to save your life, but that’s about it. If someone stuck with me, they could pack, spot, accurately land, and turn points in 4-way and even dive on larger formations in a much shorter time than they could do it on their own or with someone else and do it safely. I also knew who were the good teachers on the DZ and direct my students to the person that could help them most, when my skill set wasn’t appropriate.

Most of the time I just did it for the cost of my jump ticket too. Although I got in trouble with the Drop Zone Owner as he was trying to generate revenue from coaching. So I did have to start working for the DZ officially when doing coach jumps. Annoying but it was what it was. There might have been a few or many fun jumps I did with someone where I accidentally gave them a few tip and tricks and they might have bought me a beer after the planes were tied down.

I never walked a tight rope. I don’t think I could even in my prime.

I exit using a line that was connected at the top of the balloon to swing out and do multiple flips. The rope was really long so you would get a huge amount of speed and fling off the end.

I jumped…

Some say I’m still falling to this day.

In all seriousness, balloon jumps are a unique experience in skydiving… Because you go from dead silence to the rush of air at terminal velocity. Sure you can jump a helicopter that is hovering, but they are louder than airplanes.

Exits from a balloon also tend to catch less experienced jumpers off guard, because you can’t fly your body till the speed builds up. First timers tend to flail a little. By the second jump they do just fine.

I have taken off in a hot air balloon a dozen times or so…

Not once did I land with it. Even good landings seem to leave some things to luck.

Edit: added forgotten T.

I have 4500 jumps over about 13 years in the sport. My interest was in competition, which is weird as I’m not really a competitive person normally. I joined a recreational 4 way team and just fell in love with it. That lead me and some friends founding a 4-way/ 8-way competition team and we competed in Open against the likes as Arizona Airspeed, Team Fasttrax, and The Golden Knights. We were normally competitive with them, but it’s hard to match teams paid to be there. I actually trained with Team Fasttrax for a short time as John Hart got his start at my home DZ.

That experience parlayed into doing Demos. Part of my competition team started doing Demos at just about every place you can imagine. I did have my PRO license for a few years to be able to get insurance. The highlight of that was doing a Demo at an airshow where Gen Paul Tibbets was doing a presentation on World War II. He came up to me and one of my team mates to ask us about skydiving. It was a surreal experience. He had a lot of interest in what we did during the show. Definitely one of those memories that will live with me forever.

What ended it all was internal team politics. My competition team was intertwined with the Demo team, so when barely held together relationships finally came crashing down on one, it brought down the other. By that time I was around 4000 jumps. There were a lot of hard feelings all around and I made the decision to pull back completely. Going back to just fun jumping just did not keep my interest. I took on students, but I always worked as a coach for jumpers just off student status… But again seeing my team just blow up like that really took its toll and I just grew disinterested. It didn’t help that I was in my early 30’s and my lifestyle pretty much precluded any type of long term relationship. Women think hanging out at the DZ to be pretty cool the first few times. However, every weekend with good weather and some with not so good weather just hanging out all day gets dull really fast.

So landing after a fun jump and gathering my chute I looked around hard at the landing zone and just felt… Nothing. I was bored and not interested in trying to create another team. That was October of 2003 and in March of 2004 I met the future Mrs. CanopyFlyer for the first time. I did around 400 jumps the 2003 season, 2004 I did 20 and sold my gear in 2005 to help pay for the wedding and put a down payment on a house. My last jump was the summer of 2006 on student gear of all things and it was the only jump I made in 2006. Skydiving was my chrysalis going from who I was to who I am now. I look back on those years with fondness and often talk about the lessons I learned during that time. However, I never went back and never plan to. Actually now age and age related injuries have made going back nearly impossible anyway. Which I’m OK with, I would not be who I am today and married to the woman I am without those years spent in the sky.

Today my wife and I have two boys and it’s satisfying watching them grow and start doing those things that I wanted to do at that age.

Skydivers

Sigh… Yeah, we’re all a bit mental in one way or another.

With that said we’re generally not the “adrenaline junkie” type. There are those types, but they typically don’t last long in the sport. They either get bored, get scared, or get themselves hurt. A jumper that’s been in the sport for a long time is a master at managing risk. The old adage of “there are no old bold pilots” goes double for skydivers.

It’s 100% WFH and it’s as awesome as it sounds.

I’ve done work like this job for a very long time so I can get things done very quickly, because I’ve done it all many times before. That gives me a lot of free time at home.

My company is a real manufacturer that is one of the few and best in the world at what it builds. The product is something that peoples’ lives depend upon. So much so that profit motive is not the #1 consideration in regards to our products. Safety is absolute and profit takes a distant back seat. Contrast that with my last employer that makes household goods destined for a land fill and there were entire teams dedicated to making products cheaper, but be able to charge more for them. Absolutely hated my last employer.

Corporate culture is an interesting mix of old school, stay with the company till you retire and bringing on new ideas and integrating them. Always keeping an actual eye on the important things, such as the aforementioned product safety.

Needless to say, I love my job.

Some cons: The main one is that I’m not really learning anything new, but I’ve been in this business for 30 years. While I do try to learn, a lot of the things that are being pushed these days are the same as I’ve seen before, just with new labels. That actually has been true for my last two employers, so I think it’s a symptom of my age and experience rather than an issue with the companies.

My boss, who is fantastic, is wanting me to step up and take over his position. Which would raise my importance level in the corporate structure quite a bit. The problem with that is I took this position, which was a major downgrade for me, just to avoid being important. Fortunately, this is not an UP or OUT type of company. I just need to be careful to remain relevant.

Vintage audio equipment particularly if it’s distressed.

It’s satisfying to bring these things back to life.

Farscape

Check out: First Robotics

There are programs for elementary to high school aged kids with teams all over the country. There are local, regional, state, and national/international competitions.

1. Oh, that’s sweet

2. Very cool, great choice.

3. WTF!!! DUDE!

Cirque du Soliel Crystal: A lot of amazing choreography and skating.

Cats: We took our then 4 year old son and had seats in the first row. One of the cats came up to my son, who was standing in front of me. She scared him and he jumped up into my arms. She looked horrified and actually told me “SORRY!” I told her it was OK as my son actually started giggling after his initial fright. He turned in my arms and gave her one of his patented smiles. Later in the show the entire cast came out into the audience singing. They were so close that we could hear them singing directly without the PA. That was 15 years ago and our son still talks about it.

Concerts:

Chicago/ Beach Boys co headlining. By far the best rock concert I’ve attended.

Black Crows opening for ZZ Top (Recycler Tour): ZZ Top was always known for spectacular shows. On this one though, the Black Crows performance was light years ahead of the headliner. They were a really good live band.

Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops at the Riverbend Music Center: 1812 Overture. The Cincinnati Pops used actual cannons for the performance. Yeah, real cannons.

I’ve heard that.

His birth cost was around $20k with a stay in the NICU the first two days.

He was diagnosed before he even left the hospital. He had visible indications of Spina Biffida Occulta (Tethered Spinal Cord). Exactly 8 weeks after he was born he underwent the surgery. Which took a lot longer than expected because they couldn’t get a good MRI image. So the Neurosurgeon ended up doing exploratory surgery to find how far up the tether went.

Total bill for the surgery and a week long hospital stay was $40k.

Fortunately, my wife works for the same medical foundation that owns the hospital, and she still works there today. Plus they own the insurance company. So we were lucky to have the best health insurance available in our state.

Black Magic Woman – Santana. Original by Fleetwood Mac.

Touch and Go – Emerson Lake and… POWELL. Cover of an old folk song called: Lovely Joan

Blinded by the LIght – Manfred Mann original by Bruce Springsteen.

Alone – Heart… Can’t remember the original artist off hand.

The gap in my employment is NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS.

It’s none of your fucking business that my kid required major neuro surgery at the age of 8 WEEKS and I needed to take a year off form work to care for him.

You and all the other idiot corporations decided to fuck around with the economy and didn’t hire anyone for several years because YOU fucked it up.

To be more flexible I decided to work a series of contracts instead of full time employment and fuckwits like you treat contractors like trash.

Do you really want me to go on? Because I fucking can…

BTW: The kid is OK and today (19 years later) is an accomplished figure skater that competes internationally.

Back in 2000 I lived in Loveland, OH which is just north of Cincinnati, OH. There used to be an old fashioned barber shop on Loveland-Madeira road.

I walked into the barber shop and was greeted by the barber and told to take a seat. There were two other men in the shop. One was in the chair and getting his hair cut and the other was reading a newspaper and I was unable to see his face at all. The barber finished with the guy in the chair and looked over at the man reading the newspaper and said:

“Neil you’re up.”

The man closed his newspaper and laid on the chair next to him…

And I found myself looking at the first man that walked on the moon.

I completely blew every circuit breaker in my brain. Somehow though I managed to keep my composure and didn’t turn into a complete idiot. As he got his hair cut we talked about mundane things, never once talking about space flight, although we did discuss aviation. At the time I was a skydiver and he actually had some questions about it. He told me that he had a ride under a parachute… I replied, yeah I’ve seen that video.

And that is how I met and had a conversation with Neil Armstrong.

Irrespective if the meaning has been reversed over the years.

What most people miss about this saying is… IT GOES BOTH WAYS.

If someone mistreats you and uses their blood relationship to you as an excuse, then that is not a member of your family. Family supports and goes through things together. Friends can become family. At this stage of my life, I have cut off my entire blood relations due to their toxic and stupid behavior. My family is the woman I married, my kids, and a few choice friends.