10.02.08
Posted in Life at 9:25 pm by SkyDiveOne
Personally I’m leaning towards definition 1, but 3 might fit for which ever country McCain picks a fight with if he wins.
–noun 1. Southwestern U.S. an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.
2. a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.
3. (initial capital letter) an electro-optically guided U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile for destroying tanks and other hardened targets at ranges up to 15 mi. (24 km).
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06.13.08
Posted in Work at 12:00 am by SkyDiveOne
It’s been a damned long time since I posted anything here but this article from the SQL server team has got me heated at 1 am 6/13/2008.
They have chosen to create a SQL Server specific version of PowerShell in which the SQL Server functionality is pre-installed. This means that there will be two versions of PowerShell on any machine with SQL Server 2008 installed:
After all the leaps and bounds that powershell has brought to the Windows Administration community the SQL team decides to go off and do their own damned thing?!?! WTF. This is so bass ackwards that they stopped allowing people to comment on this post 11 hours after it was live.
At my last job I administered about 300 SQL servers and let me tell you it was an F’n nightmare at times. Myself and my scripting buddy worked our way through the complications and kept the SQL admins in check (you might say we administered the SQL admins… or at least did a large part of their job IMHO). Now the SQL team is going to take shit further into left field by creating their own seperate powershell version? Really?
Thank god I don’t have to administer any SQL boxes any longer but still this is a kick in the nuts to the entire PowerShell Community who in my oppinion have made leaps and bounds in documenting, blogging, commenting and sharing ideas for how to work in PoweShell. Now the SQL team wants to ignore all this progress, wave their middle finger at the community and do what ever they think in their nice little ivory tower.
Apparently someone at M$ isn’t paying a lick of attention to anything going on outside their network. Vista might as well be WinME with a new GUI, and now manaaging SQL systems will be just as moronic as trying to explain to a user community exactly why their 1500$ laptop won’t run the latest OS that doesn’t do anything different from what was released 8 years ago (other than when you hit alt-tab it’s prettier).
The bitch of it all is that I can’t stand the *nix communities blind hatred towards M$. I guess I’ll just be a bitter outsider who points out the most obvious flaws.
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01.02.08
Posted in Air, Life at 6:05 pm by SkyDiveOne
Four New Years ago (Jan 1, 2004) I went on my first skydive. Since then I’ve been lurking around dropzones in Florida and Georgia, meeting new people and loving being in the air. With a little over 400 jumps now, I’m not the noob that I was and yet, I don’t know squat. Sitting here writing this I look forward to the jumps to come, the people to meet and learning new ways to fly.
I rode first class for the first time on my way out to SoCal this year. My flight back to Florida will probably be the last time I get to ride first class without having some horrendous turn of events convince an airline to compensate me with first class tickets. Did you know that no matter how early or late it is they serve alcohol on first class? I really liked landing in Dallas at noon and stumbling into the terminal. Since I was unwilling to pay 6$ for a pint (bud light just isn’t that good) the 4 hour layover was long enough for me to sober up. I got the airlines back for the headache they gave me by drinking all the Crown Royal on the plane going from Dallas to Ontario, California… suckers.
After an entertaining first week seeing the family and friends I haven’t seen in a few years, I was itching to get some air in Southern California. I’d brought all my gear with me and had even purchased a pair of shoes, since I figured trying to run it out on the barren caked earth of Perris, California might not be so pleasant. I was set to go.
The vehicle I’d borrowed was good enough to get me around Orange County but was a bit too much of a risk for the hour’s drive out to Perris. I’d attempted to beg a ride from various #teamslack’rs who had all denied me… slackers. Finally on Dec 30, I was lent a vehicle that would get me there without any issues.
As I started double checking all my gear I realized my reserve pack date was a few months past due. I wasn’t amused by this since I knew there wasn’t any way skydive Perris valley would let me get on the plane without a repack. I verified my funds were suitable, called the dropzone and made sure a rigger was on site.
After arriving at the dropzone and dropping my gear off with the rigger I wandered around and took in the place for the next 4 hours. It’s a very business orientated dropzone, one of the largest I’ve been on. The people were still down to earth though and I didn’t get some of the cliquish vibes that are at other dropzones. I was there right in the middle of the New Year’s boogie and they were running 3 otters non-stop. There was a skyvan on the ground, the DC-9 had just flown a load before I arrived and a helicopter was still doing occasional loads. Next time I’ll have to make plans to stay at the dropzone for a bit and partake in more jumping and some of the night life.
After picking up my gear I didn’t have enough time to get a jump in, as all three of the sunset loads were already full. I packed up and rolled back to the house. Spent some quality time with the family, took their money playing various poker games and celebrated the new year’s twice, once for EST and once for PST.
I got it set it my mind that I had to make a few jumps to celebrate my 4th year of skydiving so New Years day I rolled back out to the dropzone around noon. The Santa Ana’s had picked up and I had some concerns as I was getting on the road to head out to Perris about the 40 mph winds that were blowing through the canyons. I checked the weather and called the dropzone and Perris was only getting 10 - 15 mph ground wind… no way I could miss it.
I’d wanted to do an altitude hop n pop but decided against it since there was still two planes flying and the uppers were moving at about 45 - 60 mph. I opted instead to practice my sit fly and take in the Southern California horizon. I got in two breath taking sit fly’s (didn’t cork on either) where I could just barely see over the hills into the valley to the west, I had a perfect view of Perris lake where I recalled a number of summer trips of water skiing and camping, as well as a stunning view of Big Bear more to the north.
Jumping in Perris was a great start to 2008, and now I’m looking forward to what’s next.
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04.29.07
Posted in Life at 9:59 pm by SkyDiveOne
I’ve been quiet on here for a while. Mostly I’ve been working hard, however I have been quietly contemplating 42 as well. Once again I’m rediscovering this Air Junkie that I am, more than that, this Life Junkie.
St. Patrick’s Day weekend this year was… memorable. Maker paid me a visit that weekend, it’s been a long time since the last time I saw him. It was great to see him again and I got to lurk his second Sky Dive, as well as properly introduce him into skydiving. Unfortunately he did bear witness to more than most should on their second time on a drop zone. That weekend we lost two jumpers who together as I understand it had over 14,000 jumps. I’m vvery torn about that weekend. I got to see a good friend who I haven’t seen in a long time, as well as I had to say goodbye to a person I respected a lot and wish I’d known better. All in all, it was a moment in life.
If I did anything the following couple of weekends I don’t recall. I have a feeling those weekends probably involved beer, school work and World of Warcraft.
The weekend after that I went down to Miami, to help out family in tough times as well as to spend time with family. Another memorable weekend.
April 14th I hung out during the day and towards the middle of the afternoon decided I needed some air. I got to Palatka’s DZ just in time to watch a full load take off. In better circumstances I would of been running to the plane and figuring out how I would apologize to manifest later. As it stood, I needed to pack and wasn’t running anywhere. I ended up with two jumps that day, one from altitude only to have a cloud foul up my opening plans and turn everything white for a while, and another from 3k feet AGL out the door in the sandstorm of sprinkling rain. Good times.
April 20th, I crossed a hump. I started the downhill towards 30. In an effort to avoid early on-set of mid-life crisis I got REALLY drunk Friday, woke up in a stupor and drove to Tallahassee for a little cathartic adrenaline injection. I ended up walking away that weekend with another 5 jumps accomplished and a little less skin on my left calf. Who can complain about that?
Yesterday I finished my Java class, I took my grade from a nice solid 50% (F) up to a C to an A…. My professor wasn’t highly organized and I believe I took some tests that didn’t affect my grade one way or the other. No matter I did enough to know that I would pass which truly is all I give a rats ass about.
Today… April 29th, 2007 I rode a jet ski for the first time. I remember growing up and listening to my family speak poorly of Jet Ski’s, mainly because of all the accidents out on the rivers and lakes in the south west that would occur. At this time I’m going to have to not care what they think about Jet Ski’s. I had the time of my life today. It was almost as good as my first skydive. I did at one point lose my 120$ sun glasses, but considering how far I flew off that Jet Ski, it was worth it. I’ve known people to spend 200$ for skydives that aren’t nearly as gut wrenching as what I did to myself. HAHA I want to do it again. We ended up playing in and hanging outside of the surf off of Huegnot Memorial Park. It was there I found out what it felt like to take an 600 lb jet ski 10 feet into the air at 30 mph. It was an experience I won’t soon forget, and will be looking to obtain again in the future.
After a hard day of beating the living crap out of myself, I ended swinging by my condo to pick up an Olive Garden card and The Sirens of Titan. I then retired to the bar at the Olive Garden had some good grub and wine and read a couple chapters. It was a very nice ending to a good day.
Next weekend I’m off to D.C. to say my final farewell to a man who lived an interesting life (although many of the details will never be revealed to me or most). I’ll also be taking a look around the Capital City of this country I live in. Hope I don’t get shot.
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02.01.07
Posted in Air, Life, Work at 1:45 pm by SkyDiveOne
In hindsight, if I hadn’t stayed up until 4am drinking, the night before my 8am flight things probably would of gone much better. Of course then I wouldn’t of had the fun that I had during the drinking.
So prior to drinking the plan I’d had for getting to Toledo, was geared around me waking up at 5am which would give me enough time to pack my things (which I didn’t do the night before as I should of). Well after drinking till 4am, the plan was altered a bit. After coming to around 630am I immediately jumped into action, stumbled, fell down, and jumped back into action. I threw some clothes in my bag, that I’d checked the previous two flights between Detroit and Jacksonville, grabbed my toiletries and threw them in as well. I snatched up my laptop bag did a once over to make sure I couldn’t think of anything I’d missed and jetted out the door.
As I started driving I noted that the clock in the car was reading 7:00am. If it hadn’t been for the hang over I probably would of cared that it was looking like I was going to miss my flight. As it stood though I could think of two things, stay between the lines and Ow my head hurts! It took me about 15 minutes to get to the airport that was 23 miles away. Pulling into the extended stay parking lot at 7:15am I started scanning for the bus to take me to the check in area. After a short wait a bus showed up and took me to check in. As I approached the counter the lady asked me if I was going to Detroit. I told her I was and tried to check my bag in. She told me I was too late to check it in and that I’d better run as she handed me my ticket.
Thinking I was cool, I took a few steps calmly and slowly, and then realized I didn’t care and started sprinting towards security. Reaching the line for security there were about 20 people in front of me. I patiently waited in line since I didn’t want to spook TSA and have 4 burly men drag me to the ground. Then a flight crew came to the same line I was in. Since my station in life did not authorize me to get through security very fast, I watched as about 10 airline people walked in front. I continued to wait.
Finally it was time for me to strip my shoes, belt, sunglasses, jackets, and rifle through my pockets to make sure I didn’t have anything metal. I placed everything on the conveyor as I’d learned the hard way with previous security screenings. I went through the metal detector and cringed in anticipation of the alarm indicating I overlooked a penny or something like that. Success! No alarms. I started to gather some of my things together that had come through the conveyor and then looked on in dismay as they stopped the line and grabbed my bag I’d tried to check in. Immediately I remembered the firecrackers from New Years 2 years ago that I still hadn’t used.
As the Security man brought my bag over to the shake down table, I immediately started telling him what was in there and where to find it so that I could get to my gate. At this point I had about 10 minutes to spare until the scheduled departure time. As the Security guy started pulling out fireworks and piling them in a bucket he gave me a couple looks. I pretended not to notice and forced my mouth to remain shut as a couple of amusing comments started going through my mind. He then opened my toiletry kit and removed my shampoo, shaving cream, and something else that I’ve since forgotten about.
The Security man called over a couple supervisors and they moved off to the side to “quietly” converse about what was going on. Luckily for me they weren’t very quiet. After listening to them talk about the “Large amounts of explosives” a couple times (to which I continued to force myself to remain quiet even though I REALLY didn’t want to) they finally decided that I apparently wasn’t a high risk terrorist, told me I could go and that they were going to keep the fireworks and other stuff they removed. I said, “Yeah, whatever.” grabbed my bags and started running once again.
In the natural order of things, my gate happened to be at the far end of the terminal at JAX. I got about half way down before I got winded and annoyed at my bags not moving with me for a nice run. After a short pause I started sprinting again thinking that if I missed the plane I would have to go through security again, which would mean I just lost my fireworks and shampoo for naught.
As I sprinted up to the gate out of breath and still hung over, the lady new my name like she’d been waiting for me, and waved me through. I got on the plane, sat down and went back to sleep.
All in all, it could have gone better, but it worked out in the end.
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Posted in Air, Life at 11:43 am by SkyDiveOne
Last week, I said my farewell to a good man, Bill Schlesinger. We held a celebration of his life in Miami, FL last weekend where we shared stories of Bill. Even though I didn’t feel up to telling a story, I hold a number of fond memories of staying with him and his wife Deborah in Miami. Here’s an article that was posted about Bill from the Miami Herald.
On my way back to Jacksonville I stopped off in Deland and said my own personal goodbye. I got in two jumps, both of which were with a guy I met who was from Norway, on the way to the plane for the first jump. The first jump him and I started with a conservative belly exit and then transitioned into a sit. I dropped like a rock away from him and had to keep going from sit to belly to minimize vertical separation. He remained in stand for a good portion of the jump and we broke at cloud level. On the second jump I asked him if he wanted to change up the exit a little and make it more interesting. I explained we should do a flower and hold it for a short time, then transition into a sit. After explaining the exit and that we’d take it head down he said that he didn’t know head down too well. I told him it would be fine and well it was. We got out of the door, got grips and went. He started going to belly from the start so I rolled onto my back and dragged him down. The look of his eyes widening as the horizon came up from above was by far the best part. I pushed us apart and then went into a sit, and once again fell low. I need to get a nice baggy freefly suit if I’m going to be jumping with other people.
Under canopy on the second jump I had a little wave and salute for Bill.
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01.21.07
Posted in Life at 8:41 pm by SkyDiveOne
I have now dedicated close to 10 hours to software configuration and testing all thanks to my new Samsung Blackjack i607. Here’s a few things I’ve accomplished with that time…
- In an effort to be more organized, I have configured MS Outlook to synchronize with my Gmail email, calendar and contacts. With ActiveSync installed on my laptop along with Outlook I am able to synchronize that information with my Blackjack. This means that I won’t have as much of an excuse to be late to my classes and things since my phone will both display a calendar event and receive an SMS message from my Google calendar. (Yes one reminder would probably be sufficient but if you know me it’s good to have the redundancy)
- I have configured and tested internet access through my cell phone. What this means for me, is now when I go to a drop zone that like most drop zones doesn’t have an internet connection, BAM I break out my cell phone and beep beep beep I’m on the internet. One the fly (pun intended) updating, emailing and checking of schedules. This will also be useful since I’m planning on logging my jumps on here or at least my computer (This will be done after the purchase of a ProTrack).
- Unfortunately I spent a large amount of time trying to figure out why the connection between my phone and laptop would disconnect. I needed this connection to allow me to browse the file system on the phone, figure out how the shortcuts were done (There are a lot more applications on the windows mobile device than what they create short cuts for), and just generally start to figure out this new slim operating system. I’m still not entirely sure why it is, it seems to be from two possible things. First is the windows firewall. After I disabled it things did seem to work better, although not as consistent as I would of preferred. Second was the way the connection was being established. When the Blackjack actually handed an IP to my computer, the connection remained stable until the display on the Blackjack went out. At that time the file system stopped responding. When I first started connecting the phone to the computer, the network connection the computer was using for the phone kept utilizing a default 169 address. That address was not very stable; I would only get a few seconds of connect time before the connection would be dropped. Regardless I still have more playing to do.
So far this has been a fun and productive day. The blackjack is working out to be a great and handy device. In the future I will be working to figure out why the Google apps aren’t working on the Blackjack (believe it is because of a lack of flash player), as well as dropping in additional applications. Most of that will happen after my 2 gig micro SD card arrives later next week.
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01.04.07
Posted in Air, Life at 6:15 pm by SkyDiveOne
There used to be a time when 5 am was my normal wake up time (actually I remember being late if I used to wake up at 5). How things change.
This morning I started off the day at 5, this was a bit more rough for me than it would of other wise been. In an effort to not feel like I was living out of various piles of clothes (I was), I stayed up until 1245 doing laundry. Yes, I could have started the laundry at 5 pm and avoided the whole sleep deprivation… But I mean really, it’s a bloody miracle I did the laundry so get off my back (still tired writing this).
Got down to Orlando and to the place I had work by 745, a whole 15 minutes early! Once I got inside and introduced myself I noted that something seemed off. The blank deer in the headlights look from the guy behind the desk as I told him I was there for connectivity testing told me he hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. A short hour and a half later, what I needed was finally set up. Once that was done it just took another hour or so to complete all the required tests and get out. On the road by 1215 pm!
1 pm I was at the DZ in Deland and manifested. I was able to get in two jumps, with the latter being the more memorable of the two. The exit was a blast as my and another dude exited kind of head down, I could tell from his face he had the bottom of the plane in his field of vision, while I had the horizon over his shoulder. FUN! After bout a thousand feet we broke it and each went into a sit. This time I did reasonably well, he and I both had good vertical fall rates. We kept our distance from each other mostly because I asked since I still am not nearly as solid in a sit as I’d like to be. After deploying and collapsing my slider I happen to look around and see a skydiver falling past me a couple hundred feet away. A quick double take at my altimeter confirmed what I’d thought, which was I was at 2000 feet. Heh. It looked fun.
All said and done, this was quite a nice Thursday.
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Posted in Air, Life at 6:00 pm by SkyDiveOne
New years day I did one jump. It was fun. I fell and tumbled, while I continued to work on my sit flying.
And it was a Happy New Year.
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12.31.06
Posted in Air, Life at 8:02 pm by SkyDiveOne
After a slow start this morning everything worked out. I got to Deland, fl with just enough time to get on the last load of 2006. I and about 5 other jumpers pulled high and enjoyed the end to another year.
I am hoping that by the end of 2007 I will have a camera and helmet so that when I get that last jump of 2007 I can get some pictures to better remember it in the future. This jump would of been a perfect tribute to the beauty of the skies.
There was a nice cloud layer at 6000 ft, with the sun coming in just barely over the top of the clouds on the horizon. The orange to purple light that I flew into for a few thousand feet was simply intoxicating. As I approached the cloud layer, I did a 720° dive and leveled it out just on top of the clouds. Then I dove the canopy down through a small break in the clouds. It was amazing.
I couldn’t of asked for better ending to 2006. I hope to have many more memorable jumps in 2007 and look forward to what tomorrow may bring.
Happy New Years
Drink plenty and be merry.
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