Skydiving - Panama City, Florida

The bulk of my 48 jumps have taken place at a drop zone literally walking distance from my house on the shores of Stansbury Lake. In actually, it is better described as a glorified yard waste lagoon surrounded by Nouveau upper-middle class as evidenced by paper-plated cars parked in front of un-yarded homes. Although I am often insecure about my historical lack of prosperity when Utah is filled with single-income, property owners, the odor of borrowed riches reminiscent of pre-recession 2008 when the smart sung ,”When there is blood in the streets, BUY BUY BUY.” Even with the convenience of drop zone, I am becoming increasingly disinterested in skydiving because the culture at Skydive Utah is unfriendly, arrogant, and self-centered. My perceptions could be elaborated on, but why waste energy on those weirdos.

Arriving in Panama City, Florida I grabbed a rental car and raced the muggy back roads to Skydive Panama City…. Located about an hour from Panama City. Most drop zones located near vacations destinations are situated at the nearest small airfield which is a good drive from their name-stake. SPC operations are constructed from four joined trailers with a powerful air conditioner and a half dozen couches. The landing zone is covered with thick grass which poorly drains the afternoon showers common to inland Florida. After waiting three hours for rain clouds to pass, I jumped into a 210 and milled about waiting to follow people out to the plane. A random guy walked up, smiled, asked me what kind of jump I was planning on doing, and then offered to jump together. Then we were talking with a couple of other guys and next thing I knew, we were planning a tracking dive with 4 people. This would NEVER happen at Skydive Utah, pricks.

After gaining a little confidence, I changed into my speedo and paraded about the drop zone. There were a lot of grins, laughs, shy glances, and hungry scans. Waiting around on the tarmac, I attempted normal conversation with a couple of jumpers and a tandem student. The tandem was a gentleman in his 50’s which told me all about his jumps as a combat medic some 30 years ago. He grinned from ear to ear at what a jackass I am in that tiny, rainbow speedo. A mousey, female jumper seemed a little uncomfortable with my presence and could not pull her eyes off the speedo. After a few minutes I asked her to stop staring and the old man burst into laughter. Later I learned that the old man was her father.

The temperature at 14,000 AGL was in the high 70’s, much like a nice bath. Novice jumpers wear loose fitting jump suits because the wind resistance of flapping cloth slows decent and provides a large control surface. Remove that and I became a 180lb rock, tumbling out of control, at high speed. The opening hurt not only from increased fall rate, but the coarse material of the harness bit into damp, tender skin of the inner thigh. Flying a 230 canopy provided for a soft, stand up landing into a pool of rain water. Less lucky jumper were covered with angry ants driven to the surface by the rain.

Knowing the day couldn’t get any better, I pointed the peppy rental towards St. Andrew to the floating kitchen, Just The Cook. Even though it looks clean, the sticky, sour smell of a warm warf is far from appetizing. An attractive and seemingly intelligent barmaid took my order and offered me a free beer. Yes FREE beer from an objectively, normal female (I really need to leave Utah). The sleeveless, bearded cook boiled 1/2 lb of shrimp, tossed it in Cajun spices, and plated it with cilantro slaw, corn-on-the-cob, and fresh bread. What a perfect day….

Scuba - Panama City, Florida

The considerable absence from blogging began with accepting the first world problems presented by living in Salt Lake City, Utah. There is little objectively wrong with Utah or dominate culture besides being boring. The people are nice, but boring. The weather is neither too hot nor too cold. The food is healthy and bland. The outdoors are very nice, but people have such an orgasm over the red rocks and snow that they can frankly shove them. With all those first world problems it is difficult to find expressive inspiration. 

Generally I experience vacation as surmounting a challenge like 6 days backpacking or hitchhiking to Canyonlands, but my employer has asked me to champion a program requiring training in Panama City, Florida. Given that I will likely never return here, I might as well live it to the hilt. On the peninsula across from Shell beach there is a natural preserve complete with sub-tropical flora, alligators, and white sand beaches. White sand, finely crushed and soft from an eon of rattling shells in the warm clear sea. 

Gearing up in the muggy afternoon following hours of heavy rain, my lungs felt thick with the dense air and tight with anticipation. 18 years had elapsed since last diving in the kelp beds of Catalina Island, 60 feet below, confined in 9mils of neoprene compressing all joy out of the event. The kelp was thick as bamboo and closely spaced like those poles of a Viet Cong POW prison. I was terrified of everything and blocked my vision with a rapid consumption of air.

 In entering the aptly named “splash pool” made from a jetty of rock separating the nature park from the shipping lane, the tension slipped away as I eased into the bath temperature water. After a few awkward minutes fooling with the Buoyancy Compensator, everything started to melt away. There was only the regulator rasp, sea bottom, and green water fading away to black. On the shipping lane side of the jetty, the sea floor fell away quickly and the visibility was sub-20ft due to recent storms and an outgoing current. Swimming up current was not difficult and I was careful to control breath rate as to extend the dive length. After a 10 minutes a profound headache developed due oxygen deprivation from under breathing, but this resulted in a dive length of 56 minutes which is good for a rookie. In the jetty rocks, between 25 and 45 feet, there was all the ocean life that might be expected in a Discovery Channel documentary.

I was, infact, not especially impressed by the fishy. Probably I have been spoiled by David Attenborough. It was the weightlessness, the ability to conduct within three dimensions, to move with slight effort, and change direction with the attitude of head or limb position. To be nearly independent of gravity and change depth with inhalation is a sensation of corporeal freedom which I have not found elsewhere. I’m going to next explore FVP drone flying, that might produce a similar sensation. 

In the meantime, I was getting hungry for sushi and mainly octopus. The concept of eating sushi in Utah, a thousand miles from the ocean, has never appealed to me. There are certainly those that speak of refrigeration, but fruit always tastes better the closer to the vine it gets.  On the menu there was an appetizer of raw octopus salad dressed in marinade. The chef took a mass of Cephalopoda larger than my fist and sliced it like pork cutlets into a bowl along with peeled, diced cucumbers, imitation crab, roe and brown sauce.

Student Work

Consequences
Some people ask what we do with students when they misbehave. The simple answer is nothing that couldn't be done in a public school or their home. The only difference is that running away or acting out won't do them any good. Part of the skill on deciding on an appropriate "consequence" is to avoid patterns that they have experiences in the past. So kicking them out of the group or putting them on timeout would be a last resort. Conversely, giving them a chance to overcome a challenge and gain positive rapport with the group is golden. The following student kept loosing his gear, thereby slowing the group down. So when I found his headlamp hanging in a tree as we were exiting camp, I gave him the opportunity to earn it back with a poem.

Dear Jay. How you helped me find my lamp today. I would have been lost with no light for nights, but now i can walk with no natural light. With out a fight. So I thank you with all my might.

The students are creative, there is no doubt about that. Most find means to amuse and humor themselves as to their plight. Usually this means blowing things out of proportion to make a point, but it's not like any of them are here voluntarily. (PS, we don't whip them).

  

 The holidays can be an emotional time for the student as well as the staff. There is something humbling about realizing that you've screwed up enough to be put in treatment for Thanksgiving and it's even worse for a birthday. Well one student had the misfortune to have his birthday on Thanksgiving. Having sympathy, another student took it upon himself to write a poem to validate his emotions and hopefully uplift his emotions.

From birthday's come

to birthday's past

So many seem to go by fast

From a hike that seemed to never end

Though the drop was just around a bend

To sitting round the fire with friends

Th fire flickers, the wood ablaze

The smoke softly floats away

Into the air

From its fiery lair

Our bellies filled from the food we prepared

And although we can all relate to being pissed

At being taken away from the life we miss

Just try to remember, remember this

This may be your only birthday in the Wilderness 

Pretty damn good if you ask me. That particular student was unfortunately inhibited by his own creativity and it took him a while to realize his potential. While it's nice to see the students transform during their stay, nothing is better than know that you made a difference in somebodies life...especially when they say so.

There are no boring things, Only boring people.

8/13/2011

"There are no boring things, Only boring people." - Unknown


For the kids that I work with, the most common reason for engaging in drug use is the inebriation makes the mundane more excitable. Boredom is strange concept to me because to admit that "I am bored" is to admit that I am fully incapable of finding interest or discovery in the miriade of natural and man made creations. The Buddhists believe that all that is necessary to live a life of fulfillment is one square meter and in it you may find all knowledge. While this may hold true is a under very narrow, Buddhist philosophy, I find it much easier to seek discovery in that which is being ignored in the rush of life. 

 

  The day began with a quick trip up to the REI garage sale to "invest in practical gear for work"....  this always results in buying things that I don't really need that would be better classified as toys. I exited the store with the replacement of the $119 dollars burden that could only be relieved by a GoPro Camera.

   First order of business was to document the decrepit industrial section that looms across the train tracks.

          

 Before too long I was wrapped up in the idea of exploring what looked like to be a refinery of some sort that had been unused for sometime. Walking around the premiss relieved numerous points as which the fence was in poor repair but they all lacked the a cinematic assault I desired. Something about crawling under a fence makes me feel like a criminal, but flying up it like Spiderman is another story entirely. 

Kentucky Derby, Glow Party, Furry People in Salt Lake

05/08/2011

 
I arrived in Salt Lake on a Monday and tooled about town waiting for someone from SLC couchsurfing to ring my handy. Eventually Josh invited me over to use the upstairs closet which has a massage table and an excellent view of the capitol building. The building is...stately. The prophet John Smith was a free mason so much of Mormon iconography and early SLC architecture has strong influences from the Masons visual lexicon. The weather closes in and I retreat to Josh's.

The capitol building is set on a high hill over looking downtown Salt Lake and the capitol neighborhood is on its steep western slope. He's a great host and funny, but always seemed to be in a conference call or running outside to grab a quick smoke. We have good conversations and I stayed up late chatting with his awesome roommates.

Feeling a bit energized by my CS luck, I fished for some entertainment and eventually happened upon a Kentucky Derby party. I arrived just in time for the final race at 4:45, put 2 dollars on Midnight Seduction, and cut into a jar of sickly sweet mint julep. There might way to good way to mix burbon, mint, and sugar, but evidently that secret is kept in Kentucky. 5pm: my head hurts, stomach is too knotted to eat a bacon wrapped hotdog, Animal Nature has won the race, and a strange Chinese man is determined on explaining the procedures, traditions, and benefits of drinking 10 cups of green tea a day. 3 cups of tea later my co-worker, Eric, and I are ready to attack the night. 

Pictured above is our host for the evening. Tami's loud, pierced, devilishly funny, and furnishes her home with a member from every subculture in SLC. I get annoyed with some hipster artist types and open the evening to a bit of "still life photography." I'm determined to invent a program that can automatically render any photo for saturated colors and high contrast for that edgy, artistic, aren't-I-so-talented look.

11:30pm   Okay people really need to go home so I can sleep on the couch. I'm contemplating crawling in the back of my truck until this fashion nightmare walks through the door.... GLOW PARTY! WHERE?

 The party is apparently being held by the thirsty congregation of Salt Lake City Atheists. Every table is covered with sticky cocktails glasses and uncorked bottles of Rose' wine. The music has degenerated to a cacophony of flamboyant pop/dance accentuated with the writhing howls of flamboyant atheists decorated in glow jewelery and exposed by pulsating lasers. My stomach is starting to knot again.

I wake early and comb the condiments in the kitchen for something to cull the void in my belly. The only thing left untouched from last night are the sticky, tooth cracking, throat sticking Chinese candies that are meant to be consumed with tea. Lacking tea I chomp a few and immediately curl up in a ball on the couch to assess my decision making process. 

My other co-worker, Sofia, calls and I join her and a friend in the park for coffee and eggs.
 

There are grown men dressed as knights fighting with sticks and others dressed as furry animals. SLC confuses me. 

 

Wilderness Therapy

05.05.2011

 Being a field staff for wilderness therapy poses many challenges to our individual sanity. It strain relationship, friendships, and skews the boundaries and norms associated with day to day life. One morning in Salt Lake, I was awoke to sound of violent squeaking coming from the kitchen. What I found was my friend madly trying to start a fire for morning coffee. 

 Now you might think this is joke... that this is all humor. Normally I would have to agree with you. Staff are typically fine and upstanding so that we serve as good roll models for the youth.  We take pride in helping others cope with all variety of challenges such as poor weather and a consistent diet of red-brown mush flavored with taco seasoning. But even the strongest of minds can crack, even the most fit fail, and then we are left to our own devices.....

 To the right is a perfect example of Aspenosis. It is a crippling illness that causes the skin to excrete a sticky paste during sleep. The result is that the victim is glued to the inside of their sleeping bag. Because we are typically in remote location, the bottom of the sleeping back must be cut open to allow the victim to continue hiking. 


For this reason we employ wise sages to follow us because only their magic is the only know cure for a variety of ailments that afflict desert travelers. Eji is one of the best known of our sages... unfortunately it is hard to divine wisdom from his persistent ramblings as the response to many questions is a high pitched, "No, you're a marshmallow."  
    It is unfortunate that much of Eji's wisdom is lost on the students because their natural tendency to resist medicine and who can blame them. Apenosis is a progressive illness, the wiggy worms pictured above is the first stage. The cure is to marinate a chipmunk for three days in Tobasco and sunscreen and then grill it over a bed of juniper branches. As a program we are not allowed to force the students to take medicine because our goal is to foster cooperation and self improvement. However, a student can be stubborn beyond reason and the result is.... well take a look for yourself. 

 

 Okay okay, things aren't grim all the time. The Spring is an amazing season. The next two photos were taken 48 hours apart.
 

 The above is from a hike to the top of Steel Butte near where we found the 800 year old Freemont bowl. And below, the view of the "Land of the Sleeping Rainbow."

 

Hiking can get a bit boring at times. So we like to spice things up by having the kids push Mormon hand carts. The Mormons didn't invent the hand cart, but they did move to Utah from the east coast using them.