America's Cup 1999 — Skydive Houston

July 17 & 18, 1999

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Saturday 09:00
And the meet begins!

First, your dufus host here forgot to consider that this here laptop running OmniSkore! can't hold a third PCMCIA card - so there won't be a webcam running this weekend. My fault folks, sorry!

BUT - it looks like a good turnout, we've got a two teams from Florida, one from New York, two from Arizona, and several local teams. Round 1 is in the air right now, so I'll have some results up shortly.

11:00
Airspeed is the early leader with a 24 in round 1, eight points ahead of Genesis and Airspeed Purple. The latter is jumping with Mike Scott in Alan Metni's slot. Where is Alan, the "father" of the America's Cup? He's back home in Phoenix with his wife Meryl (sp?), awaiting the birth of their first child. GOOD LUCK METNIS! The webmaster/judge/commentator is also expecting - our little Chihuahua Lucy is due this week.

Skydive Houston is a neat little drop zone. I guess it isn't so little; there are two Otters here, kind of reminds me of a cross between the Ranch and DeLand, with a small east-Texas-town kind of atmosphere. Very nice.

12:30
Round 2 is in the bag, and boy does Airspeed look sharp. DeLand Genesis looks good too, and they have the lead based on the handicap.

I should have remembered I was in Texas when I ordered my lunch. They handed me a dead cow ground up on a huge bun. Enormous. Yummy.

1:30
Airspeed 8 Dirt DivingHalf way through round 3, a weather hold, but it's not looking too bad. Airspeed did a 20 on round 3 that might have been a 22 had they not broke off in working time. I bet they fix that problem *REAL* quick!

I believe this is the first competition of its type ever held by Skydive Houston, and they are doing a marvelous job. Debbie and Gloria are bending over backwards, uhm, really helping things out here. It is hard not to take advantage of their "ask and ye shall receive" attitude. Thanks girls!

Speaking of girls, how are the expecting ones doing back in Arizona? You know  some e-mails wouldn't kill us over here, okay? ;-)

3:30
Battling the evil cloud god over here. Had a tall boomer pass a few miles away, but looking better now. Just heard one of the Otters taking off...

5:00
Round 5 is half done and it looks like we might get 4-way finished today. Airspeed positively ripped round 4 with 30 points. Except for one premature breakoff, those guys look great. Very clean and fast. Genesis looks like they've been training hard too. Some really good 4-way here today!

6:45
On a weather hold again...might have to resume tomorrow...is the beer light on yet?


Skydive Houston Main HangerSunday

10:30
We almost finished 4-way last night, had two more teams finish round 6 this morning. Final results? I haven't even looked, we've gone straight into 8-way.

8-Way! There are six teams registered for this event. This is the first meet in memory where there are more people doing 8-way than 4-way (they like big in Texas). Besides Airspeed (jumping with Mike Scott in Alan Metni's slot) there are at least two other practiced teams: Deguello and Warp Factor, both of which looked good on round 1. This is going to be a fun one to watch (of course, I say that about all of them, don't I?)

Mike Smith, Momma Waz & TimBONUS - My parents rolled in this morning, and my dear mom -- who is celebrating the 40th anniversary of her 21st birthday today -- brought some of her famous fried chicken with her. This is turning into a really great weekend ;-) This is a picture with my AFF L1 jumpmaster from 1985, Mike Smith, and mom.

8-Way round 1 is done, yep, gonna be a good one today.

12:00
*SPLASH!*
Mark Kirkby just demonstrated his backstroke in the swoop pond, earning his Pond Frog #22Frog #22 for Mark Kirkby on the ceremonial life preserver just after round 3.

After 2 rounds, we've got a real battle for 2nd place bragging rights between Frostie G (Frost and Genesis) and Deguello, with Warp Factor alone in 4th (all based on raw points). The weather is holding up, and it's time for some of mom's fried chicken. HOOwah...

Dan BC, Jack Jefferies & Momma WazBTW, it's Tim on location here. Send Ted voluminous e-mail in support of this monster he's created, and send messages to competitors to me.

The weather gods became jealous of the fried chicken, and now we're on a hold.

3:30
Okay, we threw some chicken wings to the weather gods and the last round of the meet is in the air. Now it's raining chicken bones.

5:30
IT'S A WRAP. See the results pages for the winners, but I gotta say those DeLand folk did some nice skydiving this weekend. Skydive Houston was totally awesome and everyone really worked together to pull off a great meet.

See NEXT TIME at CROSS KEYS NEW JERSEY!

k'chink t2