Saturday 3 September
0700Up at dawn in Arizona, kiss the family bye, and hit the road. Fill up at $3.07 a gallon, $47 total, and head West down the I10. I think, a couple thousand miles behind me, of the carnage left by Katrina and wish off a prayer for all those people.
1330
Pull into Perris Valley Skydiving, and whoa dude, no place to park. Find
a spot at the far end of the lot. Grateful to self that self packed the
kid's Little Red Wagon. Wave hi to Melanie while pulling loaded wagon
through DZ and WHOA again, this place is hopping! We are talking
runway-to-warehouse skydivers here folks, and I hear Dan Cook on manifest
and planes taking off and teams creeping dirt diving and hey there's Scott
Smith, time to find the DZTV room.
1500
DZTV room not ready for setup, so head to hotel and check in. Good room.
Will do just fine.
1730
Back to DZ and head to Bomb Shelter for beers with Kurt Gaebel. Much
knobbing of hobs and greetings with friends. Great to be here, great to see
you! No, Ted's not here, just me, that's right, of course I'll pass that hug
on to Mom. Wow, look at all these competitors!
1800
Terrific opening ceremony and AE/CF awards. Nice DC-9 flyby. Stand in
chow line with Dan BC and catch up with his fine family. Cloe is 10 already?
But she was just a baby in Gap! She's a young lady now!
An exchange with Dan goes as follows (he's wearing and ankle cast and on
crutches):
Me (pointing at his ankle): "That's not a skydiving thing, is it?"
Dan (with a knowing eye): "When have I ever got hurt skydiving!"
He said it was a tennis thing. How could I have thought otherwise!
2030
To the DZTV room and knock out these bits before heading to Hotel. Looks
like we have around 80 4-way teams registered. The buzz around 4-way open is
a big question mark; everyone thinks there are five or six teams that have
the potential to take the gold. Two AZ teams, two DeLand teams, the Knights,
and perhaps Fastrax has an ace up their jumpsuit. Looks like it's going to
be a really good show.
I'm going to say that I'm here to run DZTV for Skydive Perris and put the
scores up live, so the tidbits may be sparse this week, but I'll do my best.
I have some help in Chris ? taking team photos and Jan Meyer with DZTV, so
if things go well we'll have the whole kit & kaboodle here again.
Stay tuned!
2200
My apologies to the AE/CF competitors for not have their results up yet,
I had time problems at home and there is no connection here as I write this
Saturday night, we should be online in the morning.
Ted "T1" Wagner, Chief Engineer | Tim "T2" Wagner, Webmaster