A new home... DD has it's perks!

They've been talking about it for a long time now, moving us to different barracks because the current ones were getting way too crowded. Yesterday when we got back from school they told us to go get our stuff and move. We'd already been assigned rooms in the new building and I was in a twelve man. I didn't have much of a problem with this because I had a bottom bunk and our class was next on the line to get good rooms when the senior class graduates. Come to find out the senior class tested out of their last class last night so they were put on the day schedule to wait to leave. It was only third platoon(mids and swings) that they moved so as to make more space for both shifts. Long story short I got a two man room with Schumann complete with a desk.

Last night after Schumann came back from his denial appointment and moved his stuff over he asked if I would go with him to a Texas country music concert (Robert Earl Keen) in Atlanta. An old friend from where he went to college invited him. Because he way paying for the rental car, and the tickets I said why not. The drive to Atlanta is a good two and a half hours with out traffic and it was nice being able to switch out on the way there. Because I'd been on my feet all night in class and day moving our stuff over I was beat. The last hour on the way there I slept. We arrived and I was passed out, and the guys at the entrance saw me passed out. Schumann woke me up and gave me a 5-hour energy shot which woke me right up. I was still slightly groggy when I got to the door and I handed the man at the entrance my military ID. He read my birthday and then attempted to give me a "Over 21" wrist band. The manager saw what he was doing and came right over. The manager asked if he had really said 89 and then confronted the guy for trying to give me the band. The manager had seen me passed out in the car and asked how much I had drank tonight and I told him nothing. He then had me step aside where he gave me a Breathalyzer test just to let me in. Once everything checked out we got in. The music was allot of fun. It was a huge non-smoking honkeytonk where the band plays right above a huge dance floor. Someone wasn't doing their job all that well on the sound board so it was rather hard to make out the singing from about half way back to the back of the building. Therefore everyone stood on the dance floor right next to the stage where you could hear the acoustic instruments and the singing w/out the sound system. Robert Earl Keen is a mix with traditional country(Willy Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, etc) and some delta blues instrumentals(pedal steel and dobro). I had a blast.

On the way back I drove(DD) since Schumann had a couple on the friend who invited him. We stooped by a gas station to doze off in the car for a couple of hours before driving back and I discovered canned Arizona Green Tea. This might not sound like much, but here in Georgia it is near impossible to find. I've only run across it twice the whole time I've been here. I proceeded to purchase it and slowly sipping on it I drove all the way back straight through. We arrived back around 0320.

Skydiving video

I'm awful on video. Guys around here say I do some of those weird things normally, going to try to stop. For example the quick head twitch, awkward smile, non looking at the camera, etc. YouTube blocked out the audio, which isn't a big deal because it's just some stupid song they put on there. Anyway, enjoy without sound. I didn't think I was that nervous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v298DtQMAfo

Revenge...

Now that the half marathon is over and I'm getting back to a more normal schedule I played racquetball for the first time in two weeks today. Hopefully I'll be doing it more often. What is more important that that though is the outcome of today's two games. I killed Schumann in both games, first one was 13 to 15 and the second I only let him score five. During the second game he repeatedly was in the way of the racquetball. I hit him three times. We used to play for an hour or two at a time, now for some reason he's beat after just two. But that was back when I lost almost every game. The huge beer he had at lunch today probably didn't help either.

Thank God for good weather!

This is the third weekend we've driven out to this airport to attempt a jump. This time the weather was beautiful. Not a cloud in sight. Before we could get started we had to redo the paperwork... yes I am jumping out of a airplane, yes I understand this is not normal, yes I am committing suicide, yes I know this parachute could possibly save me, but it could not also, yes I know this is a conscious decision, no I will no sue anyone, no my family will not sue anyone, and even if they try they will have to pay all their own winnings. Nearly twenty initials and four signatures later the paperwork was done for the third time.

Here we go again. This time we take off all metal and everything out of our pockets. They give us these marune looking one piece suits. It fits just fine. We are then adjusted in the harness and helmet. The funny looking helmet is more for the sake of the guy jumping with us so it doesn't hurt so bad when we bang heads.

Schumann and I were on the second ride up. Once we were on the plane it started to set in what I had relly got myself into. Within a couple of minutes we were at altitude and the door came open. We scuffled to the door on our knees and on a count of three we fell out. Up at fifteen thousand feet you can see the curvature of the earth. Tumbling several times we saw earth then plane to earth again and back up at the plane. You know that falling feeling you get on roller coasters and stuff, there was none of that. You just go faster until you reach terminal velocity. Which you manage to keep under 140(safe parachute opening speed) by the traditional skydiving position, belly to earth. After a minute or so of free fall we had gone nearly ten thousand feet and my ears felt like they were about to explode. Changing altitude that fast can have negative affects on your hearing. For the rest of the day everything was muffled. The only real falling feeling is when the chute opens. We opened at roughly five thousand feet and floated around for ten minutes or so. Next time we go I'll do the AFF(accelerated free fall) which includes a six hour class and allows us to jump with our own parachute. The took a video of it, I'll have that this next weekend to post.

Connell who is pictured up top had never been on an airplane before and he was completely terrified of the whole thing. Having airborne in his contract he wanted to get some of the fear out of the way in a more relaxed environment. When he got down he loved the free fall and the plane ride but hated the parachute. He kept asking if there was ways to open lower or do away with it all together. They reminded him that you don't need a parachute to jump once, you need it to jump twice.

Room cleaning...

We had a few new people move into our room and we are no longer able to keep our supplies in the "broken locker". In an effort to hide and yet allow access to all members of the room they are located in a ceiling tile. This we did after asking our squad sergeant. He is one of the few that allow reasonable compromise if it won't hurt anything. Most other squad sergeants wouldn't allow anything in the ceiling. Been spending allot of time around Connell recently working out after PT. It's fun to do some real exercise. Regular company PT here is a joke.

Picture-less day...

It's not like anything happened. Nothing happened today, and I left the camera in my wall locker. I spent the day attempting to recover from yesterday, I'm still walking funny. I need to get off, My Internet device doesn't reset till the fourth and I think I'm near my limit.

13.1

Today starting at 0700 I competed in a half marathon. Around 12.5 miles a friend who was a road guard for the race had my camera. I finished 91st out of nearly 800. One of the guys in our group finished fifteenth. I maintained roughly a 7.40 mile pace. My time was 1:39:42. In the red is SFC Norganrd. Underneath him is Schumann. And lastly SFC Albers. Starting about mile eight there were allot of hills to the end. 10.5 to 12 was the hardest for me. It was on the freeway, which was canted to the left and had three large hills with no downhill in between. This is when quite a few passed me.

We were invited to return to compete in the half iron man as a relay team next year as a relay. One man runs 13.1 miles, One bikes something like fifty miles and then a third swims. I hope to be gone before then.

Out of the women overall a 55year old finished third with a time of 1 hour 25min. The guy who won overall ran in an hour and twelve minutes. His overall pace was 5:20/mi. His first two he ran in just over eight minutes. If only I could do that on a pt test. Usually when I run after a couple of miles it gets easy because most of the pain goes away. I found the end of that today. At ten miles in it became real painful. I would say the reason is because when we trained we never ran over nine miles because of the amount time allotted for PT.