Christmas Festivities

Its been about one year since I started flying. I think of many of you as my new extended family as you have all helped me to advance in my flying and have offered me encouragement, and great friendship along the way. So...

Every year my family (i.e. my mother) organizes a Christmas party that seems to outdo itself year after year for family and friends. I feel its fair to invite my new family to attend this year. Most of you will blend right in with my biological family as most of you are just as and in some special cases (you know who you are) more dysfunctional than the rest of us.

So for those of you who are inclined feel welcome to come attend this Sunday.








In case you were wondering about the photo at the top of the article... Last year December on Saturday, I showed up at my family's home to help setup for the party in the morning. Afterwards Leo and I went to Nanakuli for my third solo flight. It is still in my top three most epic flights.

There was a high completely overcast cloud base @ 3500ft with 8-12mph WNW winds make for a nice Nanakuli ridge soaring day.

I can expand on the story later if people want but I'm sure most of you have heard it. But the highlights are...

1. Immediately after taking off from middle launch thinking... "Oh my god!!! I'm not so sure about this paragliding thing suddenly as I am swept up to 2700 ft."

2. One of Pete's students hanging like a Christmas ornament from the ONLY tree on the dump side of the ridge after his first flight attempt.

3. Flying XC to soar the next ridge.

4. (Key) Top "landing" @ Aircrafts. I flew too deep over the flat top and realized a little too late that I was not going to make it back to the ridge when I was 30ft off the ground and about 10 feet from a tree. I kicked a branch hard so I wouldn't hang up on it and ended up falling about 5-8 feet when my glider shot forward and I dove straight at the ground. Dusted myself off, looked for injuries and saw only a small 1/2" gash in my leg that was hardly bleeding at all. I limped my way to the ridge line with my glider balled getting small blood spatter on it in quite a few places. I spread my glider out all alone on a new huge easy launch, and had a nice takeoff.

I landed an hour later in the baseball field at sunset after about a 3 1/2 hour total flight. As I landed my leg had cramped up pretty good so I touched down on one foot. I fell over as Alex ran over asking if I was ok because he had heard I had crashed. I stood up gritting my teeth against the pain and assured him I was fine and I could walk.

Needless to say I was not fine and my leg got worse over the next day. My mother was wicked pissed I had hurt myself and made a stationary object of myself at the party. She has threatened to finish me off if I do this again.

The muscle damage healed but the wound would not. It was really neat looking as Alex can tell you oozing and all. After about 2 months of repeated doctor visits, I went in for surgery and they pulled that thing out of my leg.

So... moral of the story is... don't piss my mom off or she will kill you... or something...

Merry Christmas