Skydive Dallas
I decided to get a little crazy and "hang out" for a while with the folks at Skydive Dallas. If I look a little tipsy it's because that's how I felt. At around 10,000 feet you start to feel lightheaded because of the thin air. This shot was from 13,500 feet. You have to take deep slow breaths to breathe. It's a funny feeling to have. 
We were the last 2 out of the plane. There were 12 of us huddled up in a fuselage the size of a 7-passenger minivan. The cameraman is holding on outside of the plane and he's waiting for me to give a thumbs up. From there it's a 3-count and we push out. That's my instructor Ernie strapped on the back of me. His breath was a mixture of smoke and shit, but he was a fun person. This was his 9,037th jump. 
After yelling "holy shit!" 3 or 4 times, I realized that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. You don't get that queasy feeling that you get on roller coaster drops. Well, okay, you get it for like a half second but it immediately goes away and you feel nothing. 
The cord that you see isn't the parachute, we're still in freefall at this point. It's a small chute called a stabilizer that's probably 2 feet wide. It allows you to have more control over your movement while falling. This shot is from 9,000 feet. 
We're falling at 120 miles per hour. It's kinda crazy because my wrists and ankles got really cold from being exposed to the wind. The pressure in my ears couldn't change fast enough to keep up with the fall so I got earaches, but it's a small price to pay for the adrenaline rush. Yu have to put yourself in a certain position when you're falling. Your hands have to be out and parallel to your body and your feet have to be up. We went over this in the class we took right before the jump. I guess it helps with the aerodynamics of the fall. 
I'm givin a thumbs up to the cameraman, who was videotaping the jump too. We're not gonna talk about how much that cost...let's just say it's highway robbery, but it's definitely something you want to get because hey, it's not every day you go skydiving (well at least the normal people) and you want some proof when you start bragging to your buddies. Of course I had to edit out the pics of me pissin my pants right before I got on the plane. 
You can see the plane in the background. It actually beat us to the ground. He makes a sharp dive after we jump out. The instructor in the class said that you'd much rather have jumped out than stay on with the pilot...it's not a fun ride back down. The plane wasn't any bigger than my car, and the damn runway was a grass field with a guy who'd come out every few hours and flatten the grass with a big roller like you see when streets are being paved. 
We're in freefall for a minute and then the parachute ride is about 5 minutes. In that first minute we fell about 10,000 feet. 
I can't even begin to put into words how much fun it is. It's worth every penny. Yeah, the butterflies were flyin around in my stomach, and when that door opened at 13,500 feet I took a deep breath and thought to myself, "what the f*!k am I doing up here?" All that went out the window...literally, HA!
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