my random ramblingsan infrequent (and these days, mostly Mira related…) blog

2011 will bring lots of time spent in Chicago, so opted for an apartment instead of the weekly hotels. scored a place downtown in the center of everything – should be fun. enjoyed my trip to Ikea for an opportunity to buy “everything”.

drove out to Oak Park for Christmas dinner at Vicky’s. nice to spend time with the extended family and see my second cousins.

at Kunaal’s for a party and a promised night of poker. bunch of folks and a bunch of kids, but no poker… fun night, ended up staying there rather than making the long drive back through the snow.

battled traffic to meet up with Jeffrey downtown after work, joining him for a late dinner at Frontera. great time catching up, and not surprisingly turned into a late night.

downtown again this weekend searching for the new city digs. found a promising candidate in a building with its own bowling alley, among other amenities. lunch in Greektown on the way out.

second time in as many weeks – thanks for the recommendation Brian. and their eastern European vodka selection blows away the beer choices…

late night packing, hectic morning finishing and wrapping up other details. tried to soak up the views on my way out, then got to spend my third day in a row at the SLC airport.

up and at the hangar ready to go, but we were put on a weather hold due to a cloud layer. got a jump in late in the morning when a hole developed, then another jump early afternoon, but the conditions were turning overly windy. now up to 94 jumps for the year, and got pretty close to my optimistic target of 100 by year end. made the drive back up to Phoenix, and flew into SLC to sit on my JAC flight for 2 hours before it got canceled and i got stuck in Salt Lake for the night… 🙁

was up late, and slept on a couch most of the night even though my bed was only a few steps away. nonetheless, up early, grabbed breakfast and manifested on the first load. second jump of the morning, did a 2-way with Craig Girard, member of Arizona Airspeed and arguably the best skydiver alive. got a ton of helpful feedback on my skydiving from the jump, and he was even nice enough to let me copy some footage from our jumps off of his GoPro. did a few more jumps with him through the day and ended up with a total of 7. went through my audible jump records and found a jump from this afternoon with an 87 second freefall! drove into the nearby town for dinner at a recommended sushi restaurant, then back to the DZ to listen to a DJ and eventually some well earned sleep.

slept ok, all things considered. got up early and had a nice breakfast, then managed to stand-up into the prop in front of the restaurant and put a huge gash on my forehead. 🙁 good thing I collect scars… guess i don’t need to buy a t-shirt now to remember the weekend. got in 6 jumps over the course of the day and had a blast – so glad I came. met some great people and even ran into some people I already knew. on the last jump of the day, watched the women shatter the heads-down freefly world record – setting the new mark at 41. dinner again at the Bent Prop, then boogied all night with the ladies, who were in a festive mood after the record.