chaz720.net - journal

September 01, 2003

Flies are buzzing round my head. Vultures circling the dead, picking up every last crumb. The big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones. Not my problem, give me some. You can try the best you can. If you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough. If you try the best you can, if you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough. This one's optimistic. This one went to market. This one just came out of the swamp. This one dropped a payload. Fodder for the animals, living on animal farm. You can try the best you can. If you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough. I'd really like to help you, man. I'd really like to help you, man. And now this messed up millionaire, floating around on a prison ship.

Write a journal entry? Sure, why not?

Well I must say a shitload has happened since the last installment so I'll try to sum things up as best I can.

The conclusion of work went pretty smoothly, I was able to get my projects documented just fine. The drive back wasn't as bad as I felt it was going to be. Really I just set the cruise, rolled the windows down, turned up the radio and sang for two days, and then I was home. In Georgia I exchanged presents with my sister (she got me this cool drawing from a gallery she saw out in Washington which is now in my room)

I got my equalizer installed in my car very nicely, it looks as good as I was hoping it would, and it really makes a big difference in the reproduction in my car, night and day.

I saw Radiohead live in St Loius last Sunday which was unbelievable. They put on an awesome show, they did two encores, and at any given moment, played the exact song that we were hoping they'd play. It was incredible, easily the best live performance I've seen. I can't think of anything they didn't play that I'd have wanted them to, the set lasted almost 3 hours.

I've started out all my classes, and they all seem pretty cool except for ece359. The professor is this french woman who just sounds like she's yelling at you the whole time like you've done something wrong and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle it. Convieniently enough, this is a class that I took because I thought it might just be interesting and I don't actually need it for anything. I figure I'll give it a week or two before I decide, but right now, it's not looking good :P

The next few pieces of news are related, and the first is the most important. I finally sacked up and told my parents about my adventures in skydiving. I can't really put into words the shock I experienced after discovering that they were very open about it. I gave them a tour of my rig, and I think if I can I'm going to bring them down to the dropzone some weekend and let them watch me jump. It definately makes me feel better that they know, and I want to also comment that telling them once I had my own gear and license was pretty much the plan from the start.

So the next thing is quad day, as the new pres of the skydiving club I got to sit in on the quad the day before school, distribute flyers, take names, and answer questions people had about skydiving. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, as it was interesting to see people in just about every bit of the interest spectrum ask their questions. We got about 600 names and e-mails and all our flyers disappeared pretty quickly so I'm hopeful of the turn out. Talking with the dropzone owners, we are also able to get some really good deals for the people who want to come out and jump.

The final thing is this weekend, ahhh! crazy-go-nuts.

I speant the weekend (so far) at the dropzone so that I could skydive as much as possible. I made four jumps on Saturday, and one jump Sunday. It kinda stunk because of weather, but I was able to do a lot of fun stuff. I think I finally got the whole level thing down as keeping up with a group is no longer a huge production for me anymore (I used to have a hard time falling much above 115mph) I think it took John just grabbing my arms during a practice on the ground and just shaking them violently and yelling "for god sakes, relax!" that certainly makes all the difference in the world. Now I can focus more on my tendency to orbit around when flying for a slot =(

I played around with sitflying some, and I went to a seminar by Brian Germain (a rather famous canopy designer) regarding flight characteristics and I had a lot of good questions answered. He also gave pointers regarding equipment, providing tips to improve performance and safety. The highlight of the weekend, however, was definitely seeing the expression on Marc's face when he came in too steep on an all falling-illini formation we were making, more or less crashing into Sam and I and flipping over through the middle of the formation and falling away from it. If I ever get my hands on the video of that jump I'll have to post it here.

Well anyway, it's good to be back, our apartment is pretty sweet (and contains some new furniture for my room I made) and it's great to have skydiving as a new open topic of the journal entries and possibly even photos to come, expect to hear more.

September 07, 2003

Hey man you know I'm really okay. The gun in my hand will tell you the same. But when I'm in my car, don't give me no crap, cause the slightest thing and I just might snap. When I go driving I stay in my lane, but getting cut off makes me insane. I open the glove box, reach inside, I'm gonna wreck this fucker's ride. I guess I got a bad habit. And it ain't goin' away. Yeah! Yeah! Well they say the road's a dangerous place. If you flip me off I'll get in your face. You drive on my ass, you're foot's on the gas, And your next breath is your last. Drivers are rude, such attitudes, but when I show my piece, complaints cease. Something's odd, I feel like I'm God. You stupid dumb shit god damn mother fucker. I open the glove box, reach inside, I'm gonna wreck this fucker's ride.

Yeah, ece359 got dropped with about as much thought as I used to add it to my schedule in the first place. The first assignment and the screaming woman were just too much. Course: dropped. Textbook: returned.

My other work I had to do this week wasn't too bad. It's just hard to get into the homework cycle after being used to coming home and no longer having to worry about things til I get back to work the next day. A couple more assignments and I'll be all set. Besides, my [remaining] professors are pretty cool so this semester should shape up to be a bit of alright.

(insert clever segue)

So yeah, skydiving saturday. I went out with Aaron, Angela, and Paul. Did a few jumps which were kinda interesting. The exits have been going really well, but the new problem I've developed now that I got my fall rates all set is backsliding. Apparently when I arch I like to bring my feet to far in which causes me to fly backwards the whole time. Somewhat annoying when trying to dock, I get to work on that next week.

Funny jump of the week: a five-way organized by Missy where, on the first point, I was in the center, with one person docked on each of my limbs. The only problem is everyone was kinda drifting around a bit waiting for the fifth to come, often times out from the center, which would flatten me out, making me cup air and pull up. Long story short I felt like I was being drawn and quartered the whole time. About 45 seconds later I'd had quite enough of that so I broke it off. Still a lot of fun, but prolly looked pretty funny from an outside view.

After that, Paul and I decided to do some more two-way jumps so we could pay closer attention to what the other was doing and be able to comment once we got on the ground. The third jump we spent flying near each other and keeping our heading and fall rates the same without taking any docks. Then just to make it interesting at around 8000' started trading off doing backflips.

So I'm going to get an RW suit. There's really only one way to go when it comes to suits, so that makes that decision easy. I'll prolly get measured for it next weekend. If you come up with some cool color schemes of what you think I should get let me know, I'm not really sure what I want right now and am open to suggestions (no, suggesting all pink is not creative or amusing)

So Saturday night we had dinner with a bunch of David's roommates and friends which was cool. We then went back to David's and played some hardcore competitive foosball and did jaeger-bombs all night. I figured out two things doing this. One: jaeger-bombs taste like Robitussin. Two: the purchase of a foosball table for our apartment is inevitable. Between that and Hans getting a nice dartboard this place is going to go off whatever scale it is we are using to measure our apartment... probably something about the level of ass being kicked...

September 15, 2003

My name is volatile, I've been this way a long while. I'd surely like to rest, but the energy gets the best of me. It's been a wild ride. I wouldn't change a minute. I can't slow down inside, guess that's why I live it. The years of mischief, followed by weeks of thrift. I land on earth's hard face, no legs could keep that pace. And through the rest I sift. Is there ever a time when the state of sleeping willingly leaves my mind? Highly frustrated, wanna feel elated. Come monday morn you feel checkmated. You can be uncool and become the rule, exceptions were made to drown. I'm not used to it, you'd think I'd be by now. The ins, the outs, the ups, and the downs. I wanna make a mess. I wanna blow off stress. I wanna stoke the fire. Just creatures for a while. It comes and goes, and comes and goes. Sometimes, I go a little crazy. Sometimes, I go a little crazy just like you, I do. I know what you we're gonna say, but were afraid to cause dismay. You're lyrics switched around. The mixture watered down, and now a pointless display. It's something one won't understand, unless there in it with me hand and hand. Don't buy the fear, don't buy that my dear. The things you love you must keep near. Carry on and you won't feel withdrawn, even if you're coming down. Sometimes it's wearable, sometimes is bearable. I careen towards balance til' the glass is full. Sometimes, I get a little out there. Sometimes, I go off. Sometimes, just like you.

Now, I wouldn't say that I'm a huge fan of watching surgical proceedings. Much the same, I'm not a connoisseur of getting shots or having blood work done. However, neither of these activities gets to me quite like a good old fashion in-depth description of medical experiments, or talking about how cool bile is. I can recall a few times where the discussion of these kinds of things in classes made me have to leave the room and get a drink of water. So now it's simple, if the teacher starts talking about how kidneys work, I just start doodling in my notebook and ignoring them.

In my History of Science class on Thursday, my prof was going on about clamping things off inside of a pig (complete with diagrams) so I started drawing little skydiving guys in my notebook. Just as I was thinking how clever this technique was for averting my dilemma, a kid a few seats away from me just up and falls out of his chair whacking his head on the desk next to him. Myself and another couple people asked loudly if he was okay and, not getting an answer, I went for my cell phone. I had dialed "9-" before a guy walked past me already on the phone with the paramedics, so I put my phone away. Someone who was some sort of pre-med student or something, got a pack of Kleenex from a girl and used it as a compress for his forehead. The guy regained consciousness but said he was very dizzy. I'm guessing he just has a new scar and a headache now. The professor was nice enough to end the class early before it put anyone else in the hospital.

Hey, how about that weather out there eh? I could definitely get used to this. Hopefully it will stick around for a while. I like the "t-shirt and jeans" temperature along with the deep blue skies we've been getting. Utterly beautiful.

Went jumping Saturday (what! you're kidding!) and made a couple of jumps before it started getting crappy out. I replaced the first four rubber-bands on my d-bag with smaller ones which has made getting the bag into my rig easier, and my openings have been a bit smoother as well, win-win. I ordered my jumpsuit which should get here in about a month. It takes a while cause it's custom made, but I figure I'll just try and forget about having ordered it so when it's gets here it will be a pleasant surprise. It's U of I colors, and you can check out what it will look like here.

David's house has a couple spawns of engineering in it now. Including a kegerator which handles it's two jobs in a most excellent fashion (keeping beer cold, and dispensing it) as well as a kick-ass Beirut table. Cutting holes in and shelves out of a refrigerator was a lot of fun I can assure you. The table still needs the house's logo painted at half court and then a few layers of lacquer, but the whole of the table is built, sanded, and painted quite nicely. Still more trips over to Urbana are on the horizon now.

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