Sorry to interrupt my ramblings on the subject of survival but tis the season for thankfulness and I really can’t relate to you all how blessed I am this year until I bring you all up to speed on what’s been happening in the McCauley family for the last 6 months or so. This would’ve been easier if I hadn’t taken a 6 month break in posting huh?
Super girl left college in Minnesota and moved out west to go to a school that had a better program but seeing that the price for out of state tuition is a little expensive she’s decided to work for a year to establish residency. So why is this even remotely interesting? Because to support herself she got a job at the local wind tunnel. Now I know most of you have no clue what the hell that is so I’ll try and explain. A wind tunnel is where skydivers go to practice their free fall skills in a controlled environment without the worry of getting by a planet. The great thing about a wind tunnel is that you can fly for minutes at a time instead of seconds and that makes for faster learning and LOTS OF FUN! (sorry, but I get excited) And why, you still might ask, is this interesting? Because dear reader she get’s to fly in the wind tunnel for free and develop skills in mere months that normally would’ve taken years. And not only that, her family get’s to fly in the tunnel for free as well! (not that I care about such things)
Fast forward to early this month and Cathy and I make the big trip out west to see how our first born is handling living in the big city all alone. We did all the normal stuff parents do when visiting their daughter. Cathy spent three days cleaning SG’s apartment while I spent the same amount of time getting her Land Rover back into some sort of safe driving condition. Did you know that you have to take the grill off to change the turn signal bulbs? Yah, me neither. But the trip wasn’t just helping SG with the little things she’d neglected we did manage to make two trips to see where she works and try out the wind tunnel. I was up first and despite the fact that I’ve been jumping for 30 years and have over 15,000 skydives I still stunk. Indoor skydiving is WAY different than the real thing. In my defense the instructors said that I did better than most skydivers in the wind tunnel for the first time because it’s not the same thing as free fall. Still, I’d hoped I would’ve been a little better than that. But the big story of the day was the show my wife put on. Because despite owning a drop zone, and being married to one of the most amazing skydivers in the the world, (that would be me) she has never jumper out of a perfectly good airplane, or even one of ours. Cathy started out like any other first timer in the wind tunnel but she was doing so good the instructor let go of her and she killed it! No wobbling about, no smashing into the walls, nothing, rock steady. You typically do 2 minutes at a time and by the end of her second round she was doing complete turns and moving back and forth like an expert. SG and I were astonished. Oh and speaking of Super Girl, she’s amazing in the tunnel. I knew her skydiving and dance background would translate perfectly into flying in the tunnel but I had no idea just how good she’d gotten. And yes, this is hard to say, she is better than me in the tunnel, WAY better! Of course she works at the tunnel and gets to fly everyday, but still. Super proud of my girls I am.
Where’s Cathy? Someone has to take pictures.
If you don’t know what indoor skydiving looks like here’s a little taste. I’m almost as good as these guys. And by almost I mean not at all.
Where’s Cathy? Someone has to take pictures.