I woke up at 6:00 this morning to jump out of an airplane. Nuts, huh? Maybe, but I enjoyed the hell out of my day.

My mom decided to go with me, so we drove out to Skydive Houston to meet my friend Patience, her brother Gabe, and Robin. After getting lost thanks to the crappy directions on MapQuest, we finally got there about 8:30. Since I arrived first, I watched a quick ten minute video about tandem diving (no way was I jumping out of a plane alone) and how it was invented. The rest of the group showed up and then we sat around and watched some other jumpers and everyone getting ready. Since all four of us wanted videos, we ended up having to wait a few hours and being split into two planes.

Finally, the time for Robin and I to jump was upon us. We got suited up, had some instructions from our jumpers, and headed out to the two propeller plane that takes everyone up.

I expected the ride to be pretty bumpy, but it was a really easy take-off. There were about fifteen people in there including me, Robin, our jumpers, and our videographers. All the people who were solo jumping were really nice and you could tell that they were happy for us that we were about to do our first jump. At 7,000 feet we finished suiting up and sat in their laps so we could get attached to their rigs. It was then up to 13,500 feet (just over two and a half miles) and time to jump.

When Eric (my jumper; he's jumped between 4,500 and 5,000 times) and I approached the door, I did the dumbass thing of looking down and my first thought was, "Oh, fuck. This is way too high." Since I was strapped to Eric who was about a foot taller than me and outweighed me by a hundred pounds or so, when he jumped, I went along for the ride.

Honestly, after the first shock of looking down, I wasn't scared at all. I can't really describe the feeling, but it was unlike anything I've ever felt. It wasn't like falling, which I had expected, but probably as close to flying as a person can ever feel, especially at 120 miles per hour.

The freefall was awesome, but the best part was after he pulled the chute. Suddenly, it was the most peaceful, quietest experience of my life. On the ground, there's always ambient sounds - the hum of the refrigerator and other electrical appliances, people talking, etc. Up in the air, though, there was nothing. That alone made it worth everything.

Landing was easy since all I did was tuck my knees up and Eric did the rest. Robin landed after me so I watched her come down. Patience and Gabe were in the next plane so we went in and got out of our suits and came back out to watch them. Patience brought along champagne, so we then toasted ourselves and agreed to make this our first jump anniversary and come out and do this every year around this day. All in all, I'm proud of myself and I am so doing this again.

You can see the video from when I jumped out of the plane until the chute pull by clicking here. Here's some of the pictures from the jump as well. These four are my favorites. To see the rest, click the "Read More" link. Click the thumbnails to embiggen.

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There are only nine more days until Project Blog and I am very far away from my goal of $250. To help encourage people to participate, I decided to do a little raffle. For every $5.00 that you pledge to sponsor me, your name goes into a drawing. The winner gets a complete set of my Burn It CDs including the Summer 2004 Edition that I'm working on. That's six CDs (this Burn's going to have two volumes) mixed by me. As anyone who's gotten my CDs in the past can attest to, they're pretty cool with snazzy labels and art work. You know you're dying to be the big winner, so go and sponsor me. Hey, it's only $5.00.

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Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears by Ellen Datlow (Editor) and Terri Windling (Editor): a collection of fairy tales written especially for adults.

Datlow and Windling are some of the best editors, especially in the horror and fantasy fields, that almost any book they put together is wonderful and this one is no exception. As Ellen Datlow herself says, there's nothing new in this collection in regards to the themes of the stories since in literary fairy tales, uniqueness and novelty are besides the point. However, even with nothing new, these stories are still amazing.

The stories themselves range from light fantasy to darkly horrific and are retellings of such well-known tales as "Beauty and the Beast," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Little Match Girl," "The Wizard of Oz," and more. Even though we may be familiar with these tales, the authors invariably give each one a bit of their own style or idea and it becomes something entirely different in most cases.

Personal favorites in this anthology included "The Beast," "Masterpiece," "Roach in Loafers," "Brother Bear," "The Real Princess," "The Huntsman's Story," "Match Girl," "Waking the Prince," "The Fox Wife," "The White Road," and "The Printer's Daughter."

(Finished on July 13, 2004 for Zuly's Reading Room.)

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Small said, "But what about when we are dead and gone, will you love me then, does love go on?"

Large held Small snug as they looked out at the night, at the moon in the dark and the stars shining bright. "Small, look at the stars, how they shine and glow, some of the stars died a long time ago. Still they shine in the evening skies, for you see, Small, love like starlight never dies..."

- Debi Gliori, No Matter What

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Last night I joined Irfan and a few of his friends at The Continental Club for a hell of an evening.

First up was The El Orbits, a group that I'd heard once over at Christine's. They were amazing. I love David Beebe's voice (and I must admit to developing a little crush on him as the evening wore on) and I am incredibly happy whenever I can sit back and listen to lounge music from the 50s and 60s, especially with a cosmopolitan in hand (Thanks for the drinks, Irfan!). They definitely would have made it on to my Burn It cover songs CD if I would have know about them then.

There's supposed to be free bingo every Monday night, but they're having a bit of a run-in with the Texas Lottery Commission and it's been put on hold for a little while. To help support their "Bribe the Man" fund, I picked up two of their CDs which, btw, absolutely rock.

After The El Orbits got done playing, a German band called The Twang took the stage. The Twang take (mostly) American pop songs and turn them into American country music. You've never truly appreciated The Bee-Gee's "Stayin' Alive" until you've heard it sung by a German as a country song. They're going to be at The Continental Club next Monday and, if you're in town, I highly suggest catching them live.

We then headed out to The Front Door Pub for a few drinks and some debate on whether people coming from another country should have to learn English. We closed the place down and I headed home to eat some cheap tacos and finish watching The 4400 which I enjoyed immensely and would suggest that you try and watch.

For your listening pleasure, I've got one of my favorite songs by The El Orbits and a snippet of one of The Twang's pieces. Be sure to do the right click and "Save As" thing. If you enjoy the songs, go and buy a CD either at their next live show or through their websites. Enjoy!

The El Orbits - Night and Day
The Twang - YMCA

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Sunday my friend Patience called to talk. We started chatting about our plans for the upcoming week and she mentioned that she and her younger brother were going skydiving Saturday. I have always wanted to skydive but have never found anyone that wanted to go with me, so I quickly jumped at the chance (Get it? Jumped at the chance. Thank you, folks. I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.) and invited myself along.

So, Saturday, at 9:00 in the morning, we will be going to Skydive Houston to throw ourselves out of a plane. It'll be a tandem dive since I don't completely trust myself not to screw something up and end up as a grease spot on the ground.

I'm actually pretty psyched about this. It kind of makes me feel brave and cool. I really hope that I enjoy it!

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