People get paid to do some pretty wacky things in life. I often contemplate that as I assess my own life and the decisions which have brought me to my current position. Say for instance when standing at 15,000 ft in the air, looking out into the dark abyss from the ramp of a C-130. In the last four months, I have spent a generous amount of time in the Deserts of California and Arizona. The Marine Corps picks these locations as parachute drop zones because they're flat, have few obstacles and... because they're miserable. (The average temperature has been about 110 degrees.) When people see movies, like the scene in 'Act of Valor' when those guys are getting ready to jump out of that plane, they're usually thinking "Man, how cool would that be to do for work." Like I said, people get paid to do some pretty wacky things. And I'd have to agree, that's pretty cool to do for a living. Do you ever wonder what's going through those guys heads as they're about to step into the unknown? I did. Now I know. I'm scared out of my mind. I've got a soundtrack of "Come, Come ye Saints" and "Downtown" by Lady Antebellum endlessly looping in my head to try to keep calm. Which usually ends up with me doing some tantric 'ohmming' just to keep the bile from coming up. The movies don't show you how long those guys have been jocked up in a parachute, waiting on the flight line to board that aircraft. Or how the airplane smells like stale flatulence, man-sweat, fear and hot exhaust. Sadly I'm pretty intimate with that smell as it's a frequent companion in my line of work. I always thought they need to do a reality show- or at least a movie with some reality to it to show how things truly are. There's a lot of comedy in reality. Ever seen a tough guy operator try to pee while wearing all that gear? Not so simple. And I bet just out of the picture shot of everyone landing nicely like professional skydivers is the real guy who comes in hot and lands like a sack of wet noodles and scorpions his legs over his head as he stops his fall with his face. I think people would love to see that real side of things.
I've got to say my job is pretty cool at times. A little nerve racking at times, but cool. Today I did a running 3X front flip exit, some barrel rolls and some flips. Then I went to the wind tunnel (Indoor Skydiving) to refine some maneuvers. Think of Charlie and Grandpa in Willy Wonka when they drink the floating bubbly drink and they fly around in the sky. Same concept but instead there's a fan literally blowing so hard the snot streams out of your nose and wraps around your face. Add a couple episodes of "What not to Wear", some fast food and that's my day. Knock on wood I can keep it up for the next two weeks to pass this school. And then it's on to the next adventure.
