Second Time's a Charm

You're strapped to a strangers back inside a tin can 13,000 feet above the ground. The wind whips through your hair as your stomach does flip flops into your throat. “No, no, no,” you mutter as your instructor edges you to the open door.

“Go?” the instructor questions, misinterpreting your “No’s.” It’s too late to correct him as you’ve just been hurled out of the plane at 120 mph, straight towards the little green and brown patches of land way below. Your brain takes about 1 second to realize you’re falling before you manage your first exhilarating scream. You quickly realize, it’s not a scream of fear, but one of wonder, amazement, and awe. You’re plunging towards the ground at terminal velocity, what 5 seconds ago was a spec is shaping into trees, roads, and cars. The ground is rapidly approaching, but you don’t care because you’re falling in a wonderful bliss of uncertainy and freedom. Suddenly you’re yanked upwards, a direct stop to your impeding doom, replaced with a calm float to safety.

Yep, I went skydiving, not for the first time, but the second. My instructor tells me on the plane trip up, "the second time is worst than the first." "What, why?" I choke. I'm already having second thoughts and previously he was distracting my nervousness with mundane questions of where I'm from and what I do. Maybe it's a sick game to have you all calm and right before you leap, to mess with your head a bit; get the heart racing. "'Cause now you know what to expect," he smiles. Last time I jumped I pretty much hated the free falling. Yep, the reason most adrenaline junkies skydive in the first place is the part I despised the most. 

People say that after you jump it's like floating because you're falling at terminal velocity. No, nope, nah uh. They're all mistaken. Falling is falling. At least it was the first time. I just remember jumping (all wrong I might add to the point where they asked if they could show my video to educate other jumpers on what NOT to do when you exit the plane) and my blood pressure skyrocketing because I had a consent stream of butterflies the whole 45 seconds down. My instructor was urging me to smile for the camera, but I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate. Thank God the parachute opened and then it was the most serene 10-minute float back to Earth.

I determined then and there that I was not a "faller" but a "floater". To be able to glide through the air as effortless as a bird and take in the world below me was a wonderful treat. It was what I wanted to do again. This time I was loaded onto the plane with a few friends and my sister. She had always said she wanted to jump, but never had the courage to do it. So when her friends invited her along and I agreed to jump again, she had no excuse to back out. 

We made her go first because we had all jumped before and I'm pretty sure if she saw all us leaping into mid air before her, she would have grabbed onto the plane and never let go. It's one thing to say you'll jump, but to be 13,000 feet up and wait long enough for your brain, and its negative thoughts, to catch up with your body, and it's ability to use it's limbs, is not good. The door opens, you're pushed out, the end...At least for her. For the rest of us in the plane, well, it was priceless to witness your sister/friend's face scrunched up in terror, eyes to the ceiling, and then hurled through the sky. Priceless.

I got to go last because I informed my instructor that I'm not really a fan of falling and if I truly hated it again, "could I just pull the parachute and float down?" He looked at me like I was a little crazy, but agreed. Funny enough, after the initial shock of, "f**k, I'm falling," I really didn't have the butterflies and although it wasn't a total "float" feeling, it wasn't a horrible falling feeling either. Just when I was accepting this strange new feeling of skydiving, I was yanked upwards and my drastic descent ceased. I had enjoyed myself. All my earlier anxiety flying up and looking over the edge of the plane was in vain. It so wasn't as bad the second time as the first time. It was more enjoyable and the parachute ride to the ground was still just as exhilarating as I remembered. 

So, although I love the floating aspect of skydiving, I think I will enjoy the falling part just as much next time. Especially because I want to do some somersaults or other tricks on my way down, and of course, enjoy the looks of terror on other jumper’s faces. 

“I’ve never let anyone ride the plane down. ‘No,’ sounds a lot like, ‘Go,’ when you’re sitting at the edge of the door.” – Instructor Sean Harrison.

Memorial Day Weekend Parking Lot

I have to say, "shame on the California Department of Transit and CalTrans." Who, in their right minds would decide to do construction on one of the biggest, most traveled interstates over Memorial Day Weekend, causing "up to 5 hour delays" without actually warning the travelers in advance? Did the DOT conveniently forget that I-5 is one of the 2 main routes connecting LA to Northern Cal and that you can't really go anywhere but through a traffic jam once you've reached the Grapevine, i.e. the 5-hour pile up of idiot drivers, douche bags jerks who put their hazards on and drive the shoulders, and the cluster-f**k of people trapped at the mini city at the start of the hill attempting to park so they can pee before their 1-mile-an-hour crawl home.

Well, there was a sign 104 miles before the construction was to start, but at that point you're driving freely at 85-miles-an-hour thinking, "yea right, 5 hours? The sign must be broken." So you drive onwards, not heeding the advice to drive 56 miles out of your way to the alternative route, especially since you just came from that direction.

I went up North to the Bay Area for a Memorial Day Baby's Weekend. It must be something in the air because all my friends have been popping little bundles of joy out for the past few months. I haven't really had a chance to see any of them, so my friend, Nina, and I decided a 3-day weekend was the perfect opportunity. Knowing that Memorial Day is usually packed with other vacationers, we left the Bay Area early enough that we would be home at a decent hour, accounting only vacationer traffic, into our travel time. When we had driven over the 5 on our way north, no signs stated a construction delay on south I-5 for the weekend. We didn't know any better then to assume the freeway was in working order.

I guess we were a little ignorant of not checking news or traffic for the 6 hour journey home, but if something as major as a 5-hour delay is going to pop up, you'd think the DOT would have been advertising for weeks beforehand saying, "construction starting on "so-and-so date, going through to so-and-so date. Be prepared." Especially if you're driving down 101 and you cross over to the 5 via the 152. There should have been a warning telling you what an awful idea that is and to just stay on the 101. Instead, the only warning sign is 50 miles south of the 152, right before the 46.

Now, if you just traveled 52 miles to hit the freeway you want to be on, would you seriously drive 56 miles back to the freeway you came from to avoid a traffic jam you assume wouldn't actually be because you're thinking like any sane person, "there is no construction on a holiday weekend." Case in point, 1000's of people did the same thing we did and drove onward. It wasn't until we reached Lavall Rd, at the base of the Grapeville that all car movement ceased and we exited the freeway to pee and find out about the delay.

After weaving our way through the middle-of-nowhere's version of Carpocalypse - honking horns, people running red lights because they couldn't move on green, utter confusion of travelers, and assholes walking in front of the cars that can actually move - we peed and then asked the gas station attendant what was going on. Apparently there was construction for 13 miles heading up the hill and he had no clue when the crews stopped for the night or if at all. Nina and I wanted to wait it out, seeing as no one could even get out of the gas station parking lot, but if the crews worked 24-hours, we were going to have to endure the snail ride home eventually.

We decided on food and then travel. By the time we exited Panda Express, the cars were at least advancing onto the freeway from the parking lots, a vast improvement from an hour and a half earlier. We decided to risk joining the crowd. I ended up driving in the truck lane, a smooth 5-mile-an-hour lull upwards which turned out to be better then the constant stop-and-go of the other lanes. After about an hour and change, we merged from 5 lanes to 3 and the average car speed climbed to 30 mph. No construction crews, apparently they had taken the weekend off. But by looking at all the road work signs and the way the lanes merged, construction on south I-5 has been shitty for a while.

I would assume that all the locals in the area knew about the problem areas, but if you're not from the area, you're just baffled. So, no construction workers causing the 5-hour delay, just good old fashion freeway expansion and very poorly advertised warnings for the non locals, i.e. the holiday drivers. Hell, when the Bay Bridge was closed for construction there were warnings 200 miles away. So, DOT and CalTrans, next time, tell someone, advertise your massive delay way before it's too late to turn around. And that's all I've got to say!

Us 5.5 Million Matter!

I am annoyed!!! Annoyed with stupid television executives that don't really care about what an above average television viewer wants to watch and instead they focus on the majority of viewers - those middle of nowhere, average people that lounge around in their sweats drinking beer while watching another awful reality show about some moron who isn't them. I found out that The Finder was cancelled due to bad ratings - only 5.5 million people watch it. What?!!!! 5.5 million people are nothing, you say? Sucks, because there are 5.5 million people out there that tune in every week to be entertained while trying to solve a mystery, or two, in a creative and witty way instead of turning into a zombie drooling over a Kardashian or getting their Jerseylicious on like the other 7 billion people in the world (although half of those 7 billion I think live in countries without a TV).

Us, few, but proud, 5.5 million people can actually appreciate when a great show comes along that uses subtlety and riddles to progress the story forward instead of always spelling everything out. I enjoy the twist and turns of a good mystery and when I can watch a show where I don't immediately figure out the killer or the key piece of evidence to solve the case, I'm intrigued. I want to be baffled, shocked, surprised. I don't want everything handed to me on a silver platter with all the answers spelled out. Why can't those Executive Suits understand that? Instead, they looked at us messily 5.5 million fans and said, "Axe the show, we'll make a cheaper and more profitable reality show to fill the time slot." 

Now, I understand the appeal of a reality show - watching a life you can't have and would like or watching a train wreck and marveling at how some people manage to survive past infancy. Hell, I work in the Reality TV industry, it pays my bills and entertains me immensely while filming, but when I go home, I want to watch something that will make me smart again - reaffirm my faith in humanity that not everyone is a camera hungry lunatic. I believe that Reality TV makes the world dumb, most of it anyways and since I'm out helping to make the world that much stupider, I'd like to come home and relax in front of the tube watching something that will reaffirm my believe that there are some intelligent shows still being made in the world. That there is hope to make people use their brains again instead of letting them slowly ooze out their ears.

So, you Fox Execs that think we don't matter, that our TV interests aren't worth a second glance because it doesn't fill your pockets with the amount of green you want, think again. Our opinions matters. We want smart shows being made and aired. We want to watch a program that has our neurons firing. We want to be awed. Can't you see that? Can't you believe that not all viewers are the average sheep? Please, start thinking about us small 5.5 million not so inconsequential few that matter what they watch. We might surprise you.

Writing Out of Depression

Hi everyone, I'm back! Yes, I managed to disappear for a really long time, I think almost a year. I would like to blame a cosmic accident or being buried under some exotic ruins after a massive cave-in, but the answer is much less spectacular and rather simple... basically, I was depressed. You would think that when you have a lot of free time, you make plans to see long lost friends, you go to the beach, you work on your closeted hobbies and you enjoy life until the next gig comes along and grabs all your time. But, no, I just watched the clock tick by each and every day. Sure, I had jobs to fill some of the time, but not enough.

I'm not one of those people that likes to be alone with their own thoughts...my mind scares me (and a lot of other people). If I was working, I would get home after a 10-14 hour day filming something or other and zone out in front of the TV for countless hours until it was a reasonable hour to go to bed. The next morning I would head right back out to work. No time left for thinking. I love being in the field and working in the mist of chaos, but learning how to be by myself (during my off hours), it was/is pretty tough. When I was between jobs, I'd sleep as long as possible in the morning so I would have less time to figure out how to fill during the day. It gave me time to think, time that I didn't want.

In the end, I read a lot, about 75 books, went on a couple hikes and pretty much begged my friends to run errands with them so that I would have an excuse to put on real clothes and soak up some Vitamin D. You would think that I would turn to the computer to write weekly blog stories, with all my free time, but since I wasn't happy in my own life, I didn't feel like putting anything down on paper (so to speak). I had ideas of stories I could write about, but they were mostly evil thoughts on stupid people that I'd worked with or things that I didn't find agreeable in society and I didn't want to write puff pieces, I wanted to say it how it was; write the gritty truth, which would essentially be a career killer or at least, a black-list offense. So I refrained and just thought my evil thoughts while brooding in the dark.

I also think maybe I am to blame for all my free hours because as a little kid I hated procrastination and therefore I now complete all my tasks efficiently, maybe too efficiently. During the last year I did have ample time to contemplate all those energetic people that run around like their hair is on fire and the world is ending while they try to complete their "never ending" todo lists and I think I've come to the conclusion that they're insane. Seriously, how can they not find the time complete everything? Do they just spend hours deciding what task to finish next that it's become dark outside and they accomplished nothing? How do people like that survive because they seem to always starts things, but do they ever finish them; the stress from that must be killer. Maybe it's another version of depression - active depression, and I have lethargic depression. Hum... But even though I will never understand the chickens-with-their-heads-cut-off people, I might envy them a little because they seem like they'll never run out of activities to complete and so it seems they won't ever have free time to contemplate what to do with.

So now, yes, I'm still not sure how I feel about the world and my small self in it, but I'm getting better.  Last weekend was my cousin Dan's birthday and while we were celebrating he had asked me why I had stopped writing my blog. I just told him I didn't have anything to say, but that isn't really true, so Dan, here's my birthday present to you, I'm starting up my blog again. Hopefully the next post was be a little happier and probably a lot more wittier.