A Home Page from the
FIRST Skydiver at CyberGATE!
...with some help from Eric 'Slip and Slide' Johnson
To see the ascii .sigs I have used, make your jump from the bat!
I started jumping in 1980 at Lake Elsinore, and made my second jump in
1981. If you REALLY want to hear THAT story (which I doubt), I may put
it into a link one day. The tag line is that I have 5500 or so jumps
(2300 of which are with Tandem Passengers and about 1000 with AFF Students) and an accumulated 94+ hours of freefall; my pal that talked me
into making the
second jump has 6 jumps with one freefall.
I am rated as a Senior Rigger by the FAA as well as an Instructor/Examiner
by the USPA in all four of the
current methods of skydiving instruction: Static Line, IAD, Tandem, and
Accelerated FreeFall (AFF). I am also an an AFF Designated Evaluator,
Coach Course Director
(CCD), and Tandem Course Director (Vector/Sigma), so I even get to
teach
people to teach. I like teaching a great deal, as I get to see the
expressions
and reactions that people have as they are making thier first jump, or
when
they attain their ratings. The excitement and energy I see continues,
as
I watch, and help them progress through the training, until they
finally
complete the program and get certified to jump without the assistance
of
an Instructor, or as an Instructor themselves.
From January 1999 through January 2003 I served the USPA
Southeast Regional Director. All jokes aside, I'm actually proud
to have been elected, and it was an eye opening experience to discover
the inner workings of USPA, the Board of Directors and
Headquarters. The time in between the Board of Director meetings
is busier than I could have imagined! I'd like to thank the
members who elected me for the two terms I served.
I live in Tampa, Florida now and although I used to do contract
work as a LAN
Administrator, all I do now is skydive (when there aren't tropical
storms and hurricanes to dodge) and I still manage to pay most of my
bills. I'm spent the summer of 2003 at Millennium Skydiving in
Kankakee
IL - A great little DZ that was fun as well as busy; I was sad when the
finances didn't play through for the DZ to open again after that season.
My Gear:
- Containers:
- Javelin.
- A Reflex with ULTRA cool Tye Dye panels
- Strong Mini Hawk Exhibition Skydive Rig (I carry a 400 Sq. Ft.
American Flag with it)
- A Vector I, for use as a CReW & Exhibition Skydive System
- Another Reflex in Red, White & Blue for Exhibition Skydives
- Custom Painted Javelin with really cool work of a dragon being flown
by a muscle man (Me? Yeah, right. With this cold I have, a mucus
man maybe) with a blonde by his side (okay, THAT part used to
be true).
- Main Canopies:
- Red, Black & White Jedei 170
- A White Crossfire w/ Blue Ribs
- Pink & Blue Jonathan 170
- Red, White & Blue Wizard For Accuracy
- Red, White & Blue Pursuit 230 with all the CReW Trix
- Red, White & Blue PD Lightning 193 with all the CReW Trix
- An older Fury that's great for water jumps
- Some square reserves or other.
- A Preserve III round reserve.in a bag (in my closet)
- I got jumpsuits in so many colors & designs, I don't even
like to think about it any more ... and I just got another one!
And as far as video equipment:
- A Head Hunter helmet with a Sony DVX-700 Digital Video
Camera and a Nikon N2000.
- A Head Hunter Helmet with a Sony TRV-10 and a Nikon N70
- A BoneHead Helmet for my PC-7 for doing video only
jumps,
or videoing while I'm doing AFF.
- A full Linear Editing System, Including: digital audio
mixer,
digital video mixer, titling board, CD players
- A Sony Reprogramming Gadget
- A non-linear desktop editing
system in a laptop.
I could have bought
more gear about three times over for all the video equipment.
Video jumpinng is WAY expensive, ask any video guy.
But I wouldn't have missed the look on people's faces when the see
themselves in freefall for the very first time.
Here's a brief photo-history
of my skydiving:
LOOK! That's me making my first skydive back in 1980!
(What a geek!)
And THIS is me making my second skydive a year later!
(STILL a geek!)
A scant decade later, I took this young lady on her first skydive.
She picked out the jumpsuit all on her own.
The graphic links to more video captures of her skydive,
if you
really want to see that kind of thing!
NEED GEAR?
Have a look at the gear for sale
page 
and see what's available.
You might find that bit of equipment, or an entire rig that you
didn't even know you could afford!
Tired of looking at pictures of me?
Well, then, have a look at some of the other Skydivers around the
net,
or jump into the Skydive!
Archive ...
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