What were some of the odd quirks about the facility?
There were vending machines with frozen pizzas and Hot Pockets. We were like, "Who would get stuff out of a vending machine like that?" We then promptly saw one of the instructors buy a Hot Pocket, and heat it up, and eat it. I don't think people who go into that sort of profession value their health very much.
How much instruction did you receive before getting ready to jump?
Not very much, since we were doing it tandem. Our tandem partners just went over a few easy steps and let us know how it would work. Andy's experience was probably a little different though.* And we also had to fill out 4 full pages of waivers. There was a video they had us watch that we thought was going to walk us through the legalese on the waiver, since we had to initial every section. But it wasn't helpful at all.
What was the video really like?
The first couple minutes were "Skydiving is awesome!" and then this guy with a beard came on to address the paperwork. He didn't actually walk us through it though; it was more like he was providing additional verbal disclaimers. There were 8 minutes of disclaimer and then about another 10 minutes of "Skydiving is awesome!". So the alleged informational video for completing the paperwork was really 40% disclaimer, 60% getting you more psyched up about skydiving. Also, it looked like the video was made an ambiguous number of decades ago.
Did you feel like you were becoming a member of the Dharma Initiative?
YES.
*I was also told that the tandem partner Andy was assigned to was a little more unconventional. His name was Jester. The guys reenacted Jester with a lot of arm-flailing, slurred speech, crazy eyes, and yelling that I can't quite capture in text here. But I can say that there is a video of him getting arrested for illegal BASE jumping available on YouTube. You can view it right here.
| Photo Credit: N. Morello, for The Yuppie Lifestyle. |
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