October 21

0745
[Jan] Folks are starting to mingle about. The dubbing stations are scheduled to be set up today. Ted and Roy should be here any time now. Judges will be doing more practicing. The fishbowl got a fresh paint job overnight. Tim has arrived at 8:15.

1000
[Tim] Setup and team registration is proceeding in earnest. I almost ran over an old man on a bicycle a mile from the DZ. Wait -- that was one of my all time favorite skydivers, Michael McGowan. Hey Michael!

This place is hopping...now back to work...

1115
[Tim] Cool: Norman Kent just stuck his head in the DZTV room and said hello...Jan and and I are hacking on web stuff while Melissa Nelson is working on the newsletter...looks like the all-important netpost software is working! Good...

...everyone please ignore the empty results tables on the event links; they will be repopulated once each event starts and we have some actual results to post...

1300
[Tim] This place is absolutely crawling with competitors...lots and lots of familiar faces too numerous to mention...the judges have been training most of the morning, looks like Judge Judy has a solid cast of button-pushers this year...

1600
[Tim] AYE CARUMBA!!! Here I thought all this time that competition started on Monday, but no it's TOMORROW. Sorry honey, but it's going to be a late one tonight and a long day tomorrow!

I just posted melissa nelson's Spotlight newsletter over on the tidbits link page. There is a large PDF file with photos and a smaller Word doc that is text only. Good stuff, thanks melissa!

Michael is going a good laugh out of something Bags says to the left...

...the overall mood coming out of the teams can be said like this: Happy to be here and great to see you! It seems that just about everybody is smiling and upbeat.

And why shouldn't they be? I remember the first nationals I ever went to (okay I'm really dating myself here) was at Muskogee OK in 1986. I remember it was much the same: Everyone was happy to be there. Or maybe they were just happy to be away from work. I remember Smitty the Jumper and downwind PC accuracy (or was that just a demo?) and lots of hot wind holds and that big beer tent named after someone I can't remember. And a couple of years later, the last nationals to be held at Muskogee, I remember a hotshot skydiver landing a microscopic square parachute made out of noisy material called "zero P" going about 80 mph between the airport buildings and almost taking me out. His name was Tommy Piras...

1930
[Tim] In a stunning display of clerical virtuosity, ye old web assistant has just got most of the team pages made and the initial 4-way pages built. Tomorrow I will get the draws posted along with the rest of the team pages. It's wheels up at 0700, so see you in the morning!

Jan Meyer, Chief Engineer and Webmaster
Tim Wagner, Assistant to Jan Meyer