Tuesday 24 October

Ah, Arizona weather. We get more sun here than Hawaii or Florida, and this part of the Sonora Desert has two distinct rainy seasons: the monsoon rains in the summer, and the winter rains that come from weather systems coming down from the NW. In between it is generally dry as a bone. BUT -- sometimes in the late summer or early fall (like about right now) a tropical depression or hurricane from the Pacific will sneak in from Baja and rain on our parade. And it can be the kind of weather that hangs around like that relative that won't leave after the BBQ and football game are long over. But a quick look outside shows that it's not bad right now, some blue skies peaking at the DZ between the clouds.

0900
The MD just extended the weather hold for another hour. I just got all the AE and FS 8-way team pages uploaded, but there are no team photos yet...off to find some eye candy...okay, I just got the 8-way Open and Intermediate draws posted (PDF links)...

...check out the picture of our DZTV setup. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

1000
No change. Weather remains borderline. We have a weather-hold injury; not jumping can be dangerous! Ouch.

Wow. Check out the lineup for Paraclete XP. There are many, many national and world championship medals in that roster! When was the last time that Jack Jefferies, Dan BC and Kirk Verner jumped on the same team?

Ready for some more eye candy from Michael McGowan? Let's take stroll over to the Style & Accuracy area near the wind tunnel.

You can follow the Classics over at Skydive Rick's, but I don't see any results over there yet.

1100
Blue skies! We have blue skies! 8-way FS is on call.

1200
Finally, we have some judging in progress. I just about snapped a vertebra trying to say "slow shutter speed" while discussing Michael's beautiful photography above. Try "she sells sea shells by the slow shutter speed sea shore." It's hard enough just typing it...

...round 8 of rotations is under way...Roy just walked in with some team photos...okay they're posted now...Arizona Airspeed looks good on round one with some sweet 3D moves on the swiss bear > swiss bear, they open up with a clean 17...the team name for Freefly Intermediate team 400 is ?. That's the name: ?.

I looks like Jack Jefferies didn't get here in time to jump with Paraclete XP, but that's okay, there's an even more experienced 8-way guy filling his slot...that would be my brother Chris...hey, no sooner do I post that than Jack sticks his head in the DZTV room...get off that creeper, bro...

1400
Note to all competitors: It is a very, very bad idea to swoop the accuracy pad. Don't do it. That includes judges. So Chris, after you give that creeper to Jack, you need to go buy a case of beer for the SA contingent. Green bottles. Go!

Hmm...Question: Why are freestyle, freefly, and skysurf known as the 'Artistic Events'? Are CF, FS and the Classics not artistic? *THWACK* ouch that nerf bat can hurt...

...okay, two rounds of 8-way FS Open are in the bag (can, whatever) and no surprise, Arizona Airspeed has a big lead over the Golden Nuggets who then have a big lead over three teams that look like they're going to duke it out for the bronze medal...oh beautiful, Michael just handed me some more eye candy...that's got to be one of the hardest working people in skydiving...

...in 8-way FS Intermediate round 2...the judges initially posted a 3 for Arizona Old Werks but then they rejudged it to a 7...those guys are doing well and they have the early lead...

1600
Email of the day (and why I do what I do):

Thanx for all the live and updated coverage. It’s a fun show to watch and you do it with impeccable style.

You are very welcome! Heh...got a another nice email from a long-time Florida friend who was having some fun with my weather remarks at the top of this page...but you know what? We do like to brag about our weather here, and our weather hold this morning lasted for four hours. In Florida, a hurricane will get you released for the day pretty early ;-) ...

...and, driving on with round 3 of 8-way, I think the Nuggets just got away with one and they got a 14 not busted to a 13...;-)...UPDATE: it was clean, I missed the previous two seconds when they had it...ouch...Paraclete just got a zero posted for round 3...I don't know what the story is on that, will find out...come on judges, let's give Perris Octagon that 10th point on the freeze frame...they're skydiving pretty darn good here today...the story on Paraclete is they had a camera malfunction and had to take a zero, that really hurts...and only one judge offers Octagon the 10th, they get a score of 9, it was close but no cigar...Airspeed posts a 17 is looking like a winner...closing out round 3 of 8-way Open is Lock It Up, they started out with two good rounds but a bad exit, 3 busts and a NJ leave them with a score of 7 and they drop into a tie with Perris Octagon.

The Meet Director has just called it a day, so we'll start out with more of the same tomorrow, meanwhile the judges have to finish with 8-way Intermediate round 3...

...meanwhile, there has been some discussion around these parts about the future of the Artistic Events. The low participation and very subjective judging makes them expensive events to support. Anyway, Melissa has a good essay on the topic in today's Spotlight. Check it out (starts on the right side of page 2). I would add to Melissa's observations that the AE events, while they are beautiful to watch, simply aren't popular as recreation. People like to do what brings them fun/joy/pleasure etc, and it's just a simple fact that very few people want to put in all the time, $ and training into something that is so hard. I am afraid that these events days may indeed be numbered. But USPA simply may have no choice.

1715
The day is done, and it appears that some of the 8-way Intermediate teams will be re-jumping their round 3 as they had issues with, er, white puffy wet meteorological type camera interference of some sort. So take round 3 results with a grain of salt until later tomorrow. Thanks for visiting and see you tomorrow!

Jan Meyer, Chief Engineer and Webmaster
Tim Wagner, Maitre d'