{"id":3277,"date":"2010-06-26T12:08:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T03:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/?p=3277"},"modified":"2010-07-01T23:35:25","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T14:35:25","slug":"reaching-for-the-ground-at-200-kmh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2010\/06\/26\/reaching-for-the-ground-at-200-kmh\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the ground at 200 km\/h"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054-120x160.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Skydiving Diploma\" width=\"120\" height=\"160\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-3288\" srcset=\"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054-120x160.jpg 120w, https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054-480x640.jpg 480w, https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DSC01054.jpg 1224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 120px) 100vw, 120px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nShortly after my arrival yesterday, Fred&#038;Co mentioned they were off skydiving today. Having enthusiastically accepted an offer to join, I found myself this morning at 7am, mildly jetlagged and ever-so-slightly hangover, riding a mini-van to a small airfield 1 hour away from Honolulu and subsequently jumping off a moving plane, 10,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>Among other observations, in no particular order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WOOOOOOOOOT. This was absolutely awesome. Perhaps not to the point of instant addiction, like I have seen a few friends get into, but definitely to the point of doing it again next time I get a chance.<\/li>\n<li>As a cousin of Natalie pointed out: if you are gonna pop your skydiving cherry somewhere, Hawaii is definitely one of the best place to do so; in addition to the great (and warm) weather, the view going down only adds to the awesomeness of the free fall&#8230; Cloudy mountains on one side, ocean on the other.<\/li>\n<li>There were 4 of us jumping. I went third and, having seen Anne&#8217;s departure, assumed ours would be similar: a nice jump off the ledge, followed immediately by the regular downward-facing, arched-back position&#8230; My (otherwise rather laconic) instructor must have mistaken my lack of comments during preparation for jadedness, because he decided to go a <em>little<\/em> more special, with no notice or forewarning: if jumping off a plane is bad enough as it is, doing so with a backflip, followed by half a dozen flips and summersaults in every possible orientation of space, is enough to test the most hardened digestive system (mine definitely wasn&#8217;t at its best, but luckily held on long enough).<\/li>\n<li>The whole time waiting at the skydiving place for our plane ride, the music playing was, I kid you not, a compilation of James Bond theme songs. I badly wanted to ask if a Union Jack parachute, with landing on skis and AK-47, was an option.<\/li>\n<li>Did I mention: WOOOOT&#8230;?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shortly after my arrival yesterday, Fred&#038;Co mentioned they were off skydiving today. Having enthusiastically accepted an offer to join, I found myself this morning at 7am, mildly jetlagged and ever-so-slightly hangover, riding a mini-van to a small airfield 1 hour away from Honolulu and subsequently jumping off a moving plane, 10,000 feet above the Pacific [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-places"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3277"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3317,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3277\/revisions\/3317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}