My first Skydive

The Video has finally arrived... and so I decided to upload it...

So close yet so far

Zizou.... as he is called with love by his fans around the world, lost his temper today and it cost France its second world cup. He often terorizes the opposition by is skills, footwork and timing but today he did it with his head and literally. On any other day, if someone said something to Zizou, he would simply ignore it or respond to it with a superb play that would result in a goal, but today it was different. Today on the day of his retirement from the international team he simply lost his control, lost his cool and knocked off the guy by butting his head on to this italian midfilder's chest. This earned him a red card but it earned italy its 4th world cup.

What a shame. What an impression he left in the soccer world while making exit from the international scene, on the grandest day in sports. No matter how good of a player he is, he will be forever known for his stupid mistke in his last game.

So long, Zinedine Zidane.

Heartbreak followed by a thriller

I was both a little nervous and little excited yesterday. Nervous because Germany was playing Italy in the semi finals, and excited for the fireworks show.

I have no particular reason, but I just like the way Germany plays football (soccer for the prudent), and I wanted to win this and go all the way to finals. Lately I have been loosing all my bets, it started of with England losing to Portugal, and Brazil loosing to France. So I was really looking forward to this game and really wanted Germany to win it all.

At noon went to Karoline's place and I did paint my face with German colors, as I was rooting for Germany, but then on one of other friend's request I put on Italian flag on the face as well, but that didn't bother me much as I was still supporting Germany. After face painting we went to Bashayer's place to watch the game.

I can't tell how high were the emotions running as we had people from both the nations in this room. I think it is really bad idea to take anyone's side particularly when people from both the countries are your friends. But anyways I stayed the course and was rooting for Germany all along. The game was quite intense, and both the team gave their 100% or may be 200% yesterday. After scoreless regulation time, the game went to OT and within the first minute of OT, Italy started its attack it missed two golden opportunities. But Germans were quick to return the favors. At the 119th minute and both the teams still locked at 0-0 it looked like the game was going to be decided by Penalty Kicks, but something happened and a simple pass was converted in to a beautiful goal. It just sank me, felt shattered.

It wasn't as big of a deal to me as it was for the Germans, but I had to move on, and so I did, and moved quickly to Silver Lake. It was 4th of July and silver lake is the place for the annual Rochester Band Concert and the fireworks. I went to Hy-Vee and did some last minute shopping before heading to Silver Lake. I was accompanied by Tanuj and we went to the Soccer fields near Silver Lake where the band was going to play. We joined Kristy, who was playing in the band and Kristen and Travis who were already there.

Sat down had something to eat and then this Giant Hot air balloon inflated about 30 yards behind me. Out of curiosity I went there to take a close-up view. It was 830 and sunset was coming close also the wind was little strong and so they decided not to fly it. But I surely did take some pictures. Following this, the band started, Kristi was playing flute and piccolo. The band played really good music. It went on for about an hour and at 10PM the fireworks started. And what should I say; it was an amazing fireworks show. I enjoyed every moment of it. They went on for about 30-40 minutes, and just when people thought all was over, the grand finale started with a very rapid canon fires like fireworks. They were bright and loud, less artistic than the main event, but it surely did rock the place. I took a bunch of pictures and you can see them here. The whole stuff ended around 1045 or so and people started leaving for homes.

We had parked our car close to the field and so we were waiting for traffic to clear a little bit, and that's when I noticed a couple of cop cars coming in. At first I thought it was accident, but soon more cops cars coming in, rather I should say started pouring in. That's when I realized something bad, really bad has happened. I asked a few bystanders if they knew anything, all I can tell right now is that a big brawl broke up and some people got injured. And I thought, what a day these people (the ones in the brawl) chose to show their freedom/independence.

As I said it was a heartbreak followed by a thriller.

Back on Ground

It was very tiring but one of the best days in my entire life so far. As said earlier, I went to Superior Wisconsin, which is in a North West corner of Wisconsin and couple of miles south of Downtown Duluth MN. This picturesque small town is situated on the shores of lake superior, the biggest fresh water lake in the world.

I started my trip from Rochester at 945AM Sunday morning. Karoline and Alain joined me on my trip. It was actually a surprise to me as I was supposed to drive by myself to Duluth. Never the less it was a pleasant surprise, their company made my trip little less tiring.

We stopped at Forest Lake, MN and had a nice latte, to keep everybody awake, though it didn't work that well. But no worries as I didn't sleep which was most important considering the fact that I was driving.

After a 2hr drive from Forest lake we finally reached Sky dive Superior at 2 PM sharp, and that's exactly what I had planned for. Once we reached there, it was all business.

The lady at the desk started with my paper work. I started filling the forms and in process waived all ( if any) rights to sue the sky dive office and should anything happen to me, which obviously didn't happen. I then watched the training video, which made me both excited, and little nervous. Luckily the manager of that place, Mark had his birthday on Sunday so the cake helped me feel better. All the nervousness and anxiety had gone only excitement lingered around, which was good. After waiting for almost an hour for my turn to come, I suited my self up for the jump.

Then I put on my red jump suit, which I actually liked. They gave me some brief instructions about body positions and equipment handling which was followed with a brief one on one training while I waited for my instructor to land. He was already up in air doing tandem jump with some other people. Once he landed , he took some time off and then came to me and checked my jump suit, harness and the different body positions I was taught. Once he felt comfortable, we mocked the jump from the plane ( which was grounded ). Then it was time to go. Go up in the air.

This is when Mark took over, he started shooting my video. He did a brief interview and asked me to make funny gestures for his video. After the interview, we made one last mock jump, but this time all geared up with the instructor. Then it was 1-2-3 and go....

We sat in this small plane, I don't know what kind it was, I think it was Cessna. But that didn't bother much. The plane wasn't in a great shape as it was modified/stripped down to bare minimum. Me my instructor Dean, the camera man Mark, the pilot and one solo jumper Mike we all boarded the plane and took off. I tell you, flying in a Boeing or airbus is sure a luxury compared to this craft. But the kind of view you can get from these small planes is just amazing there is nothing that comes close. We started ascending at about 1200ft a minute. We circled around downtown Duluth, went over Lake Superior for a while and when we reached the altitude of about 12000 ft or say after about a 10 minute flight, my instructor asked the pilot to take us to a suitable position to do the jump.

The door opened, and he gave us a thumbs up to jump, and we acknowledged him with a thumbs up. The solo jumper without taking any time was out in a flash. Mark my camera guy, clung on to the wings and positioned himself to shoot me jumping out.

At this moment, we moved forward to the door, and positioned ourselves to jump, and for one last time I looked at the plane. Airplane flying at 12,000 ft with its door open, it is enough to make anybody nervous/panic, but I felt very serene. When the door opened I heard the sudden gush of wind, may be a 100th of a second I thought what the heck am I doing, but once I reached the door and looked outside all my fear and anxiety was gone, it was such a serene feeling, it was like 'Lets do it' . Dean put his foot out holding the plane with one hand, then he asked me to put my right in front of him, and at this moment I was 80% out of the airplane with only my left leg in the airplane.

It took me a second or two to position myself, and one last second in front of the camera and here we jumped and I was in the free fall. The first thing I remember is the sudden and huge blast of wind on my face. For may be 5 seconds I was unable to breath. But then I started breathing normally and it all felt such wildly wonderful. The free fall as opposed to what the word says doesn't' really feel like a fall at all. you don't feel like you are falling down or something. It feels like you are standing in front of a big, really big fan blowing really high speed wind at you. It all lasted for about 45 seconds, and during this time we had already descended from 12000ft to 5 or 6 thousand feet. At this time my instructor pulled the ripcord of the parachute. I realized it only after it opened completely and I felt a jolt. After that, it was such a nice feeling, it was all calm and quiet. We went on small ride of our own for a while. Dean was giving me instructions how to control the speed, direction and stuff like that.

After brief maneuvering lessons we were ready to land. I positioned my legs in bent knee fashion and we were ready to land. I suddenly felt the ground rush, which Dean said was normal, and before I knew we had landed. The moment he landed I put my feet on the ground and that caused him to loose his balance a little bit and we stumbled, but hey we didn't fall this time we already had fallen some 6000 ft doing our free fall. Mark had a final word with me asked how did it felt. Well what can I say, it was amazing, mind blowing experience after all.

I just uploaded some pics from my ski trip and my skydiving trip. They can be found out here..

Living on the edge

What would you say of life of a person who does water skiing but doesn't know how to swim ?

What would you say of life of a person who goes for skydiving knowing fully well that he doesn't have wings to fly ?

I would say its like walking on a highwire or dancing on thin ice, or simply, he is 'Living on the edge'.