Thursday, January 30, 2014

I Believe I Can Fly

Another birthday has come and gone. Every year seems to play out the same way. My wife will ask me consistently for weeks what I want for my birthday, and I will avoid the question for weeks. I did the same thing this time until and idea hit me.

I had driven by the newly opened indoor skydiving facility in my area a few times. I was curious, but I figured it would be something I would not do out of the desire to stay frugal. It was, however, a great idea for something the wife could provide for my birthday. I made the request, and it was granted. We went ahead and scheduled it for the evening of my birthday.

I will save you the time of reading the step-by-step details of the experience, but I will share a few photos. These are actually screenshots of the videos that were taken on my phone.



It was definitely harder than it looked. It is sensory overload (or lack of senses overload). It took a while to gather perception of what was happening. Even with earplugs, it was impossible to hear anything going on. Also the feel of the air on the body made it difficult to even determine when the instructor had his hand on me. I do, at times, get motion sickness. I was fine with this experience until the part when the instructor takes you spinning high up in the tunnel (you pay extra for that part). It was worth the discomfort to my stomach. I would absolutely do it again (and I plan to).

The next day I watched the videos multiple times. I even loaded them on our server at work for my co-workers to see. The only downside for a couple of days following was the pain in my ABS. Wow, Tony Little and Tony Horton combined could not replicate this feeling. Okay, maybe Horton could (and has). It was definitely an abdominal muscle workout to say the least.

The bottom line is that I had a blast, and my wife could tell. Therefore, she feels like she provided me with one of her greatest birthday accomplishments to date.  WIN-WIN in our house!

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World (repost-link)

Those who are close to me know that I enjoy reading and studying maps, graphs, and charts.  In my opinion, there are few better methods by which to display information.  These things can also be skewed to portray information as the presenter wants it to be seen. I am not saying that is the case in the link below, but it is something to keep in mind.

I recently came across this post and had to share - 40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World.