Skydiving without a parachute

Today I learned about a new stupid thing you can do while falling!  You can jump out of a plane without any parachute attached to your body.  Then, presumably, someone will come along with a parachute, you'll attach it to yourself, and you'll coast down to safety.  It's a sport for those who have skydived so much that the feeling of falling no longer excites them... they also need to feel the very real threat of dying to get their heart rate up.  I guess it is also a trust exercise.  You'd better count on that friend of yours to bring your chute.  Here's an example:

 

Kind of fascinating, really.  Once that gets old, maybe we could start the guy out in a straight jacket?  Gotta keep raising the bar.

Now, I'm all for jumping out of planes.  Throwing yourself out of a perfectly functional plane is one of the most wonderfully surreal feelings around, and it's a great way to conquer your fear of heights, if you're into that.  Once you reach terminal velocity, falling is pretty relaxing.  Furthermore, skydiving parachutes have safety measures built in -- most of them will activate your parachute if you're below a certain elevation (I want to say 750 feet?) and haven't deployed your chute yet.  In other words, even if you pass out, there's a chance you'll be okay.

The idea of not using a parachute adds a new dimension, though.  Maybe some people want to face death.  Maybe people love the high they get from overcoming it.  Maybe they just want to feel more like James Bond.

And then there's this guy:

He has somehow managed to hide a parachute in his pants.  Yeah, I don't really know how that works for him.

Winter: A Retrospective

Now that Spring is thoroughly upon us, let's look back at the photos of wintery Boston, Pittsburgh, and skiing photos that I never got around to posting.

Boston

(Boston first.)  It was so cold that the statues curled themselves into little balls to keep warm:

There were huge snowflakes:

...leading to snow accumulation.

Steam clouds at MIT:

Pittsburgh

In Pittsburgh, things were covered in ice:

There were deathsicles, and a dog named Rusty.  Unrelated.

Mount Sunapee Skiing

Ternus and I went skiing up at Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire.

 

The skiing was cheap, as there was a weekday student discount, and the slopes overlooked a beautiful frozen lake:

I was using my wonderful new skis, so I took them for a trip down the endless mogul field.

I'm still pretty bad at moguls, but I am working on it.

Happy Spring, everyone!