This last weekend, I got to fly off of the Chelan Butte in my paraglider for the first time….and it was AWESOME!!! I only flew once on Sat, and once again on Sun, but the flights lasted about 20min, and took a drop of about 3000ft (around 3900′ to 800′ from launch to LZ).

My first flight, I was a little nervous, but mostly excited. Both flights were from the “Ants” East launch, then landing at the Chelan Falls park. I took a tandem last year with one of my instructors Doug, and it was awesome (he gave me a little taste of “vitamin G” with his spirals) but I’ve never liked being a passenger. I was pleased to see how well I handled it, and wasn’t scared hardly at all while in the air. I handled pitch control well—site note: one of the people with us (name escapes me now) took a 60% asymmetric deflation because of poor pitch control—. The roll the glider kept taking in the bumpy (or Boody sp?) air wasn’t to much fun, but I got used to it quickly.

The next day, I wasn’t nervous at all, and enjoyed it more I think because of that. The conditions became more thermic than the previous day, and made for an exciting ride! At the Ranch (Aerial Paragliding) we have been flying in smooth adiabatic air, but this was my first taste of thermic conditions (although we did not use them for lift at our skill level yet). My other instructor, Denise, said I shot up way past anyone else when I hit what she guessed was a 800ft/min thermal off of one of the ridges I passed. It was pretty nuts, because I felt hammered into the harness, and then like an elevator I got used to it, but apparently I just kept on going (that’s why it’s nice to have a variometer to tell you these things).

I have a Suunto X6-HR, and meant to record the altimeter off of it’s barometer for my flights, but didn’t remember until over half way into my second flight. I started recording a little after I got shot into the air on that last thermal, but the graph below (taken from my watch) should be pretty close to my max altitude (I went down quite aways from the launch before I was shot back up to 3000ft).
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I was so high, I got to try some new things. At first I took about 5+ 360′s to try and loose altitude. Then the next descent technique: big ears. Big ears are used to decrease your glide ratio by folding in the wing tips with the leading risers. It was really fun! Because you can’t do that, and control your break toggles, you need to rely on weight shifting to turn. Doug had me weight shift back and fourth, and it made me rock a little which was super fun.

My Dad came the first day and took some pictures and a video (thanks Dad). You can see them in the album, and video links below.
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CLICK HERE FOR THE GALLERY

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What an incredible sport!

…Good video…that’s all I have to say about it…check it out yourself!

Lakes Charity Classic from pimple queens on Vimeo.

People keep on asking me what parasailing is, and how high the airplane or cliffs have to be to jump. First of all….it is NOT parasailing that I’m doing (or base jumping, or sky diving)…it is (say it with me now) PARAGLIDING. Good?…k Just to clear things up…para-sailing is what drunk tourists do when they’re on vacation…you get pulled by a boat over water and have no control. Now onto paragliding…

In paragliding, although you are capable of jumping from a helicopter or cliff etc…the way you are supposed to do it, is run off of a steep slope, or mountain face. You can control the direction of the wing, even control the speed a little. Using lift from the wind off of a slope, or rising hot air (thermals) a paraglider can stay up all day long, and travel in excess of 300km.

While I’ve been in school at the ranch, I meet up with a fellow by the name of Andreas. To show exactly what I’ve been doing, check out the two videos he made below…I’m not in them, but they were taken at the Aerial Paragliding ranch in Cashmere WA. I believe in the second video, that is Kristy (sp?) flying my Ozone Buzz glider the weekend before I bought it from the school (mostly red with yellow and orange).

Alright…hopefully I cleared some of this up…maybe?

Eh….enjoy the videos anyway…he did a good job with them.

This weekend I went to the coast, and tried kiting my paraglider on the beach.  The smooth laminar winds were IDEAL for kiting, and was a real blast to play with in the setting sun.  At this point, I’m still a newbie to the sport (I think anyway) but found I had very good control of the wing…could have kept it up for an hour if I had to.  My sister took some pictures, and a video with my point and shoot Kodak, and you can see them below.  Super fun…can’t wait to complete my kit and training so I can actually fly with it!

CLICK HERE FOR THE PICTURE ALBUM

I got an AeroGarden from Bed Bath and Beyond on clearance about a month ago.  I got the classic version with the “gourmet herb” kit, and within about three weeks, I had a pretty good harvest.  I have pictures of the first couple of weeks, but don’t have them up yet to post.  The other day, I made mint tea, and put a bunch of dill in my scrambled eggs, and it was really good.  I’m impressed with the hydroponic system, and am amazed at the speed of growth.  The company hasn’t been doing that well however.  Their stock plummeted about a year ago, and hasn’t shown any sign of recovery.  I hope they will stay in business so I can get replacement parts (bulbs and pumps) in the future.

Anyway…my two bits are that it’s an awesome system…liked it so much, I got one for Mother’s day too!