LanceMcGrath.com

In case anyone is wondering what project I’ll be working on next year, here is the official abstract.

Since I’m still semi-invalid, I took pictures and a bit of video at today’s Ultimate game. This is rough, but if I can collect more footage over the summer, I’ll try to put together a proper promo video.

Edit: Link to another video I made this week. It’s a big bigger, about 40 megs, so it’ll take a while to download on slow connections.

So, despite a sprained ankle (and strictly against the doctor’s explicit orders a day before) I finally jumped from a mountain this weekend.

On Saturday, we watched a brief instructional video in German - amusing, as I barely understood most of it, and we had two people with us who were pretty much English-only - and we then collected our gliders and went to the training hill. There were multiple heights from which we practiced, both 60 and 80 meters, but the hill wasn’t too steep, so you could actually run/roll all the way down if necessary. We did about 4 or 5 jumps that day before the wind got too strong, and my first jump was flawless. Perfect takeoff, perfect landing, and a great example for everyone else, as I was the first of the day. The rest of my jumps were ok, but not as good. The instructor was great - a guy named Max, with an awesome, deep and almost constant laugh (slightly reminiscent of the guy from American Dad). He looked like a slightly smaller Swiss version of Gary Ackerman.

On Sunday, I also went first, but that didn’t go so well. From the 80 meter point, I attempted a takeoff, but due to a mistake in my position, my canopy wasn’t inflated correctly and I was told to abort. When attempting to do so, I didn’t brake hard enough, the wind caught my canopy, and I got pulled face first downhill for about 5-10 meters (yards, Steve, sorry). Serious road rash up and down my arms (cuts will be there for a week or two) as I got pulled through the cow shit. Wonderful. But the rest of my jumps were good, and after climbing the hill about 5 times (hard work with a parachute on your back) we were finally ready for a high flight.

We drove to the landing point and had everything explained to us again. We then bundled up our stuff and took a gondola to the top of Niederbauen, a mountain south of Lake Luzern, 800 meters above the surface of the lake. I was hoping to get first, but I wound up 3rd in the queue. The school instructor strapped a radio around my helmet in addition to the one hanging from my neck, then told me to go. I had a great launch, no problems at all, though it’s a bit disconcerting to run down a very steep mountain, even with a parachute on your back.

I drifted for a minute or two towards the lake, my only work being minor adjustments to my canopy. What I didn’t realize was that my radio wasn’t working. Actually, neither of my radios was working. The one on my neck was making no noise, the one on my helmet was too quiet to hear. I later found out the instructor, after trying to get me to turn left, was shouting at me to indicate whether I heard anything, whether I was conscious, etc. Well, eventually I heard something and guessed I was supposed to turn left towards the landing point, so I did so. I attempted to fiddle with the volume on the radio… and the radio snapped loose of my helmet. I caught it, but for lack of any better options, I put it in my teeth and carried it down with me that way. I then attempted to fix my neck radio, but that was a lost cause with my hands controlling the glider.

Thankfully, I remembered some of the answers I’d copied off Jenny’s test that morning. “If your radios don’t function, head towards the Abbauraum [err, area where you begin your landing approach in English] and circle until the instructor guides you with the red rackets.” Rackets are, apparently, those things you see people using to guide airplanes on the runway. So I flew in that direction, not really bothered, as I’ve landed 6 parachutes before. I was almost to the Abbauraum before the ground instructor finally realized that I wasn’t just ignoring him but had no radio contact. He ran to get his rackets, and the way he sprinted, he was a little worried - but at that point, I wanted to laugh. Good thing I didn’t, I’d have dropped the radio on a car.

So he (Chris) whistled to get my attention, then directed me into the approach. Here it got a little hairy. Jenny’s friend Dorothy, who paraglides a lot, was also coming for a landing. During my final approach, she was just 10-15 meters in front and to the right of me, which is not a lot at all. I was hoping she knew I was back there - she did - and that she didn’t need to do any S-turns to decrease her height, which would have brought her in contact with me. As it turns out, she was too high, but knew better than to attempt an S-turn with me there, and managed to land safely anyway. For myself. I ended up about 5 meters from her in a perfect touch-toe landing. Loved it.

At that point, Chris saw the radio in my teeth and looked pretty confused. I explained what happened, he checked my secondary radio… and saw that it was off. Thank you, Mr. Instructor-at-the-top. But he said that I did everything the way I was supposed to in that situation, and it was, after all, a fantastic landing.

Florian had landed before me, so he came up half relieved and half laughing with his brother Simon, who didn’t do the high flight, and we talked about the flight and such. Ammar was after me, and his radio worked… until he was on his landing approach. Then he lost signal somehow and couldn’t hear Chris shouting at him to turn until it was pretty much too late. When he finally heard “left, left, left!!!!” he turned… towards a church. Turning further, he was aimed at a tree. We actually lost sight of him behind the tree, but then he swung around it and continued towards us. At this point it was clear he was too low, but he managed a safe landing some 50 meters away from the landing area.

After that, the instructors changed the radio frequency, and Jenny came in for a no-problem-whatsoever flight with a great landing. We folded up our gliders, said our goodbyes, and naturally, it was time for a beer.

I’ve added new photos from July 2008-May 2009 today. Enjoy.

I was surfing along this here evil little Internet when I found a site called atheistempire.com. A rather typical collection of self-righteous non-believers and illogical Christians spouting bible verses they don’t understand, but I did find this little gem of a joke on the site. I don’t know if they wrote it or simply posted it, but should be amusing regardless of your beliefs.

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. He said to himself:
What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!”
As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

“Lord, bless this food,
which I am about to receive from thy bounty
through Christ our Lord,
Amen.”