I just finished proofing the March issue from our brilliant designer, Pierre (who is a miracle worker, by the way) and I can’t decide if I’m super excited for everyone to get it or if I should hide in the closet until it’s next month’s kitty bin liner.

For starters, there’s our article on what happened at the Dubai swoop meet in January. Holy shit. I’ll probably have more to say about this in the future, but this thing has already made me lose sleep, caused my teeth to hurt from grinding and put about 8 pounds on me from stress eating. Maybe no one will care besides those named in the article, but clearly it’s made me think. The biggest issue for me, personally, was how to report a situation based entirely on what other people said happened, with some parties more than willing to tell their stories and others telling me that I’m a pretty terrible person and only doing this to bring shame and sensationalist drama to the sport and the event.

I’ve gone over it and over it, and I still think the story is worth telling, if only to tell the truth about a skydiving event for once. In general, I can’t stand event articles, because they’re all the same and never say much about what really happened. Something definitely happened in Dubai, and people are still upset about it. That alone is worth telling. And, not to burst anyone’s bubble, but the world of skydiving is not the roses and sunshine version you read about in association mags.

For the record, as I’ve said many times, the harsh light of reality is not appropriate for association mags. It’s their job to present the sport in the best light possible, and anything other than that would be an irresponsible use of member dollars.

We’re not an association publication. We don’t have to represent the sport in any light but the true one. In fact, you probably gave us your money because you wanted to read about what things are really like, so if anything, we have a duty to you to print the real stories, as ugly or uncomfortable as they may be.

In any case, this article in particular was difficult because it involved my friends. I don’t want them to be mad at me, but I also don’t want to disregard another person’s opinion or version of a story just because I don’t know them well or at all. I’m a silly person and don’t take much seriously, but ethics, fairness and morality is the exception. I can honestly say I did my very best to not take sides in this article and present the stories so you, the reader, could make up your own mind. I hope you’ll read it and send a letter to the editor (uh, that’s me, lara@blueskiesmag.com) with your reactions.

I also hope you don’t mind the text-heavy nature of this issue. There was a lot to say! Taya Weiss has a good article about the wingsuit drama and Melanie Curtis is starting an awesome new column about life coaching. Kolla and I both got chills reading it (even though we wouldn’t admit it to each other). Simon “Bones” Palacio teaches you how to brew your own beer! And Karen Woolem tells an epic couch-surfing/BASE jumping/Dudeism story that is 100% Californian.

Important notice: we are running out of booby pictures – both female and male – to print. Please send more!

See? We’d never go 100% serious on you

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It was quite an eventful weekend. Long story short, I deleted the entire website database at approximately 13:05 EST on Saturday. We had a backup from the previous Sunday (2/6) and restored to that point. So, a few posts, a lot of dog poo votes and a couple comments were lost. I apologize! If you voted in our Dogs at the Drop Zone? poll, go back and vote again. We’ll recreate the posts to the best of our memory. Uh yeah, which isn’t great.

On a brighter note, you all should be getting your January/February issues right about now! Let us know what you think, and get ready for some super duper coolness in the March issue. And, it was a gorgeous weekend, so there should be plenty of No Shit! stories, beer fines and pictures to share with us

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Kickstarter can give you...a kickstart. Duh.

We just found out about Kickstarter, a funding site for artists, do-gooders, filmmakers, musicians, writers—anyone who creates stuff that generally requires money. Thinking about a higher-level, long-format skydiving video? Are you a photographer who wants to start exhibiting your aerial shots? A group from the DZ planning to go volunteer in Haiti but need cash to buy supplies? Got a story to write about BASE jumping? Or, do you want to do something completely unrelated to aerial sports? We guess that’s allowed, too.

If you have a project you’ve been itching to make, give it a shot and let us know! We think skydiving, BASE jumping, paragliding, speed riding and anything else that happens in the sky is just ripe for an artistic takeover of the world.

PS – The January/February issue of Blue Skies Mag has a kickass article on making the greatest skydiving video in the history of the universe, by the one and only Melsinore. Combine that with Kickstarter and you could be the next James Cameron.

PPS – Our N3A contest deadline has been extended to February 15 by popular demand, so get going on those pull alarms!

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Crap, who is going to run this town tonight?

It’s a very odd thing to work in the skydiving industry. On one hand, you are a professional who goes to work every day and produces something people purchase with the fruits of their own labor. On the other hand—it’s skydiving, for f’s sake! We’re supposed to be ridiculously irresponsible and leave all our cares and worries to the DZO. Someone else runs this town, not us.

But, here we are, about to professionally communicate with our customers our plan for 2010, issue a Publication Schedule and just generally attempt to run a professional, responsible small business. Basically—we’re going to run this town tonight.

Anyway, enough with my hip hop-fueled analogies, and on to the business at hand. Please hold off on booby-trapping your mailbox because it’s apparent that your mailman has stolen your January issue of Blue Skies Mag. The postal service has nothing to do with the fact that your mailbox is silently crying out to be filled with our assemblage of paper and ink; instead, we planned to do a January/February combined issue that will come out mid-February.

This issue won’t be bigger than any other, but it will have a cool little surprise that we hope you’ll like. We decided to do a combined issue for a few reasons. First, skydiving activity (and, subsequently, advertising) typically is at its lowest in January. There just isn’t a whole lot going on—besides drama, which we’ll have plenty of in the March issue. Second, we are a small business and have been going at it pretty much non-stop since May; we built in a holiday break so we could show our relatives that we do, in fact, still exist.

The next order of business is our print schedule. Some bright mind suggested that your mailboxes would be happier if we spread the joy of skydiving publications throughout the month. Parachutist and other mags come out around the first, so we’ll let you enjoy that, and get our issue to you mid-month.

So, to recap: Jan/Feb issue mid-February, March issue mid-March, and on and on and on. With boobs* and beer, naturally.

*PS—We can’t print pictures you want to see if you don’t send us pictures of things you want to look at! Send them to pierre@blueskiesmag.com.

PPS—Kolla wanted me to say that we also want pictures of hot, shirtless men. We don’t discriminate when it comes to boobs. She has an excellent point. Here is an example of what we would like:

yes, please

And that’s how we run our town.

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To all of our subscribers, advertisers, contributors, website readers, printers, Twitter and Facebook followers, friends and family – thank you for an absolutely amazing year.

2009 saw Skydiving Magazine shut its doors after 30 years of trusty service to the skydiving community and a few months later, the birth of Blue Skies Magazine.  We are grateful for all the support we have received in the past few months and look forward to continue to put out the most kick-ass magazine we can.

Here is to a very happy 2010, beginning with only the mildest of hangovers.  Now lets go get this party started!

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Today is a big day for our favorite little Icelandic magazine mogul, Kolbrun Kolbeinsdottir! You may know her simply as Kolla, lover of Coca-Cola, crusher of dreams, swimmer, runner, cyclist, feared giver of unsolicited advice—or just friend. However you know her, some number of years ago at this exact moment (8 a.m. GMT), at the Akureyri, Iceland hospital, Kolbeinn Sigurbjornsson and Helga Jónsdóttir brought a new daughter into the world. (Thanks for that, you two )

This has been quite the year for our Kolla, so if you see her, be sure to give her a big hug and smoochy wet birthday kiss. I hear she loves both of those, along with whatever kind of physical affection you can come up with.

“Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we’ll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.” — Richard Bach

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Right now some of the top canopy pilots in the world are either making their way to or have already arrived at the Johannesburg Skydiving Club (JSC) in South Africa.  66 competitors from 16 countries will be competing for medals in 3 events; Speed, Accuracy and Distance.   The overall winner of the 3 disciplines combined will be crowned the World Cup Champion.
Including judges and support staff, 23 countries are represented in South Africa.

The dropzone is situated at 5000 feet above sea level and that altitude those teeny little parachutes move pretty fast (especially with some of the big boys dangling under them).  We spoke to some of the American competitors before heading out and they seem to think we can expect new World Records at the event, as long as the weather cooperates.

US Team Manager Albert Berchtold commented that “the course is super fast and conditions today and yesterday were very challenging.  Quartering tail wind pushing you downwind through the speed course.  If the conditions are like this during the meet, it won’t be  “if” the speed record gets broken, but it will be how many times.  Going fast isn’t the problem, its keeping your ass in the course”.

Speaking of weather, during this past week of practice wind and rain has hampered training a little.  Competitors are getting up well before the chickens to get to the DZ early, in order to get in a few jumps before the winds kick up, which has been around 10 AM.
A person who would rather remain nameless pointed out that these conditions suit the Australian delegation perfectly, as they provide for extended hours at the bar.  That is definitely something the Aussies are better prepared to handle than any of the other nations attending, so should those conditions prevail we can expect to see some green and gold on the podium.

Competition is set to start on December 2nd and run through the 6th. We will do our best to bring you update and news from the event as it progresses.

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