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Christmas in July

Cover1At least for those of our subscribers who sent in their checks before the first issue came out (that would be those of you that got the first issue in the mail, if you didn’t, you either got hosed by the mailman or your subscription hit my inbox after the cut off date) – you lucky guys and gals are getting a bonus month for free!

The reason?
Well, being a brand new publication we wanted to launch the magazine with a bit of a bang, so we printed up a whole bunch of promotional issues, to be sent far and wide.  You will probably see those show up at a local dropzone or a gear store, at your riggers loft or some even more interesting and obscure places.  Let us know in the comment section where you have spotted a copy, especially if it is in a truly bizarre location!
Since we are giving away a bunch to people we don’t even know, it only seemed right that we would give a free copy to our beloved subscribers too.  After all, if it wasn’t for you, Blue Skies Magazine would be a subscription magazine in a pretty severe existential crisis.

So.  Dear early bird subscriber: thanks for your faith in us, and enjoy your free issue #1

Born to Fly

Man, we are really in the thick of putting the July (pre-second) issue together. If it wasn’t for music, I think I’d have gone crazy by now, so of course I’ve got a little playlist of “magazine launch anthems” going. I won’t bore you with the details of what each song means to me personally, but you can probably figure it out.

Kolla and I were talking about this little magazine, and how it’s just a runaway freight train. We couldn’t hop off now if we wanted to (and we don’t!). It feels like it was born to fly, just like the first song. If you don’t like country, don’t close the page yet! There’s a little something for everyone in this one:


Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones

Here are some of the things we’ve got coming in the July issue: a feature on skydiving’s superwoman, Valinda Mitchell; rigging by Mike Gruwell; 4-way/competition tips by Steve Hamilton; a tunnel comparison chart by Ari Perelman; a week in the life of Eric Deren as he films the upcoming 3D movie Human Flight 3D; a review of new iPhone skydiving games; and an introduction to the 4-way team we’ll follow to Nationals, PACK’D. Including, of course, the snark and sarcasm, beer and boobs we’ve promised all along ;) And more of Sunman than you’ve probably ever cared to see (this was not the kind of nudity we had in mind when we planned the magazine, but we’re nothing if not equal opportunity givers).

I really really really really (really) hope you guys like it.

Oh and before I forget, send your news to lara@blueskiesmag.com!

Desktop Wallpapers featuring YOU

JT going the distance

JT going the distance

Now that we are living smack middle in the digital age, it seems that every other skydiver on the dropzone is equipped with a camera.  Odds are that you have, or can easily get, a kick ass skydiving photo of yourself in freefall or under canopy.
Armed with said picture (or a few dozen) in decent resolution, you then go visit the website of Big Huge Labs and follow simple instructions in order to turn your Kodak moment into a snazzy calendar.

The next step is optional (but highly recommended) – install the brand new wallpaper on your computer at work so that your whuffo coworkers may fully appreciate your coolness.
Then simply rinse, lather and repeat every time new month rolls around, preferably with a new picture every time.

For the overachievers, if you make some wicked cool ones, by all means put them up somewhere and share the link in the comment section. Just be cool about it and make sure you have the rights to the image or get permission from the photographer, best to keep them happy so they will continue to take cool pictures of us (and continue to delete the shots where we look not so cool.  Not that that ever happens to me, but it does happen to some people).

Now get creative, go play!

Swooping in Raeford

Pia McFarland and Brian Buechler putting on the big boy pants!

Pia McFarland and Brian Buechler putting on the big boy pants!

This past weekend, 37 canopy pilots met up pondside at the Raeford
Parachute Center in North Carolina. The event was the fifth and last meet of the Florida Canopy Piloting Association league for the 2009 season. On hand was a healthy mix of pro and amateur competitors, ready to lay it all on the line for 6 rounds of speed, distance and zone accuracy, to find out at the end who would be crowned the 2009 league champion.

North Carolina was in a bit of a pissy mood and kept threatening to drench competitors and spectators alike. By mid-morning, the first competition load finally took off and competition began. During the speed rounds, two competitors decided to test themselves against the density of planet
Earth; planet won in both cases. Jairo Garcia was able to walk away (very slowly) whilst Morgan Lane got a full service ride from the local ambulance service. To the best of our knowledge, both should recover well.

“Happy Swooper” Marat Leiras set a couple of new records during this meet.  He set a new record in speed that qualifies both as a state and national record of 2.472 seconds. The distance record of 115 meters (337.3 ft) will be a state record only. Both records have been submitted to USPA and await
validation by the association.

At the end of a long day with multiple weather holds, it was finally time for the award ceremony. League director Albert Berchtold gave a short and sweet speech and immediately went on to announce the awards (smart move, considering the hordes of hungry skydivers awaiting food).

The top finishers at the Raeford Swoop meet were:
1. Critter Weiss, Atlanta Skydiving Center (GA) – 444.05 points
2. Curt Bartholomew, Air Adventures (FL) – 410.88 points
3. Joe Ablen, U.S. Army Golden Knights (NC) – 399.32 points
4. Micah Couch, Skydive DeLand (FL) – 367.02 points
5. “Big Steve” Haseman, Skydive the Farm (GA) – 365.22 points.

After a healthy amount of high-fives and man-hugs, it was on to crown the 2009 FLCPA league champion. It had been announced earlier in the season that the winner of the league would get a free ride to go compete in the USPA Nationals, including airfare, hotel, competition jumps and
registration. Albert also announced that the runner up would get competition jumps and registration comped as well. The top five finishers would be issued “PRO” cards by the league, so quite a lot was on the line for the top contenders.

Showing off the bling!

Showing off the bling!

The top five were:
1. Curt Bartholomew, Air Adventures (FL)*
2. Micah Couch, Skydive DeLand (FL)
3. Jairo Garcia, Skydive Palatka (FL)
4. Shane Shaffer, Skydive Palatka (FL)
4. Kai Sherwood, Skydive Orange (VA)

* Golden Knight and World Champion Greg Windmiller actually tied Curt in points for the first place, but since he already has a PRO status, he wasn’t eligible for the title.

All in all a great meet and it will be exciting to see how these guys and gal do at future competitions.

I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You

What a terrible song that was. Hopefully that is not an omen of how this little venture will turn out. And now it’s stuck in my head.

It is 1 a.m. on a Friday night (Saturday morning?) in April and I am setting up the Blue Skies Magazine website. Although I don’t have kids, I imagine this is what Christmas Eve feels like to the parent of a picky 5-year-old—staying up late to wrap the presents from Santa, imagining the giddy, thankful scene in the morning when your beloved little creature wakes up and shrieks with delight to find the toy of his or her dream under the tree. You’re a little delirious – aren’t all parents of small children sleep deprived and slightly nutty? – and not just a little scared shitless. What if child *hates* present? What if child runs away to outer Mongolia to live with new parents who actually “get” him?

What this convoluted, slightly confusing analogy is meant to show is that we are doing all of this craziness (quitting great jobs with excellent insurance, working on Friday nights, living with the constant fear of failure) for you. We hope you like our website. We hope you shriek with delight upon opening your mailbox some sunny late-June afternoon to find the magazine of your dreams (no, not that magazine). We hope we can contribute something to the skydiving world.

So, I better get back to pushing buttons on this here interweb thingy. See you soon, and please start practicing your shrieks of delight.

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