That’s the sound of the March issue flying through the U.S. Postal Service tubes to your mailbox. If you are a current subscriber, that is. If you are not a current subscriber, you can rectify that situation by clicky clicking here on the big SUBSCRIBE button: Subscribe

In this issue:

• Skydivers Unite Alert #2: Tim “Sage” Sagehorn
• Lots of Flight-1 Canopy Camps
• This guy
• RV Tips from the Hypoxic road show
• SoFPDaRF Terms and Conditions
• 2012 Arizona BASE Boogie by Cynthia Lynn Guzman
• Read more about BASE Boogie organizer Matt Frohlich over at Cynthia’s place: Someone You Should Know…15 Questions with BASE Jumper Matt Frohlich
• A Personal History of Skydiving As Told by the T-Shirts Which Can’t Be Thrown Away by Cheryl Michaels
• How many old skydiving T-shirts are in your collection?
• 100-Jump Wonder by Mary Flannery
• Who they really are, as told by one of them.
• Kate’s Last, My First by Melissa Keener Havemann
• Melissa’s first skydive was her friend Kate’s ash dive. Completing the circle.
• Centerfold: a very pretty picture by Bill Schmitz
• Surprise, Bill!
• Indoor Skydiving Championships 2012: A Photo Essay by Chad Wilcox
• Yes, you will be jealous.
• Freeze Your Buns Off by Wendy Faulkner
• Easy tiger, it’s about the CRW boogie at Lake Wales this February
• I Jumped It: The EEZYCUT Trilobite by Mike Gruwell of Chuting Star
• Another installment of our reader gear reviews
• Good Luck with This: Throwing Some Singles by Karl Meyer
• We’re pretty psyched about this one. Skydive Arizona’s new marketing manager will toss out some nearly impossible dives for you to try at home! Send pictures and video to shenanigans@blueskiesmag.com.
• Turning Points: Spring Time – Let’s Get 4-Way Married by Kurt Gaebel, National Skydiving League
• How do I love thee, teammate? Let me count the ways. This month’s column by Kurt should be required reading for anyone considering putting a team together.
• The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career: Safety Starts Here by Sydney Owen
• Community. It’s not just a show on NBC.
• Mid-Life Mania by the Fuckin’ Pilot
• Princess branches out into fiction. A story we all hope to avoid.
• Links in the Chain by Melanie Curtis
• How do you repair your chain once a link breaks?
• SkyGod’s Official Man Card Application
• Jump a Random Skydiver
• Shaggio Rodriguez, as interviewed by the lovely (and very much missed!) Faith. Nope, no idea what his real name is.

i28 February!

The February issue of Blue Skies Mag is coming. (That’s what she said.) If you are a subscriber, here is what you’ll find (if you’re not, it’s quick and painless to become one and subscribe today right now here):

• New Canadian rates! More info here.
• Top ten ways to say, “F*ck You, Cupid” on Valentine’s Day
• I Jumped It: The MagBag
• Gear review by Andre Lemaire, of Jerry Baumchen’s magnetic, stowless main d-bag. Videos of the test jumps here.
• Football Widow
• Or, how not to become one. How the Drennan family keeps their love alive while Ian is living the dream as a PD Factory Team member, Annie runs her own business, and Kaiya is a professionally adorable 2 1/2-year-old.
• 100 Jumps for Mike Spann
• John E. Souders, Jr. did 100 jumps to honor Mike Spann, America’s first combat casualty in Afghanistan. Clark Word went along for the ride and tells us about the day.
• -ISM + NCCPA = TLF
• Kim Nocita tells about the great coming-together of NorCal and SoCal swoop leagues to form one that will rule them all.
• Photo Break: Invasion 2012
• Kazu Oyama and Bill Schmitz take some fine photos
• My Freefall Wedding
• Dave Udell was the first (beeeeeeeeeeer!) man to take the plunge out of Mike Mullins’ King Air when he married his adorable girlfriend Kim in 1993
• Aerodynamics for Dummies Part 3: Glide Ratio
• In the final installment, the adorable Julien rounds out his aerodynamics lesson with GR
• Turning Points: With Fresh Air and Rhythm into the Future
• Kurt, of NSL lore, fame, and glory, details why SDC Rhythm XP is the next big thing
• The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career: True Love
• Sydney and skydiving, sittin’ in a tree ♫ k-i-s-s-i-n-g ♪ first comes love ♬ then comes marriage ♫ then comes a back brace
• The Fuckin’ Pilot: “Bob, A Smart Man”
• A fictional tale about Bob, a tandem instructor, and the smartest decision he ever made
• Life Coaching: Tape Your Head to Hers
• Melsinore gives tips on how to clean up, amp up, and de-clutter up your non-skydiving life
• SkyGod’s Expo 2012 Calendar

Issue #25!

What’s in this issue:

• Arizona Airspeed is NOT going to Dubai, in case you hadn’t heard. Lots of opinions on this one.
• The Zen of BASE, Part 2: Very Lucky
  • Last month, Matt Gerdes took you from his first skydive to his first BASE jumps. Now he’s testing his wings and getting very lucky.
• Big Girls Don’t Cry: Ana Isabel Dao
• This month’s hot BASE girl fix.
• The Ultimate Test of Tunnel Training
  • What happens when you take two tunnel gods out of the tube and into the sky for a Jay Stokes AFF rating course?
• Photo Break Deluxe: The Best of What We Haven’t Shown You
• RBF Lessons Learned
  • What’s an RBF, you say? Read it and find out
• Follow the Bromance to Nationals
  • Catch up with Team Scarecrow on their journey from Skydive the Ranch to USPA Nationals.
• Turning Points by Kurt Gaebel: What’s the 4-Way World without Airspeed?
  • We told you there were a lot of opinions.
• The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career by Sydney Owen: Continuing Education
  • Amanda’sSydney’s educational path so far
• The F***in’ Pilot by…the F***in’ Pilot: So Hard To Say Goodbye…
  • His other nickname is “Princess” and he gets a little mushy.
• Venison Steaks by Melanie Curtis
  • What Melsinore’s childhood in the family slaughterhouse taught her about life. Seriously.
• Jump a Random Skydiver: Missy Keough
• A dairyland delight.

updated: I accidentally omitted this month’s BASE Big Girl! Ana Isabel Dao is in this issue

Issue #24

The magical issue #24 is out hitting the streets as I type. Here is what you can expect in your mailbox, if you’re a subscriber. If you’re not a subscriber and like what you see, you can sign up now. When you get our confirmation email, let Kolla know you want to start with this one (or any issue).

• The Zen of BASE: Suicide with a Plan B
• The first of four parts to Matt Gerdes’ tales of life and death in BASE
• Why Am I a Swooper (And How Did I Get Here)?
• Swooper Dave Lund, aka aggiedave, explains how and why he is a proud swooper
• Big Boy Pants Swoop
• A recap of our live tweeting of the exciting swoop showdown at Mile-Hi last month
• Tunnels: More Smiles, Fewer Peek-a-Boos
• Shannon McCarthy and SkyVenture Colorado present a few more compelling reasons to get in some tunnel time – not that we need any!
• Bromance is Coming to Nationals in a Scary Way
• The lovely Faith brings us her first piece, a profile of Team Scarecrow, who she’ll be following all the way to USPA Nationals in October. Meet the boys, share their journey, love their bromance.
• Big Girls Don’t Cry: Lika Borzova
• We love girls. Girls who BASE jump are even better. Hot Russian girls who BASE jump? Yeah. Cynthia Lynn’s next profile of an awesome, badass woman.
• Show Me the Money! More Open Thoughts about Sponsorship
• Kurt Gaebel of the National Skydiving League concludes his thoughts about sponsorship in skydiving.
• The Beginning of the End of My Flourishing Career: From Cutaway to 3Ring
• Sydney’s next chapter – [caution: spoiler alert] her own company, 3Ring Media!
• Passion for Pay by the Fuckin’ Pilot
• Dean “Princess” Ricci has a few tips if you’re thinking about joining the Living The Dream crew
• Deal-No-Deal
• Melanie Curtis. Say no more.
• SkyGod loves the haters.

In issue #20, Doc shared some tips he wished he’d known before going to his first boogie. (By the way, you do know that’s beer, right Doc?) What are your first boogie tips and stories?

photo by kilgarron

Scan me, baby.

So we’ve been printing these funky little QR codes for a few months now – what does everyone think? Do you use them? Are they lame? Do you know what in hell to do with them?

Don’t worry, we’re still figuring out just what we want to do with them, too. I know that when I read magazines, I’ll sometimes want to read the additional things they have on their website, but sure won’t type in a long URL to do it. A quick scan and boop! it’s there on my phone, super handy.

So, a few adjustments are in the works for the next issue. They’ll be smaller, for one. Events will each get their own, and the QR code will pop up an actual event that you can add to your phone’s calendar. Melanie Curtis’ QR code will be a contact card so you can email her to set up a coaching session, visit her website or just add her to your contacts. Links will be…links still, I don’t know what else you would want to do with those. And, there just may be a surprise or two for diligent scanners

We're not catching her, as much as we'd like to.

Realizations happen in weird ways. This morning out of the clear blue, the first thought I had when I woke up was, “Shit, we spelled ‘flak’ wrong on our latest cover.”

That’s not quite as bad as not offering UPT response space in the last issue’s Grim Rigger column, “Riggers, the SkyHook and AADs: Pay Your Money, Take Your Chances.” That realization came much slower and developed over time into a “yup, I was wrong on that call” feeling.

UPT is drafting up a response for our next issue, and we’ve already gotten a letter to the editor in response, which is in this issue.

To make a long story short, we screw up. Well, mostly me. I’m constantly finding mistakes in our issues that just plain got missed or were the wrong choice to begin with. To be fair, I find mistakes in just about every CNN article and book, too. It’s what I do. Anyway, I hope you’ll all forgive us. Well, mostly me. Forgive and write letters to the editor. lara@blueskiesmag.com

The last issue of 2010 is now in the capable hands of the postman, making its way to your hot little hands. We hope that the holidays were kind to you and that your fallrate or wingloading did not increase to the point that you need to go up a size in the new year. But, if that did happen, gear dealers are standing by, ready to empty your wallet help.
Here is what you will soon be feasting your eyes upon:

• Industry News: who was hired/fired – what’s new and exciting – any juicy gossip – is PD finally done with R&D on the Katana… no – wait, that already happened. You get our drift.
• The Turkey Bastards: an epic story of “so close to the trophy I could lick it” in Z-Hills. Box of Kleenex required for reading.
• Blue Skies MagBox: new! Letters to the magazine/editor. Someone FINALLY had something to say to us, read all about it!
• RENO 411: This is THE FEATURE. If you are going to Reno, you must reads this to know what to do/not do. If you aren’t going, you must reads this to know what you are missing out on. If you don’t know what the hell Reno is, you really must read this. And the pictures. Illustrations. You must look at those too.
• Women’s Vertical Formation World Record: Pretty pretty pictures and sort of a “who’s who” of the chickadee upside down world. Match the list of names to the girls in the pictures – provides for a fun activity on a weather day.
• Turning Points: ok 4-way geeks, we listened. And brought in a specialist. Kurt from NSL will from now on provide insightful commentary on the bellyflying landscape.
• Riggers, SkyHook and AAD’s: The Grim Rigger rattles your world once again by making you think about the downfalls of safety devices.
• The Tandem “OH SHIT” Factor: Our favorite one so far. The Fuckin’ Pilot gets in touch with his softer side.
• Trust Your Ducks: Melanie Curtis quacks up some hard core life-coaching wisdom.
• Random Stranger: Meet Russ Haas – all the way from the mid-west.
• And lastly, but really firstly: A Happy New Year Top Ten – where we count backwards some of our favorite feedback from our readers in 2010.

Thanks again for a great 2010 – and we are already looking forward to doing it all over (except bigger and better) in 2011!

Yah, a little late with this post, but copies are still available, so I figured why not!

Here is what you missed out on:

• SANS: Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving. Yep, exactly what it sounds like.
• Jump for the Rose: Texas chicks break all kinds of records at Skydive Spaceland and raise funds for breast cancer research. Good job laides!
• Dirty Pirate Hookers get a website and the Pink Mafia is resurrected by Merriah Eakins.
• Top Ten Ways to Immaturely Deal With Adult Situations (such as close calls of your own or others).
• Chicks Rock recap: a memo to the TEAM (that’s you) from Melsinore, plus some awesome photos.
• The Joy of Freefall Sex. Soon to be our most requested column ever, written by Dick Gosinya and Blondie Shagswell.
• Ladies’ Lodi Sequentials – Live Bigz. Love Life. Skydive, by Stephanie Soria. Lots of awesome pictures by Brian Buckland.
• Learning to Fly – again. A little skydivers journey to becoming a paraglider.
• PIMP centerfold showing Mike Steen scraping the ground, in FREEFALL.
• No Shit, There I Was: Stuart Schoenfeld of team Slipstream Airsports tells a scary tale of almost not cutting away a Velocity 71.
• Thou Shalt Not Tattoo: BSM readers’ response to a letter published in Parachutist magazine not long ago. Brilliant.
• Show Me The Money: by the Fuckn’ Pilot. Rants of a tandem master who would like to get paid more. Funny as hell.
• Kapow! Don’t miss this one, life coaching column by Melanie Curtis. The one and only.
• SkyGod: spilling wisdom as always, answering burning questions.
• Jump a Random Skydiver: Meet Kevin Brown of Skydive Chicago. Blue mowhawk and all.

Phew. There you go. So yeah, contact us if you want to get a copy – or if you want to subscribe and include this one, we can always talk about retroactive subscriptions as well.

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