Recreation

Skydiving

One of the things I do on weekends is hurl myself out of perfectly good airplanes. I've been jumping for over 6 years now. I've jumped from 30,000' 16 times. (See Michael Wright's high altitude skydiving page for more info.)

I've also been skydiving at the North Pole. If you have a fast connection (or don't mind waiting a while) check out some pictures I took. There's almost 3 meg of image data, so consider yourself warned.

I normally jump at Skydance Skydiving in Davis, CA. They are one of the better DZ in northern California.

Ice Hockey

Shortly after moving to California in October of 1992, I learned that there were adult beginner ice hockey leagues in the area. Since I had wanted to play hockey for many years (it's one of the things on my list) but spent the first 24 years of my life in Hell, er, Houston where ice hockey wasn't exactly the most popular sport, I never had a chance to learn.

As soon as I heard about the beginner leaques, I signed up and have been playing ever since (except for a one season hiatus when I was going thru a fire academy and couldn't make most of the games due to conflicts with class times)

The team I'm on currently is called The Huskies. We play our games at the Oakland Ice Center located just a couple of miles from where I live.

I've played on other teams in the past before there was a rink in Oakland, but driving about an hour each way to the South Bay for two or more games per week was getting old. I was really happy to see the new rink open.

Motorcycling

One more thing on my list is motorcycling.

I started riding when I was 17, much to my family's chagrin. I've had my share of spills, but have walked (or at least limped) away from all but one. (There's nothing quite like waking up while paramedics are strapping you to a back board to get your attention.)

I've owned several bikes. My current machine is a BMW K75s that is named "Slider." Before you ask, yes he got his name in an accident. Fortunately, the person who hit me (really, even the motorcycle unfriendly CHP said so) was driving a company car so all of the cosmetic damage was fixed. The name came to me when I saw my 1 month old bike sliding down the freeway after I had already come to a stop. Funny how I could find myself thinking of my bike's name when I had just hit the cement at a high rate of speed.