Back from Russia now. Drank a ****load of vodka, sent a gay dude to the floor after he grabbed my bellybutton in the nightclub Plasma (and got thrown out, on my birthday and all!), tried to get laid (but those Russian girls, with their beautiful bodies, only go so far, then no no) and generally didn't give a sh|t about anything but grinning and doing whatever I felt like. Almost got into a fight with a Russian colonel, aftyer he misunderstood my "f*ck it" as a "f*ck off". Since he dinnae speak English, my "I dinnae say F*CK OFF, I said F*ck I" made the situation worse, and only the mafia-esque Russians who had taken us to the nightclub saved me from having my arse handed to me.
Did about 150 jumps (bad weather). Managed to bust up my shoulder on exit (left a mark on the AN-28), almost got hit by another group under canopy, had a bunch of zoo dives, and got great coaching from the best in the world.
Jumped with some famous people too, such as Juan Carlos from the 1st School Of Human Flight, and Tim Straus from Arizona Freeflight. Saw Luigi land the smallest canopy in the world (39sqft, compared to my 120sqft) and made an bellybutton outta myself in front of JC Coclaesure (best canopy pilot in the world) ("nooo, I am nohht DRUNK dh00d! Lhess grab theesh Lada!"
Now I have 6 60 minute digital tapes with jumps and stuff. Ordered a firewire card and cable (got a Sony PC105). And have installed Adobe Premiere 6.5. Obviously I wanna transform the 6 hours of raw tape to 20 minutes of Pretty Neat Sh|t. Got a few tutorials, but I have a load of questions, some very basic.
If someone has some experience with this, help would be appreciated.
Russia is a very very cool place. Most things are pretty run down, but the people aren't poor or behind as some would have you think. The packers at the DZ drown around in new bimmers and Mercedes. Big cars or small Ladas was about it though. Loved the "oh well, that doesn't work, we'll figure something out" attitude. Very nice to be away from the obsessive anal safety/control square way of doing things at home. Of course, now I'm stuck at that again, til next year. Russia kicks ass.
