Archive for September, 2009
what’s next on the list?
My skydive capped off a remarkable few months for me. From May up until now, i’ve been very busy… working, learning, studying, networking, planning…
Next month (October) will see the launch of windows 7 and i intend to completely revamp my own desktop PC whilst i’m at it. Switching to a 64 bit operating system, more RAM, bigger, faster hard drive…
It will be a like getting a new PC and it’s hard to believe the one i have now is almost 1.5 years old 
Anyway, looking beyond my hardware i do have many ‘goals’… BeerChief is still no.1 and i’d love to give an update on that, but i just don’t know when it’ll be ready… i have the cash to put in to it, but i’m waiting patiently for a new social networking platform.
At college, i’m now finally learning something useful in the form of building databases and linking them with web applications. I have a year long project to complete which involves building a shopping cart from scratch along with the database, design etc… it’s gonna be tough but this is the sort of stuff i enjoy doing. Building a website is much more entertaining for me than learning about how routers work and using a command line interface to configure them.
In terms of paid work then i always seem to have something on, but it’s a catch 22 for me really because if i work for other people, i’m losing time that i could be spending on my own projects or college work, so i’m usually reluctant to volunteer myself for new jobs. Then again, i do learn as i go along and working for other people always forces me in to thinking about how best to go about things.
A couple of weeks ago, i went along to bizcamp and found the day useful. Although i’m not sure what’s on when, i do intend to tag along to more of those type of events as they get me thinking if nothing else.
Anyway, BeerChief is the next big thing on my list. It has been for the past couple of years, but much like my skydive it will get done and i’m almost certain it’ll be finished within the next 2/3 months (well before 2009 ends).
A couple of years ago i switched from o2 to meteor. Now, i’m switching back to o2.
No particular reason other than o2 seem to have slightly better coverage plus my girlfriend has moved to them, so it’s cheaper if we’re both on the same network.
I’m also signed up to o2 student broadband @ €9.99/month. Meteor don’t offer that so that’s another red mark against them. Looking at my screenshot from 2007 -v- today’s prices, it looks like meteor have also RAISED prices sneakily.
These days, each network is a bad as each other in terms of pricing. None want to reduce costs unless they have to and none can be seen to be raising costs for obvious reasons.
You register and see the ‘Free €40 credit’ taglines only to find out you need to spend €160 to get it (€20 x 8 months). Not so long ago, you’d get €40 or €50 credit no strings attached when buying a phone and registering 
All of the networks have slowly moved away from that model to a ‘you pay us first, then we give you a bit back’ model. Anyway… back to o2 i go and hopefully i’ll save a bit of cash because of it – not because calls/texts are that much cheaper, but because more people i know are already on o2.
This is one example of how it pays to follow the crowd
It’s extremely hard for me to just continue blogging today about technology and projects etc… when i threw myself out of an airplane yesterday. I’ve had time to absorb everything and the reality of it all is starting to set in.
It’s definitely something i can be proud of and say that i’ve done. My post yesterday was important as i was able to capture all of my thoughts and feelings and describe the experience is reasonably good detail. It will be nice in years to come to look back on that post and remind myself what it felt like.
Anyway, it all started off as a charity skydive and i ran a competition way back in September 2008. Although i didn’t raise much back then, it was still better than nothing and i have to thank these guys again for putting up prizes.
I had intended to jump then (or soon after) but money and time were a problem. So we (i was doing it with a friend), decided to put it off until April 2009 or so when the weather would start to pick up and we’d both be finishing up in college.
April came and went and then we said summer 2009 – after i’d finished college i came up with a masterplan to (a) raise money (b) keep me busy (c) help myself learn & study more.
That free logo offer turned out to be a stroke of genius and i haven’t looked back. Ever since i announced that, i’ve been working on multiple projects for & with multiple people. Anyway, i went to London in July 2009 and said that i’d skydive when i came back.
But i was still busy, August was approaching and i said to myself – “Right, i MUST do this before i head back to college”… Although it was the 27th september when i jumped, i’d put the wheels in motion long before that (before i went back to college). I didn’t want to build it up too much on this blog again, so in the end it was a low key event on the blog right up until i’d gotten confirmation i was going to be jumping.
I’m not lying though when i say i’ve thought about it every day since it was first mentioned to me – once an idea is put in my head and i agree to it, that’s it… no going back. Even if i’ll temporarily bury it to the back of my mind or put it on hold for a while, i will usually complete things
Although the day was a bit of a blur, i’m happy that i jumped and could enjoy it & take everything in… it is a once in a lifetime experience and i’m glad i can stroke it off so early in my life
Today was the day i finally jumped out of a plane, free fell over 5000 feet at over 200mk/hr and glided down to earth with the help of a parachute. It sounds crazy and that’s exactly what it was…
To start the day, i had to be up at 6am and gone from the house by 7am, to arrive for around 9am at the Irish Parachute Club in offaly. I’m tempted to say that was the hardest thing i had to do all day but i suppose jumping out of a plane has to take that title.
Once we got there, i had to sign multiple forms and ‘if you die it’s your own fault’ contracts. Certainly not for the faint hearted! There were about 10 of us in a room all signing the same forms and being showed what we have to read, sign, date etc…
After i’d everything signed i overheard one guy saying that he wasn’t going… grand – i’m not surprised as if you’re not in the right frame of mind doing something like this, it’s better to pull out on the ground rather than in the air 
A simple ‘i’m too scared’ or ‘don’t want to risk it’ would have done it, but he said he had a feeling something bad was going to happen and he had felt it for the past few days… obviously he’s watched too many final destination movies
In those movies, people predict bad things will happen and they do… everyone who ignores their predictions all end up dieing because they never listened. Well, i was undeterred by this guy as i felt confident and safe from start to finish. At no stage did i think i was going to die
I seen a few plane loads of people go off and touch down before it was my turn to board the plane so i already knew what it looked like when on the ground. I boarded the plane at about 12.20pm and would have jumped out around 12.35pm (took about 10-15 mins to rise to 10,000 feet).
At this stage my instructor was running over what i had to do… arms crossed, head back, knees bent etc… i knew all this from watching some youtube videos anyway! The plane held 8 adults + the pilot and it was cramped. You can tell by looking at it, it wasn’t going to be a comfortable ride… the flight up to 10,000 feet felt flawless though – remarkably smooth although maybe i didn’t notice the bumps because i had other things on my mind…
In total there were 4 guys including myself doing tadem jumps. Each of us 4 newbies were attached to 4 tandem masters. I was last to jump – not because i was nervous or anything but just because that was the easiest way for us all to maneuver out of the plane. Jumping first is probably easiest as you don’t have to watch others fall out, so if you’re nervous, i’d recommend jumping first if you can.
As the student, you’re dangled over the edge of the plane whilst the instructor slowly gets ready to let go. I said before, i’d never know how i felt until i was actually in that situation but honestly i wasn’t nervous at all – i was looking forward to it although i didn’t know what to expect with the free falling. It’s one of those things not many people can accurately put in to words.
What happens next is the bit that is really difficult to describe… You’re up at 10,000 feet and plummet to 5,000 feet in about 30 seconds, tumbling a few times as you leave the plane before you get in to stable position facing downwards. You’re traveling at over 200km/hr (terminal velocity) at this point. Some people describe the experience as ‘floating’ but i can tell you now it didn’t feel like floating to me – i was well aware of the speed i was traveling at. Breathing is pretty tricky – you can breathe but it takes a while to adjust. Not surprising really – try sticking your head out a car window on a motorway and breathing – it’s the same sort of sensation – you’re gasping for air and getting it, but it’s like someone is pumping compressed air in to your face
As for describing the speed – it’s a bit like a roller coaster only faster, at a constant speed and with no protection or security that you can feel and sense (seats / belts / bars etc…) so mentally, it’s a bigger challenge as you know that you’re relying on that parachute to open and if it doesn’t….
Right up until the parachute opens at 5000 feet, it’s all adrenaline and then everything goes quiet and still and you’re just floating around like a bird. The weather was pretty cloudy today, all day, so it meant i was jumping out of the plane with the clouds beneath me – not a pocket of land in sight from the plane.
Above the overcast clouds, it was blue skies and sunshine – perfect weather… so it was an experience in itself to quite literally glide from that sunshine to cloudy darkness in the space of a few seconds… it was as if someone dimmed the lights!
The best way to describe viewing land from a parachute is like roaming around in google earth, zooming in and out, rotating etc… That’s exactly what it looked and felt like to me. I felt completely safe, completely in control (parachutes are pretty easy to steer!) and i was also attached to a man (JJ) who’d done this 1,124 times before, so i was in very safe hands.
The airplane i jumped out of had landed before i did and was already picking up the next lot of jumpers by the time i’d touched down. I’d read plenty of stories about broken limbs upon landing, so i was well aware that should my feet be in the wrong position on landing, i could easily be going home with a sprained or broken ankle. We did come in to land at a pretty decent pace and had i put a foot down or tried to land on my feet, i can see how easy it would have been to do some damage.
But i was told to keep my feet up and i’d seen it in videos anyway so that’s exactly what i did and the landing was smooth. No problems, no injuries, no deaths… Definitely an experience to remember and well worth doing.
Would i do it again? Yes. Will i do it again? Maybe, but not for a long time (it’s an expensive hobby – did you know a single parachute costs over €12k?!). Would i recommend it? Yes. The minute i was asked about doing it i knew that if i said no, some part of me would always regret it. At 22, i’m fit, healthy, physically and mentally capable of doing it, so i never believed i was in any danger. Later on in life, the decision wouldn’t have been so clear cut.
Anyway, this is one for the CV and a blog post i’ll no doubt link to time and time again from now on… ‘the day i skydived’….. and here’s the all important proof….
I spent most of today just working my way through a backlog of college work.
I spent about an hour designing a flow chart which is as complicated as it looks But it had to be done and these flow charts require real thought and hard work to get right so i was determined to sit down and get it done ASAP even though i don’t have to have it done for another 2 weeks
I also put together a brief description of what my college project (website) will be about and i also started the design. Logo took about an hour to do. Getting the general layout / site design looking right took about an another hour.
I’ll most likely change my mind a million times before i settle on a final design but i do like the whole chunky / apple-type interface ‘phase’ many applications are going through. The design of course was never going to be a problem for me – i’ve lots of experience now with photoshop and more importantly i can work quickly with it and know where everything is. I’m FORCED to use asp.net though for the coding and that will no doubt result in many late nights and headaches as i’m a novice with it and obviously i’ll want to do ‘expert’ things – that’s just how i work…
I’m also not sure whether i’m ‘allowed’ blog about this stuff or indeed reveal demos and mock ups, but sure what the hell I wasn’t told otherwise and I can always write it off as ‘research and feedback’
So now, both eyes will turn to my skydive tomorrow… i’ll be there early and hopefully get jumping early. Only now am i really starting to put myself at the edge of the airplane door (at 10k feet) in my head, but i still don’t feel particularly nervous…
I suppose roller-coasters are the closest thing i’ve experienced to the sort of forces i’ll meet tomorrow but i enjoy roller-coasters so i’ll probably enjoy tomorrow from start to finish as well!
