Zhills update...

(ABOVE- Jane found this pic of me on laszlo's website and got it for me!! thanks jane you rok!)
(ABOVE- a gang of skydivers at the local mexican restaurant one nite for dinner)

So... 4 days into my trip and 19 skydives later. Good stuff. It's been an awesome 4 days so far, hanging out with old friends, meeting new ones, making some really awesome skydives. Even with the sadness of losing our good friend Debbie, everyone is still in good spirits and doing what she would have wanted us to do... enjoy the boogie. Of course she and her family and all of her friends are in our prayers.
... in this sport long enough... you'll be on the dz when an accident happens... it sucks... but at least we all support each other and are there for each other.
Blue Skies Debbie.. Muff Muff...

... now off to the tunnel tonite for some training then right back at it tomorrow morning.

(Hope everyone down at Lindy Focus is having a blast, I'm sure you are, and probably dancing as much as I'm jumping... i'll see you guys at ccb on the 5th though)

Merry Christmas from Zhills....

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!!!
This morning JennR8R and I got up at 4am and went to the airport... by 11am I was at zhills. Sadly the entire afternoon was overcast... but I met some awesome new friends to keep me company all afternoon. Joe and his pet sugar gliders, above is me and gizmo. He has two, stripe and gizmo. I have to say I think I may have found my next pet...
But after an afternoon of gizmo sleeping on my arm. The clouds cleared and I got two really fun jumps in... not too shabby for Christmas =)
I'm happy.. .off to Christmas dinner at the dz... stayed tuned for more updates throughout the week ...

VIDA Holiday Party

UPDATE- Lauren emailed me some pics!!
ABOVE- Lauren, Me, Catherine
ABOVE- Alyssa, Lauren, me

ABOVE- Angelica, Jessica, Me, Mark
ABOVE- Jessica, Me
So this past weekend was the VIDA holiday party. It was a lot of fun, it was at TOWN night club, i'm not really into clubs, but the company of the VIDA gang was good that nite. These are fellow cycle instructors in the pics above... I'll have more pics once I get them from Lauren, then you can see the entire fitness gang, lol.
I really like everyone at VIDA... working there is so awesome!

Office Holiday Party at Topolino's

Dec 10th, My directorate went to Topolino's for a Holiday Office Party. It was a lot of fun. Marie planned a great event. I helped some with the secret Santa. We all had a great time! Yay for Morale!
I was going to post the picture of the whole group, but then realized everyone prolly doesnt want to be on my blog... so instead you just get me and Marie =)
and thanks Mike... you didnt have to give me back the best Secret Santa gift. (Mike gave me back the Eggnog liquer gift at the end of the game, even though he stole it fair and square... just to be nice because i've edited some papers for him... way too nice of him to do that!)
Topolino's is a pretty good restaurant too!!

Videos from Monday nite CCB..

So here are two quick videos of me doing some social Lindy dancing. I know a lot of my friends are non dancers and are wondering what I do several nites a week... well this is pretty much what I do... These are both medium tempo songs... so not super exciting or anything, but still a lot of fun... I'm the one in the suspenders =) THANKS ABA for the AWESOME DJ-ing!

(Above: Doug and I)
(Below: Bob and I)

My favorite sandwich....

Yes... I LOVE this sandwhich so much that I took a damn picture of it! Every time I go home to Ohio I make sure of stopping at W.G. Grinders to have my favorite lunch in the entire world. Grinders has been my favorite sandwich place since I was in High School. I miss it like crazy since they aren't here =( But anyways.... Mom and I went last Saturday, I got my regular order... Club Grinder (minus honey mustard and dressing, extra mayo). OMG, i'm drooling and my stomach is hungry now just thinking about it! If you've never been there... you seriously have no idea what you're missing.

Turkey Trot 5 miler...

So this morning I ran the Columbus, OH 5miler Turkey Trot. No official times or anything because we didn't have chips, but by my watch I ran it in 40min 40sec. Not bad considering I haven't been running at all lately. I got caught way behind at the start line and had to spring through the mob to get out running so I think I might have finished sub-40 if I had been up front... but oh well. It was fun. This picture is post-race, with the pie I got for being in the first 1000 females to finish.
The pic below is me and my nephew Sammy, (he was kinda cranky today)

Black and Gold 2008

So for the better part of the last week I was on permissive orders, down to NC to jump with the U.S. Army Golden Knights at their annual Black and Gold Event (a skydiving competition and jumping for all active duty military skydivers). It rocked. I jumped, I competed, had a blast...

So check out the slide show... I couldn't pick just a few so I put all the ones I had in a slideshow =)

The competitions were a lot of fun. My 4-way team, Non + Com (Freddie and Kramer are NCO's and Alicia and I are both O-3's), ended up taking 4th place out of 12, which is pretty good considering we had never jumped together before, we would have gotten a medal if it weren't for the ringer West Point team, boo! =( oh well, we're still happy we did so well. Check out the video

And our 8-way Speed star team.. We took the 3rd place 4-way team, and added us (except Tom came in for Alicia) and voila, that created the 8way team, "Mostly Officers." We ending up taking 3rd in 8-way speed! We could have taken 1st, I think, but we had a few issues =( but it was such a blast/challenge doing speed star out of the C31. Here's that video....

Love your Failures

Good timing.....

So a lot of you know I'm having some trouble lately... this image came in an email today for one of my workout gear stuff.... and all the sayings on the collage are great (except for the eat organic ;)... but just so happens the one that was highlighted is probably the phrase I need to embrace the most right now... bec I feel like I've failed at a lot and I keep beating myself up for it...
But, they were failures because of decisions I made, and I have to deal with that...so to move forward I have to deal with the consequences and make sure I don't fail again....

I'm workin on it..... it's going to be a difficult path

Scary Way Weekend 2008

(Formation Load attempt: Me, lower right corner looking back at Jane-who is docked on my leg but not in picture)
Above- Jane and I high-five in the landing area after both successfully docking on the formation!

Above- Jane and I Hug and walk back! =)

So what was this past weekend, Scary Ways? Well for my non-skydiving friends, we use the word "way" to describe the formation, i.e. if there are 4 people in it, we call it 4-way, five people, 5-way. This past weekend we attempted "Scary-ways" which was a play on words for halloween, and partly because when you do formation loads (more than one plane of jumpers building a formation) it can be a little "scary." But this weekend, we did several formation loads and only one dangerous thing happened (but no injuries and no one got hurt) and we built some beautiful formations. No records made, but this one that Jane and I were in, I think 25 made it into the formation, which is pretty darn good!

This weekend, was cool, I met Jane, from Pennsylvania, we surprisingly have a lot in common and she was great company , a great skydiver... definitely a cool chick! Should have met her sooner...
(Above- prejump pic by McDuck)

All in all, a good weekend.. missed dancing of course =( but I have one more big weekend of skydiving (Golden Knights Black and Gold event)... then it's all dancing for a while...
Juggling hobbies is sooooo difficult :/

ALHC 2008...

Well... just got back from the American Lindy Hop Championships (ALHC). I have to say, people were right, this event is dying. It had some great dancers there, but not nearly as many as should have been there. But nonetheless, I had some fun.
Doug and I competed in the OPEN Strictly Lindy competition, and went up against some really good dancers, but we actually felt really good about our dancing and had people tell us we did good! Here is video from the spotlight portion of the comp, (sorry for the ghetto video, but it was kinda done on the DL) .
Doug and I placed 6 of 10, but 1 judge placed us 3rd and another 4th... so i'm happy two of them thought we were pretty good =)

SPOTLIGHT:



And despite not making finals in the jack and jill, (not sure why) here is one clip from one of my prelim dances... i'm number 217 (teal shirt black pants)

JACK N JILL PRELIM:

Facebook....

Ok Folks... so apparently you all want me to join facebook. I get the hint, I've gotten I lost count of how many suggestion emails to join facebook from countless friends. And severe badgering from you all verbally too.

Last Nite, I got another one of these invites, from Paul, (Paul not your fault, it just so happens things happened after you sent your invite). I deleted it, like I usually do, BUT for some reason... after that... I've gotten A LOT of notifications that you all have "added me as a friend" on facebook! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? How can you add me as a friend if I don't have an account?!?!? Someone splain to me please!?

Anyways... so fine.. here's what i'm doing... LOOK RIGHT----> SEE POLL... VOTE.. if enough people vote and convince me to get an account... then I'll get a damn account so you all stop sending me invites....

Great Grampa Gust

Above- My Great Grandfather- Victor Gust, WWI, picture taken in 1919.

My mom found this link on line HERE and she emailed around and My Great Uncle Jim confirmed this is definitely my Great Grandfather and that he has the original photograph.
I thought this was pretty cool to see my great-grandpa in his WWI uniform. Priceless and awesome!

Carrie, does this type of puppy look familiar?

Gosh, this made me miss Devin and Leo! Carrie you gotta bring your puppies up here so I can see them!
(above: Me with Nina's puppy, Minerva)
Gotta love those little Italian Grey hounds! ***SIGH*** some day I'll have one of my own!

Why do people keep telling me "I'm crazy?"

Ok, so today I ended up doing 3 spin classes. I taught one at lunch, then after work, I went to one of my gyms downtown to teach... but no one showed up (not unusual for this small gym) so I left... went to VIDA and took 2 spin classes in a row =) . Hey it was fun, and I needed more practice on the real ryder bikes they are so AWESOME, but I want more practice before I teach on them. Then of course I went to my normal Monday nite dance...
Yes, I know I'm busy and always doing something... but come on people... I'm not crazy =) I'm ....uh... there's gotta be a better word than crazy....

I got zapped today...

i.e. Nerve Conduction Study done today.... Neurologist said she couldn't find anything wrong with the nerves in my arm and I can return to normal activity =) YAY!!**** happy dance**** She said as long as the symptoms don't change (i.e. I notice weakness or pain, which I haven't yet) then I'm good to go. I do have to go get an MRI, she wants to look at my brain just to look at a few things but said nothing to worry about that it's probably fine and that the tingly will probably just go away. So... the MRI looks like it won't happen till November bc the entire DC area is booked till then... So
looks like I'm back =) yay!

Personality in Geography...

A lot of you know that I'm a Personality Freak... as in I LOVE MBTI and social sciences and love talking about it and learning about it...
My friend Megan was nice enough to share this article and I find it fascinating ....

so ENJOY CLICK HERE

VIDA Grand Opening...

As most of you know I've been teaching several gym classes a week. I've been lucky enough to be on the staff at VIDA at the verizon location as a sub instructor. The great news is that VIDA is opening another location and I am now on the permanent staff, I have a weekly class at Metropole, Wednesday's 1915, BOOTCAMP. Hehe. Should be lots of fun.

We had a staff meeting yesterday and the walk thru of the club was amazing, it's gorgeous. The grand opening party was last nite and the place had hundreds of folks walking through. I feel real lucky to be on the staff there and hope to get more classes. My new friend Steve came to the party with me, we had a good time, free food and drinks... it was fun, only got one picture the whole nite though.... well actually keep your eyes peeled, some photographer asked to take our picture on the way in for some luxury DC magazine, it was pretty funny bec he actually came and grabbed us as we were walking down the stairs to get our picture... =)

Update on my arm...

Saw the Neurologist today... I thought they were gonna do the nerve conduction test, but apparently that is a separate appt (next wed). She examined me, and good news is that she doesn't think there is anything wrong with my neck... she thinks there is a "stressed" or "irritated" nerve in my arm, most likely from overuse of some type of activity (dancing most likely). She said the test next week would not only confirm diagnosis but should be able to tell how badly "irritated" it is. Which will determine how long I have to rest, bec apparently rest is the treatment. She said I didn't have to stop dancing altogether though... so thats good news.

And on a side note, the PT doc said I could try to run again...

Update...

Went to the PT doc yesterday. We worked through a few things. Discovered I have scoliosis in my back, not severe, but definitely there and part of the reason my back probably has a few problems. But we're working through it, she's gonna try to get me better and back to everything I want to do.
My nerve test isn't until next wednesday, between now and then I have 3 more PT appts, so hopefully I'll be all better soon. but for now, no running and I'm supposed to rest more. I can elliptical or easy spinning, I told her I still want to be on track for the marathon at the end of OCT, so we'll see. I think i'll be ok... I can't lay around for much longer, it's killing me... next week i'm dancing... i dont care what they say! i cant take it anymore!

Doc says NO TRI =( =( =(

So really bad news today.... I CAN'T race this weekend. I'm really disappointed. For those of you who don't know I was supposed to run The Nations Tri this Sunday. I ran it last year and it was amazing. This year I wanted to beat my time. I've been looking forward to it, (despite my lack of time to train in the swim).

So, Last week my right arm started to Tingle, and this morning at the Doctor, the doc said I need to go for a nerve study test thing, and until then I have to "take it easy" and I explained about the race and she basically said NO! So i'm stuck doing nothing for the next ...um I don't know how long =(

Ok, so i'm having a pity party for myself, but come on, I really wanted to race, PLUS it cost 165 bucks in registration,

ok.. I just took the muscle relaxer for my back... time to rest!

West Wing Tour

(Above- Cecilia, Tracy, Me and Steph.. right in front of the White House! inside the bars!!)

So today... I was lucky enough to have a friend who works for the U.S. Trade Representative at the White House, give a private tour of the West Wing, which was special bec it's not open for public tours. So pretty cool, we couldn't take any pictures inside.
But these pics are from "inside the bars" which was pretty cool... and there are a few more that i'll post once I get them from other folks' cameras.

Idiocracy Scrambles 2008 FIRST PLACE!!!

So this Wkd was the 2008 4-way Idiocracy Scrambles!! (for all my dancing friends.. that's just like a Jack and Jill competition... where we have no idea who are teammates are until they draw)

My team "Particular Individuals" named by Tony, included, Tony, Frank, Marie and myself. None of us had EVER jumped together before so we were quite surprised when we did so well. (Weelll... truthfully they were calling us a stacked team bc we all had some good flying experience... but HEY! that's not our fault we drew so well!) hehe.

Anyways... after some awesome jumping!
First round: 8pts
Second Round: 11pts
Third Round: 19pts
Fourth Round: 8pts

We WON FIRST PLACE!! and got big obnoxious medals! HAHA. I can't lie, all I wanted was this big medal to have laying around!
So Rob's Team (Full body Latte, got 2nd) and Willie's team got 3rd.. nice try guys ;) And Steve did video for "Family Style" and well we'll just not mention how they did ;)
I'm still waiting on getting video and pics of the actual jumps to post.. so stayed tuned for that!

Thanks everyone.. it was a blast!
(ABOVE- My Team- Particular Individuals- Tony, Frank, Me and Marie, bottom row, Larry and Figgs- video guys, and Franks daughter)
(ABOVE- Willie, me and Rob- Olympic Podium style with our medals!)
(ABOVE- 3--2--1) hehe
(ABOVE- Me and my BIG OBNOXIOUS MEDAL!)
(ABOVE- Willie and I with our Brawndo!)

(ABOVE- lastly.. me in the landing area after attempting a sitfly)

I learned to Sit...

Ok, So I know I'm strictly a Belly Fly only girl... But for some reason this wkd I let McDuck take me for some sit instruction...

and here's the video of my 3rd attempt ever at sitflying... not bad not bad...

But no worries, i'm not switching over to the darkside...

VPC

23AUG08 Spare Parts VPC meet....
check out our jumps... not too great, but not piss poor either

Now all you dancers who are always asking me what I do when I skydive... now you can see...

What a WKD... VPC and ILHC all in one wkd

(Above- Jens-outside center, Jenn-point, Me- tail, Lynn- inside center and Tre-video)
(Above- Jump 4 of the day... launching a round)
(Above- I believe this was jump 3...)


So this wkd was RIDICULOUS insanely busy and FUN. It started off Thursday Nite where my friend Bromley flew in from Cali. I picked him up at the airport and we headed off to Ozio where the pre-ILHC party kickoff was. We danced till midnite and it was awesome! Friday at work was a little rough, but I made it through, went straight to teaching my gym class (bromley actually took my class hehe) then we got ready for ILHC fun to start. We met a group of dancers at a Thai place in Crystal city... then danced the nite away. I left at 1215 because I had to get up at 0515 saturday morning to make it to my skydiving meet....
Which I did... I got up and drove the 2+ hours to Skydive The Point where I competed in another VPC 4way meet. Our team (named "Spare Parts" by Jenn) had a lot of fun. We started off kinda on the wrong foot as our first attempt at jump #1 of the day turned out to be an expensive plane ride with no jumping as we had to ride the plane down due to cloud cover over the DZ... that sucked! So we waited the weather out and eventually got 4 jumps in. So Spare Parts did not get first (like last time) BUT we got the bronze... which is better than nothing! So after the awards at the DZ I jumped in my car, drove the 2hrs home, drank the 5th energy drink of the day and headed back to ILHC... where I stayed until 515am.
Eventually I got to bed on Sunday Morning about 630am (after taking brom to the train station)... I finally got some sleep and after waking up... um yeah.. I was back at ILHC at about 230pm and stayed until 930 dancing...
WHEW! what a wkd!!!
craziness... but in a good way. I'm sad to say I don't have any pics from ILHC =( but lets just say the dancing was amazing!
I'll post the skydiving video if I can get a copy =)
ok... time for bed....

COVER girl!! =)

So there it is! Aug 2008 issue of The Bulletin! Thank you Tara, (editor of the Mag) for all the work to get it on the cover. The Q&A article was great too!

Yesterday, I walk into work and a few people are like, "Great Cover Shot!" and my response was "Um, it's out?" Apparently it got delivered to most folks this weekend and I hadn't gotten mine yet so I hadn't even seen it. But it was cool to have a bunch of folks notice it and then say something to me at HQ.

9-way pics into a video

(Above- 9-way belly formation on 16 AUG 08) CLICK TO ENLARGE! then you can actually see it!

So This wkd, I got in 3 jumps, an awesome 5-way, a 9-way (above and video below) and an 8-way. All in all a good wkd of jumping... cut short again by bad weather =(
anyways...
Notice me geekin the camera in the pic above (top left black and teal suit, blue helmet, hehe)

So I couldn't get the video, only the pics... so I just made a quick video rotating through the stills to make it look as close as I could to the video... check it out... =)
Thanks to all those in the jump, it was awesome! and the clouds in this jump were freakin amazing to fly around; omg, can't even describe how awesome it was to track away from this formation before opening!

Pentagon Row Lindy Bomb

(Above- Steph and Me)
(Above- The whole gang, Carolyne, Steph, Jerry, Doug, Me, Beth, Michelle, Toby)
(Above- Beth and I being silly and showing off our guns.. hehe)

So thursday nite, The Joker's Wild, a local swing band played outdoors at Pentagon Row.. so of course us local Lindy Hoppers had to organize to be there and Lindy Bomb. Besides the pain and difficulty of dancing on concrete, we did, bc we love dancing... It was a lot of fun!

Ohio State Fair...

That's my brother John and his son Sammy (notice any family resemblance?!) at the Ohio State fair... soooooo cute!! I love you guys! John and I have the same birthday (yes, 2 years apart same day); we used to celebrate by going to the Ohio State Fair (the best state fair!) but I've missed the fair for many years since I haven't lived there... at least John and Sammy and my parents had a great time!

Camp Hollywood!

(above- Doug and Me)
(Above- Charlie and I at dinner)
(Above- Doug, Sanna, Charlie at dinner)
(Above- Jamie, Rajeev, and Me)

Just got back from Camp Hollywood! It was great, the dancers were ridiculous, crazy amounts of good dancers everywhere. I got to see lots of my friends from San Fran (Orhan, Grace, Jeff, Arnold..) It was great to see everyone!
The competitions were so incredible to watch! While I didn't do that hot in the Jack n Jill, it's all good, (I ended up 21 of 58) oh well.. not bad considering it was the first real dancing i've done since I hurt my back... maybe I can redeem myself at ILHC...
There are more pictures on other peoples camera's... so hopefully I get those and can post them.
The gang did some sight seeing. Went to the Tar pits! and saw Ryan Seacrest in his Bentley Convertible driving right next to us (in Charlies Mustang convertible hehe) so that was funny. And of course made it to the beach and ate at In and Out. Other than that.. 4 straight nites of dancing till 4am (which means I was up till 7am east coast time).. so yeah.. I'm EXHAUSTED... I know I know.. Kelly actually is tired... BUT with that said.. TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!! Sooooo... damnit.. I'm going to CCB because I want to dance.. what else is there to do on my birthday??
and to top it all off.. I start my brand new job in the morning... should be interesting...

Out for the count...

Ok... so it seems my active lifestyle decided to catch up on me ... and not in a good way.. Thursday while teaching my 2nd class of the day at the gym, I somehow did something awful to my back.. Intense pain and not being able to move and a few hours later I went to the ER and was there from 9pm till 6am friday morning (Jerry I owe you big time!). The doc said I have a lumbar sprain... but I swear it hurts like hell. They gave me percocet and told me to rest for a week..
The only comfortable positions are lying down on my back or belly or standing; sitting hurts and I cant bend fwd at the waist =( so sad...
So, I can't workout, I can't dance and I can't skydive.. which leaves with basically NOTHING to do. I'm going freakin stir crazy not being able to do anything... grrr.
Hopefully by the end of the week I'll be better.

A Tribute to NDIC 08...

So, with help from some incredible friends, and some 4th of July Pride and Flag jumping... Here's the final video (hopefully to be played at Graduation)

as a tribute to my classmates... To all those who said they'd like to "chuck their thesis out a window" at some point during the past 10 months... this one's for you!

Thanks to everyone who made this video happen... You guys rock more than you know!!

And just for kicks.. here's me jumpin out the plane on flag jump attempt no.1

4th of July in Style...

Loading the Plane... (Above)



First FLAG Jump for Kelly! So on 4th of July, I did my first flag jump, it was awesome. These pics are from the 2nd attempt, bc we had to rerig the flag so it would fly better. Thanks to Kevin and Kevin for the awesome pics, and Steve for riggin it up and showing me how to fly it.
Here's one of Steve flying the POW flag and me the CG flag... We couldn't quite get close enough to see the flags in one picture, but Kevin and Kevin sure did a great job taking the pics

OFFICIALLY COMPLETED THE THESIS!!

It's official, as of 24Jun08, my thesis was printed, bound, copied, signed and approved, and.. drum roll please... I'M DONE! as of 26June08, it was turned in to the college and I am approved for graduation! 259pages bound in that picture above.... and 10months of hard work... but it's done... what a relief! stay tuned for some video of something I have in mind for the thesis now that its done... hehe...

20s Night at Jam Cellar

Me

(above) Me and Glenn
(Above) me and trace

Last nite was 20s nite at JC.. a good group of folks showed up all dressed up. I didn't have a flapper girl outfit.. but I tried. It was fun... gotta love dancing and looking vintage =)

1st Place Medal at VPC!!

(Above) Jeb (video), JennR8R (point), Tim (outside center), Me (tail), Jens (inside center) : "Spare Parts"

This weekend rocked! My team (pictured above) put together by Jenn, (thank you Jen for all the hard work finding teammates!), competed in the Virginia Parachute Council (VPC) 4-way meet this Saturday. We got off to a slow start, but after we got goin.. they couldn't stop us. We ended up winning FIRST PLACE! not to shabby for it being the first time we jumped together as a team.
With Tim and Jens, 4-way experience and Jen and I's eagerness to do well, we did quite well. I actually did not fly like I normally do and thought I might have ruined it for the team.. luckily my mess-ups did not do us in.
For all my nonskydiving friends.. the scores below represent the number of correct formations we did each round in 35 seconds from the time we jumped from the plane...
Stay tuned for possible video.. Jeb is burning a dvd of our jumps.. hopefully I can upload it.
AND.. my new canopy flew great.. by the end of the day, my landings were awesome...=)