Every once in a while you have to stir up your blood, in other words do something crazy so you don’t have to pinch yourself to see whether you are really alive or this world is just one big dream. The other day I decided to do just that, do something I have been wanting to do for 50 years, so I phoned up Pacific skydiving and made an appointment to cross another wish off my bucket list.
The common wisdom is that it is crazy to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft, but I am here to tell you that is just wrong, it’s totally awesome. I have done a few awesome things in my life but doing a one minute free-fall is beyond most anything I have experienced. I can’t describe the moment you leave that aircraft and you plummet to the earth at 200 KM an hour and then your parachute opens and you glide and soar in an unbelievable 6 minute drop to earth that is easily the most intense, exhilarating experience ever. It is an experience my son and I will never forget, everything about it was first class from our jump masters Sam and Shawn to the unparalleled beauty of our super natural BC that when you jump out that airplane door looks more like an awesome abstract painting until you finally get close enough to earth that the water becomes water, green becomes trees and the little specks become people. It truly is indescribable and should be on every persons bucket list, if for no other reason than to see the incredible beauty that we are lucky enough to call home.
Unfortunately my perfect day turned out to have a political side also, Pacific skydiving a well run company that has been providing excellent service to the people of Pitt Meadow and Greater Vancouver for 23 years are being shut down by the Pitt Meadow airport authority. Because of that senseless action not only will 28 people lose good jobs but also many support workers that work with and supply this vibrant company will also be put in jeopardy, not to mention putting a hole in Pitt Meadows commercial tax base.
This is the kind of thoughtless actions that angers me, governments are so willing to bend for the big corporations but here a successful small but labour intensive company like Pacific Skydiving is just shut down over a couple acres of grass and a proposed runway expansion, apparently there will be jet planes flying over some very expensive real-estate, homes that have been there forever, this is inevitably a political shit-storm, this defiantly seems to me to be an issue that should be of concern not only to the Pitt Meadows council but the taxpayers of Pitt Meadows as well. I have to wonder even if the runway is extended why the two enterprises can't co-exist. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
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