A case of beer...

One of the most important lessons I learned when I started skydiving many years ago was the "Rule of Firsts." Basically, your "first" anything meant you bought the drop zone ("DZ") a case of beer. Your first jump, first dead center landing, first time to close an RW formation, etc. would require the suds to flow. Even mentioning something as your first would immediately invoke the rule.

Yep, you got real careful in your conversations with fellow jumpers.

Which brings me to the title of this, as Carnival Cruise Line's Senior Cruise Director John Heald would say, blog thingy. Here I am, typing away at my first blog, wondering how many of my skydiving buddies might eventually stumble across these words. "Hey Anvil, your first blog, huh? That's a case of beer!"

Yes, I was called "Anvil" during my jumping days due to my fall rate, which approximated that of an anvil when rolled out of the jump plane. Forget all that stuff you hear about terminal velocity being a certain speed. We all fall at different rates. If you don't believe me, take two sheets of paper, crumple one into a ball and drop them both from the same height. Which is gonna hit the ground first? The wadded ball, of course! I'll leave the rest for you to figure out, as this really doesn't have anything to do with the blog. I only mention the Anvil thing because this is probably the last time you'll hear me refer to myself with that term.

Nowadays, my most common nickname, especially on online forums, is "Lefty Writer." I'm predominantly left handed, and enjoy writing, so it was only natural that I came up with this moniker.

I've been wanting to try blogging for a while now, but like many things in life, this often took a back burner to other, higher priority items. We'll just have to see how frequently I make this a higher priority than, say, geocaching or creating another culinary masterpiece (at least in my wife Cindy's eyes). Then again, with gas so close to $4 per gallon, geocaching will easily take a back seat to other activities.

So, what can you expect from my musings on life, the universe, and everything? Hhhhmmm, lemme see, there's my fondness for good food and drink, travel, geocaching, "reality" TV like The Amazing Race and Survivor, and my beloved Dallas Cowboys. Of course, Survivor already has tons of people blogging about it, notably that awesome host Jeff Probst. I can only hope to write as good of a blog as Jeff does. There's another activity that I'll definitely blog about, but you'll have to wait until at least a few days to hear about it.

Hang on, it's gonna get bumpy at times.

Until next time,

carpe cerevisi