1.... 2.... JUMP!

ONE! - Rock forward. TWO! - Rock back. THR… - I'm already out the airplane.

You see it in movies all the time. Danny Glover and Mel Gibson never could get it figured out in the Lethal Weapons. Seth Rogen and James Franco had a hard time figuring it out in Pineapple Express. "On three, ok?" "OK!... Wait, wait, wait. Is it 1, 2, and go on 3? …… Or is it 1, 2, 3, GO?" Gold Coast Skydivers in Lumberton, Mississippi eliminates the guesswork. There is no 3. You won't hear it come out of anyone's mouth.

(written May 24, 2010)

I went skydiving for the first time yesterday. My brother - Cory, my cousin - Katie, and I left Lafayette at 5:30 in the morning and made the 3 hour drive out to the airport in the middle of nowhere. Cory jumped for the first time back in January and vowed to do it again after he graduated (CONGRATS!). Katie said it's something she's always wanted to do. And me, well I couldn't see any good reason not to jump, AND I still can't think of a better way to start a summer I know I'll never forget.

Three years ago, almost to the day, I gave my two weeks notice at LSU for a job in Pennsylvania. I had no idea what to expect. But, the idea of jumping off into something completely unknown was exciting to say the least. I liked the idea of "Jumping" off into things, particularly things completely unknown. Theses situations require, quite literally, a LEAP of faith. And that's what that summer was.

This was what I put as my facebook profile picture. It isn't me, obviously. But, it represented what I felt I was doing. Jumping off with no idea what was going to happen. You can see quite clearly where you're going, but you have no idea what lies beneath the surface. Again, it was a leap of faith that that was the right place for me to be. And it was.

Pennsylvania was one of the best experiences of my life. I lived in the Scranton area for 6 months. I got to see just about every season. I got there when it was still somewhat cool in the mornings and the plants were still blooming. I got to experience a summer without humidity. I got to see the beautiful autumn of Northeastern Pennsylvania. I got to see and play in SNOW for the first time ever. I went to New York city in summer and winter. I went to Washington DC for the 4th of July. I went to a Phillies game in Philadelphia. I sat on the wall on the 1st base line in Baltimore for an Orioles game. I got to go in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. I went to Niagra Falls and every state in the northeast. I saw deer, wild turkeys, chipmunks, groundhogs, and porcupines. I went Canadian goose and duck hunting. And I made friends with some truly great people. Again, it was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I can't tell you how glad I am I did it.

Which brings me to this summer and my current facebook picture. Again, it's a picture of someone jumping. Only this time, it's me. Different sort of jump, same mindset. A leap of faith. Choosing to jump into one hell of an adventure, and trusting that everything will turn out fine. The jump was unbelievable! And everything did turn out fine.

Like I said, this was Cory's graduation gig. We made the drive out early, and we were the first jump of the day. When you get there, you have the pre-jump briefing. They tell you what to expect, ask you a few questions, and then get you in a jumpsuit and harness. Then, there was a bit of a wait, as all the other jumpers had to get there equipment ready. Each of us had a camera guy jumping with us who did a brief pre-flight interview on the ground and snapped a couple of pictures. Then we boarded the plane, took more pictures, straddled a bench and slid to the back of the plane. As we went up, you could feel the excitement in the plane. If there was any nervousness, I didn't see it on anyone's face, and I certainly didn't feel any myself. It's all excitement!!!

As the plane climbed, our tandem partners (mine was Jason) went over the same stuff we heard on the ground. Then they strapped us up to their harness once we got to about 9,000ft. Our ears popped every so often the higher we went, but it's nothing worth getting in a fuss over. Gold Coast lets you jump from 14,000 - 15,000 feet. Damn near 3 miles up in the air!!! So we continued to climb.

Then the door opens, and people started disappearing. It's real now! You don't realize until you actually see people falling, just how fast they really are going. It's unbelievable! Cory was third to last, katie 2nd, and I was the last one in the plane. We slid along the benches with our tandem jumper and camera guy. When we got to the end of the bench we dropped to our knees and "walked" on our knees about 10 feet to the door (All the while, watching people literally disappear in front of you.) When I saw Katie jump, that was the first time I felt any sort of nerves. She fell SO damn fast, words can't describe it well enough.

MY TURN! We had to make another circle because with all the jumpers, we were too far from the airport and wouldn't have made it back (Cory didn't, LOL). So I got an extra minute to stand with the door open and watch everything. I would say it was awesome, but that would do injustice to the actual jump. Standing at the door was "cool" in comparison to the rest of the experience. NOW, it's my turn. My camera guy CLIMBS OUT OF THE PLANE and holds onto this bar they have specially designed for people to RIDE THE FREAKIN' PLANE. I scoot up to the edge of the door. My knees are literally hanging out of the plane. And it's time for 1, 2, 3.

Jason has me tuck my thumbs under the harness.

1 - Lean forward. Holy crap that's a long way down!

2 - Lean back. We're actually going jump out of plane!

JUMP!!!! He didn't say anything. The time between lean back and him throwing you out of the plane is a micro-second. Matt (the camera guy) jumped at the same time. We did a flip out of the plane, but I have no idea how many times we flipped. After 2-3 seconds of flipping, Jason threw a small stabilizer chute. It slowed us down to a "mere" 120 mph. Matt stayed in my face pretty much the entire time. The whole thing was utterly surreal. I expected to feel my stomach drop. It didn't. Nothing even close to that. We flip out of the plane. We stop. We start spinning in the air. We stop. Matt's back in my face out of nowhere, snapping pictures and taking video. The entire ride/fall goes by so quickly, it's unreal. I can't begin to describe the wind or the feeling of falling other than AWESOME, UNBELIEVABLE, INCREDIBLE!!!!! And anything but scary. It was all surreal. I don't even remember looking at the ground, but the video shows I did. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7aomTss2OU)

We got to free fall for about 10,000ft. It was a good minute before Jason pulled the parachute. Matt waived bye and continued to fall, and it was only then (when the chute caught and I got to see Matt continuing to fall) that I realized how fast we really were falling. All of sudden, Jason and I just started slowing down. It wasn't an abrupt jerk like it looks like in videos. It's a gradual slowing down. And then you just float down. It's not loud at all. You can "sit" and talk to your tandem jumper the whole time. We floated down for about 5 minutes. We went through a cloud. That was pretty cool because as you go through the cloud, your shadow makes a rainbow on the cloud itself. It gets smaller and smaller as you get close to it and eventually you go right through the middle of it. We semi-circled the airport and came in right over one of the buildings. It was a slow sliding landing on the grass next to the airport hanger, and it was UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!! I can't wait to do it again!

I couldn't think of a better way to start this blog than with that post. And now for the purpose behind this blog. This is a tool to communicate with my family and friends back home. Rather than flooding their email boxes with multiple reports from Europe, and likely forgetting someone in an email here and there, I'm setting this up so they can check it at their leisure. This is a way for me to let everyone know what's going on with me. That's the main purpose. I'll be posting stories, pictures, and videos, along with my perspective this morning. I'll be putting other stuff on here periodically that is not Euro-trip related, and this blog is certainly up for anyone to read. But, please keep in mind/be respectful/understand the family aspect of this blog right now if you choose to post comments. If you don't like something I've said, shoot me an email (skooterlouis@gmail.com) or facebook message. But for the most part, leave the negative comments off the blog itself.

Like I said, periodically, I'll post stories, pictures, videos, poems and various other things that I've written. Often times, you'll find me to be a bit long winded. I'm sorry I'm not sorry. I'll try as best I can to post headnotes so those that don't want to, don't have to read the whole thing. But, no promises. I won't always be able/want to do that. But whoever you are, I do hope you enjoy reading it and feel free to pass it along to your friends or whoever else you think might like the read.

As I finish this up on the plane from Lafayette to Houston, I'm hoping I'll find some internet so I can post it in Houston. If not it will have to wait until Europe, so everything will be a few days delayed. But I'll still go ahead and write everything I plan on doing this summer, even though by the time I post this, I will have done some of it so far.

Ok, for those of you who don't know, I am studying abroad this summer in Lyon, France. It's a 6-week summer semester put together by the LSU Law School, with classes taught by LSU faculty. 2 friends and I have an apartment rented a few blocks from the school and will be walking back and forth each day. We'll be getting to Lyon on Saturday, June 5. Classes start June 7 and run until July 17. The classes are split into 1 hour and 3 hour courses. 1 hour classes run an hour each day for three weeks. Then we take a final. The 3 hour classes run an hour and a half each day and last all 6 weeks. I'll be taking a 1 hour Slavery and Human Trafficking class and a 3 hour Law of Wine Class. But that's the boring stuff. I'll tell you more about the classes later if I feel anybody will be remotely interested.

But now for the fun stuff, the traveling. Classes run Monday-Thursday, 8:00 am until 1:30 pm (depending on the classes you're taking). The rest of the time is ours. So we will be traveling. My group (Brad Scott, Erica Schirling, and Kierstyn Mosco) is leaving two weeks before classes start to travel.We're all meeting in Paris and then taking a train to Munich, Germany. The way my reward points worked out, I will be flying into Amsterdam and taking a train to Paris and should be getting there around 1:30pm. The rest of the crew will be arriving in Paris anywhere from 8:00am - 12:00pm and then meeting me at the train station in the heart of Paris.Like I said, from Paris, we'll be taking an overnight train to Munich, leaving about 8:30pm and getting to Munich around 7:00am. We're going to spend 2 days in Munich seeing the city and then hop a train Friday morning to Prague, Czech Republic. Prague will be another 2 day stop. Then we'll take a train to Vienna, Austria. Spend a day there, then take an overnight train to Rome. We'll get to Rome Tuesday morning and leave Saturday morning for Lyon.

Like I said about the class schedule, we'll have the weekends (Thursday afternoon - Sunday night) to ourselves. For the most part this same group will be traveling together, but a few of us want to go different places, so some weekends we'll split up. Right now, the plans are to go to a Mediterranean beach in the South of France the first weekend. Second weekend, we'll be going to Amsterdam for the 4 days. 3rd weekend, I believe we'll have to take our final for the 1 hour class, so travelling anywhere far from Lyon will likely be out of the question. The 4th weekend, we'll be going to Interlaken Switzerland. And the 5th weekend, we'll be heading to Pamplona Spain for the running of the bulls (and yes, I plan to run). The 6th weekend will be our last weekend in France. We'll take our 3-hour class final on Saturday, July 17 and then Sunday, go our separate ways. The plan for me as of now is to leave Sunday, the 18th, and go back to Rome for a week. Most everybody else will be going home on the 19th, and I plan to make it back home on the 26th. I'll get more detailed about the trips as they approach. But for now that is the general overview of everything.

I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about this entire to trip. I can't imagine the things I'm going to see and experience. It literally is the trip of a lifetime! Beyond just the travel. The actual stay in Lyon is going to be exciting, to say the least. The World Cup starts on June 11. So I will get to see Europe in all it's Futbol (soccer) glory. Also, the Tour de France will be running throughout the months we are here, and should be passing within about 45 minutes of Lyon, so a group of us plan to hit that up too. Again, the trip of a lifetime!

And so, here I am, on the ground between flights in Houston. The internet is sketchy here, so it doesn't look like I'll be able to upload anything until I get to Europe. Disappointing? Yes, but it's ok.It's weird. I went skydiving yesterday, but as I sit here waiting to board, I'm more anxious about getting on this plane than I was getting on that one yesterday. While I have an idea of where I will probably go this summer, (as thoroughly detailed above), I have no idea what I'm actually going to experience, but I have full faith that it's going to be one of the greatest rides of my life! So, I jump!No hesitation, no apprehension, no worries about what may or may not happen while I'm here. I will miss all of you back home, really I will. But I will stay in touch as much as possible, and be back before you know it. Ok, the plane is boarding. Time to go. This is going to be one hell of a trip and I plan to live it to the fullest!!!

1.... 2.... Talk to you from the other side of the pond!!!!!!

"Life is not a journey to the grave with intentions of arriving

safely in a pretty, well-preserved body, but rather to skid

in broadside, thoroughly used up and loudly proclaiming

"WOW! What a ride!"