Sky diving

For my birthday, Diana took me to an indoor skydiving place at the beach. You get a few minutes of training on the position you'll try to maintain--chin up, arms and legs half extended--and the hand signals your instructor will use, mainly to tell you to straighten or curl your legs. Then you get a jumpsuit and helmet and line up at the wind tunnel. The fans are at the top of the building, so you're not looking down at whirring blades--in fact, you're not looking down at all, because you're keeping your chin up. When your turn comes, you go to the door, lean forward and lie down on the wind. Get into position and stay there. It doesn't feel like snorkeling, where you can just drift and pay attention to what you're looking at rather than what you're doing; and you're feeling normal gravity, just lying on air rather than on, say, a deep sponge rubber mattress. You hang there for a minute with the instructor correcting your position and making sure you don't drift into a wall or something, and then he guides you to the door. Hands on the outside of the doorframe, curl at the waist to bring your feet forward and down, and you're standing up outside. On the second flight, we soared up to the top of the tube, about ten meters. Dropping back down was just enough free fall to get queasy for a moment, but then you get to the steel net at the bottom and soar back up. Fun time.

Art

I've finished an introductory art class at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Charcoal, pen and ink, brush and ink, sketch and wash. Main thing I learned was that I don't (or didn't) put use enough dark areas; adding deep shadows for contrast makes a better effect.