From Terry: Last week we were in Ottawa IL visiting our friends Jim and Donna Skolek. While we were there we went out to Skydive Chicago (the skydiving airport just outside of town) where they were having their annual event that brings skydivers in from all over the world for 3 weeks. There were about 300 skydivers going up in 4 planes (with 20 in each plane) from morning until dark. It looked like it was raining parachutes all day long. The video above shows a few of them landing (there were often dozens landing in quick succession during the day). We talked to one of the participants who claimed to be fairly new to skydiving with only about 120 jumps. He was going to give a demonstration of how the backup chute worked by cutting away his main chute on the way down. Tonya told him "That's pretty stupid." He not only jumped out of a perfectly good airplane but cut off his perfectly good parachute on the way down. We were impressed when another said he had about 1800 skydives until he told us some here had 17,000 plus.

On Thursday night a few brave souls did a night jump with lighted suits and fire shooting out of their heels on the way down. There was plane flyby after which the whole runway seemed to explode with some kind of timed charges (about 8 fireballs), followed by a spectacular fireworks show. (We missed the Toga party the night before - damn the luck.)

On Friday a group was going to try to set a world record with 80 divers all touching in formation while head down vertical. The current record is 69; if they succeeded I think they were going to go for 100 next. Any group that is going to do a formation on the way down does a "Dirt Dive" or rehearsal on the ground just before going up. Funny name, I would think a dirt dive would be what you would call a jump when the chute failed. The pictures below show the choreographer going over the formation design with part of the group and the whole group doing the "Dirt Dive". I don't know why the picture is so dark, I guess I was wearing my sunglasses when I took it. Will try to figure out how to lighten and repost later.

We stayed long enough to watch the first attempt. They didn't all get together on that one so they were preparing for another attempt when we left. Don't know if they succeeded later or not. Amazingly while we were looking up trying to locate the divers we could actually hear them before we could see them, not because they were all screaming in fear like I would have been, but because the suits of 80 divers all falling at the speed of gravity makes a low roar.

For my oilfield friends that are reading this I also learned that Ottawa is the sand mining capital of the country. I suspect a lot of frac sand comes from here.

Later on Friday we took our circus to Des Moines IA. Starting on Friday night there was a challenge pool match between two top players, each putting up a $5,000 wager. The match was played on a 7' bar table with the winner being the first to win 150 games of 9-ball.

This is Scott "The Freezer" Frost originally from Des Moines now living in Phoenix AZ. Scott is well known as one of the best players in the country and the home town favorite.

And this is Shane "The Kid" Van Boening from Sioux Falls SD. Shane may now be the top player on the planet. There will be some argument about that, but he is certainly in the top 5. If you watch any professional pool on TV you have probably seen him. They played Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights with Shane winning by a convincing margin of 150 - 104. Great fun for a pool hall junkie like me to watch.

We are still in Des Moines. Planning on staying until Friday then heading north.