Was so overwhelmed by coming home to a dead kitty that I didn’t reflect much on the rest of the weekend. It really wasn’t my weekend. Bad weather, witnessing an incident on the DZ, and breaking my computer. Fun, huh?
Flew up to Seattle on Friday night, and made the drive down to Shelton, getting there around 10:30. Crashed at the hotel, then got up Saturday morning to the predicted gray skies. Unfortunately, things didn’t improve that much as the day went on. Mid-afternoon, the DZ did get two Cessna loads up, and four jumpers were willing to exit around 2,000 feet. The rest of us watched. Unfortunately, on the second load we watched someone break himself pretty badly – he wound up with two out and pounded into the ground fairly hard. He was lucky in that from the hips up he’s fine – no head/neck/spine/internal organ injuries. Unfortunately, from the hips down he’s pretty broken. Both femurs, both tib/fib, both knees, one ankle. He’s pretty much in pieces and faces a long, painful recovery. He was medevaced to Harborview and I know, from personal experience, that he’ll receive top-notch care there.
Saturday’s dinner and prize raffle at the DZ was great, and it was wonderful to catch up with a lot of my Seattle friends, but it would have been nicer if the weather had cooperated. Sunday, we stopped by the DZ in the morning, but decided to spend the rest of the day in Seattle. We checked out a cool exhibit on Jim Henson at EMP/SFM, as well as the science fiction exhibits (since I hadn’t been there since that part was added, and Sean hadn’t been at all). Wandered around Seattle Center, and watched kids play in the fountain for a while. We eventually wandered up to Lunchbox Laboratory, where I introduced Sean to the wonders of their burgers. Mmmm… burgers. Spent the rest of the afternoon/evening hanging out with Kevin and Robyn and catching up with them.
The other bad news of the weekend was managing to break my laptop. Walking through the Oakland airport, my backpack strap broke and the whole thing (laptop included) came crashing to the ground. D’oh. I haven’t yet decided whether to just try to replace it, or to pay for a diagnosis. With laptop prices so low … it’s almost a tossup since repair might end up being close to the cost of a newer one.