KBTV

The Skydiving Dare!

I’ve wracked my brain, but I simply cannot remember how it all started. There are, however, a few things I know unequivocally:

• Mondays for my staff and myself are … put quite simply … “screamers." By 8 o’clock Monday night, when we all convene at KBTV HQ (my townhouse on the beach) to nibble on pizza and plot to take over the content world on the Internet – we’re punchy. To say the least.

So, I don’t really remember but thinking back – I’m sure it was Jason – our illustrious Webmaster and Deputy Editor. He’s got a little bit of the devil in him, as you can see .

It went something like this. Suddenly Jason slapped a piece of pepperoni pizza (his favorite) onto a Chinette “paper” plate. “Kate,” he says demurely. “How about skydiving?”

“Fab!” I heard myself shriek.

Then this whole idea took on a life of its own. Apparently Jason had a friend at Sebastian Sky Dive named Amanda (I never met Amanda so I think Jason might have invented her … lending more credence to my theory that he was behind all of this :-D). My normal producer Barry was out for a week with a pulled lower back so we sent in the Polish Special Forces in the form of “Krzysztof”



to shoot the event. There was no way in hell I was going to jump out of an airplane that WASN’T on fire unless it was to be recorded in perpetuity.

Camera pans forward 13 days and Krzysztof and I are tearing North on I-95 to a world with fewer and fewer signs of civilization, Sebastian, FL. We ended up on a road called Airport West Drive (which looked like it was out of Clint Eastwood’s classic “Deliverance”) and pulled into a field with two planes and a barn serving as a hangar. After I signed and initialed no fewer than four pages of waivers, a spunky fellow with a crew cut was plastering goggles over my eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “It won’t hurt.”

What won’t hurt? The goggles? Hello! I wasn’t worried about the goggles. Try the LANDING.

Next thing I know I’m sitting on the lap of a South African blond Adonis named Warren …

Well, the pictures tell the rest! ... Be sure to tune in on Thursday November 15th for Part 1 of our two-part series and OF COURSE tune in to Part 2 for the actual jump that weekend (November 17t.h)

posted by J.P. @ 9:44 PM