Most of the students had already completed their ground training. There were so many days that we couldn't jump. We went through the training harness and waited for our turn with the AFF instructors. They were trying to get through the tandem students first before working with us.

Weather holds, extra tandems, staff shortages, oh my! Am I ever going to be a skydiver? Why do they ask us to arrive at 8:00 AM if they have no intention of putting us on the plane? The waiting just kills me. I completely understand that the tandem students pay the bills and putting them first is good business. It makes sense to the accountant that lives in my brain, but the little girl that wants to jump doesn't want to be rational. I need to just get over it. This is part of the experience.

Happy people waiting for tandems occupy the picnic tables. They are so excited! Well, if I don't get to jump, at least I can watch them. I wonder if I'm on "the board?"

At Skydive Orange, there is a huge white board called manifest. If you've read all the entries in the journal, you've seen it twice. After you've been fully trained for your jump, you wait for your name to appear on this board. On this particular day, Orange was busy and there were some weather issues. So, it took forever for our names to appear.

At some point during my wait, I met a woman and her two daughters - they were there for tandems. It's so much fun to watch first time jumpers. They had a bunch of questions, and I actually knew the answers! While we were talking, our names finally went up on the white board. It wouldn't be long now! They were going on load 14 and I would be on load 16. Unfortunately, Ned wasn't sure the weather would hold up and I might not get to jump. What a bummer!

I went back outside to the picnic table, and sat down with the mother and her daughters. I asked if they were getting videos. She said that they decided to just get stills. Just stills? Of your first jump? Do you plan to jump again? If you are only going to do it once, I would highly recommended adding the video. It's an extra $25 per person, but it's money well spent.

After I explained my own personal experience, she was convinced they needed to add video. She went over to student manifest. When she came back, she said that she couldn't thank me enough. Apparently, they were scheduled to go up, but they weren't going up with photographers - a rare mistake by student manifest. This was her lucky day. Can you imagine? If we had not met, they would have jumped without getting pictures or video.

As a result of this discovery, they couldn't go up as scheduled. Instead of needing six seats on the plane, they would need nine seats (three students, three tandem instructors and three photographers). I went back to manifest and discovered they had erased all the flight numbers including mine. I was still on the board, but with no flight number. Hmmm...