Tempting Friday the 13th

The last day of Spring Break was a blank page in my calender. I had nothing planned and got it in my head to go skydiving. Yes, you read that right. It's something that I've always said I wanted to try, so I found a company called Skydivesf up in central Sonoma County. I called my colleague Gene V. and he was game to go. So we were on our way.

I will say that the experience was a total rush and the only time that I really was apprehensive was on what seemed to be the interminable flight to 13,000 feet and that moment the door of the plane opened. I jumped in tandem strapped to my guide, Torsten, who was quite a character. I gained infinite confidence when I discovered this was jump number 10,291. If he hadn't had an accident, then statistically speaking, it wasn't going to happen on this day.

Upon landing, I was feeling a rush of adrenline unknown to me before. I had to sit on the ground for a few minutes. Gene also had a great time and got a video of his free fall, which he will give to the Physics teachers at school to use as a teaching aid. It was a glorious day.

The Visit of The Mom

SPRING BREAK!!!!! And Mom visits. It was a good visit and I only lost my temper with her once (ok, one and a half times). But the role of therapy in my life allowed me to identify why I things she said or did got me and then I was able (the fact that I recognized that it was my duty to was a big therapy learning moment aas well) tell her why I was frustrated.

"Mom, I don't care if you cut and freeze the strawberries" comes from the fact that when we got home from being out for the day I didn't really care what she did nor did I really want to make any decisions. I like having quiet time when I'm done with the day. Probably a good thing for me to tell the persons I date in the future.

One of the highlights of her visit was a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I also took her to see Jersey Boys, which she liked. And, well, you all know that I like it too.

That's My Alma Mater

From an article written by Patrick Mattimore in today's San Francisco Examiner on students' college rejection letters....

"Lots of schools are vying for the "most emphatic rejection" prize. Cornell University is leading the race, informing students in consecutive sentences that the electronic rejection they are reading will be confirmed in a following letter that will make the rejection official. We don't want you. Get it? We really don't want you. The "snuff out all hopes" double rejection strategy appears to be colleges' latest attempt to improve their U.S. News and World Report selectivity rating. Two rejections for the price of one. What tipped the scale in Cornell's favor is that they even include an invitation for you to visit their Web site to get information about applying to transfer to Cornell after your freshman year, so they can reject you again.