If you saw me in the back of a police car, what would you think I was there for?

Answer me, then post this in your own journal (or not) to see how many different crimes you get accused of committing.

As a good citizen, I had previously registered to vote at the DMV last year, and today I went to my designated poll to cast my vote, alongside many others.

In the past, my votes have all been absentee ballots, sent in from Israel, and had a certain “boring” aspect to it. Fill out form, enclose in envelope and send in mail.

Yawn.

But today was my first interactive voting experience, and it was nice and simple, with a big red lever involved. I felt like pulling that should activate some sort of trap door, ejection seat or alarm, but no.

It also made me think about how the fact that my personal vote doesn’t really affect anything, since the Electoral College is the defining vote for the president elect.

So the knowledge of the fact that I had close to no affect on the eventual election of the president has somewhat made this election day a little more like the rest of the days of the year, and not that special at all.

Right now, my inbox has over one hundred unread emails, so if yours is in there, sorry. I’m going to try to sit down and clear some out this weekend.

Since then, I’ve had need to have it deployed via a packaging system called RPM, and since no “stable” community editions are out there, I have the need to “roll my own” for distribution on our platforms.

I’ve never used RPM from the “packager” side before - and it’s both very cool and infuriating. It has all sort of features and powerful macros, but debugging it isn’t a piece of cake at all.

If anyone has a great RPM tool out there that they want to recommend, let me know.

Since then, I’ve taken up the Accelerated Freefall Progression (AFP) course, which constitutes a standardized course that takes a beginner skydiver to a level of competency that most drop zones will allow self-supervised jumps upon its completion.

This typically takes about 10 jumps total, including a few tandem jumps, but mostly jumps with instructors jumping next to you, making sure that you can do what they expect you to do, as well as make it down safely.

It took me a little longer, due to a long winter break, as the weather was just not cooperative, with all the storms, snow, and other nastiness.

This past weekend, I left New York City with fellow skydiver Jen, in a hot yellow Pontiac G5 (thanks to the rental place only having conspicuous cars for me) and drove down to Skydive Cross Keys, where I’ve been jumping all along.

It was close to the end of the day when I finally got in the air, along with my graduation jump master Richard, a seasoned Aussie skydiver who’s been doing this for the past 28 years. We planned my skydive and then jumped it. I did what I needed to in order to graduate, and also learned that I have to focus on some items like legs for stability, etc.

In any case, watch it here, and enjoy it. The video loops twice - the first time at only 70% speed, and then again at full speed. What a rush.

You can also click through to the YouTube site and choose “watch in high uality” directly below the video player.

We camped out that night, had a great dinner and lots of beer, and got some much needed rest.

The next morning, I got to jump my first proper solo jump at 13,500′ (about 4 kilometers) up, where I was completely on my own. It was amazing.

Then the weather turned ugly, and it began to pour rain and hailstones the size of golf balls, so Jen and I spent the day at the packing mat with Brad and Brian, who taught us how to pack a parachute (a skill I have to demonstrate by packing the chute and jumping it myself in order to get my first licensed level. I now have the equivalent of a permit, I guess).

Matt, the guy who owns the rig I was practicing on, decided to go on up for a possible jump when the weather cleared up a bit, and took my freshly-packed parachute rig with complete confidence in me. A little stressful, to say the least.

But that was completely countered when he was the only one on the flight that jumped (all the other were tandem students, not allowed to jump due to the weather), and when he came down he told me that my pack job was one of the softest openings (a good thing) that he’s had - better than his own.

I can’t wait to go up again.

How does one go about finding decently-priced places in Manhattan, preferably in the downtown/Financial District/Battery Park area? I’ve never had to do that part of living in NYC yet, and I’m a little lost.

The apartment I’ve been staying in now was owned by my grandmother, and was part of some sort of cooperative. The legal deal was that unless you can prove two years of cohabitation with the original resident, there is no right of inheritance, succession, or any of that jazz.

When she passed away, that kicked off their legal department, and there has been plenty of paperwork flying back and forth, with appeals and such, and that’s it - appeal denied, vacate by the 20th.

So at this point, I know that some of you know people “in the know” in New York, so if you know of someone’s place that’s sitting vacant and needs someone to house-watch it, or know someone with good connections in the real estate field, connect me - I don’t want to have to move out of the city.

I did, and now have some time to tell a story.

This past weekend, I spent the day out white water rafting with a group organized by ZogSports. A bunch of coworkers and I joined a group of about 50 young persons and headed to the Lehigh River, where a Class 2 rapid awaited us (Rapids of moderate difficulty with passages clear. Requires experience plus suitable outfit and boat).

None of us had any experience rafting (as far as I recall) and we spent a couple of hours on the bus there, and then some more time waiting around for organizational things to be dealt with (that could have been performed on the bus. Once we actually set out, I was in a 7-person group, 4 co-workers and myself, and two ladies we met and joined ranks with.

We set out, and paddled hard, and moved along the river, and got a feel for it, but not nearly enough. As we progressed along the river, not very far in, we picked up some speed and rammed into another raft that was stuck against some rocks, bounced off them, and then our raft flipped over, throwing us out. I got flung clear, and went under for a second, life vest bringing me back up, my shades still nailed to my head. I turned backwards, fighting the current, and saw that my pals had either surfaced and were being pulled in, or someone was looking after what was going on back at the raft’s location. I turned around, and saw people in boats, and they seemed to chant to me in unison, “swim for the shore”. My brain wouldn’t process their message, and another raft paddled up and hauled me in.

My new family, a group of boy scouts and a couple of dads, seemed to have an ongoing war with another couple boats, with water guns, and use of the bailing bucket to toss heavy loads of water on the rivals. It was fun, for a while, but got old after a while, but as a guest in their raft, I didn’t complain.

We rode a few pretty crazy rapids, got stuck a few times, and even once required external assistance getting off a pair of huge rocks. That had everyone piled up in one side of the raft - literally piled - as someone wedged the raft over the edge of one rock and then switch for the other side.

We hung back, and followed other rafts, watching their progress and learning from them what not to do - a solid strategy to adopt. This helped us make a nice ride, while not getting stuck on anything.

After a few hours, we finally stopped for lunch, where we all broke out the sandwiches and had something to eat. At that point, anything was better than nothing - no matter what it was. I had a PB&J, and wanted more, bu more wasn’t to be had. Ah well.

Re-formed with my raft crew, and met Ed, who joined. Ed seems to have a grip on things, so as we progress down the river, we all have a good time, slipping by the rapids, moving somewhat smoothly over treacherous terrain. The water thrashes you and it’s a lot of fun riding the bumps.

Finally, we make it back, get the bus back to the starting point, and grab a shower (mildly warm), dress in dry stuff and get on the bus home. On the bus, beer was distributed to those that wanted it, and our chaperon treated us to some horrible jokes. At some point, I fell asleep for a bit, only to wake and have a spirited conversation about reality tevelision with someone whom I believe watches way too much TV in the first place.

I can’t wait to go again next month!

Ah, where were those days of clean inboxes?

I was set to meet some improv pals at 39th and 8th Ave - one block away from the NYTimes building, and as I approached, throngs of people were in the streets, yelling and pointing.

It seems like there’s a second climber, who also wanted to scale the impressive building.

So naturally, i stopped, yanked my camera out of my bag, and snapped off a few.

See here:

It’s always a ton of fun joining a bunch of people to do something a little odd.

This time, we congregated in the Brooklyn Bridge and took pictures of the Manhattan Bridge. In the rain. And cold rain.

There were tons of us - about 700 - and we lined the bridge. I came early to the meetup location, and randomly met Matt, who had ridden in from CT on the train and needed somewhere to dump his travel bag. I offered my place, with a provided his bag wouldn’t tick or something like that.

We headed back to the meeting spot a few blocks away, and join a huge group of people, hear the instructions, and head across the bridge. In the meantime, we find Matt’s lady - Autumn - and we all set across the bridge and find a spot about in the middle to stand.

And wait.

And wait.

It seem that it took a little too long to get a large crowd organized, and then even longer to get the event rolling.

Some people left, as it was, after all, cold and raining.

But the effect itself was pretty cool, once it happened, and gave us a lot of cool pictures to show the world.

I stuck with my newfound pals, and we had a lot of fun talking and playing in the line, arguing with someone else whether Pi is a real number (or just not a whole number).

After taking a bunch of pictures, we all headed over to the Beekman Pub, where we had some drinks, and I regaled my captive couple with my (newfound) knowledge of NYC. I felt like a “real New Yorker”.

We split from there to Two Gold Street for food and more drinks, and then after that ended up in my beloved Fresh Salt, where we played a resounding few rounds of Apples to Apples with th bartender and two other patrons.

All in all, lot of drinks, good company and shared experiences make it all worthwhile.

The IE event page is here - there’s even a short video. See if you can find me (hint: I’m in the first 30 seconds!)