Scott Desgrosseilliers

Jet Ski on Lake Michigan

I had never been in Lake Michigan's waters in 5 years of Chicago living. I avoided the water because I had a valid fear that my skin might melt off my body if it touched the lake's waters. Running alongside the lakefront for years, I was consistently amazed at all the fuel, trash, sludge, and unknown crud that floated up.

For some reason people still waded off shore into the water. I figured it was too many afternoon beers at Castaways. I spent monday evening on Lake Michigan jet skiing. The weather was perfect and the lake was calm. Since it was monday, there were almost no boats on the water. We were able to let it rip to 60 mph for long stretches at a time.

After we'd cruised around for an hour or so, I got hot. I realized I was surrounded by water (duh) but would have to let go of one of my random oddities of never touching foot in the lake. We were far enough out that there was none of the usual slime skin on the water, or random trash floating by. I quickly jumped off the back of the jet ski without thinking.

It felt like a normal lake! I was relieved. I kept picturing a scene in RoboCop. The RoboCop falls into a vat of sulphuric acid, which would only happen in an 80s action movie. When he climbs out, his skin is melting off his body. I felt that getting into the cesspool known as Lake Michigan's shore would do that to me. I now realize that getting offshore far enough mitigates that risk. You still won't catch me wading in along North Ave Beach though.

Swimming with Dolphins

It was always on my life list to swim with dolphins.  I really wasn’t sure why, I just knew that I wanted to check the experience out. While in Playa del Carmen Mexico the opportunity arose to spend an hour in a pool with dolphins.  I was not disappointed.

Swimming with dolphins was on my life list.  I had visions of being boated out into the middle of the ocean, where a posse of friendly dolphins were hanging out, waiting for people to jump overboard to hang out with.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  We had our swimming with dolphin experience at Delphinius, a highly organized and controlled environment.  The dolphins at Delphinius are trained to the point they act like a more intelligent version of a dog.  Anything “wild” that occurred was merely a well-orchestrated trained maneuver.  This did not diminish the experience, but it was worth noting that we were in a dolphin zoo of some kind.

My first interaction occurred with 2 dolphins.  I laid out in the pool while they swam up under my feet and propped me up in the air.  I was then pushed along the water’s surface across the length of the pool.  Their noses felt like the ends of a hockey sticks with a lot of tape on them that was then smoothed down, if that makes any sense.  Near the end of the pool the dolphins simply dove down and I belly-flopped into the water.   Each person in our group of four received the dolphin push across the water, and then we moved to a different part of the pool for the rest of our activities.

The four of us spread out in the water and our dolphin kept roaming around between us.  Female dolphins appear to share a characteristic with their fellow female humans – they like a LOT of attention.  The dolphin would continually swim around us so we could pet it.  The skin of the dolphin felt like an inner tube.  The flexibility and control the dolphin had over its body was impressive.  She would pass by all of us, contort her body and suddenly be headed right back towards us on her back so she could get a belly rub…like most dogs would prefer.  The dolphin was also very talkative.  Their voices will not win any awards however, the dolphin voice is a shrill muted scream.  It sounds like a cross between a seagull getting a rock thrown at it with the cadence and irritating factor of squeaky bed rails thrown in for good measure.  The dolphin liked to chatter in this sound, and then splash us repeatedly, she was having a lot of fun at our expense.

There were a few other tricks with multiple dolphins jumping over us.  The dolphins were smart enough to not only jump out and over us by fifteen to twenty feet, but they all held different poses for the camera at the height of their jump.   I can’t imagine how the trainers figured out to teach them to arch their backs differently based on their position in the jump. 

If you like affectionate dogs and the ocean water, you will love swimming with dolphins.  The playful nature and great sense of humor that our dolphin had made it a memorable experience.

Flying a Plane

Time and again I marvel at perception; What the mind believes about an activity is rarely how the actual experience turns out to be.  This was on display again when I flew my first plane last week.

There really isn’t a whole lot to you have to do before you can grab the yoke of a plane.  I took a 3 hour classroom session that described the dynamics of flight back in April.  I never got around to taking my inaugural flight and had forgotten everything in class – oops.  My pre-flight “training” consisted of looking at a national weather website with my flight instructor while he decoded arcane meterlogical script.  The website’s secret weather script would read something like “011107 GS20 NW25 11727”…they could’ve just as easily have said “today there are 20 mph gusting winds from the northeast” but I guess that would ruin the allure and mystique of it all.  After the weather website decoding example I was given a tour of the airplane hangar.  There are some pool tables and a flat screen so that you can hide out from your wife and drink beer pre and post flight.  My flight instructor was a nice enough guy but by the end of the tour I couldn’t help openly making cracks about the pilot clubhouse and he decided to rush me into the plane at that point.

“You’re lucky to be the only one to get in the air today” he told me as we fought our way through the wind to get to the plane.  TheGirlfriend started gripping her passenger seat tightly even though we hadn’t left the ground yet.  My state of the art plane did not have an internal light, so the pilot had to go through the pre-flight checklist with a pen light.  I was too excited to be scared, plus it was absolutely frigid outside so we were at least protected by the elements in the tiny plane.  It was like being in a Toyota Rav-4 with wings and no lights and no upgrades.

The plane finally starts rumbling down the runway.  My instructions are to slowly pull the yoke back once we hit 55 mph.  The instructor also has a yoke so he can override any mistakes I make at the wheel that could cause us harm.  I am still getting used to my surroundings when he tells me its time to pull up on the yoke so I give it a yank.  The plane pops up very easily.  When you are in the cockpit of a small plane, you can feel the force of the wind against the wings a lot easier than a commercial plane – it seems so supported and simple to gain altitude there is no concept of being scared of falling – yet.

We get up to 2000 feet before leveling off.  Flying is easy and fun at this point.  The joy ride quickly ends once we are the recipients of our first wind gust.  Flying a plane is no longer fun.  Unbeknownst to me and, to the best of my knowledge not relayed during my “extensive” ground school, the yoke has around 3 seconds of delay before it responds to the pilot.  When the plane got hit with a sharp gust, it would drop or jump up 20-40 feet depending on how I had my wings.  My reflex would be to move the yoke in the other direction.  So our flight pattern became
1. gust of wind
2. drop 40 feet
3. scott almost rips yoke out of plane trying to avert the seemingly impending nose dive
4. 3 seconds of terror when the plane doesn’t respond
5. plane jerks up
6. rise 40 feet
7. scott pushes down slightly to avert the herky-jerky rise
8. 3 seconds as I realize yet again that the yoke is on delay
9. plane drops 20 feet
10. TheGirlfriend makes a crack about my piloting

My inability to grasp the yoke delay reminded me of how Charlie Brown keeps trying to kick the football because he can’t remember that Lucy is going to pull the ball.  By the time I remembered to be gradual with the yoke my stomach felt nauseous.  It wasn’t a nausea that comes from terror, but more like a seasickness nausea or when you go on a fast roller coaster after drinking until 4am nausea.  I have flown 3 commercially since my flight lesson last week and I scoff when the flight attendant makes seatbelts required.  Turbulence is nothing to me now compared with my wind-swept flight in a Rav-4.

Another spooky moment came when I had to bank a turn away from Chicago.  There were no lights to my left because a left banking turn would put me over lake Michigan.  It was spooky to turn into this black mist with no depth perception, I had to rely on my gauges.  It made it easy to see how JFK Jr could’ve crashed his plane in Cape Cod fog, you literally can’t make out anything when it is dark and over the water.  It is similar to when you are going to sleep in a pitch-black room;  It feels good but without a point of reference your brain can’t seem to shut off and relax.  Of course being tossed around in my Rav-4 I was anything but relaxed already so it didn’t matter much by this time.

I decide I’ve had enough and gladly turn the plane towards the airport.  Descending is tricky.  Pushing down the yoke lowers the nose of the plane, and then a gust of wind would cause it to lower more than I wanted and I’d feel like I was going to nose dive.  Also the winds were coming in strong from an angle, so I was actually flying in diagonally towards the airport, which seems weird.  In actuality I was lowering 20 feet at a time and the instructor got impatient and took over.  I was all flown out anyways and theGirlfriend was anxious to kiss the ground in thankfulness.

I decided to shelve my potential plans to buy my own plane and become a pilot.  The new goal is to buy a share in a plane that comes with its own pilot so I can chill in the back with some vodka tonics and my computer.

Skydive Chicago

A great way to keep your mind off of a pending anxious situation is through distraction.  However, when you distract your mind from an imminent sky dive with the equally or perhaps more terrifying prospect of meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time, you don’t get the result you intended.  It turns out that the anxiety of each situation keeps boomeranging back and forth inside your intestinal walls until you are pretty sure you will have to throw out your boxers after the day is over.  This was my predicament Sunday as I drove out to Skydive Chicago.  I was attempting my first skydive in ten years and meeting TheNeighbor’s parents all in the same day.  I thought the bible said God created Sundays for rest or something like that?

Skydive “Chicago” is somewhat of a misnomer.  It is 80 miles from Chicago.  I recently had blogged how people above Wrigley were in the burbs yet still said they were in Chicago…I don’t even know what to make of this place saying it is in Chicago. In fact, when I was 8,000 feet up in the plane looking out, I still couldn’t see the city, and even asked the guy after we pulled the parachute to swing me towards the city, but there wasn’t even a Sears tower to be found.  However the people at Skydive Chicago helped make the jump such a great experience I shouldn’t complain over a geographical fudging.

As we pulled up to the jump zone, I told TheNeighbor I was pretty sure I was about to pass gas in front of her for the first time.  My thoughts would yo-yo uncontrollably.  I’d think “Oh man, I remember my body rebelling from heading towards the plane door when it was time to jump.”  I’d want to think about something else.  It would inevitably be “Uhoh, TheNeighbor’s parents in 5 minutes, I hope I don’t say something stupid.”  I’m not one to get nervous about much…I once did a global application rollout to thousands of people that involved me speaking in front of different groups around the world without any prepared notes - to make it more interesting.  But I cannot lie, I was a complete mess at zone arrival.

We found out there was a 3 hour wait for our jump.  Ouch.  More time to stew about the jump.  After spending time with the parents and enjoying their company, I felt much more relaxed.  I was getting antsy to get on the plane…goes to show what a waste getting nervous before an event can be!  During our wait we watched the ZZ top guy tell us that if we died it is not their fault, we couldn’t sue, we were idiots, our kin can’t do anything about it…I think we might’ve even owed them money if we got injured the way he was carrying on.  For those that haven’t sky dived…the same safety video is played at different drop zones, some dude with a beard like a band member of ZZ top tells you over and over that they have no responsibility for anything going wrong at the drop zone.

Time to dive finally.  There is really not much to the pre-jump training if you are going tandem skydiving.  We received very brief instruction on how to get out of the plane.  Unbearably lame jokes from some of the tandem instructors.  Although right before we got on the plane, as I was laying a wet one on TheNeighbor, someone walked by and said “We don’t skydive in your bedroom!”  I thought that was a pretty good one.  I could only muster back “Well you should” as a retort. Fortunately I seemed to have lucked out and got the calm mellow instructor Eric, he was great, no pretense, he didn’t play “I’m a radical skydive dude” or any other shtick, just told me what I needed to do and kept telling me how much fun it would be.  Perfect advice to keep me on an even keel for the jump.

We are loading last on the plane.  Eric says “bro you don’t mind going first do you?”  F it I tell him.  I am still buzzing from theNeighbor’s pre-jump farewell.  We get in the plane and we are right at the plane “door”.  Eric says “Bro, we are going first, so I’m not going to seatbelt you in, you’ll be attached to me and I’ll be seatbelted, ok?”  F it I tell him.  We take off and skydiving planes are LOUD.  There is no concept of making a quiet or non-bumpy flight, the goal is to get up as quick as possible to dump out the passengers.  It is boiling, so someone opens the door, I am now a couple thousand feet up, 3 feet from an open plane door, and I don’t have a seat belt on.  My mom had joked that she was going to wear Depends all day until I told her I was on the ground, if she would’ve saw this real-time the Depends would’ve been soiled.I look out at all the scenery.  It is too surreal to be scared, I soak it all in and start getting fired up for the jump.  TheNeighbor buzz is still kicking.  I look at my altimeter, we clear 10,000 feet and then a professional skydive formation group jumps out and it is time to crawl towards  the door.

Nothing compares to this moment.  I am willingly crawling on my knees towards an opening on a plane 2 miles up.  The body’s survival instincts kick in and terror ripples through your body as you somehow overrule your knee that doesn't want to budge and move it towards the opening in the plane.  I start to force a smile and then one happens naturally, I am psyched to go.  Before I know it I am hurtling through the air.  The initial stomach drop is pretty intense, your body is braced for what it thinks will be an inevitable thud at the end of your fall when you hit the ground.  Then your instructor gets you in the correct position and it is pure bliss.  I start giggling like a little kid, this is so cool!  Everything is peaceful and you are just floating down at 125mph.  Eric runs me through some routines to check altitude, look around the horizon, and then we spin around a little bit so I can catch all of the panorama.  It is exhilarating, calm, an adrenaline surge, and peaceful all at once.  I am loving every second until I get the signal to pull the parachute cord.  It is agony to end the free fall. 

After hurling through the air at breakneck speed, being 5000 feet up in a parachute is no big deal.  The only danger is when the parachute initially opens, if you didn’t take care with the harness beforehand, you might suffer a slight castrating effect.  The view from up high confirms that there is not a lot of originality in the planning of suburban cities.  They are all square grids.   The grids slowly take on detail and you can make out houses and cars, it is unlike anything else.

Landing is cake.  The instructor has some special hand clamps that slow you to a walking pace and then plop you down.  Eric had me in some squatting position that almost caused us to hurtle through the air, but we were going so slow that no disaster happened.  We waited for theNeighbor and her mom to land, and then I sped over to have a nice post-jump reunion.

I learned something about my mind by skydiving with theNeighbor.  Sometimes you have to ignore your pre-conceptions and fears and take the plunge.  Facing moments of terror can lead to rewards far greater than the risk of not facing fear.