Rediscovered Passion

So recently I have rediscovered a long lost passion of mine, well maybe passion is a bit too strong, in any case something I really enjoy. That something, though lame I know, is paper airplanes. Recently Kimberley had a badass assignment for her Technical Writing class, I don't know the wording exactly, but essentially what she had to do was dictate how to make a paper airplane without actually showing the person how to do it. Indeed this is a rather neat skill to have, but I was interested in the paper airplane part! I don't know why exactly, but making airplanes was always one of my favorite things to do as a kid. Granted I never really made super elaborate airplanes, but I was pretty damn good if I do say so myself!

I'm not positive as to where I learned how to make airplanes, I have a feeling it was one of my cousins, probably David, who showed me my first one. Although it could have very well been another kid I knew when I was growing up who knows for sure. Either way, back in the day I knew how to make several kinds of airplanes, though the two main ones were a glider and a speed/distance airplane. I can't remember too well, but I'm pretty sure that my friends and I used to have competitions on various aspects of the flight. I think they actually got pretty complicated, as complicated as 4^th graders can make things anyway. We judged on appearance—was it colored or decorated—complexity—how hard was the airplane to make—distance traveled, aerial tricks—flips, turns, spins, etc.—and grace—did it float through the air and such. There was also more specified competitions such as speed, safety—we actually made little paper men or wood men (really just sticks)—which were a whole hell of a lot of fun too. I also learned or thought I learned a lot about the 'art' of paper airplanes and became somewhat of an "expert". I knew things like what the best paper to use, how much to color the plane—see too much crayon or marker makes the plane too heavy, or if you put marker on the wings it makes them flimsier and less able to fly; I also knew different wing folds that maximized or minimized different types of tricks. Alas I certainly don't know much now, perhaps it'll come back to me as I make more of them now, but thinking about it logically I think a lot of it was a load of shit haha. Certain things maybe were true-ish, I mean if you fold up part of the right wing it'll turn right, but I'm not so sure. I'll have to experiment and see if it comes back to me again.

I don't know why I enjoyed making them so much I have always had a fascination with flying, but not flying as in mechanized plane flying. Gliding, the way birds do is what fascinates me even to this day. Don't get me wrong, I think the advances in technical flying are pretty cool, but it's not free ya know? For example, one of the reasons I was so obsessed with the anime Dragon Ball Z is because of their ability to fly. I mean I actually trained, well "trained", while I watched the show.. I freaking loved the way they flew. One of my favorite Goosebumps books was How I Learned to Fly, hell I even tried to do the same thing the kid did in the book! Flying is just so.. cool! I've also always wanted to sky dive and learn to hang glide, but I have a little fear of heights so I don't know if it'll ever be possible for me to do either. Maybe not fear heights so much as fear of pain, I mean, shit you screw up in either of those activities and its bye bye world!

In any case, I've resolved to start making more paper airplanes and as such fly them! I also really need to teach Kimberley how to make good ones cause she's an uber n00b! Like whoa. Oh and I just now remembered that another one of my favorite activities kinda related to flying is Frisbees! Oh man those are so so fun! Kimberley and I are gonna have to go out and fly planes and throw around a Frisbee, it'll be old school fun! We've also decided that because we're 20 years old it's horribly sad that we don't know how to fly a kite, so we're gonna learn that together too! :)