Dedicated to Base Dog who recently passed away after a beautiful and long life with Soot and Fem.
May you keep the on headings alive St. Base Dog.
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Hello all you fruit loops out there. You might think the cat had got my tongue, but you are sadly mistaken. It’s been a war zone of fun out there with a few life changing experiences and as always, messy nights almost ending up in stray jackets.
First stop was Cambodia to meet up with my beautiful girl, Jackie. What a mind blowing experience. Between the land mine museum, the killing fields and the S-21 prison we were brought to tears with what the Khmer Rouge had done to their people between 1975-1979, torturing and killing 4 million people in ways that would make your skin crawl. It’s some of the most twisted and evil stuff I have encountered and it has affected everyone in the country. If you want to be humbled and appreciate life again then this is the place to go. It totally got my life back on track. Oh, and the food, temples and throwing hand grenades and shooting machine guns were pretty sick fun as well.
While Jackie flew back to her husband in Scotland to keep working on the oil rigs I had made my decision to go and join them in April, but not before some fun and excitement.
There were a few trips to the Blue Mountains for some traditional hardcore base jumping with Kip and Andy and a few other crew. The PD team also popped up for a jump and Jay got a bit more than he bargained for. It also gave Brad and I the opportunity to abseil 450ft of overhang to retrieve a canopy, which was bloody scary.
I also joined a 4 Way call C4 (C for Cunts) with Mossy, George Attard and the two Vaugnies. We had a sick time and the lads did some awesome skydiving. We were pipped at the post at the nationals by Airtite who did a 17.0 average. Nice one boys. We ended up 2nd with a 16.3 average which was also impressive, but as always the party was the most impressive and you know its going to be a good day when your laying in a puddle nude, giggling as your pissing on yourself only to look over and see a member from the winning team doing the same thing. Go Australian skydiving!! My van ended up on a tow truck after running the battery down with 10 hours of dancing and seeing things that weren’t really there.
Had a few malfunctions along the way which kept the blood flowing but it was time to ring the minister for over it and take a break from the skydiving industry and try my luck on the oil rigs in Scotland. But before that it was time to learn how to paraglide with Kip, Jackie,Vaughny and Scambo. I thought it would be a relaxing sport but I was horribly wrong.
We all found it very intense and it definitely brought it on with the quote of the trip being from Scambo after being sucked up to 6000 ft “get me the fuck down from here” he said to the instructor.
With some epic driving missions and frantically packing up my life into boxes, it was off to the final Funny Farm boogie. I had the pleasure of shooting video with Wendy Smith and I ended up punching out 58 crazy jumps for the week including filming motor bikes, mountain bikes, couches, the unofficial 19 way Aussie record and a heap more crazy stuff.
The Farm will go down in history as the last piece of coolness in Australian Skydiving (nice one APF. Fun wreckers).
So the next day it was off to sunny Scotland (not) to start my courses for my change of life. It was the first time I had used my brain since grade 3 and it showed. But I powered through and got top of the class for the first time in my life.
It was soul destroying looking for work but it has paid off so far and I fly out for my third job in a few days. It's pretty crazy out there living on a potential time bomb in the middle of the ocean, doing fuck all and getting paid heaps. The food is all time as well and I’m eating like a demon but it just doesn’t seem to run out. Six months and I will be a fatty for sure.
It a beautiful place over here in Stonehaven. There is mountain biking, cool ramps and skate parks, a 1000 ft antenna we can see from our window and all time ground launching sites, where I have been running my new Ozone, Bullet speed glider off. I haven’t been this in love with a sport since base jumping.
With a trip to Norway, Switzerland and Spain coming up it's going to be a good summer and a cool change of lifestyles for a while.
With my T-shirts and DVD now sold out it's getting closer to the release of my next project with is the first of three books entitled “Confessions of an Idiot”. It is being edited in South Africa at the moment by Jeremy Sampson and Chelsea and should be out by Xmas.
So that’s it for now. Life is good, just a little less crazy and I am still maintaining a constant level of alcohol abuse amongst other stuff.
You never know though, with all this life changing stuff I may become a religious nut like those fat Americans. Nah, Fuck that. No 40 virgins for me this month!
Big hugs to everyone and
Shine on
Luv Douggs
R.I.P. brother.
NEW!!
Base Article (PDF 2.72 MB)
