This weekend was the fourth weekend in a row where I had to teach a ground school. I hate talking that much! Anyways, I had four students, all young guys. One was a young military man - a lot of fun to look at. One was a german fella. He was a very nice guy and had a good grasp of english; he resembled the actor (Karl-Otto Alberty) who played all those Nazis in the 60's and 70's war movies which was slightly disconcerting. The other two were friends. They looked like typical tennessee young adults but one of them looked amazingly like Orlando Bloom. Bet he doesn't have much trouble getting chicks.

Speaking of uncanny resemblences, Steve came over too me at some point Saturday afternoon, pointed at a woman (tandem student), and said, "Look! It's Denise Richards!" and I immediately looked at her hooters(!). Embarrasing. Yeah, they were big. I didn't realize it was so cold out, either. She did resemble the actress in question in the face, too.

So I had four ground school students and ended up doing 5 AFF jumps all total. On top of that I did a bunch of parachute packing and ended up clearing about $400. Not bad for a weekend's work.

I am somewhat distressed because I have lost almost all of my sense of smell. I was taking Nasonex, a prescription for chronic rhinitis (constant stuffy nose) which I think is the culprit so I quit using it. The trouble is, my allergies come back with a vengeance after the medication completely wears off. Right now my ability to smell comes and goes randomly. I had a good day Sunday, although I'm not sure I should refer to it as "good". I caught a good whiff of someone's particularly nasty flatulence as well as someone's well-defined foot odor. When I got home and decided to deliberately cook something that would require me to saute onions and garlic in olive oil, my sense of smell had deserted me again. Damn. As anyone who has ever had a cold will know, a large component of the ability to taste is the ability to smell. Unless I put in enough cayenne pepper to shrivel an elephant I can't taste anything. I will be visiting my allergy doc soon for some tests. In the meantime I will stock up on Claratin.