posted Jan 19th, 2018 - The end of the year was approaching rapidly, which is nothing new. Obviously it happens every year at this time and it is still different from before. It seems to happen a little bit quicker and earlier with each year that is passing by.

Something else is probably supporting the feeling of an accelerating pace of time and space and no, it is not my age alone...

I believe it has something to do with my job, which has been changing in the past years and continues to change.

NSL fans know that a big part of my job is event coverage, regularly from the desk top at the NSL headquarters in DeLand (that I proudly share with Blue Skies Mag's Kolla and Lara - no #metoo complaints yet...), sometimes live from the competition sites.

My actual job has not changed much, as I am still doing what I have been doing with great joy and passion for many years: providing as much up-to-date and historic information for the valued NSL audience and those who share my addiction to Formation Skydiving competition, and mostly 4-way.

TURNING POINTS: Brave New Indoor/Outdoor Data World

The difference is the work load. I am still serving the same purposes with similar efforts, even though the "social network" platforms and other internet options have added chores to the agenda.

However, just as these new-world communication opportunities are mostly quite shallow or/and superficial, they also don't add THAT much more work to my daily operation.

It is the number of events that makes the difference, and it is easy to see where this is coming from. The brave new indoor world has made it so easy to create 4-way meets that each wind tunnel wants to run its own signature event and as many additional activities as possible.

That's perfectly fine with me. Did I mention that I love Formation Skydiving competition – indoor or outdoor...?

I love writing stories about teams, competitors and events, looking deeper into the profiles of the participants and the history of teams and events. Unfortunately there is another side of the same coin. Each event creates new data, with scores, team rosters, photos, videos etc.

There are no good stories without enough and accurate data in the archives, even though I am still messing up when trying to connect the dots correctly. What I am trying to say is that data entry is a very time-consuming job, and it eats away from precious time for writing more and better stories.

And finally connecting the data dots: All these new events are creating a lot of data that needs to be entered before it is time for the fun part — the journalistic coverage of people and events.

All right all right, I know I know, there are ways how to make this all easier and I am thinking and dreaming of it day and night, while my webmaster genius keeps me awake or wakes me up when I have nightmares about the security and practicality of the data entry. However, I promised to myself that I will eventually make it happen and allow self-sufficient data entry. Take this as a new-year resolution; it's the right time of the year, isn't it?

Fact is that I am still doing it by myself, all of it, except for the wonder-world of website administration and code-writing on the back-end of SKYLEAGUE.COM where my web wizard does it all. And yes, I am whining and complaining about the work load of data entry, even though I am, fortunately, still being compensated by the journalistic part of the job.

The end of the year, which means roughly after USPA Nationals (big work load) and NSL Championship (small work load), used to be the time when data entry was over for the year, and I could dig into other topics or even go back in time and review events from longer ago. There is never a shortage of topics, never...

There was time for careful and peaceful planning of the next year, working on business issues, improving online features, soliciting support and sponsorships. Hey, I could even effort a power nap here and there...

Then came the indoor events, sneaking in slowly, meet by meet, year by year a few more. That was the end of the power naps.

It made only sense that the organizers would schedule the indoor events at the time of the year when the outdoor season was over and before it begins again, at least in most parts of the 4-way world.

Formation Skydiving competition is still attracting a mostly overlapping part of the skydiving competition community to both worlds.

You jump from planes in the summer and fly in the tunnel in the winter. Makes complete sense, doesn't it?

Yes, it makes complete sense, and I am loving it. In fact, we just used this year's NSL Championship for the first combined ultimate 4-way competition experiment. Ten indoor and ten outdoor rounds on the same weekend with the same competition draw created the first ultimate 4-way champion with combined scores of all 20 rounds. Yup, you need to be good all-around to win this title. Yeah, SCZ ZEUS from Skydive City, congratulations.

We will keep it and make it even bigger and better, as it was so much fun and such a great challenge (a lot of jumping and flying in a short amount of time too).

However, this will only be one event at the end of the outdoor season, or better: during the transition from outdoor to indoor season. I agree that it makes sense to separate outdoor and indoor season in general, and allow outdoor teams and competitors to participate in both worlds, even though I am expecting a growing number of older and younger flyers to focus exclusively on indoor training and competition. And there is the next topic: Transition of young indoor flyers to the outdoor world once they are old enough versus transition of older skydivers to the indoor world at the end of their outdoor careers...

Anyhow, the separation is happening, and the indoor season is following the outdoor season, and I have to add more night shifts for data entry. Got it? Happy new year.