I will be out of town visiting my family's gravesite and will not be available for some time. I will consider whether to log in or not upon my return.

DECLARING CHEESECAKE A PIE**

(Ratified unanimously by people who clapped when the plane landed)

PREAMBLE (READ IN A VERY SERIOUS VOICE)

Whereas mankind has split the atom, walked on the moon, and invented low-fat cream cheese (a crime), yet
Whereas the question “Is cheesecake a pie?” continues to ruin friendships, holidays, and group texts,
We hereby establish scientific truth, pastry law, and common sense’s drunk cousin.

ARTICLE I: THE CRUST KNOWS WHAT IT DID

Cheesecake has a crust.

Not a suggestion of crust.
Not a garnish of crumbs.
A full structural crust whose sole job is to whisper, “I am pie. Trust me.”

If it were cake, the crust would be on top, frosting-shaped, and emotionally manipulative.

Crust on bottom = pie.
This is not controversial. This is geology.

ARTICLE II: CAKE DOES NOT REQUIRE A BIB

Cake:

Can be eaten casually
Will not collapse under eye contact
Does not demand refrigeration like a hostage

Cheesecake:

Must chill for hours
Threatens collapse if rushed
Needs a springform pan like a Victorian patient needs a fainting couch

This is custard behavior, and custard behavior is pie behavior.

ARTICLE III: THE POUR TEST

Before baking, cheesecake is a liquid.

You pour it.

If you can pour it, bake it, and then slice it into wedges, congratulations:

That’s a pie
You made a pie
Stop lying to yourself

Cake batter dreams of being fluffy.
Cheesecake batter dreams of being dense and judgmental.

ARTICLE IV: THE SLICE SHAME PHENOMENON

When you take a slice of cheesecake:

Everyone watches
Your angle is evaluated
Someone says “That’s a big piece” even if it isn’t

This is pie etiquette, not cake culture.

Cake is forgiving.
Pie remembers.

ARTICLE V: CAKE DOES NOT HAVE FLAVORS LIKE THIS

Cakes:

Chocolate
Vanilla
Red (??)

Cheesecake flavors:

New York
Key Lime
Pumpkin
Lemon
“Seasonal Argument Starter”

If pumpkin cheesecake exists and pumpkin pie exists, and the only difference is vibes, then the vibes have spoken.

ARTICLE VI: THE PAN IS A CONSPIRACY

“BUT IT’S BAKED IN A CAKE PAN.”

Incorrect.

It’s baked in a springform pan, which is just a pie pan that went to therapy and learned boundaries.

Also:

Pies can be round
Cakes can be square
Lasagna is neither and still causes fights

Pan shape is meaningless.
The oven knows the truth.

ARTICLE VII: THE NAME IS A LIE AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN

“Cheesecake” is propaganda.

Other lies include:

“Just browsing”
“Low-fat”
“One more episode”
“This won’t hurt”

Cheesecake is named by Big Cake to avoid being drafted into the Pie Census.

We see through this.

ARTICLE VIII: EMERGENCY REFRIGERATOR LAW

If a dessert:

Sweats when left out
Develops opinions after two hours at room temp
Requires plastic wrap like a crime scene

It is not cake.

It is a custard-based pie organism and must be treated as such.

ARTICLE IX: THE FORK CONFESSION

Everyone eats cheesecake like it’s pie.

No one eats cheesecake like cake.
No birthday candles.
No layers.
No singing.
Just quiet, focused consumption and regret.

FINAL RULING

By the combined authority of:

Science
Baking
Geometry
Refrigeration
And That One Guy Who Will Argue But Is Clearly Losing

CHEESECAKE IS PIE.

This ruling is:

Final
Irrevocable
Enforceable at dinner parties
APPENDIX A: DISSENTERS

Dissenters may:

Continue calling it cake
Be wrong loudly
Still eat it (hypocrites)
APPENDIX B: CHEESECAKE IS NOT A TART

Do not test us.

APPENDIX C: FUTURE RESEARCH

Pending studies include:

Is quiche breakfast pie
Is pizza open-faced cheese pie
Is hot dog a lawsuit

However, there's a new 'start' sign on the Navy Pier - "The Road Starts Here".

And it ends here on the Santa Monica Pier, CA

Or,

You can start in California and END one block from the BEGIN sign, the choice is yours, the KICKS the same.

In between you'll see Giants,

https://news.justcollecting.com/churchills-glasses-get-auction-date/

https://www.brownartreview.org/post/michelangelo-and-da-vinci-shifting-attitudes-of-the-human-body

Among my old keepsakes is a small, worn card from 1992 labeled "RW Instruction."

Most people would see it as nothing more than an old training record. The paper is yellowed, the ink is fading, and the corners are bent from years of being tucked away in drawers and boxes.

To me, it is one of the most important pieces of paper I own.

The card records my 14th skydive.

At the time I was still a relatively new skydiver. I had completed Accelerated Freefall training, where students wear and operate their own parachute systems from the very first jump. Unlike tandem skydiving, where the instructor wears the parachute and the student is attached to them, AFF students are responsible for deploying and flying their own canopy. The equipment belongs to the drop zone, but the responsibility belongs to the student.

I had progressed to Relative Work, or RW, where experienced jumpers taught newer skydivers how to fly their bodies in relation to one another in freefall. It was an exciting time because I was finally moving beyond simply surviving a skydive and beginning to learn how to truly fly.

The instructor listed on my card was known as Kiwi.

He was from New Zealand, and I honestly can't remember ever seeing him in a bad mood. He always seemed happy. The only time he seemed even happier was when he was getting paid to make a skydive. The idea that somebody would hand him money to jump out of an airplane never stopped amusing him.

Kiwi loved skydiving.

You could see it every time he climbed into an aircraft.

On the day recorded on that card, he was teaching me RW skills. It was just another jump, another lesson, another ordinary day at the drop zone.

Neither of us knew it would be the last time.

Four days later, the airplane we had been jumping from crashed.

Sixteen jumpers were killed.

Kiwi was one of them.

Another was the jumper who had accompanied me on my very first skydive.

One week I was learning from them.

The next week they were gone.

The shock spread through the entire skydiving community. Losing one friend is hard enough. Losing sixteen people at once is something else entirely. The drop zone was filled with grief, disbelief, and empty spaces where familiar faces should have been.

For a while, every jump carried memories of the people who weren't there anymore.

Eventually, I returned to the sport.

I don't remember feeling brave.

I remember feeling determined.

Skydiving had become part of my life, and despite everything that had happened, I wanted to continue.

On my second jump back, I made a mistake.

I induced a malfunction in my main parachute.

As soon as I realized the canopy could not be safely flown, training took over. I executed emergency procedures and cut away the main canopy.

The malfunctioned parachute disappeared above me.

I immediately reached for my reserve handle.

Nothing happened.

I pulled harder.

Still nothing.

At first I couldn't understand what was wrong.

I knew the procedure.

I had practiced it countless times.

Yet I was falling through open sky with no functioning parachute above me.

What I didn't realize was that the reserve handle had shifted position. Instead of pulling the handle, I was pulling on the harness webbing beside it.

The reserve wasn't failing.

I was pulling the wrong thing.

But I didn't know that.

All I knew was that I was running out of altitude.

The ground was getting closer.

Time was disappearing.

Then a thought entered my mind with complete clarity.

I AM NOT GOING TO DIE.

It wasn't panic.

It wasn't a prayer.

It wasn't even anger.

It was simply a decision.

I stopped fighting the harness and looked again.

This time I saw the problem.

My hand moved only a few inches.

I found the actual reserve handle.

I pulled.

The reserve parachute exploded open above me.

Instantly, the chaos ended.

The silence that follows a parachute opening is something difficult to describe. One second there is noise, speed, and urgency. The next there is only the gentle sound of air moving through fabric.

I was alive.

As I flew toward the drop zone, I began to realize that people on the ground had probably witnessed the entire event. They had likely seen the cutaway. They had probably realized there was a delay before the reserve deployed.

Some of them were undoubtedly looking up and yelling for me to pull.

I never heard any of it.

My entire world had narrowed to the problem in front of me.

Approaching the landing area, I focused on flying the reserve.

Fueled by adrenaline and concentration, I made one of the best landings of my skydiving career—a perfect stand-up landing right in the accuracy pit in front of everyone.

The crowd applauded.

Under different circumstances I might have enjoyed it.

Maybe I would have smiled.

Maybe I would have accepted congratulations.

Maybe I would have exchanged a few high fives and laughed about it afterward.

Instead, I gathered up my reserve canopy and started walking back toward the office.

People were talking to me.

I barely noticed.

My head was down.

I wasn't thinking about the applause.

I wasn't thinking about the landing.

I wasn't thinking about how lucky I was.

I was thinking about how close I had come.

Only moments earlier I had been pulling on the wrong piece of webbing while falling toward the earth. The difference between walking across that packing area and never walking anywhere again had been a few inches and a few seconds.

As I passed through the packing area, I must have looked like I had seen a ghost.

The truth was, I had.

My own.

Most people would assume an experience like that would end a skydiving career.

For me, it didn't.

Over the years I accumulated about 350 jumps.

Some of my favorite jumps were from hot-air balloons.

Balloon jumps are unlike airplane jumps. There is no engine noise, no vibration, and no sensation of speed before exit. You simply step off into space.

For a brief moment it feels as though nothing is happening.

Then gravity takes hold.

Unlike an airplane jump, where you leave an aircraft already moving through the air, a balloon jump lets you feel and hear yourself accelerating. The wind starts softly and grows louder second by second. It is one of the purest sensations I have ever experienced.

I also made night jumps, watching towns become islands of light beneath me.

I made higher-altitude jumps that stretched freefall into long, unforgettable descents.

One of my favorite maneuvers was transitioning into a stand-up position during freefall. My speed increased dramatically, and the roar of the wind intensified. It felt less like falling and more like diving headfirst through the sky.

Those were wonderful experiences.

But when I think about my years in skydiving, I don't think first about the balloon jumps, the night jumps, or the total number of jumps in my logbook.

I think about people.

I think about Kiwi.

I think about his smile.

I think about how happy he was when somebody paid him to do something he loved.

I think about the sixteen jumpers who never came home.

And I think about a young skydiver hanging beneath a reserve parachute in 1992, looking at the world a little differently than he had a few minutes before.

The old RW card still sits among my keepsakes.

To everyone else it is just a piece of paper.

To me it is a reminder of friends, loss, survival, and a lesson I have carried ever since:

Life can change in a matter of seconds.

Sometimes those seconds take everything away.

Sometimes they give everything back.

I guess we'll find out.

clear?

Ohio is known as the Buckeye state. People from Ohio are often called Buckeyes, a nickname that dates back to the early 1800s. The name comes from the buckeye tree, which grows across the state. Its nut looks like a deer’s eye—dark brown with a light spot—and early settlers thought it was a good symbol for Ohio.

The nickname became popular during William Henry Harrison’s presidential campaign in 1840. His supporters made souvenirs from buckeye wood, helping the name stick.

A grain is a unit of measurement of mass, and in the troy weight, avoirdupois, and apothecaries' systems, equal to exactly 64.79891 milligrams. It is nominally based upon the mass of a single ideal seed of a cereal. From the Bronze Age into the Renaissance, the average masses of wheat and barley grains were part of the legal definitions of units of mass. Expressions such as "thirty-two grains of wheat, taken from the middle of the ear" appear to have been ritualistic formulas.

Platinum Wins!

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