A hard landing leaves this skydiver with broken ribs. You can almost hear them pop.

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Pretty much what every mom worries about: this student skydiver breaks his back on his very first jump.

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In this clip, a skydiving teacher videotapes a student's dive from a helmet-mounted camera. When the student's rib cage collides with the instructor's head, the instructor becomes paralyzed instantly. This filmed, first-person perspective of free-fall -- arms flailing, world akimbo -- is about as close to a nightmare as you can imagine.

As you're probably aware, some people think reclining a seat on a flight is a pretty much a crime, while others think it's a blessing. Therefore, yesterday, we asked our Twitter followers a burning question:


Immediately, our wonderful (and vocal) followers burst forth with their thoughts, which ranged from absolute insistence to meek denial. Overnight, we let Gadling's servers and mega-computers crunch the data, and now, we're here to report our findings.

The argument about whether overweight passengers should pay for a second seat has been getting louder. Our friends at AOL Travel recently summarized some readers' thoughts on the subject of obese passengers, and now here's your chance to sound off!

Participate in our poll ...



... leave a comment below, and then read more:

• Passenger ... or safety hazard?
• Overweight man barred from flight, misses uncle's funeral
• Plane Answers: Whistling airplanes and heavy passengers that cost airlines more in fuel?
• Middle seat: where else would you want to be?
• Air India fires 10 employees for being fat

Only when I arrive at my gate do I learn of the FAA's "nationwide system outage" grounding flights across the country. Gate attendants are reading from prepared FAA statements, explaining they don't know what caused the delay, but that they're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

My 8:50am flight has been pushed back to 9:50, but now -- at 9:20 -- there's been no word about rescheduling my flight. Naturally, I have a connecting flight in Atlanta Hartsfield -- the world's busiest airport -- and they are reporting widespread delays, as well.

The issue, apparently, revolves around scheduling flights for departure. (There's a lot of confusion about this, here at FLL.)

Flights in the air are safe, and seemingly, airlines have the ability to clear flights one-by-one for departure: that explains the three flights that have zoomed off in the past 20 minutes. According to @ExecutiveTravel, "The FAA's own site says that flight schedules are being entered in MANUALLY, thus the delays and cancellations" -- but I'm unable to find this information.

We're on the ground -- literally -- for this story, updating live from our Twitter account. We'll also update this post as we learn more.

If you're traveling today ... we sympathize.

UPDATE: Apparently, the computer glitch is in Atlanta.

UPDATE 2: The gate attendant announced at 9:50 that the delay would end in "about 45 minutes." Let's see how accurate he is.

UPDATE 3: The gate agent was right on target. That flight is boarding now. My flight -- the one originally scheduled for 8:50 -- is now scheduled to depart at 11:30.

UPDATE 4: According to the WSJ, "The FAA system is a major, cutting-edge program full of redundancies that are designed to keep it from going down."

Here at Gadling we're almost always on the go: packing, unpacking, ass-dragging through customs, reclining seat backs, putting up tray tables. Ugh: it can be exhausting. Of course, we know you're probably at least as busy and as movious as we are. Therefore, we thought it'd be nice to remind you all the places you can get your Gadling on.

If you don't have time to check Gadling.com every day, but you can breeze through your feed reader before rushing to the airport, don't forget you can subscribe to our RSS feed. If you prefer to follow only certain writers, you can subscribe to any individual author's feed (the feeds are located right next to the writers' names, on each post).

If you're less interested in specific writers, but you love to catch up on travel topics, be sure to check out some of our hub pages -- including Travel Tech, Adventure Travel, Cockpit Chronicles, Galley Gossip, or The Accidental Chef Travels.

Finally, if you didn't already know, you can become of a fan of Gadling on Facebook, and you can follow the site (as well as the writers) on Twitter. Here's a handy list of names:

Team Gadling @Gadling

Mike Barish @MikeBarish
Kraig Becker @KungFuJedi
Catherine Bodry @CatherineBodry
Alison Brick @AlisonBrick
Scott Carmichael @ItsMeScotty
Justin Glow @JustinGlow
Stephen Greenwood @SPGreenwood
Katie Hammel @KatieHammel
Aaron Hotfelder @AaronHotfelder
Tom Johansmeyer @TJohansmeyer
Jeremy Kressman @Kressie42
Heather Poole @Heather_Poole
Jamie Rhein @Jamie_Rhein
Annie Scott @AnnieScott
Willy Volk @WillyVolk
Karen Walrond @Chookooloonks
Kent Wien @VeryJr
Brenda Yun @HIBren

With 1200 miles of sand beaches, Florida is the world's premiere destination for vacationers seeking sun, surf, and sand. However, with so much coastline, how do you choose the beach that's right for you? Here's our list of the best beaches in southeast Florida (roughly the area from Stuart to Miami).

Best beach for photo ops: Blowing Rocks Preserve

Blowing Rocks Preserve encompasses a mile-long limestone outcrop riddled with holes, cracks and fissures; when the tide's high and there's a strong easterly wind (call for conditions: 561-744-6668), water shoots up, geyser-like. When seas are calm, you can hike through four coastal biomes: shifting dune, coastal strand, interior mangrove wetlands and tropical coastal hammock. Across the street, Hawley Education Center has rotating art exhibits with nature themes, as well as two short nature trails and a butterfly garden.

Entry to the preserve is $2 per person, and it's only open from 9am to 4:30pm. A dedicated photographer would probably consider the best photo opportunities to be at sunrise (though we didn't tell you to park south of the preserve and hike in with your camera and tripod). Finding the refuge is a little tricky, as there's no signage: from US Hwy 1, take Bridge St (708 east) to Hobe Sound. Make a left on Beach St (707). Travel about 3 miles; the refuge is on your right.

Yesterday, we announced Gadling's "Perfect Road Trip" contest, a fantabulous contest in which Gadling is partnering with Cadillac to send one lucky winner (and a friend!) on his or her perfect road trip, all expenses paid. All you have to do is describe your favorite road trip, and if you're selected as the winner, Cadillac will provide --

• airfare for you and a friend from your home(s) to the start of your road trip destination;
• a new Cadillac SRX to drive for the duration of a the road trip (sorry, you have to give it back at the end of the trip);
• money for fuel and expenses along the way (think: hotel and meals);
• airfare from the road trip's end point back to your home.

Here's how the contest works --

1. In the comments below, leave a comment telling us about your favorite road trip. (Please: no months-long trips here; the road trip may only be two days long, but that's PLENTY of time to, say, cruise the Florida Keys.)
   
2. You don't have to have been on the road trip before -- it can be one you're dreaming about -- but try to be specific. Make us drool over your imagined itinerary. (Hint: the prize will be available in September, so try to think of a relevant destination -- and that destination must be in the Continental US.)
3. You can only leave one road trip suggestion, so choose wisely. Successive road trip ideas will remain visible on the site, however, for other people to dream about.
4. All submissions must be left by July 22, 2009, at 5pm EST, in order to be considered.
   
5. Gadling's road trip gurus will choose the 5 best road trip ideas from those left in the comments.
   
6. We'll present Gadling's readers with the list early next week, and they'll vote on which is the best road trip -- and therefore, who should be the winner of the contest.
7. Leaving a comment below constitutes having read, understood, and agreed to the complete rules (link is a PDF).

Good luck.

Gallery: 2010 Cadillac SRX

There's something transcendental about zooming along wildflower-rimmed country roads with the top on your convertible down. Fresh spring air, ripe with morning dew, floods your nostrils and tossles your hair. Hulking, weeping fig trees, thick with Spanish moss, sway in the breeze like a feathered boa on a dancing woman, and the sun -- cresting the canopy of the roadside trees -- plays hide-and-seek in the ripples of the nearby river.

Troubles at home? Far removed. Stressed from work? No longer. All that matters is the here and the now -- driving along gorgeous back-country roads, mercifully traffic-free.

If road trips delight you, then Gadling's "Perfect Road Trip" contest will make you ecstatic. We're partnering with Cadillac to send one lucky winner (and a friend!) on his or her perfect road trip, all expenses paid. All you have to do is tell us your favorite road trip, and if you're selected as the winner, Cadillac will provide --

• airfare for you and a friend from your home(s) to the start of your road trip destination;
• a new Cadillac SRX to drive for the duration of the road trip (sorry, you have to give it back at the end of the trip);
• money for fuel and expenses along the way (think: hotel and meals);
• airfare from the road trip's end point back to your home.

Here's how the contest works --

Some people travel to shop in different stores, or to eat different food, or to drink different beers. Jeff White traveled to immerse himself in a different culture. He believed so strongly in immersion, in fact, that he moved to Germany to live and work. This post of Jeff's, republished in his honor, demonstrates Jeff's interest in immersion and passion for connecting with people while traveling. Thanks, Jeff, for reminding us of the most important reason for travel.

A friend of mine just sent me this video from the start-up Web site GlobalPost, and it's fantastic.

Gregory Warner, a freelance foreign correspondent living in Afghanistan, is an avid accordion player, and he tries to use the instrument as a means to connect with the people he's covering.

The way Afghans respond to his accordion music is somewhat unexpected and reveals some truths about the country's development during the last quarter century.

What does Warner do when asked to perform at a concert and realizing he doesn't know any tunes by Afghanistan's own pop icon? Well, Johnny Cash to the rescue. Watch and see what I mean...

(Thanks, Ed)

Dear Gadling Readers,

We usually avoid getting overly serious here at Gadling, but something happened recently, and we thought we should share it with you.

Our friend and colleague Jeff White has died. Unbeknownst to most of us, Jeff had been battling cancer for some time. Though he'd been in remission, the cancer came back late last year and spread throughout his body. He died at his parents' home in Connecticut on June 29, 2009. He is survived by his parents, James and Dolores; his brothers, Gregory, Paul, and Michael; five nieces and nephews; and his wife, Nicki, to whom he was married for only three weeks. (I wince every time I think about that.) Jeff was 32.

A career journalist, Jeff was living and working in Berlin when we contracted him to write for Gadling in February of 2008. While all the bloggers at Gadling travel, Jeff was a traveling expat, which, in my mind, made him uniquely qualified for this work. He did not disappoint. Though he lived far from the rest of the team, he kept in close contact, and I considered him a good friend and a dependable co-worker. He was a talented writer, armed with with a quick wit, a global perspective, and a passion for travel.

Today, we're going to pay tribute to Jeff, republishing some of his old posts that really moved us. We hope you'll indulge us -- and maybe get to know Jeff all over again. A good place to start is his "About Jeff White" post.

We love you, Jeff. You'll be missed.