Background
Born in Havre de Grace, Maryland, Miller was an avid outdoorsman, computer technician, small business owner, and extreme sports enthusiast who enjoyed power paragliding. Miller held an Associate's degree in computer programming from the University of Alaska at Juneau. He was introduced to paragliders while living in Las Vegas.
He started with a jetpack tied to his back, and moved up to two-cycle aircraft engines which powered him through the skies above the desert. He began setting power-gliding records for altitude and distance, with a reputation for reckless daring.
Miller relocated to Valdez, Alaska where he continued to fly ultralight aircraft and paragliders in the Alaskan wilderness until he developed heart problems. He was diagnosed with a serious coronary condition, had heart surgery twice, and was forced to close his small computer business in Valdez in order to move to Anchorage, where he was closer to medical care and friends and family.
Read more about this topic: James Miller (parachutist)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)