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Thank you for the 27 years. I have so many memories that involve this little corner of the web. Sorry to see it end.

Jim was my first sky diving instructor in May of 1976 at Zephyrhills Florida. We were all jumping from an old DC-3. We sort of rubbed each other the wrong way. I had completed my military obligations and was feeling pretty pretty tough. Jim sort of laughed at my bravado. In those days new jumpers progressed on a static line. first 2 jumps and you demonstrated that you could exit the door and hit a stable arch. Then 2 jumps where you exited stable and did a dummy rip cord pull to show that you were thinking in the air. I had been using student equipment an old army T-10 with a big bulky front reserve and had about about 7 static lines and was waiting for Jim to sign some paper that would allow me to do my first free fall. I was attending University of South Florida at the time it was Friday afternoon and I was out of class for the weekend. All the experienced jumpers were already there and I could see them flying down. Jim met me in the parking lot as I drove up with my rusty old Volkswagen van. He said follow me. I walked behind him into the chute packing room. He handed me a student rig with a ripcord. I put the rig on with a lump in my throat, Jim pulled the straps so hard that it actually hurt my nuts. I put you on the manifest he stated with a grin that only increased my fear. The load roar of the DC-3's engines warming up only increased my anxiety. Jim could see that I was scared and said Ok time to see what your made of tough guy. We boarded the roaring monster and took off the runway, static jumps with a barometric auto opener on the reserve were scary enough but now if I screwed up I realized I could die. We went around and around until we got to 2000 feet and a jump master named Ed Avery sent 6 new students out on the static lines. Jim pulled the static lines in and rolled his finger in the air to go around one more pass. we were almost to 3 grand and Jim took me to the open door. I heard the engines cut Jim looked at me and said NOW!. I jumped did a nice arch and pulled my ripcord my parachute jerked the beejessus out of me because I was a little head down. I looked up to see my parachute fully bloomed out. It was a sense of elation that overtook me. I steered my slotted T-10 toward the landing bullseye and just a little outside the ring I did a perfect PLF parachute landing fall. I lay on the ground for a moment only and started to collect my chute and Jim came swooping down next to me. He gave me a hug and said good job. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. Jim looked at me and declared Case of beer I drove to the local stores and purchased 2 cases of cold beer. I took it back to the DZ and that night me, Jim, Ed Avery, Marc Janchak, Stan Bussey, Ernie King, Anibal Turneaurua, Cheryl Morgn, Chuck Henderson, Ski and Donna, Pat and John Conway, and Bill Foster got blasted to celebrate my first freefall. I remember this time as the very best part of my life. I continued to jump and got to know Jim better. I loved Jim and all my jumping buddies. I cried when I heard that he had passed away. He was a great man, a man of courage, Honor and integrity. Well I guess I have to close now because this has got me crying again. We will miss you Jim you were one of a king. RIP Buddy.

I miss nerdgirl and Andy9o8

You can manipulate the books to your heart's content. In the end the consumer pays. Or to put it more succinctly: "Who pays? Benchley pays" - Robert Benchley It is really not that hard when you sit down and actually think about it. EDIT: I'm more concerned about our food supply when we deport all the farm workers.

Not telegram, but I’m setting up a private sub reddit to hopefully keep the banter going. Over the past 20+ years I’ve been active in this site I’ve learned skydiving lessons, made great friends and changed my views on life. The mods have done a great job over the years in keeping it relatively civil and so we have a spectrum of views and it’s not a pure echo chamber.

I can't tell you how many people I know that smoke weed and snort coke, yet that lie on their weapons forms never bit them. Most IRS tax issues are done once the disputed numbers are settled, paid, interest, and fines. Yet this one guy was pursued, simply because he was the son of POTUS. The republicans shit their pants over the fact that he had a deal, which is odd because most people do that in similar cases. Why is this one so special and dear to The Great Rapist Leader and his minions? Meanwhile, the criminals pardoned by Trump were fine.

Heya all, Dropzone .com has been sold. This site has been part of my life for 27 years, so it was obviously not an easy decision. A huge thank you to every one of you (especially those relentless mods!) who supported Dropzone.com and myself during the years. Things change. The friendships I made here will outlast the tech forever, and for that i'm grateful. It's been real. Safe swoops Sangiro

I think in Musks case, he is interested in milking as much money as humanly possible from the coffers of the USA in order to further his own goals and fund his own projects, and we are absolutely going to let him do that.

Yep. The bigger the vessel, the less of a problem this is. Any serious plan for Mars colonization needs a cycler - a vehicle that never lands but keeps cycling between Earth and Mars orbit. They are typically much larger than landers and use much more efficient engines (NERVA or ion engines) that would not work on a lander. They also have the room/payload to carry more shielding. But the first colonists will see a lot of rads.

now the name popped up - it was Amazon!

I just passed 19 years as a member of this site. Mostly just lurking; I used to be perversely proud I had more jumps than posts, but that is no longer true. I want to thank @wolfriverjoe and @pchapman and @davelepka and @diverdriver (latter two long gone I assume) for being such good resources, level headed, thorough, and mostly dispassionate in their advice and analysis. (dave could get wound up, but still for many years was a great source of information). I learned so much here.

That's why you don't deport them. You arrest and imprison them, then use them as slave labour on the farms. Now you have removed illegal immigrants and made food cheaper.

Newt Gingrich was the first republican Speaker of the House in 40 years. Of course, previous Democratic SOHs were dealmakers, and the current Republican SOH approach is pretty exclusionary, but I'm hoping that's just a reaction to the pendulum swing. Hope hope hope. Because there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. Wendy P.

I'd be more interested in the opinions of an archivist. I agree, I think the mass-market DB consumer has little care for the DZ. That might not be a bad thing. What I know is the arc of a story has not change since we sat around a fire and passed our stories to one another. What has change are the recording and distribution systems of story, but we could always sit around an utter things to one another. Your guess is as good as mine, You thinking of buying the DZ - G ? If a church ceased to exist would the teachings still live on in the followers. The Vortex has absorbed what the DZ has yielded. Few care about the DZ, our bickering or obsession over minutia, but Cooper and the mystery overall cover many narrative elements that audiences thirst for.

Ahhh… I miss Pope Valley. I was an Idaho jumper in that era, and got to pope several times. jeff D-4164

Well maybe Mexico will pay for the wall now .. To keep the illegal immigrants from moving south.

China has now banned the export of key minerals like gallium, germanium and antimony to the US in response to American export bans of high technology items to China. The trade war is now starting to simmer. Oh! wait too bad that China will still export those items to Canada and Mexico. Come January 21 Americans will come to Canada for their prescription drugs and EV batteries.

You didn't answer. Cause when presented with something you thought was easy, but turned out not to be so easy you took the simple way out. You had the chance to learn, but you are actively choosing ignorance.

True! Remember when Trump built that entire big, beautiful wall and got Mexico to pay for it?

See this is where you liberals have it all wrong. This is why we need to have a keen successful businessman as president who is a master at negotiating. Let me try to break this down so even your feeble minds can understand. Standard corporate politicians can't think very far ahead and can only come up with the simplest solution. That is why they make the US citizens (importers) pay for Tariffs. So, if an American company buys 1,000 Acme branded widgets for $10 each and we have a 10% tariff, the American company pays the Chinese company $10/ea. and the government $1 for a total of $11,000. They must then pass that cost on to the American citizens who want to buy Acme widgets. And this is what your lazy incompetent liberal politicians think is a good system. Trump on the other hand with his far superior intellect, business sense, and negotiation skills that the world has never seen before will change all that. Under his plan if an American company wants to import 1,000 Acme widgets, they will pay $10/widget (same price, please try to keep up). The Chinese company will ship us 1,000 widgets and they will get the same $10 as before. So, the Chinese manufacturer is happy their profit is still the same. Then the Chinese government will pay $1,000 to do business here in America. And everybody will be happy. No increase in inflation. We still get the Acme widgets for the same cost. The Chinese company will still make the same money they always have. It is a win-win situation. You see. It is really not that hard when you sit down and actually think about it.

He wasn't pursued. He came to the attention of prosecutors who made a deal to let him off, more or less. It was a trump appointed judge that threw the deal out. Thats not to say that a judge wouldn't have given him a light sentence or no jail time. The fact is he admitted to the tax charges which were serious and the gun charge is a felony. Does the law apply to all equally or not? trump's pardons are an obscene exception. If a Black man was prosecuted for the same gun "crime" the president's son should be as well. Using trump's pardons as a example or precedent to justify Biden's actions is sinking to trump's level. The entire concept of the pardons is intended to be centred around making right unfair convictions. US presidents are giving pardons to people they know personally or have had involvements with. All to subvert the concept of all equally before the law.

Due to the republican obsession with getting a democrat because their side keeps getting caught and convicted is what it looks like to me. Her emails, BidensUkraineRussia, just more nothing burgers than Big Macs. NEVER has America had a presidential administration with what appears to be a majority of them being convicted criminals. Trump is clearly focused on continuing this in his next administration, with a much heavier foot on the pedal this time. Having grown up during the Cold War, in a military family no less, I really thought America won the Cold War when it appeared to have bankrupted the USSR. I was wrong. Putin won and we have yet to see the true impact of that around the world. It's coming hard and fast now.

This site has been a go-to for me for over 20 years, it's sad but many thanks to HH for keeping it going as long as he did. I've learned a lot, met some amazing people, had some great times and once even arranged a 3-country beer run thanks to DZ.com... It makes me wonder how much is the decline here due to a decline in sport jumping in general vs there just being many more options for online communities these days?