Merrick

I hear ya Geoff, I've worn glasses for about 13 years, just never bothered to get contacts.... that is, until I started skydiving. I did my first 20 jumps or so with goggles over my glasses, and while I didn't really have any problems with that set up... it was annoying as hell! They'd fog up if the weather was even remotely cold, the speed in freefall makes them 'jiggle' around making it harder to see your altimeter & even enjoy the experience, and it's just simply uncomfortable (I'd always end up taking the goggles off under canopy). I decided after I was done with my student progression that I would get lasik or contacts.... well, contacts are cheaper so that's what I have now. I love 'em, haven't had a bit of trouble with them in my Z1 or in just plain goggles, they haven't popped out yet.... even had one jump where I forgot to close my face shield on my helmet & they still didn't come out (f'd that one up, struggled for half the dive trying to get my face shield closed lol). Anyway, either are fine, but I definitely prefer my contacts to glasses when jumping! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

A couple months ago they put a CD player & some descent midrange speakers in the 182 at our DZ... I love riding to altitude with the music cranked. Plus, I know our pilot (who flies some 12 hours a day - bless you Kevin) absolutely loves the break in the monotony! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Doh! Didn't think you'd catch me on that one. Yeah I know she reads this dribbling poo... but even if she didn't I'd be saying the same thing you rabbit Biaatch! ROFL - Oh I still got my good foot to kick some ass with - "come back 'ere, I'll bite your legs off!" And, if you manage to knock my crippled ass down, [smarmy Hallmark lame disco come-on voice]"she'll be right there to pick me back up again....always!"[/smarmy Hallmark lame disco come-on voice]. LOL "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Bwahahaha!! Oh man Kris, I hear ya on that one. I had a girl do almost the exact same thing to me when I was 19, said I was "taking away from her time with God!" LOL - What, he came down from the cosmos and stopped by the house Saturday & you weren't home, he called you up & the line was busy?!? Well, maybe we should start a club or something, I thought I was the only one to get the God diss. LOL Don't know when we'll be getting back out to OSC, hopefully next weekend (that is if a certain phone call hasn't put us back on the DZO's shit list). Anyway, if we do make it, I won't be jumping (obviously), but hopefully Pam can get in a few!

ROFMAO - I really hate to gloat, but.... Man, it must suck to be the rest of you! I've heard Pam say every one of those things in one form or another (with the exception of the pilot/otter thing) and several things from the original list as well. Ahhh... it's good to be me. The only thing better than finding that one true love, the one that you know without any doubt will be by your side for the rest of your life, is finding that on true love and she loves skydiving as much (or more) than you do! Yeah, I don't mean to gloat.... oh wait, yeah I do! lol "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Ummm.... you can?? COOL!!! When's that going to start? You know I love you baby! http://skydivechick.tripod.com/wishlist.html "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Yeah, 3 tats to be exact... plus two piercings (and she wants another that I'm not too happy about). She also wants another tat that I designed for her. It's a woman's head/neck area looking up toward the sky with her hands stretched toward the sky, she has long flowing hair that's blowing upward in a breeze that's coming from below her somehow, beads & such dangling between her fingers, a big hawk above her with wings spread around her, all set in a moon with celtic knots all around the outside of it. Damn that's a long description, but she wanted something to signify 'flight' without actually putting a canopy on her back or something. It'll go in the small of her back, and is dead sexy if I must say! It still needs some work, but I think it will be cool once it's finished! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

I look at it this way baby, we'll just wait until my leg heals good enough for me to make a jump.... and there's always that friend of your brother's that has the hot-air balloon! that should eliminate at least half of those problems.... Of course, that doesn't really help ya' for this weekend does it!? LOL Ahhh.... welcome to my non-jumping world! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

This is a VERY good example, don't mind you picking on me a bit. I've always believed that there were a series of uncertainties in any accident, not in skydiving but in all aspects of life. When I got to Quincy the first thing Pam said to me was, "you're not adequately excited to finally be here!" She was right, I had this really odd gut feeling, something just didn't feel right. I wasn't really that scared of the boogie, the aircraft, or even the canopy traffic... something was just wrong. My first mistake was ignoring that feeling. The bi-plane jump (in my opinion) was one of the safest jumps that could be done at the convention, you're in a hanging stable exit, miles away from any other jumpers, & a landing area all to yourself..... thus comes my second mistake, NOT checking out the landing area. Bad IDEA, had I seen the area & taken the time to see what the winds were doing up high (3rd mistake), I more than likely wouldn't have jumped. Three simple mistakes that may or may not have landed me in the hospital, this time they did tho! And... just for my own gratification I DID NOT perform a high performance landing technique. My final approach was a straight in approach starting at about 280 ft or so, at about 100-150 feet the 20mph wind that was in my face completely vanished. As I said before I compensated & felt good about it, it did however give me a pretty good surf, I caught my foot on something on the ground & it turned 180degrees the wrong direction... Crunch!! The good news is I'll be out of this dumb walking cast by mid September!

....as Sinister grumbles to himself (in a tone only those of us that are stuck under 12,000 ft.. hell under 10 ft can understand), "F***kin lucky skydiving bastards... 10 jumps in one weekend getting punk... while I'm stuck growing freakin roots on this evil dirty planet!" Bwahaha, I hear ya man. Disclaimer: Please take no offense and hold no ill will toward Sin, it truly was not him saying such things... this was merely an attempt at a joke to make us broke-ass grounded skydivers laugh, give a hearty chuckle, or even simply smile!

Oh, I know no one means anything by it, & I actually like most of the shit people give her (I hope I didn't offend you with anything). However, there is a big difference between talking about showing some boobies, or suggesting some ass-f**king! Peace brudda! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Yeah, you are definitely an asshole! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

PostingWhore, you're my hero, keep up the good work! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Have you checked out the dropzone.com classifieds? With all the bitching going on around here about "post etiquette" I'm sure that this will be deemed as highly uncouth! LOL Besides, Sangiro will probably pull it whenever he gets back & sees it. Seriously tho, if you didn't know there are a lot of awesome gear classified sites out there, you might try them... I've had really good luck with everything I've tried to sell so far!

Damn, that one was me too, not Pam!

Shit, sharing a computer sucks sometimes.... that was me, flame me not my baby!

Hate to steal FFF's spotlight for a second, but actually... Pam & I were the first DZ.com wedding that I know of. Somewhat before your time Lil' Omri LOL .... don't let the post #s fool you, we've been here for freakin ever it seems. "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Yeah, I don't think that's really the problem either, Pam hasn't flown a student canopy in over 35 jumps. I might as well give my two cents here... Pam 100% without a doubt knows how to land. She knows when to flare, she generally does a two-stage flare, finishes out her flare 95% of the time, and she planes the canopy our very nicely. In my opinion, the problem is in her head, she is absolutely convinced that she "CAN'T LAND!" I've watched several of her landings & every time she slides in on her butt or face plants I'm completely baffled. There are times while I'm watching her I'm just thinking, "ahhh, sweet!" Then I hear..."Oooomph!" WTF was that!! The butt slides are easy, I think the ground coming up at her kind of psyches her out, so she just lifts her legs & waits for it to come to her! As for when she puts her legs down to step out of her landing, why she biffs is a complete mystery to me. Only thing I can think of is that she's trying to put her feet down & run out of it a little to soon. I think, like many of you said, the best answer is to get some good video of her landings (which shouldn't be hard with my ass crippled and grounded for the next couple months) & go over them with some really good canopy pilots. Sweetie, I know that you can do it..... you KNOW how to land (I've seen you do it, several times), you just have to convince yourself that it's NOT a girl thing, that you CAN actually do it.... then DO it. In fact, I can't believe that you even consider that it's some sort of girl handicap, you turning into one of those annoying little "girly girls" on me?!? Tell ya what, next tournament Samantha wants to compete in, we'll tell her that there's no way she can win cuz she's a girl, & the boys are all physically stronger and they'll beat her down regardless! get my point? love ya! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Hey guys, we just got back from picking up the kids this morning, logged on, & saw all this... first off I want to thank everyone for all their concern & curiosity... Now, here's what happened. Pam & I manifested for the bi-plane on Friday morning, her ride was at 9:45, mine was at 9:55, we rushed back, got our gear on, then headed back up to the loading area. Pam took off, then shortly the plane came back after me. I took off & after a short ride he signaled me to start the climb up, I got up to the T-bar & held on tight, he put the plane in a barrel roll, stopping inverted, while I hung off the wing of this thing.... That is the most kick ass exit I've EVER done! He took the pictures then signaled me to release, the freefall was uneventful & I pulled at about 2500ft. The Landing area for the Helicopter & Bi-plane had been set up away from everything else, so I located the area & began to set up for my landing, I was keeping everything really conservative (simply because I’m not a very aggressive pilot). I turned on to my final approach at about 250 ft, and at about 100 ft or so the 20 knot wind that was making my straight in approach rather slow completely disappeared at about 100 ft, the canopy dove, I noticed the change, & started my flare accordingly… However, just a little late (no big deal, I’d done that many times before), I pulled my legs up to my chest & began to plane the canopy out, my right leg was dragging the ground a little, then all the sudden *SNAP*…. It felt like something had just reached up & grabbed my toes. It actually wasn’t that bad of a landing, & I think if the area had been smooth I would have just pulled up to my feet & it would have been uneventful. So that’s it, one metal plate & seven screws later & sitting here with my leg propped up telling my side of things on dz.com. Seriously tho, I talked to several highly experienced people at the convention that said it wasn’t in the same area as in previous years & upon inspecting the landing area they opted not to make a bi-plane or helicopter jump at all this year. There was one other broken leg, a broken wrist, & one other injury that I know of in that area. It was very rough & not very well prepared. I’m not pointing fingers, cuz obviously my first mistake was not checking it out before I made the jump. So, for my week I guess I score a 1:1:25…. 25 being: first WFFC, first bi-plane jump, first broken bone, first skydiving injury, etc…etc…etc… Thanks again guys!

Ummm... 'North Shore???' "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Bwahahahahaha!!! C A R M E L L O ! ! ! Tell Ron we said Hi! Man, that was a fun night! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Sis, you know I love you girl, but you need to put it down... put the pipe down & slowly step away. Either that, or re-enroll in that ENG 1113 class you took in college! Sin, so glad to hear that you're OK man, and that you're dealing with the pain & boredom in such a constructive mannner... but don't forget the little people too... like the packer (and if it was you - well, your parents for raising such a smart kid for not packing a mal, cuz I'm sure the reserve would have flared on time).... Oooh, don't forget the guy who mowed the grass in the wrong direction, totally changing the texture, thus really fucking up your depth-perception! lol Peace brudda, can't wait 'till you're back up in the air! Blue ones! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

Lew & Mike pretty much nailed the reasons I was thinking of. Thanks guys! Well, it wasn't about you April (remember, I haven't actually jumped with you yet ). That 'stab' was actually meant for another dz.comer, but aparently he's not watching this thread, or he would have jumped on that like a neutered puppy on my pant leg! lol "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

I didn't actually know that Quade, but it makes sense for obvious reasons. I don't actually jump with one myself, & probably never will, for as many reasons as probably everyone else... but that was the only example that I could think of that some others may have seen as well. Blue ones! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."

EXACTLY Ben! Has anyone seen the canopy collision in the Quincy 99 video?? Well, there's a segment of that video where a videographer is flying along under canopy, minding his own business... then WHAM! He gets hit by another jumper under canopy & it leaves a hole big enough to jump a motorcycle through in his canopy... he was at about 800 ft. He yells "Mother fucker," cuts-away & pulls his reserve. His reserve opened just in time for him to land. Guess my point is, shit lot-a-good a cypress would have done that guy had he freaked out & not went for the silver, an RSL however would have easily saved him. Hellian is right, this is a topic that's been beat to death on these forums and on average it usually turns out that newbies really want them & more experienced jumpers see them as more of a danger. It seems to me that it's some what of a security blanket that most people tend to grow out of, but yet there are still others that never do... which is all just fine, either way it boils down to personal choice & opinion, what makes YOU feel more comfortable... not who's right or wrong! ....and if you are an experienced jumper that still happens to have an RSL, you're probably some 98 jump wonder, skygod wanna be from the UK, with skills comparable to those of spare tire thrown from 13,000 ft. Bwahaha! "If words were wisdom, I'd be talkin' even more.."