CanuckInUSA

Say it ain't so dude. I guess after a year of eating cheap pizza for lunch (I've been eating way to much lately), I guess you can now afford a new container? If you get the Wings (one of my two rigs is a Wings), make sure you get the cut-in laterals option. It's worth the added expense. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I like to learn the performance envelop of my canopy. I learn how much altitude I lose in a slow turn versus a fast turn (fast turns lose less altitude but are harder to nail in terms of accuracy) and I do this all up high before I bring it down low to the ground. In otherwords do your home work before you ever start thinking of doing 90s, 180s and especially 270s or larger. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Love your avatar. Is that a cruise missile attached to the turtle? Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Why suuuuure!

Agreed. I'm sure he's lower than he'd like to be, but he's likely high enough (shit he survived right?). Wide angle lens are made for close up shots and shouldn't be used as the first judge of how high or how low someone was. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

This evening once I get home, I can post a series of pictures from a pond swoop to help illustrate to some people what I mean by popping it up to clear the berm just in case some of you don't know what I'm taking about. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Kudos to Jeff for showing us pictures of his pond swoop gone wrong and this is definitely a scenario that many people can learn from. First off, swooping (while ever so fun) is not a safe activity. But as Jeff says, he'll get back on the horse once he's healed up and I'm sure he'll have a new added respect for the dangers of swooping (kind of sucks that people need to get hurt to learn some lessons, but it's happened to myself as well as others and hopefully we've learned from our mistakes in order to not make that BIG mistake). Now on to the lessons that we can learn from this pond swoop gone wrong (keep in mind I am no expert on this topic). 1) That pond appears to need more water. It appears that we're looking a 2-3 vertical feet from the lip of the water to the top of the berm and going on my experiences when I was swooping Mile-Hi's pond first when it was first being filled and then once it was being drained, swooping in this sort of situation is not safe. You can only stay on the water for so long before you need to kind of pop it up in order to clear the berm, hoping that you have enough speed to be able to pop it up in the first place. 2) This applies to all pond swoops, but especially when people are learning to swoop ponds. Touching the water is optional. Clearing the berm is mandatory. The last thing you want to do is to be fixated on the water and not have enough speed to clear the berm and end up piling into it. When I was first learning on Mile-Hi's pond, it was very important (because I too was dealing with 3 foot berm) to carry my speed and to only try and touch the water once I knew I could clear the berm. 3) Related to point #2, it's very important to completely level out before you ever think of attempting to touch down on the water. There never was video of it and only three people witnessed it. But last summer about 10 days before the CPC Championships, I got to learn the ever so painful lesson of needing to level out before we ever think of touching down. I was jumping in calm winds where the depth perception was tricky and my right knee dug into the water and I was send head over heals through my lines (just as or even more violent than the pond swoop crashes seen in the latest Gravity Pilots DVD). Fortunately this happened in the middle of Mile Hi's pond (it's huge) and I landing in the water and not on the hard ground. Oh and I like to tell myself that this chow/crash never would have happened had it been over land since the depth perception (especially in no wind conditions) over water is much trickier. But we will never really know. I could have very well crashed on that jump either way and now I have an idea as to what it may feel like when people break their femurs. 4) Finally, sunset loads are not the time to go big. Sure this is usually when the most people come out to watch us land. But the lighting is usually poor, the winds typically have calmed down and the water is often very glassy looking making the depth perception extremely difficult. Last spring (not over a pond) I came ever so close to femuring on a sunset load. I had a good day of practice and I was hitting the entry gates. So on a sunset load (with plenty of people watching) I was determined to make the gates again to show people that I knew what I was doing. Well the problem started with the ever so increasing dimming lighting conditions, the fact that the entry gates at the time were red and hard to see, I was determined to make the gates and I spent too long in my turn trying to acquire the gates that only at the last possible second did I realize that I was getting low, I not only dug myself out of my grave but I also had to rotate my hips side ways to avoid hitting the ground. Truly not a smart thing to do on my part. I almost became an incident report only because (I hate to say it), I was trying to show off to the people who came out to watch the sunset load. Anyway, hopefully Brains (or Jeff which ever way you wish to be called) you will see that my post wasn't trying to slam you. Swooping is ever so fun, but it is not safe and sometimes we live on a fine line with what we're doing up there. Pond swooping rocks, but the pond is not a safety device. Sure hitting water is better than hitting land, but we can still get hurt on the water and it also tends to makes us go harder than we would if we were swooping over land. Hell fast, get back on the horse, have fun but stay safe. Steve Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Spicey!!! Look on the bright side though. Your up and coming 1000th is likely to be statistically uneventful now that this jump is out of the way. Just easy up on those line over pack jobs. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Is this where the gun advocates claim that guns prevent gun violence? If yes, then how do you explain this? Seven people dead in Capitol Hill shooting By Seattle Times staff Police don't know yet why a gunman in his late 20s shot six people to death and then killed himself just after 7 this morning at a home in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. At a news conference in the stunned neighborhood this afternoon, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said the shooter, a local man whose name has yet to be released, killed six young men and women inside and outside the house "execution style." Armed with a 12-gauge pistol-grip shotgun and a semiautomatic handgun, the man prowled the home's second story looking for more targets, Kerlikowske said, missing two people locked in a bathroom. When he left the house, the gunman was confronted by a Seattle police officer who happened to be in the neighborhood. The officer was standing between the shooter and two injured victims. When the officer confronted the gunman, the man put the gun to his head and killed himself. Six people, whose names have not been released, died at the scene – including the gunman. Three others were taken to Harborview Medical Center, where one man died and the other two remain hospitalized. The shooting took place at a home in the 2100 block of East Republican Street. When the man opened fire, people poured from the house in search of a place to hide, said Jakob Kayser, 22, whose backyard abuts the rental home. Kayser said two young men and a young woman, all appearing to be in their late teens or early 20s, pounded on his back door. They demanded to use his phone to call police. They told Kayser that one of their friends was dead and another was bleeding heavily. After calling for help, the three took off, he said. News tips If you have information about the shooting, call The Seattle Times at (206) 464-2144 or email us at newstips@seattletimes.com. Please include your contact information. Police loaded the uninjured partygoers into buses and took them to a precinct headquarters for interviewing, Pruitt said. Nancie Thorne, whose 15-year-old daughter, Suzanne, was in the house when the man opened fire said she learned about what happened when Suzanne's 18-year-old boyfriend called her this morning. "It's the worst phone call a mom can get," said Thorne, who went to the Capitol Hill home after getting the call. She said she doesn't know where Suzanne is now. The girl, her boyfriend Jesse Mullens and another friend had gone to what Thorne called a "zombie rave," a hard-core electronic dance party, in Seattle last night. In his phone call, Mullens told Thorne that after the rave they went to the house on Capitol Hill for a party. As the couple and their friend were preparing to leave, the gunman barged into the home, Mullens said. Suzanne had gone back inside, possibly to get something, her mother said. Mullens told Thorne he heard a lot of gunshots. He thought Suzanne was stuck somewhere in the house with the shooter between her and the door. "She shouldn't have gone to the rave. I've never approved of those things," Thorne said. "The young kids just don't get it. "I just hope to God she's alive," she said, crying. "And if she is, she's grounded for life." Thorne said Mullens was one of a number of people police took to a precinct headquarters for questioning. After being interviewed by police, one of that group, Garry Will, 20, of Bellevue, said he doesn't recall any arguments at the rave or at the house preceding the shooting. He said the shooter had been at the house, left, then returned with several guns. "Everybody was cool and chill and this guy showed up and started firing rounds out on the porch. He shot a guy and then came inside and started letting off rounds," Will said. "He went in there trying to kill people, that's for sure. He wasn't going after just one person because he was letting off all these rounds." Aaron Hoyle, 25, said the home was being rented by five of his friends, who shared a love of electronic music. Hoyle, who wasn't there when the shots were fired this morning, said the occupants frequently hosted parties. Several neighbors of the home said they were awakened by gunfire. "Our windows were like rattling from each one," Kayser said. "It's unbelievable how loud that was." Charles Jackson, who lives two doors down from the home, said he was "just getting out of bed and I heard 'boom, boom.'." "By the time I got out, there was one more shot fired," said Jackson, 67. Jackson saw a man lying on a sidewalk who appeared to have been shot. Neighbors say there has been a steady stream of young people with facial piercings, heavy makeup and multicolored hair coming and going from the house. Kayser said people were always hanging out on the porch and often said hello to passers-by. William Lowe, who lives across the street from where the shootings occurred, called 911 when he heard four shotgun blasts and two shots from a small-caliber handgun around 7 a.m. He said he saw an injured man stumble outside the home. "The first person I saw was obviously wounded, and he looked disoriented," said Lowe, 59. He said he saw the gunman leave the house through a side door, carrying what looked like a sawed-off shotgun. "The officer yelled 'drop your ' and the guy put the gun to his mouth and pulled the trigger," Lowe said. Lowe said the gunman looked familiar and he thinks he may have visited the house before. He said that since people moved into the home nearly six months ago it was a regular party destination for youth. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels spent a portion of the morning surveying the neighborhood. "Our thoughts are with the people at Harborview and with the victims of this senseless violence," Nickels said. "It's a terrible tragedy; we don't have incidents like this in this city very often." Seattle Times staff reporters Ben Romano, Jennifer Sullivan, Sara Jean Green, Jack Broom, Mike Carter, Jonathan Martin, Maureen O'Hagan, Sonia Krishnan, Nick Perry, Justin Mayo and Christine Willmsen and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Mine aren't. I'm a contractor don't have any of my income taxes deducted. I need to be smart enough to put a side a certain percentage of my income so that come income tax filing time, I have enough money to pay what I owe. I'm currently putting 50% of what I gross in a seperate account, this way not only should I have enough to pay my taxes next April, but it's also kind of a forced savings plan. It makes it look like I don't have very much expendable income. But I know that the benefits will out weigh the cons and do you know what? I'd much rather do it this way that have an employer send the money right away to the feds. This way I'm earning some interest (taxable of course) instead of the feds earning it. Hey I'm not sure what this thread is about? Is it whining about only the rich pay tax? Or is it something else? Everyone pays tax. It's just that the ultra rich tend to pay more. But I still say that effects them the least. Any form of taxation hurts the ultra poor and I still contend that it's the middle class who gets ####ed the most by tax. Governments regardless of whether they are federal, state, provincial or municiple need to make sure they are running effeciently before they start thinking of raising taxes. But that message seems to be lost at too many government levels and unfortunately too many people in society see themselves as victims and thus demand expensive bloated government services. We'd all be better off if we pulled up our pants, stopped feeling like victims and ensured our own financial houses were in order before we demanded that governments get their houses in order. At least this way we're not as reliant on governments. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

That it is. I obviously wasn't a competitor back in 2004 when the last competition was held there. But I had a blast jumping there at the boogies regardless and those of you who will be there this year and weren't there last time, you're in for a treat. I would love to be there this year, but I don't think I can afford to make it. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

What the HELL are you talking about? Some of us 'nucks sure the HELL aren't offend by the word HELL, as some of us think it's a HELL of a way to live your life ... worrying about being HELL bent on being politically correct all of the time. Why don't you just go to ... ####. Oh and by the way, I'm currently working in HELL since my office is (no shit) located at 666 Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

If I could I would send some of you guys to the penalty box for politicizing everything around here. Bush's tax cuts could have worked had he not decided to start his own little war. But Bush is an idiot ... need we say more. Time to move on (well at least let's hope there is something to move on in 2008). Taxation is here to stay, but it reaches far wider than just on the federal level. Taxation is at the federal, provincial/state level, municipal and consumption level and personally I think it's out of control at too many levels. The government is no different than you or me when it comes to the need to controlling ones spending. Remember it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep after you factor in your income versus your expenses. Unfortunately this message is lost on too many government beurocrates. When they need money, instead of looking at what fat they can trim out of their services, they just raises taxes. Obviously running a government is not a trivial affair, but what pisses me off almost as much as a government running a deficit is when the government boasts that they have a record surplus in a given year and start patting themselves on their backs. What they did was over tax their jurisdiction in the first place. Obviously it's very rare nowadays, but seeing a government budget come in on target not too high not too low is what we should strive for. But it's not only the government’s responsibility. Able bodied people need to take responsibility for themselves and stop acting like victims of society. That way the governments can take care of those who truly are in need. If someone feels that they are only 5k away in income from being able to afford a home, well I'm sorry the government does not owe you shit. Get out there are figure out either where you can cut some of your spending to make up that 5k, or better yet do what you need to do to earn more income. Stop being a victim and start taking control of your fiscal lives. This way there will be less need for certain government services and maybe taxation can be brought under control. Awe who am I kidding, taxation under control? I might as well start believing in the easter bunny. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I am in total agreement with you rushmc. Ha for once we can agree on something here. And if you think you've got it bad, you should see what it's like up here in Vancouver BC. There are way too many people thinking of themselves as victims of society and that society owes them this or that instead of getting out there and working for it. I'm not on any specific time line yet, but I'm most likely going to be moving back to Calgary Alberta (if I can't get back to Colorado) because at least there the provincial taxation is the lowest and socially the people are more in tune with what's going on in places like Colorado. It will mean not being able to do any local winter skydiving (including sizeable chunks of the fall and the spring), but at least I'll be able to live in my house (which is close to being paid off), earn a better income and pay less tax than what's going on here in BC, meaning I'll have more expendable income to ... well potential travel for my skydiving fix. Things are out of control in this city (Vancouver BC). Sure it's a pretty city when it's not raining, but the provincial government has setup a monopoly on the car insurance industry (yes you can only get insured through the government), they have setup a transit authority which has an annual budget of nearly one billion dollars and that's not enough for them. Now this transit authority is proposing a new tax (to be paid by businesses) on every parking spot in the entire city be it on the city streets, mall parking lots and they even proposed grouping a drive-in theater as having taxable parking slots. Don't these stupid beurocrates realize that they risk putting a lot of mom and pop businesses out of business only because their shops are attached to a city street with taxable parking places in front of them. Some of these tax hungry governments have gone too far. I realize that taxes are here to stay. But these various government levels rarely think of triming their fat and making themselves become more effecient. Instead they just go after he little guy, the citizens and tax the shit out of them. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

No I paid $2600 USD, so I guess I don't have the 2.0 version. But regardless, I like my JVX very very much. But as I said, my Velo still has a reason for me to hold on to it despite the fact that it looks a little beat up. It's worth far more to me than I'd ever get on the used market. Now if I could only find a local pond to chow in, it would be my perfect chowing canopy. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Absolutely not. But it's happening. With rising property assesments, municiple governments are taking more and more tax each year into their coffers without offering very much in return only because of the increase in property taxes due to real estate speculation. In some places it's getting to the point where some people (mainly those on fixed incomes) can no longer afford to stay in their homes due to the value of their property rising. Some will say these people need only sell their property to get away from the rising municiple taxation, but where are they going to go and where will they live? The cost of living is out of control in this new city (Vancouver BC) that I temporarily call home. Between high housing costs, the high income tax levels, the high property tax assessments and high consumer tax on everything except the kitchen sink (no that's taxed as well), how can people get ahead let alone stay in the game? Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Hey Stu is your JVX a 2.0 version? If yes, then I'm guessing mine is as well (I never bothered to ask) since we got ours roughly at the same time. But mine definitely packs up much larger than the Velo. On a down note today, the weather looks jumpable for a change but I hurt the pinkie finger (it could be broken) on my right hand last night in a 2-1 OT playoff hockey game loss and I'm not so sure I should be swooping (today) with a sore finger seeing as it could be a life or death thing if my timing is bad and I can't properly pull out of the dive. I guess I can look on the bright side of this though and tell myself that I'll be saving some money today, but I want to jump. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Don't forget to add consumer debt to the equation. The economy is cyclical (we're currently still on an up) and the next recession could do a few of those families in. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

You can quote percentages until they start coming out of your ying-yank and it won't make a difference. The people most effect by taxation are the middle class (which is the vast majority of the population). Sure people living below the poverty line don't pay a lot of tax and sure the ultra rich pay a lot of tax when we're talking total dollars. But their respective taxation levels don't really effect either group (keeping in mind that any taxation sure doesn't help the people living below the poverty line). Taxation to the ultra rich is nothing more than annoyance. But they've got plenty of money and it really doesn't effect them, It's the ever decreasing middle class where taxation has the most negative influenence. It's getting to the point where salaries can not keep up with the cost of living and people just can't get ahead any more let alone just keep up. But remember it's not how much or how little you make that counts. It's how much you keep after you've factored in your spending and taxation levels. But in this consumer society, that message is lost on too many people. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

I can attest that my JVX 96 packs larger than my Velo 103. But fortunately my dbag is still large enough that it's not an issue for me. I plan on keeping my Velo 103 around for a long time (as long as I'm willing to do high performance landings). It's a little beaten up and is worth far more to me than I would ever get selling it on the 2nd hard market. But even though I currently don't have very many jumps on it, my JVX is a awesome canopy and is very smooth to fly. But when it comes to zone acc, normal skydives and/or potential pond chows, the Velo is the better option (hence the reason why I want to keep it). The JVX was mainly purchased for competitions and training. But I 100% agree with some of the things you've said Ian, it's the pilot and not the wing. Just because I'll be using a JVX in speed and distance rounds doesn't automatically mean I'll do well in those disciplines. It's still up to myself the pilot to make the wing fly and make the gates. I like both my Velo and my JVX. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Yes ... carpool!!! plus I'm up for chipping in on your trailer if need be. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Looks good Stu. Obviously the June date needs to be ironed out, but I will do my best to get down to Oregon for the first comp in May. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Your poll is flawed. You've made it where I can only choose one option when in reality I'd like to choose them all. Jaap'ers okay though. After all he did introduce me to a pretty sweat local E before he decided to retire/take a break from the sport. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Bummer ... Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

Life is so much easier in terms of pulling your slider down behind your head if you're using mini-risers and slinks. Sure it may be doable for some other configurations, but if this is something that some people are interested in on a regular basis, then why not just go the easier route (mini risers and slinks). Try not to worry about the things you have no control over