FlyingRhenquest

What? I'm a sarcastic bastard and never see any of my posts disappear. Maybe you're not being subtle enough. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I am SO stealing that! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

The odds of your youtube video being entertaining are inversely proportional to your canopy risk score. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

That's true, but pretending your free speech won't have consequences or thinking that having to deal with them in some what violates your rights is disingenuous, or perhaps stupid. Depends on whether or not you actually think you can say anything you you want without any consequences. Fact of the matter is this law is an embarrassment, thinly veiled bigotry masquerading as standing up for business owners' rights. The fact that it made it as far as it did is an embarrassment not only to Arizona but to the entire United States of America. It most likely would have (and possibly still may) cost the state jobs. Businesses taking a bold position for or against it will also have to deal with the consequences of their speech. Whether those consequences include them gaining or losing customers or nothing at all remains to be seen. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

You can find some videos of his flying on teh youtubes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7R7jZmliGc Reckon a feller could pull off some of those in a wingsuit? Nice wingsuit 8 point roll? Someone crack the whip on Jeb there! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

You would have needed reading glasses anyway. We all do. You would have needed bifocals had you not had lasik. The lasik guys do offer the option to adjust one eye so that you have near vision with one eye and distance vision with the other. I don't particularly like that idea. I like being able to see in stereo. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Is he the guy in that tunnel rat AFF video? A lot of people seem to want to dismiss the value of the tunnel as a training tool during AFF, but the extreme example seems to work pretty well. (I love the expression on that guy's face all through his AFF) I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah, funnily enough skydiving and getting elective eye surgery seem to have some things in common. One is you don't want to go to Bob's Discount (Skydiving gear/Lasik/AFF Training) (Buy one canopy/eye/jump, get one free!) Some things it's really not a good idea to shop around on that much! Second you really need to gather information as you are here so when you go talk to some guys you're considering, you can have an informed conversation with them. At the time I had mine done, the guys I went with had the only eye-tracking laser in the state. They ran a lot of tests to verify that I'd even be a good candidate for it and checked the things my research told me they should be checking for. I discussed things with them a couple of times leading up to the surgery and they bent over backwards to make sure I was comfortable with the entire process. You're trusting whoever you choose with your eyesight, they'd best be prepared to convince you they know what they're doing. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Well there will be once he gets done pouring all that concrete! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

This is true. There are a lot of lower-level "you ought not to have killed that guy" charges that don't involve proving cold-blooded premeditation. Even so, these "stand your ground" laws that are enabling these sorts of defenses to be used are clouding up an otherwise clear issue. Even in Shakespeare's time, you couldn't provoke a fight and then kill a guy and expect to get away with it. And you can't, in a civilized society, allow every lunatic who just "feels threatened" to just open fire into a crowd. We tried the wild west model a couple hundred years ago in the wild west, and found it didn't work very well. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'm always happy to sign a logbook if someone asks me, and never been refused when I ask. Not all my log entries are signed but most of my jumps are logged. My comments are getting increasingly epic as I go forward. My log book is just a spiral bound notebook in which I hand-write the fields every time I do a log entry. Depending on how the jump went, my remarks could take up half a page. I leave the page backs blank in case I want to write more stuff in there. I also try to get the tail numbers of planes I jump from and write them in the front of my book. I figure I might want that information later. Someone here mentioned that last time a logging discussion came up. Lately I've been considering what would happen if my log book went missing. That would be pretty bad. I'll probably end up buying a scanner and keeping the pages scanned on a couple of different computers, and possibly my phone. There's already a gap in my AFF logs where the cheap blue logbook they gave me had a couple pages fall out. They're only bound in there with a couple of staples and it's very easy for that to happen. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I don't think "public education" can be painted with a single broad brush by any stretch. Ah well, I'm an air force brat and moved around a lot. So I've sampled a good bit of the public education around the country, and the degree to which its quality varies is simply unacceptable. I was in a VERY high quality high school up near Albany, New York and a couple of low quality schools in the South (Georgia and Alabama.) The public school system in Hawaii was so bad, the folks enrolled us in a Catholic school back in the 70's (Which I credit with a lot of the blame for my atheism these days.) In most of the places I attended school, the goal of the educational system appeared to be to seek out that fundamental curiosity about the world which every child is born with... and crush it mercilessly. I imagine it's even worse now, since they're all mandated to teach to tests, leaving no time for any sort of creativity in the classroom. Many parents and even fewer children realize that the quality of the child's education is their responsibility. As both my parents were were from military families and experienced all this for themselves, they took it upon themselves to ride the school system mercilessly while also providing me a good home environment to learn about the world around me. Despite this, I feel like my life would have turned out a lot differently if I'd spent the entire time attending those schools in upstate New York. For one thing, I'd know a whole lot less about the "War of Northern Aggression." I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

You have to remember that about half the people are "below average"... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Hah! I bet he never forgot to lock his computer again! Folks who forget to lock their computers when I'm around will either find their browser on the Pen Island web site when they get back (be sure to google it because there are three "penisland" domains, .net, .com and .org and you REALLY don't want to get the wrong one!) Either that or their desktop background is set to the first image that pops up on google images when you google on "Justin Bieber Glamor Photos" or "My little pony wallpaper". On the same IBM project I added the Wombat Easter egg to, I also referred to a brief member of the team as a "stupid little bitch" while my manager was standing right behind me. But in my defense, he WAS a stupid little bitch, and he'd nearly got one of our team fired with his incompetence. Not even the guy who threatened to kill my manager and had security walk him out of the building was THAT bad! That was such a fun project... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Excellent! Good luck in your training! I think you're less likely to experience motion sickness when you're in control of the canopy, and students don't perform any extreme maneuvers that could cause that problem on a tandem jump. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

It's probably a toss-up between introducing 13 instances of the word "Fuck" into code comments and the text of the old DEC Wombat page as a fairly well-hidden easter egg for querying the machine serial number WOMBAT into the MRPD code at IBM, or my resignation letter at Echostar. To be fair my resignation letter did not include any of the instances of the word "fuck." It did, however, start "You plonkers have wasted enough of my time." I mean seriously, that's six months of my life I'll never get back. Fuck those assclowns. I guess I didn't burn that bridge hard enough because a few years later Dish wanted to interview me, forcing me to reiterate my position (adopted after working at Echostar) that I will not consider a position at a company that wants you to take a personality test prior to the interview (Also, I will not consider a position at Echostar or any of its affiliates.) The Skyventure Colorado wind tunnel is down near where I used to work for them. Every time I drive down there, I realize I could just take the next exit and burn down the old office. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Hmm first AFF jump was Jul 7 2012. Cleared for solo on jump 10, Aug 4 2012. I also did 6 minutes in the tunnel on Jul 11 and again July 16 that year. Fortunately I opted to get video in all my tunnel sessions, so I can go back and watch the progression of my flying from 4 days after my first jump to 4 months in when my sister came to visit. I took her and her daughter for 10 minute chunks of tunnel time, and then tandem skydives. So far I've been pretty consistently posting a new tunnel or skydiving video to my YouTube Channel every month or two since then. It's fun to go back and realize how far I've come since my first jump a couple years ago. It's boring footage for just about everyone else, though I do like to bust out a couple of my early videos as proof that everyone has difficulties starting out and that it takes a while to learn to fly. It's been interesting to see how differently everyone handles the training. I know a fellow who's taken a couple of years to get to his solo jump, and have only seen one other person from my AFF ground school after the 1 year mark (12 of us started that day.) I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

It gets easier. The first few minutes it's a struggle just to stay stable but it isn't too long before you can turn and kind of go where you want to. It's kind of like learning how to swim; once you relax, stop trying to muscle your way through the environment and actually work with it, it does't take long to really get the hang of it. Once you're comfortable with the idea that you can get stable whenever you want to, you can start opening up your game and getting a bit more aggressive with your maneuvers. Good luck with your AFF! I think you'll do fine! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I had custom lasik done few years back (2004-ish IIRC) and it was the best 4 grand I ever spent. I do always wear goggles on my skydives though. Depending on what's going with your eyes, one or the other might have more benefits. If you go with Lasik, make sure your guy knows what he's doing. At a minimum, you want to make sure he measures your pupils in the dark, and I'd hunt around for a guy with an eyeball tracking laser. I've spoken to several people whose vision in dark environments is worse than it was before they had surgery because their pupils are wider than the area affected by the surgery. I drove myself to the exam the next day after a couple of decades of having to wear glasses and being nearly blind. My vision was a bit hazy for a couple months after the procedure, and I saw halos around lights at night for an additional 4 or 5 months. I'll probably need reading glasses in a couple years (Entering my mid 40's) but it seems this is unavoidable no matter what you do (I'd have needed bifocals if I hadn't had the lasik.) If I'd been skydiving when I did this, I think I would have taken several months off heal. My eyes were sensitive to touch for three or four months after the surgery. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Ya'all know you get a document in E-Mail, you don't click on that, right? I've actually had a few make it past the spam filter lately. Actually in general you should probably just never click on anything that comes through Email. Or IM... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Were you good at it? Is that how you funded your education? Hah! I had a second hand 300zx for a while that I really didn't pay that much for, but it was a good looking car. Even with nothing in the car, someone threw a tire iron through the driver's side door while I in a movie in Montgomery. They made off with one T-Top (You'd think they'd steal the other one too after going to all that trouble.) Couple years later someone actually stole one of the rear windows out of the car while I was at the beach in Florida. Damn thing cost several hundred dollars to replace and the guys who did the work didn't do a very good job of it, too. That was all back in the '90's. I try not to park the new Z in the crack hood. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I don't know about that; I've had a couple of older cars where the locks didn't function correctly, so I just left them unlocked all the time, and no one ever touched them for years. It's the fancy cars I had broken into. I'd guess it was someone who knew there were valuables in the car to take. That could have been someone who was watching when stuff was being rearranged/put in the trunk or someone who knows you personally well enough to know you were on or going on a vacation. I didn't store particularly valuable items in the cars that had the bad locks, but there was a CB radio visible on the passenger seat for years in one of them and no one ever took it. I do try to make sure my crappy looking car is parked near fancier ones if I can! No one's going to go after the 15 year old RX7 with a crappy paint job if there's a Mercedes in the lot. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Well it IS Heathrow. One of their concourses resides in the 8th circle of Hell. You can never be too careful... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOROvO2fxTc#t=26s I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I thought it was 5 minutes worth looped infinitely? Heh heh. Funnily enough I like the dubstep. I'm kind of pissed off right now because the beater Honda I've been driving for the better part of a month has an electrical system problem that requires me to shut off the battery when it's parked. This has triggered the stereo's anti-theft system and I can't be bothered to reactivate it every time I start the car. Once I can get the Z past the end of my driveway, I can play my tunes in the car again and resume my search for a girl like me! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?