riddler

Aha! I did a few searches, but was looking for Performance Designs, rather than PD. Now I know better.

I think it's a canopy. Last page of July Parachutist. Some Kanji(?) symbol. Quote reads "designed to slice up the competition". Go to their website, clicky on it, and it says "Be patient, you will be flying one very soon". How did they know that?? Anyone have the inside scoop? If I were PD, I might be tempted to make a 27 or 36 cell canopy. Just speculating ...

6) Don't get so excited that you forget to put your goggles on before you jump. But if you do it's no big deal - it's such a short ride down you don't need them. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I'll buy you your very own case if you show me how to rappel off at WFFC. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

A lot of jumpers will tell you a balloon is their favorite thing to jump from. Balloons are my favorite too! To start, it takes quite a bit longer to setup, so be patient. And it's even more crowded in the basket than on the jump plane, if you can believe that, so suck it in!

Offer him some cash if he hooks you up with free porn channels. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Well I am going to Honduras on Saturday and will be there all next week swimmin' with the fishees, so TPHTTTPH! Have a good time sittin' on the sand. The total extent of my spanish from various SCUBA trips to southern countries: "Dos cervazas, por favor!" "La cuenta, por favor!" (My girlfriends are cheap). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Ya, that and I thought John Connor was a wimp. If Linda Hamilton was his mom, he must have taken more after his father. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I didn't think it was very good. There were a few good action scenes. Acting was not half-bad, surprisingly. Not half-good either, but better than the average action flick. Everything else was predictable and has been done before. Humans are wusses. Then there was the old homeless guy in the theater with the obsessive-compulsive disorder that kept pointing at the screen and yelling whatever came to his mind. That was more entertaining than the movie. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Tomorrow? I'm seeing it tonight at 8:00. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

*bump* Segways now available on amazon.com. At $5,000, they aren't exactly targeting the mass consumer market. I can get a very nice used motorcycle for that which goes a lot faster. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Err - OK, you got me there. Corona it is. Cheaper than the stuff I normally buy anyway. If skygoddesses like yourself have to buy more beer 'cause you're such a celebrity, then so be it . Sometimes it pays to be just a mediocre skydiver that'll probably never be in Parachutist. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

K - you already tried to weasel out of it (BTW - where's the weasel icon?), but I say getting in that many times DEFINITELY calls for beer One of the few beer rules that doesn't specify a first. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

The origins of boxing day are debatable, but the most common theory is that the day after Christmas, land owners gave boxes with rewards (sometimes the Christmas presents they didn't want) to the servants. As described in: http://www.web-holidays.com/boxing/ Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I sent the Cypres out three weeks ago and went to SSKs website to pay for it on-line. SSK said it takes 3 weeks, and I got the cypres back 3 weeks to the day - to the HOUR - that I sent the package. Also, it came with some shwag (stickers) and a nice color manual that shows their entire process, as well as a card that has the serial number, next check date, etc for my records. I really, really appreciate good customer service. It'll be nice to have the older of my two children back in one piece.

Practice, practice, practice. Seriously, requirements for BL/FL are pretty much worthless IMO. This comes from the old days of freefall style. It's more important that you demonstrate that you can get back to stable from unstable. But the requirements are still there, so ya gotta do it. I have seen a BL used effectively once. Building a three-way, we had the two-way together, and the last guy was above us. He moved into position about 10 feet up, and backlooped to drop and slid right into his slot. It was a very cool visual, and it took some creativity and skill to pull it off, but it's not the technique that most jumpers would use. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Most people change the registry code because they are using illegal copies, but it's just like fu*king M$ to play stupid games like this with users. Sorry - venting. It depends on what version you are using - if you are using Corporate version of XP Pro, what ya gotta do is get into the registry. http://www.labmice.net/WindowsXP/articles/changeID.htm What version are you using? Find out by going to Start -> Run, and type in "winver". There's some info there.

Nice job Kevin - I've got to crank out 22 more jumps in the next three months before the rules change on Sept 30th. I should have it in a month. I've really only seen a D license required once.

The longer you're in it, the less you know. When I was a relatively new jumper, I didn't feel like I knew it all, but I did feel like I knew a certain amount - how to save my life, a little about gear, etc. I thought that someone with 200 jumps was a skygod. Now that I'm a coach, it makes me wonder about the students that might think I'm some sort of expert, even though I still feel like a novice. I feel like I know less now than when I started, even though I've gotten better at some aspects. I'm approaching 200 jumps now and I don't feel like a "master skydiver". I think that designation has changed - I hope it has. My instructors have thousands of jumps and they sometimes tell me that they feel like they know almost nothing about skydiving. Maybe it's the signature of the diversity of our sport - there are so many aspects and each one seems to take hundreds of jumps just to begin to get comfortable with and maybe thousands of jumps to master. The longer you're in the sport, the more exposure you have to the many aspects and the less you feel you know overall. Combine that with how quickly it all seems to change - gear, training, new fads, etc - and it seems like a never-ending sea of knowledge. I don't think I could live a hundred lives skydiving and being to scratch the surface of it. Thank God!

Spoiler for the new Charlie's Angel movie. There's a psuedo-wing-suit contraption worn by Demi Moore that looks like a collaboration between Birdman and Donatella Versace. It's completely ridiculous, of course, and nothing that would work in real-life, but it's interesting to see wingsuits becoming more common in popular media. Don't expect to see a lot of realism in the new CA movie - they took CG to the level of absurd. But it's a funny movie - I enjoyed it.

Very nice, Bob. I'm reading the autobiography at the moment. Yeah - I was thinking that it might have been a 27-cell, but I'm used to seeing square footage as the first designation after canopy type, and I was starting to drool like a post-EST therapy patient. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Err - this is a joke, ya? We're not talking about landing a 27-ft^2 canopy?? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Goods write-up and good reminder about the tunnel. Just 'cause it's not skydiving doesn't mean it's safe. I saw a guy dislocate a shoulder in there (I have video ). Enough air pressure to blow your entire body in the air is enough pressure to hurt you. That having been said, can we please have all the new tunnels now?? I need another hobby for when I'm not skydiving.

2:3:1 3 jumps. 1 coach rating.

Riddler is now a coach! Woohoo! Special thanks to skr and mustard, who helped me learn to belly-fly and patiently answered ALL my questions (there's a reason they call me Riddler, ya know ). Now, for a list of Frequently Asked Questions, and my normal responses to students: Q: Riddler, why is your hair blue? A: When you go head-down without a helmet, the sky stains your hair. Q: Then why is your hair also sometimes white and sometime brown? A: Every time I lose a student, I have to dye my hair so those annoying FAA investigators can't find me. Q: How come it hurts so much when my parachute opens? A: Well, you can see right here from my video of our last jump that your parachute is jerking you back upwards in the sky. The rental parachutes all do that, but I'm currently experimenting with a system that replaces the dacron lines with bungee cords. Have you ever thought about becoming a test pilot? There's more, but you get the idea.