kimemerson

He certailnly has all the troll indicators but the sad part is I've met the likes of him in real life at the DZ. This sort exits in reality. The character we've just witnessed is not born of fiction. And troll or no troll the thread may have had an impression on some of the real newbies who don't know the diffference.

Doesn't much matter how much experience someone has when they're right. It's the message not the messenger that counts. Get the bug out of your ass and drop the ego shit. You're a dangerously low number beginner in this sport, a fact you may not appreciate till it's a tad late, at the rate you're going. If you want to commit suicide be my guest. It's your right I suppose. Just leave the planet without besmirching the sport, ok? If you die excercising your rights the Feds will come asking the living a lot of questions and one of them will be "why" as in why we let you. Then they'll get support enough to legislate us out of our own fun. So go die somewhere else. But go ahead if you're so inclined, die. The sport has gotten too safe anyway.

I think the word "pattern" is important here. Clearly, in this example, there are nothing but right hand turns. The LZ is to the right and all turns are also to the right. Ergo, a "pattern": A repetitive series of events all identical to one another. Instruction ought to be about the way we fly our canopies as opposed to where we are in relation to the LZ. (Yes, that's included. But it isn't the central point. Flight is.) With the LZ to your right, as opposed to your being to its left, the only way to get to it would be through a series of turns all identical to one another - a pattern. I have to admit I've always been confused by not only the left/right donut example (good example, too) but by baseball's left/right field and theatre's left/right stage. All according to whose perspective? I've been told a thousand times but it just doesn't stick. I still don't know where left field is, though I sense I spend a lot of time there.

ok, well, "left hand" is another term for something wrong, or out of the ordinary or sneaky. So in that sense, ok, this is a left hand pattern. And anyone who says it is, is coming "out of left field". They are "left of center" and they have also "left their senses". The logic which dictates this to be a "left hand" pattern is best "left" alone.

Many years ago I had a conversation with the two Bills of DeLand (Coe of PD and Booth of RWS) about which pack job - flat vs PRO - they preferred. The chat included the possibility and probability of a malfunction. They agreed that, in numerous tests they each conducted, packing an intentional malfunction was never a slam dunk. More often than not, they couldn't actually pack the mal they wanted, or any mal at all sometimes. And they tried all sorts of things like tying foreign objects (I think they said socks) to the lines and other things. In essence, a malfunction, while part of the program we're in, are still mathematically rare. You're going to have a malfunction if you skydive long enough. It could be before you reach 100 jumps or not untill you have 3,000. And as long as you have trained for the procedure, it is absolutely nothing to fear. It is, simply, a second deployment. And when you have one, which you will, at least two things will come to be. 1. You will have entered a relatively smaller community. You will have crossed over to another dimension of the sport. In many parts of life, and in skydiving especially, the hardest parts are the transitional moments. Going from the familiar and comfortable to the new and unknown, e.g. birth; death; first dates; parenting; eating the fucking lima beans. For skydiving beginners the first transition is that from inside the plane to stepping out the door or off the step. The next transition is deployment. Then landing. Freefall and the canopy ride are comparatively relaxed periods. But we question and doubt our ability to handle these transitional moments wisely and safely. After a while, we will get over the fears of all these, but we can go a long time before we get to deal with the transition from deployment to cut away to re-deployment.So until we face the inevitible, we will always question our ability to handle it when it comes. The second thing that will happen is that when you do have that mal and you do deal with it successfuly, you will get a rush beyond any other skydiving experience to date. You may even begin to look forward to them (I do. I've had five in about 4,000 jumps and the last 4 were all anticiopated with delight. Loved each one.) As for jumping your own pack job, just be sure you're packing right, get advice or further supervision. But don't obssess over it. To a very great extent, Ram-Air canopies want to open. I've seen them open when stuffed into a huge Hefty bag and tossed out the door. It was ugly and certainly not to be found in the owner's manual, but the little fucker opened. So pack it up, skydive, and enjoy whatever ride you get.

Main pulled @ 500'. Once. Exited the plane once @ 1,800' and once @ 1,500'.

Hhhhhmmmmmm.......

Of course the skydive isn't over till you're back... I got taken to the hospital in a chopper two years ago when some asshole hit me after I'd been on the ground almost a whole minute. Yes, you're right there. However, I believe the original question is about music in freefall. I maintain that listening to music in freefall will not amount to closing our senses. We have to do that on our own. It won't be the music, but the person, who brings his or her own distractions. Listening to music in freefall is not at all a danger unless the person listening can't handle it. For whatever reason. So the question isn't one of taking music along. It's how the individual responds or doesn't respond while listening. In freefall. Not at the landing area. That wasn't the question.

I'm not realy sure what this nonsense about "distraction" is all about. Unless you're laying back, groovin' to the tunes, humming along, tapping your toes, digging the sunshine, thinking of "her", getting off on those nasty guitar riffs, and otherwise actually listening to the music - which I tend to doubt even happens on the ground - and if you occasionally see the earth below you whether you took the time to notice it intentionally or not, I cannot imagine the music can be a distraction. It won't blind you. Jerking off does that (so don't even consider it in freefall). Not too long ago, before audibles and reliable - and therefore ubiquitous - AADs, we knew we had two good altitude detection devices we could count on. They're on either side of the nose. Once these are operational, then (other than an in-air injury) it would take various forms of mental retardation, or, as a substitute to that, suicidal tendencies, to efffectively cause one to become disoriented and miss pull time. Otherwise, this talk of music being a distraction is insane. The most it is is a waste of time and something mostly only a beginner would bother with or consider in the first place. The music and the skydive will not enhance one another. The skydive won't suddenly become better. I say try it. Go right ahead. But you'll outgrow it in less than a season. And if you're too young in the sport and are hesitant to make all your own decisions, go ask an Instructor or S&TA and just do what they tell you.You won't know one way or another if they're right anyway. You'll have to trust them. The other option is to forget the whole question. Look around you. How many experienced skydivers do you see doing this? Now go ask them how many of them already asked this question. It's as old as the Walkman. Maybe older. Bottom line: Remember your pull priorities. Outside of that, as Will Shakespeare's Macbeth almost said, "Rock on, Macduff!, and damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough."

Depends on the music. But really, it's been done - a lot. It depends on you and your experience and your ability to stay in the present on your skydive. It is not the music or the listening which is inherently dangerous. As with most of skydiving, the weak link is the human involvement. If you can't handle it, it'll kill you. (Like hook turns. They're innocent. We're the guilty ones. A good hook is a thing of beauty. And they will absolutely NEVER kill untill the skydiver commits suicide. You can be low, or you can be "too" low. There's a serious difference.) Biting off more than you can chew doesn't make eating a liability. It makes you a liability to yourself.

assuminmg you are not a trust fund baby, don't have any IPO in your future, don't have a fat & pretty portfolio, no sugar daddy/mama, no lottery winnings, no royalties from anything, you may have to consider eliminating the holes your money now goes to, i.e., car payments, house payments, insurance, new clothes, restaurants, women/men who don't pay for themselves, and the other fineries of good living. Anyone who attends those boogies around the world or does a lot of tunnel time or travel or has jumps in the thousands, either fits into the first part of my answer or the second. The third way is entrpeneurship. Ownership of planes, DZ, equipment (to rent) or some related business such as the gear shop or rigging loft. It'll be tough if others are depending on your income, especially if it's already pretty much not as discretionary as you'd like it to be. I love it when whuffos ask how much a jump costs. When I tell them it's $20 they all figure it's very affordable. Then I tell them I would like to do ten a day and that I'm not alone and that some people do. Then it adds up, and they cannot imagine spending $400.00 a weekend. So it's also a matter of how much jumping you intend to be able to do as to what you can afford. A fourth way is that eventually, with experience, you can get rated and get the jumps paid for and put some scratch in your pocket. Or, with almost zero experience, get a camera. Someone will let you video them even if you can't figure out how to turn the damn camera on. (Really. Video standards have plummeted in the last several years now that DV is so small and affordable and the average 6-way freefly skydive will have, you know, like twenty fucking cameras. So any fool should be able to pull this one off. Sort of.You may not be able to make any money anymore doing video. But you might get free jumps from time to time. Just have enough experience not to kill or be killed and away you go!) Fifth way: Sponsorship. But that's sort of a "Catch-22" situation.

Thank you all. However, my wife, who is running the above mentioned project, spoke with the person who said we'd need a canopy, and it turns out we can use a square. I have an old square I can use, as it turns out. Funny how when a whuffo says "parachute" they automatically envision a round and their conversation and plans all relate to the round untill you get it out of them that a square will do. But I thank you anyway. Ain't life grand?

Does anyone have or know where I can get a round canopy? It won't be jumped so it doesn't have to be airworthy, and it doesn't need lines. It's for a community project with and for kids in Saugerties, NY so if the canopy is also free that would make a lot of little boys and girls happy. (Ok, they won't know the difference one way or another. It'll make me happy, ok?) The project is a performance of Pete Seeger's children's story Abiyoyo and Pete himself could even be there. (He sang part of the song Abiyoyo to my two tear old daughter over the phone! She's famous now.) You can even probably have the canopy back as it won't be altered in any way and is only needed for a day. I appreciate your kind, giving community spirit in advance. Reply here or PM me. Thanks, Kim

QuoteThe line I found humorous was "...The cool part was that the weather broke just long enough for that one load..." Tom, you know as well as anyone that all it took was a litttle divine intervention and voila! a Joe Hole. I believe compeltely that the weather broke long enough for one load. At the Ranch? All the time. ps. how's the race?

The Ranch in Gardiner, NY is hosting its first annual Film Festival slated for September 23 & 24, 2006. The mission of this festival is to showcase short films with plot & characters, films that tell a story. Any aspiring film makers should log on to the Ranch web site http://theblueskyranch.com/ and click on the Wanted box, or go to Events to request the guidelines and entry form. There will be cash prizes for plot driven fiction and merchandise prizes for any and everything else. We're focusing on the storytelling idea but are accepting it all.

gotta be about one of the dumbest ass reasons to start. Ex's aren't worth the trouble you're just going to bring on yourself. What's she going to get out of it? I'll tell you. She'll get one more reason to think less of you. And once you're mature enough to get over her, you won't be over the alcohol. And the alcohol will kill you when she could no longer give a shit enough to get your name right. If you hate her, why treat yourself like you're the one you hate? Go talk to some friends instead. Smoke a lot of top grade pot. Make a shit load of skydives. Do something constructive because all you're describing is destructive but to the wrong thing.

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/06071004.html I don't know how to do the clicky thing. I apologize for my ignorance.

No one knows just yet. But the Italian says he will tell us eventually. Rumor among those who might know is that he called the French player an Arab Terrorist. He is of Algerian ethnicity. The French guy, that is. He speaks Italian so he understood it, whatever it was.

VHS comes in NTSC & PAL. Does DVD?

If you can find Sally Wenner, she might know. I know she remarried to a Texas whuffo but that's all I knw. She was at Gus Wing's send off in April. '05 so she still pays attention. She might even be reading this.

Of course, if you're doing a solo and you're face to earth, what's that relativie to? So RW works only when there's someone else in the vicinity regardless of body position. The Ranch has taken to calling it navelating, the proponets of which are called navelators. But how about tummy tumbling? Ok, we're not tumbling. This is such a dilemma.

"belly flying" is a retronymn - a word coined because of a need due to the emergence of a new something. There was "guitar" until the electric guitar came along so now we have "acoustic guitar". Cars had "transmissions" and now those same transmissions are called "standard" since the advent of the automatic. Both "guitar" and "transmission" were just fine by themselves until the newer thing came along. So,"belly flying" as a term is necessary even if it's not pretty. There was never a need to distinguish until recently (well, 10 years or so). So, perhaps a more suitable term would tickle your fancy. I remember as sit flying first appeared, we called what the French - who brought it to us - called it: Chute assis. We also called it "inverted" flying. But "sit flying" stuck and there you have it. And what of freeflying? At first it was only head down but it soon took over and inccorporated sit flying so now there's really no separate discipline called sit flying. And with hybrids it's all inclusive. So we probably need something to distinguish disciplines. RW is inaccurate as anytinme we jump with someone else it's all relative - or ought to be. FS is in the same boat. Maybe you don't like the word belly?

Well, you know memory. It could have been a blue Racer for all I can swear to. I'd be curious to learn if you find him. Nothing crucial like he owes me money or anything. Just curious. I was a new kid on the block at the time and Geno sort of took me in a bit, showed me a few of the ropes. (Burned a lot of "rope" with that boy!)

I know this won't help at all, but I hung out with a Geno Johnson in '89 - '90 in DeLand. He wasn't there after that and I have no idea where he went and the only people I know who seemed to keep tabs on him didn't know either. Did he have long, straight brown hair and wear glasses? Did he play guitar, talk a lot and kind of fast? Did he smoke a lot and call it something like "Bob"? As in 'why not stop by and visit with me & Bob." Did he jump an ugly brown Vector? (Ok, that memory might be total fabrication)

The Ranch in Gardiner, NY is hosting its first annual Film Festival slated for September 23 & 24, 2006. The mission of this festival is to showcase short films with plot & characters, films that tell a story. Any aspiring film makers should log on to the Ranch web site http://theblueskyranch.com/ and click on the Wanted box, or go to Events to request the guidelines and entry form.