AlanS

My reserve ride was jump #20, a high speed malfunction where the main stayed in the container and that I spent a little to time much time trying to fix. I didn't want to leave the drop-zone with that jump on my mind, so did 4 more jumps before the day was over. (Unusual for a student at a small Cessna drop-zone), but the folks there knew why I want to get a lot of jumps in before leaving for the day, and made sure I got on the next ride up. The scariest jump I ever did was jump #21. I'm now at jump #253, and if I never have another reserve ride that will be fine by me.

I've not owned a PC in a while. If you ever get a Mac... I'd go with the following. GoPro Studio, iMovie, and ImageMagick (fir file type conversions). All are free-ish.

This thread reminds me that there are a lot of great songs out there with really bad videos, almost like they were an after thought. Ofter I'll see a skydiver's video with a certain song and think, that video is better and more interesting than the official version, I want that to be the official version.

This is what I try to do. #1) Don't pack a line twist. Be very careful that you don't twist the bag while putting it into the tray. (Thanks, Chase for catching when I was learning) #2) make sure the first lines to unravel are neat and stowed symmetrically. (i.e. double stow consistently, and make sure it is same length line beyond the band) #3) bought a Spectre. #4) body position on opening. (If I still screw up, it is here.)

Just don't sit in the back right corner - "The cold seat".

Read the book "Red Mars" In it they are jumping from the space elevator from low Mars orbit which linked the Mars surface with geostationary orbit. OK, it wasn't by choice since the space elevator was falling out of the sky after being sabotaged at the start of the first Mars revolution, but if skydivers were on Mars this is what they would be doing. (Likely break some law in the process)

That is a great thought. I was jumping with a set of cameras and was worried about those batteries, so I put a heat pack inside my camera rig to keep those batteries warm. In the case of the AAD, i think the battery is in the main unit which was on my back between the main and reserve parachute. My back acts as a heater and the parachutes are insulations, so it might be difficult to get the temperature of that battery low even given though the outdoor temperatures were very low. (I'm very interested in real data on the temp of that battery though so would like find a way to record it during my next HALO jump) I've heard a preliminary conclusion (which I doubt I can share publicly) but if true , the problem is limited to the specific model of AAD I was jumping (Vigil 2+) and it is only an issue doing a HALO jump at very high altitudes. (most civilian HALOs are lower that what we jumped from) Unless someone is planning on doing a HALO jump in the next week, it might be best wait until that preliminary result is confirmed to say something. But if anyone IS going to do a HALO jump in the next few weeks. Please PM me.

Thanks. Got the same link from a Facebook friend. (I'm still away from home where my manual is). The is the relevant part: I visited the dealer I bought the container from to remove and send back that unit. The manual only talks about "Ctrl Err" in general, but I'm curious and want to know what code 9 is.

My Vigil2+ is getting Ctrl Err 9. It has about 130-ish jumps on it. The one extra factor is the last jump before this error was a HALO from about 30,000 feet, and was exposed to low temperatures (-30 degrees for about an hour). I will be in contact with Vigil about this, but I'm interested in hearing if anyone else has run into this issue?

OK I think I can relate to you, so will tell you how I'm thinking about handling a similar situation. I grew up a cross-country runner and was offered a scholarship to run in college. Male Age 49 5'11' 180-175 lbs. My resting heart rate in college at peek of running was 38 beats-per-minute, and even today as a sedentary 49 year old it is still 46 beats-per-minute. My knees are falling apart to the extent I'll soon need surgery. If I were you... I would get the best shoes possible for running, but at the same time diversify your exercise routine. Running has pounded my knees into the ground and as we both age those knees simple are not going to return to what they were when we were 20 years old. So, do things that get your heart rate up, but that use different muscles and joints. Bike, or join a gym and do a spinning class. Swim. do the rowing machine. take up light weight lifting. Get a TRX. Take up hiking in nature. Do things to keep the aerobic fitness routine but diversify how you get our heart rate up. That is MHO. Ask your doctor who hopefully specializes in sports medicine.

I worked for Intel from 92 to 99. Never met Andy Grove in person, but I did run into Gordon Moore a few times. Grove was a harsh task master and now doubt one of the driving forces that keep Intel disciplined and focused during the high growth years between the 386 and Pentium II chips.

In the lower 48-states Verizon has better coverage. If it is the same in Alaska then Verizon is your preferred choice. An iPhone app that gives you some in site into the location of the cell towers and there signal strength is called OpenSignal. Do you have an iPhone?

You are correct. Actually that was just free fall. What happened was someone sabotaged the Martian space elevator at the start of the first Mars revolt and everyone going up the elevator put on a spacesuit and jumped about before the elevator hit the ground. Most people fell out of orbit and died. The characters in the book were saved, by someone in a ship that was passing by the area and pulling as many people out of the sky as possible before they went in. (Think recuse boat able to save only a few in a sea of 1000s of Titanic passengers in the ocean.) That is why I said. "and if you count people escaping when the Martian space elevator collapse at the start the first Mars revolt that might count as skydiving too. " So it was skydiving with out the canopy part. It was a great book to read.

This was a long time ago before tandems were common. I was an 18 year old in college and the thought of skydiving had never crossed my mind even once. I was never exposed to it, nor knew anyone that did it. I barely knew what it was. I was walking to class with a friend from college and he out of the blue said, "Hey I just had my birthday and can now go skydiving!! Do you want to go tomorrow?" Before my brain was full engaged to process that skydiving involves scary stuff. The words "Sure, let's go" came out of my mouth. About one second later it hit me. (Holy crap you just agreed to jump out of an airplane, what in the hell are you thinking). But at this point, it was too late to back out. So I didn't sleep to well that night and next morning there we were on a bus to the drop-zone. Even after the training, and maybe especially during the training, I still wasn't sure I could do it, so I decided to volunteer to go first. My reason was we were going up in a small Cessna plane and the first person is jammed up against the door. If they chicken out, the person teaching the class said "If you don't jump, I'm pushing you out of the door to make room for everyone else". That to me seemed like a good way to make sure I wouldn't chicken out. Anyway we get up to altitude. This was a static line jump at maybe 4k and I get out on the step, hang on to the strut and then let go. My chute opened up immediately and I was going to live. That was great. Then the airplane flew away and the I was under a very quite canopy (compared to the airplane engine) looking at the world from a birds perspective flying around in the sky. It was at that very moment I was hooked, about 10 seconds after letting go of the airplane I knew this was something great and I was coming back to do this more. As soon as I landed and saw someone from the drop-zone I asked when are you jumping next? When can I come back?

Yes, Read the Kim Stanley Robinson sci-fi series - Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Some where in there people are skydiving on different moons in the outer solar system, and if you count people escaping when the Martian space elevator collapse at the start the first Mars revolt that might count as skydiving too.

That's what I was thinking. I wouldn't want to be there sharing it with strangers. But booked full with good friends - awesome! Rent a helicopter and a sail boat (to pick you up after landing) for the weekend, and call it the Frying Pan Tower boogie.

+10,000

I'm not a rigger, but I alway pack my own rig. I use to have a power tool and loved it. Then one day lost it, (or maybe someone took it), and now I just use a pull-up cord instead because it is free.

Actually that is a very good point. If someone were hooked on both soft drinks and coffee, I'd recommend that stop using soft drinks first. I try to void anything with "high fructose corn syrup" as an ingredient.

Two and a half-ish years. We meet in college in a differential equations class that started at 8 AM in the morning. She was a "chemistry/bio-statistics" major and I was "engineering physics". We didn't start off dating instead were working on homework together. Then we didn't see each other for a year because we were taking different classes and both very busy. (One thing we both had in common is we both were paying our own way through college without help from family. As a result neither of us partied or dated. We both worked our asses off just trying to survive and get our degrees.) Then by chance we had a second class together. It was a Math/CS class - an elective on the new program language called Mathmatica, taught by Steve Wolfram, and this class was for beta testing it before release. We did a joint project together. This time, one thing led to another, and we were living together in about 6 months. When we both were about to graduate from college, she was likely to head to New York and I had a job in Texas waiting for me. So, we had a decision to make. Don't get married and go our separate ways after college or get married and stay together. I was skydiving by this time and had about 36 jumps. She wasn't a big fan of skydiving. Nor was she a big fan of my motorcycle because of the accident I was in. When we decided to get married, I made her move to Texas with me, and she made me stop skydiving. (The accident took care of the motor cycle). We are now divorced with two kids. I do ask myself if I would make the same decision again about getting married to her. My answer to that is "yes" just because of the kids. I cannot picture a life without them and would do it all over again just for them.

I also gave it up a long time ago. I never liked the feeling of being addicted or dependent on something and the bitter taste didn't appeal to me that much. It wasn't easy stopping but once I did I was glad it was over. Try making exercise a part of you early morning routine. That is a healthy alternative.

Do it... you never know who might pop up as a distant cousin I took the test just because I'm a curious person, but also because I wanted to find out if I had some native american ancestry. My grand-father lost both his parents at age 16 and as a result his family history was lost. He had alway speculated he was part native american (in addition to irish/german). I've learned some interesting things from it, but for health and family tree. Independently my second cousin's family, who have "juvenile rheumatoid arthritis" running in the family took it to be part of a study and understand the individual risks to family members. I highly recommend it.

Has your family take the DNA test from 23andMe? (with opt-in permission) people can be part of large DNA studies at this site.

Wow, were they identical twins? If so you might want to get in contact with one of the researchers of some of these twin papers?

Well this comment brought up the interesting question, "Is there a twin gene" A quick search brought up this link. Below is a summary of that link. http://multiples.about.com/od/pregnancy/a/familytwin.htm "Identical twins are random and don't run in families except by coincidence" "Fraternal twins "run in families" on the mother's side only, if the twinning is attributed to hyper ovulation."