murrays

I had this incident confirmed to me in an e-mail from Kim. I too am waiting to get the skinny on that incident. As far as static problems go...this bothers me because I live in a very dry, static-y part of the world. Every time I get out of my car I get a "snap" when I touch the door to close it. At times, you can hear your canopy crackle when you smooth it out. Not something I want to have to worry about. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I'm sure it has been mentioned somewhere on here before but there will be a two pin cutter someitme in the future according to an e-mail I received from Kim a few months ago. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

*** Hummmm... Never heard it call THAT before! Ohhhh! You mean PACKING tension!!! You're thinking of "relieving your tension".... -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

And someone to give you tension! Yes, I do. The first thing you could show a student was how to give tension. It was a good way to get them involved and explain the process of doing the four line check, flaking, etc. Boy, it's been a long time since I packed a round. I don't know if I could do it properly anymore. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Over the last little while I set up my mother-in-law, a 65 year old retiree, with a new eMac. Her grandson routinely rendered her PC unusable with viruses and spyware and she was tired of it. So, I got her an eMac and an iSight camera. She came and stayed with us last week and I showed her how to use the various programs on the Mac and sent her back home. (She lives 4 1/2 hours away) Last night she finally got all the cables plugged into the right places and sent me an e-mail. So, tonight I called her up and said it's time to video-chat. I plugged my camcorder into a Firewire port on my iMac, started iChat, invited her to videochat, she accepted and VOILA! we were video chatting. I called my kids in to talk to Grandma and Grandpa, they talked for about three seconds and then poof! were gone. My mother-in-law and father-in-law (in his 70's) were thrilled to be able to see the kids and just amazed at the ability to be able to do this..I am also amazed that we can do this and that it is so easy. My sons, ages 4 and 6, are completely blase about the whole thing...it's just nothing to them, routine. They will never remember not having a computer or two in the house and I'm old enough to remember not having tv let alone a computer and the ability to video chat with someone hundreds or thousands of miles away. What was science fiction when I was a kid is now in every body's home. Quite amazing actually. Am i just an old fart or does this stuff amaze you too? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Isn't the ultimate bottleneck the amount of data/sec your hard drive can write to disk? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I do, and I can't say I'd recomend it to anyone not familiar with both wingsuit flight, and pullouts. Otherwise I don't do much of anything different. I pull the handle to full wing extention, "flick" it outward, and collapse all the wings. I have played with the "failure mode" by doing a quick toss, and leaving all wings inflated. I can keep the p/c bouncing around on my back as long as I want, but can clear it easily by tucking the wings in and diping a sholder to get air across my back. I do feel the throwout has an advantage, but I've not yet had a problem (over 300 flights) and am willing to manage that risk. Oh, I don't have anything other than "stock" bridles (Infinity and Mirage) Thanks JP...I've got lots of pull-out experience but only a handful of wingsuit flights. Do you have open corners on your rigs? Do you think that a longer bridle would get rid of the dancing pc? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I've always found throw-outs to be much more difficult and finicky to pack. Seriously. You have to fold the p/c up neatly so that it won't jam in the pouch, be extremely careful of the bridle routing, make sure that there is enough bridle above the pin to allow pin extraction, etc, etc. My pullout is very easy and fast to pack in comparison. Fold pilot chute in half and stuff it at the bottom of the main container, fold the bridle back and forth at the top of the d-bag, close the flaps, put in the pin, tidy up the grommet end and secure the dildo. I'm done before most people fold a pilot chute on a throwout. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I differ in opinion with you on this. In the closing loop breaks scenario, on a BOC throwout, if the main begins to deploy, the P?C is not going to be extracted easily, at the bridle will be pulling almos 90 degrees to the opening of the pouch. In addition finding said handle will be dificult as the botom of the main tray will be pulled high(er) up on your back without the packed main to give is suport and form. The same scenario on any of the 5 pullout rigs I've owned would have resulted in the pud being pulled free of its Velcro and/or compresion flaps as it is pulling in at 90 to the velcro and once the bag is out of the container the compresion force holding the handle in place is gone. A horseshoe is possible but if it were to happen it would more likely come from and entanglement with an extremity of the body, or a piece of helmet mounted gear. My biggest reason for jumping the pullout is the reduced chance of a sustained horseshoe malfunction which is, in my opinion, THE scaries malfunction scenario in the sport. JP - Thanks for your points. I'm not very familiar with some of the new pull-out systems but the ones I have seen seem to have the handles pretty well secured with velcro. It seemed to me that they wouldn't be as easily removed in this scenario...so I appreciate your observations. Seeing as how the only reason I am jumping BOC is due to wingsuit jumping and I believe that you jump pull-out with wingsuits would you care to tell me of your experiences, techniques, etc as I'd like to switch back to pull-out for everything -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Sure. I'd say you could get a horseshoe with a pull-out if you were jumping camera, did a poor throw and had the p/c entangle with your camera gear. You can get the same result with a throw-out. P/C entangles with helmet, drag on the bridle pulls the pin...same result. If you somehow dislodged the main closing pin with the pull-out handle still stowed you could get a horseshoe. I think that getting the main pin dislodged on a throw-out is more difficult as the curved pin will rotate away from the force being applied. If you have a main closing loop break on either system you get the same result.....handle still stowed with a main container open at the mercy of the wind. In some respects, I would prefer a BOC in this instance because if you have packed your p/c properly drag on the bridle should extract it from the pouch. If your pull-out handle is real secure the grad might not accomplish this. Both situations can be resolved by quickly grabbing the handle and throwing it the hell away from you. Misrouting a main bridle and towing a pilot chute is pretty much the domain of the throw-out. A friend of mine with nearly 10k jumps packed himself a p/c in tow summer before last....I figure that if a master rigger with 10,000 jumps and ~ 40 years in the sport can mess up and pack a p/c in tow...anybody can..... remember...NOBODY is BULLETPROOF....I am more comfortable with the bullets a pull-out shoots my way I guess. A poor throw on either system while jumping camera can get you in a very bad situation very quickly. In some respects, I might prefer to jump a throw-out if I was jumping camera. If the p/c entangled...at least the main pack isn't open...for a while anyway. If the bridle catches enough air it could pull the pin and leave you in exactly the same situation. You might have a bit more time to clear the p/c or fire off the reserve before too much stuff was trailing behind on a throwout system. This might be better. If you keep your main closing loop in good shape and jump a rig with good pin protection the possibilities of main pin dislodging and closing loop breakage for both systems are pretty minimal. Although a lot of the possibliities for misrouting a bridle on a throw-out have been eliminated by the switch to BOC the possibility still exists. If you diligently check the routing and packing of your bridle on a throw-out every jump you should never have a p/c in tow. But, we don't always do that and the resulting situation is the one that made me choose the other deployment system.....so it's pretty funny that I'm now jumping BOC. (The irony of me bouncing from a p/c in tow would be too much wouldn't it...I better be extra careful with those damn bridles and curved pin thingies ) -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

With all due respect Bill...and believe me, I have a lot of respect for all your contributions to the sport.....I prefer a springless pilot chute to a spring loaded one on my main, I prefer the 3-ring to the release systems that came before it, I think the Sigma tandem rig is what I would want to use if I started doing tandems again, and I think the Skyhook is a brilliant invention.....I disagree on how to open my main container.

Where's Bill Cole or Pops Poppenhager? I bet they could shed some light for us.... -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I see it is tied at 1 after the first. Hope you're having a great time! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I put one jump on a Viking Superlite of a friend's. As Wendy mentioned...the toggle pressure seemed high. Ok parachute for the times. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I know Rande Deluca was jumping video in the early 80's as I saw pictures of him at a World Cup held in Claresholme Alberta. He was likely jumping video a fair bit earlier than that as he was a well known camera man well before that. Did he die of cancer in the mid-80's? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

The first guys that I saw doing video were doing it in the early 80's...81-82. They had the camera mounted on their helmet and a video deck attached to their harness. These were tiny by the standards of the day but huge by today's standards. I would guess that the first video became feasible in the late 70's. Before that the cameras and decks were just too large and not really portable. One of my old buddies, who used one of these setups in the mid-80's, just marvelled at my Optik with a sidemounted PC-1 when he saw it last year. Smaller. lighter and safer....the old set ups weren't very jettisonable as the cameras were attached to the deck on the chest by cables. Pretty scary stuff. One of my friends died at the Ranch in the late 80's jumping one of these set-ups when he had a helmet/pilot chute entanglement and then a reserve/main entanglement. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

iMac G4 800 HP Omnibook 2100 Win98SE -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Apple tops the PC World Service and Reliability surveys for a reason! As a switcher in his 5th year I am sure you will be happy with your purchase. It takes a little while to get used to how things are done and where they are located on a Mac. But, after about a week I'm sure you'll be right at home. I have a G4 iBook at work. It's a great little machine. I run my tax and accounting apps in Windows using Virtual PC and use the Mac OS for everything else...Excel, Word, e-mail and web-surfing. It's very well integrated....I can drag and drop files between the Windows desktop and the Mac desktop and I print to our network printer using both OS's without a hitch. I periodically hook up my Windows laptop to the network as well and it is quite easy to share files with the Macs. At home, I use my iMac for DV, digital photos, music and everything else. Enjoy that new machine! PM me if you need help with anything on it. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

That is too funny...you had it coming! Josh, It's too bad I never saw your post until after you've returned home. The local skydivers would have introduced you to some tall cool ones at O'Shea's which is owned by one of our club members. Our club (Prairie Skymasters Parachute Club) is entering its' 28th year of operations and we will be flying (Cessna 182) very soon if the weather cooperates. If you come back in the warmer months be sure to bring your rig. We operate on the weekends in a town 1 hour northeast and a lot of the weeknights on a grass strip 10 minutes north of the city. We have turned out some fine skydivers over the years...2 for sure and maybe 3 that have competed in World Meets in RW and presently have two damn good swoopers (Jay Beavis and Collin Sinclair) here that competed at the World Cup of Canopy Piloting in Perris. Our student gear is all Cypres equipped and we have square reserves on all student rigs. Mains are Mantas mostly but we also have a Triathlon 190 and a Triathlon 175 in rigs for lighter jumpers and to help people jump smaller canopies before buying their first set of gear. We are also putting together a rig that will have a Triathlon 160 in it. Until a member has 50 jumps they pay $10 Canadian for gear rental. After that we expect them to buy their own gear and they pay $25 gear rental per jump. Our jumps rates are pretty reasonable compared to the rest of Canada...$22 to 9,500 feet. Saskatoon is a great little city...like Mark Harju says...even in the winter. I work across the street from the Bessborough and spend the occasional evening skating with my kids on the outdoor rink beside the Bess...a fine way to spend an evening. The South Saskatchewan River flows through the centre of the city. The riverbank on both sides is preserved as parkland and there are bike/hike/roller blade/cross country ski trails for about 20-30 km on each side of the river. Even in cold weather you can go for some nice walks where you are sheltered in the trees. It is also one of the sunniest places in Canada..if not the sunniest. Anyways, next time you're in town give us a call! I'm PM-ing you some phone numbers. Blue skies, -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

it was regarding the battery life and the batteries being non-replaceable. Apple now has a battery replacement program for owners whose iPods are out of warranty which costs $99 plus shipping. My 20gb iPod works better now than when it was new. A couple of firmware upgrades fixed the issues I was experiencing. They are great pieces of equipment. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Go to Paypal and register a complaint. There are a couple of different avenues. Did you pay via a credit card or by having Paypal take the money out of your account? You may be able to take action through your cc company. Good luck. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Here's an NPR piece on GarageBand featuring some David Was (Was (Not Was)) composed material. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

The numbers were bumped up when the new COP requirements were brought in. I think new A's started at 10000, Bs at 5000, Cs at ?? and Ds at 1000....or something like that. Personally I think it was an unnecessary move. Requirements had changed before and the numbering systems weren't changed. D's were less than 700 if I remember correctly before the new COP numbering system came into place. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

According to Amazon it isn't out yet on DVD. Do a search. I put a link up but it kept adding my e-mail address and I didn't want a bunch of notifications that it was going to be released, etc. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Huck, Won't Final Cut Pro 4 edit HD? Or is there some other reason for this incompatibility? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey