murrays

First son when I was 23, Second son when I was 45 and Third son when I was 47. Two different wives, of course. As much as I enjoy my two little ones who are now 4 and 6, I think that you should finish having your kids by the time you're forty. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

My best wishes for the "Bird-Man's" speedy recovery.

The issue of someone only jumping a few times a year depends on their base level of experience IMO. I have a couple of friends that only manage to come out to the dz a couple of times a year. They have 2000+ jumps, have all the instructor ratings, one is a master rigger, lots and lots of years in the sport (20+, one nearly 30 years). They jump conservative canopies and we do conservative skydives. I don't worry about them at all...and neither should anybody else, they have enough knowledge to make good decisions. Our club has a few people that come out a couple of times a year..these people have less than 100 jumps. They have no meaningful time in the sport, no experience and they are the type of "fair-weather" jumper that needs to be carefully dealt with. Quite often I do believe they should do something else as I think they are people that are still scared to death of jumping and are unlikely to ever put enough jumps together to become anything else. Skydiving isn't a sport to dabble in....but people that have been hard-core for a number of years and were heads up good skydivers when they were active shouldn't be lumped in with low experience people who jump infrequently. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

My first reserve ride in 1981 was on a 26' diaper-less Navy Conical that was 29 years old. I don't believe that a reserve should be retired because of its age but because of its condition. One of the rigs I'm jumping has an 18 year old reserve...doesn't worry me a bit. I think that setting "expiry dates" on reserves is being a little too paranoid. X-210 reserve....I don't know what the reserve flew like but I wasn't impressed with the X210 main model on the few jumps I made on one. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

So, after reading your post I opened a Terminal window (Mac OS 10.3) and started Vi. I quickly realized I have become totally GUI dependent. Totally. I couldn't close the window fast enough. Reminded me of why I put the copy of "Unix for Mac OS X" back on the shelf after thinking maybe it would be good to learn some Unix to use with OS X......I like being able to point and click and not memorize commands. Although I'm a Mac man and not a fan of MS's operating systems, I use Excel about 6 hours a day and don't know what I'd do without it. I think Excel is the best program MS has written that I have used. I'm presently using Excel 98 for the Mac...equivalent to Excel97...and am upgrading to the OS X version in the near future. My co-worker also curses Word frequently...mostly for the lack of a proper "reveal codes" command that she used in Wordperfect to correct formatting problems. Too bad that choice has just about been eliminated from the Office Suite area. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

This may or may not interest you, but I just started to archive my family video. Here is my procedure: 1 - Import into a new iMovie project, edit, clean up and place Chapter markers for iDVD. I'm only getting rid of really bad footage and just going through the clips very quickly. 2 - When I have finished the above, I open a program called FootTrack. In FT I create a new tape, select the Import Clips option, navigate to the "media" folder of the iMovie project, select the clips within and click on Import. (You can use FCP and FCE as well) 3 - FT then creates references to the clips and allows you to view them, sort them and create folders so that you can group clips and organize them..similar to iPhoto. Using my mundane family example..."Swimming Lessons, Xmas, etc, etc." You could sort them as Base, Wingsuits, Freefly or whatever. The information on each clip includes the time from the beginning of the tape, time code in,out, date and time recorded. You can add comments/descriptions and also categorize the clips (Unusable, shaky, too dark, OK, Movie Material, Excellent) 5 - I then compress the clips using one of three levels of compression...depending on how much space I want them to take up. 6 - I then burn 2 DVDs by using the "Create DVD option in iMovie". One is to use and the other is going into the safety deposit box for the kids. 7 - When finished, I delete the iMovie project and media and the iDVD project. 8 - If I want to see what is on a tape, I open FootTrack, open the "Tape" I want to see and review the compressed clips. If I want a particular bit of footage, I can put the tape in the camcorder and download it. Another program out there that I have only demo'd is called DvxDVD (I think) and it will extract DV video from DVDs burned on Macs. I imagine that you would lose some quality as the DV has been compressed to MPEG2. I believe there are also tools to extract the MPEG2 files directly. Another relatively inexpensive way to archive your video is to make tape copies. You can burn data DVDs of the best footage but you'd need nearly 3 DVDs per hour of DV (4.7 gb/DVD and DV=13gb/hour) Another handy little utility I've found is called iVideo. It will search your hard drive and find all video on your hard drive. The interface is nearly identical to iPhoto so you can then create folders, etc. Anyways, that's what I'm doing. Hope you find some of it helpful. BTW - Nice system you got there!!! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Rob, your post reminds me of an early incident.......Back in 1985 or early 1986, a tandem master from Montreal (I believe named Marcel Faguy) took a strong little steel worker for a tandem jump. ...drogueless and Cypres-less at that time...and the guy freaked when they left the plane. He grabbed Marcel's arms in a death grip. Marcel was screaming at him, biting him on the neck and fighting to get his arms free. He finally managed to get an arm free to pull and was open very low. Scary stuff. I never let them get their hands anywhere near mine after that. I preferred to have them hold their harness and keep their hands there. But, that was a long time ago. This summer will mark the 20th anniversary of my first tandem jump at the Canadian Nationals in Gananoque, ON. Bill Booth brought a rig up to show it to everybody and I did one jump as a passenger. My comment in my logbook:"After thinking about this, I think it is the way of the future." (Once in a while ya get something right.) The next summer my old friend Beaker and I bought a rig and started doing tandems. We knew nothing compared to the knowledge base out there now....but it was a lot of fun. Best advice to new tandem masters...learn from the experienced people, avoid complacency and have a BLAST!!! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I don't remember the name but formations with "leg-locks" were only around for a couple of years and then dropped. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

So here's the good news about iDVD4.... iDVD4 has a much better Mpeg2 encoder...variable bit rate versus constant bit rate. This allows more video at higher quality to be packed onto a disk....but at the cost of time spent encoding. I just burned by first disk with iDVD4 and total time rendering and burning was 6 hours 21 minutes. I popped it into by DVD player to test it out and all I can say is the quality is markedly better. I gather from a couple of posts on the Apple discussion boards that the long time rendering is consistent with other pro-level encoders..Bitvice being one that was mentioned. I really have no comment because my only experience is with iDVD's various versions. Burning subsequent copies is, of course, very quick because the rendering doesn't have to be repeated for every disk. I'd like this to be much faster but perhaps it just isn't possible on a G4 iMac. I also really like the ability to use transitions when you go from a menu to a clip or to the next menu screen..the rotating cube, dissolve, droplet, mosaic, page turn and wipe are rendered very nicely and it 's nice to go smoothly from one screen to another with a smooth transition effect. A new feature of iDVD4 is the ability to have an autoplay clip that plays before the first menu screen is reached. I can think of lots of uses for it and it is very nice to have. Lastly, iDVD4 now has a "Map" feature. You click on a button and it (eventually) reveals a schematic of the DVD menu structure and gives you the ability to go directly to the last menu screen buried at the bottom. This is very handy..especially with the program being so incredibly slow. But ohmigod the program is slow to work in...it's like walking around in knee deep molasses. Apple's gotta fix this cause I can't afford a dual processor G5!! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Haven't shot film for years but I absolutely loved Fuji Velvia 50....and I see that Scotty still likes it. (I didn't know if it was even still available -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I think you will notice quite an improvement in system speed if you go from 10.1 to Panther. I think Panther is way more stable than Jaguar, which was very stable, and definitely a ton more stable than 10.1. I like Expose, the fast user switching..which you may have no need for...but mostly the speed and the stability. The updates to the Mail app are very good as well...threaded sorting is nice for mail lists and the junk mail filter is quite good. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Hunter Evan Frederick Stevens (Hunter EFS) with the Batman t-shirt and little brother Cameron, ages 6 and 4, with Dad on the shores of Waskesiu Lake in Prince Albert National Park. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Hey Scotty, I had zero problems upgrading to Panther but I don't do the hard core editing like you do. I really like Panther. It has been absolutely rock solid since installation. Have you scouted the Apple Discussion boards for any indication of problems? That is where I would look. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Well, you could take a look at Macrumors site...somewhere on there they have a buyer's guide that will give you their idea of what is due for an upgrade and perhaps minimize your chances of having a big case of buyer's regret. Right now they feel that the Powerbooks are mid-product cycle..so an update should happen in a few months. Whether that means G5 Powerbooks or faster G4s is another story. Apple doesn't announce new product releases until the existing inventory is pretty much gone..otherwise they and their dealers get stuck with hardware they can't sell. My local Apple dealer keeps very little in stock as he has been burned many times by Apple reducing prices or announcing new models and sticking him with stock he can't sell or that he has to sell at a greatly reduced price (loss). -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Those aluminum and titanium cases are good heat conductors I just got a G4 iBook for work...haven't had much time to play but sure like it so far. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I see rumors about some smaller die technology (65nm or 90nm) to be used on IBM chips soon which may make them available for laptops sooner. I think we'll see G5s in iMacs soon...I'm even thinking Apple might have a surprise for Super Sunday which is the 20th anniversary of the announcement of the MacIntosh. They are going to announce 100 million free iTunes Music Store songs in specially marked Pepsis...maybe they'll have a surprise for us. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

They should let Pete Rose into the HOF right after Shoeless Joe Jackson goes in. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Thanks! :^) Finally upgraded to 3.03 with Panther. ltdiver Lori, here's your iLife '04 review.... iMovie4 is an improvement over iMovie3. It's not as fast as I'd like but it does seem better. iPhoto4 is much, much faster. It is worth getting. GarageBand - haven't had time to play yet but looks pretty cool. However, iDVD4 is.....virtually unusable. The update can't come soon enough I am appalled at how crappy it is. It makes iMovie 3.0 look like good code. Lots of people with the same problems I am experiencing on the Apple discussion boards. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I'm sad for you too Lew...that really, really sucks. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

1949 Pontiac with a flat head six. You could hold dances in the back seat it was so roomy. Built like a tank and needed to be for the driving me and my buddies put it through. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I was considering Lasik about 4 years ago and I went to an ophthalmologist to get his opinion. He told me he had patients that wish they had never heard of laser eye surgery. He only recommended it to people who couldn't be corrected to a reasonable prescription with glasses alone. Often this resulted in the patient still wearing glasses but a much more reasonable prescription. He told me that because I could be corrected with glasses to 20/20 he would never recommend that I go ahead with Lasik. I didn't and I'm not sorry. Glasses are a pain (especially up here in the cold when they frost up when you come in from outside) but getting rid of them wasn't worth the risk of harming my vision. Just a note of caution....They are your only eyes. I would suggest going to an ophthalmologist that isn't going to try and sell you a laser procedure to get a more objective opinion. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Here's one from Skydive Maryland that was posted on here a while ago. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Keep this Hunter S. Thompson observation in mind when dealing with the press....(Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, end of Ch.13): "....Why bother with newspapers, if this is all they offer? Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage." Just my opinion. I'm not a Base jumper but have been burned too many times trying to "improve the image of skydiving" by idiots that are incapable of understanding what you are telling them. I think that, unfortunately, BASE has a tougher row to hoe in that regard. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I believe the resolution is 1024x768 on the 12"...for an older guy like me that might be hard on the eyes but you would have the same resolution that I do on my 15" flat panel iMac. The screens are very nice, bright and sharp! That's a pretty good deal! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

I don't see any that I would recommend (based on the reviews) after searching on Versiontracker.com. I just finished ridding my boss' Windows machine of about a million pieces of spyware...it's great that he lets his kids use his computer..NOT. In 4 years of using a Mac I've never had spyware install itself...hell I didn't even think there was any out there that would work on a Mac! What is it that your gf got? What OS is she using? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey