jerry81

Just in case you feel your finals suck- take a look at what I have to do; until May 20th; turn in 4 papers- 2 on marketing psychology, one on Communications rights and one on the evolution of morals in Western society (I think I'll actually enjoy writing this one) from May 19th till June 24th; 8, count them, 8 exams, mostly essay questions. Summer is a million years away. Parties, drugs, alcohol, loose women and social life in general have been removed from my world. The only complete relaxation I can get right now costs about 15euro per ticket and is limited to weekends. So quit your whining and get back to those books, I hope this has brightened your day.

Does anyone have any pictures of how a Teardrop sf looks in this material? Thomas Sports webpage only shows a sample picture of the fabric (and I think it's a closeup). I haven't read any bad things about the Superfly and at approx. 1000 euros it's a great deal, so I'd like to get creative if I decide to order it.

Sure enough, your teammates find out about it last...You're an insensitive bastard, George! Seriously though, I think we'll need a new packing area for especially cool rigs. I just can't see that thing lying next to student Naros and those butt-ugly new Wings containers. Will she be at the dz this weekend with you so we can all touch her and drool? And by the way, is that the FIRST tie-dyed rig in Slovenia? Congratulations man. I'm glad your wait is finally over.

Thanks, I gotta send this link to my communications professor. She eats such stuff up.

Kazaalite is good, just make sure you get the real thing and not the regular spyware-infested Kazaa made to look like the lite version. It can happen. Other than that you can check out eDonkey or eMule, they both share the same network and there are lots of pages with download links to working, verified files. Also worth trying is WinMX- even though I haven't figured it out completely yet it seems to be a good source for music that's harder to find.

First of all, I think I was born with an inherent love of flight. I've had toy airplanes, model gliders and rockets for as long as I can remember. When I was 6 or 7, a friend's father showed her how to make parachutes out of plastic bags, she in turn showed me and shortly afterwards all my toys got their own rounds. I made my first square for my sister's Barbie doll and a few days later saw my first skydiving accident as one of the risers came loose and Ken burned in from the top of our appartment building. I saw Point Break when I was 11 and knew immediately that I had to try freefall one day. A year and a half ago, a drunk guy drove a bit too fast on a rainy evening and rear-ended me at the traffic lights. The insurance money paid for my sl course and about 50 jumps, and I've been going broke ever since. My only disappointment was the realization that freefall rarely lasts 3 minutes, but I've learned to live with that.

Whew, so we're not the only sickos doing this. (Must be an Eastern Bloc thing ) Hope you didn't get punished as hard as our poor students who had the misfortune of making their first jumps this weekend at a boogie with about 30 licensed skydivers. And we only told them about the beer after we spanked their asses.

This reminds me of the time when one of the neighbor's cats sneaked into our house (well, she came waltzing in through the open door- our house is a cat haven and the cats know that) and found an open plastic jar with some kitty treats left inside. Unlike a dog, the cat did not go looking for help but kept running around madly, bumping into things until the jar fell off. But that's not all. After seeing this, my younger brother decided to set up a cat trap in our drive using the jar and some treats. Next morning, we found a very disgruntled hedgehog stuck firmly inside with only one leg and butt sticking out, rolling around helplessly. Luckily, we managed to cut him out without hurting anything but his (already hurt) pride and we've been storing kitty treats in their original boxes since then.

Yeah, I knew I should have used italics again. I said most skydiving accidents, by which I definitely did not mean all. I meant that when you get hurt in skydiving, it's probably more likely to be because of your own mistake than when you get hurt in car accident.

That's what I was saying. Most skydiving accidents happen because you make a mistake. In a car, you can get hurt or killed just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Paying for someone else's mistake is probably less likely in skydiving.

Nobody tell him! We need another "I cut my ___" thread here.

Bwahaha! Everyone read Lisa's explanation before higher powers remove it from the forum! But seriously, here's a different question; given the nature of most skydiving accidents, as compared to car accidents, wouldn't you say that the "you can do everything right and still die" argument holds more for the latter than it does for the former?

15 meters from your instructor is not that bad for your first square jumps. Just this weekend I watched new students a)land anywhere between 10 and 50 meters from the person guiding them down, b)miss the landing area completely, c)barely miss powerlines (that were nowhere near the landing area), and one extremely talented first-timer drifted up-wind from the dropzone (because he was afraid to turn below 250 meters) and then managed to land ass-deep in the only (and very narrow) stream around. If you learned to land accurately with rounds, squares shouldn't be a problem once you put a few more jumps on them.

Well, it can obviously pick up chicks for you. Teaching it to pack should be easy.

Ah, Easter weekend! That joyous time of the year; Two days of jumping

Ours might go as high as 10000' on a good day- and sometimes you don't even need a sledgehammer- you just wait long enough and the problem goes away by itself.

Wow! Just like an incredibly long set in The Incredible Machine. I loved that game, but it drove me nuts when something wouldn't worl. How noone suffered a breakdown while making this commercial is beyond me.

Here you go...captain

Yeah, you might want to convert that to .jpg first...

Well, I seem to be attracted to girls with short haircuts. Oh, you mean... Shaved. Or imaginatively trimmed. I think with some pictures this could turn into a major NSFW thread.

Open your picture in photoshop, crop/resize it to 65x75, then choose 'Save for web'. That should make it small enough.

Thanks Bill! Sometimes I feel like this place could use more Left humor.

Must....resist....the....bait.... Damn, it's hard!

I feel your pain! It's been three days since I last jumped and it will be six hours before I jump again. Withdrawal sucks. On a side note; This idea has been going through my head ever since I first packed a zp canopy. Unfortunately it wasn't mine, and the friend who loaned it to me probably wouldn't understand...

How are your landings? If you stand them up without a problem it's probably just ground rush, but if you slam down hard or have to run them out, you might be flaring too late or too little. Another contributing factor might be the control lines, which are usually longer on student canopies so that you can't stall them- which can also mean you can't slow them down as much as you'd like to on landing, especially if you're a heavier person. This can be remedied by wrapping the control lines around your hands (once is usually enough) when you're coming in for the landing, but you should not do this until you have tried it at a safe altitude (I'd say above 1000') a couple of times. At 7 jumps (if your profile is current) simply flying the canopy might still be a thrilling task, but I suggest you get into the habit of playing with it (again, at a safe altitude) as soon as possible if you're not doing it already- try turns, braked turns, 360s, practice flaring and flaring with the control lines wrapped around your hands, but of course- talk to your instructor before you do this. If it's your landing technique that's causing those fast landings it should improve with your canopy skills, and if it's just fear it should go away as you get more familiar with the way your canopy flies. Hope you have fun!