Dd0g

You guys take everything too seriously. It's far too easy to stir the pot with a couple of words here nowadays. Can anybody imagine Nik after a few gallons of red wine, poking the soft underbelly and getting the easy rise? Nodaways we're all supposed to say media-friendly things and think media-friendly thoughts and live media-friendly lives I guess. When a big percentage of the senior jumpers in a given locale end up dead, you can either laugh or cry. Or both. But you never forget. Seriously, think about it. D-d0g ps: Thomas, go back to the bottle it's your destiny. +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

All the real Oregon jumpers are dead. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Sending condolences from up North. Letting go fucking sucks, even when it's right and it's time and it's all the reasons we can come up with. It's still letting go, and it sucks. Peace, ds +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I might just make an appearance... Hey, fun where you find it. . . D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

That famous cliff north of the city has never been jumped by anybody. The Powers That Be have dictated that, because it is such a dangerous object, anybody who wants to jump it must complete 25,000 skydives first in order to be skilled. Many Sky Gods around the world are working towards this elusive goal, and it is expected that the first jump will involve a rad and colorful swooping canopy and lots of coverage from Skydiving Magazine, aka The Voice of the Weasel. There are a few other people who have jumped off of things other than airplanes up here, but we all realized that it's waaaay dangerous to do this sort of thing until we get a color-coordinated wardrobe that is the envy of the DZ and learn the latest freeflying lingo. So we will be working hard on that this summer but it is unlikely that any BASE will take place here as really we don't have enough skydives yet. Remember, skydiving = BASE and Safety First!!!!!! Yours in Skydiving, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Having 386 call me "fucking crazy" has not only made my day, it has made my entire fucking year! We're working on a project to jump a really big cliff in a really big mountain range, that's the latest crazy plan and I think it just might work. "It's got good idea written all over it." Hope you are well down there. I'm looking forward to hanging out again soon, hopefully under less "complicated" circumstances. Remember the Pact from Starbucks, however; it is still in effect. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I'm chuckling at this as, in my mind, I go down the list of famous BASE folks who have throw non-skydivers off objects in the past 10 years. It's a pretty long list; I'm just a footnote. Personally, the most positive thing I've seen recently come into BASE training (other than the prevalence of the FJC nowadays) is the proposed BASE-specific skydiving course you are putting together, Clint. This makes enormous sense and is long overdue. Some folks (like me) were fortunate in that we found skydiving coaches who tailored our DZ jumps from day one to BASE, but that was not easy to accomplish at most DZs. When I think of all of the absolutely, stunningly, shockingly stupid things that I've seen or heard firsthand done with low-time/newbie BASE folks by "instructors" over the years, this whole "how many skydives" discussion really comes into proper focus. The funny thing is that few folks discuss these reckless student moments; they are the unspoken secret of BASE, and for better or for worse most folks fairly new to the sport have never heard these stories. Fact is, many of these stories have gone to the grave with Dwain and Nik and Lukas and others in recent years. BASE isn't black and white, and it is good for the newer generations of jumpers (including me) to hear the real-deal stories from the past to understand the real boundaries of safety and what happens when these boundaries are pushed. Teaching folks to jump is a massive committment and I doubt that anyone who has not done so personally is really qualified to comment on it, at least from a moral/ethical standpoint. Tree, I appreciate your metaphor regarding bouldering but I think you and I are just seeing this whole issue from different perspectives. Regards, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Yikes! Does this mean my pool of eager proto-BASE jumping students is suddenly going to dry up because I am no longer a "qualified" instructor? That sucks, as I am charging people big $$ to teach them BASE. Wait. . . I'm not. It was our dear, dopey friend JJ who pulled that idiotic scam last year. I'm one of these strange people who puts lots of weight in this thing called "logic." The argument that "everyone should skydive lots before BASE because, um, everyone knows that's the only way to do it and it's best and besides I did it that way so it must be right". . . that argument, it just doesn't cut it with me. A few folks have put forth substantive points in favor of pre-BASE skydiving. Many other folks have simply echoed the mantra of the herd animal: it's right because everyone else says it's right. It's funny to see BASE jumpers, who often style themselves as free-thinking and self-reliant, falling back on the herd mentality when the questions get tough. Ciao, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I think he might be ready to start jumping low stuff now. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

My point exactly. It's neither surprising nor, at least prima faciae, causative. Just like, to take a random example, it isn't surprising that most all BASE fatalities are male. That doesn't automatically mean that being male causes jumpers to die. It's just a correlation, and really without additional data it's not possible to say there's a causative relationship there. However, I brought up this statistical point (and, yes, I agree that the stats are murky at best) for this reason: if one makes the argument that lots of skydives makes for safer BASE jumpers then one must also recognize the fact that the stats don't, on the surface, support this argument without further explanation. I'm not making the argument, specifically, that skydives don't help BASE but rather looking for someone to make a convincing argument that skydives do make for safer BASE jumpers. The statistics alone aren't going to make that argument. The "canopy control" argument is somewhat shaky now that skydiving canopies (even for students) are moving further and further away from BASE canopies. The tracking skills argument is vaguely interesting, but not many BASE folks are doing alot of jumps early in their career where tracking expertise is "do or die." Frankly, not many BASE jumpers are doing that sort of jump even further along in their career. The "mental skills" argument holds basically no weight with me personally. Skydiving is a well-regulated, well-managed, safe, fun, enjoyable pastime. But the very structure and rules and proven gear and training techniques that make skydiving safe are exactly what is opposite from BASE. We don't have any of this exogenous structure in our sport, we have a herd of the proverbial cats and as many opinions on fundamental gear and technique questions as we have BASE jumpers alive today. Hanging out at a sunny DZ with happy people in stylish clothes is a great way to spend a summer day, but it's far removed from (most all) BASE jumps, mentally at least. I don't know what is optimal mental preparation for the sharper edge of BASE, but I can't see any cogent argument that skydiving fits the bill particularly well. Regards, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Am I overqualified if I fly into a building and break my ribs? Or is that a good sign that I need to find an instructor? Just wonderin'. . . D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Please feel free to email directly to me any and all personal attacks. I love them - they make me feel important. edit: Come on guys. The topic is a good one for discussion. Let's move your personal differences to email, PM, or in-person confrontation. ~Tom Aiello Say "cheese," D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

It's true, everyone at the DZ hates me and I only wish it wasn't so. I pretend to be a BASE jumper so that I can make friends, but all my friends keep dying in this "sport." Something isn't working so well. The jealousy I feel towards BASE gurus who hang out at DZs is really hard to quantify. Suffice to say that it's huge beyond words, beyond numbers even. When I grow up, I want to hang out with cool people. D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

No. D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

This seems to indicate that you don't think skydiving is life and death. IF you really think that way, it's probably a good thing you don't skydive much. Nail me on this one, but I think skydiving is less dangerous than driving to the DZ. Well, in fact, I am sure the fatality statistics back this up. Look, skydiving is fun and people that are good at it have totally stunning skills. I couldn't freefly if my life depended on it! But it's about as dangerous as sport climbing. In fact, part of the whole point of skydiving (and sport climbing) is that it is NOT supposed to be dangerous and we work hard to minimize danger. That's the whole idea. I mean, who really works hard to make skydives really scary? Apart from certain dearly-departed Aussies, I mean. Not everything we do in life has to be wildly dangerous to be "cool." My primary other sports outside of BASE are pretty much zero fatality zones. I love them just as much as BASE. But BASE is about danger, at least it used to be or it is for some of us or whatever. Someday maybe BASE technology will be good enough that it's safe like skydiving. Even today, our gear is about a billion times safer than 15 years ago. But, no matter how trick the canopy with today's gear, jumping off something slider-down with a hard object behind you is fucking dangerous. Do it a reasonable amount of times (say, 100) and you'll have a 180 and if you don't respond exactly right you will die or be badly maimed. Many folks have made interesting comments on this thread, much more interesting than anything I've said. I hope it continues - it is good to sometimes look at those old sacred cows and see if the gods still smile on them anymore. As to my own BASE experience, everyone knows I made the whole thing up. I've never jumped off anything taller than a kitchen table and when I did that I twisted my ankle really bad. Actually, I pretend to be a BASE jumper in the hopes that I can meet the boyfriend of my dreams and retire rich. I mean, doesn't everyone? D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Not a question of "belief," really. It's just a fact. How we interpret that fact is the real question. Also, the majority of the List entries date from the early to mid 90s. So it's not really "narrowing the search" much to discuss the correlation on the list between skydives and fatalities. I'm thinking of 1000+ as, roughly speaking, "lots of skydives." The obvious point here is that, historically at least, the folks most active in BASE were also most active at the DZ. Ergo, more fatalities with lots of skydives under their belt. Today, I think this correlation has broken down. I know many BASE folks who are extremely active (both in jump numbers and in opening new objects or repeating challenging ones) but who rarely if ever skydive. This is, in my understanding of the data, a fairly new development in BASE. It also makes for difficult comparisons, "now versus then," in terms of the safety correlation between BASE and skydiving. I'm not arguing causation between the two variables. However, it is worth noting that most (or perhaps "many") people who have died in our sport had lots of skydives. On the flipside, there is no apparent over-representation on the List of entries who had few skydives before learning BASE. Ergo, it's hard to argue that lots of skydives makes for BASE jumpers who do not die. At least, I'm not sure how that argument would go given the empirical evidence at hand. I teach people who want to BASE jump how to deal with extreme pressure, first and foremost. If you can't do that, don't take up BASE. Skydiving does NOT teach this skill. Ergo, I don't assume that people who skydive alot are better prepared for BASE than those who don't. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Nothing against skydiving or skydivers. Personally, I find skydivers to be a social group - I'm not really so social. So I often find myself feeling a fish out of water at a DZ. I've had some good times jumping out of a plane, but with limited days in life until I'm dead it is just not at the top of my list very often. I just think it is funny that it's a not-very-well-kept secret that there's many examples of BASE folks who started with way less than the 150 "suggested" skydives. I also find it funny that, without exception, I trust the instincts and survival skills of most all of those BASE folks better than nearly any BASE person with many thousands of skydives. I don't think this is causative - skydiving doesn't make people scary BASE jumpers. Rather, I think it's correlation. BASE folks who do lots of skydiving tend - on average - to have less sharp survival skills and be a bit less, um, solid. As I said, on average - I can think of half a dozen BASE folks with lots of skydives who are absolutely top quality jumpers. They are the quite obvious exceptions to my posited rule, though for me the rule itself still stands. BASE today is changing, and BASE jumpers today are changing. A different type of person is entering the sport than even when I started a few years back. The thing is, are these two jumps the same sport? 1. Static line on a roundie off the bridge in Idaho, on a sunny summer day, in Idaho; 2. Running exit off an underhung 330 foot cliff where it is mandatory to take a 2.5+ second delay to outrun the underhang, jumped at deep sunset with a bit of winds, dodgy landing area amongst the trees and beside some hard to see power lines. We call them both "BASE." They have nearly nothing in common, not even the same gear. How we train people to do each safely is an obvious question. In either case, does skydiving in itself help make a safer jumper? No, not in itself - canopy understanding and canopy control are essential for #2, but the skills are unlike what is taught in 99% of skydiving situations. I hear someone is doing a BASE-specific skydiving certification. Seems like a good idea to me. Just sending people out to the DZ to fall out of an airplane in sunny weather is poor preparation for BASE. This is pretty obvious, really. The real expertise in BASE lies far outside of the media-hungry jumpers whose names become well-known nowadays. More than a few experienced and battle-tested jumpers are all but invisible to the new generation of BASE Gods gestating at the DZ today. Time moves on and things change. But BASE is still deadly and people will keep dying from stupid mistakes in our sport. It's sad, but probably little can be done to prevent it in the long run. More jumpers means more mistakes means more fatalities. Maybe the current "BASE boom" will die out when the next season of carnage plays itself out. D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I think I had 38, or 37 - can't remember now. It's been almost two years since I've been skydiving. I find many people who are at the DZ to be insufferable social butterflies, not my type. I find that BASE folks who hang out at DZs are often scary, untalented, and insecure. Look at the List; most of the fatalities have come from folks with lots of skydives. If skydiving made for safe BASE jumpers, this would not be the case. I'd gladly start new students in BASE with zero skydives. In fact, I have. That way, it is not necessary to un-train the bad habits taught at the DZ. With a blank slate, it is possible instead to instill fundamental survival skills from the first jump forward. Skydiving is a pastime. BASE is life and death. The connection between the two is tenuous and getting more so every year. Skydiving is sport climbing in the gym; BASE is sketchy mixed climbing at altitude. The skills minimally overlap, if at all. None of my students has died so far. I like that. D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

That was funny. D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Nowadays, the important question really is "am I cool enough to get into BASE?" After all, it's 2004 and it's no longer about the sport or the friendship. . . now, it's all about appearances! R.I.P BASE. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

The funny thing is that Flippy Do managed to "misplace" a dog owned by my ex one day while we were out surfing. Ok perhaps I had something to do with it also. Now, between the two of us I think there was a sum total of perhaps one actual, responsible adult human being (hmm, I suspect a bit less come to think of it). But somehow we managed to not keep such a close eye on the dog, and when the last set rolled through, he was nowhere to be found. We searched far and wide for that dog, to no avail. Tired, wet, and yes even a bit chagrined we drive back to the City of Dodgy Jumps. Calls to local humane societies turned up no leads. Either the dog had swum out into the breaks and been eaten by a whitie, or he found some people he felt to be better guardians than the two of us and he never looked back. I think the latter, as the dog had common sense on his side. We managed to keep this little stunt a secret from my ex for many months, but eventually the excuses ran out and we had to come clean. Naturally, I blamed Flippy Do for the whole thing and of course who would doubt his culpability in any hare-brained scheme gone awry? Nobody, so I was (mostly) off the hook. The dog's name? Rocket. The irony of the moment was lost on neither of us. Still makes me smile. . . I wonder where that Rocket is right now? Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Perhaps Sangiro has some wisdom in his decision, and getting this forum back to discussions about BASE is a good idea. Those of us who are struggling with much more intense emotional issues are best served by relying on friends and those who are actually involved when working through issues. Fortunately, there are few people who understand what it is like to go through something like this firsthand - I hope that doesn't change, ever. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

Does anyone have postal mail information for people to send correspondence to him while he is incarcerated? If so, could you post it for everyone so those who wish to can stay in touch. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I have been told by people at Twin Falls at the time that Jason had done a single gainer during this jump which rotated rather slowly. Is this correct information, or inaccurate? It is important for us to understand what went wrong if we are to prevent it in the future. Sincere condolences to friends, family, and associates. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.

I stayed up way too late last night going through old videos. I had just planned to find a couple of segments, but somehow I ended up watching more and more. Mostly I smiled, but it is hard not to feel the scars being rubbed raw as I watch those two hamming it up. It seemed like it would never end, like it was an important time and that good things would certainly come of it. We all had each other, and there were places to go and things to do. Now, it seems we mostly get together to attend funerals. Peace, D-d0g +~+~+~+~ But this, surely, was the glory that no spirits, canine or human, had ever clearly seen, the light that never was on land or sea, and yet is glimpsed by the quickened mind everywhere.