pringles

If you ever get a chance to watch the movie jackass, one of the guys in the movie lets someone shoot him with a bean bag round. Looked like it hurt like hell. Matt Davies

Is there a chance that someone could paste this to the thread? The web site it is on is forbidden for me to view here at work. It says it is catigorized as a sex site. I find that hard to believe. I think our internet security is a little to beefed up down here. thanks Matt Davies

Thought I would come and sit around the bonfire since its snowing here in Michigan. April 27th I cant believe it. I hate this God forsaken state. Matt Davies

I just packed up from my jump last night. I found that my slider bumpers are thrashed. They have shown some wear (not much but some) for a while. Last night though they just seemed to fall apart. One is just barely hanging on. I think that the slider gromets that are free (not tied down) are ruining the bumpers/putting extra wear on the gear on opening. So my question is for those of you that jump slider down as opposed to slider off. How do you stow your slider? If you get a chance to take pics during your next pack job if you have time that would be great. I would post pics of my set up but I don't have a camera to do so. I will try to get a friend to take pics and I will add them later. I will show How I am folding the slider and what it did to my bumpers. Thanks Matt Davies

That was great. I copied and pasted it to a email and sent it to my work email and it still worked. Then I modified it so it said that leaves about 30 of us out here on the shop floor working and you up in your office reading jokes. Then I sent it to my boss. So we will see how that one goes over. Matt Davies

I used to ware tevas all the time. One day though I had a reserve ride. I chased my main down. When I was coming in for landing I thought I had picked out a great spot to land. I couldn't tell until it was too late that my soon to be landing spot was a bunch of briars. I got the main and free bag. I also had thorns in the ends of my toes for the next month. I would think I had all the thorns out then the next day I would start getting shooting pains from another one that had worked its way in a little deeper. I haven't worn Tevas jumping since. Matt Davies

Twoply, didn't you take off your pantyhose at the exit point and use those once? Matt Davies

I had to sit out a load at MB because my wife refused to drive down that switch back. I wish I would have jumped and walked out because we got winded out the rest of the day. So there is my Ground Crew story. Matt Davies

Q: How many freefliers does it take to change a light bulb? A: 10, One to change the bulb and nine to do video. Matt Davies

There are some good pics of this method if you go to the library at consolidated rigging. Go to the ram air manual and on page 10 you will see this set up. Matt Davies

I just put the stash bag on the ground next to the canopy. Then I put my foot in the mouth of the bag and hold up on the other side of the mouth with my hand. Then I start cramming fabric into the stash bag. Once i have the canopy and the lines in then I take off my container put that in and then my helmet follows. Matt Davies

I fold my stash bag in this manner also but somehow part of it snuck out (like I said it was dark and I very well could have and probably did miss something). I know some people even roll their stash bag up and stuff it in the opening at the top of the padding on the leg strap. I didn't have the pouch in the back pad on my previous rig. I would just put down my shirt or in my fanny pack. Matt Davies

When stowing my stash bag last week I noticed something that you might keep an eye out for. I have a pocket in the back pad of my container. I normally fold my stash bag up and cram it in the pocket. The other night part of the draw string fell out. It was pretty dark and I could have easily missed it. It doesn't pose much of a problem on my container because the opening for the pocket is on the left side. I took a quick look at my partners gear and his opening is on the right side (same side as the pilot chute). His rig is an old vision. Newer rigs may have addressed this (not that its a problem if you pay attention). It would really suck to have your draw string or even one of the shoulder straps go around your pilot chute when pulling it out. Just a heads up if you have never seen this. be careful out there Matt Davies

Here is a good post for you to look at. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=633789;search_string=turkey%20boogie;guest=4807015&t=search_engine#633789 Matt Davies

In the area that I jump in, the base community is very small. Over the past year I have come to realize that our community needs to turn over a leaf. The problem is our group has needed a face lift right from the start. We were even told this from an old fart out at the dz that hadn't done any base in about ten years. We just kinda blew him off. What does he know, right? We had seen all the video of their group doing the same kind of stupid stuff. I would have to guess though that in his case hind sight is 20/20. Something my group needs to realize right now. I will give you one example of some of the crap that goes on. Mind you there are plenty of other crappy things going on. Things just seem to have gone down hill badly. One night last fall I called up a friend and asked him to go for a jump. So that was settled. Now I am on my way to meet up for the jump. My wife riding shot gun. When I get there I find out that we are going to have the best ground crew you could ever imagine (aka fucking circus). We have my wife... who I feel is very competent as ground crew. Then we have the rest of the group. Well they have had more than their share to drink. Their were two guys that have @ 5 base a piece that have no intrest in base any longer. Then there were to girl basers that have around 15 between the two of them. The other jumpers sister and her boyfriend. So that brings the total to 7 ground crew and 2 jumpers. This is an "A" by the way. So anyways while we are climbing the whole group is hooping it up on the ground. For some reason they think this whole thing is like a party. Drinking and smoking talking loudly. My wife felt very uncomfortable by the whole situation so she actually ventured off a short distance from the group and stood by a tree. We jumped landed and left, no big deal. So I decided to go out by myself the next night. Same tower. My wife came along for ground crew. After the jump we were on our way back to the car and my wife said to me "Those guys left a bunch of beer cans out buy the corner of the fence last night." So I asked her what she did with them. Then she told me that she just left them. So we turned around and went back and picked up around 6 beer cans some cigarette butts and a lighter. I finally came to the decision that something must be done. It is difficult though when you have been a part of what has been going on, to go talk with the group and tell them what is going on is wrong. I felt as though if I were to approch the group they would look at me the same way we looked at the old fart at the DZ. So I came up with my own scheme. You have to remember that our group is small. And I knew there were a couple of ways this could play out. I told one of the guys that I sold my gear when I haven't. It didn't take long for it to circulate. The way I looked at it was either they would believe it and they wouldn't jump much... because most of the group isn't super modivated. Or it would come out sooner than later and we would all set down as a group and discuss whats going on. My plan for this senerio is that the group will see how strongly I feel about this topic and give what I have to say a chance. Well I have a hard time lying to my friends so they were suspicious. Any way the jumper that I originally told about selling my gear also has some of the same feelings that I do about the situation. So after a week I let him in on the secret. He was pissed at me for involving him in the lie but understood why I was doing it. So to answer the PM i just got from a member of the group. Yes, I still jump. In fact 4 or 5 times in the last week and a half. Also I knew as soon as Jim saw the stash bag laying under the coat in the corner that my cover was blown. I spoke to the other jumper that was "in the know"and we are planning on setting down with everyone and expressing our concerns. So now everyone knows what a dick I am but Oh well. I hope to still be able to jump in the area for some time to come and it won't happen if things don't change. Like I said earlier our group is small and my actions wouldn't have impacted most base communities but I feel it probably will have stirred the pot to a nice simmer here. So flame away let me know what ya think. Maybe some input can help for our group meeting. Matt Matt Davies

sporto, try emailing me at kalamazoobase@yahoo.com I emailed you using blinc last time and maybe it had the wrong email for me. Thanks Matt Matt Davies

Sunday night I made a jump off an A. When I landed I scooped up my canopy and moved over the tree line so I wasn't out in the open. Then I started craming my canopy in the stash bag. As I was doing this I noticed something inside my canopy that felt very much like a spring loaded pilot chute. I was very concerned at this point so I started opening my canopy up to see what it was. Well apparently when I landed in the farmers field my canopy fell on top of a chunk of scrap barb wire and I scooped it right up into the canopy. Attached is a pic. Does anyone else have any stories about strange things found in canopys? Matt Matt Davies

Has anyone here had a chance to look at the 5th control line thread at basejump.org I was curious to see what people here thought of this discussion. Matt edit: Here's a link directly to the discussion in question. ~Tom Aiello Matt Davies

After reading about the Super BASE, I got to wondering.... How often do equipment makers take the opertunity to jump compeditors gear? It sounds like vertigo got the chance to do this. I just wonder if this is common. Maybe this is a stupid question I was just curious. Matt Davies

I happened to be watching a motocross show on tv today and at the end they had a little snippet about a knee brace/knee pad. I figured I would post the link incase anyone was interested. They seem a little costly but it may be useful to someone that needs a brace and would also like to wear a pad along with it. Im not sure if this is a common product on the market or not if it is then disregard. So here is the link. http://www.evs-mx.com/product_details.asp?ProductID=68&ProductSubcatID=19 I tried to post this to blinc just before I posted here but I dont know if it worked. If not I will try again later. Matt Matt Davies

You should be able to buy it off of blinc. Matt Davies

I was wondering if there are any concerns out there associated with jumping a pin rig and going hand held? I had heard someone make a statement about this in the past but cannot remember the concern. I would assume that you would have to watch how much tension you put on the bridal before exit so you don't extract a pin prior to exit. If there are some concerns how are people out there going about preping their bridle and pilot chute before a jump? I jump a velcro rig now and am looking into getting my first pin rig and I am wanting this info to think about before I get my rig. I would have posted this to blinc but I am having problems accessing the new address. It worked earlier today but not right now. Matt Matt Davies

A friend at work asked me this morning if I knew what brands are good paragliders. I told him that I didn't know anything about paragliding systems. Is there anyone here that knows about paragliding equip??? He will be checking this post so if you have any info or web sites it would be very appreciated. Matt Matt Davies

I understood your post and it also made me laugh... Seeing how he is probably the rigger also. Im sure the rigger would have records of it. Matt Matt Davies

I think that most jumpers have a plan when it comes to checking the wind directions before heading out to a site. I have run into the situation where the winds on the ground aren't moving at all. Then you climb up 100 feet and the winds are smoking right down the wires. The weather stations aren't going to tell you that. They only give winds on the ground. We have even called flight services and told them that we are going out to do some night flying and they can give you the winds aloft. I think they will give you winds on the ground then at 1000' and so on. Im not sure what altitudes they give. But it will help you see if the direction is shifting and how much it is increasing the higher you go. I like the balloon trick when your going out and you know it is questionable. It can certainly save you some valuable drinking time if the winds are bad. I also like to watch the smoke stacks on factories, on the way to a site. They are also helpful. Matt Matt Davies