NoShitThereIWas

Oooops? Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

I am a J- totally agree but aren't most of them true??? Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

It wouldn't let me play. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

LMAO, poor guy. Where did you find that??? That was pretty funny. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Where do I click? I tried to refresh the page and nothing happened. Hell yeah I wanna win a free Mirage!!! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Don't go more than 30 days between jumps until you get your A license. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

I think the whole DZ politics thing just sucks. I like to jump at many DZs as often as possible and even when I lived in Hawaii where there were 3 DZs all on the same landing area I made a point of being friends with all the jumpers because it really does not matter WHERE you jump just THAT you jump. I work at a DZ in Northern California and of course show a certain amount of loyalty to them but I hate when skydivers take the politics so seriously that they treat people who jump at other DZs like their personal rivals. It is really lame and childish and worse yet when they bash other people for jumping at different drop zones. Its like grow up. It reminds me of the out of control testosterone ridden football or hockey fanatic who picks a fist fight with another person just because they are wearing the shirt or jersey of a different team who happen to be competing with their team in the game. They way I see our sport and life in general is that everyone may not be my favorite person but I would still feel a loss if any of them died or got killed. Because our sport always can pose that risk I like to think of fellow jumpers as brothers and sisters who share the love no matter where they skydive. It is a shame when people discriminate against others because of DZ politics and it negates the comradery that makes our sport so special. Peace. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

7 FUN jumps total at the Blue Water Boogie. Winds were howlin' landings were tricky. Did a few really nice 8 ways with some great people from Perris, Vegas and Arizona, a super nice 19 way, a zoo dive 16 way, a 20 point 4 way, a 15 point 4 way and a hybrid where Chop Chop and I were a rodeo that orbited the base with another rodeo. Did a margarita sunset cruise on the Colorado river and met some really cool people. Looking forward to the Cinco de Mayo Boogie in Perris May 3-4. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

California City Skydiving, CA Air Adventures West, Taft CA Skydive Taft Skydive Hollister, CA Skydive Monterey Bay, CA Pacific International Skydiving, HI Skydive Hawaii, HI Skydive Chicago, IL Moss Point Mississippi, MI Parker, Arizona Blue Water Boogie Lodi, CA Davis, CA Been to but not jumped at: Skydive Sebastien, Z-Hills, Chicagoland Skydiving, Byron, Skydive Idaho, Air Tugie's (Hawaii) Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Thanks Lisa and Phreezone, sorry to replicate the thread! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Thanks guys for the good feedback on my earlier post. It sounds like demo-ing some canopies may be the hot ticket. I have never done that before, can anyone give me a tip on where to go to do that and the least expensive route to demo the most amount of canopies? Thanks and blue skies Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Thanks guys for the good feedback on my earlier post. It sounds like demo-ing some canopies may be the hot ticket. I have never done that before, can anyone give me a tip on where to go to do that and the least expensive route to demo the most amount of canopies? Thanks and blue skies Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Hey everyone, So I have a question for those who know a lot about canopies... I now fly a Spectre 150 and I weigh about 130 pounds maybe a little less. My exit weight is about 150 so I am 1:1 wingloading this canopy. This was my first canopy that I bought when I had 80 jumps. I now have almost 600 jumps so I put a little over 500 on it. After flying it at the Blue Water Boogie where the winds were high and feeling a bit like I have outgrown it, I am looking to downsize to a 135. I have tried flying a few different kinds of canopies and love my Spectre because the openings are so nice. I like consistency and soft openings because I also fly camera. I am a conservative canopy flyer, not a hot dog but I also want something with a little pizzazz. Eventually want to learn to swoop and all that but not for another 500 jumps or so. So my major question here is: if I get a bad spot and want to make it back to the landing area will I have a better chance of getting back with a nine cell as opposed to a 7 cell? The canopies I have liked the most are the Spectre, Stiletto and Sabre 2. But after flying my friends Stiletto I was like this is a fun canopy but I can see myself hurting myself under this thing. My strongest skydiving qualities are in freefall and although I am a consistent good lander, I have had enough off DZ landings, downwinders and close calls to be concerned about safety. Does anyone know the flight characteristics of 9 cells vs. 7 cells and/or have any canopy recommendations? I don't need anything too technical just a general this is what you can expect to get landing after landing. Thanks and blue skies! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Hey everyone, So I have a question for those who know a lot about canopies, I will probably also post this thread in the canopy and swooping section. I now fly a Spectre 150 and I weigh about 130 pounds maybe a little less. My exit weight is about 150 so I am 1:1 wingloading this canopy. This was my first canopy that I bought when I had 80 jumps. I now have almost 600 jumps so I put a little over 500 on it. After flying it at the Blue Water Boogie where the winds were high and feeling a bit like I have outgrown it, I am looking to downsize to a 135. I have tried flying a few different kinds of canopies and love my Spectre because the openings are so nice. I like consistency and soft openings because I also fly camera. I am a conservative canopy flyer, not a hot dog but I also want something with a little pizzazz. Eventually want to learn to swoop and all that but not for another 500 jumps or so. So my major question here is: if I get a bad spot and want to make it back to the landing area will I have a better chance of getting back with a nine cell as opposed to a 7 cell? The canopies I have liked the most are the Spectre, Stiletto and Sabre 2. But after flying my friends Stiletto I was like this is a fun canopy but I can see myself hurting myself under this thing. My strongest skydiving qualities are in freefall and although I am a consistent good lander, I have had enough off DZ landings, downwinders and close calls to be concerned about safety. Does anyone know the flight characteristics of 9 cells vs. 7 cells and/or have any canopy recommendations? I don't need anything too technical just a general this is what you can expect to get landing after landing. Thanks and blue skies! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Hey its Hollywood, what do you expect? I still loved the movie, especially all the formation skydiving that took place over the Washington D.C. restricted airspace. Whoever actually got to jump in those formations are some lucky ass people! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Skydiving is a self policing sport and I personally would like to see it stay that way. As skydivers we are lucky to have that freedom of being self policing but with that freedom comes responsibility. I have known many skydivers to have addictive personalities and a live on the edge mentality. Most of us are adrenaline junkies to some extent, otherwise why would we skydive? With that said I also know that this sport attracts all kinds of other addictive personalities as well, not to infer that everyone in this sport has one. It is just the nature of the beast. So being that we are self policing and many of us have addictive personalities how can we keep enough order to maintain our freedom and ultimately our safety? I don't think fun jumpers should be required to take a drug test to jump. I think if that regulation was set forth our sport would lose many jumpers. However I do think fun jumpers need to be aware of the risks involved with not only being under the influence of any drug while jumping but also the effects of sleep deprivation, injury and/or sickness on one's reaction time. I have seen video of a jumper having a malfunction where a one second delay in his response time would have made the difference between his life or death. I think this message drives my point home. However, those of us who are in a position of authority and ultimate responsibility (i.e. instructors/pilots/riggers/packers) for the safety of other people's lives are in a separate category. Once you cross over into that category there needs to be a standard of professionalism which must be maintained. Not only do WE set the example to other jumpers but we are ultimately now in the position to be responsible for the lives of others. When I became an instructor, I came to grips with "It is not just about me anymore." Some unsuspecting individual has now placed their life in your hands. USPA, your DZO, peers and the people who bestowed your rating upon you have given you their ultimate confidence in you as a professional and representative of USPA and our sport. They have put their names and business on the line and trust you to at least show up sober with all of your faculties to jump and be prepared for the unexpected. If any DZ wanted to insure that their instructors/pilots/riggers and packers are drug and alcohol free I support that 100%. If you hold one of the above positions and aren't comfortable with that policy perhaps you should not be in that position. As an AFF instructor I already know enough can go wrong quickly as it is, why would you want to compound the problem and put yourself or your student in an unsafe position? My views have become much more stringent after seeing a friend of mine die knowing that the toxicology reports would probably show drugs in his system. People are going to do what they will and I don't think drugs was the only reason this person died. But the situation may have had a different outcome if he was completely sober. Unfortunately we will never know now. After that happened I realized this is no game. It also caused a lot of bad publicity for that particular DZ's reputation as well as skydiving in general. I hope no one interprets this response as me promoting fun jumpers to be able to jump stoned and drunk because that is not what I am saying. But I also don't think they should be required to take a drug test and should have enough common sense to know the consequences of their actions. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Those were cute, thanks CrazyIvan Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

I love my ProTrack. It has 3 programmable warning altitudes: I set one for break off altitude or wake up altitude, one for it would be good to pull right about now and one for Oh Shit pull now or die. It has many nice features and acts as an electronic logbook and gives you all kinds of nifty information like how fast your average speeds were on each skydive. It has been very helpful to me to keep track of my skydives when I am too lazy to log and helped a lot when I went through my AFF course. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

I used to be a packer for a living and if I were to guesstimate I would say I have packed at least 9,000 or more pack jobs. So far (knock on wood) hehe I said wood I have not packed any mals. I would say that is a pretty decent average. On that note, everyone has preferences and opinions. Me personally, I hate tube stows AND small rubber bands. I always have and always will use the normal sized rubber bands. I always single stow the first two stows to prevent a baglock and double stow all the rest. My experience with small rubber bands especially on my own rig which has microlines, is that single stowing the lines causes them to fall out of the stows because the stows aren't tight enough and double stowing them scares me that they are too tight. I find the regular rubber bands have just the right amount of elasticity. Also as a helpful packing tip, to "save" the amount of rubber bands you go through, instead of pulling them through the grommets sideways where they are the weakest and most probable to wear down and break, pull them through the grommet on the flat thick side for more surface area. When I started packing I went through rubber bands quickly and now I rarely have to replace them Hope it helps, blue skies. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

I consider myself to be a modern woman in a modern world. I own and love my Digitude and wouldn't have any other. I find them to be extremely accurate and some even are accurate down to the tenth of a foot. They are very easy to read and interpret which is great for me while doing AFF. I don't like to spend time reading my altimeter when I can just glance at it for a split second and know exactly where I am. Personally, I don't care for face altimeters. When you need to know what time it is quickly do you like having to read the face of a clock to figure it out or see the numbers digitally? Yes they run on a single double A battery but I have never had it fail yet. Plus they light up which is a nice feature for night jumps. My opinion is ... You've got to have the Tude. They work great. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

ahem, I think you mispelled my name Chop Chop, that is Ms. NoShitThereIwas! JK Roy. Yep, put my name on the list, it looks as if I will be at the Blue Water Boogie too. And hey, if no one is there and jumping, we can just lay out and get a tan, it is supposed to be 91 degrees. Bars, gambling, waterslides, boats, sea doos and warm sunshine. Jen will be happy as a clam, see you there! Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Sometimes when I think of all the crazy stuff I've done coming out of an airplane I am sure I have many times prayed and hoped for the best. I can recall a couple of old skydiving buds Ron and Rob. When I was just a newbie those guys would come up with some scary stuff (now I wouldn't think it was so scary) but at the time ... I would be in the airplane like, ummm are you guys sure this is safe??? They would just tell me to shut up and jump. We used to have this one guy who would sit in the tail of the airplane and chant before every jump and I have often seen jumpers do the father son holy ghost chest cross before exiting. I used to be scared doing 10 way competitively when after one of my teammates was knocked unconscious by the door, turned back belly to Earth at 5 grand and pulled. Fear is a good thing and so far it has kept me safe. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

If it was me I'd go for the bike for sure Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Been there, tried that and I have 4 words of advice for you: BAD BAD ALL BAD Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."

Sending the luv and good vibes to a sista Miss Kris. Don't worry be happy! After all we are skydivers for crying out loud! Blue skies. Roy Bacon: "Elvises, light your fires." Sting: "Be yourself no matter what they say."