Clownburner

Patience, young Jedi. When I got my first executive job I made sure to write in my contract that "I never have to wear a tie, ever, for any reason." The dork suit is just part of the hazing we inflict on those new to the business world. Good luck, BTW! 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

You work at Fry's? Man, and I liked you too. ..But I thought you were way too smart to work there. Don't they have an upper-limit IQ cutoff or something, or is that just my local branch? 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

I keep hearing "Real soon now" everytime I ask anyone. I'm thinking about the same thing and personally leaning towards the neptune, but first they have to ship them! 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Ok, first the disclaimer: I'm a 50-jump wonder. I'm repeating what I was told, in hopes of soliciting the opinons of those wiser than I. --- I was talking with a rigger the other day and noticed he had an unusual way of routing the bridle for his pilot chute, and I was wondering if this was a good idea or not. Forgive the lame drawing please. His claim was that in some circumstances, the first example (conventional) could hang the bridle up on the flap or gromet, causing the pin to not be pulled. He said he had a CReW friend who had this happen, and that this 'new' bridle routing prevented that from happening. It kind of made sense to me but I'm not experienced enough to know; and this particular rigger has the word 'crazy' in his nickname, so I thought I'd check with the peanut gallery before changing the way I pack. Thanks all... 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Well, I think they charge people for it because they want to make a living doing it. It's well worth it just to not have to worry about drying off your own gear, isn't it? 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

At my DZ they do the same thing; some people don't have their leg straps fully tightened but _nobody_ gets on without all the straps being closed... And personally I wouldn't chance my leg straps being loose if there was a 2000' emergency exit. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

I've got water training scheduled at Perris on 6/21 with Jim Wallace; if anyone else needs it, we can get it for $20 per person... Post if you're planning on being there. It'll probably be in the afternoon but you'd need to be there in the AM to sign up.. But you get to jump all day anyway.

I've got water training scheduled at Perris on 6/21 with Jim Wallace; if anyone else needs it, we can get it for $20 per person... Post if you're planning on being there. It'll probably be in the afternoon but you'd need to be there in the AM to sign up.. But you get to jump all day anyway.

This is actually not too hard; it's the sort of thing I do for a living. Your cable modem company probably doesn't allow servers to be hosted and when your bandwidth spiked they caught it and capped you. You need to call them and find out if you can get the cap removed or if you're hosed; if you're hosed you might as well give up on being a mirror. I can easily assist in setting this up; Round-robin requests can be set up with DNS; and the mirror servers can be set to sync with something like RSYNC to keep all the files the same everywhere. First thing is we need to get a list of who'll be running the mirrors and how much bandwidth they have so we can set it up in a sensible way. Another option would be to just start putting the skydiving movies on a peer-to-peer system. If we had a few people who were willing to 'host' permanent servers, the movies would stay accessible and the load could be shared that way pretty well. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

OTOH, bill booth also recently started selling rigs with the skyhook rsl system, and i don't think he'd do that if he thought rsl's were a bad idea. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Don't sweat it - almost everybody spins at least once during AFF, if you've stopped spinning you're already over the biggest hump! congratulations, and stick with it! 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

I think it is. I attempted a sit-fly in my RW suit and spun like a top. B2 told me that was in no-small-part due to the RW suit (but my RW suit is baggy because I'm a big boy, and that may also be a factor.) 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

I've used quite a bit of this stuff in other (non-skydiving) applications. It works really well, but it is a LOT stronger than velcro in holding strength. I'm not sure I'd want it on something that had to come apart fast like a reserve handle. It's also pretty hard to pull apart laterally - in a direction other than straight off, it holds on for dear life. The downside of using it with regular 'loop' velcro is it seems to wear out the loop side really fast. But for some applications - in small amounts - it might work well. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Yes, I firmly believe that God created the sea urchin with 4-inch spikes on the outside so you wouldn't get one in your mouth even by ACCIDENT. If we were meant to eat sea urchins they would have been miracled into our stomach so we wouldn't have to taste them. I'm with you - Uni and Nato are pretty sick, just about everything else is very nice. Although I'm not a huge fan of sea cucumber either - I think they taste exactly like you would expect a giant slug to taste like. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Unagi is good. Saba is probably my favorite but I have to give shouts out to Hamachi, Toro, and mirugai as well... Wow, this thread makes me want to go out to sushi. I really ought to be jumping with that money instead!! 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

You and me both. My rig is supposed to complete final factory inspection Monday.. Unfortunately, the shipping and packing means I probably won't have it until week after next, but I still can't wait! CrazyIvan, what kind of rig did you end up ordering? 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

The digitude 'pro' does 10s of feet: Not useful in freefall but might be under canopy. I jump a standard digitude and I do occasionally wonder about the difference between 210 and 280 feet. But I'm getting better at judging it by eye. The new Neptune also does 10s of feet in 'canopy' mode. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

If it passes inspection and looks well done, I don't think it'd be an issue. Patches happen - I bought a canopy in really nice shape and on my second landing it got snagged on a weed or something and some of the stitching pulled out and had to be resewn. :-( But it's no biggie. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Here's the link to that packing method for PC's. Seems like it couldn't hurt to try! This is how I've packed my PC for a while now (since I read the article). 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

0:2:0 Snuck out of work on Friday to get in a couple jumps, to keep up with my Canopy control and accuracy. Getting much closer to the target now, and the landings were be-ooo-ti-full. None on Sat or Sun, sucks I missed the 'Bridge the gap' event at Elsinore but I don't have my container yet and their gear store always has the only rig that fits me rented out anyway. So i went rock climbing instead. High hopes for next weekend though! 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Yes, if it's loud enough, even short exposures will damage your hearing. The best rule of thumb is that if it bothers you, wear earplugs. Here is a chart of the OSHA exposure limits and some common examples. I have some tinnitus and hearing loss in my right ear from being too close to a firing 105mm howitzer in the army; (Don't ask, they didn't know I was there, and I didn't know they were firing). Now my hearing is very sensitive (and I'm worried about further loss!). I wear earplugs religiously on the ride up; I usually remove them just before exit, figuring the short exposure (and the Mindwarp I wear) offer some protection. It doesn't bother me. The few times I've forgotten them for the plane ride I've discovered the noise to be quite irritating - and the dytter '1000-ft-warning' is downright painful if I forget to take off my helmet a few seconds early. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

1. I've never jumped a pull-out. I can't say I don't like them though, but: I was trained on throw-out, and this is a good example of why I probably won't convert to pull-out. It's the devil you know; and with modern systems, good equipment maint and a well-packed pilot chute, I think the the throw-out is probably as safe as the pull-out. 2. Resale value of pull-outs is low because the throw-out is much more popular (at the moment, anyway). I think it was Bill Booth that said 90% of the rigs they sell are BOC. Notably, I did opt for a PUD handle on my BOC; it seemed like a better option because it didn't move around at all during freefall, whereas hackeys seem to bounce around a bit. It probably doesn't make much difference really, but it's all about perceptions anyway. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Out here in California, they charge an extra buck for 'big' chutes, usually over 190 or 200, at least at Perris and Elsinore this seems to be the norm. I don't care, if I'm too lazy to pack my chute the extra dollar doesn't bug me. And I usually tip, especially if the packer was fast or the openings sweet. I have a 'usual' packer at Elsinore and I try to take care of him when the opportunity presents itself. Lately I've been packing my own more though, which as I get faster will probably continue to be the trend. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

Wow, using that logic I can almost justify taking a little philosophical sabbatical myself! Thanks, SB! Now I just have to convince my partners to let me leave... Normally I take a week off and they're waiting for me with shackles, torches and pitchforks. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth

..And probably close to 800 more jumps, since that sounds like the way some people live on a DZ. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth