skybytch

Two possible reasons - Right or wrong, being around skydiving pretty much means being around alcohol. He may know that he isn't able to be around alcohol without drinking it. Skydiving can be addictive. It's possible he doesn't want to replace one addiction with another.

#1. You are not a wimp. #2. I know that you believe that God won't give you more than you can handle. He's given you a lot but he's also given you the tools to deal with it. #3. Don't forget that at least some of us think you are a pretty incredible person for making it through what you already have. I have no doubt that you will continue to prove that through whatever comes next. #4. You are NOT a wimp.

3....2....1..... Recycle Bin!

Stereotype - : something conforming to a fixed or general pattern; especially : an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group. ("stereotype." Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Inc. 01 Oct. 2007. .) Please let me know where I said that all bicyclists are inconsiderate.

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know.

Not around here. I live in a VERY bike friendly community. What gets me about both the stop sign thing and the riding in a pack thing is it's generally not the commuters, families or students who do it. It's the guys in head to toe spandex with sponsors and club names all over them. They should be a good example. Not a bad one.

Not saying that you or anyone else here does this but. Is that the excuse for riding two or three abreast and refusing to return to single file when a car approaches from behind? Or for running stop signs because you know you can make it? Happens all the time around here, despite the fact that both are illegal in this state. Instead you ride in the street and let cars play slalom with you at 55+ mph. Share the road goes both ways. If there's a bike path available, bicyclists should use it. If it's not suitable for their training purposes they should complain to whoever built/maintains it. If cyclists have to be on the street they should ride as far to the side as possible, single file. In exchange, when cyclists are riding on a street that does not have a separate bike path I'll wait for oncoming traffic to go by before I pull all the way into the other lane to pass them, just as I do when passing a car. Seems fair to me...

This is actually yesterday's peeve. People who won't STFU when somebody else is talking. Especially when it's someone we're supposed to be listening to/learning from. Some of us go to school so we can learn something...

Perris. Around 100, IIRC.

I wasn't old enough to participate but I got a shirt due to where I worked at the time. I love the artwork on the front and wanted to use it as inspiration for the tattoo I'm going to get on my 20th skybirthday. Unfortunately, my shirt has disappeared. Anybody got one? I'd love to have a scan of the artwork on the front if you do.

Has nothing to do with geekiness or time in sport. Has everything to do with people who don't know wtf they are talking about giving advice (I can say this because I've been one of those people ).

Interesting. I'm ADD and not currently on medication. I was diagnosed at age 30; at that point I had about 500 jumps. I was on Ritalin for the first year or so after being diagnosed and did not like jumping on it at all. I think it says something that the FAA won't give a medical to anyone who is on Ritalin. Adrenalin focuses me far better than meds do.

Thanks for all the info, guys! Non-pond swoops, non-swoop experienced jumper landings, candid people shots and all the things that "normal" people use a camera for. Will not be used in freefall - my neck won't allow that. Has anybody seen/used the new Nikon D40x? Comments? At $799 for body and lens it's a bit above my budget but the one review I saw made it sound like it'd be worth it.

Check out this thread. A few things that caught my attention - the deceased was reported to be athletic, had "fast reflexes," had done at least a few fixed object jumps and had told another jumper prior to this jump that he hadn't done a w/s jump in about a year. He was reported to be a current jumper though, with 18-ish jumps in the past few weeks. Every incident has a chain of events attached to it. Break the chain prior to impact and you're likely to survive. Ignore the links in the chain as they are developing and you either a) get lucky or b) get injured or dead. This is not my opinion; in all areas of aviation this is a fact. I see several links here that could have prevented this incident had they been noticed/acted upon but I'll only mention one here - the fact that established minimum recommendations for that discipline were not followed (USPA has the same recommendations as most w/s manufacturers in the SIM, don't know about other country's organizations). I don't agree with this, but many people claim that some people are so exceptional that they can ignore minimum experience recommendations and do whatever they'd like. From what people who knew him posted, the deceased could have been considered one of those exceptional individuals. Obviously somebody thought he was because somebody sold/lent him a suit and somebody gave him w/s instruction despite the fact that he had less than half the number of jumps recommended for a first time w/s jump (not assigning blame here, we all make our own choices, although if that somebody had been me I wouldn't have slept real good last night). We see the same thing when novice jumpers are told they are so good that they will be "just fine" on canopies/loadings that the canopy manufacturer recommends not be jumped by novices. In light of this incident, is the idea that some people are exceptional enough to ignore minimum recommendations a good one? If you've ever encouraged someone to ignore minimum recommendations (i.e. told them they would be "just fine"), will knowing about this incident change what you do/say in the future? Is ignoring minimum recommendations for yourself or for someone else because you/they are "exceptional" a form of complacency?

Enjoy that while it lasts. Eventually both teams will have played the same # of games.

That's what Mom's are for. I was going to have mine do a quilt with a bunch of my shirts. Unfortunately the majority of them ended up getting tossed when I was in FL.

Would you have been equally successful if you'd had to land off the dropzone due to a bad spot or an aircraft emergency? How about if someone cut you off on final? How about if you'd had to land downwind for some reason? Most people who go thousands of jumps without injury do so because they dress for the crash. Not for the cruise.

Probably the PAC (the link in the post above this one). You can jump one at Skydance (Davis CA), Raeford, Deland, Skydive Tahoe and I think SkyKnights in Michigan (and probably some other dz's that I'm not remembering right now). It's my favorite airplane - the climb rate of a King Air with a better door.

Voodoo lives in a hangar at Davis, Ca. Just down the taxiway from the dropzone. I'd bet there's some sort of connection there. I was wishing I was rich when he was offering jumpers rides in it during the American Boogie a couple years ago...

Hey, me too! It's a mighty big bottle. I may need some help.

There's such a thing as too much sex?

Three years isn't that long but it feels like a lifetime ago. It really was just stuff. Thank you again to all who were there for me when I really needed you. It's because of you that today I can honestly say that life is good.

Reading stuff like this makes me even happier that my major is history.

You're mistaken. The Pilot is not a copy of the Hornet. Yes it has a short recovery arc (as does the Sabre2) but no it doesn't have fast openings. I know several camera fliers who love their Pilots. Partly for the slow openings and partly because they think it's a fun canopy to fly. Not if the person doesn't like the way 7 cells fly and land.

Would it be safe to start shooting without AF at 50 photos if I take a camera control class?