skybytch

After taking Molly last year, we decided it was a better idea to find a puppy sitter and let her have a vacation from us this year. I love her dearly but having her there really got in the way of my drinking.

Ummm... then why'd you buy it? Seems smarter to me to buy a reserve that you're confident you can land safely in a worst case scenario. Whatcha gonna do when you have to cut away and then maybe need to land that reserve in someone's backyard cuz the spot really sucked? The manufacturer recommends that a novice not weigh more than 150 pounds out the door on a PD176R (here is PD's maximum weight chart). Despite what many "instructors" and "gear salespeople" seem to think, I think it's way smarter to listen to the people who build 'em when it comes to sizing. Don't wait until you get more experience. For all you know, you're gonna need that reserve on your next skydive. But don't jump a smaller main. PD has reserves set up as mains that they will send out for demo. Highly recommend that you get one and put a few jumps on it. ASAP. The sooner you get confident with your ability to land what's on your back, the better. It's also far better to discover that what you have is too small for your current ability/confidence level jumping it as a main in good conditions than to discover that on your first reserve ride - being alive and unbroken makes buying a larger one much easier.

It's 4:20 somewhere. Happy b-day asshole!

Question for AFF and S/L instructors... Let's say you jump with a student, Cat. B or above, who does better than average in freefall but has issues flying and/or landing the canopy (ie flaring way too high, not flying a pattern, landing on a road, etc). Assume that if they are still on radios, they couldn't hear/understand the directions. Would you pass them on to the next category/jump? If you did, would you give them additional canopy control training prior to their next jump? If you did both and the canopy control/landing was equally bad on the next skydive, would you continue to pass them?

Are you bringing the salad that you didn't bring on Wednesday?

The correct answer to this question is different for every jumper and could be different on every jump. How many times have you practiced flaring with rears up high on the canopy you currently fly? How good was the spot? How many jumps have you already done that day (ie are you fresh or getting tired)? Personally, if this happened on my next skydive I'd chop it and pull my reserve. I haven't practiced flaring with rears enough yet to be confident that I'd walk away from the landing and I've only put 3 jumps on a new-to-me, one size smaller canopy. YMMV. I think that as long as the decision you make results in a safe landing, you made the right decision.

I guess I missed the day this was covered on the junior high school playground...

So a male would be stupid and the female would be a slut. Nice.

What would you have called the flight attendant if it'd been a male?

It's been almost 12 years since you left us, Kev. I still think about you every time I geek a camera.

Good luck. The "Blocking Together" and "Freefalling Together" books are damn near collector's items now.

Hope it helps you get lots of shiny pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them. Congrats!!

Very sweet!!! Congrats!!

Same here. One difference though - those pilot chutes were built of F111, not zp. To the OP - you might try contacting Precision and see what they say.

I can understand drilling EP's, but doing a tandem? Okay, maybe if you were a few years uncurrent, but March was only four months ago and it's not like you only have 25 jumps. Seems like a waste of money that might be better spent on a pile of jump tickets. But you go on now...

Know how to pack yet?

Which is part of why I think the movies suck. Would've been better to have one director's "vision" throughout the series, imho. Make the midnight trip. You can sleep when you're dead. I plan to be finished with the book by the time the store opens again on Saturday. On a different HP note, anybody heard any "Wizard Rock"? Went and saw "Harry and the Potters" play at a library a couple weeks ago; what a hoot!

I thought the first four movies sucked, so I'll wait for someone I know to buy it on DVD so I can borrow it from them. 232 hours to Deathly Hallows! Now that is exciting.

Too easy.

The fact that I won't jump at LP until there's credible evidence of a wind direction pretty much assures that I'm already ineligible for "Almost Sober Loads."

And on some enduros as well. I'm 5'8" and am tippy-toe on a Suzuki DRZ400. I'm not at all comfortable with that idea; it doesn't seem real safe.

Sweet! Would you prefer that in a bottle or out of a growler?

You really gonna be there this year?

Like any of us would make it to sunset anyway... C'mon. It'd be fun to give shit to the people who give in to temptation before you do.

How many more sleeps? I'd like to issue a challenge, but those of you who don't drink aren't included. For my fellow drunks who attend LP primarily because the beer is warm, do ya think you could go 24 consecutive hours there without any form of intoxicant? If so, care to prove it? I'm thinking noon 'til noon - actually I was thinking midnight to midnight but that'd be too easy. We can't do it on brewery demo night or fire tower night or cross country night cuz that just wouldn't be right, but any other night that most people will be there would work. Think how much fun we could have - a bunch of us being sober and laughing at the silly drunks. Imagine how good we'll feel the next day after a good nights sleep and no hangover. And just think how good that first (warm) Lang will taste when it's over.