DrewEckhardt

Call PD, get a Sabre 190 demo sent out for a few weeks, and put a dozen jumps on it (preferably hop-and-pops opening at 4-5K). Used to cost $25 + shipping in both directions. Do everything on Bill von Novak's list. Then do the same thing with your Sabre 170.

Pro-pack. Skydiving mains: because it takes less space Skydiving reserves and BASE canopies: because the manufacturers say to and the distribution of bulk should be more uniform.

You've been in the sport for 11 jumps and your girlfriend has seen a couple of cutaways??? Wow...that would be 'cause for concern, for me anyway. Sounds a bit light for a busy DZ. With 300-500 jumps a day and an average interval between cutaways of 600-1000 jumps you an expect at least one a weekend during the summer at a medium sized DZ. OTOH, in over a decade I've only seen one non-fatal reserve malfunction (which may have been avoidable by using more modern gear)

Nor can you take it off private property. I can stick my unregistered motor vehicle on a trailer and tow it any place I want. I'd love guns to be treated like cars - no limits on performance, licesnsing for operation in public following a trivial practical and written test, and states' universal acceptance of each others licenses. Unlike pro-gun groups which take a more literal reading of the Constitution as the case is in Vermont and Alaska, the NRA supports such licensing.

It's fine for both, but perhaps less appropriate for cars which accidentally kill 40,000 people a year versus guns at arround 1,200 even though there are a lot more guns. They are. As long as you stay off public roads you don't need a license to operate a car.

credit cards are protected, unlike debit cards and cash. Federal law limits maximum liability for unauthorized debit card use to $50 if reported within two business days or $500 if not. Banks are free to provide better coverage; when some schmuck stole one of our card numbers Wells Fargo waived the charges (and presumably charged back the merchant). Federal law limits maximum liability for unauthorized credit card use to $50 period. Both have the potential to provide single-use account numbers which can't be stolen and reused by restaurant delivery order takers.

GM used the Quadrajet on passenger cars from 1965 through 1990, with later versions having closed loop mixture control. The 1990 Suburu Justy was also carbuerated.

Buy a used skydiving rig big enough for your BASE canopy and put a bunch of jumps on the combination. You'll learn how to fly and accurately land BASE canopies a lot faster when you have thousands of feet of canopy time instead of hundreds, your pack jobs take 6 minutes instead of 60, and you can catch a plane ride to altitude instead of hiking/climbing. Fly backwards, make deep brake accuracy approaches, and get used to landing at less than full flight. Skydiving with contemporary canopies teaches you to fly a consistent pattern and a bit about the effects of wind but otherwise does not translate to BASE jumping. Learning about the differences the hard way is not good. Start inspecting & repacking your own reserve with rigger training and supervision.

Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet Straight, No Chaser by Thelonius Monk

25 for guys. By that point you should have gained some maturity, judgement, and a career to support your skydiving habit. To generalize, with less testosterone and greater propensity to listen to instruction women are ready to skydive sooner.

Except that having porn at a different magical port makes it trivial to block using functionality built into most consumer-grade cable/DSL modems and broadband routers and allows ISPs to make no-porn the default behavior. It's a better idea than creating a new .xxx top-level domain.

They go off calendar years and start at 1 - I started on 10/10/2005, and will be in my 13th year of membership before 5/31/2007 when I renew. I'll update my years-in-sport after 10/10/2005 and number of jumps after I get my pro-track fixed and start counting again. I think I got my 10 year certificate from USPA after I'd actually been skydiving 10 years though.

Just like tobacco. I'm sure if one cig got you high for a few hours, millions would be growing tobacco in attics and closets. At $10 a pound for commercial rolling tobacco, there's no financial motivation to grow your own. OTOH if it ran $2000 pound people would have sodium lamps and hydroponic gardens...

You can work backwards from a tax bracket to income. Revealing that could be embarasing because of how big or small it is and how inconsistent that is with your lifestyle. Hypothetical identity thefts should prefer some one in the 33% bracket (over $195K for a married couple) over some one in the 15% bracket (no more than $64K). Once there are two of you privacy is a joint matter.

1. Containers, mains, and reserves really don't have a life time in years. Especially if they've spent time sitting in cool dry closets as some have - I didn't feel unsafe jumping a Paracommander from the sixties (but wouldn't want to jump one on a regular basis). Apart from a couple Mr. Bill jumps and a maybe 10 jumps while recovering from an injury I don't think I've jumped my Stiletto since 2003 or so. PD Reserves must be sent in for inspection after 40 pack jobs (or 25 uses, which a personal reserve will not have) although their life isn't necessarily over then. In theory that's 13 years with the US 120 day repack cycle, although some people don't jump in the off-season (20 years), and some people get their rig packed once a year (40 years). You need to actually count the slash marks on the label. 2. You neglect that prices drop as more modern gear becomes available. While canopies normaly depreciate at $1 a jump, you can find nearly new Sabres for $600-$700. Older reserve designs without span-wise reinforcing tapes should sell for less than newer ones. Containers with velcro should be worth less than those with tuck tabs. 3. Although $1/ a jump is a reasonable number for newer containers and mains, there's a stop to the depreciation which could be captured by a higher salvage value. With jumps remaining on the line set modern ZP canopies reach a bottom value of $400-$500. Needing a line set could knock a couple hundred off that. Modern containers from manufacturers that are still in business don't seem to drop below $350-400. 4. AADs are more complicated because the price must take into account time remaining on the batteries and inspection cycle. Generally, a Cypres-1 is considered to be worth $80 trade-in value + (Original price - $80 trade-in) - $85 * (battery-age / 2) - ($160 inspection + $40 shipping both ways) * (years-since-scheduled inspection / 4) But what do you use for original price? The dollar used to be stronger against the Deutsche Mark and Euro, so I paid $850-$900 for each of my cypresses in 1998 and 2000. People can claim that an original Cypres would sell for $1200 today but it costs $85 more every two years to maintain than a Cypres-2, or $510 over the 12-year life span so maybe we should start with the Cypres 2 price of $1300ish, subtract $510 from the added maintaencance costs, and end up with $800. Of course this still gets you a Cypres which isn't water proof (that's a $200 upgrade) so that might still be a little high. OTOH, the convienence of not having to come up with as much cash is worth it to some people for the higher over-all cost. The required inspection dates are based on the original date of manufacture. If you buy my Cypres made on 3/16/2001 that's been sitting in my closet for a few years without having its 4-year and you send it in for inspection tomorrow, it'll still be due for its 8-year on 3/16/2009. It'll cost about $200 for the inspection + shipping to get it legal for the next 2 years and half the cycle will be gone; so I'd need to knock $300 off the price to be fair. Original Cypres batteries are only good until the lesser of 2 years OR 500 jumps OR until an error code comes up. That may be an issue in a few cases. In the other direction a Cypres with more time remaining on the batteries than its remaining life isn't valued any differently than one with a full two years left on the batteries. Cypres 2s don't have the separate battery replacement to worry about. 5. Less popular gear sells for less regardless of original price. 6. Ugly gear is worth less. Neon, pink, and too many colors in total reduce the price. 7. Really new gear sells for less than just the depreciation numbers would indicate. Why take some one else's measurements and choice in colors when you can have your own? If you just want to avoid the long wait that some manufacturers have, you can find dealers that have bought slots in the future or buy from a manufacturers' stock of rigs that just need the harness finished to the customers' size. 8. Some gear sells for more due to supply and demand. Those of us with Samurais really like them and finding a used one priced close to $original - $1/jump might be hard.

Put a few hundred jumps more on your Katana 120, take some canopy control classes, and learn how to fly it.

Depends how you define "fairly fast" and "relatively softly." It's all relative and fairly subjective. My Monarch135 opens in less time and more firmly than a Spectre. About like a Sabre which I last jumped when that was the canopy for people who didn't want a Stiletto. I hadn't jumped it in a few years and was unpleasantly surprised. Physics just aren't going to allow a canopy to open as fast as a Monarch and as soft as a Spectre. I think it's about as hard and fast as my Fox 245 with a mesh slider or my Dagger 244 with a sail slider. PD143R and PD126R reserves open plenty quick but more progressively than those canopies. My Stiletto 120 and Samurai 105 also open in less time but more firmly than a Spectre. I can jump either all day comfortably and think that trade-off is reasonable. Brian's said that he thinks many canopies take too long to open, so I'd expect the same trade-off in the Lotus.

Cute but it does not really apply since the rich cannot opt out of paying taxes. The rich have an easier time opting out of taxes than the rest of us, who'd have to move elsewhere and renounce our US citizenship since America is unique in taxing people based on that rather than residency as other countries do. 509 people did this in 2006, some for tax reasons (Bush 43 retroactively increased taxes on ex-patriate citizens). People from Switzerland to Germany for that reason, and they'd leave America for elsewhere if the situation got too out of hand. With passive foreign income the wealthy can route those earnings to countries where they will be taxed more favorably, as the Rolling Stones have done with their royalty payments which are now taxed at 1.5% in the Neterlands instead of 40% in their British home. While the US will tax you personally regardless of where the money comes from, as a multi-national holding corporation Rich Guy, Inc. will only be taxed when their foreign profits are repatriated. Just like the drug companies that have their foreign patent revenues delivered to someplace other than the USA.

Lots. While arguably a big time sink, I spend more time working, watching movies, listening to music, and doing things other than skydiving. Plenty of room for other common ground. I don't want to hear much about my friends latest crocheting project or the color of their babies' poop and can safely assume that the ones who do not skydive don't have much interest in that; so I don't share unless asked. The same as I did before skydiving, although I spend more weekends at the dropzone. Marriage is similar in that regard although its a seven-days-a-week activity. 11+ years. Frequently until I moved out of state. That makes things really messy.

You got that right. We were all adults when we made the decision to risk our lives going to work. So we all knew what we were getting ourselves into. To be pedantic 10 USC 510 makes the minimum enlistment age 17 and even beyond 18 adulthood is a grey area. We don't trust people under 21 to make good decisions about alchol or work as commercial drivers across state lines. You can't be president until you're 35.

No as long as it's not an NFA weapon. Making a machine gun is no longer allowed for non-licensed individuals. Registration and payment of the $200 making tax (even if its an AOW which normally has a $5 transfer tax) is required for all other NFA arms.

RICO and the War On Some Drugs. That organized crime.... er drugs... are such a horrible threat to our way of life that abridgement of liberties is justified.

And the government. The coming universal sales tax (just .1% to start!) would be a _lot_ more enforceable in an environment where all transactions were electronic. People would even be paying the tax on their illegal drug purchases. Gold would be more stable than the US Dollar which is worth what the government makes it.

When we're snacking we're polite and offer my cat a taste so he doesn't feel left out, even when it's something he's not going to eat. We thought this would be the case with powdered sugar donuts although he dove right in like it was a piece of fish. Black cats eating white sugar donuts are funny. But you can't laugh at him. Willard does not like that.

Cessna 172s are easier to land than high performance parachutes, slower over the numbers at the end of the runway, and let you go arround if things aren't going well.