DrewEckhardt

While popular, the King James translation is incorrect. In the original Hebrew, the verb is "ratsach" which specifically means "to murder". Self defense and executing criminals are fine.

I wouldn't conclude that the bomb was a dud or that the Koreans were the worst ever. A pocket radio won't play as loud as your home stereo but you can take it anywhere. A nuke yielding only tens or hundreds of tons may only have the explosive power of a semi trailer packed with TNT but can be made the size of a basketball. Sometimes bigger isn't better. Take the US Davy Crocket nuclear bazooka projectile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29 51 pound warhead measuring 11 inches in diameter at its widest and 31 inches long 10-20 ton yield (McVeigh's Ryder truck was good for a 2 ton yield) instantly lethal within a 1000 foot circle, probably lethal within a half mile diameter What could these do in DC, New York, LA, etc? What would the strategic value be if they're allegedly already deployed in those locations?

Depends on the canopy, wing loading, and specifics of the speed inducing maneuver. All combinations will eventually return to their trim speed and glide path for the given wing load and steady state control input. Before that happens - Canopy + load + turn combinations producing a neutral recovery arc will level out completely (Stiletto). You can let them swoop for a while and then start adding input. If this happens somewhat above ground level you'll get a noticeable surge as they return to trim speed and potentially have a bad landing. - Those with a so-called negative recovery arc will achieve a shallower descent at higher than trim speed. You'll need some toggle or rear riser input if you don't want to hit the ground hard (Samurai, FX, etc). Being a bit high isn't going to have any noticeable negative effect; this makes such designs more user friendly. - Those with a positive recovery arc will gain altitude. If this happens your brake lines have probably shrunken too much.

Sunrise Rigging (Wings) and Jump Shack (Racer) will build you containers for any combination of main + reserve you want but won't promise that they'll look pretty. Depends on what DZ conditions you limit yourself too (A 5000' field elevation on a hot summer day requires a canopy two sizes bigger to have the same speed and descent rate you have at standard sea level conditions) and how you define safe.

2 Reflex R335s 1 Javelin J7

PD requires their reserves to be sent in for a factory inspection & permeability testing after 25 uses or 40 repacks.

Hogwash. Provided that you avoid desert environments and don't pack in the sun, ZP canopies last thousands of jumps regardless of wing loading. Trim problems (worse flare, erratic openings, built-in turns) from shrinking Spectra lines are more noticeable at higher wing loadings, although steering line replacement every 250 jumps and a complete reline at 500 is just maintenance. You don't consider a car worn out when it needs new brake pads. Most skydivers want something newer (changing from a 10 year old Sabre to a newer canopy of the same size will get you much nicer openings) and/or smaller long before they wear out a canopy. 0-3 CFM (F111) canopies do wear out with the resulting decreases in flare power more objectionable at higher wing loadings; although that's not really relevant to the modern parachutists where the material is only appropriate for reserves (where you aren't going to make more than a few jumps), BASE (where .7 is a nice wing loading), and classic accuracy (with similar loading).

The issue is that when adults physically bully other adults, they get charged and convicted of assault and battery. If they do so verbally at work they get fired for creating a hostile work environment. A lot of child bullies are ignored, and most of those actually punished suffer the minor inconvience of school detention. Adult victims who don't want to wait for their bullies to face those consequences can legally respond to force with force; up to and including deadly force in some states. Child victims end up with the same detention penalties as their attackers. Adult victims are free to change where they work. Chlid victims are mostly stuck where they work. I'm not surprised that a few children snap.

Yes. IIRC, it came in an envelope marked "do not bend" which the post office bent to fit my mailbox.

The gear has limits beyond which it is illegal to jump. Few people will risk being sued if you hurt yourself jumping gear beyond those limits. Although you sign a waiver, they still have to pay lawyers if you sue, and the right to sue for gross negligence cannot be waived. Most older gear is certified under Technical Standard Order (TSO) C23B for a maximum suspended weight of 254 pounds. 254 pounds - 30 pounds of gear = 224 pounds maximum user weight. Some newer gear is certified to higher weights (I have two harness/containers certified to 275 pounds, and a few companies offer gear good for 300 pounds). Tandem rigs have been adapted for single students. Look harder and you'll find a dropzone which such equipment and is willing to accomodate you although you may have to travel if you live in an area where the student business is not lucrative enough to justify purchasing newer gear.

Depends on what sort of savings you have, how hard it is to get an appropriate job in your field, how good your credit is and what your financial discipline is like. You need to be able to suppot yourself if you loose your job. I like 6 months of living expenses; other people recommend 3; this probably depends on where you are in your career. If you're in a senior position in your field, and accepting a more available junior position could mean a five digit pay cut you might want to accomodate a longer period of unemployment. Provided that you have a comfortable unemployment slush fund: Good credit, good discipline: Do a 0% balance transfer for 6 months on an existing credit card and stop using that card for any other purposes (notice the fine print on the balance transfer that says balance payments go towards the low interest rate first). Setup automatic minimum payments. Put the money in a high-yield on-line savings account paying at least 5.25%. Pay it off when the low rate runs out. Good credit, bad discipline: Do the same thing, but put the money in a 6 month CD currently paying at least 5.25% so you can't spend it. If you can't get a better rate from an on-line bank than the credit card company is charging pay it off.

That's not going to be appropriate until the original poster has about 300 jumps: (175 pounds + 25 pounds of gear) / 150 = 1.3 pounds/square foot; you get .1 per 100 jumps. With a typical $25/jump rental fee, he'll have spent $7500 in gear rental before he gets there.

I did that the last time I quit. Took a couple months to get work and a couple more to get paid as a contractor being paid net-60.

Stay. I jump for my own enjoyment. That means I want 1. People to jump with. 2. Enough turbine aircraft to handle the load. I don't want to wait 2 hours to get to altitude after everybody has packed and dirt dived. 3. Geographic proximity. I don't want to spend 4 hours of my day going to and from the DZ, unless total transit time is less than I'd have spent waiting at another DZ.

Skipping the 1.14 children, single family house, and different car every 3-4 years that goes with the average American life style gives you a LOT of lattitude in what you do for fun. It's a matter of priorities. You can trade a good satellite or cable package for a jump a week; driving a nice newer car for an older one and 8+ jumps a week; house for a condo and 15+ a week. Time quickly becomes the limit. Or if you're still in the stage of life between being a student and having a career; sharing a larger space with a few people instead of having your own one bedroom apartment can get you 4 or 5 jumps a week.

Everyone has their personal limit (mine used to be 40 degrees on the ground) so finding people to jump with gets harder even if you are willing to bear the cold. You also have to wear gloves (I don't like that) and perhaps full face helmets (I didn't mind too much at 40 degrees on the ground). There isn't an average. I tool four weekends in a row - level 1 one weekend, level 2 the next because that's all the capacity my home DZ had. Did level 3 the next saturday and 4-6 on Sunday when I travelled to a larger facility on a business trip. Came back and finished level 7. Depends on who there is to jump with (after enough jumps, most people find that skydiving by themselves isn't much fun), lift capacity (you won't make many jumps if you need to wait 3 hours to get on a load), and how skydiving ranks compared to other things in your life (I like spending time with my family and on other hobbies). I find about 3-4 a weekend to be a comfortable number at a turbine DZ. Did 10 in one day at a boogie and that was almost work. Just one or two isn't really worth the drive.

The newer Corvette's will get 20-24mpg even with the big V-8.

We got a king size Tempurpedic Deluxe after I herniated a disc. It's very supportive (if I don't sleep on a firm bed, my @#$%^ back hurts), there are no pressure points (most firm beds aren't comfortable), and my wife and I can move arround without waking eachother up. Feels a little like sleeping on wet sand, and it's firmer if the room is cold when you go to bed.

There should be no drinking age for children dining & drinking with their parents. European children raised in that environment seem to be a lot more responsible in their alcohol use than Americans. 16 as the age to drink beer and wine without parental supervision would be consistent with when we allow American children to engage in activities that put other people at risk - notably driving and sex. 16 for beer and wine alone, 18 for hard liquor was the rule when I was last in Germany where it seemed to work. And the driving age should be raised to 18. Give kids a chance to learn responsible drinking BEFORE they become drivers.

I bought a Turbo Z 205 (ZP topskin but otherwise not too different from a PD 9 cell) for my first canopy, wing loading probably somewhere between .85 and .95. On jump 13, I downsized to it directly from Sky Master 295s which were my DZs only rental gear. I started flaring like I did under the student canopy, it leveled out, I didn't know what to do, and promptly crashed. My favorite instructor told me I had to start flaring, wait, and then finish flaring. That worked a lot better. Every other modern ZP or half-ZP canopy I've jumped has done the same thing. As long as you don't have a tail wind and haven't overloaded your canopy too much, reasonable technique will let you stop it in a step or two. When my beer belly was bigger and I lived in Colorado, I tried a Samurai 105 loaded at 1.9 pounds per square foot with a density altitude beyond 8000' and no wind. While the speed was a too much for me, it still stopped within a step. You could go a lot smaller at sea level or with a cross-braced canopy before you needed to run or slide. People instinctually run when their feet are on the ground, and they stop flying their canopy once they're running so they need to keep moving. I sometimes do that when I get rusty; although it's definately not the preferred way to land. Flying the canopy until it stops supporting your weight before you put your feet down will land you slower. Finishing your flare a bit more abruptly just before that happens can completely stop you but might pop you up a bit. Sinking a little in the surf so that your feet would be below ground level will mean finishing that way at ground level for the slowest, softest landing possible.

1. My wife. 2. Cremation. I don't want people wasting money on a nice coffin which gets seen for a day and then rots in the ground. 3. Yes. Enough to pay off the mortgage and cover about 4 years worth of other living expenses. 4. Nope. Some day I'll get arround to a will that covers what happens if my wife and I die simultaneously.

Last season I broke my pro-track so I didn't know how many jumps I made, herniated L5-S1 in a horrible sneezing accident, didn't jump any for months, and slowly eased back into things. This season I relocated for work and slacked off for four months. Last weekend, I was jumping at close to my normal rate with 4 jumps on Sunday, but they tell me that it gets cloudy here in the Pacific Northwest. Last normal year I have records for was 2003 in which I made 168 skydives and 30 BASE jumps.

Might be a reasonable way to meet intelligent people who are neither co-workers nor relatives with whom you can engage in wordplay and discussion that would be one-sided and mutually boring with most people of average intelligence.

I love mine - they're as comfy as pajamas but provide more useful drag for tracking or going head-down. I'm wearing them in my avatar picture.

I paid $700 for the last used container + reserve I bought (Javelin + Raven) in 2005. Not the best, but definately air worthy. Newer jumpers could find a suitable canopy (Sabre, Monarch, or maybe a South African tapered design) for a similar price. The last used main I sold went for $350 (Batwing). Not the best, but definately air worthy. $250 should buy a Cypres with a year of legal life left. While you can't do anything about the $20-$23 lift tickets to altitude, you can get into a rig for a lot less than $5000.