DrewEckhardt

El Mariachi is a fine film. Desperado is a different sort of film with more overt humor, and is also fine. I've watched both in the last two weeks (off the same double-sided DVD). Once Upon A Time in Mexico was outright bad and not worth the $3.50 Block Buster charges to rent it.

While they both use parachutes modern sport skydiving and BASE jumping are _very_ different sports. Swoop accuracy is a high-speed game about getting to about the same place in the pattern above 1000 feet, stretching and rounding off your approach however you want, fitting your final turn into where you are in all three dimensions relative to your target, and killing your speed in the right place. Brake input doesn't change your glide angle much in no-wind conditions. High forward speeds make winds less critical. Doing this at your home dropzone means you have hundreds or thousands of jumps in the same place and are familiar enough with the environment that you can accurately judge your position from thousands of feet up. You only need to be consistent to end up where you want. No obstacles within hundreds of feet makes for a very low-stress environment. BASE accuracy is a low-speed game. You start where ever you opened at a low altitude (below 200 feet on a static line and at most 1000 feet on a big wall when you're a whimp like me). With a .7 wing loading you have little drive and the winds are a big deal. The shape of your pattern is often very constrained by obstacles (you can't stretch out a base-leg bounded by cliff on both sides). Your biggest asset is being able to come nearly straight down . You have few jumps off the same object . While the landing area might be a lot bigger than a pea pit it can have obstacles on all four sides (trees on three sides and a drop-off on the other) and bad outs (one of the times I was stupid my best choice was a 15x15x10' boulder). It's been years since I couldn't consistantly land one of my skydiving ellipticals in a familiar environment (location and winds) within a few inches of where I want width-wise and a few feet length-wise. My BASE accuracy in low-stress open environments was still a lot better than pea-pit sized. That wasn't enough for me to avoid over-shooting a much larger landing area and crashing into a tree. A thousand skydives or more give you some equipment knowledge, some skill in adjusting to winds, the ability to spot where you'll land with no control input, and some tracking ability for terminal jumps. They don't help you to judge what you don't know and do give you a false sense of confidence. Four years and a hundred jumps after starting BASE jumping I know less than shortly after starting and respect it a lot more.

Cold and tiring. On the sit-fly jumps I made from that altitude my arms felt like they were going to fall off.

Skydiving would be an uninteresting sport without swooping.

You need a floating barrel. You need a match trigger. I use an Armalite 2-stage match trigger which is not adjustable except by stoning due to the Milazzo-Krieger patent. The "mil-spec" part from Colt and Bushmaster is fine for 18" wide targets but not for a 2 MOA 10-ring or smaller soda can. You don't need to worry about stainless vs. chromoly - a nice stainless barrel will last 10,000 rounds. Better barrels have a finer finish inside so they're easier to clean. The 20" barrel is nice if you have iron sights. It also nets you a significant range increase for social purposes - M193 fragments reliably at 135 yards vs. 105 for the 16", M855 125 vs. 90. Get extra extractor springs - they only last 1500 rounds. Firing pin retaining pins and ejector springs are a good idea too. Shipping on those will cost more than the parts themselves.

A flat top with a flip-up rear sight is a better choice if you want magnified optics with reasonable ergonomics and backup metalic sights. Fixed handle, no compensator, float tube hidden under stock-appearing hand guards.

1. Molson, Bud Weiser, Corona, Heiniken, Fosters, Sam Adams, and New Castle are so devoid of flavor they shouldn't be considered beer. 2. Nearly all German imports are watery lagers not ales. Their one redeeming virtue is that you can sit in a Biergarten and drink liter after liter. 3. Flat tire is an innocous microbrew for Bud drinkers. Even Boulder Beer's Singletrack tastes better. 4. Guiness is also fairly plain. Try Barney Flats for a real stout. One of my favorite beers is named after me: Arrogant Bastard Ale, 7.2% alcohol by volume. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of that quality and depth. http://www.arrogantbastard.com

And a 150 pound man can reach a BAC of .05 with two beers (not pints, not tasty beers like IPAs with more alchohol). That's sufficient for a DWAI "driving while ability imparied" in Colorado.

Define "medium range target shooting" Soda cans at 200 yards? Service rifle? Match rifle? 3-gun? 2 MOA or .5 MOA? How you answer will change the sort of gun you want and perhaps who you buy it from.

Hire a lawyer and drive slower for a year within the state borders. 25+ over in Colorado is a misdemeanor not an infraction. In theory you could go to jail for it. 20-39 over over is also a 6 point offense. You loose your license after accumulating 12 points in one year. For tickets written as under 24 over I go to court and plea bargain. Towns that are only interested in revenue generation can accept pleas for things like "obstructed rear window" (0 points, no insurance implications) or "defective vehicle". Just mailing in the ticket with a check in your home state is stupid. A lawyer probably can't do any better on the plea and the consequences aren't too bad so I don't bother with one - my time isn't worth more than the lawyer's ($200/hour).

No elliptical parachute is going to come down with no plane-out and few nine-cell squares do (my TZ205 loaded under 1 pound/square foot didn't, the 295 Skymaster and 288 Manta I jumped as a student did). Some traditional seven cells at low wing loadings (I like .75 pounds/square foot) will sink straight in; some don't really do it from full-flight (Dagger 244, .7 pounds/square foot) but do stop quickly. You can choose how fast it will be going by wing loading. Lower wing loadings will give you slower flight. You can determine speed with your approach. Landing from braked flight will have less forward speed. This makes the flare more critical and is easier at low wing loadings, although it is doable (Samurai @ 1.7, sea level, half brakes). You can choose how fast it's going when it stops flying through canopy selection. Canopies which swoop well produce more lift at low speeds and will be going slower at the end. The Stiletto worked a lot better than the Sabre; more modern designs like the Samurai and Crossfire work better than the Stiletto. Canopies which don't swoop well don't stop well - my Monarch 135 doesn't really shut-down. And you can control the speed of your touchdown with technique - sink some and pop back up at the end. Modern ellipticals will set you down with a few steps even at higher (Samurai @ 1.9) wing loadings and extreme density altitudes (9-10,000 feet) with the right technique. You can't change physics.

I might consider a 1:15 commute in each direction in exchange for a 5.5 hour work day with full pay. Otherwise there's just not enough time in the day. I get up at 8, do morning things, take 20 minutes to bike to work, get there about 9:45, work until 6:45 or so with a break between for lunch, ride home for 20 minutes, eat for an hour, go to bed at 12. That's 4 hours for chores and relaxation. A commute like that would knock off 60% of my free time and be hell on my relationship. At my last startup having that sort of commute would have meant both sleeping at the office four days a week and getting less done. My car insurance would be outrageous - when I'm stewing in the commuter traffic I drive somewhat aggresively, rarely make it to the office without skidding a few times, and am pretty much pissed by the time I get there (rather than being relaxed from the ride). The time and mental health hits just wouldn't be worth it. Not commuting probably costs me about $12K in salary although the trade-off is more than worthwhile.

I hope you don't. A Turbo Z (ZX with ZP only on the top skin) was my first canopy. The Turbo ZX is a ZP square not too different from an original Sabre, not very responsive to control input, it doesn't lose much altitude in turning manuevers, and the openings are very tolerant of inattention . I own a Samurai 105. The Samurai is a high performance elliptical. It's sensitive to control input, dumps altitude in turns, and is somewhat likely to spin up if you don't pay enough attention on opening. Making the huge planform change and shrinking two sizes at the same time is a bad and potentially lethal idea. That ignores the original poster's weight which could make things much worse. He has a big 220 square foot reserve. Assuming that was sized for a 1.0 wing loading as is common for a first rig he's likely to be 220 - 240 pounds out the door for a wing loading of 1.6 - 1.8. At that wing loading you can go faster on plane-out than the Cessna 172 landing on the runway next to you. At that wing loading parachutes grow sharp, pointy teeth. If that's accurate and the original poster bought a 136 I'd bet money on at least a broken femur in the first year. This assumes the post isn't a troll.

I wanted a rig to stick a large parachute in for accuracy. No responses to "WANTED" ads until they ran out (60 days?) . The first time I did a manual search and found two useful ads; second time turned up four of which one is now on a UPS truck. An ad couldn't hurt, although you probably get better results from something easier to match like "protrack" and not 190 pounds/5'10, need rig with 210 main/reserve. Rigs are especially bad - a lot of ads don't include container (should that fit fit a 135 or 230?) or harness sizes (I wear a harness about six inches longer than a small woman). A few include serial numbers which you can reference with the manufacturer - this is a lot better.

Carry one on in a bag (airline legal maximum - it fits in the tubular cage) and check the other. With just one carry it. Loosing both would _completely_ ruin my vacation and waiting through some manufacturer's backlog would be a royal PITA afterwards. This assumes that my home owner's insurance would cover it.

Signature Series is da bomb...... brian builds them himself, and they have a couple nifty features. The signature series also has no warning label.

Bush 43's non-defense budget increases beyond inflation exceed Carter's, Reagan's, Bush 41's, and Clintons. The economy is currently sub-optimal. Mix that with the "war on terror" and we have a big budget problem. EPA programs fall into the non-defense discretionary category which are easier to cut. But this doesn't do anything significant. EVERYTHING in that category is just 18% of the budget. You could knock all $430,000,000,000 out of the budget and still have a twelve digit deficit including smoke and mirrors which make it look smaller than it really is (military excursions not in the budget, social security "surpluses" that gets borrowed, etc). Currently the environmental cuts are just single digit billions for 2005. With the big picture that's financially insignificant.

When it gets sent back for a reline. Steering line shrinkage is obvious - they get replaced when that happens. With the brake lines fixed opening issues, new minor built in terms, or changes in flare suggest it's time for a reline. I look at the connector link ends and connector links/S-links/slider bumpers a lot more often. I do a thorough job on my reserves every pack job, BASE canopies maybe every 10 jumps (I should probably start logging that). You know - hang it up; inspect every seam, bar tack, finger trap, line; crawl inside each half cell (I never downsized my reserves beyond a PD143, coouldn't do this on a main).

Are you suggesting they lost their jobs due to their illness? Yup. They could also be on unpaid leave. The article implies that the bankruptcies came from the co-payments but doesn't state that explicitly. "About half cited medical causes," for their bankruptcies. "among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness." We know that the average direct medical expenses were about $12K but don't know what their other expenses were at the time or how their income changed. The article says nothing about total credit, debt, or assets.

How can someone be considered middle class and file bancruptcy over a debt of $11,854? Something doesn't add up. They could be out of work at the same time.

My favorite honey thinks I should skydive into our wedding (10 years + 10 days since my first jump; 100 weeks from when we went from being friends to a couple - we like the numerology of it all).

No problem, you'll just need to fly or drive to a free country.

I tried an FX 104 arround that wing loading. While it did a fine job staying in a dive, it wasn't as responsive and fun to fly as conventional 9-cells the same size.

I spent $1500 on mine. It covered a bad differential gasket ($150) and tie rod ends (maybe $250). The airbag which failed wasn't covered ($500), electrical not covered (a new cruise control switch was $400 including labor), etc. Waste of money. Failure rate curves are usually bathtub shaped. There are lots of early failures when you find manufacturing defects, which are covered under the factory warranty (my Triumph engine rebuild). Failures increase with age after the factory and extended warranties have expired. Not much happens in the couple of years following the factory warranty.

It's easy: move in before property values skyrocket. Here in Colorado if I bought now instead of five years ago I'd have spent 90% more (nearly double) for the same property or 130% more for a new one nearby. Or gotten a two-bedroom condo instead of a two-story town home. Or buy less home. I have a town home not a house. It's much more fun than driving into town or having a $450K mortage. Or bet on an ARM loan and your ability to convert to a higher interest fixed rate loan or to move to some other property. Or get an interest only loan and bet on making more money in the future. Or make "great money." $200K total is very reasonable for a pair of professionals a decade plus into their careers. The lenders will let them spend $4.5K/month on housing nearly all of which is untaxed. That leaves nearly $120K before state and federal taxes after they've each maxed out their 401K. Or move in with equity from someplace else. If nothing else this eliminates PMI which is about equal to a 1% drop in the financing rate (a 5% loan with PMI is about like a 6% loan without). The best case is coming from someplace with higher property values - you can take $500K in equity from your $700K four bedroom house in California that you owe $200K on and pay cash for a $500K loan in Colorado. Etc.