DrewEckhardt

Like WHAT? While I'm almost never bored at home or on vacation most office buildings have no cliffs to jump off, your favorite honey isn't with you to make whoopie, there's no gourmet chef on staff, people would look at you funny if you brought in your power tools and started building something..... Reading dropzone.com, looking for a better job, and firing up the iPod aren't as bad as unthinking crap work but don't move beyond "boredom".

The instinctive response to pull when you see ground rush is _very_ strong. Seeing the walls go by on every side I pulled early on my first jump into the cave of the swallows, where it's close to 150 feet in diameter.

Provided that the reserve containers opened and pilot chutes deployed that's not a problem. Your want your freebag in the container until the pilot chute reaches the end of its bridle with sufficient drag for clean reserve canopy extraction. This minimizes the chance for entanglements during deployment (which may not be in a stable belly-to-earth position). http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=774928;search_string=reserve%20;#774928 The things I take away from that scenario are that 1) Checking for a trailing pilot chute is a good idea if you've dumped low with a Cypres 2) Canopy transfers may not be possible Not having a deployed pilot chute following a Cypres fire is a _big_ problem. Do we have actual eye-witness accounts indicating which of these scenarios is the case?

A person with whom you resonate feeding off each others energy and both being more alive; share the deepest unconditional love far beyond what you thought was possible; have complete understanding; and a deep spiritual connection. Statistics suggest there should be more than one soul mate for each of us at any point in time, although such a connection is rare enough to be effectively unique.

I cut a few at a time, stopping when my cat gets anoyed.

I'll be there again.

If we elect John Kerry, Teresa doesn't become vice president, doesn't take over if he dies, and isn't even entitled to a political nomination. She's a separate person so what she says is irrelevant when it comes to the election. OTOH, it's nice to see a first lady with realistic priorities and a sense of humor.

Which is a lot less than they'd make working for private industry as vice presidents, lawyers, etc. If you're worried about paying them personally, the house salaries are only .004% of the budget.

Brian Germain's simple never-exceed formula of 1.0+.1/100 jumps was updated in his book to include size (- .2 for small canopies - I don't recall if the number is 135 or 150 square feet) and density altitude (-.1 / 2000 feet).

Does Coors sell real beer from local companies like Avery, Left Hand, New Belgium, and Oasis?

Affordable housing is available in Colorado as long as you're willing to compromise on dwelling type+size. I used to rent in Boulder for $300/month, although that meant a room in a house instead of my own apartment. Five years ago I bought a town-home for what I could have a detached single family home elsewhere in Colorado. Now the trade-off is closer to a two-bedroom condominum here versus a house someplace less popular. That gets you within walking or biking distance to dozens of great restraunts/bars, hiking trails, climbing, and kayaking. There are a few local music festivals and theatrical companies. Not much independant cinema. 12 miles to the nearest turbine DZ (100 miles to the second closest), 25 miles to the nearest ski area, and 60-90 miles to areas on the continental divide. I think it's worthwhile (have been here 13 years and haven't visited any place I'd rather live), other people really dislike Boulder (there's a lot of money, some attitude, and ethnic diversity isn't too visible). I don't like Denver (too far from outdoor activity although the food is fine) and consider most other towns suburban hell. Skiing season passes are now _very_ affordable ($300); so traffic to the ski areas is a little out of hand and the snow gets skiied off fast. The last few years I've done more snowboarding in other countries than Colorado. We have turbine dropzones and you can jump year round (I don't jump below 40 degrees and haven't missed a month in the last 9 years). There are probably 5 days when I don't want to commute by bicycle. l The level of talent isn't what you get in Eloy or California. There's some competitive formation skydiving. Opinions vary as to the management/prevailing attitude at the nearest DZs.

A sufficiently curved jump-run in a plane with a low tail can also lead to tail-strikes.

Which incidents of using armed forces against the general population are you refering to? (Preferably within the last 20 years) The Branch Davidians, Waco TX, 1993 Donald Scott, Ventura County CA, 1992 The Weaver family, Ruby Ridge ID, 1992

There's little performance difference between ZP brand new F111. I think moderately loaded (1.2 - 1.6 pounds/square foot) F111 PD reserves land better than the same sized ZP Lightnings. The problem is longevity. While a ZP canopy with in-trim lines retains its performance until it fails (after thousands of jumps when packed inside and not jumped in a dusty environment), after a few hundred jumps F111 canopies don't have the same flare (A PD reserve must be inspected for porosity after 25 uses or 40 pack jobs). With a slower parachute (< 1.0 pounds/square foot) that can still be comfortable although I wouldn't do it higher. Would you pay $1500 for a parchute that was only good for a few hundred jumps, making your cost $5-$6 a jump instead of the $1/jump depreciation on a ZP main?

When our governments use armed force against their citizens, the veterans, hunters, etc. don't do anything about it because of the media spin: that the embattled citizens are some form of undesireable (drug dealers, child molesters, etc.) The media spin is there because "the media" is big business. Reporting early on sordid stories nets viewers, readers, and advertising dollars. To be early the media needs to accept government press releases (aka "leaks from trusted sources") without much fact checking.

Landing at the lowest possible speed is not necessary to get a comfortable and graceful standup landing even at moderate wing loadings and/or high density altitudes so people don't have to learn. With your feet on the ground running is the instinctive thing to do. It also takes a counter-intuitive sink and altitude gain just prior to touch down. If I don't think consciously about that I stay at ground level until the end which means running or sliding to a stop. With enough tail wind you're going to run. With a high enough wing loading for a specific canopy you're going to run. Otherwise it's all technique: 1) Fly the canopy until it stops. When you're going to land in the pea pit (it's a soft place to screw up) try picking up your feet and maintaining altitude when you think you're ready to land. You'll probably be surprised at how much farther you go and slower you stop. You might stall although that won't be uncomfortable with the soft ground close by. 2) Increase the drag and lift and the end. A quick end to the flare will slow you down a lot and lift you up. Sinking a bit (lifting your legs for clearance) before that will mean you don't get as far off the ground - you can pretty much step up to the landing. With density altitudes up to 9000 feet MSL this technique allows landing with at most a couple steps under squares loaded up to 1.5 pounds/square foot, Stilettos at 1.7, and Samurais at 1.9.

Even if those citizens are allegedly child molesters, white supremacists, cop killers, and/or terrorists? Exciting press releases from the government are ratings-raising front-page news items. Retractions earn fewer Nielsen points than cute animals at the local zoo giving birth and end up much farther back in printed media.

If you're not landing down-wind and aren't overloading the canopy you don't have to run. Many people stop flying the canopy before it's done producing lift. Your control lines may also be too long to get a full stall - I needed a wrap arround my first two fingers to get my PD143R to stall the last time I used it. You can also sink a bit in the surf and pop back up to ground level at the end for a much slower stall speed.

Unfortunately the government will also have tanks and helicopter gunships and A10s and artillery and mortars and RPGs... Which aren't effective against guerillas operating amongst a civillian population, and should also be legal to own provided that you're a free person with the capital to acquire them.

1. The ban affects _semi-automatic_ guns with detachable magazines and two or more features that are mostly cosmetic. My post-ban Armalite M15 (AR15/neutered M16) with pinned+welded muzzle brake is perfectly legal, although one with a bayonet lug or stamped AR15 on the receiver would not be unless it was made before the ban (and therefore carry a ~$500 price premium) My FAL has a brake welded on in place of the stock flash hider/grenade adapter so it's perfectly legal. People want the ban gone for practical (My AR15 cannot be made legal for high-power rifle competitions because of the pinned+welded muzzle appliance and I can't put a collapsing stock on it that would let us adjust the fit for my petite fiancee ) and philosophical reasons. 2. To be pedantic automatic weapons manufactured before 1986 are legal for civillian ownership. $10,000 + a $200 transfer tax will buy you a registered receiver M16 conversion, twice that gets you a factory Colt M16. Exactly one such legally owned machinegun has been used in a crime (An Ohio police officer murdered a drug dealer he was exorting). 3. To resist a tyranical government which also has automatic weapons.

1. Allow carry-on firearms 2. Stop making new terrorists by messing arround in sovereign countries like Iraq.

If our government cared about human rights in the rest of the world we'd have stopped the Rwandan genocide (800,000 deaths) in 1994. We also wouldn't have ignored Sadam when he gassed the Kurds in 1988. The truth is that we don't care about human rights violations unless we need an acceptable excuse for military action with other positive side effects.

You probably won't get the most valid answers from that question, since you can't switch more than once a year or two without paying early termination fees and it usually doesn't suck that bad. Better is "Which ones suck" and "Which services have you used" (multiple choice). # sucked / # who used = suckage factor. The lowest suckage stinks least. My Sprint phone doesn't work in Moab. Works in Eloy, Fort Dodge, and Twin Falls. Usually works in the Colorado front range (except when it drops calls). I've never managed to complete a roaming call.

Short boring reports on different subjects beat the same boring crap for months at a time 8 hours a day.

I've demoed all my skydiving mains prior to buying except the first one (anything would beat paying $25 per jump under a 295). I demoed the last reserve I bought (I didn't care when I bought my first rig, and didn't know any better when I bought my Tempo). Demoed the second BASE canopy I bought (The first was used, since I wanted something and figured I could sell it for what I paid if it was too scary). Container comfort is mostly a function of harness sizing - you can't demo that. I'd buy anything that came in the container sizes I wanted with the right features.