DrewEckhardt

Group life provided by your employer is likely to be least expensive. All of the policies I've had excluded suicide in the first cople years; every one I remember had an exclusion for terrorism and war; one or two have had general aviation exclusions while acting as pilot in command; and none have had parachuting exclusions.

Toronto Blue Jays Ok, how about the "two countries series" :P 27% of major league players are imported from from Latin America which covers a lot of countries. The most American thing about baseball is the capitalism, with the players and teams going where the money is. America likes baseball and has enough money to provide most of $6,600,000,000 in revenues for Major League Baseball over 2009 in spite of the recession.

It's propaganda man. Corner gunshops don't sell "grenades, plastic explosives, as well as anti-tank weapons outfitted with self-propelling rockets" Just legalize drugs and remove the profit motive for the turf wars.

I stopped getting pin checks when I noticed that on video I only had an open main flap after receiving pin checks.

Unlikely. R200 and R300 were made for 97 mains and 260/360 cubic inch reserves respectively. R100 sized for a reserve smaller than 120 square feet and main no bigger than a 97 would be consistent. riggermick designed and built them and should have the definitive answer Size chart here [URL] http://web.archive.org/web/20050307150002/http://www.tridenthc.com/ReflexSizes.htm [/URL]

My first used container fit fine. If you try it on before you buy, you can guarantee that it fits. If you take your height in inches, subtract your inseam, and subtract 20 you end up with a main lift web length. If that matches the rig and it's previous owner had similar girth it should fit. Given your measurements and a serial number, you can ask the manufacturer whether it will fit and get a good answer. More jumps and tunnel time will do more for your jumping than more money on gear rentals and depreciation on the first rig. Obviously, if you can't get a used container in your size it may be more reasonable to get a new one than to have a new harness put on an old one.

A beer fits nicely in the outside pocket on one of my freefly suits.

Since you can generally go two sizes smaller while still having decent closing loop tension, that container should be good through a 150. Using the accepted 1.0 + .1 / 100 jump wing loading rule, you may be ready for a 135 at 400 jumps. So you might expect to replace that rig after 400 jumps which is 2-3 years for many recreational skydivers. With a new container your AAD and reserve won't come with a package discount so you'll spend more. You'll also be paying for gear rental for a few months more. I could have thrown my first container + reserve in the trash after a couple months and still come out ahead financially.

Yes. Even once your landings are dialed in you still need to worry about things on airplane floors which were built for cargo and not passengers. Dark colors get hot in the sun. White gets dirty.

Read Brian Germain's downsizing document http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf He has more jumps than your instructors, designs parachutes, and travels around the world teaching people how to fly them. He probably knows a lot more than your instructors. If your instructors tell you that there's some reason you should jump a larger parachute than Brian recommends (baby steps getting to what you buy, you have physical problems with landing, etc) listen to them. Otherwise, take Brian's advice. Your instructors aren't the ones who'll be staying in the hospital if their advice was wrong. Unless you've been landing out lots, landing down wind often, and making frequent low turns to avoid unseen obstacles at the last second your coach has no idea what sort of canopy pilot you are. If you have been doing that a lot in only 30 jumps, you have bad judgement and shouldn't be skydiving. Landing into the wind in a wide open grassy field is easy, even with very small parachutes. You're sizing your parachute for a low turn to avoid unseen power lines to a down-wind landing on asphalt on the sunset load where cute chicks flash the pilot for extra altitude, some one in your group gets hypoxic and gets their foot caught on the seatbelt so you take forever to climb out, you have a long spot, and land out where you don't see the power lines until the last second due to the low light. Things seem to happen much faster, you may not stay flat enough in the turn to avoid a painful impact, and you won't get away with running out a landing where you didn't flare all the way.

While we're at it, we should ban every one following an Abrahamic religion from public office. Christians are responsible for atrocities like the Crusades, Inquisition, and child rapes this century (even in America). Jews bulldoze Arab settlements and travel abroad to assassinate people. OTOH, why stop there? Hindu terrorists are a problem in India. Maybe only atheists should hold office.

For 5-7 miles just ride a bicycle. You'll be healthier, more alert at work, and have more money left in your pockets.

2/3 of illegal immigrants pay federal taxes including Medicare and Social security. They're ineligible for Medicare, Social Security, and nearly all means-tested government programs including food-stamps, Medicaid, and housing assistance (We can thank model conservative Bill Clinton for signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996). In other words, those guys pay for the rest of us. With the average income tax rates negative for the first two quintiles and the low earning half of the country providing only 3% of our income tax revenues we're not missing much from the rest.

It's only legal when you have a prescription. www.banoxycontin.com Nope. I know people with chronic pain where the only cure is suicide and opiates a stopgap that their families prefer. All opiates should remain legal with a prescription, and the DA should back off on doctors prescribing them to pain patients that can't get relief other ways.

You'll need to find a practical woman if you don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a big ring and bigger production, like an engineer. My wife and I had a guerilla wedding. We rented a limo, drove ourselves + nuclear families + my best friend to our favorite romantic spot down town, added two floral arrangements to frame the event for photographs, and married ourselves (in Colorado, the parties to the marriage can do that) with all the guests signing the marriage certificate. Within fifteen minutes we moved everyone to our favorite French bistro for the pleasant gourmet meal of their choosing. Afterward, we continued the reception back at home with all the cake (a carrot cake and chocolate cake instead of boring white frosted "wedding" cake), ice cream (Ben and Jerry's), and micro-brewed beer as our guests cared to consume. It was lovely, took little effort to plan, and we spent a _lot_ more on the honeymoon.

I deduct every single jump I make and depreciate every bit of my $50k worth of gear every year on my taxes. So long as you can show at least one 1099 from income earned in an instructor capacity, then it's all valid. I also write off the cost of my teamroom, jumpsuit laundering and mending, and all repacks (reserve and main), plus CYPRES maintenance. PIA symposium travel expenses, etc as well. I have been doing this though my tax professional for years. I'm not an accountant either but will point out that the IRS does not like people who claim their hobby is a business and that receiving a 1099 is not what makes the difference. The IRS especially does not like people who claim their hobby as a business loss against other income. To be more pedantic, while business expenses come off the top on Schedule C hobby expenses are a miscellaneous deduction (you get them only if you're itemizing, and only to the extent that they exceed 2% of your gross income). If you're working full time as a DZ bum with no other form of support you should be fine. Profit in 3 of 5 years suggests a business. Otherwise I'd talk to a CPA about my specifics.

You're going to be spending a hundred hours a week with your wife until one of you dies (if that doesn't seem likely you shouldn't get married to her). She should be your priority. If your grandmother and mother don't behave around your significant other after you've put your foot down, they can be a much smaller part of your life until they come around.

No. Black people kill much more often than white people and statistics suggest higher sexual assault rates too. The 2000 Census reports that 69.13% of us are white and 12.06% of us are black. The 2008 Uniform Crime Reports show 32.8% of murderers to be white, 36.5% to be black, 1.7% other, and 29.0% unknown. If all of the unknowns were white, black people would be committing murders at 3.2X the white rate. If the unknowns are uniformly distributed the black rate is 6.4X the white rate. The 2007 National Crime and Victimization Survey table on single-offender victimizations by type of crime and perceived race of offender shows whites responsible for 63.0% of sexual assaults, blacks 15.5%, and unknown 14.7%. If the unknowns follow the same distribution, the black sexual assault rate is 1.4X the white rate. While I don't think people are any different, the statistics show substantially higher black crime rates in America. I'd blame radical differences in aggregate demographics involving wealth, employment, and family structure since such problems correlate to economic disparity and don't exist (the Seattle/Vancouver comparison is interesting) where the black minority is doing better than average. Until people admit what's going on and do something constructive it's not going to get appreciably better. Education is cheaper than prison. Mass media is a powerful force in shaping behavior (perhaps dropping out could be made uncool in the same way that smoking has). Programs like the Explorer Scouting get kids interested in careers. I don't have better suggestions.

So 1 in 115 SEC employees watched porn at work. That's not a big deal.

With inflation generally running 3-5% a year any smaller raise is usually a pay cut because the cost of food, housing, transportation, and health care increased faster. This year is an anomaly due to deflation which makes 2% less bad.

It's a limit on contributions and eventual benefits not a break. Social Security contributions are limited to $13243.20 the same way that 401k contributions are $16,500 at age 49 and below and $22,000 for the 50+ crowd.

Depends what other people are getting. If that's what the company is doing for good employees in this poor economy I'd take it. In general salaries are decreasing, companies don't need to pay more to retain employees, and something in that environment is better than nothing. If other people who accomplish less and work fewer hours got a bigger percentage I'd be ticked.

143 You'll be happier if you are incapacitated and/or landing out. Once the rig fits into an airline-legal carry on it's small enough; and when you have a long torso a longer rig puts the pilot chute in a better location. I have a Samurai 105 main loaded around 1.9 pounds per square foot and PDR143 at 1.4.

In Illinois, the data show that white teenagers are slightly more likely to be involved with drugs than black, yet the black ones are some 19 times more likely to be locked up in the juvenile justice system when caught, while the white ones get probation or community service. Blacks are more likely to have prior arrests for non drug violations than whites and less likely to be in a two-parent home that can supervise their probation. There's always an apologist. Like the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Census Bureau? The 2000 Census reports that 69.13% of us are white and 12.06% of us are black. The 2007 National Crime and Victimization Survey statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show perceived offender race for a variety of crimes. Violence: 58.8% white, 22.0% black Robbery: 31.1% white, 47.8% black Assault: 60.9% white, 20.3% black. Blacks are over-represented as criminals compared to their population. Household and Family Characteristics: March 1994 from the Census Bureau reports that 65% of African American family groups with children present had one parent, compared to 25% among whites. Blacks are less likely to have two parents at home. Those facts are black and white and it's not a big stretch to suggest they influence sentencing.

In the high forties at the World Freefall Convention at Quincy, IL. One year I did ten in a day, packing for myself in the 90+ degree heat. That was enough.