DrewEckhardt

Buy an edge tool which holds a piece of file at a 90 degree (or adjustable) angle. Especially if you ski or board early and late season where dings are likely. It'll keep your edges square and make things go faster.

No, but it makes a mess. Once you step on wax shavings they get stuck to the floor. Scraping out side will avoid the problem. If you're not racing you don't need temperature specific wax. Hertel Super Hot Sauce all temperature wax works well enough in nearly all conditions. You do need to wax frequently - you can notice a slight difference in flat spots on the second day and probably don't want to go more than three days without waxing. You can also look at the bottoms - when they get dry looking waxing should be in your near future.

Or jump in the winter. Out of the 11 years I skydived while living in Boulder, Colorado there were no months I didn't jump due to the weather in spite of being a wimp who won't jump when the ground temperatures are below 40 degrees. Boulder and Longmont get 300 days of sun a year, and the winter day time highs average over 40 with plenty of forays into the 50s and even 60s. Denver is about 25 miles from both. It's also a dry cold, where 40 feels like 50+ in wetter places like Washington State or California. While there's a lot of snow from big storms, the sun and high temperatures melt it fast and the low humidity means that some sublimates. It disappears fast.

Every lease I've signed had the parties 'jointly liable' for the total. The land lord can come after any or all of you (except perhaps the military guy) for the total.

Most skydivers neither jump alone nor join teams. You meet people who like the same sort of skydiving, figure out what sort of formations you're going to build, and just do it. Some people come from drop zones where the more experienced jumpers invite less experienced ones on jumps and help them progress as skydivers. Some drop zones provide load organizers that will take a group of people on a jump that's likely to go well. You'll probably have more fun at one of those sorts of dropzones. After you're proficient enough in your skydiving discipline of choice to jump with other people and successfully complete planned formations (could be 50 jumps for belly-to-earth, could be 1000 jumps for free fly unless you spend a lot of time in vertical wind tunnels) you talk to other skydivers until you find enough that have the same goals. Maybe you just want to jump with the same people a lot of the time and go to the local competitions. Maybe you want to be serious, make 500 team jumps a year, hire a coach to work with you, and go to training camps together.

The last time I started a business (LLC) it was less than $100 to the state of Colorado and $200 because I was feeling lazy to have my accountants file the documents opting to be taxed as an S-corp and that was a mistake. The last time I started a business I spent $200 on furniture and $1500 on computers. Things have goten real cheap now, with $400 computers that are fast enough and $150 network laser printers. The last new drop zone I went to ran out of a converted semi-trailer. The one before that actually put a mobile home on the air port. A canopy to cover manifest and mini-van for gear storage would have worked as well. As far as I know, every DZ I've been to paid the tandem masters by the load; with more money if they brought their own gear. Pilots payed $10 a load are not atypical. Nice DZOs throw in Lunch. At small DZs, the owner answers the phone. When he's up on a load he lets it go to an answering machine. A DZ requires a plane and pilot for some (few) hours a week. It takes instructor and equipment accommodations for students. While not free it's no a fraction of $300K/year. While it'll get you "some place close for your 4-way team to jump" or "let you do 360 degree hook turns into your back yard" it's not likely to be a real money maker.

Having confidence in the terminal opening speed when you change slider configurations to sail or small mesh from large mesh is a fine idea. Working down to 500 - 1000' wing suit deployments before you need to open that low seems like a fine idea to me. 2050' hop and pops comply with BSRs for 'C' and 'D' license holders. I have no clue what rules the Aussies have to follow.

Damn. Up to this point I regarded "Barton Fink" as their worst. I was hoping for better from "A Serious Man" (haven't seen it yet). While not excellent like _Raising Arizona_ or _The Big Labowski_, I thought Barton Fink was OK. _Intolerable Cruelty_ was getting iffy. _A Serious Man_ was worse than both of those. It didn't suck badly enough that I didn't care what happened to the characters although we did discuss leaving before the end of the movie. It might be more accessible if you grew up Jewish in the midwest. It's probably most meaningful when you're a director who wants to talk about your childhood and have carte blanche from the studios because of your recent Oscar.

1. _A Serious Man_ is the Coen Brother's worst film due to the painfully slow pacing. 2. The _No Country For Old Men_ ending was great. The whole prey/predator thing and a welcome departure from what you expect out of Holywood.

September 1, 2007. Last operation was October 15, 2009 to patch the hole

It depends on what sort of 1099 - 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-G, 1099-R, 1099-MISC, etc. 1099-INT and 1099-DIV will require a 1040 Schedule B if you made enough money (roughly over a thousand dollars). 1099-MISC will require a 1040 Schedule SE if you made enough money (roughly over a few hundred dollars). A Schedule C-EZ or Schedule C will probably go with that. You could also get with the program and use tax software which will tell you what forms you need.

I had over a hundred landings in a Cessna 172 before my flight instructor let me try it solo. Six tries lasting less than a minute total are a whole lot less. AFF or at least some form off AFF-like jump might help. It'll give the student a long time to relax and get used to freefall plus a little practice on exits. Time in a vertical wind tunnel might help. It'll give the student better practice falling straight down at a constant speed but not do anything for the exits. Regardless of the solution it's not yet time for the bowling speech.

If you're not confident, getting 5000 feet so you don't do something stupid is a fine idea for that jump. Then fix the problem as a survival skill for when the pilot tells you to get out low or you do something like take Mike Mullin's King Air to the cloud base for hop-and-pops (I think we got 2500 feet and put our goggles on before take off) If you're still jumping a bungee collapsible pilot chute you'll want to disconnect the bungee for the following exercises in case it is or has become mis-calibrated. Do stable clear and pulls at higher altitudes and once comfortable take the altitude down to an appropriate minimum for the situation (this may be 3050' for 10 hop and pops on a pass out of a big turbine so you can all make it back to the DZ, or 2050' for a C-license holder who gets to spot their own pass to do a little classic accuracy under a big square fast opening canopy). Do diving exits and non-belly-to-the-wind exits (I especially like exiting in a back track along the line of flight followed by a half barrel roll to deploy. A layout back flip is fun too) followed by deployment shortly afterwards. Then decrease the altitude.

None of you should have had problems getting stable within the 6+ (USPA 3000 foot minimum container opening altitude for students and A-license holders) to 10 (USPA 2500' minimum container opening for B-license holders) seconds available.

Interesting. This is something I have never heard from anyone who is pro gun restrictions. Indeed they do not like the laws, but they work through the system to change the laws using the legitimate tactics. It is typically gun owners writing things like "you will only get my guns after I'm shot dead", basically saying that they consider it fine to disobey the laws they don't like, and they are going to decide for themselves which laws to obey. So much for "law-abiding gun owners" Survival is more important than obeying any law which does not deprive another person of their human rights, and any deaths resulting from self defense are the attacker's fault. Over seventy million people have paid for their lives through purges by corrupt governments which followed the enactment of gun control laws. Twenty million in the Soviet Union, twenty million in Germany and Nazi occupied Europe, thirty to forty-five million in China.

No, because we have a fiat money system in which the US government makes more money at a higher rate than our population grows. In January 1988 M2 was 2863.2 billion dollars and M3 3719.9 billion dollars. In January 2008 M2 was 7529.1 billion dollars. The Federal Reserve's last reported M3 was 10276.1 billion dollars in February 2006. Other people have etimated that M3 had reached 14000 billion dollars by February 2008. In those 20 years M2 is 2.62 times what it was. In 18 years M3 reached 2.76 times its former value and may now be 3.76 times it. If I were less cynical I might believe the explanation that "M3 is not relevant" instead of thinking the government was trying to hide how they were devaluing the dollar. Official inflation numbers are that one 1988 dollar equals $1.80 in 2008. Adjusting M2 increase for inflation is 1.51X and M3 1.53X to 2.08X. Population growth was from an estimated 244,498,982 in 1988 to 303,824,640 in 2008 meaning in those 20 years our count got multiplied by 1.24. Ignoring most of the money supply and adjusting for inflation there was 22% more money per capita in the system in 2008 than 1988. M0 is physical currency M1 is M0 + bank reserves and money in demand accounts like checking M2 is M1 + savings, money market mutual funds, and time deposits (CDs under $100,000 each) M3 is M2 + all other CDs, institutional money market mutual fund balances, and repurchase agreements.

Hopefully she's worried because she loves you. In some cases it's just about control. Provided that you two have yet to create additional responsibilities by breeding, if she's reasonable and not controlling she'll accept what you need to do to stay happy regardless of how silly it may seem to her. If not you have choices to make. My girlfriend stuck around after seeing Dwain Weston go in ten feet away (you can hear her screaming on the Discovery Channel's Fearless - the Jeb Corliss Story. Her view was not edited like yours will be). She also saw broken bones BASE jumping (skydivers don't hurt themselves as often). She knew the sorts of things I did before we became a couple. Long after that and getting married she nursed me back to health after breaking my tibia+fibula and still having horrible nerve pain after eating 120mg of hydrocodone every day. And took care of me after the bone graft. That may be the sort of woman you are looking for. Like all relationships it'll still be about compromise (I have over a million dollars in life insurance and accidental death coverage to offset any problems and limit the sort of potentially stupid things I do) although there's some more reasonable balance than all or nothing. While chances on the first one aren't interesting (Tandem skydives are statistically much safer than average), about one in a thousand active skydivers die each year (30 out of 30,000 USPA members, where USPA membership is required to jump at most drop zones and and skydiving events) which becomes a few out of a hundred after a career. Suffering from above average chances of testosterone poisoning and being young make it worse for you (I apologize for making those assumptions if you're a lesbian and/or happened on skydiving later in life than most of us). While small that's not 'safer than driving' as some people spin it. You can (but may choose not to) reduce the risk factors through conservative canopy choice (most fatalities are pilot error, so avoiding the metaphorical fork-tailed doctor killers (high performance airplanes that kill people with the money to fly them but not the needed experience) helps). Either she can accept that or not. It's also a personality thing. I know a disproportionate number of skydivers and BASE jumpers who were cocaine addicts, outran the police on motorcycles for fun, race cars, drive ambulances, or get involved in companies before they're profitable. If it's not skydiving it may be one of the others.

Smart leaders would get people to contribute voluntarily so that they're not faced with the choice of raising membership dues (which could get some non-current skydivers and people with non-USPA home DZs to drop their memberships) or cutting services. Octa-nona-diamond awards are one example. Requiring a D-license is another. I saw through what they were doing and didn't bother getting a license (D) until I had about 1500 jumps and was moving where I wouldn't have friends to vouch for me so it would be inconvenient to not have one.

We owned a king-sized Tempurpedic Deluxe. We got it after I herniated a disc since I found it both supportive and without pressure points. You can probably jump up and down on it without affecting the person on the other side. I thought it was awesome but my wife had problems rolling over in it ("like sleeping in wet sand") and found that it didn't work as well for her back as mine so we sold it and now have some sort of conventional wonder-mattress with only a thin layer of memory foam at the top. I find it as supportive/pressure point free/otherwise as comfortable, people don't get stuck or have the bed sink when sitting on the side, and the isolation between sides is almost as good as the Tempurpedic. We're both happy with that one. We also tried a Tempurpedic knock-off when living in a second home (the "equivalent" Angel Bed). It sucked for both of us. It was simultaneously harder on the surface and less supportive so we shipped it back truck freight and moved the Tempurpedic in leaving the other bedroom empty.

Depends on where in California. $150,000 in San Mateo county is low enough to qualify you for the government's moderate income housing program where they get you a below market rate second mortgage so you can have a non-jumbo first without mortgage insurance on $500,000 home (which isn't enough to get a one-bedroom condo in some locations). Other places are less expensive but not necessarily where the jobs you want are. Except when it comes to what you're doing for work. Most of the interesting software companies are in the Silicon Valley. In alphabetical order Austin TX, Boston MA, Boulder/Denver CO, Los Angeles CA, Durham NC, and Seattle (plus east side) WA have enough activity to be on the map. While I like Boulder, CO as much as the Bay Area in terms of dining/entertainment and weather (it gets colder in the winter, but it's sunny) and miss the low cost of living (I'd be lucky to replace my Boulder home with a similar one in a similar Silicon Valley location at 3X the price and 6X the annual taxes) plus proximity to fun activities (an hour to snow sports for week days at Eldora, fifteen minutes to the turbine DZ, and less time to the Boulder airport for gliders or powered flying) there aren't 1/10th the jobs I'd want to work at there.

$50,000 - $250,000+. Costs vary radically depending on what city you live in. Some places $100,000 buys you a nice 3-bedroom house with a couple bathrooms, garage, and yard. Some places $500,000 will just get you into a studio condo. Other places $1,000,000 gets you a cottage built in 1950 that needs renovation. Some places you'll pay $1000 a year in property taxes on a home. Some places it'll be $10,000. State tax rates vary dramatically too. Some places have a 0% state income tax rate. California has a 9.55% marginal income tax rate and 1.1% state disability insurance rate. You are mostly responsible for your own retirement and some fraction of medical costs. I took home just $.56 out of every dollar last year after federal income taxes, saving for retirement, state income taxes, federal social security, federal medicare, setting aside pre-tax money to cover medical costs, my share of medical insurance, state disability insurance, and life insurance to cover my wife if I get killed. Then there's what you mean by "a good living." $50,000 - $200,000 in total compensation depending on what sort of engineering you do, what sort of experience you have, how good you are, where you live, and the company size. Companies in high-cost areas pay more but not enough to offset the increased costs of living for people moving into the area. Sure. Some companies have lots of H1B holders. But some aren't interested in the hassle.

Not a Dell. While the hardware is fine their next business day warranty service can be second business day even when you beat the time you need to call before by hours.

I saw it personally from the back of the court room. Voir Dire stopped, the judge instructed the court clerk to do something along the lines of drawing up a bench warrant, and got on with the process. While some judges may not waste their time, they're allowed to do that. Although the charges wouldn't stick, it could get inconvenient.

No. Companies are reluctant to hire people that have histories working in higher-paying positions/fields because those people are likely to return to those fields as soon as the opportunity presents. Especially when obligations like a mortgage exist which require the person to earn more. Given a choice between a 16 year old kid who has yet to graduate from highschool and can do well on $7.25 an hour because his parents cover his living expenses and some one with experience and a college degree that usually combine to produce a $70,000 salary I'd hire the kid. He'll probably be there for two years while the college graduate should be gone in a few months when she gets a job which pays for her skills.

I get the Saturday and Sunday New York Times plus the weekly Economist (which they call a newspaper and most people would call a magazine). Daily papers build up and never get read.