DrewEckhardt

I'm way too lazy for that! :-D. Plus, you pay about the same for the parts as you would for a complete wheel from a good shop who's willing to get your business. Used to get my wheels from a *very* well-known shop. I bought a frame set from a *very* well-known shop and had them turn it into a bike with hand-made wheels. They were under-tensioned, didn't stay true, and the front wheel folded up on a small bump which could have been due to tension. Right. I think my front wheel is at least ten years old (Mavic hasn't made Reflex clincher rims since the late 1990s). Finally put a bend in the rim and had to true it last weekend. I might have five years on the rear that got rebuilt when I crashed from learning the hard way that when chain rings wear out you can find yourself in a smaller ring without touching the shifters. Ow.

I got an IRS examination by mail notice for my 2007 Federal taxes (oops). Some how I under-reported Federal withholding from a W2 form by $600. After verifying I picked the "I agree with all changes" box, so I could be getting a late refund in time to pay a mechanic to fix my car which stopped starting last week.

Get a competent wheel builder to lace up the 32 hole double eyeleted rim of your choice with machined braking surfaces to a set of Shimano or Campy hubs as needed to fit your preferred cassette brand using 14/15 double butted spokes. They'll be light enough and stay true until crashed. When you do put a minor bend in one that unloads a spoke they often stay true enough to ride (especially with the Campy brake quick releases) until you get around to making a repair. People who think you need Loctite or Spoke Prep should be avoided because they don't put enough tension in their wheels. A drop of oil at each nipple is all you need. People who think bigger straight-gauge spokes are stronger should be avoided because they don't understand the mechanics of how wheels work - in that case the stresses concentrate in the elbows and at a given tension the spoke stretches less so it takes a smaller hit to unload the spoke completely thus eliminating the wheel's lateral support so it can move off center and collapse when tension is restored. For bonus points, if you have patience and some mechanical inclination buy a copy of _The Bicycle Wheel_ by Jobst Brandt and build your own wheels. You'll take a lot longer than some one with experience but still produce a quality product.

It takes longer to build more than a 2-3 way when you can't have floaters in a wing suit formation. When we started jumping wing suits a 2-3 way was on the large side, but now days you should be able to get enough people together that climb-outs are a fine idea.

The first draft built on the English Bill of Rights circa 1689 which only allowed Protestants arms appropriate to their station in life. While defending themselves against highway men was OK, poaching the King's deer wasn't, and regicide was right out regardless how the king was behaving. Defense against a government as part of a militia wasn't part of it, especially when the tree of liberty needed to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Putting the important background into the bill of rights was a good contrast against the English traditions with peasants and kings but made it too easy for people wanting to pervert the second amendment's words.

Campy has triples in every trim level up to Record. The 10-speed setups have a 13-29 and when you need a 29 you don't need an 11 or 12 cog. 30x29 is plenty low. With some training even 30x21 is fine for the Mike Morgan Memorial Hill Climb. Contrary to popular belief the triple shifts better since there isn't as much diameter difference between rings. You can also use all cogs without chain rub even with short chain stays (like a 55cm center to top Litespeed). The rings become really up-hill, somewhat up-hill or flat with headwind, and fast + flat or down with enough overlap you don't move the front shifter very often. I switched from 50-40-30 x 13-21 8-speed (Greg Lemond raced with a 52x14 high gear, and there are few situations where you need even 50x13 as a normal person) to a 50-34 double x 13-23 9-speed and it was a mistake (didn't shift as well, even after shimming not all combinations were usable without rubbing, and there's a lot more movement between rings).

You need Campgagnolo, where too many thousand miles mean at most three springs costing less than $5 each to rebuild your right shifter (some need a retainer plate on the first rebuild), you can trim the front derailleur, and you can shift as many cogs smaller as you want and a bunch bigger (at least as much as you want to compensate for a ring change). You also want the gearing combinations after you've developed a decent spin, because normal people don't even need a 13 small cog but really appreciate a 16 or 18 that's missing when the cassette starts at an 11 or 12. Specifics vary with vintage and component. You need the classic Ergopower system where you can go all the way smaller and a few gears larger on the rear derailleur. The new fangled gear-at-at-time system won't cut it. The last time I checked that meant Chorus on the shifters. Silver is better than this newfangled black crap since it doesn't show scratches at a distance. Beyond that specifics vary. When I built my bike 15 years ago you needed Chorus in the shifters and brakes to get ball bearings and grease ports on the hubs. Record was a cosmetic change with a few titanium pieces. Most of the time I still ride it at least five days a week. I've rebuilt the right shifter at least three times, worn out a ringset, worn out a few cogsets, exhausted one bottom bracket, and replaced at least three rims due to damage.

Only off fixed objects where getting too close to the other side of the valley is a better metric. When skydiving you're too high to figure out whether your track is good, bad, or indifferent.

As illustrated by "The French Paradox" it's all about quantity and exercise to compensate. Although French cuisine is about things like cheese, butter, and duck fat, the French are slim with their high population density that makes walking viable and more attractive than driving. Living places with density, planning, and climate that make cycling viable you can burn off 500-1000 calories a day just getting around.

Scotty Carbone is a decent cook. I'd guess that wherever he now hangs his hat (Skydive America?) is good. For really good eats you'll want one of the few drop zones close to a city with enough people and money for fine dining for which I'd nominate Mile Hi Skydiving in scenic Longmont, CO just 12 miles down Diagonal Highway from Boulder. Inside of 20 minutes you should be parked and at places like L'Atelier (modern French, exceptional), Sushi Tora (with tasty selections flown in from the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo like eel in a bucket you have things you can't even get on the Pacific coast. Sushi quality is usually better too), or the Walnut Brewery (They'll serve you a genuine draught cask ale pint with a side of salmon fish and chips. Real beer doesn't come from a gas pressurized tap).

For lunch today we had some steak and didn't bother with the BBQ, just the meat grinder. Had some egg too, just mixed in in there. The only cooking involved was the bread, since steak tartare is nice on toast. Yum.

Goat is GOOD. After we had cabrito (kid) in Spain my wife started getting my goat at the local ethnic foods market. Yum! In sunny California she shops at the local carniceria so she can cook tasty animal parts for us which you can't buy at most American supermarkets. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Ride a bicycle or walk most places and eat reasonable amounts of food, where splitting an entree with my wife is one solution to not eating too much in spite of large portions served. They have dense cities in which they walk between locations and/or mass-transit instead of living in big suburban houses where land is cheap and driving door-to-door to work or shop. Restaurant portions are smaller in Europe. Sodas are smaller and more expensive, with a 0,2 liter glass of Coke having 81 calories costing more than a 191 calorie pint in a nice American restaurant (often with free refills) or 526 calorie Super Big Gulp or fast-food comparable.

Did you pay tax on the income? Papers, please. You only have to pay tax on profit from personal property sales. Guns bought brand new on 4473 forms are generally worth less than you paid except when politics get in the way. You can always uphold your principles when that happens and not gouge people.

snopes.com says FALSE on the rumor. The bill was introduced in 2000, died in committee, and never included listing guns on your tax return. http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/taxreturns.asp

The Military-Industrial complex is the biggest example of socialism in this country. With a budget larger than the entire rest of the world put together and over thirty times bigger than a first world country with the same landmass and border length (Canada) the military is more about government spending and putting people to work than defense. Although the share holders own companies like General Dynamics, they owe their existence (or at least size) to the American government. The classic definition of Socialism is the government owning and controlling the means of production. Free family housing, day care, medical care, technical training. Subsidized food and housing. Most Republicans would agree that's socialism.

Washington State gets by with a 0% top tax rate. Colorado handles things with 4.63%. California gets 9.55% from normal people plus 1.1% up to the salary cap for SDI. California property tax rates are fine, although properties taxed at $2800 a year in Washington or $1500 in Colorado are more like $8000 a year. Then there's the sales tax which is also very high. Slice and dice.

Probably not. Many doctors prefer to have their patients in agonizing pain when it means minimizing the DEA visits because they may be prescribing "too many" controlled substances, and DEA scrutiny goes up as the schedule number goes down. DEA attention leads to MDs having their prescription writing privileges yanked which makes it hard to practice medicine and pay off their six-figure malpractice insurance and med-school bills which aren't no-recourse loans like houses in many states. With doctors being human keeping their medical license often wins over humane pain relief. Opiates compounded with enough APAP are a Schedule III drug. Opiates with less or none are Schedule II just like cocaine. Ever had a prescription for coke? I know people who can't work, can't walk, can't drive, can't sit at a computer without ending up in bed to get away from the pain who many doctors don't want to prescribe Schedule II opiates. Acetaminophen being available as an OTC drug is a testament to how market presence influences American law. The effective and dangerous dosages are extremely close, with people taking less than the FDA approved 4 grams a day having liver transplants and successful lawsuits against the drug makers.

Right. Liver damage is better than people having a good time with untaxed drugs, and prescribing opiates with APAP limits doctors' exposure to DEA troubles compared to opiates without (the drug classification gets worse with less than 325mg of APAP per 10mg of hydrocodone). It's for the children. We'll ignore that alchohol is the most abused drug for people like bus drivers. While I never lost a school bus driver to drugs, I did skip an academic competition when our driver was busted for DUI. I didn't like being completely wasted on 120mg of hydrocodone a day (2 Norco 10/325 every 4 hours) but it beat nerve pain.

My favorite skydiver-babysitting incident was the bratty kid getting handcuffed to a car or truck. The mother should have followed and I held that opinion before she ran into my motorcycle in a drinking and driving incident.

ZP lasts for more pack jobs, has different failure modes, and takes more packing skill to get in the bag especially with tight containers. Otherwise there isn't a difference. George Galloway of Precision talked about this when he had an internet presence (rec.skydiving? dz.com? I don't remember) and was quizzed about the -MZ Raven reserves. Most ZP canopies have _very_ different planforms, airfoils, and/or line trim from most 0-3 CFM canopies. Most ZP canopies are jumped at wing loadings beyond where you'd be happy starting at the stall speed, dropping to zero forward speed, and just using the aerodynamic drag to slow you down over the last X feet. Comfort calls for converting your forward speed to lift (or even brakes in the forward direction) and with a slow approach to a pure sink there isn't any. Canopies which sink well have low aspect ratio planforms, big fat airfoils, wide open noses facing downward, and a nose-down trim. There's no intersection with typical skydiving canopies having tapered planforms with 2.5-3:1 aspect ratios, skinny low drag airfoils, closed off noses for nice openings and less drag, and flat trims to get back from long spots without using any controls. I don't know how much of that is technically relevant; some may just be correlated to sinking ability, things like wanting such canopies to recover more quickly when you do go too far with the toggles. Try a ZP topskin BASE canopy (I really like my Fox, and the Flik should be similar), ZP Lightning, or maybe a Raven -MZ for comparison purposes at under a pound per square foot. At least 3/4 brakes level from any altitude followed by a small flare close to ground level works great for comfy stand-up landings at reasonable wing loadings. Full sink (zero forward airspeed) from a few feet works with any landing conditions. I haven't tried a full sink from roof-top level or beyond all the way in (maybe once when the idiot I was jumping with flew himself into a cliff and I was paying more attention to him lying on the ground than landing before the end of the 50x100' landing area with no outs and I had to get down without over-flying after loosing half it to distraction). With a canopy that will steepen into a nice classic accuracy approach you just don't need to sink from roof-top height or beyond. This requires the F111 canopy to be fresh. A couple hundred jumps qualifies at reasonable wingloadings. 1000 jumps is dumpster or car-cover material. Old Pharts with Excalibur F111 cross-braced tri-cell experience say it was jumped out before 500 landings. "reasonable" is defined as under a pound per square foot, with .7 being a nice number that doesn't get too mushy on the controls. That wingloading is both a speed and control sensitivity thing. "sink" means gradually slowing down to zero forward airspeed and not going backwards. It's not good to go too far and fly backwards to an ass-first landing. Flying small ZP canopies in where your feet would be below ground level if extended, popping up to kill your forward speed, and sinking a couple feet works really well especially at moderate to high (1.9) wing loadings and density altitudes (9000 feet plus) where your short stubby legs may have problems running as fast as the canopy stops flying when flown all the way to the ground. This also disregards user interface issues. On canopies which sink nice adding brakes steepens your glide path (maybe 1:1 at 2/3 brakes) and past where the wing is stalled you still have control with too much brakes sending you backwards and the boundary between the two being a little like riding the clutch on a stick shift or motorcycle in traffic. Without good sinking ability the glide flattens and then remains pretty constant until it steepens around the stall point with little room before things get exciting.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't think a solo skydive from 10,000 feet at a familiar DZ would be worth riding in a Cessna 182 or 206 until it got to altitude even if the lift ticket was free. I usually wouldn't pay for a turbine ticket to full altitude to jump by myself but might do it for free; where exceptions would be things like flying a wingsuit by clouds. I'd pay to get out at 3000-5000 feet and swoop, or 2000-3000 feet for some classic accuracy.

To let everyone know, I contacted USPA HQ and they do not keep a list. Their recollection is that if a company offers group health insurance to employees, that it cannot discriminate against specific (sports) activities. NO. HIPAA rules both prohibit denying coverage based on involvement in recreational activities and allow source-of-injury restrictions while participating in those activities. IOW group plans are required to accept skydivers, but can refuse to cover the $40,000 for your broken leg unless it happened falling off the ladder on your way into the plane. The American Motorcycle Association and horse people are trying to get the regulations changed. Right!

Sure. When not broken I regularly jump a Samurai 105 (1.7-1.9) Monarch 135 (1.3-1.5), and Dagger 244/Fox 245 canopies (.7-.9) and can land+stop any of them in a pea gravel sized area. Elliptical 9-cell, high aspect ZP 9-cell, big square F111 7-cells.

A 190 would be more appropriate unless you're getting the math wrong (it's your weight with gear divided by canopy size. 160 pounds + 15 of gear / 245 square feet = .71. 160 pounds + 20 of gear / 105 square feet = 1.71. A 135 is a small canopy even if you only weigh 125 pounds. A 150 would be the prudent choice in that case assuming you can do all of Brian Germain and Bill von Novak's drills. Bigger would be better if you can't.