DrewEckhardt

No because new swoopers are more likely to turn low, bail-out, and have a dynamic stall which injures them than they are to drop a toggle. Steering line breakage can be avoided through equipment maintenance. Toggles becoming detached can be avoided through proper finger-traps that get bar-tacked or have the stitch-less lock. It'd be better to teach people to have their entire hand inserted in the toggle, to keep their pinkies and ring fingers closed when applying front riser, and to use their index and middle fingers on their dive loops.

Having been disarmed by my government I'm going to use the only tool available to me: my cellphone. My first obligation is to my family. If I'm killed the people who get saved aren't going to replace the millions of dollars in income my family looses. If I'm just injured disability doesn't cover it. My family would miss me too. It's not right for me to place other peoples' welfare ahead of my own family's by risking unarmed defense or improvised weapons. The National Crime and Victimization Surveys show that resisting with a firearm results in the lowest injury and crime completion rates; but when you can't do that the safest thing is running away. Decent people will call 911 too. That makes people uncomfortable and its more important the voters feel good than actually be safe. A lot of the politicians are also elitists who don't trust armed people outside the ruling class and their body guards.

You just live with it. It sucks most when your friends die, followed by other people getting killed, getting injured, your friends getting injured (unless they needed a wakeup call before they got dead or hurt worse), and then other people getting broken (with the same exception). You know some people are going to die and just enjoy them as long as they're still around and are pleasantly surprised when something happens that causes them to wise up first (like a cardiac event in the plane from too much Columbian marching powder followed by sobriety and not doing other stupid things).

He performed the stunt for Jackass 3. Documentary titles often have something to do with their subject matter.

obviously, like so many Americans you don't even know you're own history, in my day we had rigorous (meaning no easy grade) 2 years of 'AMERICAN' history before we got out of high school ... and this was in Canada ... Your cite is about actual interstate commerce. We're talking about how the commerce clause is abused to justify laws a reasonable person would accept are far outside the scope which didn't start until the 1930s. For instance a small farmer got in trouble growing wheat for his own use on top of his government production quota for sale. In Wickard v. Filburn the court decided that could be controlled under the commerce clause because if he hadn't grown extra for himself he would have bought it in an act of interstate commerce. Many states allow medical marijuana grown within the state, prescribed in the state, and consumed entirely within the state. Patients are even permitted to grow their own. The Federal government is allowed to prohibit this because "[h]ome-grown marijuana displaces drugs sold in both the open drug market and the black drug market regulated by [the Controlled Substances Act]."

Assuming the retirement age isn't increased, FICA taxes don't go up, and social security benefits increase with inflation I'll need to outlast my statistically expected lifespan by five years to get a 0% inflation adjusted return on my investments. If I took my current investment out, made the same contributions in the future, and got a 3% inflation adjusted rate of return I could get over 4X my social security benefit for 15 years over 2X my benefit until I die at 100 30% more until I die with $1.5M in current dollars going to my heirs Social security is a lot of things, including a mandatory retirement plan with a lousy rate of return.

You can tell yourself whatever you want, but more than 1 in 1000 skydivers die (tandems which are statistically safer account for lots of the jumps). 30,000 USPA members, it's effectively impossible to be an active skydiver without being a USPA member, and there are about 30 annual deaths not including aircraft fatalities. Of course that assumes that you have an average chance of owning a Cypres, average chance of flying a small canopy, average currency, etc. 1 in 1000 drivers didn't die in my high school in spite of us having a way above average chance of being young and stupid doing things like breaking 100 MPH on the way home from school in 1978 Trans-Ams.

Money grab. Gambling is regulated. When you want to gamble you have to go to a brick and mortar casino (which pay state+local taxes and have paid lobbyist) or buy a lottery ticket (which is serious direct profit for the state).

To keep people from changing races from driving events to spending ones there are often engine claim or exchange rules. In theory when you think some one's win (or top 5 finish) was due to spending and want the same advantage you can have their engine for a nominal fee or trade it for yours. JohnDeere's claim is that to be competitive in those classes you have to spend the money and potentially loose it. At the very least, a $500 cash claim doesn't pay for much more than a junkyard motor you've freshened up in your garage.

There's your problem. The letter's fine, but you can't expect anything beyond consistency from chains. Chain restaurants sell bland generic food that's unlikely to offend the unadventurous palate. With raw ingredients unlikely to be top-quality or cooked by people earning more than minimum wage they're often smothered in sauces so you can't taste them. It would be nice if this came with some benefit beyond being able to expect about the same thing regardless of where you travel within the US like lower prices. Unfortunately, you often end up spending more for this crap than you would exceptional food some place else. For instance, I've spent less at my favorite modern French bistro than the Outback which isn't in the same league.

Heal fast dude.

Yes. 190 pounds + 25-30 pounds = 215-220. Mostly once things start going wrong, which is why a 190 might make a nice second canopy at 150 jumps. Read Brian Germain's chart. Follow it.

You do know that the government is the biggest health insurance company in the US, with Medicare and Medicaid covering over 80 million people between them? We're already paying for the "have nots" We're already paying a lot for the have-nots. In fact, as of 2005 we were spending more to insure them than Canada and France were to cover everyone. This completely disregards what insured and cash customers spend to cover the write-offs amongst the people who decide not to buy insurance and who can't get private insurance due to pre-existing conditions.

3000-6000 RPM. Air cooled. Electrically driven. Updated GE M134 minigun in 7.62x51 NATO which is nearly the same as .308 Winchester.

Maybe 600 to get down to 1.6 pounds/square foot where things get really interesting under conventional elliptical canopies, 600 jumps to really learn how to fly that, and 600 jumps on the next size after which you need a lower shutdown speed than you can get with conventional canopies to have pleasant landings at high density altitudes. Coaching along the way would be a fine idea. So 1800 with training.

Also note that many riggers charge at most a nominal fee to install a Cypres in a rig they originally packed. You can get your rig repacked, jump it for as long as it takes, and drop your rig off the Monday after your Cypres gets back to have it re-installed for $15 so you'll be ready for the next weekend without having to bribe your rigger for the rush job.

I don't remember any of us or instructors shooting our selves when we learned how to shoot as elementary school students in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Basics like all guns are always loaded, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire, don't point a gun at anything you don't want to destroy, and be sure of your target really go a long ways towards preventing negligent discharges.

GE really does bring good things to life, like the M134 minigun now produced in updated form by Dillon Aero.

If you can't come up with that much money at once, you aren't well off enough to be buying gear that new. Especially for a rig you'll probably want to replace within 400 jumps. I paid $700 for my last container+reserve and have sold mains for $350. With some patience you can find something nice for half what you're having trouble coming up with.

I was there when one of my friends went in because he didn't pull. You can't help speculating about whether that was intentional when he talked about dying minutes before. Taking up skydiving while in a major depressive episode is not the best idea. Another one died in a plane crash. And I've lost track of how many injuries I've been there for. Broken tibia, fibia, femur, sacrum, cocyx, vertebrae, pelvis, wrist, shoulder. It can hurt a lot. Skydiving will boost your endorphins and dopamine levels so you feel better at least temporarily, and give you goals which you can accomplish (first solo jump, successful formations, etc.)

It depends entirely on how long you have to wait for weather, aircraft, equipment, and instructors. At a California DZ I made 3 AFF jumps in a day. At my home Colorado DZ it was one a weekend. 3-4 days would not be pushing it, unless you have to wait and the DZ is only open on weekends in which case it may be weeks. I only got done in 4 weekends over 3 weeks because I left town for a business trip.

With a modern independent woman you jointly decide what restaurant to frequent on a given evening so there aren't any dishes, have the hired help do your laundry, and spend the few hours you aren't working together relaxing.

I have a question. If you come straight down in zero wind.. is that a sink or stall? I'm thinking in terms of the wing/airfoil, I know you can't do that with a glider right? Aerodynamically it's probably a stall. In accuracy / BASE jumper lingo it's a sink, the difference being that if you were stalled the canopy would be going backwards some and down at a higher rate of speed. And it takes a _lot_ more than shoulder height to get there. A normal accuracy approach starts at about 2/3 brakes.

The raunchiest guy I've ever worked with who didn't get arrested for a sex crime has two daughters and some karma headed his way.

To get a decent price you want to buy .22LR in 500 round bricks and most center fire cartridges in at least 500 round cases. Most gun owners have more than one gun. Multiply the minimum you need to buy to get a decent price by at least several guns and the answer should be over 1000. 1000 rounds per caliber is a nice number, although I could see buying .22 in 5000 round cases. It's amazing how fast you can chew through that, especially with a Ruger 1022.