DrewEckhardt

In Colorado, it's legal to have an accessable loaded weapon in the car "while traveling." Unfortunately, cities with too many bed-wetting liberals don't consider anything to be "while traveling". Under Federal law, you can only transport unloaded guns in the trun between places where you can legally posess them making only necessary stops (like for gas) along the journey. State laws, local laws, and local interpretations (Denver) apply as soon as the gun becomes accessable.

The average life expectancy assumes an average chance at being involved in life-shorteners like skydiving and street gangs. Low educational attainment has a causal relationship with low incomes, and for such people being a drug dealer or hoodlum pays better than the legitimate jobs they're qualified for plus offering better hours and uniforms than a place like McDonald's. Free public college education or vocational training for everyone and an advertising campaign which points out that course of action pays better than being a drug-dealing gang member might help. An entire college education can cost less than sending an adult to prison for six months. Correlation doesn't imply causality. While life expectancies are radically different in poor and rich neighborhoods, crime has more to do with it.

Sure. The other skydivers will even understand when after a long day of jumping they're passing around a marijuanna pipe and you have to leave the room. We don't care what you do (we even like skydiving lawyers). You just can't be dangerous to other people, be "that guy" who's going to end up crippled or dead due to consistently stupid behavior (no point starting a friendship that's going to end in grief), or have farts that smell too bad (think about small enclosed spaces, windows that don't open, and what happens to the gasses in your intestine when the air pressure outside drops with altitude).

You can easily spend $1000-$2000 on rental fear waiting for your new gear to be delivered, may lose thousands more selling it quickly once you down size because although you paid $6000+ there's a lot of nice lightly used gear out there for just $3000, and be out $10,000+ in medical co-insurance payments and lost wages (not to mention permanant aches and pains) if you try to avoid that by getting gear you "won't outgrow soon" but is too advanced to be safe for your experience level. If you're a guy who only suffers from an average level of testosterone poisoning you'll want something smaller and more fun within the first year, and be ready for the next smaller size in 6-12 months when jumping at an average rate of 100-200 jumps a year. Used gear is safer because there's a good chance some one else will have found the manufacturing errors (I know one jumper whose harness wasn't sewn togther properly and may have failed fatally due to the problem), design problems (they've had reserve pilot chutes fail to clear the container. oops!), and assembly errors (little things like the reserve lines routed incorrectly). You get the gear inspected by your favorite local rigger so you're not relying on an ad which claimed the rig was only jumped by a little old lady on Sundays on the way to church. They're used to acting as escrow agents for gear sales. Get a used rig once you've reached a wing loading of a pound per square foot. If you can't find something which fits consider having a harness resized or replaced by the manufacturer. When you're nearly ready to down-size to a canopy that's too small for your first rig (which could happen at 400 jumps and 2 or 3 years in the sport) order something that's shiny in your colors and don't worry if it takes 5-6 months to get delivered. You can keep that rig until it wears out. I've jumped the same rig size for the last decade.

That seems twisted to me. It implies that work is bad, or that the goal is to not work, or something like that. I've met plenty of people who've accumulated enough that they don't need to work and am trying for the same thing myself. After I pull it off I'll do the same thing they did - work full-time on interesting things without regard for the paycheck (or lack thereof) which goes with it. I'll probably mix small self-funded technology startups with a high-end audio business. Other people have different definitions of "interesting" things - one guy I worked with became a high-school math teacher after he retired not much past forty.

One of the times I chopped (it took me a little while to figure out that you had to fly elliptical canopies through the opening sequence, and that some things like skysurfing and wing suits were not ideal matches for small fun parachutes) I left on my back, spinning, and with more than enough airspeed to roll 180 degrees stop spinning before dumping. After the wrong spinning malfunction you won't be belly-to-earth, and you may not be parked about your yaw axis (one riser may have released a bit before the other, although I was pretty motivated to disconnect the pair at the same time).

I trust myself to read the manual each time, pack it as carefully as any other rig without a reserve, and to get expert opinions on anything the least bit unright. I've seen reserves assembled without slider stoppers, no torque stripes on hard links, no notation or evidence of service bulletin compliance, pop-tops that don't set flush, and reserve bridles which weren't routed according to the manufacturer's instructions. Some of that's unsafe, some just sloppy. I know one person who jumped a harness that was hot-glued but not sewn together (after inspection, assembly, and repack of course). That's potentially fatal. I've seen pictures of molar straps around reserves, brake lines routed through the wrong gromets, closing loops not routed through Cypres cutters, and pilot chute fabric stuffed under the decrotaive cap. Those sorts of problems range from definitely fatal to possibly. It doesn't take much to get a rigging certificate, too many people are muppets, and people are unlikely to volunteer anything negative. There are good riggers. I never knew closing loops needed replacing until my first rigger moved (he always replaced them when they were a little worn) or that everyone didn't provide an inspection checklist with tools in and out counts. The problem is that the word-of-mouth they get isn't too different from the ones that are just good guys people like to hang around with.

With paypal, it's painless to receive payments from over-seas (although I think I got charged a small cross-boarder transfer fee the last time I sold anything over seas on top of the 3%). You just need a delivery service that provides confirmation so the buyer can't claim non-receipt. With USPS, if you can fit what you're shipping into a maximum sized box for the country (it varies - with some countries you get 79 inches maximum length + girth; other countries allow 108 inches) you'll only be charged for weight, it will usually get there in 3-5 business days, and you'll get a tracking number so you can prove receipt to paypal. As long as what you're selling is expensive enough for USPS global express shipping to be relatively reasonable ($100 to ship 20 pounds to Europe is reasonable for a $1000 sale) the combination works great. A little grovelling on the Internet starting at the USPS web site will turn up what you need for each country; generally the right US customs forms plus an invoice in duplicate or triplicate. Rules vary on how import duty and VAT are applied to used goods. Most countries have serious tax problems (up to 20% of the total value including shipping). USPS lists the insured value on the shipping forms. So if you're going to send it and insure it (I had one package disappear after departed the US) the buyer is going to pay taxes on the actual value of the transaction.

Yes. They use the source to determine how much I owe. Currently, my investment gains are only taxed at 15% versus the higher rate from my income from employment. So the rich get privileged treatment. There's a big surprise. (Not really) Bull - Joe Sixpack pays 15% on any investment income just like Warren Buffet does. A better way of putting it is that corporate income received by both Joe Six Pack and Warren Buffet has usually been taxed by at least 43% (C-corps earning over 75K/year pay a 34-39% tax rate, and what's left is taxed again as dividends at 15%).

I've owned one British vehicle. NEVER again. Bought a brand new 1998 Triumph motorcycle to avoid other people's problems. Had the engine rebuilt at the 8000 mile mark due to a spun big-end rod bearing. I've owned one German car. Friends like German cars too. Based on our collective experiences I've adopted the catch phrase "Precision German Engineering with Minor Electrical Problems." You get vehicles which handle wonderfully and cruise at Autobahn speeds yet have electrical issues. The only non-wear failure I've had in 7 years and 60,000 miles on a formerly 3 year old 30,000 mile Audi was a small leak in the rear differential. Cruiser control broke, driver side window switch broke,, passenger side side air bag reports an error code, the temperature gauge is flakey some days, and sometimes the sun roof opens after I close it. I've owned a Land Cruiser older than I was. One of my friends put > 200K miles on his Toyota. My wife's Honda is up to 180K. Japanese cars keep going and going and going.

Note that the insurance adjuster can depreciate your gear, and that even "replacement value" policies can have a cap on replacement costs versus the depreciated value.

The same gear that caused premature deployments. Skydiving ran a great shot of a freestylist tangled up in her canopy, with the article saying something about broken bones and/or dislocated joints. While lots of people get away with doing things before we know better, too many don't. After that you're better off learning from second hand experience.

Not how much you make, but where your income comes from. I say you are rich when you get a majority of your income from your assets and then after that, depending where you live, top 20% of income of the community. Depends on age. You need to accumulate 20X your annual income to be able to take home 80% as much after retiring. If you want to retain your middle class lifestyle when you're old and tired, you need to become a multi-millionaire.

Yup. Pity that if today is typical, some 33 people will be shot dead in the USA in homicides, plus another couple in accidents. Just collateral damage, it's all good. What is the solution? Outlawry. Most of the people doing the killing and dying are criminals. After a few convictions we can declare them outlaws no longer subject to legal proections. The criminals wanting to kill their competition can then do so without fear of legal reprisal. They can kill themselves off and leave the country to the rest of us who don't want to kill each other. We could also say to heck with the constitution. Declare a 24x7 curfew in high-crime areas where anybody who neither lives nor works there gets an immediate trip to the slammer when picked up by police.

According to CBO data, they're not. In 2000, households making 37700 (pretax, 2005 dollars) had an Federal income tax rate of 1.5% Year - Pretax - Tax Rate 2001 - 38000 - 0.3% 2002 - 26800 - 0.2% 2003 - 36400 - 1.1% 2004 - 37200 - 0.9% 2005 - 37400 - 1.0% But a FICA tax rate of 12.4% and medicare 2.9% making total tax rate 14%.

20.

It depends on where you live. Around here, $100K/year is classified as "moderate income" which makes a family of three elligible for below market rents and government assistance in buying a home. $100K isn't even enough to pay the mortgage and property taxes on a 3 bedroom ranch house in a good school district. Some places in Texas $100K almost buys the same property out right.

Depends on state and local laws. Around here the new owners (the Bank) need to honor the lease unless they're going to demolish the building or move in themselves and in those cases they may need to cough up thousands in relocation costs.

I proposed to my wife after I knew I wanted to spend my life with her. Some time after that we concluded that the 100th weekend we'd been together as a couple (we were friends two years before that) would be a good date for our wedding.

The BSRs also suggest a 1800' decision altitude for a cutaway. Obviously that only goes with a 2000' pack opening altitude when your canopy opens in just 200' at terminal which is not the case for most people's canopies. The pull altitude BSRs also haven't changed since we got canopies with faster malfunction modes (I prefer to open high enough that after chopping a spinning malfunction I can flip right side up, stop spinning, and then pull).

I think it's silly, since Africa is a continent and not a country. I think it would be more resonable if black people referred to themselves like white people do. In the same way I'm an Danish-English-German-Irish-American my neighbor might be a Kenyan-Nigerian-American. On second thought, that's too much of a mouthful so I just say American.

Indirectly. It's real convinenent to be able to get materials, a truck, and manual labor all in one location. When installing new vinyl I'd pickup my levelling compound and manual labor to scrape off the old stuff at Home Depot before I drove some place for the materials and some place else for the help.

Most of the people who start swooping and BASE jumping before they have the necessary experience don't die. They just get broken which means not living doing things like sitting on the couch, drinking beer, and watching TV instead of parachuting. Most people who start out like you learn some judgement after a visit to the emergency room and orthopaedic surgeon. I only know one guy who needed two trips to the hospital to learn some sense.

One of the guys I knew rode a bike through a deer. Probably something like this http://www.fugly.com/videos/5840/motorcycle-chops-deer-in-half.html

We don't get much in the way of vacation. Some people don't get paid vacation at all. Many of us "officially" have two weeks but there's too much work that needs doing to actually take them. I took one day off last year for my anniversary and a day off for my aniversarry the year before that. While we did get out of the country for those long three day weekends, it had to be to Canada because Europe was too far away. My wife and I ran into a British chap in Amsterdam when we were on our honey moon, which was the longest vacation either of us had taken (A full WEEK of work with both weekends!). We talked about how little vacation we got compared to Europeans (3 weeks annually at the time, although it was never a good time to take it) and he thought that wasn't even enough to start relaxing.