misterhand

because i think i should do something every day that scares me. if i don't i'm not living at maximum wattage. because its absolute proof that nothing humans can dream of is impossible. because earning the right to carry an a-license is a ticket to climb an experience ladder that unlike most, HAS no top. because its so very bright up there. because the best and brightest fastest warmest smartest happiest and most colorful people on earth arent ON it. they're just between loads. because its a guaranteed cure for the ordinary day...i cant believe how often i could say to someone, "you wouldnt believe what i did yesterday..." and when i tell em, their jaw drops and they look at me like im from the 4th dimension. because its also the cure for the ordinary LIFE. because im an inspector for the united states department of gravity. yup, it still works. because i think its my job to decorate the sky on occasion. its not that the sky is boring its just that it looks so much better decorated with lots of bright nylon fireworks. explosively colorful canopies gyrating around among clouds are just so festive, you know. back when i was groundbound i would occasionally see a big bunch of birds either flying in big groups or all hanging out on a phone line. gregarious little guys, you see them come and go, greet each other, check their gear, fly over and say hi to merv, pushing and shoving for a good spot on the wire, all chirping up a storm catching up on the local gossip. discussing who pulled off a cool move and whos who in the world of a flock of chickadees or whatever. every time i see that i think "bird party!" i always used to think it must be so cool to just be one of those birds in the bird party...wished i could be there. then i got into skydiving. awhile ago after id landed i was back in the hangar repacking, shooting the shit with people coming and going, seeing a few take off, a few land and come in, checking their gear, chirping up a storm, pushing and shoving and jockeying for a good spot in the packing space discussing whos who and who pulled off a cool move and isnt merv coming to the boogie next month and come on the fires up lets hit the pit and get some food..... ....and, feeling the most intense happiness and satisfaction i'd never imagined possible, i thought "bird party!" there is nothing that feels so good as the satisfaction of the strongest deepest and most impossible longing you knew could never happen.

i think im ahead of the curve and at 93 jumps im about due for a case of the 100-jump wonder canopy cockiness that breaks ankles. which entitles me to take it nice n easy with a 190 sabre and 155 lbs exit weight. this forgave me for screwing up on final last sunday...i decided NOT to bury that toggle and try to get it into the wind, eased it out of the turn got it level flared the hell out of it and got a perfect landing out of it downwind...i just kept feeding it flare till it set me down at a jogging pace. it also forgave me for flaring 6 feet too high over a snowfield a few weeks ago. flying mattresses rule.

what are the rules on jumping with tandems? i asked a tm awhile ago but i forget the details.... im at 93 jumps now, a-license.....my father will be back in town shortly and wishes to do a tandem. ideally i'd be able to jump with him, fly up, say hi...or at least exit same time and hang out nearby in freefall, maybe 50-100 feet away? is it not allowed or do i need to hold a rating or what?

horrible....well you know what they say....in the land of the 3-inchers the 5 inch man is god...gotta be some way to stop em....

why oh why with all the consideration offered to those of small penis are there absolutely NO products out there to help those few of us cursed with oversize genitalia? i cant even find condoms that fit.....i feel so discriminated against....i'm gonna sue somebody....basic human rights like large enough condoms should be freely available everywhere for the convenience and reproductive safety of large-genitaliaed consumers worldwide. im gonna go find a support group for this. i'll see you in court.

the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. this sucks and is not fair.

Lucifer? Is that you? I THOUGHT I smelt something burning in here! scuse the rant please. people start quoting chapter and verse like it was laws of physics it gives me the creeps and makes me break out in itchy spots. i think one of the things that bugs me the most about life on this planet is there are actually people out there with great power and responsibility whose decision making process includes consultation with and obedience to a nonexistent imaginary deity whose characteristics and desires are entirely open to personal interpretation based on unrecognizably distorted mistranslations of ancient texts written by ignorant primitives. in some circles this is not regarded as the most logical way to run an empire. in other circles its just fuckin' nuts.

HOW ARE YOU GENTLEMEN YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION WHAT YOU SAY! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DOING. MOVE ZIG FOR GREAT JUSTICE

SOMEONE SET UP US THE BOMB. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME

ahh thank you jerm...reason speaks at last. so help me i am so sick of people quoting chapter and verse out of ye olde booke ofe crappe as if it were a physics text describing the state of reality and natural law. we get people on this very thread who on one hand quote this book as The Law As Inspired By God... this is The Truth, remember? your entire belief system is based on taking it literally, remember? all this talk of the lord said this the lord said that and im expected to take this and accept it as real, but every time you come across part of it that disagrees with your modern perspective the situation suddenly and conveniently changes to "i don't really buy that part, but...." refresh me here but you bought the rest of it enough to judge me a bad man for not buying it. come on people you're so close to freedom... reject some of it reject all of it. its all 100% CRAP. what is it about this "bible" that causes everyone to suddenly decide critical thinking and analysis dont apply to it? i always wanted to get deep into theology but when i looked at it was appalled to discover its a field with no subject matter. none. zero with no ring around it. i READ your bible. all of it. twice. cover to cover. what i find in that book has NOTHING to do with reality. at all. a lot of crap thought up and written down by humans as ignorant as you'd expect humans of that era to be. book doesnt describe how reality got here. (analysis of hubble images does though, in a way that perfectly matches everything else we know about how the universe is put together and how it got here) we know ten billion times more now in the glaring light of modern thought and global awareness than we did even a century ago. modern medical technology is a detailed awareness of a field that 100 years ago was an almost total mystery aside from gross anatomy. modern medical people would laugh if you handed them a medical text from the year 1136 and told them you expect them to take it literally and practice medicine by it. read it and youll find factual detailed descriptions of nonexistent phenomena, complete with properties preferences and interactions of those phenomena, and ways to deal with them....humours, fluxes and bleeding anyone? so why havent we similarly rejected the bible? its even older, makes even less sense, is written from a world picture like that of an uneducated but thoroughly indoctrinated 10-year old, self-contradicts 900 different ways and was written by a bunch of ignorant itinerant galilean fishermen inspired by some godstruck young reformer 2000 years ago none of whom can offer suitable advice or guidance for a modern mind. or am i still supposed to slay anyone i find working on a sunday? these people didnt even know their own planet, didnt even know it WAS a planet but somehow im supposed to take absolute moral and spiritual guidance from them? it was written by CAVE MEN unqualified to judge let alone dictate my behavior. always i hear about this lord wants me to do this or that. WHAT lord? i don't HAVE a lord. dont start telling me about the son of god. what god? yours? mine? the gods of the ancient greeks? mabuko tambui the congo deity? I don't HAVE a god. i DO believe in things bigger than myself, i can see them when i look up at night. energy. stars. galaxies. superclusters. black holes. infinity. there are levels humans cant see above and beyond our reality but you know theres even less room out there for such a limited concept as what humans call "god". i am an aggressive unbeliever who declared himself god's mortal enemy years ago. its a joke on myself since my weapon against my nonexistent enemy is my refusal to believe in the existence of that enemy other than as a false concept people believe in....which ironically is the only way to hurt Him assuming He really IS out there. ill have none of this crap about serving god or being subject to his judgement and answering to him post mortem. if he IS out there i think he will applaud little old me for being so spunky as to be willing to take him on with the same fearless gallantry displayed by the best kittens hurling themselves into battle armed with nothing but a few needles a lot of fuzz and a defiant do or die attitude. i am the enemy of god and would attack him if i could get at him which is exactly as futile as saying i want to kill santa claus. the concept OF god exists but not the being the concept describes. if there IS a god to meet after death, i won't be standing there before Holy Judgement waiting sheeplike to be disposed of...if your god exists, HE will have to answer to ME. if he doesnt like my attitude he can shove it. whats he going to do, kill me twice? if i find there is a "there" to go to, he's going to have some explaining to do. i am certain enough of this to have bet my "soul" on it. when i say "you" im talking plural "you" as in religious public at large. put yourself in the sights of the statement if you think its pointed at you. if the creator of the universe really is the petty, trivial, mean, backbiting immature impulsive twisted short sighted easily addressed constantly interfering domineering intolerant primitive simpleminded unimaginative brutal cruel psychopath the writers of the bible were "inspired by god" to depict, there isnt enough room in the cosmos for the two of us. one of us has got to go. it aint gonna be me.

its an original sabre 1. ive been very conservative in canopy progression both due to caution and due to circumstances. i'd have downsized sooner but winter jumps were few and far between and winter is hardly a time to be breaking in a new canopy while dealing with -40 environment huge bulky clothing freeze and fog hazards flat glare from winter sky and all-white iffy landings...way too much new shit on any given winter jump as it is. so far ive flown: student: rascal 232. nastiest thing ive flown. guaranteed line twists every time, built in left turn, worn out lineset. yuck. pd 218 7-cell rental. nice. fast descent rate, cushy flare, easy to fly. not much hangtime though. my first own canopy: pd 210 9-cell, 1988. raggedy worn out f-111 with NO flare left in it and thousand foot openings. retired with honors, never chopped. flew nice for a rag and forgave every stupid asymmetrical flare and downwind landing i made. got sick of jarred ankles on landing. on a no-wind day landing it was very tricky. now this 190 sabre. borrowed, not bought. i figure i'll demo this for awhile then buy a 170 and fly that for awhile. the 190 has made a hell of an impression...so far only one jump on it but it beat hell out of the 210. unlike the 210 it surprised me when it dived some on final during the turn, far more than the 210 ever did, what would have been a controlled flat turn on the 210 turned into a hook turn on this thing causing me to think fast level it out ahead of schedule and make a hell of a long turf surf downwind\crosswind landing. i ran it out and made it look GOOOD it set me down so cushy just hit the ground running. although not intentional i think i just executed my first swoop. beer. my god its good to have some flare.

im demoing a sabre 190, hope to ds to a 170 soon. muahaha after my ragged pd210 its like a ferrari by comparison. even at MY pathetic wingload. (155 lbs) every different canopy out there seems to have its own quirks and preferences and hazards, rather than spend 6 weeks trying to hunt it all down i figured i'd go trolling instead. anyone who knows anything about a 190 sabre, please rant here. whats the scoop? reliable? or is it touchy? packing quirks? (what the hell, MY pack job opened....!) good canopy to stick with or is it not known as one of the better canopies out there or what? and whats with the double steering lines? is this thing known for easy openings slammers or somewhere in between? only jump on it so far i didnt slow down all the way from sitfly (intruding into someone else's airspace so dumped quick before blowing past assigned altitude 3000 ft) and it opened with a brisk snap but no real slam. didnt hurt at all which is i suppose the measure of what is a hard opening....my old pd i never HAD a hard opening....long snivels every time. the sabre opened quick. i like it. whip. whap. whoa. tell me more about what im flying please. ?????

im spending it on jumps man winters over and so is my term as a lesser god of UT. one reason i never bothered with the worldstats or any of that. i got to the point where i never met a man i couldnt kill in there, but thats relatively meaningless. every once in a great while i come across someone so good they make me look like grandma. no matter how good you get theres always someone else out there in a wheelchair confined to house who lives online and has 5300 hours of game time on a 2.2ghz. ive noticed when you get REALLY good you have to constantly train to keep the edge. i can't constantly train. i work jump and have a life andf would much rather spend my time in the real world....UT is a way to stay sane sharp and aggressive when stuck mostly indoors for 6 months. northern winters suck like that. speaking of real life i have this demo 190 sabre to try out today and am leaving for the dz in 15 minutes, so.....seeya!

if that engine hasnt' destroyed itself in a fire by now i KNOW it won't. i long ago pitched the plastic valve cover...they were NOT designed to last 20 years...the valve cover is a stamped steel version i got off a late 70's rambler with some gasket hacking to fit the head footprint differences between engine years. the car itself has somewhere around a quarter million miles on it with maybe 30,000 of that on the brand new long block i dropped into it 4 years ago. the sick part is even with the curb weight and gears this thing is faster than the old worn out '81 z-28 camaro with the 350 my brother used to own. only v8 i ever drove so tired it couldnt spin the tires. i got this thing 8 years ago for 250$ as scrap metal. wanted to have a 4x4 thats better than a jeep offroad and can cruise comfortably at over 105-110 mph. 8 years several thousand dollars and 120,000 miles later its still cruising comfortably in fast lane and has outlived a friend's brand-new hyundais entire operating lifespan from dealership to dumpster 3 times over. they just don't build em like they used to.

chassis: '83 amc sx4 curb weight: 4260 lbs engine: 4.2l 258 I-6 axles: 2.35 tranny: 3 speed auto w-lockup TC t-case: modified '76 wagoneer NP219. 2.71:1 low range holley 350 jacobs omnimagnum ignition dual batteries homebuilt/rancho suspension 480 watts worth of headlights max recorded highway speed clocked by gps, interstate 80, great salt desert, utah: 137 mph theoretical top speed 3rd gear 4500 rpm redline on 28 inch bfg tires: 158 mph...wind resistance may make this impossible...i don't know. it has never stopped accelerating till i got scared and backed off. and did i mention it climbs 3 foot boulders with ease? it has 2 major weaknesses: it can't corner for shit and with a powerband like that it redefines "leisurely" off the line performance. not for drag racing. but itll eat a washboard dirt road at 60 mph like a sprint car and handle snow deeper than the headlights. if i ever buy a "REALLY" fast car ill be in jail before i get it home.

well come on, this was awhile ago...some 16 months when i built it it was almost as badass as you could build....its horrible how you build a hercules system and its obsolete before the cpu fan has a chance to get dusty. when i scored that voodoo5 it was one of the best if not THE best thing available and the now-obsolete box still runs anything i can throw at it....although i might need a faster chip for ut2k3. this box can break 120 frames per second at 1280 X 1024 rez and self-clocks at waay overkill framerates at 800 X 600...i got a screenie reading over 830 fps...of course the monitor cant show anything faster than 120 but the processor headroom is sick...no lag or skip even with 9 people and 42 explosions onscreen at once. i don't care that the box isnt state of the art anymore, it was as badass a game box as i could build then and finally let me play ut as well as a box can play it. i always wanted to build a box powerful enough to play at max rez and max speed without any bullshit lag skip chop harddrive paging or whatever...i used to play QII on a P133 with a v330 an M3D card and 32 megs and at 512 X 384 it was choppy. horribly. so this box is cyberheaven. was. whatever. anybody wanna fight?

i hate this kind of thing really. i agree with some of his sentiment, i too am sick of the whining weak who think if they yell loud enough the world will obey them. while you're out protesting im out earning a living and making what i want happen for me. the tent grenade guy really needs to be made an example of. if there was any suitable punishment short of medieval torture id say have at it. but this rant is disturbing. i'm 100% behind our troops, these are the people we work with and went to school with out there...but this sounds like jackboot polishing time. over the line. get the fuck out? hmm. next youll offer the use of cattle cars and temporary "relocation camps" for the dissidents and misfits eh?

unreal tournament, so far as im concerned is the last word in virtual combat. i havent checked out ut2k3 yet but i heard its slower than the old ut. built myself a hacked optical trackball joystick and a psycho box with 512 megs 21 inch monitor 1333 amd chip and a voodoo 5 card to fight on. im a bit out of practice but i will take on any challenger in any map in any server you name so long as i can get a ping lower than 200. i don't even mind a handicap of 150, i.e. you have ping of 50 i have ping of 200 i'll die more but win anyway. i can beat 6 bots to 30 kills at godlike in MORPHEUS in less than 15 minutes and hit 450 frags per hour online fighting with rockets in the smallest map in the game. i specialize in using the redeemer in extremely confined areas at point blank range and surviving it every time by ducking for cover in the 150 milliseconds it takes for the nuke to hit. this is my rant and boast and i can back it up. bring it on. any takers?

the DOT knows all the DOT seeees all the DOT is here to make sure everything goes according to plan the DOT knows who all your base really belong to. the DOT knows who set up us the bomb. the DOT knows when you are sleeping the DOT knows when youre awake the DOT is a rogue pixel hidden in the corners of your digital reality that vanishes when looked for faster than a hairy prairie hidebehind. resistance is futile. all hail the DOT.

update: after much wrangling it was found lynch WAS shot...after all the crap about "she wasnt shot" circulated i found a page off cnn somewhere says yeah they found one or two low-caliber entrance and exit wounds, fairly easy to miss on first inspection and treatment for the more obvious damage i.e. broken arms/legs. either way, pfc lynch RULES the iraqis must have a hard time dealing with the fact that to them, women are property, to US, they're badass warriors. "wait a minute....they sent their WOMEN after us?" damn right. our women are tougher than your women. lets hear it for badass american warrior chicks. pretty, durable, smart and one hell of a warrantee.

hell yeah! well spoken dolemite you wouldn't happen to be a student of the ayn rand school of thought would you? don't like your world? f#(king CHANGE it.

i AM tired of the excessively sugary sweet excuses our government gives us for its reasons for basically doing whatever the hell it wants...a different flavor every week! i wish theyd quit trying to make it look like anyone's opinion matters. bush and co. have their reasons and theyre going to do what they think they ought to do....we're only humanitarian when it either stands to profit us somehow or if it would look bad enough if we DIDNT intervene that it could be harmful to us economically. but i'd like to point out one major difference between us and every other conquering army in all of human history. a difference that totally shoots holes in anyone's accusations of america the ruthless. when we bomb someone's ass, first we drop bombs, then we drop FOOD. enough food for most of the population even. if we werent feeding afghanistan right now 9 out of ten of them camel herders'd be dead now. we wind up feeding all these cultures too immature to even feed themselves. please note america does not interfere with modern countries where the locals already are capable of running things quite well for themselves...europe, japan, anywhere modern. or at least we don't invade their asses....economic interference on the other hand....guilty as charged. its a free market. america plays to win. we're not just the world police, we're the world's cultural PARENT, bailing more primitive weaker cultures out of their self inflicted messes and feeding em till they can stand on their own. philippines. afghanistan. half the damn planet during WWII. instead of showing up burning and looting everything in sight raping the women and enslaving the countryside we show up bomb the shit out of the local fascists tell them youre now free to wander the streets speak your mind buy sell and argue politics without fear of secret police, feed all their asses airdrop 8 million blankets and send their women to SCHOOL! we don't just TAKE their resources, we teach them how to build an infrastructure to supply us and then we BUY their resources off them, thus giving them a chance to earn their way to a financially prosperous culture. look at the rich little oil countries. kuwait. qatar. soon iraq will be ruled by someone the iraqi people ASKED for and iraq will earn billions selling us oil. if the iraqis play their cards right they could come out of this with one fat healthy modern economy food for all modern medicine and a culture so addicted to modern civilized comforts theyll be immune to being infected with sick little governments like they have now. america just got sick of waiting for iraq to grow up. until it does, we'll be dropping lots and lot of bombs, yes, and lots of FOOD too. If the world needs an authentic benevolent empire and it has to be us, then so be it. nobody else will do the job because nobody else CAN. america rules.

hi. before i say anything more....im one of those yahoo skydivers you have such dripping contempt for so you might just want to ignore me. but i would like to ask something....correct me if im wrong but werent all base jumpers once skydivers? wouldnt anyone WITHOUT rock solid freefall/exit/canopy skills going off and base jumping be regarded as a total idiot, a fatality waiting to happen, assuming he survives first attempt? so whats with the contempt? so there are some idiots out there. by the standards you seem to expect people to already know and respect wouldnt the first base jumpers be regarded as fools as well? jumping improvised/modified gear with no base-specific training? taking their reserves off a neighborhood antenna? 99% of the skydivers ive met so far where BASE was discussed were mostly going off about how much more they need to learn before trying BASE. personally someday (at least a couple years from now i think) i myself WILL BASE jump...but not until ive spent months learning from the local base freaks, and have decent BASE gear AND not until i feel my freefall/exit/canopy skills are up to par, AND not until other skydive/BASE jumpers agree with my self-evaluation. a few BASE jumpers ive skydived with have told me when i'm ready, after racking up a few hundred, if i want, ill be taken and schooled and shown how to do it right, and where. by the time i get there i will already have sucked up gigabytes of info on what i'm getting into. ive already started. i'm patient. ive already spent weeks reading everything here, at blinc, elsewhere. asking questions. im not bothering to try to find out where to BASE yet...when i'm ready, the information will become available. the question is, will i want to be around other base jumpers if theyre all that contemptuous of anything that isnt themselves or part of their clique?