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Like Titus, "tuck and roll baby." Seriously I'd do one of two things depending on my mood (if I didn't have a rig on. If I had a rig on, I'd pull my handles and fight with the fabric until the ground). First, I'd lay on my back and just stare at the serenity of the sky and wait for impact (that's the dream I have). The second option is what a couple of buddies and I came up with at Rantoul 2002. We'd track as hard as possible for a large body of water and try to skip our bodies like skipping rocks across the water. Hell, if I'm going out of an airliner with no rig, I'm gonna try to confuse the hell out of any investigator. "199 of our passengers are in this 1 mile square area, but this one guy is 5 miles away on the side of a lake. It appears that his body skipped 20 times across the water before coming to rest on the other side." I'd be most pissed that no one caught it on video :) bttwb!

I've only taken mine off for MRI's, otherwise, it's been tied on for a couple years now. I asked the riggers @ CK for a length of old parachute line. I daisy chained the line and put the closing pin on it and tied it around my neck. I shower, swim, skydive, etc with it and it's still in great shape. Normally, I keep it tucked into my shirt. It's more for me then others, but I think I might start wearing it out more often now that I'm thinking about it. ep

If there was another sport that would get me closer to flying, I'd probably be doing that instead of skydiving. I've always dreamed of flying and naturally transitioned to skydiving once I found out where to go and who to talk to. It's been 3 years since I started and I love it more and more each time I jump. I do like to jump with others as points of reference and to share the experience with them. But, I still love the solo jump, on my back, looking up at the sky and the clouds, sometimes I just close my eyes and sigh knowing that it will only last for less then a minute. ep

Bunge, what DZ is stealing you away from CK? I actually used to live 6 miles from CK. I moved an hour away for work :( I know, I know, priorities, priorities. Hopefully, I'll move back closer someday. ep

Ok, so I'm looking for some art for my walls, but haven't found anything great, yet. So, I'm turning to my brothers and sisters. Where can I find good paintings, sketches and the like to adorn my walls? I'm not really interested in photos, and not the successories "Teamwork" or similar posters. I really love the 3 sketches at the top of Pat and Jan Works webpage: http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~esj/uwf/works.html If I could get full size replicas of those, I would be set. Any ideas? Thanks! ep

I feel your pain. It really started to hit me once I was done the AFF levels. No longer did I have an instructor telling me what to do and my jumps were no longer planned out ad naseum before hand. It used to hit me before every jump. Once I was in the air, it was all good. Nowadays, it hits me about a mile before getting to the DZ. Every once in a while I catch myself wishing for cloudy weather so I don't have to deal with the anxiety. It will get better with time and experience, I'm sure. Blue Skies! ep