tbrown

Perris and Elsinore - both lovely places - are so close together it's ridiculous. The shortest shortcut between the two is Railroad Canyon/Goetz Rd. In Elsinore it's called Railroad Canyon and is one exit north of the Bundy Canyon exit for Elsinore on Rte 15. About midway between the two cities you cross the city line, or something like that and the road changes names to Goetz Rd. The Perris airport and DZ is on Goetz, so as you come over some hills, all of Perris Valley spreads out below you and in another 2-3 mi. you'll find the airport on your right. From Perris, you just turn left out of the parking lot and go straight all the way to RTe 15 and then south one exit to Bundy Canyon. Either way, it's a straight shot, turn neither left nor right, just go. Up in the hills near Perris, watch out for sheep on the road, there's open range up there, if you hit one you bought it. Not a cheap way to stock your fridge. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Cool! Note the bad guy with the Magnum on the step. Anybody remember the one where they were jumping in with a case of nitro to clear a log jam ? (I thought nitro was replaced by dynamite in 1868, but who the hell cares...). Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Cool, I remember "Whirlybird" too! Remember the time they rescued the blind guy from the quicksand ? Thanks for the memories, you rock! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

A mob hit with J. Edgar Hoover's full knowledge and blessing. The mob was into Hoover because he owed huge gambling debts and because they had photos to prove Hoover was gay. The Kennedy brothers considered firing Hoover, but he already had them covered, mostly for their sex lives and they fact they were both boffing Marilyn Monroe. The idea that one guy with a Wold War I bolt action rifle could fire off three shots in eight seconds and hit two people in a moving car at that range is preposterous. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think that's in our employees' handbook! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I really like the way all those people make up the "grips". The guys' shirts should definitely be pink and the girls' blue. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yeah, but Skymama can you breathe up there ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Then go 15 miles over the hill and take your canopy training at Elsinore ! That's the great thing about So. Cal, having two really great DZ's so close together. I have to put a new rig together from scratch and will probably get onto a demo program where I put a minimum deposit up front and then add to it. It's a layaway that will allow me to jump all the demo gear in the shop, until I figure out exactly what I want and can order it, as well as while I'm waiting for it to come in - I'm definitely going with an all new custom harness/container, there's nothing better than a rig that fits ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

"Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz. Some oldies like the Stones "Gimme Shelter", The Cars "Let the Good Times Roll". Anytime I hear the old 1978 "Baker Street" song by Gerry Rafferty the sax riff carries me back to DC-3 loads at the Nationals Boogie in Richmond, funny how music will do that. Paul McCartney's "Band On the Run" is cool, "the rain was falling with a mighty crsh, as we fell into the sun. the first man said to the second man there, I hope you're havin' fun". I love the Grateful Dead, but even I have to admit they're just tooooo laid back for freefall. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'll go for this list right down the line. But the thing that saddens me is that the guy will be re-elected because the Dems can't run a viable candidate or campaign. And I'm saying that as a Democrat. I don't think any of this is going to concern our little subculture too much. Not until they decide that skydiving endangers national security and start shutting us down. USPA already had to go to bat for one DZ in Florida at an airport that wanted to require photo I.D. and security clearances for ALL PERSONS going anywhere near the airplanes. Can you imagine the crap they'd give an average bunch of jumpers trying to clear a security check ? Not that we're "bad people", we're just average folks in all ways but one. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think pierced tongues are sexy too. Let's face it, skydivers are are a pretty sexy, adventurous, and dare I say kinky bunch of people. Suspended harnesses are for more than cutaway training, at least after dark and we know it. We're just not afraid of having fun all kinds of ways and we've got our own little world to do it in. I don't personally have any tattoos or piercings & doubt if I ever will, but I think it's OK for anybody that wants to. I will say you should be awfully careful and ask some really hard questions at your local tat/piercing parlor. We've got a friend who works in the industry and the stories she tells us suggest that the public health laws are not observed as strictly as we'd like to believe. Your liver is a terrible thing to waste. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'm weighing in at 218 lbs and tormenting myself over whether to buy a 210 or a 230. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Didn't you know we're all Satanists ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

John Prine's "Dear Abbey" is is one of the funniest songs in the world! A few drinks and you could easily write a verse or two about desperate skydiving situations, "dear horseshoe, dear horseshoe, you got no complaint, you are what you are and you ain't what you ain't', etceteree, etceteraah. We used to sing "Thank God My Reserve Deployed" to the tune of John Denver's "thank God I'm a Country Boy". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

***Hey I just finsihed a Bond gig too. Had a couple of Vodka Martinis....shaken not stirred. A good Martini should always leave you feeling shaken. Not stirred. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I enjoyed it, but I don't know what the hell is going on with the story anymore. My wife has decided she no longer trusts the oracle lady, which would figure, she's just too nice & lovable. Those albino rasta ghost dudes are COOL - we'll be seeing plenty of them at Halloween parties this year, bet on it ! Agent Smith by the way is Elrond, the Elf King in Lord of the Rings, so hopefully that adds another complicated twist to the plot... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Oh my god, she was a Deadhead too, she's quoting them in that post. Fare thee well, my honey... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Newlyweds are gonna go like bunnyrabbits regardless, if they really want to test the stuff they should have couples who've been together ten or twenty years try. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yes. definitely go. Be cool, be sensible, listen to the locals, and hopefully get a few dives in. Life is about what we do as ordinary people. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Beer - helping ugly people reproduce and white people dance for over a century!!! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I remember the Para Plane Cloud when I started in '74. It had ropes and rings around the top of the canopy and opened from one side to the other. The opening sounded painful to me standing on the ground. Never jumped one myself, in those days they pretty much insisted on 200+ jumps with plenty of Paracommander experience before trying a square. My first square jump was on a later model Strato Cloud with a slider. The other thing I remember with the PP Cloud, was how many people bought the things and then just a few months later would be trying to sell them and jumping their old PC's again. Too many cutaways and/or couldn't take the gut slammer openings... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Mt says she doesn't want to watch me jump. We've been married over 20 years now. Both our girls say they at least want to try a tandem, one of em's old enough now, the other one has to wait a few years. The wife doesn't want to watch them jump either. A real shame, because in the days of our misspent youth, she came along as a camper on our El Capitan expedition and watched all of us jump at the top. I'd probably worry about my girls, not that anything would go wrong, but...it would be very difficult to live with if something did. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Back in '79 the Chicken Ranch hosted a meet in Nevada; real rules, real judges, real events (style, accuracy, 4 way & 8 way). Bet you can't guess what the prizes were. Does that ever happen anymore ? P.S. No, I didn't go, that was the weekend that all of California ran out of gas, thanks to the Ayatollah. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

This may be a good time for USPA to get into the act, with some rules, or at least some formal guidelines. And if that's not practical, then maybe the drop zones ought to do it themselves. Yeah swooping is like getting high, if people can get away with trying, they'll do it. Banning it won't work either, everybody will just move on over to the next DZ. It's like when CRW was new in the seventies, it was a very touchy subject. Experienced people should be able to swoop, sensibly. A lot of people are talking about the need for formal canopy training and some of the bigger places offer these courses. Perhaps drop zones should REQUIRE completion of some kind of formal canopy training. Perhaps it could become a license requirement, though that would tend to penalize folks at smaller DZ's. We don't just let students go off and freefall by themselves without demonstrating proficiency according to a training program, why let them dive bomb the ground at high speed without training. Time was when you had to have so many jumps on a Paracommander type round before you could start fooling with a square. Those days are gone, but it wasn't such a bad idea either. We don't tolerate people who are habitual low pullers, or supposedly hook turners either. There is well established precedent for grounding people for those offenses. Maybe the dropzones could at least keep a list of divers approved for swoops, a list flexible enough for visiting jumpers to qualify, but strict enough to keep the newbies in line. And if you're seen swoopin' and you ain't on the list, you get a sermon with a swift kick in the butt. Next time you're grounded. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I save it up for my track at breakoff, it really helps. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !