tbrown

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Everything posted by tbrown

  1. At work today we got a material certification signed by some guy named Anal Shahreef. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  2. Sounds like an ideal candidate for the priesthood as a second career. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  3. Thanks to all for the information. I wasn't quite sure whether this belonged in Incidents either, but thought it was, all things considered. No problem if you want to move it, and we're all certainly glad nobody was hurt, which would have most definitely made it an incident. A lot of us at Chicks Rock were locals who also jump at Perris and we were very concerned and getting a lot of rumors and sketchy information, at least on Saturday. So thanks for giving us the rest of the story. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  4. As has been said, a "streamer" was a round canopy mal, so named because of its long shape. Since this shape cannot occur with squares, I think this mal shoud have a new name, like a "blob", or something. While I know what you mean, a real classical streamer is possible with a square because I've had one. It was an older design canopy back in 1980, but I see no fundamental difference in the basic design (7 cell) or even the way it was packed. It came out of the bag and wound itself up tightly, like a cigarette. Never even snivelled or tried to inflate. I could actually see it winding itself up tighter and knew at that moment it would never open and went for my handles. All rocket science aside, the feeling you get from a streamer is very disconcerting because there's enough drag to pull you upright, but it's a very sick and disorienting feeling that has you turning and swaying every which way - simply awful. When you go for your handles, try to focus on your body and not look at the rest of the world. The world around you is going crazy, but your body is the only constant you can really reference - and it's where your handles are anyway. An excellent video of a baglock cutaway can be found in the Malfunctions thread at skydivingmovies.com, I believe the jumper was competing in the Collegiate Nationals Style event and the judging camera on the ground telemeters caught the whole thing. The guy's feet went right up over his head as he was going for handles. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  5. Anybody have any real facts on what exactly happened to the Perris Skyvan yesterday ? We were at Chicks Rock at Elsinore, which hired the Skyvan to support the boogie. The 'Van came over and flew exactly one load, then on the way back down reported "mechanical difficulties" and that it was headed back to Perris. We have heard a number of rumors, including a lost engine cowling, right up to a full engine explosion that has seriously damaged the airplane. Either way, the load of jumpers had already - thankfully - exited the plane before whatever it was that happened. Perris, God bless them, was so good about it that they promptly dispatched their "Papa Victor" Otter to take the Skyvan's place. Which was a good thing because the boogie drew a big crowd and the two regular Otters just couldn't have done it themselves. So can anybody from Perris confirm or deny what's happened to the 'Van ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  6. Economics aside, there was an interesting article in Psychology Today a looooong time ago about this phenomenon. It was about people participating in high risk, "high adventure" sports, including skydiving, mountaineering, scuba diving, etc. And they found that for the most part, participation followed a seven year curve, after which most participants moved on to something else in their lives. The article also pointed out that high adventure sports all had their hardcore cases, who were the movers and shakers who kept the sport going and made innovations, and that their commitment was for life. I found it rather interesting, as my first era in the sport was almost exactly seven years, before I got married and chose to hang it up (for the next 22 years). It was part economics, part burnout, seeing too many accidents among my friends, and a newfound hunger for the rest of life that happens off the dropzone. Followed by my personal feelings about not jumping with young children. I have a little brother who was a ski instructor/ski bum for several years of his life. He's now a graphic artist at a printing press, with a wife and 3 young kids. He takes city slickers out on grueling cross country ski excursions, but that's for a little extra income and the joy of making New Yorker yuppies suffer in the Vermont winter. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  7. Frank is to cheap to use 2 "phone person".
  8. Also in the early 80's the Handbury Rig was licensed to a friend of mine, for manufacture at a loft in Santee, Ca. He also made a rig there called 'The Force' which was used by the USAPT , as well as Phantom Reserves...also under a licensing agreement. Would that be Art Tucker ? What's he up to anyway, I'd love to get in touch with Art again. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  9. I'm not sure if you're aware of this (perhaps it's interpreted differently elsewhere) but in the UK the term "Paki" is generally found very offensive and considered racist. Its a similar sort of expression as the word "Nigger". Just a heads up. Hey blow me. I'm referring to our "allies" in PAKIstan who have been hiding him for the past five years. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  10. I don't see why they shouldn't just walk in and take over Boeing. that's what Harry Stonecipher and his Douglas shits did ten years ago. Of course Fill Condom was bent over and waiting, with his ass up in the air. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  11. The guy who dumped in place did it because our spot was pretty long, and he's been injured in the past landing off. And I got a pin in my ankle landing ON the dropzone. Skydiving is like that, people can get hurt for the darndest reasons. I'd say this guy's a primadonna. He's already got two strikes against him, give him a third strike if you must, with a "three strikes" warning. Primadonnas do whatever they feel like for enough lame and selfish reasons to fill a fat book. And occasionally they kill other people - never themselves (unfortunately). In the old days we called them "lurking death". Once you got the LD label, you were done, nobody would jump with you. Nobody. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  12. $22 cash, $23 plastic. They also offer $1000 blocks which work out at a discount for 50+ something jumps. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  13. Kansas....Intelligent design, and now this! That's what will happen when you have religious whackos dictating science courses, banning the teaching of evolution, and probably AIDS education as well. Interesting pschology experiment in submission to authority though. Do you suppose a math teacher could get a class to play Russian roulette for the unit on probability ? I'm not sure he couldn't, at least not before the first live round is fired. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  14. So you might as well go out & have unprotected sex right now. With your fist maybe. The world can end at any moment. You can step off a curb in front of a city bus while trying to take a picture. You can dawdle with a pilot chute in tow. You don't need some imaginary "Bible Code" to figure it out. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  15. Sending reporters to jail is a bare naked attempt to silence a vigilant press. Not that the press has been all that vigilant lately. Look at what happened with the Valerie Plame fiasco. You had government officials blowing the cover of a CIA operative, which is a felony. We know now that it was Richard Armitage - Mr. "bomb Pakistan back to the stone age". Is Armitage being prosecuted ? No, he is not. Scooter Libby is being prosecuted for botching thhe coverup. But the only people sent to jail have been the journalists who reported the story. Read between the lines, you can figure out the rest. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  16. It won't make any difference if he is dead. He's become irrelevant in the world of the terrorists. If they do nothing else, they'll hold up his "cherished memory" and go right on killing people. Of course the Pakis may just give him a state funeral..... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  17. With great difficulty. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  18. Three brothers, two living, one dead. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  19. Everybody knows that freezing to death is painless. The Germans at Stalingrad put their mortally wounded out in the snow to freeze to death because they couldn't help them anyway. Dying of heat and dehydration is a really nasty business. For your homework, read Jack London's "To Light a Fire", fi you didn't already read it in high school. Test on Monday... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  20. I'm very sad to see such an honorable and respected name go away for just another bland corporate moniker. But time marches on and the move and all that goes with it probably do make a lot of sense. I remember a time when the Wonderhog rig was advertised in Parachutist magazine with cartoons of two pigs fucking in a barnyard. I'm NOT making this up either. And they used to call their revolutionary single point cutaway system a "3 Ring Circus". God, those were the days.... But here's all the best to you Bill Booth, after all it's your company and you can do whatever you think best. Especially after all you've done for us ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  21. Were you equally incensed by IRA atrocities committed by so-called Roman Catholics? Sure, even though I'm 3/4 Irish. And by the Protestant Orange guys as well. At times they make me not feel so proud of being Irish. Real men, if they've got an axe to grind, shoot at other real men who can shoot back. I despise people who kill civilians in the name of any ideology, they're all cowards. The present case at hand involves Islamic cowards. You gotta beef with this, or are you just clarifying ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  22. In general, they have to hit bottom and figure it out for themselves that it's time to clean up or die. Once they do that, other people can help. But unless somebody you know is already at this point and in treatment, there isn't anything you can do about it. And in the meantime they'll rob you blind for their next hit. Smokey Robinson was talking about his own crack habit, which he's cleaned up. He said people don't start getting high because they're depressed, they get high because their friends are getting high. All of these drugs powerfully effect the pleasure centers of the brain - like alcohol, which is also a drug. Some people can handle it better than others, some people fall in over their heads and think they're "happy" that way. People who are smug about never having had a problem with it are just damn lucky. You can ALWAYS pray for somebody, sometimes it even works. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  23. Ah yes, the "religion of peace" strikes again. What courageous and pious men they must be to shoot a nun in the back. The worst part of it is that women and children at the hospital will be deprived of this nun's care. The holy men with the rifles sure as hell won't be caring for them, especially since their religion calls for basically treating women like cattle in the first place. I hope the Pope publicly proclaims this poor woman a martyr for her faith. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  24. No shit, was there ever any doubt ? The fact that Bush and Condi Rice denied it so vehemently only confirmed the fact long ago. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !
  25. Nah, I'll wait until one or both of the following: 1) a serious effort to rebuild Solomon's Temple, which would involve dropping the ball on that mosque that presently desecrates the site in Jerusalem, and 2.) a requirement thhat we carry embedded micro chips in either our forehead or wrist, without which we cannot buy or sell. Funny thing about the micro chip is that it waould make perfect sense in a cashless economy trying to protect itself from identity theft. Short of that, forget it. Your world ends no matter if you're killed in the latest war, die of bird flu, or get creamed by a city bus. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !