tbrown

right.... I would have at least stopped to see if the deer was still alive then called someone. If I had had a few drinks maybe not the police, but at least animal control so they could come put it out of it's misery if it was still alive. Back in 1989 my late brother (he died in '92 of cancer) was working for FEMA in the Carolinas after one of the big hurricanes of the late eighties. This was before FEMA got fucked over by Homeland Security and was actually helping people. ANYWAY, he was driving somewhere on the job when he saw a big 18 wheeler pulled over and a deer struggling on its knees on the pavement. So he pulled over, found the truck driver, who was upset, and asked him what happened. The truck driver said he'd just hit the deer and the deer was obviously suffering, but he didn't have a gun. So my brother told him not to worry, that HE was a Federal agent, and had a .45 in his car. To make a long story short, my brother dispatched the deer quickly with one shot and packed the carcass into the trunk of his rented car. He then drove the carcass to a butcher's, who knew just what had to be done and did it. After that, my bro' kept some of the meat for him and his friends and gave some of it away to families who had lost their homes and livestock in the storm. The car rental was pissed off about the bloody mess in the trunk, but he told them they could send the bill to FEMA. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The dropzones I jump at (perris, Elsinore) explicitly state in writing they will not accept Protrack, etc. data as a logbook. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I guess this sounds like some kind of a "fat farm" retreat. I was thinking more of the spiritual kind. Those aren't usually more than 2 - 3 days at most, but can be intense. You get up early, go to bed fairly late and spend a lot of the day in prayer or in different workshop groups. They can be a really good thing, though you have to keep in mind tat the people who run them are skilled in bringing about a desired result. Which is not necessarily bad either, so long as you're aware of what's going on. The desired result may be the reason you're going in the first place. I haven't been on one since I was a teenager, but they have them for singles, married couples, men, women, you name it. I think a few days devoted to prayer and relfection can be good for people, especially in this world we live in. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'll be there tomorrow & I'm a member, if you need a wind drift indicator..... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I can get one up 24/7. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I dunno.... They don't come with a card telling to WHICH jump they'll save you and I've never heard of anyone at a dirt dive saying, "By the way people, my AAD will be saving my ass on this dive". But now and then it happens, for all kinds of reasons, usually human brainlock & inattention to altitude. It's already save me from my wife telling me "No way can you start jumping again !". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What a bunch of complete bullshit ! It's true enough that BASE canopies are 7 cells, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a 7 cell for regular skydiving. I love Spectres too, used to OWN one, 'til I switched to a 9 cell Pilot canopy (but that's beside the point). Only difference is whether or not you want a flatter glide or a steeper approach. And 7 cells are easier to land in no wind. There are days when I still miss my Spectre. You get what you want and fuck what anybody has to say about it ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I heard 17 jumps equal in risk to 10,000 miles of driving (national averages, 2004 -- doesn't breakdown various skydive or driving activities), it would take about 580+ miles of driving roundtrip to the dropzone.... However, I've driven the 93, and... Here in So Cali many of us have to drive the 91 and the 15 to get to Perris or Elsinore, some of the worst congested freeways in the entire US. Guess we're doin' it all... I'm glad I bumped this thhread up, it's really a FUN thread ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Skydiving is safer than going to one o' them rattlesnake churches, where they hold the snakes and speak in tongues. Though I could almost picture you there too Dave, "I'll have thet thar' big un for me and that petite one thar fer the little lady..." (nyuk-nyuk) Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Weeds is a fantastic show. Yeah, Nancy's very hot. Everybody on the show is a bit whacked. I mean she's even secretly married to a DEA agent, if you caught the latest episode. The best thing about "Weeds" is that it's so well written. It would be so easy for a show like this to just suck, but the writer's got a creativity streak thhat's just batting a thousand. Now if they just don't get too comfy or satisfied, but so far this show is really strong and so full of surprises. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

PS: Brakes is absolutely the wrong tool to use if you're downwind of the landing area with a strong'ish headwind and the spot is not good. Think about it, flying in brakes is really going to hurt your penetration since the wing is slowed down flying into the winds. You're just going to sink while making poor forward progress. Rears and even full flight (no rears) is the better tool if your spot is long with a headwind. Sometimes, if the headwind is strong enough, you might even want to use your front risers. This will increase your rate of descent, but that's not such a bad thing if you're not getting anywhere or even backing up. It will increase your penetration into the headwind. Getting down faster and a little bit ahead is still better than backing way up into a downtown parking lot. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

There may have been an entanglement even if she had cutaway first. The bagged main still has to pass through the same path, whether the risers have been released or not. Simultaneous deployment was exactly the subject of the testing done by the Army/PD, and their results do not lead to the conclusion that cutting away first is better. There was another death later in the year from a pc in tow, where the victim did cutaway and his canopies still tangled. So it's not a sure thing in any event. I know when I came back from a long absence, my recurrency instructor taught me to cutaway if my pc was out. The SIM actually says there are arguments for and against cutting away and USPA does not take a position for or against it, rather they urge us all to have our EP's planned out ahead of time and to stick to the plan if the need arises. A pc in tow is such a terrifying thing,there is no sure cure. Short of a major rig innovation that can somehow cure the situation (and wouldn't THAT be nice), the BEST action to take is really VIGILANT prevention. Even if you use a packer, it's YOUR responsibility to reset your kill line (and set your brakes and open up your slider) before leaving your gear to the tender mercies of a packer. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Once, at a Grateful Dead concert. And I wasn't on anything either, really. I wasn't even drinking that year. It was pretty cool, it happened while the two drummers were doing their thing. Plenty of different cultures use drumming to induce trances and I think that's what happened. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

After seeing what happened in New Orleans last year, absolutely not. It's taken me a long time to come around, I grew up believing in gun control. But I've also known a lot of good law abiding people over the years who own all sorts of guns and see no reason to disarm any of them. Still don't own a gun myself, but that's my choice. If I lived in a bad part of town or way out in the sticks I might. But when you have a complete breakdown of law & order like New Orleans had, with the cops walking away from the job, then only the armed can protect themselves, their homes and their families. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The creepy thing about this film is that it is done in a manner to imply that it is historically correct... And folks in 1915, not being accustomed to watching feature-length fictional movies, might not have understood that this was "just a movie." Not only that, but the President of the United States himself (Woodrow Wilson) saw it and declared it was "history writ large". There were opening nights complete with KKK parades out in the street to celebrate. Really quite revealing just how deep and blatant racism was until very recently (nowadays the correct thing to say is "I'm not a racist, but..."). But check out a lot of film from the earlier half of the century. Check out the Three Stooges - they're mostly real heroes of mine and they were Jewish guys themselves, but they way they depict blacks is heinous. Technically, "Birth of a Nation" was quite an advanced film, with split screens, battle scenes shot on a mass scale & so on. The excellence of the film technique combined with its appalling racism have made it one of the great controversial films of the century (along with Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", a brilliantly filmed documentary that depicted Hitler as the savior of the German people in 1934). But "Birth of a Nation" is also one that film students hate - because every damn course they take features it and they get fed up and refuse to watch it anymore. Good for you watching it though. Everyone should see it once. People need to know about films like this, because they're evidence of the way we used to think. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I gotta laugh about Karr himself though, I mean WTF? He got lots of noteriety for this, that's for sure. But now that he has been exposed as a creep and a pedophile and an all around weirdo, he will never be treated with any kind of respect by anyone. Give it another year and no one will even know his name. But look at it this way - Karr got out of Thai prison. No matter what happens here now, he's not going back to Thai prison. He might not even mind being some passed around prison bitch, but NOBODY is going to send him back to prison in Thailand. And here, he can always play the system and hope to be out in not too many years. From his warped point of view, he won bigtime, no matter the charges in California. As long as nobody actually kills him in prison, he's won the big crapshoot and picked up a little notoriety in the meantime. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Do you mean like "It's God's will" that this or that catastrophe happened ? I think that's just the way a lot of people buck up and accept something that's already happened and can't be changed. Believers don't believe that God CAUSES things to happen, but there are arguments that God ALLOWS things to happen for any of a number of reasons that would include Original Sin and/or preserving mankind's free will. God for instance didn't cause the Holocaust, but allowed it to happen because a.) all people are sinful, and b.) Hitler and the German people had thhe free will to not commit that mass atrocity if they'd chosen not to. I don't mean to be flippant about something so grave as murdering an entire people simply for who they are, but it does stand as THE test case of the 20th century for "And where was God in all this ?". And in fact a lot of people lost their faith in God as a direct result of the enormity and depravity of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel said so himself, that he no longer believed in God after his survival in the camps. But if you believe in a God, or ever did believe, that's about the only way you can "punish" God, by turning away and renouncing your belief. It certainly doesn't hurt God a whit. And if you don't believe in God, or never did in thhe first place, then it hardly matters at all, does it ? I remember when we were kids we'd say things like "God punished you !" if a bad kid fell off his bike and skinned his knee. It felt good to see a known a-hole hurt himself, and if we could tie in a little divine retribution to the accident, then so much the better. But grownups should know better. Unless you lose an entire family to forces of nature or man's cruelty that are beyond your control and then I suppose it's understandable. But it's not God's doing. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Nagin's also made some idiotic remarks about the large number of Mexican workers who have come to New Orleans since Katrina. Something like he didn't want New Orlenas "turning into a brown skinned Spanish speaking town". Guess it goes to show that politicians of any race or gender can be just as useless and stupid as the old fashioned good old white boys. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Tom, I'm disappointed in you. I didn't realize that you were so sheltered. Sheltered my ass, I went to Catholic school for six years ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

And I'd thought I'd seen everything.... Was at Tower Records today and this little gem caught my attention on the magazine rack. Never seen anything like it. Immediately thought of sharing this with the rest of you. Guess there really ARE other things to do besides skydive.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

This one of the reasons I have 99 sq. ft. mains with 218 sq. ft. reserves. Hopefully some of the new canopy fabrics being experimented with now will usher in a day when even the coolest fashion whores can jump 99 ft swooper mains with 250 ft reserves. The last year or two, PD has been exhibiting some reserves made of new fabrics (not for sale yet) that pack down WAY smaller F-111 type low porosity ripstop. It will take a few years to be sure and they'll cost a fortune, but I can just see an advertising campaign that emphasizes fast openings and the ability to sink that baby straight down in deep brakes when you need to. And any reserve is better than no reserve. You might even get lucky and get hung up in a tree like that woman who got knocked out bailing out of a Twin Beech with one engine shut down. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I am NOT bald !! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Has a nice ring to it, "nymph-o-mania", um yaz, I like it... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Wow, thanks for sharing. I read about that guy too. I dunno why they think he's psychosexual either, unless they're not sharing something. Might be better if they're not.... Interesting questions you raise though. Guess it sells more papers. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I jump with a Cypres. I turn it on in the morning and so it's on all day for any jump I do, mostly RW and maybe hop & pops. I'm 50 and started jumping in the seventies, when Sentinels were for students - one of my instructors was killed when somebody else's Sentinel popped at 3 grand. If my wife ever thought I jumped without an AAD she'd absolutely kill me and that's more dangerous than anything my Cypres could dish out. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !