champu

As people have pointed out many times before, the driving to the dropzone vs skydiving comparison is usually made very poorly. 3,000,000 jumps a year resulting in 30 fatalities means 1:100,000 jumps results in a fatality. If you pretend that each jump I make is an independent roll of the dice, then I have a 99.5% chance of making it through any given year (~500 jumps these days) But it's not really an independent roll of the dice against these odds, which brings us to... Blah blah blah, "do everything right and still die," yeah, I get it, but the fact of the matter is that screwing up will get you killed a lot faster than doing everything right. In the meantime, I'll continue to use caution and hone my skill so I can roll my dice against the best odds possible.

In a freefly suit I can get a tad over 1:1 glide with an average freefall speed in the low to mid 80s But remember, if you're going 85mph down and 85mph forward, you're still hitting the ground at 120mph, just at a 45deg angle. Time to learn how to swoop without a canopy.

"Difficult to define, but I know it when I see it." -Potter Stewart

On my first cutaway I kept both my handles, got my main and freebag back, the reserve date was about 4 days away, AND it was sunset load on a Sunday evening.

The original post was an inquery as to whether or not burning in at terminal is painful. If this is the only unresolved issue keeping him from making his second jump then the only encouragement I can offer is that, depending on what orientation you hit the ground, you will probably either die instantly or go into a state of shock that will last the rest of your life. Regarding what you had written... People that have been around as long as your CCI are certainly testament to one's ability to have a long and rewarding skydiving career. What I was getting at is that it would never occur to me to look at someone with 10,000 jumps and think, "Wow, that guy must maintain his gear and pack really well." Using gear and packing techniques that don't scare you nor those around you is one part of getting a good canopy over your head. However, you must also know your deployment priorities and be able to execute your emergency proceedures. Getting a good canopy over your head is one part of surviving each skydive. However, you must also be able to deal with aircraft emergencies, not collide with people in freefall, and land your canopy safely.

Whether you get to make your 10,000th skydive or not depends on such a long list of things before you get to "how you pack your canopy" that I can't help but chuckle at that statement.

It was a full load, but it was two large groups so jump run didn't take very long. ...poor skyvan.

It's like anything, it means a lot if you've been there. I thought it was awful nice of parachutisit and skydiving to always pay for the beer owed.

The solution here is to make more money and become rich. That way you can be debt free, have lots of money in the bank, and still buy whatever you want.

They provide patronage to the local amateur video, internet cafe, and web hosting markets.

You could crack open a point-n-shoot camera and do something like this, but you should keep a couple other things in mind. First off, response time of point and shoot cameras (especially the ones significantly cheaper than entry level DSLRs) is going to be pretty bad. You have to hold the shutter down for a couple seconds before you get a picture, and you can only take photos so frequently. This would annoy the crap out of me while skydiving, especially on exits. Secondly, most point and shoots don't zoom out particularly far. While you can shoot stills without a wide angle lens, it's that much harder. And if any kind of wide angle converter or adapter is available for your camera, it will push your price that much closer to a DSLR, and it will be specific to that camera so you won't be able to use it anywhere else.

Absolutely. But we will need to get a group photo of everyone on your 100th jump... in the grass of course.

Qdoba, Baja Fresh, and El Pollo Loco all have some pretty tasty stuff. Back in the midwest I used to like Jimmy Johns, Steak 'n Shake, and Culvers. [mmm... frozen custard] And we do have sweet tea down here, along with fried chicken, green beans, mash potatoes, gravy, and corn bread. You just have to know where to look. Driving around Gardena looking for a strip mall with a sign that just say "DINER" will generally yield good results.

You'll note the group photo was taken after the pieing. It was a harrowing tale, two men came out of the shadows. I noticed their hand behind their backs and conviction in their eyes. However, alas, only too late. Would that be the infamous Team LoChick? The important thing is you did it with good intentions. All too often, individuals are late to the loading area, forcing dozens of people to wait on them. You clearly put others before you by risking life and limb (primarily limb) to board the plane in a timely fashion. I'm just giving you shit, heal up soon. I need someone to drag me around the sky and put me where I need to be on 4way VRW jumps.

Oops, that'd be me. Photos are attached. (I still don't know how people continue to fall for the "let's all take a group photo... No no, over here in the grass." trick)

and going... and going... and going... and going... and going... [breath] and going... and going... and going... and going... Someone asks, "But what about the thermite at the WTC?" and someone replies, "Thermite is made when you combine aluminum, iron oxide (rust), and heat. All would be present after a plane crashed into a building." Someone asks, "But what about the raging office fires in other buildings that didn't bring them down?" and someone replies, "The world trade center was supported by a 'concentric tube' design which could not withstand both the damage to the outer and inner tubes sustained during the impact of the plane, and the damage to the linking trusses sustained during the ensuing fire." Someone asks, "But what about the plumes of debris?" and someone replies, "Pressure build up from collpasing floors can make it's way down the central columns of the building and when it gets to be too much, it will blow out through the weakest points it can find: random windows scattered amongst floors beneath the collapse." Someone asks, "But what about the audio tape that records a loud noise 9 seconds after the plane hits from an adjacent building?" and someone replies, "Do the math, the debris ejected from the impact would take approximately 9 seconds to fall to the streets below. It would make just such a noise when it hit the ground." Someone asks, "But what about the other plane crashes I've seen where debris is obvious. They don't look anything like what was at the pentagon or in Pennsylvania?" and someone replies, "Other plane crashes you've seen involved the pilot doing everything he/she could to keep the plane and the surrounding area as in tact as possible. These crashes involved the pilot doing everything in his power to cause as much damage as possible. They shouldn't look anything alike." Someone asks, "But what about the distance into the pentagon the plane traveled while also disintigrating?" and someone replies, "You don't have to stop an object's forward movement to destroy it. Shrapnel can, and will, continue to impart damage to a target after an initial impact has rendered the 'projectile' unrecognizable. It's how hollow point bullets work." And then six months goes by. And then someone asks, "But what about the thermite at the WTC?" At first, people had legitimate questions about things they did not understand, and under no real obligationto do so, engineers, architects, and scientific publications stepped forward to explain to the general public the hows and whys of it all. The vast majority of people with the questions accepted what was said, maybe discussed it a bit to clarify things, and then got on with their lives. Still there remain a few who, as though it were some kind of exercise in nobility, continue to ask the same questions again and again. But neither joining a discussion late, waiting a while and starting the exact same discussion over, nor amnestically demanding rebuttals do anything to shift the burden of proof to those of us who have accepted what happened five years ago.

THAT would be awesome, my friend! But, you know, we wouldn't want you to go out of your way or anything. I actually was going to do this, I swear. I couldn't find anyone with a canon 15mm (everyone and their cousin has the sigma) however JP (Deuce) had a Sigma 14mm Aspherical I figured I'd throw into the line up along with the two lenses of mine. ...then JP and his team had to leave early yesterday... ...then I had a spinning mal on my second jump of the day... ...then I discovered the reserve on my second rig was out of date by a week... I was able to borrow a friend's rig a little later in the day, but the four jumps I made after that were all training jumps and I was leaving from the camera step. Oh well, maybe next weekend.

We don't have labels on our lights...

maybe not for the money,but by adding 80 U$ to the price of the sigma 15mm(at B & h for example) you can get the Canon 15mm which is (i.m.o.) a better lens..... I'll see, this weekend, if I can find someone with the canon 15mm (I think I know someone who has one) and I'll take it, the 18-55mm kit lens, and the sigma 15mm to front float and get some more example shots. I have nothing better to do this weekend.

I can count to 1023 using my fingers... Interesting, I can only count from -512 to 511.

Here is a view from the camera step (otter) with the Rebel XT and the Sigma 15mm fisheye.

When humankind created civilization it added an asterisk to evolution for itself. Now, as a species, our survival is taken completely for granted, and what were once battles to the strong and races to the swift are now battles to the strong* and races to the swift*. Qualities that are best for the future of the species don't always receive the genetic preference they once enjoyed. Conversely, detrimental attributes aren't as readily snuffed out. We try to bring order to something, and all we're left with is chaos. * "strong" and "swift" according to the rules of society that we have defined, not the rules of the jungle, which are more inherent.

Speaking of which... it's actually been quite a while since we've had anything close/strong enough for me to feel here. ...I know, I know, famous last words.

2002 - 12 (started about this time of year) 2003 - 82 2004 - 188 2005 - 461 2006 - 407 (so far)

Keep in mind this was a DC power connector, meant to handle several amps, the traces are not going to be that small. Also, since PC motherboards have to be made on the cheap, they don't bother with a whole lot of groud planes in the board. Instead, they keep the small (heat sensitive) high-speed traces away from noisy areas like the region around the power connector, so I doubt you'd encounter any there.