GigaBuist

Well, this works pretty good for stopping IE exploits too. Oh, and popups.

Ack, turning your machine off at night isn't a bad idea, but certainly not something that's going to help you much. I'd imagine roughtly 95% of the DZ.com people run a Windows of some variant or another so here's some advice: If you're on broadband you really should invest in a hardware firewall that does NAT (Network Address Translation). Them little LInksys deals work fine. They're easy as pooh to setup and will do a good job of keeping you safe from random probes. You have things running that you're not aware of, and some of them you cannot even shut off. Take this RPC vulerability in Windows right now. You're affected if you haven't patched. I don't know the nitty gritty on this one but it pops a whole in their wonderfully idiotic idea that everybody in the world wanted DCOM running. Basically you have ports 135, 137, 139 and I think 445 open all the time. If you jack your broadband into your Windows box directly with a public IP you're just asking for trouble. Once you're behind a NAT firewall the only way for things to get in is for your machine to inniate the connection. This happens because of trojans and such. To protect yourself against this: Do not use IE on the internet. Sorry, but it's true. You're just asking for trouble eventually. Install Mozilla Firebiard/Phoenix from www.mozilla.org instead and stick to that. It works. Oh, and the popup blocker is great. Do not use Outlook or Outlook Express. Outlook in a corporate environment is OK and Outlook is getting better but OE should just die a horrible death. Do not just run random stuff you get from people as email attachments. Never ever double click on a file in Windows unless you know 100% for sure what it actually is. If you don't know how to to determine exactly what it is then don't ask -- just don' trust it. If you think it's a picture open your picture viewer program and tell THAT program to open it up. The Windows shell is far too easy to fool. You think it's a JPG but it's really a VBS file that's going to spawn demons inside your machine. Just don't randomly open stuff up. Get rid of Windows Media Player. Now. It's a shoddy product that's plagued with security issues. Do hit www.windowsupdate.com every few days. You will find something there at least once a week if not more often. Patch and pray -- MS isn't always perfect when it comes to quality assurance. ... And the only time TFTP has any business on a network is if you're using it to update the OS of a Cisco router or something. Nobody has any practical use for it. If you dispute this then you probably do have a use for it and you're one of the 10 people in the world that do and you know enough about why it's bad mojo. If you're running NT, 2000 or XP drop to a command prompt and run: netstat -an | more ... that'll show you what you've got listening and what you're really connected to. Can be scarey sometimes. My personal setup? Cisco ethernet router doing NAT/DHCP to my home network which is just two Linux machines. One webserver/fileserver and my laptop that I actually use. The Windows laptop from work gets on there sometimes but not too often. It's fairly safe, aside from that 802.11b access point that I run w/out MAC filtering, WEP, or any VPN-ish firewall. I'm not too terribly security minded when it comes to the home network. Yep... I'm a geek.

That's the default port for IRC communications. If you want to try something a little more full featured you could attempt 'mIRC'.

Meh.... what the hey. I'll give it a shot. SWM seeks SF. I'd describe myself as "medium" build which means that I'm probably 40lbs smaller than what you think "medium" is. I'm average height so that means I'm two inches below what you would consider average. I work a good job but I'm entirely unable to manage my own money so I'll gladly hand over that paycheck and let you handle all that nonsense. I just found a paycheck I should have deposited 3 weeks ago. Oops -- no wonder that account was running a bit low for a while. I cannot: - Cook worth a crap. - Clean worth a crap. - Remember where I'm supposed to be -ever-. I'm lucky I make it to work everyday. - Manage children, though children will be a part of the big picture. I need somebody around the house less responsible than me to make myself feel better. - Read minds. I cannot, and will not, understand any hint no matter how blatant you make it. I am however adept at handling detailed instructions so long as they don't include cooking, cleaning, or children. - Force a smile for a picture. If you're snap-happy get used to having pictures of a guy with a blank stare 90% of the time. - Lie. I'm horrible at it. Do not ask questions that you do not want to hear answers to. I can: - Fix stuff. If the women don't find you handsome they'd better find you handy, right? Duct tape is a staple in my "junk drawer", car trunk, glove box, and an extra roll or two in the closet for emergencies. - Make money, however I'm completely inept at politics so if you ever want me to get a promotion you'd better flirt with my boss or something. I am: - Agreeable. You're right, I'm wrong. I'm used to operating on these terms. - Absent minded. I'm usually unable to uhm... train, err thought... something. Where'd them potato chips go? You will be: In somewhat good shape, or close to it. Keeping track of everything for me will get exhausting. You have no choice in this matter. Perhaps by the time I'm 60 this will have changed but don't count on it. Tolerant of snoring, or have the determintion to come up with a fix for this on your own. Not mind walking around in public with a guy that looks like a leprechaun. When I see a rainbow and start sprinting for it don't worry -- I'm just after me pot 'o gold. I'll turn up sooner or later. You will have a high threshold for public embarassment. See previous. Look up directions before we leave if you want to get there on time. "It's about 2 hours north" is good enough for me to set out. Patient. In 95% of all circumstances I have the understanding and adaptability of a monkey without the ability to latch onto things with my feet. Never ever attempt to make me dance (well, slow is ok) or sing karoke. It has been attempted before and last I knew there was a convention in Geneva to declare such actions a crime against all humanity. Appreciate dry humor or just plan on not laughing a lot. Laughing -at- me when I'm not trying to be funny is perfectly acceptable though. It keeps you from getting depressed once it dawns on you what you're stuck with I figure. Assume all responsbility in the event that you give birth to female offspring. I don't understand a thing about you or your kind and don't expect this to change in the event that I'm ever the father of one you. Lack of mental illnesses such as schitophrenia are a plus but not a requirement. The whole depression thing is a little iffy though. Bi-polar is not a problem as it will keep me on my toes.

The rigger down at the DZ I'm at for student training gave me some pretty good advice on the same day he gave me my first packing tutorial. It went something like this: "If you ever get the urge to get married; go to the bar, find a good looking woman with no personality at all and just buy her a house and walk away. Just cut all the crap in the middle out and safe yourself some time."

What else is there to do? Dude, toss on a Godzilla mask and walk around holding the little ones back by putting your hand on their head while they swing at you. Okay, maybe that's better in Japan. I've always wanted to work there becuase just once in my life I'd like to be known in the office as the tall guy with a big wanker. Challenge the gang to a game of basketball -- one on 5 of something. With my luck I'll have a troop of Asian men at my door with pitchforks within an hour of hitting submit of this thing. Help.

I'll get good and rank in the office bathroom if I need to, but I make damn sure if I do that nobody else in there sees me come out that witnessed it. I try and remain anonymous. However, I've always wanted to do the folowwing: "pfrrrraaaapht, fhump, shhhhhhhhhhphrapt -- Anybody else up for Taco Bell for lunch again today?"

I'm afraid this is going to come off horribly crass. So I put this disclaimer here. I too just read the thread regarding who has seen another diver pass, and although I'm a newbie who almost never posts I thought I'd interject. Thankfully, we're all going to pass away. Unfortunately we don't always do what we wanted to do before that times come. Phew. Death shoudln't be a sad thing for long. To those who are left behind it is sad, but to those who pass on it's just a change in lifestyle. There are worse things in the world then dieing. Between April 2002 and April 2003 I knew 7 people that passed away. No, none of them from diving as I'm new to the sport. I had a grandmother, a great grandfather, cousin, old neighbor, somebody's mother I knew, friend, and great uncle in that year all move on. Err, wait, I had a good friend's mother also pass around May this year too. By now I guess I've become accustomed to the funeral scene. At any rate, the majority of these were met with sadness but not in the long run. My great grandfather accomplished quite a bit for "dumb Andy" as he was called a child; my great uncle lived his life on his own terms. Beleive me -- he did things his way and by nobody else's rule book. I knew little of my good friends mother (I'm 23, he's 45)... but I knew what kind of woman she was from the children she bore and raised. Given the nature of her children she must have been a hard willed person -- nobody else could have raised that bugger and his brothers. Ok, I'm getting offtrack and depressed now. Death is only tragic when it comes to those who have not had the time, or gumption, to do what they were set to do. A tragic death is a man of 26 dieing in his sleep from heart failure (like my friend) -- not a man of 26 hitting mother earth. The latter is unfortunate -- horribly horribly unfortunate and something I wish would never ever happen; but there are much worse ways to go. We all pass on. This in and of itself isn't unfortunate; passing on with regret is. The worst type of regret of all is not trying something you wished to. At least, that's my take on things. Looking back in my life the sore thumbs sticking out are things I wished I did but didn't. To tie this back into diving I guess I'd rather be 45 with titanium femurs than 45 wondering if I should have ever stuck with this. Sorry for the rambling -- had a weird week and my mind's running 100mph constantly. Can't keep a constant thought to try and put -some- meaning to the above if you can fill in the blanks.

Well, http://www.winzip.com is where you can get Winzip, which is the defacto-standard tool. I don't know why. If you want a free one I've used this: http://download.com.com/3000-2250-10139179.html?tag=lst-0-1 ... and for a listing of more software check here: http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=unzip&tg=dl-2001 I'm assuming you're a Windows user. I don't know what to suggest if you're using a Mac, and if you're using Linux you probably wouldn't have posted the question.

Q: What's the difference between a white plastic bag and Michael Jackson? A: One's white and dangerous to childern. The other's a plastic bag. Did you hear about the midget with 40 pound balls? He's half nuts. Two nuns are painting a room and decide to remove their clothing to prevent paint splashes. Somebody knocks on the door and they ask who it is and he responds, "Blind man." They figure, what the hey -- it's blind so he can't see anythign and open the door. The man stands there, says, "Hey, nice tits. Where do you want the blinds?" What's the difference between a blonde and a 747? Not everybody's been on a 747. A young man is at a bar with his friends when a drunk walks up to himi and says right to his face, "Your mother is the best lay in town!" The young man waves him off as his friends shit in amazement that he didn't knock the guy out. The man comes back 10 minutes later, gets his the young man's face and says, "Your mother gives the best blow jobs in town!" Again the young man just waves him off and his friends sit amazed that he's taking this. The guy comes back again and tells the youngster, "I'm gonna screw your mother tonight, whaddya think about that?" The young man finally snaps back, "Go home dad, you're drunk." Bah-doom-chink.

From memory... The Arkansas High School Reading Test: Guy 1: MR SNAKES Guy 2: MR NOT Guy 1: SMR SNAKES C DEM I D B D Is? Guy 2: L I B MR SNAKES! Translation: Them are snakes Them are not Yes them are snakes. See them itty bitty eyes? Well I be! Them are snakes! There's more, but I forget it.

I'll don my Commander Geek hat here and try and whittle through this one. Computer's on the internet use an IP (Internet Protocol) address to identify themselves. It's a 4 byte number. For the sake of geeks around the world we chose to break them up into four pieces though and call it a "dotted quad". When you go to www.dropzone.com your browser really doesn't know WTF that is, so it has to resolve that address into an IP before it can actually make the request. The IP address for dropzone.com is: 64.69.64.224 So, if you type in http://64.69.64.224 into your browser window you get to dropzone.com and skip that whole pesky resolution process in the step. Given the scope of this tutorial I'll skip the whole issue of using the HTTP Host: header to do name based virtual hosting... it's even less exciting than this. Back the whole dotted quad thing, each number between the dots represents one byte of the IP address. A byte is 8 bits (which are either 1 or 0) which gives you a maxium range of 0-255 (2 to the 8th power). That's why you'll never seen an IP like 300.100.200.400... the bits just can't be toggled that way. Now, while we like to think of them as four seperate numbers they really are one number. They mash together at the IP layer and form a single 4 byte (32 bit) number which has a range of 0-4,294,967,296 or 2 to the 32nd power. Yes I had to use a calculator for that one. Now we delve into the binary number system. We're so used to base 10 that this sometimes takes a bit getting used to. When you write "10" is in base ten what you're saying is you have one ten and zero ones. The right most digit means 1's, the next left is 10's and the next 100's and so on. Each place represents the number counted for a new power of ten. 210 really means: (10^2 * 2) + (10^1 * 1) + (10^0 * 0). I use the ^ notation here to represent "the next number is an exponent". Once you go to the binary system where a place is either on or off each the right most position now becomes the number of 2^0 units you have, the next 2^1, and the next 2^2 and so on. The digit 2 never exists in this system though because you can't represent that number. Imagine only having one finger on each hand at this point and trying to count. For zero you show no fingers. For one you show a finger on your right most hand (take your pick as to which one) and for two you show a finger on your left hand but none on the right. For a three you hold up both fingers. So, 64.69.64.224 when taken one chunk at a time in binary is: 01000000 = 64 (1 * 64) 01000101 = 69 (1 * 64 + 1 * 4 + 1 * 1) 01000000 = 64 ( 1 * 64) 11100000 = 224 (1 * 128 + 1 * 64 + 1 * 32) Mash them together and you get: 01000000010001010100000011100000 ... and this is starting to make my head hurt a little bit. The numbers you say above were decimal numbers that represent an IP address. Humans like numbers in base 10 -- we have 10 fingers assuming no birth defects of accidents. Shop teachers down to one thumb at each hand must be naturals at binary numbers. I am not. I get lost after a while. Now that you've played in the realm of binary numbers, and probably want to cut my head off for putting math in this forum, we'll go one one more number system before the answer is revealed. Take a moment and grab yourself a beer -- you've earned it at this point. Lets's look at the dotted quad again, and break it down into a number system of sorts. We'll treat is like a base 256 number system even though we use more than one symbol per "digit" in this case. 64 units of 256^0 (1) 69 units of 256^1 (256) 64 units of 256^2 (65,536) 224 units of 256^3 (16,777,216) You add them all up (using a calculator again here....) and you get: 3,758,096,384 + 4,194,304 + 17,664 + 64 = 3,762,308,416 Along with a headache. So, now when you type in http://3762308416 and assuming you use a browser that can handle such a number (mine can't -- Galeon) then you'll eventually get to your destination. So, now that I've bored everybody to death and you've skipped this post I'll continue on explaining why this actually gets around your workplaces proxy server and gets you into what you want to see. The web as we know is based off the HTTP protocol. RFC number 2068 to be found at http://www.ietf.org if you really want to read the whole thing. What happens when you make a web (HTTP) request: Your machine jacks open a connection on port 80 (typically) to the destination machine and sends some mumbo-jumbo over to it that looks like this: GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: That part that goes after Host: is what you typed into your address bar, or at least the host/domain name of the site. www.dropzone.com would be what goes there when you hit this site. The /cgi-bin/forums/etc. part gets chopped off. So, your proxy server intercepts this call and looks at what you have in the Host: position and does a lookup on this to determine if you're looking for naughty stuff... or at least that's the only manner in which I assume products such as SmartFilter can work. I don't have source code to them, nor do I care to. Even though I work for a company that uses SmartFilter, and are German owned (making the Nazi reference funnier for me), I've never bothered doing this to get around the proxy. Sometimes it bugs me, sometimes it doesn't. When my boss was showing me the SmartFilter's magic on my first day of work (he also hates it) he plops http://www.playboy.com into the address bar of his browser to show me the typical error message only to discover that the SmartFilter was temporarily down. Ooops. Now, I remove my Commander Geek hat and fetch another beer.

Although I'm far, far away from being able to do a 30,000 foot jump this topic has always caught my interest. I'm always interested in the boundaries of the human body and oxygen deprevation is one of them. My old man once held his breath for 3:00 on a bet in high school. He was a distance runner. I took this as a challenge around 16 years of age and hit 2:37. At the age of 18 I managed to hit 4:39 without breathing. I was loopy after that for a while -- I'll give you that. Now that I'm out of shape I can still do 3:00 because I'm accustomed to it I guess. I have no idea if this is a damned weird situation or not. I don't know anybody else that can do it personally but I know they're out there. Around the era that I could hit 4:00 or higher consitently I was in Arizona at the Grand Canyon around 7,000 ASL and could run around and such with little difficulty. Everest can be nailed without O2 from what I know and that's at 30,000 feet plus. Can't the same be done with skydiving? Granted, the percentage of skydivers capable of such things is probably a lower percentage than that of mountain climbers can but is there any real threat to a properly trained human being with good 02 utilization going out at 30,000 and having to wait 2:00 until they get to somewhat normal O2 saturation levels? I admit I approach the subject from the wrong schooling. To hold your breath the key is not to saturate with 02 bur rather to breathe in preperation to deplete your blood stream of CO2. Your brain senses C02 levels to tell you when you're in trouble. Breathing hard does little to saturate your blood stream with 02 but very much to get out all the C02 that will turn on your instincts to breathe. Do the two situations relate at all or is there something I'm missing?

Yep... Vicodin's working! Trust the doctor on this one -- just take it easy and let them heal up before you do anything. I've got some short ribs that I cracked a few times and didn't bother letting them heal up properly. I'll never be able to lay on my belly and not feel them poking around at odd angles at my body again. Now, I dont' regret my decision in the least bit; but unless you want to muck with the portion of your body central to protection of you organs you'd just better stay put. It's not like you can re-break them and get them set again later down the road. I've certainly never heard of it happening. Best wishes.

1) Being physically close to people I don't know well. Lines, crowded bars, etc. Oh, and rides in a 182 Cessna :). 2) Not having an "out" in an area. I usually sit facing the entrace/exit to restuarants for this reason. I want to know what's coming in and what's going out. Again, a problem on a small plane. Once I'm next to an open door I think I feel 100% better. 3) Not having some sort of weapon at hand in public. Ok, this one screams "nut job" but really -- any place where I can't carry my blade makes me nervous -- except that Cessna ride. I guess I could there but there's no reason as a student. The "secured" area of airports leave me jumping my eyes around looking for blunt objects in the case I need one. As soon as I collect my bagage I waddle off to a corner, unzip luggage and strap my blade back to my belt. I feel a little better and safer. 4) Relates to 3 but I really don't like not having a firearm within my possession, or somewhere near it. It doesn't have to be -on- me, but more than an hour from my cache and I notice myself wanting to have an AR-15 in my hotel room or something. I purposely kept out of Canada during my last road trip from Michigan to New England just so I could keep a pistol in my trunk and in my hotel room. 5) Heights. Last time I was 12 feet in the air in a 6" gutter I was a little neverous about the whole thing. I never did entirely get over that.

I nearly spit out my beer when I read that. I did my first jump a month ago with a group of buddies and one of them was my brother. He was worried that he'd hit a bird during the little bit of freefall and have it rip his man-junk off. I'm still not sure if it was a joke question of if he was really worried about his unit. Actually given that he's been trying to lengthen his man-junk via a "supllement" he bought off the internet he was probably worried about loosing his investment. He proposed the question of hitting a bird while dropping to the instructor who pretty much stared back blankly wondering WTF is wrong with this guy. He said it had never happened, nor heard of it happening. I guess I can tell my bro that it is possible now. To keep this somewhat on topic my old man used to run a buttload of miles on the roads day in and day out and had a few chances to run along side deer in the area. He has great memories about the times that it would happen and I'd imagine that FLYING with a bird is easily 100x better. Way cool.

The natural resonance of a chicken's skull is 7Hz. This was discovered when a factory went up (either in Australia or New Zeeland I think) near a chicken farm and chickens started dieing at an unusual rate. Turned out that the factory was emitting a constant hum of 7Hz which would rattle the chicken skulls and kill them. Gleaned from the help files of Borland's Turbo C++ 3.0 referencing a sound() function.

You've actually hit the point that first occured to me when I started reading this thread: "The wrong people are being insured." I have a strong distain for current insurance practices. Insurance was originally (although perhaps I'm mistaken) as a community effort. You put money into the pool in case something went wrong with somebody else in the pool. Similar to how churches and such help out members from the common fund in disaster situations. As soon as a formal body takes over and begins mandating who must join the pool things go to hell in a handbasket. As an insured person you should have some say regarding who goes into your pool. Auto insurance, at least in my state of Michigan (and many others) legally requires all drivers to be insured which then in turns requires all insurers to carry an equal load of high-risk people. Unfortunately this mentailly carries over into other areas of insurance and probably (err.. obviously) effects demo insurance. If the USPA can't fork out the claims then it's obviously insuring the wrong group. Raise the standards! If they won't, try and formalize your own group and create another insurance mechanism with lower risks and a smaller pool of low risk people. That, however, would be one heck of a feat. I can't even fathom the legal requirements that go into forming your own insurance company. I could begin a long tirade about insurance practices in health/auto/vision/etc. here but I'll refrain. If you ever catch me 3-4 beers into a night I'd keep you occupied with 60 minutes of ranting easily

I'm not qualified in any way, shape, or form to comment on the safety of your situation; however being a math/science/computer/physics nerd I can safely comment on this part! A 50 pound lead ball and a feather drop at the same rate when you look at how gravity works, but as soon as you throw in any sort of resistance (ie: wind) things go haywire. If you toss them out the window of a buidling that's situated in a perfect vaccum they hit the ground at the same time, but we don't live in a vaccum. I think, and this may be a physics urban legend, the discovery was made when two lead balls were tossed out the leanining Tower of Pisa. A big ball and a small ball fell and hit the ground at the same time because they're close enough in shape that the wind resistence was fairly equal on them. The Tower of Pisa is fairly short though, and TV (terminal velocity) won't be experienced in that time. Maybe it will with a lead ball, but certainly not with a human. If I've been reading things right lately it would take about 1880 feet to reach TV for the human body shape in an arched box-man position. Now, TV is reached when the force of resitance (the air around you) equals the force of gravity pulling you down. The force of gravity is directly proportional to your weight but the force of resistance due to air is proportianal to the surface area you "present' to the wind. Given that I tip the scales at a whopping 140lbs and you at 300lbs you would have to present roughly 2 times the surface area to fall at the same rate as me. A rounded belly or a very large chest while large in surface area don't count here. It's only a 2D world when air is concerned and falling along a 1D line. If you put a big spotlight on the two of us and looked at our shadows your's wouldn't be much bigger than mine! Well, unless you're about 11'6" tall and have a 12" "wingspan". If that's the case then yeah -- you'd fall as slow as I would, but if that's the case you've probably got a world record for the tallest human ever coming your way. Hope that clears up the physics side.

You're obviously somewhat interested, as others have pointed out, just be asking a question here. I'm just a newbie to the sport, but I'll post my introduction to it in hopes that it'll help you make up your mind about the matter. I was flying back from Orlando on business in late May and realized during flight that I'd kind of like to know what it's like to be -outisde- the plane. The view was kind of fun from the window, but I realized it'd be much much more fun having a 360 view than that little portal. However, I hate heights. I've been known to be slightly jittery on a 10 foot ladder at times. After a while I get used to it, but 10-14 feet off the ground makes me nervous, or at least it has in the past. Anyway, about 3 days after I land back home I get a call from a buddy who's put together a group that wants to skydive and wants 1 more guy in the group for the reservation. I think about it for a moment and give my okay. We show up at the dropzone with 7 of us that have never taken a dive before. We do the class and board the plane in groups of 3. It's just a Cessna, so we get 3 jumpers 1 jump master and the pilot in there. I'm jittery a bit, perhaps a lot. You'd have to ask the JM for a real evaluation of my reaction at that point -- I was a bit "out" of it I'd imagine. I'm in the position to be the 1st out the door; the door opens and I get a bit of a jolt when I stick my feet out the door doing 80. It's different than I expected, as I was told. I've stuck the upper half of my body out of a car doing 80 before but never my legs and arms with the body still inside. It's different, plus being at 3500 feet makes it a totally different experience. Feet out on the step, hand on the wing support, and I get the "hang" command. As soon as my body's all the way out I feel a bit more comfortable. I suppose I'm a bit closterphobic so being outside the plane suddendly makes me feel better. I hang and feel pretty much free. I look at the JM and I get a "Go!" and took a moment to look around. I'm seriously thinking "Wow, great view, I'll enjoy this for just a second until I drop to my death." I look back at the JM who's probably slightly amused by my hesitation and she gives me another "go" so I release and arch, or something close to an arch. It takes about 2 seconds before I look down and throw my body slightly more head-down than you should get in a static line the the cord pulls, the chute opens and I'm stunned. Absolutely stunned. I'm -floating- around at 3000 feet in the air. Pure rush. I float down, land (not standing), but I'm grinning from ear to ear. The resident packer comes out to help me gather the chute up and he's grinning from ear to ear too, but he always is it seems. I couldn't tell you what I said but it was along the line of "That was friggen great!". I nab my buddies camera after the gear is off to take pictures of the rest of our group as the rest land and he gets on his plane. The 7 of us land. The guy who organized the whole thing is -pale white- when he lands, obviously scared stupid. He loved it though. I forget who told me but I didn't realize you could actually jump twice that first day so I talked him into it. I didn't take much. We jumped again that day. BIG! mistake! You've probably heard the just-say-no-to-drugs line that if you never do it you'll never get addicted. Well, technically if you never do it more than once you'll never get addicted. Same goes with skydiving it seems. I was hooked. I'm back down there the next week to do another, and back the next week, and back again. Okay, so it's not a mistake, but it is an addiction. I can live with that though. To me, if you're worried about actually letting go and making that jump you needn't worry at all. It doesn't seem real. The back of your mind, that part that controls fear and basic responses to such things, has no idea how to deal with 3500+ feet. It's clueless. It says "bad idea -- but I don't know why.". The forefront of your brain, the logical part, can't really grasp what's going on either. I think that pretty much nullifies the fear response once you've gotten that high up and are looking into open space. If you have the inkling to do it, I hope you do. I'm sure as snot glad I did.

I overheard this at the DZ this weekend while I was hoping to see the winds die down so I could do a student jump. Packer to tandem student as he finishes packing one up: Don't worry! We ain't had a malfunction since I got off drugs! Somebody else (I presume the student, but I wasn't looking at them): How long ago was that? Packer: Yesterday! Needless to say... he's a hoot

Wow... every reply saying that they've seen it happen and that it's common so far. Given suggestions so far I guess the plan of action would be to let my instructors know of the situation before I begin actual freefall training and spend some extra time practicing emergency procedures in the event that I ever have that left arm go completely "dead" on me. Thankfully it's just the left arm which means my main would still be within reach and an AAD would fire if I couldn't pull the reserve with a handicapped left arm and a good right one. Not that I would could on that as a valid emergency procedure though! Perhaps before I hit TV freefalls I should spend some time in a wind tunnel and actually put myself in positions that are likely to rip the bugger back out just to see what could happen. Any thoughts on this? Again, I'll ask my instructors their opinions too. I'm half tempted to intentionally dislocate the thing in a severe manner just to see if I can pull a reserve with it at this point. I did manage somehow to wrestle with the thing coming in and out of socket so I imagine I could but I'd just like to make sure. Any thoughts on this? I figure if I'm able to perform the motions of a reserve pull with a dislocated shoulder under no stress and ignore the pain, and actually have that range of motion, that I'd be able to do it if my life depended on it. Granted, the stress factor means that you're less likely to do the right thing, but ability to ignore pain tends to grow exponentially with regards to your life endangerment factor. Personally, the surgery option just isn't something I'd be willing to do right now, though I may consider it in the future. I'm only 23 and doing surgery on something that I did to myself when I was 17 seems extreme. On top of that I got a guy (basically a stranger -- a coworker of a friend) that's waiting on a kidney and I'm #2 in line for testing on donating one. If I hit surgery for this I'd imagine it would pretty much take me out of the donation picture for a while for his and my own safety and I'm not going to do that to the guy over a shoulder. Besides, even if I do fix the left one's damage, there's still the change the right one would go fubar in the future and leave me learning stuff later on that I might as well have learned earlier on.

I ran across this subject in Incidents but I thought I'd startup a thread in here because I'm curious about the subject as it may impact how I go about actually getting further into the sport -- I'm just a static line student now. Anyway the chap had a bad shoulder seperate during freefall and not from impacting another object... seems it was just the force of the wind that brought it out of place. I'm wondering if this is unheard of, or somewhat common. My left shoulder has been in and out of it's socket more times than I care to remember and it never occured to me that the wind forces during a freefall might be enough to pop the bugger back out. The only time it's been bad enough that I couldn't really move my arm much was from wrestling matches which I've assumed were much more straining on it than a freefall would be but am I possibly mistaken here? If I put my arm out the window of a car doing 80 and cup my hand to catch air then relax my shoulder I do notice it slide a bit out, but well within limits I'm comfortable with. Heck, sitting here right now if I hold it up shaped like an L and relax it bumps forward. A little muscle tension keeps it in place though. To yank it out to where I'm not able to reach across to my right shoulder you'd have to extend my arm either sideways or out in front and torque down with about 60-80lbs of force if I remember right.... but even then there's only a 1/20 chance that it'd be bad enough to keep me from using it. Any anecdotal evidence (or scientific if you've got it) to let me know just how likely this is to happen in the air?

Okay, this is something I know a bit about so I'll throw my advice in. First, the shoes for training are definate must. When it comes to races I wear something light that provides a fair amount of fore-foot cushioning but that's probably not something you'd want to try if you're hitting 25-27 minutes for a 5k. Two weeks isn't much time, and you won't be able to improve your endurance factor at all over that. If you've been on the 3 miles 3 times a week thing for 6 months you've already got a decent base to work with -- so it's time to get some speed in those legs. I'd have started this around 4-6 weeks before the race, but here goes. Do some "repeats" on a local track. If you're currently at 27 minutes (9 mins per mile) I'd start shooting for a 7:30 mile. Go to the track, and try and crank one out. Watch your time every 200 meters (half a lap) so you know where you're at. After your mile let your body cool down until you're heart rate is back to a reasonable range (100-120 beats I'd say... unless you've got a resting heart rate of around 50-60. If that's the case you should drop to 80 beats in a reasonable time). Hit a half mile repeat at the same pace, rest, and then do a quarter, a half, and then a mile again. You'll be stressing your heart over this entire time which is what you really need to keep that pace for 3 miles. Your legs will keep up generally... it's the cardio that kills you. As for water, don't bother. If it's going to be hot out just load up days before and make sure you're hyrdrated when you hit the line. Just make sure you've emptied your bladder before you toe the line. Load up on starchy carbs the night before and get a good night's rest. Keep eating the morning of the race to a minimum... a bagel and an apple perhaps up to an hour before. I generally liked to suck down a bunch of sugary ice tea the last few hours too. The caffiene, so long as you don't overdue it, tended to help me. Oh, and carbo loading on beer is NOT an option. My father tried this the night before a marathon once with not so good results. DO drink 2 beers a day though during training. European distance runners have this as part of their regiment I beleive, or so was the case when I was in high school. It's the best source of chromium that your body will absorb. Much better than the supplement pills and way more fun to ingest. Lower the distance you run for the repeats over time. Over the next week keep the 1 mile, half, quater, half, mile thing going. The week of drop the miles out and do a half, half, quater, half, half, quater, half. Try and keep the overall distance at 3 miles though. Three to four days before the race drop down to doing 200 meter repeats and drop the time down too. Shoot for a 6 minute mile (45 second 200meter spurts) and hit 24 of them with about a minute between repeats. You'll be used to running faster by the time you toe the line and your body will naturally run faster. If you want to make it real "fun" shoot for total devastation by the 3 mile mark. That last .1 (about 220 meters I think), no matter how bad you hurt, WILL still come out of your body. Time it so you feel like you're going to die right at 3 miles and then just keep moving your arms. Your legs have to keep up else you'll fall over.

I'm no expert on skydiving -- but this is something I do know a bit about. What we have in your case is a typical too-many-movies syndrome. It's fairly common so please don't take this personally. Hitting somebody in the leg is not reason enough for them to go down. Sometimes it would be -- but if they do it's only psychological and not a physical reaction. You simply don't have enough nerve endings to really put your body into shock (reliabily) by putting a .40" hole into a leg. When dealing with what might possibly an enraged and dedicated person (I am not saying that this was the case in this situation) hitting the leg isn't an option. You -must- go for center mass, meaning the chest, and hope that your first 2 shots do enough damage to stop them. Please not assume that stopping them does equals killing them. The goal in a firearm confrontation, contrary to popular beleif, is not to kill the person -- it's to STOP them from endagering you. I'll admit that generaly speaking a stopping wound does equal a killing wound (if not treated) but the difference in execution (of the shots) is vastly different. Try using a handgun in a dimly lit situation and hit an object 4" in diameter sometime from 15 yards. That's about as big as the 'meaty' spot of a man's leg that would do any real damange. It's harder than the movies make it look. Doing it under stress is a whole 'nother situation.