Fast

I have to disagree with you. In an informed society, people walk away from transactions that are not of benefit to them. That's the self stabilizing aspect you may be missing here. Those employees can always choose to walk away. It may take a lot of work to do so (i.e., bettering themselves so they don't need to work at minimum wage jobs), but the choice is still their choice. Agreed. In general, I agree with this, but it can be abused. Are you familiar with New York's "Scaffold Law"? http://www.scaffoldlaw.org/ Yes, people who are working to provide for their own families must vote out those politicians who take from them to give to those who don't work. You hear people talking about their "rights". A right deals with how your allowed to conduct yourself. As soon as it starts costing other people's money, it's a privilege. That privilege comes with constraints, i.e., you need to work. Granted, that statement can use refinement in some finer points, but it's a reasonable starting point for further discussion, IMO. You missed my point about an informed society. i.e. We don't live in one, people constantly act without the knowledge of what they are doing, if it's a good idea or bad. Many larger business dealings (like buying a house, car, etc) are so complex people can't wrap their heads around what is going on. You also seem not able to grasp the fact that, given no fair standards, jobs that pay appropriate wages will disappear. Without a minimum wage and with the level of unemployment we consistently have, wages will drive down in all lines of work, including educated "Bettered" jobs. Because employees will compete for them. Yeah I know, free market, but the problem is, the way the system is set up now, it will substantially destroy any hope for a reasonable life for most people, including you. (Unless of course your in the millionaires club already). ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

In an informed society which chooses to act together, sure. Billvon has mentioned a few more examples of this concept not being true. I linked one. Your premise breaks down when you scale up to society. If minimum wage went away, it wouldn't take long for businesses to move the general pay scale a lot lower. At first you would have a choice, but in the long run, things would adjust in favor of the business owner. Most businesses would go for the short run gains, then cut and run if things failed. There are even examples of this in skydiving (see: skyride). I am a firm believe that most things should be ok for people to do. Drugs, prostitution, gun ownership, etc, really whatever. I don't care one bit what a person wants to do. The purpose of government should be to provide a stable national defense, basic infrastructure and intervene when something that I choose to do makes problems for someone else and that's it. Fair labor standards falls into basic infrastructure. I do think that the government goes way too far in many things, but to fix that problem a whole lot is going to have to change. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Bull shit It's not like there are any good examples of this. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

In general, business transactions should be win/win for everyone. Otherwise, one party walks away. So, to answer your question, its productive for both parties involved. Maybe win/win for the two making the trade, but at the end of the day the people working for these companies are the ones who end up suffering when there is no reasonable expectation of a labor standard, etc. Most people running a business who are allowed to pay their employees less, would, provided they can find people willing to do the work. It's more money for the owner. Most people aren't in business to make their employees rich. This is one of the predominant reasons that we have problems with undocumented immigrant workers. You also really don't need to go that far back in history to find substantially terrible working conditions for industrial workers, etc. Hell, that stuff still happens in places where there are no good regulations to prevent it. While it's true that in the long run, everyone wins when employees are treated and compensated fairly, most people in power and running a business only care because the social pressure exists to care, which is due to government forced labor standards. The general nature of humans tends towards greed and self preservation in most circumstances. Even the politicians who force this stuff on businesses in the name of the greater good are only doing it for self motivating factors. Wake up and smell the coffee, people aren't generally nice to one another on a large scale when the choice comes down to me or him. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Productive for whom exactly? Left to their own devices, most business people would cut off your head and shit down your throat if it meant making extra money. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

As far as I know, everyone is welcome at the Cheese Boogie (CRW side)... I just run things at the dropzone, don't have much to do with the CRW organizing. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Those are the dates! We are going to have pre-registration posted soon too. Looking forward to seeing everyone. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I didn't read Mein Kampf, most of the Bible, and Jim Jones' Kool Aid cookbook either. The OP assumes the statistics must tell the truth. I know better. This is one of the biggest problems in our society. It also occurs on both sides of whatever fence you're fighting about. People, in general, have moved themselves to a position in which they no longer care about logical reasoning. The end result of this is going to be a catastrophic failure of what we consider to be "normal every day society" because in the long run, things can only get worse based on current mindsets. The only positive side for most of us is that we wont live to see it, so who cares. I mean, that's the way to look at it right? ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

In all seriousness, stop landing there. The property right next to our dropzone is a wide open field that would make a nice out, except the guy that lives there calls the cops when people land there. Everyone who comes to our dropzone is told to treat the area is if it were a pit of vipers. At our dropzone, we have so many other options that if you end up landing in that field, you've made a huge mistake. Educate the skydivers on choosing an out before you are stuck with this one field that you have a problem with. Sure, technically you have the concept of an emergency landing to fall back on, but in the long run this isn't a valid argument. If you have emergency landings that often then in the eyes of most non-skydivers you are doing something wrong. I really am not trying to be a jerk, it just comes down to staying off someone else's property. We have a horse farm near us as well and people don't land there specifically cause it scares the horses. We haven't been sued, but the cops have considered writing trespassing tickets a few times. Edit to add: Really, for what it's worth, making a point of also informing the property owner of what you're doing to avoid landing in his field will generally help. It's also something that will help you if you do get sued. "We did this, this and this as of dd/mm/yyyy to try and prevent these types of landings, including educating every jumper that comes to our facility with the following briefing (a nice map on paper showing the issues and better alternatives, or something)." ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

The 2-year contract is prolly worth it. You will need the time to get as good as you think you want to be. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

If I had to take a guess, I would hope that it is an EIS - the camera size couldn't possibly fit BOSS and OIS would make it useless. But it's just a guess. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Good. Everyone has strong points and weak points, so if you learn from one instructor, yours will match theirs. Jump with a variety of instructors and you'll pick up something different from each one. Look for DZs close to home, for several reasons. One of them being that traveling to get your license brings in pressure to get it done while you're there. If you get a couple weather days, or struggle on a jump or two, you start to fall behind schedule and than you have that pressure on your mind. If you jump close to home, you can go home if you hit a snag and retrun the next day or weekend for nothing more than the price of gas. Another thought is that it's good to make some 'friends' at the place you'll be spending most of your time once you have a licesne. By bringing your business to the DZ, you'll get to know the staff and then when you inevitably need help or advice after you have your licesne, they'll be there for you. Instead of being the unknown 'new guy' looking for help, you're 'Bill, who did all his training here, looking for help'. See what the local DZs look like. Maybe take a drive to each of them on a jump day and see what the operations look like. Talk to the staff about continuing your training and ask about their program, pricing, and where you would start off with your previous experience. This advice. Along with the the fact that if it's a 2,4,6,etc hour drive to the dropzone it will be counterproductive. The closer a DZ that you can find that you're comfortable at, the more likely you will decide to head there on a questionable weather day or over something else, the less gas you will spend, the more jumps you can make before having to leave for your drive home, etc etc etc. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Short answer: Yeah, it sucks for them, but send them back to their country of origin. Give them a grace period to get their life together and move to a new home or otherwise legally establish citizenship. I'm all for helping people out but too many of you are unwilling to face the fact that this country has just as many problems as other countries. It's pretty easy to ignore it since we (the group on this website) are predominantly white and middle class. People can quote this reason or that, but the truth of the matter is that if we can't even get this in order, there isn't a whole lot of long term hope for a country that is quickly heading down the shitter. Don't get me wrong, this is just one of many in a long list of problems in this country though. Immigration to the US is cool, so long as you do it the right way. What was done hundreds of years ago to the native americans sucked, but it's not an excuse to ignore the problem now. It's also quite a different world. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Hilarious and omg yes ... please don't make me break your phone for shooting video the wrong way!!!!

Wow, now there is a system I could get behind. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

This statement really shows why everyone is a hater. They took your customers, ok, got it but deceptive? How so? Beloit is right down the road from East Troy, if they really were "your" customers then how the fuck were you pulling them to you? I plan on still jumping at East Troy when I go visit family because I really enjoy your DZ, I also plan on jumping in Beloit too. Here is a tip: If you want to put them out of business and they are so close to you? Stop whinning, do better, simple as that. That's how it works in this country. Hope to see you in June, lets jump

Yes they are opening a midwest DZ. I have seen thier ads for a kingair pilot, so that's what I suspect they have access to. It's right down the road from the new CSC and also the DZ that I manage. They are a pain in the ass. We have already lost customers to their deceptive marketing. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Here is a different perspective. My mom didn't like it at all. I was living with her at the time and she said "stop skydiving or move out, I can't take the stress." You can prolly guess which option I chose. Skydiving is a huge part of my life, I am on the/a dz literally every weekend, rain or shine. At some point (took a few years) my mom realized that if she wanted to talk to me more than once every other month she needed to stop harping on me about jumping. Since then things have gotten a lot better. Some level of explanation of "I know skydiving is dangerous, I'm scared too" (which you really need to admit, at least to yourself) and also a "you're not gonna convince me to stop doing this no matter what you try" could help. It just depends what type of person you are and your dad is. Try to get the point across that he should learn a little about it and try to understand how you're mitigating risk because it will help him feel better about it. For my mom it really took her coming out seeing me executing pretty advanced stuff (swooping, tandems, instructing) to get her to pretty much let go of the fear of me doing it entirely. Which is ironic in a sense because those are some of the more dangerous things you can do. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I personally don't wear my full-face to look cool & groovy. I wear it to protect my face, and it also has a nice side benefit of improving my sinuses (particularly in the tunnel, but also in freefall). It's also warmer in the winter. As for cleaning, for some brands, even a soft cloth isn't good. Soap and water, rub it in with your fingers and rinse off and allow to air dry. I'm so sick of wind burn... I only wear open face helmets these days for video and tandems. I even wear a fullface on hop and pops. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Anyone else have any hands on with the new camera's with BOSS? There looks to be some potential here. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

heh, can you pay your bills? Can you eat? Can you afford to have fun now and then? What exactly do you have to complain about? If you want to move, save up the extra money for a new down payment, buy a second house and let the first foreclose. It's just passing the buck to someone else, but that's what people do these days. 20 years ago, in the same situation, most people would have just accepted that they were stuck and worked hard to get out of the situation. Your home value on paper only matters if you want to move and there are options. You're stuck with what turned out to be a bad investment, live with it or give up on it and start moving on. We're all screwed anyways, young people don't understand how this works. It's only going to get orders of magnitude worse as our lives move forward. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I go with cargo pants, but basically yeah that. The only reason i would actually pay for something is to get a copy of the "DZ" pants that we have with the logo and stuff. They aren't required though, so right now it's a pair of cargo pants in my normal size with a few extra inches in the legs. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

The technology does exist, but I can't think of any system that is both simple and commercially viable at this point in time. One thing that comes to mind as a potential solution could be a zigbee system (low cost, open source wifi). They do have units with range, but I don't think they have the bandwidth required. I don't think Facetime can be done over 3G without jailbreaking (this was the case at first, I don't know if it has changed since), but you the cell coverage at 13K is a bigger issue. You might get something at altitude, but it's not going to be reliable, and you almost certainly won't have the bandwidth to stream video. Eh.... This is reasonably priced for what it is. NTSC/PAL only. http://www.vfmstore.com/trc12g.htm The legality of it depends on your location and what licenses you have. This stuff is totally doable and not that unreasonable. That stuff is bigger and would have to be worn in some kind of pack or just for exit video in the aircraft. They also make pretty high powered RC stuff... http://wirelessvideocameras.com/my-cart.html?page=shop.browse&category_id=53 That option goes up to 25 miles and requires a HAM license to operate. And the transmitter is about the size of a credit card. This stuff is out there in good quality, way beyond what has been done in skydiving. There are lots of hobbiest RC first person flyers out there doing long range flights with GPS and onscreen displays. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Does it have to be that specific book? I have this one and it's basically the same thing. You should see if he is still selling copies. http://www.skydivingmagazine.com/book_pages/1/SkydivingFormations1.htm ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I'm going on various posts from people I respect here. I'm just a hack. But one might talk to a good PD rep and have them explain the diff between the Katana and the Stiletto and why each was designed that way. Lots of searches here too. As I understand it, though, the crossfire is more like a stiletto than a katana. But really experienced guys like AggieD or others will correct me if I'm wrong. (and I'm glad to learn anytime those guys talk). (I also like to consider the entire flight, including the opening, dynamics in flights, ground hungry vs not, etc etc. not just the last bit of the landing - so maybe this is not the audience that cares on those bits...) Edit: frankly, I like the recommendation to weighting up on the 139 first. Then I'd just tell him to demo both canopies and decide for himself. Everyone has their own opinions, but in the end, it's up to Dale and his preferences. I have jumped all these canopies reasonably extensively. I wouldn't really compare a crossfire to a stilleto. The only real comparison is that the crossfire has more of a positive natural recovery than a katana which doesn't really recover that way. But a stilleto is substantially more positive and substantially shorter than a crossfire. If I was gonna compare a crossfire to anything PD makes it would be the katana, but you're right they are different. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka