yoink

lesson learnt wise-one It only concerns me when I'm on finals landing next to some one who's just landed. It all gets a little hairy if they reinflate their canopy as I'm landing next to them is all I meant. partly my fault for assuming they'd collapse their canopy as soon as they land, but I do think it' shows a lack of concern for others...

? What? does she do the washing up for you? HH - after careful thought I've drafted a reply for you in an effort to save time, and seeing as he didn't seem to like the tone you used in your reply... Please feel free to use this one... Dear Umgeggitygeggitybaba, After reading your e-mail and having put considerable thought to the application process for a dropzone.com account, I have to admit I might have been hasty with my previous reply. It was not particularly well thought out and did not convey my feelings or attitude adequately, so please allow me the chance to rectify the matter now with this more considered e-mail... Bite me. sincerely, HH sorted I hate spammers.......

any particular reason you included the return e-mail address? turnaround is fair play I reckon...

speaking as neither a TI or cameraman... I gotta agree with you Dave to a point - I think a mix of shots are needed for a tandem student roll - but I also think having the instructor in shot gives a necessary sense of 'place' to a photo. umm... maybe I'm not explaining this too well... Imagine a photo of a black piece of glass that fills a picture - a bit boring and confusing right? Zoom out and suddenly the same piece of glass takes becomes a window in a building in a landscape shot that is much more interesting and directed. Those are the shots I see on the walls of mates who have done tandems.... I think that's as close as I can get to explaining OK.. ramble over.

Whoa! Slow down fella!

Sounds like fun... on a slightly different topic, what do people think about kiting canopies after landing? Personally, if you land a way off and are stopping your canopy getting muddy, fine, kite it all you want. If you land in the middle of the landing area, SHUT THE FUCKER DOWN! Don't stand there flying your canopy thinking how cool you look, people are coming in behind you! Grr. Sorry Canuck, not a rant at you - just seemed like an appropriate place to put this.

coached jumps - every time. You will find another good deal on a canopy later. Honestly.

I was considering posting this anonomously, but I figured it might have more impact coming from a known member. If just 1 other person reads this and takes a moment to look at themself, then the personal embarassment of publicly baring my soul is worth it. It's very rare I have moments of introspection, but as I was lying in bed earlier this week, recovering from my fourth vomiting fit of the night and trying not to cough my lungs up, I had an epiphany. Don't get me wrong - This isn't a world changing thing. It's not the discovery of a new messiah or a sudden and enlightened understanding of the universe, it was much more basic than that. It was my own little personal epiphany. Are you ready for this? I'm not very healthy. That's it. For those that know me, this might seem like stating the obvious, but seriously, lying there feeling like death, it suddenly occured to me to try and work out why I was feeling so bad. What had brought this sudden bought on? Yeah, I work kinda long hours and don't get a lot of sleep, but that can't be the only thing. Did I drink? Well.. yes. Who doesn't. But not that much, you know - I'd come home from work and have a few beers whilst watching TV... no more than 5 or 6 maybe. I lie there and try to prod my tired brain into working it out... 5 or 6? Jesus. that's getting on for 40 a week. At least. That's not even binge drinking. That's a serious problem. I'll have to keep my eye on that... OK what else? Smoking? Yeah - hands up . I smoke and I enjoy it, but it's under control. I don't smoke at work - only at home with my beers, so it can't be that many. Let's see... umm. Through my blurry eyes I found my wallet and pulled out reciepts of the last week... 35 quid on tabs alone. Wow. that's like 6 packs a week. I honestly had no idea I smoked that much... I mean, I knew I smoked a few a night, but 6 packs a week??? A pack a day nearly???! No. It can't be right... 120 cigarettes in the hours between getting home from work and bed, and the weekend. About 48 hours at a rough guess... That's a smoke every 20 minutes. Holy crap. At this point, memories surface over the blistering pain in my head to show me images of an overflowing ashtray surounded by beer cans. I feel another vomiting fit coming on.... After dry heaving for the fifth time that night, I start to get seriously scared. This in itself is unusual - I don't say that in a bragging way, but simply as someone who doesn't usually care. Apathy about my death is fine - I can handle checking out at 120 mph doing something I love, but to be found as a shuddering mess, lying in a pool of my own filth and unable for people to say "yup, he would have liked to have gone out like this" is more than just embarassing - It's seriously upsetting. And you know what's worse? I had no idea that this was going on. I guess that's my point of this post. Problems like this are insideous. It starts with having a drink with dinner and maybe a smoke after. Over time, this turns to a couple of drinks but psychologically it's still classed as the same activity. You don't realise just how fucked you're getting. Or I didn't at least. Being il makes you think strange things.... It's now 4 days later and I'm over the worst of it. I'm left with a lingering remenant of the flu - some blocked sinuses and a bit of a cough, but worse than that, and at the same time better too, I've stil got vivid memories of how scared I was about the state my body was in. The good news is that being ill helped me over the hardest part I guess.... I haven't had a smoke or drink in 4 days and have no intention of having one again any time soon. Maybe next month I'll have a beer or two, but only when I know I can do it without picking up a smoke. I'm looking at exercise for the first time in years... It'll be hard but I used to be really fit. I can do it again. So that's it - that's my promise to myself. I will sort myself out. Vices are fine as long as you keep them in control, but to do that, you have to maintain a realistic awareness of how in control you are. I know now that I can look at this post in the moments of weakness that I know are to come, and I can find strength from it. I will not fail. I will not go down this path again. I will not lose control of my vices. I will not let self-destruction become a normal thing for me. I will not.

The inventor Arthur Davidson, of the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Corporation, died and went to heaven. At the gates, St. Peter told Arthur, "Since you've been such a good man and Your Motorcycles have changed the world, your reward is, you can hang out with anyone you want in Heaven." Arthur thought about it for a minute and then said, "I want to hang out with God." St. Peter took Arthur to the Throne Room, and introduced him to God. Arthur then asked God, "Hey, aren't you the inventor of woman? "God said, "Ah, yes," Arthur said, "Well, professional to professional, you have some major design flaws in your invention. 1. There's too much inconsistency in the front-end protrusion. 2. It chatters constantly at high speeds. 3. Most of the rear ends are too soft and wobble too much. 4. The intake is placed way to close to the exhaust, and finally, 5. The maintenance costs are outrageous." God replied "Hmmmm, you may have some good points there, hold on." God went to his Celestial super computer, typed in a few words and waited for the results. The computer printed out a slip of paper and he read it. God said to Arthur "Well, it may be true that my invention is flawed, but according to these numbers, more men are riding my invention than yours.

they may look scary, but they have the most LOVABLE personalities

Indeed. 260 Registered users and 220 guests as I make this post - and no search engine robots or spiders. this site rocks....

"KY... when you need REAL lubricating power!"

for me at least When trying to reply to a post, press 'post reply' and get a white screen saying A fatal error has occurred: Unable to index 1 posts in forum_Post starting with id: 1303261. Error: Lock obtain timed out: Lock@/tmp/lucene-b2e41b922170d5c855cd97703116081a-write.lock Please enable debugging in setup for more details. OK... Who broke it? Wasn't me guv!

over time...

MO... It's a good rule. It'll have some effect, but not as much as a change of culture - when Cypres saves due to stupidity start to become unacceptable to your peers and mentors, the same way as toggle hook turns are/have become, that's when I think we'll see the biggest drop. "30 day ban? So what?" will be said by some... Having a mentor take the piss out of you and look down on you for being stupid will make you feel about an inch tall... you won't do it again. Skydivers don't like enforced rules, but peer pressure works a treat!

A few... äîáðî ïîæàëîâàòü... WTF?!?! Does anyone know Deuce is amazing How Ironic is this Freaking bad day...Toilet help! and finally... I quit smoking last night and I could choke my own mother right now... Lucky Mom!

Go on a travel bender! For my 23rd I took 8 days travelling round the country celebrating my birthday with different friends in different parts of the country cos they couldn't make it here on one day... A week long birthday! Waking up in a different city every day for a week is odd, but fun. Not sobering up for 8 days is really odd and the hangover sucked big time, but it was a cool experience! go big... oh... and you've been 21 for how long now? Why're you still sober?

You have influence around here now????

Tell him you funded his jumps, not his substance abuse.... People who take advantage of their mates really irritate me!

cat attacks baby! walking on cactus... can't breathe!

same here - that's why I asked. For Unparagoned: if you haven't seen or used reversed risers, you may want to do a search on here for them. They're very much a personal preference thing, but some people feel that they've contributed to problems in the past.

Just saw an ad for the new Access wingsuit - has anybody tried one yet? Are they even available? If so, what are your initial impressions? Ta

yes. terrorists can't climb up walls and don't have big pointy fangs... If Spiderman was a terrorist though.... yeah. he might scare me a bit i f*^king hate spiders.... evil little critters.

does the Atom still come with reversed risers?

how do you get into that position? Is it a transition from flat?