skydiver30960

Good rule of thumb: change the batteries in your detectors when you change your clocks forward or back for DST. Elvisio "volunteer firefighter brainwashing" Rodriguez

This is what concerns me. I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid so I think the bad guys take one look at it and decide the amount of gas it would hold isn't worth the problem. But a drilled tank would suck big green donkey dicks. This situation is similar to when I owned a Jeep with a soft top. I was afraid a thief would slash the $500 top to steal my cheesy ass stereo or whatever, so I always just left the jeep unlocked and made sure not to leave anything in it I couldn't afford to lose. I would suggest a similar plan as the gas situation gets worse: make it so the thief doesn't need to do any damage to get to the tank, and only fill up to a half-tank or less to minimize the damage to your wallet when they do stop by. I know, I know, easier said than done. Elvisio "been there" Rodriguez

And land in some pretty messed up places with lots of obstacles to run in to. Try doing a demo into a very tight backyard every time you jump and I think thats about what they do. Even worse, it's a demo into a backyard you've never seen before. With lots of flashing lights. At night. And wires. Lots and lots of wires. Wires take down more of these flights than anything else. Even with night vision, wires are almost impossible to see from the air, and at night can be hard for even the ground crews to see. I've been training the past four years to be a flight nurse. I'm still building my ICU experience but hopefully I'll make it one day. Every time I see one of these stories I get the same feeling I get when I scan the Incidents forum. It's a gut check, a reminder of what's at risk, an affirmation that I still want to do this, and a promise to myself and those I love to mitigate as much risk as I possibly can. Some of , someday hopefully some of . Elvisio "chasing the dream" Rodriguez

Damn that's sexy! Why the phantom profile? This work was obviously done by someone with more than one jump... Elvisio "Bookmarked" Rodriguez

Dude, I hate golf. But if the course managers would let me play 18 holes with something like this I might actually pal along with some golfing buddies of mine... Elvisio "why should they care if I pays my money?" Rodriguez

And now things are all FUBAR. Well, not that bad, but there's one specific problem. Some websites say that I'm not running an up-to-date or supported browser. The weird thing is it happens whenever I try to use Firefox OR IE. So installing Firefox has jiggled my IE settings too somehow. I'm running IE7 and Firefox3. They're both versions that should be supported by these websites, but for whatever reason the websites aren't recognizing it, and then I can't have my internet fun type stuff. Examples of affected sites: google docs and youtube. Gmail works fine, but google docs no worky. Waddup wit dat? Elvisio "help me out guys" Rodriguez

The holy-shit-how-much-have-I-done-in-a-sombrero-at-boogies-when-I-knew-nobody-but-skydivers-were-watching part of me says: "Fokker, should have been tequila!" The part of me that is ever-aware of the public eye upon us asks: is this the picture we want to portray to the outside world? Elvisio "man of two faces" Rodriguez

Well CR, see what happens when you stop driving the truck and start spending time at home?! Congrats dude. Elvisio "another member of the relleno clan" Rodriguez

LONG POST, SORRY: read it if you want, skip it if you want. I was on a business trip to a visit a customer with a handful of my coworkers, back when I’d only been jumping a year or so. In particular was my boss’s boss’s boss, the VP in charge of my plant, a gruff and scary but actually really nice guy named Bill. For the purposes of this trip, we were all riding in the company King Air, at cruising altitude and sipping on sodas and munching snacks. Now, as mentioned, I’d been jumping a year; it was long enough that most everyone at work knew I was jumping but still fresh enough to be a topic of conversation. The VP had never heard that I jumped though, so of course we had to have the requisite skydiving conversation. One person asked if I’d ever jumped out of a plane as small as a King Air before, and I had to explain that at that point (as I jumped at a Cessna DZ regularly) the King Air was actually the LARGEST aircraft I’d ever jumped from. We talked about the modifications necessary to jump from the King Air, why it was a good jump plane and a not-so-good jump plane, and whatnot. And of course, it ended with the requisite statement from the VP: “I just don’t understand why anyone would jump from a perfectly good airplane.” Fak. The rest of the flight was uneventful, until we were about to come in for landing. The pilot turns around and mentions there will be a little weather to descend through at our destination, but it shouldn’t be too bad. No problem, we think. We adjust our seatbelts, make sure all the drinks are put away, and promptly descend into what must have been the fourth or fifth level of Hell. I’ve been around planes all my life, and even I was impressed. That plane was jumping and dropping and rolling all over the place, the turbulence was that awful. Nobody was praying out loud, but you could tell most of us were sharing a couple words with the Big Guy in our heads. At one point an air pocket or whatever made it feel like the plane dropped a hundred feet, even though it was probably only five feet or so. But it was enough to shake everyone up so bad, most of us actually groaned. And without even thinking about it, I looked across the cabin, locked eyes with the VP, and shouted over the engine and storm noise: “So you see Bill, THIS is why I never ride ‘em DOWN!” The only thing louder than the thunder and lightning was the laughter filling the cabin. It was totally unplanned, I didn’t think for a moment about what I had said, but it was just what everyone needed to lighten the mood in the cabin. To this day, that’s my favorite whuffo reaction. Elvisio "money says Bill is still telling that damn story" Rodriguez

Elvisio "is nothing sacred" Rodriguez

Well, not peeing or puking in his bed was actually a really good start. After that, I'd say beer/alcohol is the universal gift within a one mile radius of any dropzone. Elvisio "although, that's what got you in trouble in the first place" Rodriguez

"and More?" Like, what more? Mile High Club initiations? Airborne parties? Zero-g pushover loads? Sounds KINKY! And don't go giving me any crap about CARGO or any such thing... Elvisio "pie in the sky sounds fine" Rodriguez

I totally understand the logistical advantage of having the Paralympics the same year as the Olympics, and in the same venue. But once the Olympics are over, everybody just sorta sighs, says "thank GOD it's over for another four years" and tunes out. I wonder if the Paralympics wouldn't get more interest if it was in an Olympic off-year... Elvisio "more TV coverage" Rodriguez

SO I'm thinking, hey the wife is a big fan of this guy and I think he's at least OK, I wonder if he'll be in my area anytime soon, so I goes to his website then I goes to his tour date page and find that he had a show at a venue five minutes from where I work. LAST NIGHT. Fak. Wasn't sold out either. Totally coulda gone after work last night. Dammit why didn't you post this yesterday! Elvisio "so close" Rodriguez

Half of me says: FUCKIN COOL! The other half of me says: WTF? He gets away with this and we can't even freefall through a friggin' CLOUD? Elvisio "where's the justice?" Rodriguez

I recall sending in for a rebate on some software or other, and of course it demands you send in the ORIGINAL of the receipt, the barcode, some doohickey from inside the package, your birth certificate, well not that one but the originals of everything else. About two months later I get a postcard in the mail that basically says "no money for you, you didn't send us everything we asked for." End of discussion, no further explination, no suggestions about how to continue, didn't return the originals of what I HAD sent them, and it WAS everything dammit! Oops, guess I sounded a bit pissed there. Anymore, I just don't deal with the rebates. I shop based on out of pocket expense, and if the rebate actually comes back then it's just extra money. Elvisio "bastards, all of 'em" Rodriguez

Hell, you don't even need to ask for forgiveness. ...you just need to figure out how to fill up the free time you have during your banning. Elvisio "needlepoint?" Rodriguez

Man, that'd have the coroner scratching his head for HOURS.... Elvisio "did he have to get pushed THAT hard to jump?" Rodriguez

Tequila is like cottage cheese: when it goes bad, how can you tell? Isn't it already bad enough? Elvisio "visceral shudder" Rodriguez

Yeah Peej, I'm speechless too! Elvisio "wow" Rodriguez

Dude, we need updates! I don't know why, but I'm constantly rechecking this thread to see if anything new has been posted. Mostly, I think it has to do with that being the weirdest damn piece of fruit I've ever seen in my life! Did you get the nerve to eat any of it yet? Elvisio "were they crawling?" Rodriguez

Classic! ...because I had a downstairs neighbor who tried this very thing. He had a job at a meat packing plant, and decided he'd make money selling the stuff out of his pickup. He went out and bought a normal, household chest-type freezer that he kept in the bed of his pickup. He'd plug it in with an extension cord whenever it was home, then just unplug it and roll whenever he was "selling". We bought a couple (and I mean just a couple) things from him. They were all vacuum sealed and looked pretty good, not like they'd been thawed or anything. But once we'd done our "neighborly duty" we steered clear of it. It didn't last long: he lost his job at the plant. I'd originally thought he was getting the stuff wholesale, but it's entirely possible (in hindsight) that he was just stealing everything from his workplace. Elvisio "he was a winner" Rodriguez

Yeah, I figured you'd be wondering whether or not they were urine-proof or something like that... Elvisio "joke, not PA" Rodriguez

Dude, it's there on my 'puter. And I didn't even edit it or anything? Check again, somebody else lemme know if it isn't there... Elvisio "I swear" Rodriguez

Thank God we don't have prohibition, because after a night of drinking HERE'S what that SAME group of women would look like.... Elvisio "see attached" Rodriguez