NickDG

Who needs a helicopter anyway – just stop calling them. Rick - or was it Randy – Harrison, crawled out of the Black Canyon, through the night, on his hands and knees with two badly broken ankles. Don Swayze severed his foot so badly Doctors later took it off, but he crawled through a field, and down a city block trying to make it to his car. He finally had to call for help, in sight of his vehicle, because his was losing too much blood. I rode 75 miles to the nearest clinic down a bumpy road in the back seat of a car with two broken legs and ate both headrests. My point is you only need the helicopter when you really need it. Why not this – Put an advert in the local paper: Now Interviewing Volunteers Snake River BASE Rescue Squad (SRBRS) Must be Able to Jog from LZ to CZ w/Litter Must Have Cell Phone & Car (Station Wagon a Plus) Must Live or Work Close to Bridge No Pay – Just Glory! If we get the right half dozen or so people we could all chip in for their basic EMT training, even buy them uniforms and equipment. Then we could put a siren up on a pole above the Outback Steak House wired to a big red button down in the canyon. When the SRBRSer's hear the signal they'd leave their homes and jobs and come running. We could even get them red dashboard cherries so they could blow the red lights on the way . . . It would also be like a periodic mining disaster, that would involve the whole town on a gut level and then once we get the good ladies of the area in the churches praying for us, we're in for keeps, boys. Then if we could just manage to not blow the damn siren for six months, or so, the occasional blip - like M-Day - wouldn't seem so out of proportion. I would imagine that paying EMT jobs are scarce so maybe there are folks willing to do it just for the practical experience they could then take elsewhere. I met an American Indian once who told me, "If you don't like the local "anything here" start one of your own." NickD

Oh, I get the point now. Jumping is for losers . . . NickD

Sorry, I'm not organized enough to have citations right in front of me. The problem with these studies are they don't reflect what "we" are actually doing. It also depends on the power of the tower. The KFI tower I mentioned saw thousands of jumps before a plane was accidentally flown into it. This tower was especially hot and it was called, “The 50,000 watt flamethrower,” by folks in the radio business. I do know that at night, and under the right conditions the signal from KFI in Los Angeles could be picked up in New York. Any study done by Motorola is suspect because that have a dog in the race. The other ones I’ve read talk about the heating of body tissues, and especially the eyeballs which are stated to be very sensitive to internal heating. On the practical side I’ve seen plenty of people over the years complain of feeling “woozy” after a tower jump while others aren’t affected at all. I’ve seen Tom Sanders spend a entire day on a tower (in this case it was a pre-arranged legal FM tower) filming and he was absolutely green and feeling sick for the rest of the night. Also try taking a video camera onto an AM tower and see what you get. It won’t be much. In the very early days we’d think nothing of spending a half hour on top of KFI, just relaxing and taking in the view. We just didn’t know any better back then. It was also about then we noticed while doing final gear checks that the hardware on our gear was warm to the touch. In fact one jumper lost a riser after opening when the small riser ring melted the white loop holding it in place. This was when fouling your three ring so it couldn’t release became popular. I used to advise new BASE jumpers to just stay away from AM, but I may have softened my stance a bit as long as they know the score. And the score is we simply don’t know what the long term effects of EMR are . . . NickD

Get on - Get up - Get off . . . is the advice used for years concerning AM towers. As far as health risks there are dueling studies concerning exposure to Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR). The ones funded by power companies say the risk is minimal, while the studies done by some Universities say it's the kiss of death. Keep in mind these studies usually only deal with people living in close proximity to very high voltage power lines and not someone actually touching them. Some people are more prone to developing cancer and other problems than others. So there is no one answer to this one. It’s a risk, that’s for sure, but it’s sort of the same risk we take every time we play the game. Keep in mind however that the operators of these AM towers think there is a risk. No worker ever climbs a really hot AM tower without it being de-powered or completely turned off . . . In fact there was a tour arranged by a local radio club to the old 700-foot KFI AM tower in So Cal and the operators powered the tower down before they would let the tour even stand next to the base of structure. NickD

Slow News Day . . . There are many angles to this one . . . There's the whole question of how much we allow ourselves to be maneuvered, maligned and plundered by outsiders especially when BASE traditionally needs no one’s permission or support. I really wish more people would remember that last bit. Maybe we should show the guts we failed to show at Bridge Day after that went from an absolute freedom fest to what now feels like a Big Brother-lock down. Freedom is only gained by sacrifice – we just need just one generation of BASE jumper with the moxie to say, “Shove the bridge up your ass.” Besides – TF is already getting their slice of the pie. Sitting in the TF airport I see posters all over the place touting the recreational possibilities in Idaho. Along with photos of skiing, white water rafting, and the rest – there we are jumping! BASE is already being used to promote Idaho. And “being used” is the operative word here. On the other hand we might be getting all knotted up for nothing. Consider the sorry plight of the small town editorial writer who has a blank page staring him in the face every morning. He has to write about something. So it was only a matter of time before he got around to us. I’ll go further and say the editorial writer is also using us. He’s using us to earn his paycheck. Socially speaking BASE is a small drain on the public pocket book. Take the money spent on every BASE rescue and every overtime city worker supporting a BASE event (in all of history) and it’s nothing compared to what’s spent keeping welfare mothers in diapers and milk for a single year. And a forward looking society should have an obligation to promote free thinking because it’s what makes humankind interesting and is how a society progresses. If we get to a point, especially in a state like Idaho, where we don’t stand up, we might as well fold the tents and go home . . . Let them implement their fees – and that will just be the beginning. Next year they will have some guy from city hall checking the size of your pilot chute. So once again we stand at another crossroad with a choice. We can either meekly cave in or a few of us will have to pay the fines and some of us will have to go to jail. I wonder which one it will be . . . ? NickD

>>building i must.....i must..find...........another.....building...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhahhhhhhhhh

That's BASE . . . NickD

Take it easy, Brother - You're on a Building high, that's all . . . NickD

Call it a "rigger roll" that's not as confusing as "field pack." NickD

Two did their first Building late last night & one made BASE. And dinner wasn't bad either . . . thanks for coming everyone! I want to especially thank Trish, Toni, and Mr. El Cap himself - Mike Pelkey - for adding so much to the festivities. And Rich, we just missed you; we left about 30 minutes before you called. Watch this space for the next, "Dinner and a Building!" (And yes, Robbie, I received the disk – good stuff – thanks . . .) NickD

I've been a day behind all year . . . It's tonight! NickD

BASE Dinner Party Saturday Evening, July 21 . . . Food - Beer - Lies, and, if we are still standing, or even if we're not, maybe a pre-dawn Building jump. RSVP (951) 315 - 3450 NickD

Yes, I remember John, Jess and Bill getting hauled off . . . You just can't get a real flavor for Andy's shortcomings into a single post. NickD

Russel lands in the water at BD and he certainly can't swim . . . NickD

Many here started BASE prior to dedicated BASE canopies being available so I'm not anal about skydiving canopies and BASE jumping, but I'm wary. I suppose it's because when the question comes up it's often a new BASE jumper trying to get by on the cheap. We all did that in the beginning. I had a front row seat during development of the first BASE canopies when my former girlfriend Anne H. built the prototype FOX in the late 1980s. What made this canopy different was it was purpose driven. These are the days before tailgates, before vents, before everything else, but when Anne sat down and started to sew that first canopy together she knew it was going to be used for single canopy BASE jumping. And her friends would be betting the farm on it - so she took care to make sure it would hold up. The project was kept semi-secret as the canopy was test jumped and then sold locally and covertly until I ran the first advert for it in the Fixed Object Journal. About the same time, and out of the blue, Adam F. sent me an advert for his first BASE canopy, the Mojo. Adam had also been working quietly on his canopy for sometime so it's hard to say which is first or even if it matters. The important thing being the BASE gear industry, which had been building BASE rigs for years, finally had BASE canopies to go with them. The main reason for a BASE canopy was simple. While we weren't completely blowing up the skydiving canopies we were using, we were experiencing damage. I had a Cruislite with about 70 BASE jumps on it, mostly night-time slider down building jumps, and I blew the center cell out of it and damn near lost the entire bridle attachment point. I repaired the damage and reinforced the area but it blew out again twenty jumps later. The thing with jumping skydiving canopies today is simply that you don't have to do it. And you'll always have it in the back of your head at the launch point that you are doing something out of the ordinary. And since BASE itself is already out of the ordinary, using the wrong gear just make it extra-ordinary. And if anything happens to you, be it an accident you live through, or if the worst happens, everyone will blame it on jumping the wrong gear even if that wasn't the case. Nowadays, we are lucky – you just have to avail yourself of that luck. There must be ten or more BASE canopies on the worldwide market and that market isn't exactly a new one. Finding a used & good-sized BASE canopy might be better than buying a brand new skydiving canopy for BASE. If you are on the small or light side, it's a great time to buy used. The upsize trend in BASE canopies that started in the 1990s means there are more than a few first generation 220-ish sized BASE canopies sitting in closets. Also, with the surge in the number of BASE jumpers lately– the folks who start, go hard for awhile, and stop goes up too - so that gear's on the market. Its funny now, but I remember that first canopy making the rounds and other BASE jumpers asking what it was. Anne would just say it had no markings or numbers and it had been lying around the loft for years. So a lot of people saw the prototype FOX and never knew it . . . NickD

>>We plan to pre-screen the videos to get a more “sober” assessment of each video prior to the event.

The Rise & Fall of Andy Calistrate . . . I haven't thought about Andy, BASE 124, for a while, but no attempt at getting BASE history correct would preclude him. In phone calls to and from old hands it's rare when, "What the heck happened to Andy," doesn't come up. I liked Andy right from the first. The old joke with him was, "Hello Andy! Gee, you sounded taller on the phone." But that didn’t bother him. Andy is riding the first BASE wave and he's at the right place in the right time - Houston, Texas in 1987. Bill lived there and so did Eric and a host of others. But Andy hitched his wagon to a star. Phil Smith, BASE 1, who's publishing "BASELINE" the longest running BASE magazine lived in Houston too. Andy became co-editor and Phil later said with a grin, "That was probably a mistake." Andy did became a little drunk with the power, and he made a lot of the same mistakes we all did at that time. But he kept making the same ones over and over. When I started The Fixed Object Journal, another BASE magazine, in 1989, BASELINE was gone and Andy had struck off on his own with the "BASE Gazette" and it was pure Andy. Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and BASE all the way. We had a talk about it one time and I said, "Hey, Andy, maybe you should tone it down a notch," and he said, "Don't you get it, Nick? That's what BASE is all about." Andy would have been the Maggot of his day – except he truly believed these things. Andy had a big heart and a good soul, but if power corrupts - Andy's a classic case. The debacle at the Space Needle was a two-fold failure. Andy had a hard-on for the Line-Mod and also for Jessica K. The Line-Mod thing goes back to his many feuds with Mark H. who invented it. The thing with Jessica goes back to boy meets girl. By that time Andy is on the fringes of BASE and hanging on by his finger tips. He organized that load at the Space Needle with people who wouldn't say too much about his now antiquated ways. In fact – one idea Andy had was replacing the small riser ring with a really large riser rings like three inches across. The idea was if you had a line-over you'd release the offending control and fire it through the large ring, toggle and all. We fabbed up a test in a hanging harness using some sand bags and when we let the toggle go it wrapped around the large ring about nine times. We fell on the floor laughing. I, and I think most in my generation, could forgive Andy for everything because to some degree we all did these things – but than he did something that no matter what happens now - did him in. He turned over the list of registered BASE jumpers at Bridge Day to the National Park Service. That may not sound too bad nowadays but back than it was treason. When Andy took over organizing Bridge Day he was too naïve for the job and the NPS played him like a fiddle. They actually gave him a NPS Courtesy Card that said, "Please extend all due cooperation to Andy Calistrat," and I'm sure they had them printed for the occasion. For many years prior Jean Boenish, the then organizer of Bridge Day, kept telling the NPS with their requests for the list, essentially, "In your dreams." So no – I don’t know where Andy is – but if you find him tell him Nick says, "Hey!" NickD

Rinng - Ring, "Good Morning, this is your 11:45 Maggot First Jump Course Wake up Call." "Okay, we have 20 minutes to get this through your numb skulls- jump- and don't do nothing. Ten bucks for the party later . . . NickD

It's cool . . . Jevto is one of those guys who's worth a listen. NickD

Yes, I sort of went off on a tangent there . . . Sorry. Yet, it brings up another point. Every JCC I've ever taught in (and I know we don't hold Jumpmaster Certification Classes anymore) has been full of bright eyed, eager, and mainly newly minted C-license holders. I think, back then, you needed five candidates to make it a legal JCC. Out of that five one might actually start on the road to becoming an Instructor, three are there because they are starved for any kind of structured "after student" instruction, and the last is dipping his toes in - but he'll bail out after learning about the responsibility involved. You might be the one in five – So I don’t want to discourage you. You can't teach forty year-olds to be Instructors. By the time they get good at it - they've already had one heart attack . . . NickD

Oh good - a Bridge Day thread. I was looking for a place to announce a new drink being served this year at the Rafter's Bar: The "Line-Over on the Rocks" 1. Place Cubed Ice in a Towel and Fracture with a Hammer, add to Tumbler. 2. Add one Ripped to Shreds Lime. 3. Add two shots of Bloody Mary Mix. 4. Add one shot of Mad-Dog 20-20. 5. Add two Jiggers of Battery. (Battery is a Guarana based energy drink, powered by caffeine.) 5. Add Tabasco to Taste. 6. Fill with Rock & Rye. (An American rye whiskey flavored with different fruits. Each bottle of Rock and Rye has a chunk of rock candy in it.) Note: You can substitute Jack Daniels for the Rock & Rye – but then it's called a, "Line-Over on the Rocks with a Line Twist." Enjoy! NickD

>>I put in 12 hour days almost every Saturday and Sunday, and it still feels like a weekend to me and time off from my day job. I love being at the dropzone and being there more often has really paid off for me. To each their own . . .

A good female friend of mine bought a nice house close to the DZ that a lot of skydivers are using when they visit Perris. You can have your own room and a place to cook and it's just twenty a night. The local hotel is in downtown Perris and is fifty or sixty a night. PM me if you want her cell number . . . NickD

I'd wait until after AFF L-1 before you take up the big blue sleeping pill. (It used to be called that). Your job next weekend is to listen hard and do 100% of what your Instructor tells you to do. To answer the original question, leave it in the bathroom, that's how many get through it . . . NickD

This reminds me of an oversight and it's time to correct it. At the time this came about we were too focused on how it came about. But a Nugget is a Nugget and, "Yonkels," is a Nugget. Mono-Nugget - or maybe just Nug – but so far the only single word Nugget. Yonkels – it's like a whole story in one word . . . Now we just wait for a savvy BASE gear manufacturer to actually start calling them that and it'll be set in stone. Since evolution isn't one of those things that stops it could also be, in the future, we'll have our own language. Then I could stop saying things on the radio like, "The rats are in the cheese!" NickD