NickDG

Hi Everyone, I'm sorry for the concern and anger I caused with that stupid stunt last night. I especially apologize to those I scared and more so, to those I offended. I don't know what to say without sounding more lame than I feel right now. To friends and strangers, who reached out, I'll never be able to make it up to you. I hope that someday I can regain your respect. I must also apologize to Sangiro and the Mods, I started a fire in your house. I'm going to go away and be quiet now . . . NickD

And the pounding of students just goes on and on . . . Don't you realize we aren’t the same people that log in here with all their happy talk about their first new rig and all its pretty colors. Being a skydiving instructor is one of the most important things you can ever do, please get hip to it . . . NickD BASE 194

It was the fall of 1971, and I had a styling black '57 Chevy I paid a $100 for and my birthday had just popped in the draft lottery for the next go around beginning in 1972. I'll never forget being young and parked alongside Long Island Sound with my French girlfriend, Mia, a summer visitor, and that song. It was, indeed, the day the music died . . . NickD BASE 194

>>Was the jump worth the price, to him?

I saw something the other day that listed the most influential people in history. The first two on the list were Albert Einstein and Oprah . . . I was disheartened and stopped reading because I knew it was true . . . NickD

No thanks, I had to remove some layers to make the 120 KB limit. The originals are just fine . . . NickD

I worked at the "other" DZ at Cal City, but I'd visit the other side once in a while when Mark Hewitt was there . . . Someone upboard mentioned Robert. He was also a Bevis and Butthead fan and had every episode on tape and lived in a trailer behind the hangar. Is he still there? And what was the name of the big fellow, who also worked there, with the long dark hair and beard. He "borrowed" my motorcycle once without asking and went racing up and down the RWY in a drunken stupor. A few nights later he locked himself in his van and blew his brains out. The main thing I remember about Cal City is being in the plane with students at (yawn) 6:00 AM and being winded by noon. I also got used to doing tandems in ridiculous wind speeds, and once after an aircraft problem and a precautionary exit my passenger and I landed some miles out. (Which is funny as all of Cal City is out!) The wind was howling as usual and I told my passenger that with no one to help us we were going to get dragged so be ready for it. I popped open the RSL in order to cutaway after touchdown. We landed got yanked off our feet and went a ways before I managed to get rid of the main. (This turned out good as the dust cloud we kicked up was the only way they found us). We finally came to a stop and just laid there a second catching our breath. I looked to my right and there, just a few feet away, was an old refrigerator and a washer someone had dumped out there. "What the F%#K am I doing in this place," I thought . . . NickD

>>Jumping stuff like that and whereing white? You must have no knees left from standing them up

I actually play a pretty good bass guitar, but I've always been enamored with the slide trombone. There's nothing dumber looking than "Air" trombone, so don't do it . . . NickD

Thanks Jimbo, that's exactly what I mean. We keep having to learn the same lessons over and over at the expense of our students . . . because new Instructors think they are the bomb, but the bomb goes off in some innocent's lap. Learn your lessons from us and not your current students. The new USPA way of becoming an "I" is totally flawed and devoid of the peer way it used to be. NickD

For a completly different take on this see: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1493122;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread NickD

Every time this comes up I'd always got in trouble with the DZO because I'd sit them down (the oldie who wants to jump) and talk them out of it. This fellow's shoulder (in the above story) is never going to heal. I learned this lesson years ago with an 85 year old who showed up at Elsinore with the following story. (They all have a story). As a young man he's part of B-17 crew making bombing runs over Germany. His A/C is hit by withering flack and the skipper radioed everyone to prepare to bail out. He told me there was no way he could bring himself to jump and he decided to go down with the plane. At the last moment the skipper said to hold on as he thought they might make it back. And they did, all the way to England. He told me the fact he couldn't jump was something that haunted him all his life. He was here now to exercise that demon. My DZO at the time was beside herself with the publicity angle and I went along with it even though the alarm bells are clanging in my head. The number one responsibility of a skydiving instructor is student safety. It's not to make everyone happy. Well, I put him out on a static line jump with the biggest square canopy we had and he did pretty much everything right. On landing his 85 year old bones just went snap. I'll never forgive myself for that, and vowed I'd never do it again. Later, when presented with people of that age, who didn't want to go tandem, I always find the following usually works. I ask them to tell me about themselves and then say they've already lived a good and full life. Then I ask, "Do you know what's really up there in the sky? When they admit they didn't, I say, "Look, I've done this a lot and here's what's up there, absolutely nothing . . ." Of course, in general there are some oldies capable of jumping solo, but not many. Think of putting a 90 year old person out the same way you'd think of putting a ten year old out. If you don't, you aren't doing your job. NickD

>>if it did, it doesn't anymore.

>>Here am I in an old Dinasor suit,

Hi Cynci, Don't neglect your history for inspiration. This photo is from 1975. I'm third from the left in the black and white jumpsuit. Maybe you can find someone with a pile of old PARACHUTIST mags. Jumpsuits were pretty wild back in the 70s . . . And LOL, I just realized how much my gutter rig looks like BASE gear! NickD

>>WAW refusing HISTORY ?? Had the chance to meet the Mooreheads this summer. They represented the BEST of the "US POPS Glamour"

While drowning in the worst So Cal storm I think I've ever seen in over 30 years I was working on photo's for my book, and thought I'd share a few . . . 1 - Jan Davis having a lunch at an AZ Bridge. This was about ten years before she died in Yosemite. She's wearing a cast from Angel Falls, I think. 2- Phil Smith, BASE 1. This was the photo Phil used on an Xmas card he sent out in the early 1980s. 3- Me and Brad Smith at an early Bridge Day. Brad committed suicide about five years later. I was on crutches from a wind rotor related skydiving accident. 4- Mark Hewitt bagging another jumper off a So Cal 150-foot ship channel 5- Me and Brett Breon, BASE 210, on the same bridge as above prior to jumping. 6- L-F, Patrick Swazye's brother, Don Swayze (before he lost a foot in a BASE jumping accident), his girlfriend who's name I forgot, Lane Kent, Me, Anne Helliwell, John Starr (who filmed "Stealing Altitude") Jana Logan and Jakey Jakeman (author of the book, "Groundrush." Warning - These are subject to copyright, please don't use them for anything besides your private viewing pleasure . . . NickD

Please see: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1492922;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread NickD

Don't delete ALL your cookies, just the dropzone.com one. If you delete all of them you'll have to log back into every password protected site you like to visit! The cookie you want to delete (and also from the recycle bin) looks like this: [yourname]@www.dropzone.txt Everything seems to work better if I also re-log in every time I visit. (Don't click on "keep me loged in" box, or whatever it says . . . NickD

Please see, http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1492922;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread NickD

I've been given a green light for a project in SKYDIVING Newsmagazine I've wanted to do for some time and I need your help . . . This will be a monthly section spotlighting people who began jumping in the current "old days" of 1970 to 1985 and are still jumping today. I'm not looking for "names" in the sport, I'm looking for average sport jumpers who don't get much public attention but have been supporting the sport all this time. This isn't going to be too in depth, not a full biography or anything, just a few paragraphs on when, where, and how you started skydiving. If you'd like to be considered for inclusion I'll need as much of the following as you can come up with: The date of your First Jump Course? (The above mentioned dates aren't set in stone. A few years either way is alright.) Where you made your first jump and describe the gear you used. What you paid for your FJC? Who were your Instructors, and/or Jumpmasters? Anything else about your first jump experience you want people to know? Describe the first set of gear you purchased when you got off student status. Photographs: Ideally I'd like, - A photograph of you in your early gear, (you know, motorcycle or hockey helmet, big jump suite, that sort of thing, and/or a first jump photograph. - A photograph of the first page of your logbook. - A current photograph of you in your modern gear. - Any other photographs you think may apply. All photographs need to be in digital format and JPEGs only please. Leave them as big as you can so they will reproduce well. I'm also still looking for a title for this series, and this is for anyone, so send me your suggestions. Again, this is not meant for the Pat Mooreheads and Al Krugers of the sport (sorry guys.) Please send the above to me at base194@aol.com Use the subject line "Old-timers" (don' worry that's just a working title). If you'd rather use snail-mail, PM or e-mail me for an address. History is important and I see this as a way to connect the past with the present . . . Thank you,

I'm sitting here with a few wuffo friends and just watched the segment on Felix and my eyebrows are a bit sore from climbing to the top of my forehead . . . I've had issues with Felix going back many years, but I must say he did alright. There was a nod to BASE history, which I always look for, and it wasn't too overly death orientated. By my soft count he only mentioned the word 4-times. It also registered positive with my friends. If presentation is an art form than I'll give it to him as Felix has it down. Sure, I'll always have more respect for BASE jumpers who further the sport in obscurity, the ones that don't "use" the sport to further their own ends. But, there will always be people like Felix. All the very early historic BASE jumps were basically done by showman and hucksters looking for fame and fortune, and I suppose the devil you know, and all that. I even got a laugh from his use of the acronym ABJs (Already Been Jumped) and his disdain for not following, but leading. I also thought he's mellowing a bit, he's 35 now, when I met him he was in his early twenties and insufferable. I think in years to come he's going to successfully rehabilitate his reputation in the BASE community. So anyway, he did alright . . . NickD

Because we think, and love, and caress. we pretend to be smarter and better than other species when really we aren't. No matter what we do, the life force will continue to evolve on this planet despite, or in spite of, what we humans do. It's either all natural or not. And I'm just as natural as any one of those Falcons . . . NickD

Aren't we wildlife too . . . NickD

Cooler . . . NickD