NickDG

Man, is that your arm, your leg, or the side of your thigh and ass? Seriously though I like those solid black tats. I almost got one when I was New Zealand but I'm not a fad follower. LOL . . . NickD

Nina and me had our first roadside breakdown today . . . I was going down the 210 freeway around Monrovia and I heard a funny noise that was getting worse. So I looked down and behind my right leg and was horrified to see my battery about to slip under my rear tire. I wasn't sure I would make the next exit so I pulled over to the side of the freeway. There was never anything holding that battery in place, it was just wedged under the solenoid on the top and the rear fender on the other side. But it was pretty tight and didn't seem like it would move. And it stayed in place for about two months. But today the bottom end of the battery kicked out and off the little shelf I welded in for it to sit on. So I shoved it back into place but it was too loose to stay there. So I tried using my belt to secure it but there was no way to get a good wrap on it. So I'm looking at it and scratching my head when another Harley pulled in behind me. It was a young guy about thirty. "Need some help?" He says. I laughed and said, "I need some duct tape!" "No problem," he said, "I'll be right back!" And off he went. Twenty minutes later he returned with a brand new roll of duct tape and between the two of us we managed to cobble enough of it around the battery to hold it in place. "What do I owe you for the tape?" I asked reaching for my wallet. "Nothing," and he smiled, "just stop and help the next guy on a motorcycle you see broke down." I assured him I would and off he went. Harley riders! What else can you say! NickD

>>Along similar lines I knew an AFF Instructor who lost a very light student. The camera guy with wings, flew in to assist the student.

>>It's not an explosive, it's a pyrotechnic cutter.

When I was at that Toy run last weekend I was parked next to a RUB who dropped his helmet off his handlebars, and he said, "Damn, guess I'll have to buy another one now." When I asked him why he said any blow to the helmet can compromise its integrity! I'm not anti-helmet but I rode a Harley for years in So Cal before there was a helmet law in California. But in those days most bike accidents were self induced and not the result of today's overly distracted cage drivers. But man, I wouldn't buy another helmet after a four foot drop. Or even after swinging it around in a bar fight! LOL! NickD

I remember long before the 9/11 (and the TSA) a couple of us were in the LAX terminal on our way to an 80s something Bridge Day. And some fellow passenger heard us talking about the "parachutes" we had with us. All of a sudden an airline employee, a woman, confronted us. After I explained they were BASE rigs and what we planned to do with them she apologized and whispered to me, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but you know, it's the D.B. Cooper thing." "Okay," I said, "but DB Cooper was a criminal." She left and quickly reappeared with a few hundred dollars in travel vouchers for us. It was obvious she was worried we'd complain to the airline that an employee inferred we were criminals. Oh, how I miss the old days! NickD

Since we're bagging on lead seals, there was the one that almost did in the late Ben Minnich, the fellow who owned the land under the Perris Ghetto. He was out walking around in the Ghetto and a freefalling lead seal beaned him right on the top of his head. It raised a pretty good sized welt too. He then took to never going outside without wearing a construction type hard hat. When I laughed and said, "Ben, the chances of that ever happening again are a million to one." "Bullshit!" He answered. "If you set up a time lapse movie camera around here and watched a couple years worth of footage in 10 minutes you'd see it's absolutely raining lead!" And he wore that hardhat until the day he died of natural causes many years later . . . NickD

>>I was only asked to show my USPA card

I just re-read the fatality thread in its entirety and would like to bring up a few points for thought. Many manufacturers have a student version of their most popular "experienced" jumper rigs. I think it stems from the old General Motors adage, "If they start out on a cheap Chevy, someday they'll buy a expensive Cadillac." However, this creates several problems relating to taking an existing design meant for experienced jumpers and turning it into a rig suitable for students. BTW, this is nothing new and has been going on for decades. My point is going to be the following - this is the wrong approach. Student rigs should start out as student rigs right on the drawing board. Even if the final product bears little resemblance to a firm’s flagship rig. Instructors, especially the ones who know little to nothing about rigging, airplane mechanics, pilots, etc, already have to take too many things on faith when it comes to outside influences that can affect the safety of their students. So if we start to eliminate those things one by one at least we’d be on the right road to eliminating some problems. For instance: Some "student rigs" have the AAD's cutter mounted in the bottom of the reserve container and some have the AAD's cutter mounted under an upper closing flap. With the latter it’s usually possible to visually inspect to see if the reserve closing loop is through the cutter (even if you have to get creative with a penlight.) With the former you have to take it on faith. I’m not saying we should mandate the cutters location but it’s something to consider when making that next major student rig purchase. Another for instance: A manufacturer has a popular rig meant for experienced jumpers and decides to come out with a “student version.” So they take a main container that was originally designed to be opened via a throw out (or pull out) style of pilot chute system and they simply install a spring loaded pilot chute inside the container and call it good to go. The problem with this usually appears in the container’s final pin protector flap. Especially the ones with large stiff tongues. I’ve worked with a lot of student rigs over the years (from different manufacturers) where it was SOP for an Instructor to open the pin protector flap on the main container during the final gear check, or just prior to exit, to prevent total malfunctions. And this practice came about because there aren’t too many very experienced AFF Instructors who haven’t had to punch open a student’s main container, that contained a spring loaded pilot chute, after it totaled following a good main ripcord pull by the student. Moving to throw out pilot chutes for students has gone a long way in eliminating this problem, but there are still many DZs that haven’t made that switch. And, yes, we can debate the merits as either method has inherent problems when it comes to students, but the fact remains having to open that flap is a Band-Aid that should be telling us we are using the wrong gear, set up the wrong way, for the wrong task. This is especially true when students are doing solo freefalls in the static line hybrid programs using ripcords. As sometimes a well meaning “experienced” jumper in the plane will close a student’s pin protector flap without the Instructor noticing it. Some of these issues have been addressed over the years, but there are still plenty of older student rigs out there that still have these issues. As for this particular fatality . . . There’s nothing worse (for all of us) than losing a student. But, I’ve always taught future Instructors to take a Father Flanagan approach to teaching skydiving. And that means there's no such thing as a bad student. Now, we all know that’s not entirely true, but it’s your job as an Instructor to keep the “bad students” on the ground until they are up to the task. But once a student is allowed onto a plane it does holds true. At that point there are only bad instructors, bad rig manufacturers, bad airplane mechanics, bad pilots, and just plain bad luck. So when the door opens and the roulette wheel begins to spin, if more than a few of those above factors come into play we are setting ourselves up to lose a bet and pay the price. So who is ultimately responsible in cases like this? I don't know legal from schmeagle, but morally, I always figure it was the last person in charge of the deceased. That's where the buck stops. The Instructor is the final backstop, the last one in a position to say, "Hey, wait a minute, this is stupid." The last one standing between a student and high speed dirt. But that's in a perfect world not the one we live in. So the gunplay, the accusations flying back and forth, and the general hue and cry, while surely over the top, are all very human behaviors. And it’s because what we used say to each other out behind the hangar is now being opening discussed here. And I don’t think we’ve truly come to terms with that fact. But the final point is this. Whomever makes the mistakes in these cases, from the manufacturers who didn’t think through their designs, to the Instructor who doesn't absolutely beat emergency procedures into their charges, to the rigger who for a moment lets their attention wander, and to the AAD manufacturer who haven’t as yet totally goof proofed their setups, they are all going to have to live with this death the rest of their lives. And that’s punishment enough for all . . . NickD

Yeah, I saw that right before this year's cross country Cannonball race (for bikes 1915 and earlier.) Besides being so very cool, I realized now I knew where Harley got that idea for the Rocker's ugly ass passenger seat. Just back from a long ride on Nina and digging it was over 80 degrees in Los Angeles today! What are you guys back East doing, are you bundled up in your Snuggies sipping hot chocolate? LOL! NickD

Johnny Switchblade Adventure Punk! I remember seeing that skit live. It was back when the folks on SNL could actually read a cue card and still act. Unlike the no-talent hacks on that show today, LOL! NickD

I actually stood in the G.I. Joe isle pondering my options, but either way, I thought, some young guy was going to get screwed . . . NickD

I'm going on a Toy Run in the morning so I went to the mall last week to get my "new unwrapped gift" and decided on a Barbie doll. But, have you any idea how many "flavors" of Barbie there are now? Even so the guy in the Toy Store didn't have the one I wanted. "Have ya got old lady Barbie?" I asked him. "Ya mean like Bag Lady Barbie?" "No man," I answered, "I mean like Biker Barbie." "No, we don't," he said, "but we have all the others." So I settled on "Bride Barbie" and now I've had her in the house for a week, but I can't wait to get rid of her. I figured I'd tie her to my handlebars, so hey, I'm not so insecure I can't fly Barbie high and proud, but for five days now I've been fighting the urge to bust open the box and take a peek under that dress, LOL! NickD

Yeah, but you're tricky. I'll bet your hunching . . . NickD

White male, 5'.8", long blond hair, dirt and grease all over his body? Where's Gypsy (skyrider)? LOL! NickD

When Bitwell, and a few other helmet companies, jumped on the "old school" kick and started selling those vintage "Bell" style motorcycle helmets they relined and repainted for major bucks I got sick. I remember when our old jump club purchased all new Cooper helmets for our student operation in the 1980s and we threw at least 50 of those old Bell helmets into a dumpster . . . http://www.oldschoolhelmets.webs.com/ NickD

Well, I'm going out to the garage to install steel netting behind the windows in my own SUV, LOL! Anyway, good enough job, nobody hurt . . . NickD

Anybody know anything about those robots? I know it's got video cameras, but is that a shotgun mounted up front? NickD

http://www.jsonline.com/general/37714089.html?bcpid=23739055001&bctid=615422516001 If you don't see anything it's a commercial break. One funny thing is they are going out of there way not to tip off the suspect as to police tactical plans, but they showed (from the TV helicopter) officers crawling up on the vehicle through the woods. You could almost imagine the News Director yelling, "Get the F$%K off that shot!" NickD

That's the trouble with hitting the lottery. Forevermore, you're that guy that hit the lottery, LOL . . . NickD

I'd kill for a classy lady like her in my life, if I didn't already have a classy lady like her in my life. Sweet dreams, Princess . . . NickD

Well, it's now officially a "bad day." While JPL managed to get a reliable lock on communications up and down with Akatsuki and write the new software instructions, in the meantime the slide rule math said even if they re-lit the engine and burned all the remaining fuel, the spacecraft still wouldn't achieve a sufficient capture orbit. Akatsuki will now eventually get pulled into the Sun . . . NickD

Julia might be late coming home tonight. JAXA is the Japanese equivalent of NASA and they launched a space craft called Akatsuki (literally means "Dawn") in May of 2010. It was meant to orbit sweltering Venus for two years observing its weather patterns. But the engine burn that would allow the spacecraft to be captured by Venus' gravity failed in that it only burned for half its programmed time. JAXA declared an emergency (throwing open the doors to international assistance) and Julia who is the project manager for JPLs network array of earth based radio telescopes made intermittent contact with the spacecraft and they are now trying desperately to upload new instructions to Akatsuki's onboard computers Or more specifically upload a patch to its failed software. I'm hoping Julia's team can do something. After all the motto at JPL is - Don't leave Earth without us! NickD

>>STURGIS: THE WILD RIDE

Really thought you wanted to sue someone in Old Blighty . . . NickD