NickDG

>> Damn, you look like that creepy quiet guy in Con Air.

Don't discount the possibility it might just be them falling too slow. So don't make their problem your problem. Also at less than 40 jumps you probably haven't found your full fall rate range yet and it's larger than you think. But start compensating with lead now and you may never find it. The best thing, if at all possible, during your formative jumps is to jump with people your own size. And don't fall into the trap so well put by the late Master Rigger Al Frisby, "They're now putting Slinks on their canopies to save weight and then they're strapping on lead . . ." NickD

"O'grady, swimming tonight for his very last chance at the gold, will be power stroking with a heavy heart. He's dedicated this last race to his Uncle Bob, who's home watching in Iowa, and suffering from Penal Erectile Dysfunction. What an emotional night this is going to be!" Sheesh, all I want to know is who won so I can collect from, or avoid, my bookie . . . NickD

Here's a vid I shot a long time ago. I called it "Door Time for Students" because it shows when students got some time to sit in an open door and actually look around. But I could have just as well called it, "Crappy Old Motorcycle Helmets on Parade." http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/videos/search.cgi?query=door%20time%20for%20students BTW, I made my first jump in a football helmet with the face guard removed . . . NickD

For me it's a quick look to see if it's a garden variety PC hesitation, if not, no trying to fix it, just cutaway/reserve. I'd rather save the remaining time on the bottom end for going at things with my hook knife . . . NickD

My very first "water" jump was like that. I was using a T-10 and gut gear and I spent so long getting my chest mounted reserve into a protective plastic bag I got seriously off the wind line. I landed in some weeds about 20 yards from the water, but in looking around I didn't see anyone, so I gathered up the gear, sprinted for the lake, and jumped in . . . Pretty sad, eh . . . NickD

Read this and tell me you don't hear his voice . . . NickD From The Shawshank Redemption . . . Morgan Freeman (Red): (narrating) "The first night's the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell... and those bars slam home...that's when you know it's for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it." Morgan Freeman (Red): (narrating) "I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend."

>>The year? Not so long ago - 1991.

>>"Hi," I said, and stuck out my hand, "my name is Nick." And not only did he leave my hand hanging out there in mid-air, he said, "So what."

Wait until Hoop sees this spillover - he's gonna have a cow . . . NickD

It would depend on the type of coating on the canopy, or more so what kind of shape its in, with ZP. It also depends how long it's in the water. Land next to the boat, or shore, and getting plucked out right away is always better. But even in the case of "fresh water" a later rinsing of the gear in a clean trash can with clean water is usually a good idea. However, it's the load tapes in the canopy that can be affected most by water and also the lines. And the more your ZP canopy depends on trim to fly properly the more water immersion can effect it. Most of this effect would be brought out by improperly drying the gear later and having the load tapes and lines dry at different rates. But in any case just like with us men and water - some shrinkage will occur. Another point is what is fresh water? To me that means you could dip a straw in and drink it. If not than who knows what's in there. When we do BASE type water jumps it's either with a round, or an older F-111 square. And with those whatever the water does isn't too noticeable later on as far as performance. There's also the gizmo issue, but I'm sure you thought of that already. But you certainly don't want to intentionally soak an AAD even if it claims to be waterproof. Containers are pretty tough so as long as the plating on your hardware is intact, and you dry it off properly, you won't get any rust. It's been my experience that most people who do intentional water jumps use their "B" gear. If you don't have "B" gear I've seen folks use the opportunity to jump some older round gear, but I'm hesitant to suggest that if you've never done it before. Jumping non-familiar gear can always be dangerous and I'd rather you use what's familiar to you, even if you have to throw the canopy away and buy another - if it comes to that. Lastly, to be perfectly honest, if you ever sell the canopy you should cop to the fact it's got a water jump on it. And that might scare off some folks unless you drop the asking price enough. Have fun and wear a floaty device not matter what! NickD

To those who think I'm whining and then pointed out the virtues of looking forward, keeping up, and accepting change. I'm 53 years old now and have been doing all those things or I'm sure, like a lot of jumpers I knew 30 years ago, I wouldn't be around parachutes anymore. I think what I was trying to do is give some a glimpse of the sport before they came to it. And sure I pined away for the old days a bit because I do look back on those days with some fondness. And someday the same sense of nostalgia happens to everyone to some degree. But, I've some serious ideas about what is real history. Napoleon was history, the war of 1812 was history, the sinking of the Titanic was history. I'm still alive so I don't look at anything that occurred in my life as real history. It's just my life experiences to this point. In a PM conversation regarding this matter one fellow said he notices a uptick in outright nastiness being displayed by some "experienced" jumpers toward newbies on the DZ. It made me recall my early days before I had a hundred jumps. And I realized I was never abused by anyone I was just ignored. It also made me think of something that happened not long ago to my girlfriend at Elsinore. She was doing a solo between groups and when she briefly paused in the door to glance at the spot in the Otter some young guy shoved her out the door. It hurt her back and after she landed she wouldn't tell me who it was because I was ready to kill. So what I'm saying is in order to gauge where we're at as a sport looking back does become important. And okay, I did come off in that post as saying the old days were better, but I meant just in some ways, not all . . . NickD

Interestingly, in the 1980s when I became serious about researching the origins of B.A.S.E. the phrase "extreme sport" was just starting to appear in the media and on the public's radar screen. And the earliest use I heard at the time was land luge being described as an "extreme sport." I think the only reason we didn't get first use was because we were better at keeping BASE a semi-secret. But both sports shared some of the same issues. Both were illegal guerrilla type endeavors at the time, and both were seen as offshoots, or the next step, in skateboarding and skydiving (although both became sports unto their own). And for sure both were beyond the pale in most people's minds . . . NickD

Nine dead, more missing . . . http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=646781 NickD

Wait a minute - I assumed he got the rig back with the reserve unpacked? If not, that's a double HOLY SHIT!!!! NickD

HOLY SHIT !!!! NickD

>>finding info you need fairly quickly is hard to do.

Hi Mrs. Peaches, I value your opinion even more now that you've made the ultimate jump . . . You got married !!! NickD

That's just more psychobabble . . . Just like skydivers, B.A.S.E. jumpers come in all flavors. I know those who are very cold and calculating, those that are truly wild and crazy, and the majority that fall somewhere in between. This reminds me of the wuffo doctor they booked for a PIA convention some years ago. The title for his lecture was, "Physiological Reasons for Cutaway Failure." I patiently sat through the whole thing, which was one general rationalization after another, until Bill Booth leaned over to me and said, "What part of fucking up doesn't this guy get . . ." NickD

So I'm checking out the X-Games on TV. The vert bike and board stuff is very cool. But why the word vert? I suppose it's natural that we humans either combine or shorten words and that's okay "some-times." But I've always liked the word vertical. While not exactly onomatopoeia, to me it does sound exactly like what it is. Vert sounds like some guy you live next door to in suburbia. In any case I watched the entire vert portion of the X-games while laying hori on my couch . . . I'm a Libra and here's my horoscope from today's Sunday L.A. Times: "Diving into a new relationship can feel as risky as jumping from a plane. You're already falling, so you may as well do as any sensible parachuter would – enjoy the ride and anticipate your landing." Never mind that wuffos using skydiving analogies never works, "parachuter" isn't even a real word . . . Speaking of newspapers. When I was growing up in the 60s you'd never see someone eating solo in a restaurant while not perusing a newspaper. Now at this place I eat lunch I seem to be the only one. Early on someone called the restaurant looking for me and to cull me from the crowd the waitress said, "You mean the guy with the newspaper?" So I finally got my Mafia name. The waitresses there all call me "Nicky Papers" now . . . (And yes, I know you're not supposed to say "waitress" anymore.) So I'm looking over all the rules China is putting out for Olympic behavior like men must shave everyday and no morning strolls down to the public bathroom in your bathrobe. I guess we're lucky skydiving hasn't yet become an Olympic event. "There will be no mooning the plane on a low pass. No taking a sharpie pen to your fellow jumpers when they are passed out. Absolutely no choruses of "Him Him . . . And forget boobies for extra altitude." No, wait a minute, that already sounds like Perris . . . NickD

While none happened there I remember they were counting off GSE fatalities on the wall of a hangar in Lake Elsinore. It's hard to imagine now but it was a lot harder to make sure everyone got the word in those days . . . NickD

>>Sit up in the plane and quit crushing the person behind you!

I hardly ever jump on weekend days anymore. Too many people around and it's not dark . . . NickD

When I made my first jump in 1975 the sport, while not exactly in its formative years, still had more ahead of it than behind. And even though it was the year Booth gave us three rings and hand deploy, there was a clear line between what gear novices jumped and what the experienced folks jumped. It's an understatement to say we rushed our novices into more modern gear as we made them jump rounds until they had 100 jumps. Not only did this serve as a probationary period, it quickly weeded out the people who didn’t want to be skydivers bad enough. In those days you could almost automatically trust a stranger with a couple hundred jumps because you knew the rough road they traveled to get there. Nowadays the road to a couple hundred jumps can only be termed as "easy street." Also in those days the sport had more of a club mentality. I'm saddened to see so many jumpers today agree that they dislike tandem jumping but feel it's necessary to keep us in turbine aircraft, fast climbs, and endless turn-arounds. These are folks who can't comprehend how much fun you can have with 20 to 30 hardcore weekend jumpers, a few students, and a Cessna. These are the jumpers who need DZ amenities. The pools, bars, showers, restaurants, and RV hookups. We cooled off with a hose, drank in the parking lot, showered on Friday, hardly ate, and slept in bags on the wooden packing tables. The funny thing is the people are still very much the same. Students today successfully making that first jump act just as giddy as those in 1975. The smiles after each milestone are exactly the same, and you still hear them saying, "Skydiving opened my door and changed my life." So what happened? The sport deserted us, that's what happened. While we were out on the line being Instructors, being fun jumpers, or just enjoying to social aspects of the sport it all got sold down the river. It got sold out by money grubbing DZOs and a joke of an Association that purported to stand up for individual jumpers. We had, so far, withstood every onslaught that was purported to ruin the sport. The military atmosphere of the sport in the 60s survived the invasion of dope smoking hippies in the 70s. The dope smoking hippies then survived the Yuppie incursion of the 80s. And then the Yuppies survived the people who wore funny hats and called themselves free flyers like everyone before them was tied to a string or something. And I'm sure the free flyers will survive what ever comes next. I saw Instructors of the 70s, once treated as god like, relegated to bum status in leaky trailers in the 90s. I saw organizers hoisted on shoulders and showered in praise while Instructors toiled in the trenches with an increasingly "me first" student population. I watched gear sellers, once the friendly soft spoken guy in a van full of gear in the parking lot, grow into multi-million dollar operations where the mantra is shovel as much nylon out the door as possible. I actually remember the first time I bought a parachute indoors. But it was money, that dirty stinking love for a buck, that killed the spirit of skydiving. We’ve over packaged it to the point a first time jumper hardly gets a fleeting glimpse of what drew all of us to the sport in the first place. So why are we letting that happen and what can we do to take the sport back? Okay, I hear you. The logistics of skydiving are surly more complicated now, it's more expensive to operate aircraft and people expect to be pampered instead of making a hard journey to respected local jumper status. But that's B.S. People are looking for the same thing they've always been looking for. An escape from their mundane reality, a group that they can belong to, and a set of goals they can achieve. But right now a first jump tandem experience has all the excitement of a night out at the Olive Garden. Skydiving has always been expensive. It took all the money you had in the 70s and it can take all the money you have in the 00s. And don't kid yourself. The DZO that smiles in your face lays awake nights hoping he can figure out a way to keep the cash cow flowing without putting up with jumpers in any way, shape, or form. So let's do this. Every jumper in the sport for five years knows at least a hundred other up-jumpers. And those hundred jumpers should purchase their altitude the same way they buy carpet, factory direct. Who needs middlemen profit taking DZOs? Go to any general aviation airport and note the amount of aircraft lying fallow. Lease one and form a non-profit club. With the way airlines are dumping pilots high timers are a dime a dozen and desperate for flying work. With the economy tanking renting Farmer McNasty's field isn't as hard as it once was. The whole current situation is ripe for a resurgence of skydiving clubs. In a club you don't hire a plumber, or a grader, or an electrician, and then pass that cost onto your customers. The plumbers, graders, and electricians are jumpers in the club who volunteer their time. Manifest is the girl too young to jump, food and drink is laid out potluck style and the Instructors are guys, like me, who don't need to make money by the head. It's pretty simple, the DZOs and the USPA divide us. But by pulling together there isn't anything we can't accomplish. We did it before and we can do it again . . . NickD

All these "life-limiting" rules are more about holding up in court rather than holding up butts in the air . . . NickD