Nightingale

its sad when I have to ask this... but WHICH case of the tortured four year old were you referring to?

she'd be famous for a bit, but there are so many reality shows out there that the cast tends to be quickly forgotten after the end of the show... does anyone REALLY remember Richard or Gerri or Neleh from Survivor? I don't think people really notice them on the street anymore... It would probably change things for a while, but, like anyone famous, if you don't do things to stay in the public eye, they forget very quickly.

Friend of mine from high school was named Mercedes after the car. however, she hates the car (and, she says, the rude driving habits and road rage that so often accompany high priced luxury vehicles). She goes by "Misty" and is going to permanently change her name to Misty before she finishes med school. Doctors arent' allowed to change their name after they get their licenses, so she has to change it before graduation. You really have to think... what if the kid doesn't like the product you name them after?? Naming kids after products goes WAY back, though. In the 12th century, French philosopher Peter Abelard and his girlfriend (later, wife) Heloise named their son Astrolabe. That kid must've been SO teased as a child!

I didn't check for a repost on this, because it had me laughing so hard I figured that it was worth reposting. Especially the last one. Travel Talk The following are actual stories told by travel agents. ----------------------------------------------- I had someone who wanted to stay at the Bob Newhart Inn in Connecticut. When I explained that the inn was fictional, the customer became very irate and insisted "I know it is real, I see people check in every week!" ----------------------------------------------- I really did have someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. ------------------------------------------------------ A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?" ---------------------------------------------------------------- I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts." Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click. ---------------------------------------------------------------- A secretary called in looking for a hotel in Los Angles. She gave me various names off a list, none of which I could find. I finally had her fax me the list. To my surprise, it was a list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana. She thought the LA stood for Los Angles, and that New Orleans was a suburb of L.A. Worst of all, when I called her back, she was not even embarrassed. ---------------------------------------------------------------- A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state." ---------------------------------------------------------------- I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." He said "But they look so close on the map." ---------------------------------------------------------------- Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a one hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time." ---------------------------------------------------------------- A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that! ---------------------------------------------------------------- A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?" After putting her on hold for a minute while I 'looked into it' (I was actually laughing), I came back and explained the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them." ---------------------------------------------------------------- A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes." I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane. She said, "Yeah, whatever." ---------------------------------------------------------------- A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." I double checked, and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China 4 times and every time they have accepted my American Express." ---------------------------------------------------------------- A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York. The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent said "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere." The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

can I have goth #13?

sounds like the woman in question is a few watts shy of a dim bulb. There's something going on mentally there. Hopefully, she will be competent to stand trial.

no bounce dreams, but a couple of cutaway dreams... that's when I knew that my cutaway drills had really sunk in. when you wake up muttering "look red, grab red, look silver, pull red, grab silver, pull silver" LOL.

hehe... My world religions teacher had a great solution to whiney frat boys. If someone wasn't participating, he'd point at them and say "YOU! GET OUT! And come back when you're ready to learn something!" The first time, the class looked at him in shock. he looked at the student and said "well? didn't you hear me? begone!" The student slunk out the door, and showed up the following class much better behaved. He tossed a person or two out in each class he taught, sooner or later. Class behavior was much improved after witnessing that.

LOL... I got the EXACT SAME questions from my family. "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?!" um... because the door was open and I just happened to fall out. yeah. that's it! "When are you going to settle down with a nice young man?" um... when I find one? upside is that my cousin, aunt and uncle want to go do tandems! Pat's only 16, so he's going to have to wait two years, but he wants to go play in the wind tunnel for now, and Mark needs to check with his cardiologist (had a quad bypass five years ago, but has had a clean bill of health since, so just needs to get the dr's okay) and Laura wants to go on her 50th birthday next june. out of the three of em, I think Pat and Laura are going to do it, but I'm not sure about Mark. My brother and five of his pals want to do tandems too, in march when the weather warms up. to quote my bro "I want to skydive, but I don't want to freeze my dick off doing it." LOL.

probably a repost, but kinda goes together: Employee Performance Actual quotes used in employee performance evaluations: "Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom and has started to dig." "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity." "I would not allow this employee to breed." "This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be." "Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap." "When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there." "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle." "This young lady has delusions of adequacy." "She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them." "This employee should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better." "This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

{{{{{{{{{{{{vibes}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

0:7:0 no beer jumps, but 3 jumps on saturday and four on sunday. the 3 on saturday were on the spectre 230, and the 4 on sunday were on the 210. yep, I downsized. I think, once I get the timing down, my landings will be much better. the 210 comes in a bit faster, though, so I'm getting used to the speed.

ok... everyone behave! these kittens need to have nice, LONG lives!

to protect my head from anything I might bash it into. doors, other skydivers, planes, the ground (most likely!). My landings suck. I wouldn't dream of not wearing a helmet. Also, holds an audible and cuts the wind noise, and keeps my head warm.

badger badger badger badger.....

I did reach back and touch it before exit, but more to reassure myself that I knew where it was...I guess it was more of a pat than a grab. I'm going to take more time with that from now on, now that I know this can be a problem.

you'd have to have a rigger look at the problem to see if its really a problem. My personal decision would be to not jump a canopy that has visible, unrepiared damage. Remember, YOU are ultimately responsible for your own safety. if you are uncomfortable with jumping that canopy, act accordingly.

I was taught during AFF not to pull red below 1000, and just go for silver. not sure if this changes as you get more advanced with different canopies and all that.

As far as I know, Perris, which is one of the larger DZs, doesn't even offer ROL or chest. All the rigs are BOC. I'm not sure about other places, though.

hehe... I didn't say bored, I said lonely. Its nice to be able to look over and see a friend there in the sky with you. skydiving could never be boring, methinks.

here ya go.

I think its the 7 cell vs. 9 cell thing that's throwing me. the seven cell seems to have a shorter glide for the altitude it loses. I'm getting better at it, though.

Excellent advice, Brittany. See the doc ASAP!!!

Some WONDERFUL friends and relatives gave me some jump money for christmas. I did seven skydives this weekend. with ONE stand up landing. sigh.... I am gonna be HURTING tomorrow. I can already feel it. note to self: must start landing instead of crashing. crashing is bad. Three jumps yesterday. I made the mistake of trying to pack for myself on the first jump, and it took me two hours. If I hadn't wasted time packing, I could've jumped at least once, probably twice more. I will work on packing... AFTER I get my A. right now, jump numbers are more important. After the first jump, I found Will over at the pro pack tent to pack for me. Beautiful openings! YAY WILL!!! I had a bit of a hard pull on my third jump. I reached back to do my practice touch, and I felt the hackey pretty deep in there. uh oh. this is gonna be a rough pull, I thought. so, since I was last out anyway, I decided to go for it at 6000, figuring it might take me a bit to get a good pull. I made a decision at this time that if I heard the second warning on the protrack, which was set at 4500, I was gonna go for handles, because if I didn't get the main in 1500 feet of trying, I wasn't gonna get it. I tugged at it a few times, managed to remain stable, and finally, the pilot chute came out just as I heard the protrack beeping 4500, and I had a nice opening. I'm really glad I didn't have to use my reserve, because square 1 repacks are EXPENSIVE, especially if you lose something. I would've used it if I'd heard that protrack before I was able to pull, but I'm glad I didn't have to. (and YES, for those of you wondering, I did do several practice grabs on the ground, and the hackey seemed fine. the plane was packed pretty tight, so I think it might've gotten pushed in a bit in flight). Otherwise, I had a nice three skydives on the 27th. I went down to a 210 today. It was so much easier to flare that I found myself flaring too early. My first two landings royally sucked. the third one I had just a bit too much momentum and landed on my knees, and the last one, I probably could've stood, but I was doing so much falling down that I was kinda expecting to fall down. I landed on one knee. I think if I'd had time to do one more jump, it would've been a stand up. so, four skydives today, and one jump ticket sitting in the audible pocket on my helmet. lol. that's a handy place to put stuff. two pockets, one audible... hmm, what can I use the other pocket for? No jumping for me next weekend, I'm getting dragged up to the parents' condo in Brian Head, Utah. Yes, dragged. I do ski, but badly. I ski about as well as I land a canopy. More falling than skiing. I get along well with my parents in small doses, but four days in a two bedroom condo might be a bit much. we shall see. I am looking forward to escaping civilization and finding the time to read a good book, though. so, I'll probably be back at Perris in two weeks to finish up my A requirements. All I need are the hop and pop, gear checking another skydiver, and cloud visibility, and, of course, three more skydives. I love jumping at Elsinore, but Perris is a bit cheaper at the moment, and I like the landing area a bit better. its softer!

My instructors told me that at Perris, about 1/10 go through with no repeats. I was one of them. From my perspective, it did NOT make me more confident. It made me more nervous. I felt, after 8 skydives, that I wasn't mentally ready to go it solo. I did three coach jumps first. After I graduated AFF, I was actually wishing I'd failed a level or two so I could get more jumps in with the JMs right there. I'd wanted to do some more coach jumps, but didn't want people looking at me like "haven't you done a solo YET??" I can't wait til I get my A, because its lonely up there in the sky just doing solo after solo. I want to jump with people again.