Nightingale

Ice floats. A good part of that ice is ABOVE water. if that mass becomes part of the water, you have a rise in ocean levels.

I love the floating exit too... I was SOOOO scared of it before I tried it... I was looking at Kai like he was INSANE and I was like "I have to hold on OUTSIDE the plane?! Isn't it windy out there? What if I fall off?" He looked at me like I was nuts and said "don't worry about falling off! you're wearing a parachute!" I just looked at him and then burst out laughing! Floating exits are easier for me, because since I do have door fear, with a floating exit, I can get out the door and still hold on. I can always go back in the plane. Its a baby step. Its not just dive out the door and fall. Its go out the door, and then think about maybe falling. Of course, once I'm out the door and feeling the wind in my face, letting go of that bar is EASY! I just need the air to remind me of why I'm doing what I'm doing, and to tell that nasty little voice in my head to shut the hell up, because I'm going skydiving!

I didn't really feel like I got over door fear til I did my level 8... and every so often since then, still I get that little part of my brain shouting at me "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU MORON???!!!!"

you have small "hairs" called cilia lining your respiratory tract. Normally, they work to help push icky stuff out of your lungs. Smoking makes these not work. When you stop smoking, they start to work again, and start getting rid of all the ick that should've been gotten rid of a long time ago. Once all the yucky stuff is out of your lungs, you'll stop coughing.

easiest thing: keep a box of altoids right next to the box of condoms.

I've had opportunites... close friends (guys and girls) have asked me to be #3 in a 3some with their SO... I've always said no. and if I had a SO who asked me if I would consider adding a third for a one time thing, I'd also say no. To me, when I'm with someone, I am with only that person. I have never cheated. I have never even been TEMPTED to cheat. To me, threesomes are too close to cheating, because you're with someone other than the person you've made a commitment to. If I care about someone enough to sleep with them, then I care about them too much to risk losing them over something that might be fun but really amounts to just a bit of time devoted to completely meaningless lust. I also care about my friends too much to risk losing a friendship over something like that.

In the USA, paints produced after 1977 do not contain lead. http://www.calpoison.org/public/lead.html

I was taught not to try anything drastic below your hard deck.

Yep.... Hitler Hitler Hitler, Nazi Nazi Nazi! (can we have this thread go away please? We've been beating dead horses for weeks now.)

From yesterday's LA Times: Prosecutors in Media, Pa., said Tuesday that they had dismissed all charges against a man who spent 21 years on death row for a rape and murder that DNA tests show he did not commit. Nicholas J. Yarris, now 43, became the 10th death row inmate exonerated this year and the 112th overall. See below for a list of other people that DNA evidence has proved innocent. These names are why I oppose capital punishment. Our system is obviously not perfect, and there is no need to risk killing an innocent person when simply holding convicted murderers in jail would have the same effect of removing them from society. ____________________________________________ 1. Jonathan Treadway -- Arizona Convicted: 1975 Released: 1978 Convicted of sodomy and first-degree murder of a six-year-old and sentenced to death. The jury acquitted him of all charges at retrial after five pathologists testified that the victim probably died of natural causes and that there was no evidence of sodomy. 2. Johnny Ross -- Louisiana Convicted: 1975 Released: 1981 Sentenced to death for rape. He was released when his blood type was found to be inconsistent with that of the rapist. 3. Henry Drake -- Georgia Convicted: 1977 Released: 1987 Resentenced to a life sentence at his second retrial. Six months later, the parole board freed him, convinced of his innocence by his alleged accomplice and by testimony from the medical examiner. 4. Kirk Bloodsworth -- Maryland Convicted: 1984 Released: 1993 Convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a young girl. Years later, a new volunteer lawyer had the girl's underwear tested with a new DNA testing technique that was not available at the original trial. The tests showed that the semen stains on the underwear could not have come from Bloodsworth. 5. Gregory R. Wilhoit -- Oklahoma Convicted: 1987 Released: 1993 Convicted of killing his estranged wife while she slept. His conviction was overturned and he was released in 1991 when 11 forensic experts testified that a bite mark found on his dead wife did not belong to him. The appeals court also found "ineffective assistance of counsel." He was acquitted at a retrial in April 1993. 6. Earl Washington -- Virginia Convicted: 1984 Commuted to life: 1994 Washington is mentally retarded. After he was arrested on another charge in 1983, police convinced him to make a statement concerning the rape and murder of a woman in 1982. He later recanted that statement. Subsequent DNA tests confirmed that Washington did not rape the victim. Shortly before leaving office in 1994, Governor Wilder commuted Washington's sentence to life with the possibility of parole. He remains incarcerated. 7. Adolph Munson -- Oklahoma Convicted: 1985 Released: 1995 Munson's conviction was unanimously overturned by Oklahoma's highest criminal appeals court in December 1994 because the state had withheld material evidence tending to exonerate Munson. Some of the forensic evidence that was used at trial to convict Munson was provided by Dr. Ralph Erdmann, who was subsequently convicted of seven felony counts involving misrepresentation of facts in other cases and stripped of his license. Munson was acquitted at a re-trial in April 1995. 8. Alejandro Hernandez -- Illinois Convicted: 1985 Released: 1995 In 1985, Cruz and Hernandez were jointly tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico. In September 1995, DNA tests showed that neither Cruz nor Hernandez was the source of the semen found at the crime scene. On November 3, 1995, a DuPage County judge acquitted Cruz on the basis of a recanted testimony (by a sheriff's department lieutenant) and the DNA evidence. Hernandez's case was also dismissed. 9. Sabrina Butler -- Mississippi Convicted: 1990 Released: 1995 Butler was sentenced to death in 1990, for the murder of her nine-month-old child. Upon re-trial, she was acquitted on Dec. 17, 1995. Medical evidence indicated that her baby died from cystic kidney disease or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and was not the result of any action on Butler's part. 10. Verneal Jimerson -- Illinois Convicted: 1985 Released: 1996 Jimerson was sentenced to death in 1985 for a murder that occurred in 1978. The chief witness against him was Paula Gray, who did not mention Jimerson in her original story to the police. Then she added his name to her account, along with three other names, including Dennis Williams (see below). She later recanted her entire testimony, saying the police had forced her to lie. The original charges against Jimerson were dismissed, but they were resurrected seven years later when the police offered to drop some charges against Gray if she would implicate Jimerson. Gray's 50-year sentence was converted to two years’ probation. In 1995, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously reversed Jimerson's conviction, in part due to DNA evidence demonstrating that he was not involved in the crime. Jimerson was released on bond in early 1996, and charges against him were subsequently dropped. 11. Dennis Williams -- Illinois Convicted: 1979 Released: 1996 Convicted in 1979 for murder and rape. Williams spent 17 years on death row until his release in 1996 when DNA evidence cleared him of charges. 12. Robert Hayes -- Florida Convicted: 1991 Released: 1997 Hayes was convicted of the rape and murder of a co-worker based partly on faulty DNA evidence. The Florida Supreme Court threw out Hayes's conviction and the DNA evidence in 1995. The victim had been found clutching hairs probably from her assailant. The hairs were from a white man, whereas Hayes is black. Hayes was acquitted at a retrial in July 1997. 13. Robert Lee Miller, Jr.-- Oklahoma Convicted: 1988 Released: 1998 Miller was convicted of the rape and murder of two elderly women in 1988. However, recent DNA evidence points to another defendant who was already incarcerated on similar charges. Oklahoma County Special Judge Larry Jones dismissed the charges against Miller in February, 1997, saying that there was not enough evidence to justify his continued imprisonment. Miller's original conviction was overturned in 1995, and he was granted a new trial. The prosecution is appealing Judge Jones's ruling. 14. Ronald Williamson -- Oklahoma Convicted: 1988 Released: 1999 Ronald Williamson and Dennis Fritz were charged with the murder and rape of Deborah Sue Carter, which occurred in 1982. They were arrested four years after the crime. Both were convicted and Williamson was sentenced to death. In 1997, a federal appeals court overturned Williamson's conviction on the basis of "ineffectiveness of counsel." The court noted that the lawyer had failed to investigate and present to the jury the fact that another man had confessed to the crime. Recently, DNA tests from the crime scene did not match either Williamson or Fritz, but did implicate Glen Gore, a former suspect in the case. All charges against the two defendants were dismissed on April 15, 1999 and they were released. 15. Ronald Jones -- Illinois Convicted: 1989 Released: 1999 Jones was convicted for the rape and murder of a mother of three. After spending ten years on death row, he was released when DNA evidence proved he was not guilty.

well... you can take consolation in the fact that your landings are better than mine!

dodgeball was banned at the school I used to teach at after three kids got broken noses. The problem with that game (and I LOVED to play it when I was a kid) is that some kids can be downright mean to other kids. What happens is the bully takes the opportunity to hurl the ball full force at another child's face, and you end up with broken bones. When the bully AND THEIR PARENTS are confronted the bully claims that they were "just playing the game... I was SUPPOSED to hit him with the ball!" and then the school gets sued by the parents of the injured child.

on my level 3, I had 2 JMs, and it was the reserve side only that released.

OMG what a little sweetheart!!!!! Congratulations!

SFW?

I found this board after I only had the one tandem too! Just because someone's a newbie to skydiving doesn't make them a troll. Kat69 has contributed to a couple of discussions so far. Newbies find this board, because a lot of the time, they don't know anything about skydiving or where to go to jump, so, like the logical little internet savvy people we are, we go to www.google.com and punch in "skydiving" and OMG up pops this forum! (along with 1800-skydive, which is how I found Perris to go jump at). I posted here after my tandem to get information about AFF and to scrape up the courage to go all by myself. I got a very warm welcome, and I am upset to see that a similar welcome hasn't been extended to Kat69. If you go back and read her posts, she does talk about more than sex. And hell, we are ALL guilty of chatting about sex every so often.

CONGRATS!!!!

I think we all answered at the same time.

I think the ring is kinda like a karate black belt... anyone can go into a shop, buy one, and put it on. But, symbols, whether they're wings or black belts, have more meaning to the people who actually earned them, and having others wearing items that imply they have earned the honor when in fact they have not kind of cheapens the symbolism, I think.

bring your logbook. get your current instructors to sign off on your jumps. call ahead and let them know what you want to do.

snopes says FALSE! http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/target.asp The Target Corporation (which now also includes the Mervyn's and Marshall Field's chains of department stores) is an American firm which has been based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since it began as the Dayton Dry Goods Company in 1902. Target stores do not directly participate in the collection of toys for the Toys for Tots foundation administered by the U.S. Marine Corps, but this is hardly evidence of an alleged anti-military stance. Other stores have also declined or reconsidered participating in the via in-store toy collection due to security concerns, and according to the USMC, not only are Marshall Field's stores (another chain owned by Target Corporation) taking part in the Toys for Tots program, but Target has donated nearly one million dollars in toys to the Toys For Tots foundation.

vibes are good wishes.

I never played original D&D, but I played AD&D all through high school and college, and still game with friends every so often. and I love painting the little pewter miniatures!

my ex-bf's dog, a big white lab, did that to my kitty when the kitty was about that tiny... the dog got a nose full of kitten claws, whimpered, and made a bee-line out the dog door. Final score: 6 oz kitten - 1 100 lb lab - 0

ah. forgot that labor laws differ by state. I was thinking of California's.