skydived19006

I do agree that the Group Member program is a conflict of interest, and that it’s impossible to represent both sides at times. A couple of things to remember, Group Members do pay dues as well ($300 + a year), so maybe USPA is spending the Group Member money. I also agree that it would be best to split the two, but realistically I don’t see it happening. On a somewhat related topic, is it a conflict for USPA to require its Group Member DZs pledge to require individual membership in order to jump at a GM DZ? If the DZs had their own organization, would they still require that skydivers be a member of what would then be a third party organization? I really doubt that the DZs out there that are not USPA Group Members require USPA individual membership to jump at their DZs. Since the DZs would no longer be affiliated with USPA, should the USPA also drop all the BSRs, student training guidelines, ratings, etc, as what would the USPA mean to the new DZ organization, and what authority would USPA have to “enforce” their rules on a business that was not affiliated with them? What percentage of skydivers would drop their individual membership if it were not required? As with most things in life, it’s never black and white. That said, I do not think that the USPA should start an advertising program, and trying to spread the cost to any of its members (group or individual). Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Just received an interesting series of emails apparently form the Atlanta Skydiving Center. Any detectives interested in looking into it, may just be a little hoax. Kind of funny really. Martin from 66.223.51.27 (EHLO ns.eserver.cobalt.com) (66.223.51.27) by mta359.mail.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:35:02 -0800 The following is an email sent to you by an administrator of "Atlanta Skydiving Center". If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the following address: web3@ascskydiving.com Include this full email (particularly the headers). Message sent to you follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A HORRIBLE tornado has just destroyed Skydive the Farm......... The following is an email sent to you by an administrator of "Atlanta Skydiving Center". If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the following address: web3@ascskydiving.com Include this full email (particularly the headers). Message sent to you follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ki Ya!!!!!! Bitches!!!!!!! The following is an email sent to you by an administrator of "Atlanta Skydiving Center". If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the following address: web3@ascskydiving.com Include this full email (particularly the headers). Message sent to you follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We're BETTER than you... and We Know It!!!! KI!!!!! YA!!!!!!! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Probably won't do a damn thing. But what it does do is start to build a case that Skyride was aware of it's business practices and chose not to act. It's the same reason a manager or HR makes a point to document performance issues before they fire you - makes it a lot harder for you to come back and say you were fired for something entirely unrelated (such as discrimination). Yeah, I know and you’re absolutely correct. I’m sure Cary and Ben have had the “stick” waved at them quite a lot over the last year or two, and they will continue doing exactly as they please until they’re hit with the stick a few times (the “stick” I’m referring to is figurative, although they may have had a literal stick waved at them as well). USPA taking this action is a step in the right direction. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

DZO INCOMING A Bulletin for USPA Group Members Vol. 9, Issue 1 Jan. 27, 2004 BOD Actions Other board actions include: An owner of 1-800-SKYRIDE appeared before the Executive Committee and was strongly urged to alter business practices within a short, specified timeframe. Something tells me that USPA “strongly urging” the owners of Skyride will be about as affective as the 17 UN resolutions were with Saddam Hussein. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

The airlock is a good idea, but personally I would hate to be tied to one after landing on a windy day, which we have a lot of in Kansas. I answered other because I do a little of all of the options. I jump Icarus mains, and do all the flying form 1000’ down. I have found that with a heavy load (500 lbs +-) that I just stick to a straight in, as any extra speed really tends to increase the toggle pressure. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Does anyone know how long it generally takes USPA to post the BOD meeting minutes? I’m interested to see what was said regarding these issues! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

What about “link trading”. I was surfing around today, and I think it was Elsinore’s site that I saw link trading. They’ll put up a link to your site if you put a link to them on yours. I don’t exactly have a place for this on my site, but I could set up a specific “Link Trade” page. The Link Trade page doesn’t even need a link form the home, just a link on a sub page so the crawlers can follow. I do have a “Links” page but don’t exactly want 400 random links there. If we all had 400 sites point back at us, I’d think it would be well worth it. Putting up a link to your bitter rival wouldn’t even necessarily be a problem since this page could be rather random with a heading stating it’s purpose “This is our “Link Trading Page” it’s a corporative effort done solely to help those sites participating with search engine ranking. If you would like to trade with us email me at…” Martin Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

It’s not skydiving, but I just saw a flyer for a Texas Hold Em tournament fund raiser for a kids softball team. There’s a $35 buy in with a $25 rebuy in if you like up to the two hour point. They advertised a $3000 pay out, down ten places with that increasing if more participated. There was also pop and beer included. It said that they anticipated at least 300 people, you do the math. Maybe the skydivers could sponsor the poker tournament? Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

To help raise their listing they need to be on skydiving related sites as well. I don’t know how it would ever work out, but it would be good as I understand it if the DZ sites would link to each other. Obviously competing DZs generally wouldn’t want to link to each other, and most wouldn’t want to deal with keeping up the links. If every legit drop zone linked to each other it would defiantly push everyone up on relevant searches. Maybe DZOs could just talk to the non competing DZs that they’re friendly with and agree to link to each other. I know a lot of DZs have a good relationship, support each others boogies etc. Maybe someone else has an idea? Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I have a reform idea! Since as you say the pyramid is becoming a pillar and will get to the point where it’s basically one person working supporting one retired (ok, that’s not exactly what you said). Why not make it law that my two kids are forced by the federal government to write me and my wife a check each month. And since I’ll then be of the “AARP” mentality, because I deserve it they’ll be required to pay me what I think I need to live! Some people don’t have kids, but some have more than two. So for those people, we just designate someone’s “extra” kids as their personal supporters. It’s interesting that we would have the government act as our segregate in performing these things when we would never do it ourselves. Government paid medical care; instead of asking the government to do it for us, why not just go door to door in your own neighborhood asking your neighbors to pay for your health needs? Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Hey Monkey, Any opinion on FICA? Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

What you say is true, and I do understand that to maintain we need growth in the population. Also although they send me a "statement" every year, my money is long gone! If a private company tried to implement a similar system, they'd be prosecuted! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both" Ben Franklin Applies to many many topics. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I heard an explanation of the “Social Security Lock Box” the other day. I was surprised to find out that there actually is a vault in Virginia, aka Social Security Lock Box. What I wasn’t surprised to find out is that there isn’t a large pile of US dollars, or gold sitting inside that vault. So you ask what’s locked in the vault, well it’s a large stack of bonds. The government of our great country has no mechanism to pile up money, the excess money goes into the general fund and is spent on “projects”, and replaced with bonds that the government promises to pay back when the program is no longer running an excess. If it were not for the “lock box” and only what was needed to pay recipients was taken form the tax payers, when they started to run short they would have three choices 1) raise taxes 2) borrow the money 3) find it elsewhere in the budget. As it is with the “lock box” when it comes time to pay back the bonds we again have three choices 1) raise taxes 2) borrow the money 3) find it elsewhere in the budget. Hell of a deal! One other choice would be to again rise the retirement age, push it to 80 or 90 (it’s currently 70 for me, I’m 40 years of age) and it wouldn’t be a problem. As I see it we could progressively privatize, take the excess back form the general fund, and let younger people invest in private funds. As we get older and the current people that didn’t have the chance to have a private fund die off, we increase the percentage that’s privatize. I would think we could be at 100% private in 30 to 40 years. Oh, can anyone find it in the constitution where the federal government is given the power to take from one citizen what he has rightfully earned, and give it to another person? I’m not exactly a constitutional scholar, and I couldn’t find it. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

This is an editorial by Neil Boortz, Yesterday Nealz Nuze featured a poll asking your opinion as to whether or not Bush would be successful in reforming Social Security. Only 10% said it would very likely. Ninety percent said that it was either somewhat or not likely. What will it take to make people understand what is being done to them here? Why are younger Americans so bored with this subject? Here's your reality. You graduate from college. You begin your first real job. During the orientation process with your new employer someone steps in front of the group of new employees wearing a little smiley-face button with FICA printed on it. This person tells you that he is going to be in the payroll office every single payday, and before you get your paycheck he is going to take about 14% right off the top. That's 14 cents from every dollar you earn.** Mr. FICA then tells you that the government might, though it is not obligated to do so, let you have some of that money back if you live long enough. If you die before the government starts paying you this money back the government will keep it. You cannot leave it to relatives or charities through your will. Mr. FICA also tells you that politicians are going to spend that money ... all of it ... as soon as they get their hands on it. If things get so bad that there isn't enough money coming in as FICA "contributions" to pay the people who managed to live long enough to get some back, they will simply pass a regulation saying that you have to be older still before you start getting checks. You raise your hand to ask a question. "Why can't I put that money in some retirement account that I own and manage? After all, I did work for it. I did earn it." Mr. FICA is very unhappy with you. What's your problem? Don't you know that there are politicians in Washington, both Democrat and Republican, who are sitting there waiting for that money? They need that money to spend on projects in their home districts so they can tell the voters what a great job they're doing! They need that money to make more and more people dependent on them and dependent on government for their lifestyles! How are these politicians going to get their hands on that money if they allow you to put it into an investment account that you own and control? You're young, you're idealistic. You'll learn. Politicians are telling us that we just can't privatize our Social Security accounts because, they say, it would cost too much. Cost? How? You just heard it. That money that you earned sitting in your private investment account is money that the politicians can't spend to buy votes. You say that they should just cut spending? What are you, nuts? Cut spending? When have you ever known politicians to cut spending? Here ... let me just give you one example. They recently had a bit of an audit of the nearly $600 million in homeland security funding in Texas. This is money given to the State of Texas to be spent on homeland security matters. The audit disclosed that homeland security funds were used by buy a trailer that was used to haul souped-up lawn mowers to lawn mower drag races. I guess these lawn mowers were going to be used to mow down the terrorists. A Dallas Morning News investigation found that some other homeland security funds were used in Texas to buy equipment for traffic stops, conduct drug investigations, and some of the money was even spent for community festivals, whatever they are. Now if you were to propose that spending on homeland security in Texas be cut by an amount equal to that amount spent on festivals, drug investigations and trailers to haul drag-racing lawn mowers, there would be pure hell to pay. You would be accused of engaging in a partisan attempt to cripple our homeland security efforts just to enrich Wall Street brokers. Oh yeah. The Wall Street brokers. These people are viewed, perhaps accurately, as rich. To the left that means that they're evil. If people are allowed to invest their own money that they worked for and earned into their own privately owned retirement accounts then they will turn to brokers to invest those funds in our capitalistic marketplace. Brokers generally charge for these services. The left can't stand this. How dare investment brokers make anything investing money that should be in the pockets of politicians being spent to buy votes. The real pity here is not so much that politicians are fighting so hard to keep the flow of vote-buying funds strong, but that the people of this country, especially the younger people, are so complacent about it. How can you be optimistic about the future of our Republic when our population allows an atrocity like this to continue! But .. what am I thinking? How can I realistically expect younger people to be paying attention to this wholesale thievery when Jenn and Brad are splitting! ** Please don't show your ignorance by telling me that you're only paying a little over 7% and your employer "matches" your "contribution" with the same amount. Uttering those words only proves that you're just as stupid as the politicians believe you to be. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I've talked through email with Gary Peek (my regional director) and Jan Meyer. I don’t know, but a lot of what may have gone to a regional director may have been directed to Jan because anyone up at all on the subject (although most DZOs I’m sure don’t spend much time here in the forums) knows that she’s already involved and up to speed. My guess would be that the run of the mill “fun jumper” and a fair number of DZOs, are ignorant about the whole Skyride issue. This is one reason I’m really curious about the USPA BOD vote. Jan Meyer makes herself very available and is extremely responsive and proactive IMO (I haven’t contacted any other BOD National directors). Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Sure, If USPA were to advertise it would benifit all group members. Also FYI this was taken form USPAs site. I'll be interested to see what action if any comes out of the next BOD meeting. Taken form the “USPA MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING, July 16-18, 2004 Alexandria, Virginia Executive Committee There has been much discussion about the business practices of Skyride; the best suggestion of the course of action the Executive Committee decided was to have Headquarters consult with our counsel regarding the “1-800-Skyride” business model & practices and our potions as a Membership organization. As an organization, Skyride exists because some drop zones that are complaining of their actions and practices are the same drop zones that allow Skyride to exist; as an organization, USPA cannot and will not regulate DZs business practices. Group Member Committee Old Business As directed by the board, USPA wrote a letter to Cary Quattocchi regarding concern with certain business practices. There was no response and the practices continue unchanged. After much discussion, the committee urged the staff to research the methods and cost of enhancing USPA’s visibility to the public on various internet search engines. Such efforts should also assist sport promoting efforts. The committee also urged that USPA advise Group Member DZs of its concern with these practices. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

USPA could do a few things web search related for $0 to increase the first time skydiver traffic. USPA comes up well in skydiving related searches, but the “title” is just “USPA.org” does that mean anything to those with no base of knowledge in the sport? By simply inserting some pertinent information in their web site titles, descriptions, etc., not only would it push USPA to the top of most “skydiving” searches, but would give the uniformed a better idea of what/who USPA is. I’m no search engine genius by any means, but form what I’ve learned over the last month or so, USPAs site could be at the top of every ranking criteria used by the various search engines without spending a cent on advertising, just a little very simple html code. Any kid with a high school diploma these days could make these changes. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I had around 30/40 jumps and had an FXC fire. Person spotting was arguing with the pilot about the spot, there were clouds and she (person spotting) made sure to inform me what to do if we ended up in the clouds, and that I had better track well! Jump went like crap, I did track but just a bit too long, I was under a good main at 1800 feet when the FXC opened my reserve. I waited for the reserve to come up behind me and released the main. It was rental gear for whatever that’s worth, and back in 1990 very few licensed skydivers had AADs at that time. I answered no, it wasn’t a Cypress. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

There are always “issues”. If USPA puts up paid advertisements, who pays for them? USPA is an organization for the individual member, not the Group Member (as has been covered). The problem is with getting the Group Members to fund any advertising that benefits them. I’m in Kansas; I don’t want to fund advertising that will benefit Florida, Arizona, and California DZs. And I’m fairly sure that the individual members aren’t very interested in funding much advertising at all. Now what the individual drop zones can do is step up to the plate and do the same for thing themselves. For most of us its winter and not the busy season, might be a good use of time to do some research and kick up your own advertising a notch or two. I personally over the last month or so have done some fixes to my web site so it will be more search engine friendly (fixes suggested by Jan Meyer). And have put up paid advertisements on Google and Overture (yahoo, msn, AltaVista, jeeves, and others). None of these things were expensive, and if you’re not up to doing it yourself there are plenty of people who will help you out for a fee (Jan Meyer, and WFFC to name a couple, ask them). The “middleman” issue has spurred me to do some things that I should have done anyway. I put up some really broad search terms on my paid ads, and may even put some people in the market that weren’t even looking for skydiving in the first place. I only pay if they click on the ad (form $.05 to $.30 per click) and can change at any time. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like having to compete with the dishonest business practices of anyone. I wouldn’t like it any more if it was my neighboring drop zone running the “boiler room” than I do having it ran out of Georgia. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I'm not exactly a "Newbie", but at your typical small DZ, you either pack for yourself or you don't jump! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Highest was the typical Mullins 23k or so. Interesting one, I was doing tandems at a multiple plane boogie out of a King Air. More than once the pilot informed me (tandems sat back to the panel in the copilot seat in that King Air) that we were going to have to “wait” for traffic, which in a King Air means more altitude. I had a 110lb woman, and being August decided to do the tandem in T shirt and shorts, same that she was wearing, on this one I looked at the altimeter in the plane as jumpers were leaving, 18,300 MSL (I don’t think he was a very experienced jump pilot)! My thoughts as I scoot to the door ‘shit’, “I’m glad I don’t smoke”, “wonder if my passenger smokes, hope she don’t go out on me”. I wasn’t feeling hypoxic at all; time spent up there was really short. Tandem went really well, but in freefall I was thinking “what a waste of perfectly good altitude”, almost 12k freefall on a tandem! Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

I could see this type of service being valuable to some of the small DZs. Some of those mom and pop operations do not have anyone to answer the phone as everyone has to have a real job. The answering machine thing works but no doubt costs the DZ business. My wife's job is answering the phone for our DZ, and raising our two boys in her spare time. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

Don't do that - there was a recent lawsuit over that topic. Besides, it wouldn't be the way to stop him from his deceptive practices. Keep the focus on what you did with your website, not taking the certifications and helping those that are taking legal action. It would obviously be easy to track if people were abusing the sponsor links. No doube the IP addresses are recorded by Google. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ

It must be so redundant that you haven't read it. Jan Meyer listed a few posts up a bunch of these "services", so I guess there are a bunch of them already. Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else. AC DZ