ChasingBlueSky

Any holiday in Chicago means more cops. North or South. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

If you want to meet up with us tonight to have a few beers for St Pats and talk skydiving...head to the South Side! We will be at Quigley's at 111th and Pulaski (yes, they do wear Catholic school girl outfits). It looks like 7pm or so. It will be crowded. So far it looks like me, Clay, and Val are going and I was just told that EricaH, Andyman, Craichead, and Hmatousek may be joining us! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

HA! They are drinking on Headline News right now! They have someone from Guinness on there talking about Smithwicks (they reporters keep prounoucing it wrong) and they are all trying it. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I wear this every day! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

All the ones I listed were made by Casa. I don't think the AN-225 is. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

This one is bigger bigger casa Makes the jump planes seem small huh? clicky Check out some odd Casa's you can't jump from: Clicky Three Props! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Supersized Irish Casa Just in time for the holiday. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

They just watch me thru my windows and follow me in black helicopters. Let them watch - they will find out what I have always known, I just ain't worth watching. I'm not that important. I wouldn't really be concerend about the government watching you. The spyware and hackers out there are a much greater threat. You won't even known they have been in your system unless they decide to let you know. Oh yea - this is old news. There was a program that made the news about a year ago that everyone found out the government was using, and was trying to get ISP to install. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

There are plenty of IT headhunting firms out there that take on the legal hassles of bringing in H1Bs and then contract them out to other companies. Sometimes this works out better for the Visa holder - they don't need to find a new sponsor every time their job has been completed. However, they tend to get much lower pay for this trade off. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Crazy and Stupid idea, but cool video. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I've recently heard of a Wings that took 4 weeks. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Seems that everytime someone I know passes thru Deland, they tell me of different prototypes that PD is jumping/testing out there. Earlier this year there were pics of the Extreme Team jumping an unknown Icarus canopy. As far as catching up - didn't the FX and VX both come out before the Velo? I don't see anyone with the opinion that PD is trying to catch up to Icarus. If anything, you have a 21 cell holding its own against 27 cells. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Milwaukee is a nice suburb of Chicago Edit to add: Make sure you get a burger and some custard at Kopps! By far the best kept secret that city has. Oh yea, I think SK has been jumping the Cesna all winter. Give them a call. Skydive Chicago, about 2 hour drive from there (if not a bit more), will have the Super Otter back this weekend. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Only if it was someone from the CReW forums...you just can't trust those guys _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The bombings were terrible - and the country is in shock right now. They are not American, and may not react the same way we do. Could this be more of a sign for foreign governments that have been pro-Bush? Last I checked, millions of EU residents protested a few times against GWB and his lack of foreign policy. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Technically he can be on the ticket as Kerry's VP. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I didn't do it by choice - I was told by the AE's and the VP of recruitment what the billing had to be so they could afford the payments on their Lexus. Plus we had a simple breakdown - if it was an American the margin was single digits, and if it was H1B we had to get double digits. Your ethical billing is rare in this field - and I think you know that. Thanks for the offer but: 1) I am nearly two-years rusty on this stuff now and wouldn't make a good hire, and 2) I would be worried about the longevity of any job in this field right now. It is nice approching the one year mark at a job and not have to worry if I will be on unemployment at any given time. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

You have to blame Clinton at the same time - he increased the amount of H1B's this country gives out a couple times. GWB has done the same....so blame goes to both. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Tim, You know I have hired H1B Visa workers as well - and at first it was because the enterprise environments were switching from large frame to mid-range systems and no one on staff had that skill set. There was a vast untapped source of highly skilled workers coming out of Indian Institute of Technology - and these guys got the work done. So we turned to the Visa market. A lot of the older guys were just waiting for retirement, and the Y2K bug kept them employed at high salaries to debug old Cobol code with the most famous deliverable date in IT history. (there were plenty of people at my AIX job switching into Cobol because it looked like that market was going to stick around since the Fortune 500s were not getting rid of large frames) A good portion of them kept their jobs thru the end of 2001, but they were slowing ending up laid off or on the bench. My company found we were taking a huge hit from our bench and started to let them go or tried to turn them into Project Managers. Some were able to reeducate themself quick enough to get a lower paying job at mid-level experience. Most of these guys just needed another year before they could retire young, and I can see why they didn't bother to learn C++ or OOAD. It was great hiring H1B's because I would bill them out for J2EE over $100/hour and pay their headhunter about $45/hour, and the H1B would see about $15/hour. The margin on that made our bosses happy! This was a time when a Java consultant with one year of experience could charge $90/hour - and there were a handful that we could choose from...but we didn't. The margin on these guys sucked and we were told to go with the H1B instead. Now it is almost five years later and there are PLENTY of highly skilled American citizens that can fill these jobs, but no one is taking them. Dell, EDS, Xerox, etc have all moved their NOCs and call centers off shore. I left the IT field behind because there were no jobs to be had. Almost all of my IT friends in Chicago have changed careers because they were sick of the unemployment line. Yet, Clinton and GWB both allowed more H1Bs to be had. I know how much this sucks - I was replaced on a data migration contract because an H1B made them more money for the same experience level. As a recruiter you haven't had to face the reality of the visa market and how that equates to no job stablity even if you are young, skilled and always taking continuing education. I've also enjoyed the HUGE commision checks that hiring an H1B gets you...and when you are in that position, it makes financial sense to take the Visa IT guy. I miss IT, I wish I could go back to that field....but I got tired of collecting unemployment checks every year for the last three years. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I blame that on the cold weather _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I am not his biggest fan either, thus the title for that picture. I was warned by a couple friends that I was not allowed to talk to him - esp since I had been drinking. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Thanks James! I like to think I have an OK eye for seeing a good picture, but excellent really is pushing it. After spending a couple weeks this past summer working with Todd Sutherland (Lolie was there as well), I realized just how much I have to learn about photography. The experience was great, and gave me a decent idea of the type of day a professional photographer has and just how much work it really is. Working with a cheap digicam is much harder than I thought. The response/reload time causes you to miss most of the good shots...and it is very limited on options. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Yahoo Photo Contest Found some very cool photos on this page - and there are two tandem pictures in there. Anyone recognize the TMs? This is the contest: 120 photos have survived fierce competition from more than 21,000 entrants to receive 15 Seconds of Photo Fame on Yahoo! Photos and in New York’s Times Square _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

How long of a skydive was that? What alti did she get out at, and where did she deploy? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Yea, felt like I should have named them Got BASE? The morning was about 31F, and probably got as high as 40-45F, no winds and lots of sun. With all the Poteen (Irish Moonshine) flowing, we were not feeling the cold. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....