jimmytavino

good job we also have the house paid for but live close enough to town ( half a mile ) to have access to EVERYthing yet far away from things that we have peace and quiet when at home...woods, and a forever wild park... right behind us... no car loans, and with the kids vehicles,, we have 3 cars and 2 vans,,,,, alllll in good condition..... ( i might be happy with a junker BUT My wife and children are NOT ) hahahaha no interest accruing Credit card debt , the kids' college bills are paid... 2 years left for our son... so.... we DO still work... and work hard ( that's HOW you can do this )... we save, we spend,,,,, but we save MORE than we spend.. I grew up with a "cash and carry " attitude about life.... My dad would say,,, " you don't work,,, you don't eat "... and I found that If i saved for things,,,,, i would realize what it takes to GET things... and often the lure of the item for which i was saving,,,,, faded,, by the time I acquired the $$$$ to BUY it....THEN i'd decide IF i really needed it... (rather than to buy it on credit, break it, use it up, wear it out or get bored with the purchase,,,, waaaaay before I even paid for it.) So while we DO of course avail ourselves of Charge cards,, they are more a purchasing convenience and are paid in full when the bill arrives... Our key to getting out from under the mortgage??? well for one thing we live in an area where you can still buy ALOT of house for under 200 grand... our current home is our 2nd,,, we worked on and fixed up our first house,,, ( sweat equity) I also bought and repaired a double in the city at that same time....( more sweat AND some saturdays spent working INSTEAD of at the dropzone ) We Owned both properties for 3 years, sold them both, and put 50 % down on this home,,,, refinanced to 10 years,,, paid it off with 4 years left.... that was in 1997....Lucky for us, house prices are reasonable here, and so we're not talking 200 or 300 thousand dollar loans... Good thing tooo with todays Adjustable Rate Mtgs... as for those who tell me "you NEED to have that mtg. Interest, for a write off".... Fact is , that the standard deduction,, around 14,000$ is waaaay more than any itemized list would be,,,( for us ) including interest, taxes, med expenses etc......( total property taxes are around 4,500/yr...) and I never paid more than 6 or 7,000 / year in interest, because the principal amount was low. ) Of course when we fist bought this home, interest rates were around 16% So NOW there are usually a few dollars laying around to hand over to the manifest staff,,, whenever i feel like going jumping... guilt free..... just like debt free and mtg free...

hahaha lots of "sure" and hell yeah... and I too fall into that category!! so i laughed when i saw this 'voice of reason' post. hahaha true enough it IS tricky stuff..... But i bet the view is worth the chance... There was no question posed about "getting back "... and so who wouldn't want to go into outer space....? someday all our energy winds up there, anyway... better to go , while we can still enjoy it.....besides IF we could go into outer space, we might like it so much that we wouldn't want to return to this planet... ( Gives the term 'Ground Bound' a whole new perspective ) j

great advice from skymama...each dz is easy to get to... and very driveable... if your time frame could be made LONGER... leave a few days early and visit dz's ON the WAY south... Try to time your drives to allow for visiting a number of active and popular dz's along the way... (many places jump on weekdays.) even if you don't jump it could be a nice rest stop from "driving 24 consecutive hours"... and you're way better off taking 'sleeping breaks' on a dz as compared to a rest area.... You may even encounter riders, who can help with the gas or driving.. who knows??? if you need to push for time,, make the return trip non stop.. or else use it to hit any place you may have missed when heading south... So grab a parachutist magazine ( it lists ALL the dz's including contact numbers and locations... ), a navigator, a couple of friends, and stop 2 or 3 times each way, during your drive...jump there, or not,,, stay a short while or longer. smile and meet some people,,,, and then on to the sunshine !!!!! and warm temps... skydive safely... refer back to the forums here.. lots to be learned through them... jimmy a 3914 d 12122

Excellent kbordson..... nothing better than when someone here needs a little 'pick up' after a rough day,,,, and someone else responds like KB... who could NOT laugh, along with that little munchkin.....???? ....here's a tired old joke, from a tired old skydiver.... "So this woman races into the house all excited, and screams up the stairs..... " Pack the bags,, I've won the Lottery" !! A man's voice from a bedroom,, replies,, " Should I pack for the mountains, or pack for the beach "???. SHE says...... " I Don't CARE !!!! Just GET OUT !!!".......

i was sent this 'story' by a skydiver, who received it from another skydiver, and i guess they assessed it as accurate... i called 'bullshit' immediately.. as regards the cancer 'angle'.. ( whuffos eat that stuff UP ) ^^^ but knew that the stunt had been accomplished... some sorta climbing harness, and "help from friends"...

not sure how easy it is to open the case of a Pc 120.. but i had success a few years ago with my VX 1000,,, you'll need a tiny tiny phillips screwdriver,,,pull the casing screws.. have a magnet on hand to help keep track of them... seperate the casing very gently as there could be conductive 'tape wiring' going from one place to another... these tapes CAN be carefully disconnected and then reconnected,, where they attach to PC boards and other components... (only disconnect one end,, and if possible disconnect nothing,,,unless it's necessary ) If you can get behind the area of the Lanc port.... either pull the pin through,, or push it back out. re assemble..... hope that you don't have tooooo many screws left over.. Super glue could hang up inside the port and make re-insertion of a new pin,,, difficult...or could inadvertantly 'clog' the port... good luck jmy from rochester

i'd say that doing a 10 second delay is prefferable to a 5.... BUT exit at a higher altitude to do it... You pretty much De-Accelerate... when stepping off a plane on jump run,,,,for the first few seconds... then re-accelerate, as gravity gets a hold of you... it's not so easy to stay, 'motionless' in your arch when you are sub-terminal...hence the 'kicking'... Might be better to get some airspeed going, in order to have some relative wind against which to arch normally.. It also would help the efficiency of the deployment..... try not to get 'hung up' at 5 seconds,, so ask your instructors to give you another 1,000 feet or so, and start falling..... It seems they have already cleared you for 10 secs...

was the Pilot Chute FULLY cocked......?? and not just when you started the pack job... But after the main went into the D bag????? if you're not checking a few times during the packing sequence... it IS possible for a P C to Uncock itself..... and if you're not tuned into that,,, as you stow the PC into the pouch... then you could have assured yourself of "inadequate snatch force".... come deployment time.... ( nothing worse that Inadequate Snatch Force ) know what i mean????? Your Pilot chute does a LOT more than simply popping the pin,,, during the course of an opening... check it a few times,,,, bagging the canopy can easily un cock the p c.....then openings can be interesting,,, to say the least.

only one Lloyd Bensen to Dan Quayle who had intimated during a debate that he was the equivilent of JFK.... " I Knew John Kennedy, I worked with John Kennedy....John Kennedy was a friend of Mine....and YOU sir,,, are NO John Kennedy...!!! and he said it with such distaste in his mouth.... zzzzinggggggg!!!! jmy

WOW>>>>> j

excellent.... thanks so must be that the O P has a classiflyer... your picture of the top secret,,, shows what looks to be 'one shot ' releases, on that rig...blasthandle too..... i'm glad that gear evolution didn't stop there.... and yes... Strong eagle.. rw eagle was a jumpsuit, (now that I have awoken, and had a cup of coffee)

cool pictures... tri engine....PISTONS????? thanx for all these great pictures Howard.. it's always fun to see the next 'what is it'... be it a plane or a canopy or other gear.. You're a great archivist.. i'm sure that Many here, appreciate you sharing all this history. keep 'em coming... jimmy

well that angled detail on the container does look like a classiflyer.. But ... the releases make me think it might be something called an R W EAGLE..... i think.. a recall a buddy had a rig with those same releases... must have been '75 or '76.... As the three rings , came on the scene.. lots of people thought they had a "better idea",, and so in those days. the R 2's R3's etc were used as releases..same thing with this flip webbing deal.... I knew a rigger who made a Webbing 3 ring.... fabric loops, which locked one another , much the same as the 3 ring method...but with NO metal at all... He made up TWO pads,, each one, velcroed to the front of a main lift web.... .. Much like shot and a halves , each hand grabbed a pad, and peeled downward , sucessively popping each loop..as the pads themselves were connected to the first 'ring' He called them 'fruit loops'.... indeed!!!!! has anyone ever heard of an RW EAGLE container system???? or was I dreaming???

.>>>>Goodness..... ...IF you can hold it long enough for me to get there McBeth...

Cedar DOES smell great when you're working with it..... makes me wanna SAVE the sawdust

Sure !!! I'll reply !!!!! Alan !!!!! hahahah great to hear from you.... all is well here. how about you...? i'll send ya' one of them "newfangled PM's".... or else reach me by email.... jtavino@rochester.rr.com hey do you still have the GlassAir?????? ps the avatar here, is from the mid 70's.. Brand X jumpsuit, French Papillon, R'3's , blasthandle.....

good suggestion.. but when a friendship goes back Thirty Five years

Viva Valente 20 grand here are those elephants you mentioned... ( they live at the zoo near our home ) jmy

magnificent accomplishment... whenever that aircraft launches..... I'm so impressed that it can get to 5 THOUSAND MPH.... and 10's of MILES... above the ground ,,, so quickly..... "45 seconds post launch and 15 miles downrange"... GodSpeed... The commander , Melroy, is a High School Grad of one of Our towns Parochial High Schools..

thought of another one

from the Fish to his fellow, buddy fishes......... "Hey !!! How long are you all gonna stay down there??? We're on "spawning Detail", you know...."

...well this one is a sad self portrait "Upon finding the camcorder which left my helmet at deployment, a couple of years ago." jmy

keeping with the "mustachio theme"...... the first one is more like the late 70's the second one was when i was 80 WEEKS old.......

......when you look up in the air, EVERY time a plane flies by and you Yell " CUT"!!! or "get Out" ! ... when you're willing to put up with all the crap at work, during your work week ... cause you know you'll be skydiving once the weekend arrives... ..... when you "used to have " a savings account...