TVPB

Heres is some stuff I wrote a while back r.e. CRW canopies and landings: CRW Canopy Landings Link And the next link is a picture of a Diamant being landed: Link to Picture of Diamant What do you notice about this landing???? In a nutshell: - come in with a bit of speed - transition your flight - DON'T make drastic movements or give drastic inputs to your controls - don't try tricky stuff until you are tricky yourself - you can land any canopy OK, but you need to respect its design considerations and limitations. Use the right gear for the right purpose and fly the gear according to its design characteristics and flying envelope. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

You want to pay for my ticket from Australia. BTW - I have a wife and two kids to bring along as well. We need first class air tickets, a 5 star hotel, maid service, nannies, etc. Oh and we need . . . . Seriously, hope you have fun Iiro. How are things going? CYA Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Condolences to Ben, other family, and friends. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

In the modern world, this statement can be so far from the truth that it hurts. Why? Mum and Dad are divorced. Dad only has son on weekends and wants to impress the hell out of him and give him a good time. Dad may feel some degree of guilt or inadequacy in his involvement and contribution to the boys upbringing. BASE jumping is a great shortcut. I don't think that this is the case in the scenario in this thread. But it can happen. What if dad was a career jockey and gave his son nothing for 16 years. Now he feels like he is about to lose him permanently to the grown up world. . . . Do you know the song "cats in the cradle and the silver spoon.."? This is a prime example of what the lyrics of the song say. Using that logic, jumping off anything is not hard. Its the bit after exit that may requires some attention. Do NOT forget that bridges have claimed their fair share of our brethren. The main concern is the following: - is the person suitable - have they been trained appropriately - can they do a stable exit - are they able to initiate deployment in a safe way - it is only then that the canopy skill issue comes into the equation. Now, if a person was smart, they would knock this baby on the head as an issue before they got to the bridge. That is why parachuting from an aircraft at altitude is extremely beneficial for any prospective BASE jumper. No matter what any 16 yo girl would say (sorry, had to throw that in. I am a bitch!). i.e. the whole package is a concern. If you treat BASE accodingly, you get to live longer, do funkier tricks, have more fun, travel around and do more sites, meet awesome people (and a few loonies), etc. Are 16 yo capable. Their will always be exceptions to the affirmative. Exceptions rather than the rule!!!!! The little shit just wants his inheritance quicker!!!!!!! One of my experiences with kids and dads and BASE - I remember seeing Zoo (JM) mentoring his son following a paragliding mishap. He told me that his son was not ready for BASE and that if he caught him anywhere near an object with a rig on, he would kick his arse. He had lots of time on paragliders but dad felt his maturity was not there. This is a dad who clocked up over 1000 BASE jumps when everyone else thought 200 was a big deal. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

No, it's about a 16 yo girl with balls!!! Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

I think you have already answered your question. I guess it became a discussion about you, when you used yourself as an example. No one mentioned you first but yourself. My response was not about you. It was about you using your example as proof in relation to the original discussion. I (and some other people), are disputing your example as incomplete and flawed. Why are you offended by this? It seems to me that you are after the attention and not trying to provide a logical / valid / reasoned argument to the original discussion. The fact that you have taken this personally only adds to the growing notion that maturity is questionable in your age group. Even if you have survived a year of BASE jumping and are ready (in your eyes) to be teaching other young persons. Please explain how BASE can be done safely without prior parachuting experience? Give me some facts, data, logical reasoning. Please move away from the end result (i.e your continuing existance as proof that it is safe). If you can provide a reasoned debate, then perhaps people will respect you more than just for the "balls" that you seem to possess. They may also respect you some more for the maturity which you are attempting to convince many people that you have. I am prepared to change my views. But you must give excellent reasoning for this to occur. The ball is in your court. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

r.e. the loaded gun example . . .. in BASE, the gun is always loaded. The only thing that varies is the number of bullets and the number of chambers. There is no such thing as "bulletless" Russian Roullette. If you do not have that minor bit of information well entrenched in your psyche, then you and/or the people you are now teaching, are doomed. Let me put it to you in laymans terms. It is possible to stuff up and die on any BASE jump. Yes, there are many things that can be done to minimise or even remove risk. Risk mitigation is an important skill. Someone with NO parachuting experience and little life experience has a much lower likelihood of having that experience and skill to draw upon. This means that you have less ability and skill to be able to: 1 - recognise risks and hazards before they happen 2 - develop a plan of action to overcome or reverse situations prior to them occuring 3 - have the mental and physical aptitude to be able to assess scenarios as they are developing (As opposed to afterwards) AND to deal with them in real time 4- be able to honestly and critically assess your performance afterwards such that you can make incremental corrections. I for one, am not willing to risk the life of MY child to validate your point. Because it has no benefit when my child is dead. r.e. the comment I made about your parents, I have no right to say that they do or do not love you. Because I do not know your individual circumstances. But for them to think it is OK to BASE jump off antennas with NO parachuting experience shows either: - an incredible amount of ignorance - totally unfounded trust, OR - someone to lie to them profusely to convince them otherwise. It is kind of like letting your 12 year old out on a date with no curfew and no chaperones. Why not just hand them the condoms, STD/AIDS clinic phone number, or pregnancy clinic number. Yes, there will always be exceptions. Yes, there are 16 yo who can do amazing things. But it is just plain dumb not to develop some fundamental parachuting skills in a more forgiving environment prior to BASE jumping. I would be more impressed with you if you had of developed prior parachuting experience and then started BASE jumping. Concluding: since you are convinced of yourself and you will not listen otherwise, I can only say this: get nicked, build the right skills, become TRULY competant (actual as opposed to verbal), then come back and tell us how wonderful you truly are. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

You dodged a bullet Clair. The fact that you are alive may be due to personal skill and maturity and an incredible mentor. Perhaps you were just plain lucky. You are a statistical pool of ONE. You cannot draw a hypothesis and/or theorem from that. Your mentor is George Bushing his way through this one. "Weapons of Mass Desctruction I tell you". "It's OK for a 16 yo with no parachuting experience to BASE jump I tell you". Where are the facts / data / and a reasonable pool of experience to suggest that his actions were appropriate????? It's kind of like teaching your two year old son to walk . . . . . . through traffic. He may make it to the other side of the road, but that only proves that he was lucky, or that the traffic allowed for his inexperience and stopped. I would not like my two year old to play Frogger with traffic whilst he is learning to walk. And I certainly would not want my young child to learn to BASE jump without some prior skill development and retention. But it does not matter which way you cut it. It does not matter how you and/or your mentor want to justify your progression, IT IS NOT THE RIGHT THING TO DO FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION. And being able to judge who is right to progress the way you did is an art/skill that virtually NOBODY has the absolute talent for. Its great you're still alive and having fun. But please don't try to sell illogical, unproven, crap to the rest of the population. Your continued existence is NOT an absolute guarantee that what you did was right. You may believe it was right for you, but you should NOT try to make it right for everyone else. That is putting other people's lives in your and their hands. My suggestion for what it is worth, go learn a lot more about BASE jumping and life itself. Then teach those that are truly ready and willing, not everyone else. trust???? less than ideal situation???? Herein lies the problem. You are basically hoping that a less than ideal situation does not develop so that the trust does not have to be relied upon. Let me put it to you another way, and this may be offensive and shocking, but you are not getting the point. Would anyone TRUST their inexperienced 16 yo daughter on a blind date with a bunch of sex crazed bikies. NO. And I do not give a rats arse how mature the daughter is, if she is mine, I would not put her in that situation. I would attempt to give her as much information/experience/wisdom, to stay away from that situation. My 16 yo child BASE jumping with no parachuting experience?????? Any parent who truly loves their child would insist on prior learning. As I said, I'm glad you have gotten through the early stages. But don't influence others to do the same thing. There are too many loved ones already on the list. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

That will make it harder to get mentors!! Sorry. Bad joke. I'll leave now. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

This is a side of you I never knew about! I hear Da Kine make some frilly flowery jump suits? Have fun!!! Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Let me guess, Gary C made 900 of them??? Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

With every bit of positive input (which you have a lot of in this thread), you need the Dr Phil perspective. This is the Yang to the Ying that you have been getting. That is where I come in. Impress your future mentors and coaches by making some effort prior to asking some very basic questions. e.g. The fact that you are asking how many jumps are required and that there are many published and easily found articles about this topic, will turn off half your possible mentors. If you were male, that would knock off the other half that is left (hence the advice from TA). Why? Now this is my perspective, but if I had someone approach me for BASE training and they were absolute beginners and they showed no initiative to learn anything for themselves, I would be thinking, this is going to lots of hard work initially and I would have to be on my toes the whole time because I am not sure that person would ever make an effort and work hard. I would also be concerned that that person was in a hurry, wanted quick solutions, and was likely to get out of the sport just as fast as they got in. I may also think that that person would be more likely to advance too quickly. This all adds up to hard work and risk. So why should I bother. Now if the potential student made an effort, were humble about their lack of experience, and they were showing very obvious signs of initiative, and willingness to learn and work hard, then I would be more likely to invest my time. This would lead to much better instruction AND learning and a heavily reduced risk factor. Just something to consider. Good Luck with it all. p.s. there is nothing wrong with asking questions per se. You are doing the right thing there and people are willing to help. But just put in some hard yards prior and you may get much better results from the whole process. Better results in BASE jumping could mean things like . . . . staying alive. TA is a great reference in terms of learning, listen to what he says. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Had my CRW rig (including canopy) lost in transit just prior to 2003 World Championships. This was checked in. Carried my canopy through the following year on board - but without the container. Had my BASE gear put through "Dangerous Baggage" in 1998 with DW on the way to Europe. It arrived safely. Same thing happened on the way back but it arrived late. Hence, you might get away with carrying just a canopy on board. I have had success doing that a few times. No guarantees though. Good Luck. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Or when it is day on the other side of the globe. ps.s never assume that you are the only one or the first one regarding ANYTHING to do with BASE jumping. You may be, but there is also a good chance that someone else has trodden that same path. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

I learned some great manouvres from Lyle Wadell from Canada about 8 years ago. He did jump regularly in both Canada and Eloy I believe. I think he competed at this years World Meet in Sequential. He's the guy to talk to. It is a shit load of fun. But without proper technique coaching, there is a much higher chance of entanglements. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Heli & Balloon? They would help, a little. Any degree and attempt of cross skilling is better than nothing. BUT . . Consider this scenario: You are running down the streets of Pamplona with your mates chasing you, pretending to be bulls. Then you turn up for the real running of the bulls. i.e. Real Bulls are chasing you, there are crowds around, all hoping to see both miraculous escapes and the occasional "capture". Do you think your performance will be the same????? If your answer is yes, you are either very experienced at the task already, you are not human, or you are kidding yourself. Wingsuit out of chopper. There are downdrafts, the exit technique is different to a cliff, there is no vertical obstacle once you leave the chopper. A balloon is closer, but it is still different. Very good practice and better to do than not to do. But still different. People's psychology changes when the variables change. i.e. SEX - your first experience you were nervous, your 500th you were less so (liar ). But what if you then decided to do something kinky and different, or if your pursuasion changed. Its still sex, but most people would perform very differently. What if you had an opportunity with the prom queen/king when all you used to get was the town bike???????????? You act/behave/perform differently (on average). Skygods? There are two main types: One is an actual who has runs on the board and is recognised by his/her peers. The other is the self appointed Skygod. His/her attitude stinks and his/her mind is closed to possibilities. He/she is also at higher risk when attempting new techniques/skills. These are merely definitions, nothing to do with the post you mention (I did not read it). Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

http://www.fai.org/parachuting/node/137 http://www.malevskycup.ru/results_eng.shtml Historical world meet scores and info at http://ozcrw.tripod.com/world_meets.htm Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

All this proves is that we have one person in each of Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth who are jerking off in front of their computer whilst dreaming about BASE Jumping, Skydiving and meeting some person they want to have sex with. They have no real chance of achieving any of these. Now, how can I translate that into a business opportunity? Maybe getting a pro to blow the guy just before she / he PCA's him off a low bridge????????? Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Well. Lets make that a date. Is that an open invite? I would love to celebrate with you. If its ok with you, I'd love to organise a large CRW formation record there too!!!! Anyone for a speed stack? No, I'm not joking. I'm f*(&ing serious... Funny, I wreckon they'll have the national guard in on that day. Maybe USA customs (fingerprint and photo - or at that time they will just take DNA and record your chip implant data as you whizz past). Nick - and we will become more so as big brother and all this crap about freedom and security leads us well beyond our Orwellian futures. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

FYI 2006 World Championship Results and news are at: http://www.malevskycup.ru/index_eng.shtml http://www.fai.org/parachuting/ Canopy Piloting: http://www.skyday.net/en/ Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Don't apologise and you are not an ass. It is very hounourable that you are defending a mate/idol and a person you have respect for. The reality is that I would learn heaps from Skymonkey in various aspects of the sport (i.e wingsuiting). He is a hell of a lot more current than I am. He would know a lot more about modern wingsuiting (i.e. last few years) than I do. He is more than likely more skilled than I am too. You are allowed to have opinions. And it is certain that I can learn things from you as much as you could learn from me. The great Chinese Philosopher Confucious had a saying: "The man who cannot learn from a fool, is a bigger fool himself". I twist that a bit and say: "The man who cannot learn from a beginner, is an egotistical wanker". But that's just me - I can be a bit of a w sometimes too!!!!! All I want is for you / Skymonkey / every person that puts on a parachute to be open minded, willing to learn, accept that you have strengths and weaknesses, take small steps up that mountain of skill and knowledge, etc. This will make you an accomplished, successful, respected, and most importantly, surviving jumper. And that means any parachute off or out of anything. Both sports deserve the same level of respect. The only difference is that BASE has a much lower margin for error. Good luck with it all. Go get that experience.

The experience is of great benefit. There is no denying that. Once you have the suit flying and you are away from the wall, then it is very much a skydive scenario with a slightly lower deployment altitude and somewhat worser landing areas. You have to get into that position first. I have no doubt you are more than capable of doing it. I also have no doubt that you could probably do a better job than me. But I also have no doubt that I have seen the end result of this belief from other experienced jumpers. There are MANY skydivers with multiples of thousands of jumps that have permanent back injuries, permanent limps, given up the sport, etc. Why? Simple error in BASE led to accident and caused injury. No it hasn't. What you're saying is very feasable, but not to be encouraged at any time. Would you allow a person with 4000 RW jumps do his first wingsuit flight on one of your complex big ways, a record perhaps? No you wouldn't. I hope. The exit and the first few seconds are the important bit BTW. If you get that right, you have reduced your risks considerably. Exiting a cliff and a plane are two very different things. There are no continuous obstacles when you exit a plane either. There is off a cliff. They are different skills. More than likely. I have no sympathy for the guy at Rantoul copping grief. He made a conscious decision, and whenever we make decisions that are outside rules / customs / norms, there may be consequences. Too true. It happens in both worlds. You should try be a safety police in BASE jumping. It's like herding cats and kids. This is one major factor in some accidents. Some of these individuals have the belief that if that person can do it, so can I. No practice, no preparation, no coaching, no buildup, just do it. THAT IS WHAT I AM FIGHTING AGAINST. Your comment hit the spot with me because I have seen, physically, the end result. If it is a new skill, you ARE a student. That is the bottom line. Cross skilling & transferable skills simply mean you can progress in a new skill faster. Experience does NOT mean you are experienced at the new skill. I bitch because I see the end result of ego, and I am not happy with it. About the above comment, You have no idea. I was the guy who broke the news of this fatality to the persons mother. Having to do that is worse than watching someone bounce. Gut wrenching stuff. You see, another example of where I really know what the end result of ego is. I knew that jumper very well. I had done lots of jumps with him. I don't usually cry, but I did when that particular tragedy happened. He was the best aerobatic BASE Jumper on the planet. Without a shadow of a doubt. Yet he made some fundamental errors on his last jump that led to his death. I know this. He was shortcutting his way to wingsuiting glory. He wanted to be considered the "best" without putting in all the right preparation (he did do many aircraft wingsuit jumps but I don't think his prep was right for what he was attempting). Bottom line: a guru in one activity quite clearly proved that he was NOT a guru at another, yet. Now he never will be. He was very capable, but the shortcut and cutting it too fine was what cost him. Your comment (although many levels less than the above example), is philosphically the same. That is why you got a response. BTW, I appreciate the level of respect you are showing for the deceased. He stuffed up. But you want to pick every little error out to emphasize his ineptitude. You ask for respect, yet you show none. I was going to lead with a positive post all round but after you included the above quote, i have had to reverse my decision. Common sense is VIP. Most people fit in the middle of the bell curve and they do reasonable things. All those things are true. But "Great Majority" excludes the idiot minority. There the guys who end up as statistics. And it is not enjoyable dealing with it. "Tough Guy Posturing"??? If someone is saying that your opinion is incorrect and they have logical reasoning as to why this may be the case, and you don't want to listen, that is not tough guy. Most people call this constructive feedback. Albeit in a politically incorrect way. I did not respond about you, I responded about your comment. Someone else came to the party to put you into the picture. I read into your response because that same philosphy is a root cause to fatalities in both skydiving and BASE jumping. r.e. deleting my post. Go for it. The discussion has already occured. If you want to deny it by using your editing power, I don't really care. But why would you want to do it? Have I broken one of the posting rules? Am am I offending someone? Have I made a personal attack instead of attacking an attitude that leads to incidents and fatalities in the geater parachuting world? Or is there another reason?? If the post was only about some guy at a skydiving event, why did you bring up BASE Jumping????? Are one of the new forum rules that we are not allowed to respond to the content of someones post??? 25 years in the sport. Congratulations. p.s. all my posts are lengthy, I type fast, and I usually ad lib the thinking on the way - sometimes. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

I may be incorrect, and I will publically apologise profusely if I am, but I got the impression that skymonkey has very little to no BASE jumping experience. Is this so? If it is, then I don't give two hoots how many skydives he has out of an aircraft and how gifted he is in a wingsuit. He is an absolute beginner at BASE jumping and if he had any modicum of respect for himself and his life, then he would show a little humility about BASE jumping with a wingsuit. Not only that, but I think it is downright dangerous to encourage the skygod mentality of "I am a guru at this, so I will be awesome at that". This encourages people to believe that it is perfectly safe to just go throw yourself off a cliff with little training in an unfamiliar activity. Think about it. There are beginner suits and jump limits for advanced suits. WHY? Because of added risk. Think about BASE jumping - the risks are potentially much higher. It is fact that many people exist who are worlds best at one activity, but totally useless at others. Now, there is every chance that skymonkey would breeze through BASE jumping and be just as good as he is a wingsuit pilot. But to assume that pre experience?????? That's bad. That's no good. That is NOT an example to set for other jumpers. I will draw your attention to one example in my home country. A foreign national who represented his country at a very high / successful level in RW, pursued a BASE jumping career. His skill level was NOT repeated in BASE jumping. When this was suggested to him, he refused instruction and went and did his own thing. End result is that he is on the fatality list. Nice guy - I got on well with him. But in the end, his ego (and mismatch between apparent and actual skill) is what killed him. Now, if skymonkey is an experienced BASE jumper, then I will eat my words and apologise. But if he is not, then you should reconsider the respect you are demanding. Now for your information, since you are in such favour of displaying resume's. I have been to 3 world meets, won the national championships in several disciplines on a number of occasions, implemented the safety role in the ABA which became for a long while the benchmark for safety in world BASE jumping, won video festivals, toured the world, pioneered many BASE sites, as far as I know was only the second person in history to wingsuit BASE jump - with a suit that I built, have two university degrees, am a former successful applicant to mensa, have helped organise world record big ways in BASE, etc. There is some cred there. But this is also what I am: blood and bone, a human with all my imperfections, not perfect, prone to making occasional mistakes, no better or no worse than most other people, humble enough to admit that I need someone to teach me things that I am not experienced in (like BASE aerobatics, freeflying, or skysurfing). There is every possiblity that I will do just fine in those activities, but I am not experienced in them. Just because I can occasionally do CRW rotations at world championship pace (something I am good / experienced at), it means nothing when I try a swoop landing on a 70 square foot canopy. Why? Because I am not an experienced swooper. Now, that fact that you are defending skymonkey for his achievements in wingsuit flight, means that he has earned your respect in this field. Hats off to him. But I hope you never have to experience a situation where an egotistical skygod smashes into an object purely because he/she thought his talents would naturally transfer. I have been in this situation. There is another for my resume. You don't want to be there. Worse than this, you don't want to be around when a lessor experienced person thought is was OK to to the same thing, because his idol skygod condoned it. Finally, I am sure skymonkey was only being hypothetical with his initial comment. But the following statement horrifies me: This is one step closer to the afterlife. The above was the final straw, this basically says to me "how dare anyone question my actions - for I am . . . ". So if someone questions his actions they are twits??????? If Skymonkey is not open to any constructive feedback, then he is not open minded (obviously). People improve on constructive feedback. That is why people get coaches. Tiger Woods has a coach. I don't think Skymonkey is to wingsuiting what Tiger is to golf. Tiger can still improve and he is the Worlds best. Once you attain perfection, you can't get any better. If this perfection is real . . . . . well, apparently real perfection does not exist. But if this perfection is created via a deluded self belief system, you have established your maximum level of achievement and will never get any better. This may even be detrimental to safety. Anyway, as I said, if he is a experienced BASEr, then hats off and I will eat my words. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Drugs impair/improve performance. Depending on what you take and what you do. They can be tested. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

BASE Jumping is like driving. Both activities are legal in most areas. BASE Jumping without permission is like driving 75 mph in a 60 mph zone except people can get a lot more narky at you. Driving 150mph is just plain stupid (for 99% of the population). It is like doing an aerobatic BASE jump off a severly underhung low cliff without permission. Has that clarified things for you, love chops???? Hah. That is hilarious. You are so funny dude! I will remember to bring my code crackers on all those free / legal jumps around the world such as cliffs all over Europe, certain Bridges in the USA, BLM cliffs in the USA, lots of buildings in Asia and Russia and Europe, cliffs in NZ, etc. You are ssssoooooooooooo eighties. But I love your hairstyle!!!!! p.s. on a serious note: yes, there are many jumps done without permission due to the excessive amount of paperwork involved. But the majority of jumps down around the world are permitted. Whether you want to believe this or not is irrelevant. Personal opinion cannot beat facts (unless you have a really good publicist). Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.