loudawg

I was thinking of starting a club here at the University of California, Riverside. I've been hesitant to because I would be embarrassed if only like 2 people showed up. LoL! I do know, however, that an officially recognized and registered club gets $600 a year (more as the years go by). Maybe I'll still try it, who knows. I was discouraged by the fact that only like 2 or 3 people even expressed any interst in skydiving, who are in the Ski and Snowboard club (http://www.skiclubucr.com). You'd think snowboarders were "extreme" enough to go skydiving as well. I guess it all comes down to the high price. Oh well. In the meantime, anyone from the UCR area, or so. cal. area in general wanna go jump with me?

I was taught a sit exit on level 7. The idea was to incorporate instability into my dive, to ensure I could handle it and get back into a stable position. I believe some schools push their students out on this level and have them flip a few times, but apparently at Elsinore it was decided that a sit was the way to go. And I really, really enjoyed it. What a fun position!

You know, it's so funny that you say that, because it is sooooo true. I went out to dinner last night (an expensivce one I might add, turned out to be close to $20), and when we were finished I complained to myself out loud, saying "Well, there goes half of a skydive." My friend responded, telling me how everything that has any value is looked at in terms of skydives to me now. LOL!!! I guess I must talk about it more than I realize.

Yeah, well Lob asked me specifically if I was going to be doing any flips or anything when I picked up my rig. They have a few rigs with the pilot chute handle on both sides of the container, and those supposedly are more prone to pre-mature deployments. So we made sure I used the single handle rig that uses a pouch for the pilot chute, as opposed to that wierd way those double handles have it. I'll agree with you there. At the same time, I wasn't doing anything that I wasn't already taught during AFF, and these were all maneuvers they want us to try. Well, at least a sit exit out of the plane, I guess not necessarily getting into a sit after exit. Oh well.

Wow, the first out of a class of 3 people...LoL...that's cool, though. And yes, I did bring down a case of MGD. If there's any left it'll be in the fridge there in the packing room. By the way, thanks for bing my FJC instructor, Mark!

Hey guys, as planned, I jumped this past Sunday, and did my first two solos! This was the best experience of my life! It was so incredibly fun. I started the morning with a Nav 260 that Bill had just finished packing for me. I busted out one of those flight planners, and went through the entire rig thoroughly, using the checklist on the planner. I was surprised to find the main cutaway handle completely unstowed and hanging there, but I just secured it and made some extra checks to ensure things were still intact. Everything looked good, and now it was time to wait for the call for my load. In the meantime, I met a couple new friends...Valerie and Mike. Both are great people, and I learned a lot talking to each of them. So we get on the plane, and we're climbing...8, 9 thousand feet, and I'm feeling great still. Eleven thousand approaches, and everyone is getting their helmets on and making final preparations. For the first time, I wasn't nervous! I thought it would kick in once we got to jump run, but nope, I was as ready as can be. I followed Mike out the door, doing a sit exit. I was excited to find myself falling in a stable sit, and after about 6 or 7 seconds, I just flopped over onto my belly. From there I did some front and back loops, barrel rolls, and some tracking. I was amazed at how comfortable this was, and how long the dive seemed to be! As 4,500 approached, it really seemed like the ground was coming up quick. LoL. I wanted to trust my altimeter that I was still plenty above pull altitude, but just to be safe, I reached back and pulled at around 4,100 or so. The rest of the ride down was fun, and ended up in a nice, stand-up landing, with the canopy veering slightly to the right as I touched down. I remembered not to reach down, and all was well. The winds picked up so I was stuck for many hours on the ground. The evening approached, and I got on the first evening load. This time, I decided to try out a Nav 240. The winds were still a little bit up there, so this was probably a better choice given the conditions anyway. Plus I've wanted to try a slightly smaller size, and this one put me pretty close to 1:1. My instructor agreed this would be a good one to try anyway, so I went through with it. Mike, Valerie and I weren't paying enough attention to the calls, and we were just finished putting our gear on when I heard the now call. We rushed over there, but were the last ones to get on besides a 4-way. This was the first time I rode up so close to the door, and it was enjoyable to stare down at the lake as we ascended. As 12.5 came around, I noticed that with the sun so low, and with the haze, it seemed like it would be hard to see. This somewhat worried me, but I knew I would be ok. Once again, I followed Mike out the door, but this time, I decided to have a little fun with my exit. I poised myself outside of the plane, and threw myself backwards so I could watch myself fall away from the plane....well, I must've thrown myself too hard because I ended up doing a nice backflip and I tumbled a bit. It was so much fun though! I stabilized, and then proceded to try more flips, rolls, and tracks. I also threw in a couple arm and leg turns. Finally, before I locked on at 6k, I decided to try to slow myself down by dearching slightly (I had just learned this earlier in the day). I de-arched ever so slightly and, wow, I really felt the slowdown! Very cool, I thought. As I stared down at the DZ, I saw the 4-way dumping. However, there was one guy still falling, and we seemed to not have much horizontal separation (in reality, it was a lot, but being new to the sport, and from that perspective, it seemed kinda close). I turned and tracked a bit just to be safe, and pulled at 3.5, as intended. As the canopy inflated, I saw the lines were crossed over, and was preparing to handle the line twist. Then the canopy completely inflated, and since the twist was only 180 degrees, the abrupt tension whipped my body around to the right direction. Whoa! That was fun! I played with the canopy a bit, really enjoying the responsiveness of the 240. Came down, flared, nothing but a nice, smooth stand-up in some wierd, constantly changing winds. I ended the day with a not-so-cold-yet beer, chatting with Dan, Mike, and Betsy. A little later, I drove home with a huge smile on my face, feeling more than satisfied. But wait. The next morning rolled around, the weather was once again perfect, and I couldn't get the skydiving off of my mind. I knew I had class at 2. I took care of a few responsibilites, got my hair cut, and I just couldn't resist going down to Elsinore for a couple more jumps. I can sacrifice class for one day, I thought! I went down there, grabbed two more tickets, and jumped with Mike again. I had a blast! I tried a few different things from the day before this time. First time out, I did that same backflip exit out of the plane. Flipped tumbled, recovered. tried a "faster" track, according to Dan. Palms up, de-arch a bit. It definitely worked! I felt like I was hauling ass. Dumped at 3.5, flew it down, and yet another nice stand-up. Second jump of the day, I did a dive exit. I dove out, exteneded my arms, brought the legs up to my ass, and watched a reference point. Uh oh, I'm going down, I'm going to flip. Wait, I'm leveling off. Cool! Did some more 360's, practicing with only arms, only legs, and a combination of both. I tried to get into a sit from the belly down position by doing what Dan said and just kicking out and getting right into it. I failed. I became wobbly so I went back into the always-forgiving belly down arch. I tried to be smart and do a frontflip, but throwing myself into the sit once I reached the right point in the loop. I ended up just flipping some more. LoL. Oh well, I decided to just enjoy the rest of the ride down and try again next time. Nice deployment, a slightly bumpy ride down, but I ended it with a beautiful stand-up, about 20 or 30 feet from the target. At this point I decided to get back to class. The past couple of days were better than I could have ever asked for. I keep thinking back on those skydives and the only way I can describe them is by saying "WOW!" I am more hooked than I ever was before. I have also learned an incredible amount the two days I was there. I went over a lot of stuff with my instructor Dan, Valerie, and Mike. Bill also showed us how to maintain the 3-ring system. He pulled the cutaway, and showed us exactly how everything works and how to put it all back together. Plus I can say I learned quit a bit from my experience there alone in the air. If you've read all the way to this point, then you must really be bored! LoL. Sorry for all the blabbering. I tried to keep it somewhat short, but there was just so much excitement I needed to express at least a little bit. Thanks for your interest! ohhh, I can't wait to go jump again! ~Lou

Ok, not like any of you care, but I'm gonna be able to make it out to Elsinore this Sunday to do my first (and probably second) solo jump! I'm totally stoked. This week has been hell for me with all the school work I have been doing. Sunday will be a great break. So who's gonna come jump with the noob, huh?

Heh I saw one a while back that expanded a little more on that one: Unix is Sexy who | grep -i blonde | talk; cd ~; wine; talk; touch; unzip; touch; strip; gasp; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; sleep

Just for kicks I'll post the rest of my shirts...you might find me at the DZ with this one: $> cd /pub $> more beer or how bout this: There's no place like 127.0.0.1 And finally, funny and sooo true, is: $> man woman Segmentation Fault (core dumped)

I'm not getting a whole lot back, but enough to take me 4 jumps closer to that A license

I'm a 3rd year Computer Science student at the University of California, Riverside. I chose this field because I have a very large interest in it, I've used computers on a daily basis for the past 12 or 13 years, and so I'm pretty good with them. To be quite honest, I don't want to program for a living, or do anything that requires me to sit at a desk. But I always want to know how everything works, and I want to know enough to make my own modifications to programs and such, so this is why the CS major works so well for me. I think in the end I will end up pursuing a career as a commercial pilot. I already have my Private, with quite a few hours, and flying never fails to amaze me. Now if I could only get off of my ass and get that Instrument and all the other ratings that I should have had by now! Oh, by the way, my car was broken into last week and my flight bag was stolen....so there goes my medical, logbook, and everything I ever had that was important to my flying career. It's so frustrating.

DAMN, Michele! If only I knew you a couple of years back when I was taking my English courses There was one discrepency in your beautiful post, however. I believe you left out the sentence in Day 1, paragraph 2 that was supposed to read, "I met the greatest guy today, named Lou" haha j/k Looking forward to seeing you again!

Cool, I'm not the only computer geek here. I was actually surprised at the number of responses I got to my shirt when I jumped at Elsinore this past weekend. It read: "There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who know binary and those who don't." I have 3 more super-geeky shirts like that too...LoL. Michele was the first to come up to me and make a comment. And I'm really glad she did because otherwise I may have never struck up a conversation with her and gotten to know her. Anyway, I learned some basic MySQL stuff for a personal page I did that had a database of pictures and captions. That's when I also taught myself PHP, which interfaced beautifully with MySQL. What a cool language for dynamic pages, let me tell you!! It's so much like C, so that made things really easy. MySQL is very nice, and easy to learn, I think. The docs on their web site tell you pretty much everything you need to know. I have a huge book on SQL programming and have only read the first 2 or 3 pages so far. LoL. Linux for life! ~Lou

The greatest pain is definitely right. It FAR surpassed the pain I felt when my brother died in a car accident...and that's pretty bad on it's own. I'm way too young and have too many fun years ahead to put myself through that again...no more relationships for me for a long while. Wait...the crystal ball is showing me something: it's only several months down the road, and my stubbornness couldn't hold up to the beautiful and smart girl that came along....doh!!! We'll just have to wait and see what happens

Hey there, glad to see another local come aboard! I'm a noob myself, but just graduated AFF this weekend, so I'm just as excited as you are right now. It really sucks in a way, because I can't get this damn sport off of my mind! It's distracting me from my school work...all I wanna do is read more posts, watch more movies, look at more pictures. LoL. I really should be reading some books right now (or even sleeping!). Oh well, I can't be blamed - everyone here knows how incredible this sport is. I am so thankful I've gotten the opportunity to get involved in it. I never thought I'd go this far, either. I'm hooked for life! By the way, if you ever want someone to jump with, let me know. I live in Corona/Riverside, so I'm not far from Perris or Elsinore

Ok, so I've been reading the forums a lot today, and stumbled across a few words that I think I understand, but am not positive. First off, what exactly are you referring to when you call something the "peas?" Next, what does it mean to funnel in a formation skydive? Lastly, if there are any other words / acronyms that you think I may not know, throw them out. I need to learn them so I can be cool too Thanks guys. ~Lou

Hey everyone, how's it going? I went to do my level 8 today, and I had some time to sit and chat since the clouds still needed to burn off and they were backed up for a little while. I met this great person Michele at lake smell-some-more, and we got to talking for a long time. Anyway, she told me I had to check out this web site, and post on the forums. I knew by that evil look in her eye that if I didn't, I was gonna get my ass kicked, so here I am! Anyway, my dive went exactly as planned, and I am now a solo student! I'm totally stoked, and having this site here for all kinds of good resources just makes this whole sport even better. Well, just thought I'd make a quick introduction before going to bed. It's late and I'm tired! (1:40AM right now). I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun up in the sky! Take care, everyone. ~Lou