karenmeal

Personally, I don't really care about customer service, as long as I can get on planes, I'm happy. Now if the DZ is mischarging your credit card thats one thing.. but in general, just manifest me. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Whenever people think I'm being snooty I just roll my eyes and toss my hair. Maybe you could try that? -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I explain to the person my love for freefly two-ways. Sometimes people ask if they can just lurk outside.. but then I explain to them exactly why I feel that is less than safe. If the person in question doesn't have anyone suitable to jump with (that can dodge them and teach them some stuff) then I will suggest some things that they can do on a solo to work on their freefly skills. Usually they are somewhat surprised about my creative suggestions regarding a solo freefly. We don't have lots of experienced freeflyers at my DZ which is why I almost always would rather do a two way. The folks at the DZ understand that I would rather focus on some specific skill development and generally respect that. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

My boyfriend and I should have been there... but there was a family emergency. I think that maybe part of the reason for the decline in jumpers attending the jump-meet are the local kids attempting to ruin the two biggest party nights. From what I hear this last year was horrible and underage local kids were even allowed in the bar. Those kids just get drunk and try to start fights and can get scary-agressive with the skydiving women. I wish they could take more drastic measures to keep the underage-local-kids out of the boogie scene. (And hire security guards with a BMI < 50) Whatever happens though.. I will still keep being loyal to the LP boogie. Besides, we have our own special tradition on Saturday night.. away from the crowds. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I don't know anything about brewing beer... but good luck! My boyfriend and I are making blackberry wine this morning. I can't wait!!!!!!!! How long does the whole process take? Thats our favorite type of beer, maybe we should learn how to do that too! -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Jaye and Krisanne: I'll dye whatever you bring to me... 100% cotton.. and don't necessarily expect a quick return.. maybe 2-3 weeks? Nick: I intentionally made the sun pattern, you dye the fabric using the same principle that you used to make paper snowflakes in elementary school. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Jaye, its been too long since you've been out to the DZ.. all I wear now are my tie-dye experiments. I can make you some great tie-dye shirts... waist slimming and boob enhancing.. its just about where you put the curves. Bring me some 100% cotton stuff to the DZ and I'll dye it whatever colors you want! This is my second tapestry.. I don't know how much I would sell it for... It still needs to be hemmed.. maybe 15-20 dollars? The cost of making it was about $5. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Just got into tie-dye.. check out this tapestry! Its not really crooked, I just had to take a picture from a weird angle. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Only one kinda close call... Both legs and left arm tangled in my reserve lines.. got disentangled at 1,000 feet.. I had pulled at 4500.. good thing I pulled high on that jump or I could have been hurting. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Oh my gosh! The gossip you miss out on when you move away from Nor-Cal! Congratulations you two!!! Way to go Bob! Two tongue rings! -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Whether my example was 100% factual or not is not the point, you can't argue that 18 year olds in the military may very well have to deal with plenty of really scary shit that probably no one at any age is ready for... stuff that is scarier than learning to BASE with no skydives. The point is that we as a society deem that at the age of 18 people are emotionally mature enough to sign over their lives in a number of ways. Military service, skydiving instruction.. blah blah blah. 18 is really an arbitrary number as it is life experience that makes people emotionally mature. Sure, at 18 you would generally have more life experience than at 16. However, I know from my personal experience that at 15 I was about as emotionally mature as I was at 20. The thing that shocked me into maturity was dealing with my mom's cancer at age 15 and having to grow up and take care of my dad. Who knows what this chick has been through? To me this is a question about ethics, not about the legality of this particular situation. I feel like in many cases the law is fairly arbitrary. At 18 you can die for your country, but you can't drink? You can drink at 21 but at no age can you smoke pot? The question is, is this situation ethical? I think it would be ethical if Jimmy had her learn to skydive and they weren't romantically involved. Otherwise, I don't think its a very ethical thing to do. The end of my story about learning BASE is that after 3 jumps I realized I wasn't suited for BASE. Hopefully after receiving a variety of views on the subject, this chick will make the responsible decision to go make some skydives. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Don't know if I agree or disagree with Jimmy's decisions.. but I'll play devil's advocate. I was 18 when I did my first BASE jump.. (I am now 22) and was taught by a guy who was in his mid-40's. I even went over to his house all by myself to learn to pack BASE. Of course, I had several hundred skydives and was a rigger. At the same time, a 31 year old guy was teaching me to freefly and to swoop a little. If my parents had known what was going on, they probably would have worried more about the guy teaching me BASE, when it was really the 31 year old guy they should have worried about. I think the only issue here is the lack of skydives. However, if shes jumping something fairly high, and has an easy landing area, I reckon it could be a lot worse. Besides, our taxes go to sponsor programs with much scarier and sketchier methods of freefall and canopy instruction than this. How many times have you heard a story about some military skydiving instruction and your eyes have gone wide when you heard some story about some guys 4th jump that is a 1200' static line at night with a 60 pound rucksack? -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I think that you become a skydiver once you get to the point where you make such a commitment to the sport that you enroll in the most dreaded of all.. the packing class! I reckon if you're motivated enough to want to learn how to pack... (and especially how to pack to get on a ten minute call..) then you're a skydiver. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I'm sorry that it annoys you when people use synonyms. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I am my rigger. So this adds one more person to the chain of people inspecting a rig. Always a good thing. Maybe I am fairly picky, But I also HATE jumping other peoples pack jobs, and other peoples rigs. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I wouldn't let a manufacturer assemble and pack my whole set up. For one thing, I would like to be the one that does the inspection, and also I think it is very important to have another set of eyes check the rig out. Its kinda like when you're writing a paper and you get someone else to proof-read it, often they find more mistakes than you would be able to. Even though we expect the people that build our rigs to be infallible, they're not. I should know, I live with one of those people. Better to have more people involved in the QC. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I'm 22 over here.. Can't wait to be 26 and out of school. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I like flying slow, 140-145 is most comfortable for me. It seems the slower we're going, the less erractic everyones movements are and the smoother the dive goes. Of course if someone can't fall that slow, I'll speed up so that they are in their comfort zone. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I was going to until a sweet eight way formation load was planned. But I was naked for my 69th jump! -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

My cypress is chilling in Germany right now.. hope to see it again soon. To me, jumping without an AAD is like driving without a seatbelt. I never want to need either safety device, but it is more comforting to know that they are there just in case I really fuck up or someone else really fucks me up. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

He did not purchase the canopy through the dropzone. I feel that your attitude about Spencer has been very disrespectful. We (the Snohomish Community) do not mean any disrespect to Spencer but realize that he died because of a series of pilot errors. If we are to blame his death on anything else, then there would be no lessons to take from this unfortunate incident. In my opinion, that would be disrespectful. However, this has little to do with the reasons why you posted. The website explains the DZ policies clearly (which are the same ones I have heard being echoed over the phone for two years now) and I am sorry that your "friend" spoke with a manifestor who misunderstood these numbers and policies. However, with your history at the DZ I am very suprised that you would ever refer a friend to our DZ, wouldn't you want to take your friend somewhere that you could also go? If you think the DZ charges too much for tandems, fine. If you think that they don't cater to fun jumpers as much as they should, fine. If you don't get along with the DZO, who cares?! This DZ is not at all negligent regarding gear (all tandem and student rigs get 25 jump inspections), airplane maintenance, or student instruction. We also mentor to our fun jumpers as best we can, but when people get their license, it is time for them to be responsible and make their own safe choices with the guidance of the more experienced jumpers. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Our website does not say on it anywhere that a tandem gets 70 seconds of freefall. Jeanne made that up. Nice one Jeanne, don't you just love tellling the truth? So Pilotdave, the next time you want to bash our DZ and compare it to skyride (who we do not do business with) why don't you try doing a search on our particular DZ to see if Jeanne's lies are even true? As far as the safety record thing, we explain this one over the phone that our student (and tandem) safety record is fatality free. I can see why you wouldn't want to a tell a whuffo about Spencer's incident, like Jeanne, they may not understand and feel that it was the DZ's fault. Anyways.. The reason that I ask that this be dropped is because Jeanne has a vendetta against the DZ and DZO because she was asked to not come back to the DZ. We do not belong to some evil DZ that is out to kill skydiving. We have a good community who is sick of being misrepresented by Jeanne. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Hey Jeanne, Man... let it go. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I went to the dentist today and was told to do a better job flossing. So I started wondering.. how often do most people actually floss? I feel like I am probably average when it comes to the oral hygeine thing, but am lucky to not have any fillings because of some good genes or something. So how often do you floss? And does the dentist give you a hard time too? -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Well, here is what my old roommate is up to: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_2910506 I heard about this about a week or two ago and dreamt last night that he and his wife skipped town and came to stay at my place. Freaky. I know you guys must have some equally crazy stories about people you used to know turning out wacky.... -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham