karenmeal

We've got an anniversary coming up, and we sure could use a nice bottle of tequila.. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Its just cause they are really neat pack jobs. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

WTF?? No shout-out to your packer? Thats just not right.. and you thought you were done with mals for a while.. mwuhahahahahah Edited to add: We tease ya cause we love ya Krisanne! I'm very glad that you are stubborn and will be sticking around the DZ for a long time to come. Lets do lunch. Ok bye. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Geezzz.. do I always look like I'm sticking my teeth out like a horse? yikes! No wonder everyone was falling asleep on me! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

First, there is no right or wrong answer. As you have probably noticed over the years, this is something that nobody can agree on! Surveys and things like the census are constantly changing the racial categories to disclude some groups and include others. So the question is, how in your own little world, do you personally define race? Is it skin color, eye shape, hair texture, country of origin, religion.. ? This is just to see what your gut feeling of what constitutes a race is. Even looking in webster's dictionary you won't recieve a concrete definition of what constitutes a race. In my dictionary, included in the definition of race is a brief description of the many different and sometimes contrasting ways that the term race is used. Anyways.. thanks again everyone for helping me out! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

not a bong. It was laying.. not standing. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I was responding to the "is it acrylic" question. It would look awesome as stained glass though! I would love to learn to do that someday. I think making glass art would be awesome.. probably require a significant investment upfront though.. maybe someday.

Its watercolor and ink. I'm thinking about making a skydiving series of this type of style.. having a swooper coming through with the sky swirling behind her (of course) in a van-gogh-esque style. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

and the art was for a class as well. So there! :) "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

It is for a final.. its part of a paper! "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

It was inspired by a small hollow piece of blown glass that was just laying around. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Isn't anyone bored enough to help a fellow skydiver out? Pretty Please, there is not a right or a wrong answer its just a kinda statistical thing. Or you can pm me your response if you wish. -karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Just finished an abstractish painting about skydiving. Its 18 X 24. Thought it turned out alright. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

For my anthropology class I have to do a survey of people. I've got a lot of folks from the DZ but need about 15 more people to answer a few simple questions. The questions are: Gender, Age, your race, how many races you think that there are and to name all (or just a few) of those races. Make sense? Thankyou for helping me out everyone! If you want to just reply with a total BS response that is fine too. Just need to fill in some blanks. Have a good beer evening. -karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

At my DZ I am teaching the equipment portion of Safety day. I have approximately 50 minutes to speak for. So far I am teaching the sheet about gear inspections that the USPA puts out. I have also compiled a sheet that teaches my way to put a new slippery canopy in the bag. As the DZ packer, I always get asked this and I hope that perhaps if people learn to do this better then they can prevent malfunctions. I will have my Poynter's manuals handy to show people where some of the answers to their questions are at. I was also thinking that I could perhaps compile a brief description of canopies on the market and the manufacturer's specifications on wingloading and what not. I figure that the more familiar we all are with the canopies that are out there, the better we can look out for our fellow jumper. Any other ideas for things that I could be prepared to cover? I've probably already got too much material for my allotted fifty minutes, but better to have too much to say than too little. Thanks, Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

22 here! Looking forard to 26.. because I should finally have a career by then and can stop being a packing slave. Young and broke is no fun. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Wait, I bought that canopy! Dangit. Just kidding... "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Blue skies Spencer. I'll miss his kind, generous spirit and warm presence at the DZ. He seemed like a very selfless person. He was always ready to help someone out or just throw a smile and a chuckle your way, just when you needed it most. Spencer, thanks for the many gifts of your energy, time, patience, wine and fruit! (just to name a few.) -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

I say you show em a 69 right out the door. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Jaye, three things: First, I hope you get better real soon and we can all quit worrying about you. Second, I could possibly be convinced to put on a curly auburn colored wig to wear around the dz this weekend pretending that I am you for the sake of the paper lady. I will blink my eyes lots, smile and act all cute and innocent. I will then go out and swoop her camera sticking my tongue out and doing the shocker.. (Still pretending to be you.) If you would like, I would be willing to make these sacrifices for you. -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Orange is known across the world as one of the premier naked dropzones. It is not a typical dropzone, but some people like that sort of thing, I used to think it was great... If you get tired of all the nudity, try going to skydive virginia or skydive the point. They can get crazy sometimes too, but are both a little more family-oriented. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

Hey man! I remember watching that accident happen! I was the packer at Skydance at the time when that happened. I felt so bad that you had to have such a horrible experience at our DZ. I hope it heals quickly man! Get yourself ready to be bionic for the summer season! -Karen "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

For anyone who wasn't able to come to the memorial today, I decided to post up the bit that I wrote about Josh that Barry was kind enough to read for me at the memorial. You rock Barry! See ya guys at the DZ. -Karen You can check out the attachment or right here: They say that you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. Well, if I could pick my family, I would have picked Josh as my big brother. Since I moved to this area a year and a half ago, Josh was one of the people who made me feel like I had found a home. With my family on the other side of the country, it was comforting to find such a quality friendship. I could always count on his wise words and thoughtfulness; Josh was a great substitute for my “real” family. My friendship with Josh seemed to be the type that would last a lifetime. I imagine that he was one of the people that I would have kept in contact with no matter where I ended up. Some of the traits that I admired most about Josh were his gentle kindness, sensitivity to others and his sense of humor. The way that I best remember Josh is of us having some sort of discussion on anything from religion, to low-turns. In my head, Josh is smiling, with his eyes twinkling and half-shut, nodding his head in agreement. We shared very similar views on life and the few times that we disagreed, I quickly realized that Josh was right and listened harder to what he was saying so that I could learn from him. Last October, a group of us went to a corn maze in Snohomish. After a few hours of walking around in a veritable mud pit, we all decided to head back to my house and carve a pumpkin. Josh bought us a mammoth pumpkin for the occasion and we lugged it back to my place. We all hung out at my house for a while enjoying each others company and then decided to carve the pumpkin another day, so that it would still look fresh for Halloween. Halloween passed us by, and we still had yet to carve this gigantic pumpkin that now had a home in the corner of my dining room. I felt bad that Josh had spent all this money on a huge pumpkin and we still hadn’t done anything with it. Josh and I began to think about other possible uses for a 67 pound winter squash. We thought about bribing a pilot at the DZ to let us toss it out of a plane over farmland, but realized our jobs would be in jeopardy if we actually accomplished this. I remembered that you could make a stew inside a pumpkin so we thought about having a big dinner party, but then I realized it was too big to fit in my oven. We also thought about hauling it to a dump, but I felt bad that Josh would have wasted his money, so I suggested we drive over to a local cliff one day and roll the pumpkin off the exit point. Josh and I decided that this would be the best thing for the pumpkin and it would also make for good video. Unfortunately, soon after we made our plans, I realized that the pumpkin was beginning to melt on the floor in my house. So we moved it outside to a corner of my yard, now realizing that it was too fragile to carry all the way to the exit site at the cliff. The pumpkin still sits out in the corner of my yard, rotting. Perhaps my neighbors think it is rude of me to let this pumpkin decompose in my yard. However, I have decided to let this pumpkin have a permanent home at my place. It will be my own little personal memorial to Josh. Once the smell goes away I plan to go plant some flowers in the now-fertile soil in tribute to my good friend. I’m really going to miss Josh, but at least I have learned from our friendship. Josh showed me what it is to be a really great friend. For the rest of my life I will treasure the memory of the sincerity and kindness of Josh’s words and actions. He had a heart of solid gold, and I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to be one of his many friends. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

There will be an ash dive later on in the year at Skydive Snohomish. I think that since so many people will want to be on it, the plan is to wait for more reliable weather, and possibly (?) bigger planes.. I'm not sure whats going on after the memorial on Sunday.. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham

One of my friends, and a skydiving babe is entering a contest for maxim magazine called hometown hotties. Please visit this site and give the sky-sistah a vote. If you go visit this site I promise there will be a plethora of boobies to look at!!! Here is the website for voting: http://www.maximonline.com/hotties/voting/ She is on the sixth row down, her name is Rebekah and shes from Seattle. "Life is a temporary victory over the causes which induce death." - Sylvester Graham