BlindBrick

In the US, it is the farmer's responsibility to keep the cow penned. The farmer would be liable for the damage to the car. And hitting a cow is bad news. I tagged a flat black one on a moonless night. Luckily I saw the glint of its eyes and hit the brakes. Unfortuantely the cow decided to turn in the direction I was swervign so I still hit it pretty much head on at ~30 mph. I was in a full size van and it totaled the van. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

The phrse "Hope you're ready to be a dad." kind of had that effect on me. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

The Incredibles cost nearly $150 million to make. Not exactly low budget. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I totally agree. I abosolutely love mine. And for a bigger jumper who might search this thread int he future. They will custom make one in any size up to 300 sf at no extra charge. My 269 rocks! -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

What a great place to be if you're going to get the shit scared out of you!

pygmies -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

well I have 3 altis, then the glow in the dark then the same 3 altis again (in the frame for the larger pic) and after that th eebay conditions etc... Have you looked at this ad before? Your browser maybe just laoding a cached version of the page. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Blech, I used to make those. OCP's are literaly rework (scrap from other lines) with an industral stregnth (it blisters bare skin) oatmeal flavoring and some oats. The creme is vegitable shortning and sugar fluffed with injected air. Useless trivia. Those cakes are hand-packed into those boxes. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

One of the jumpers at my home DZ occasionally jumps them. It's like they're wearign a friggin rocket pack. It's jsut amazing. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

But if she ever came to SD: Moab, we could fix that. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Hmm, I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. When I first started jumping, I was suffering from a degenerative eye condition, and was basically going blind by virtue of my eyes not focusing. Though it could be argued that I should have never gotten into the sport because of that, I needed to find something to convince myself that I wasn't a cripple. Skydiving gave me a reason to live in that dark time by teaching me I could overcome things I feared and achieve things I never dreamed were possible, so I do not regret the choice. Regardless of regrets or no, it did affect my performance as a jumper, especially when it came to landings. Though I struggled with freefall, I eventually learned to calm down, and I've always had an intuitive understanding of most aspects of canopy flight, but I never could seem to figure out the flare. I always pounded in. While skydiving helped me overcome most of my old fears, it gave me a new one. Somewhere around 20-30 jumps into the sport, it got to the point where I totally lost faith in my ability to land. I'd start to flare and the fear would be telling me that I screwed up and that I had to brace for impact. No matter how many times I told myself that I would overcome the fear and finish the flare and the landing, I'd always find myself stopping the flare about halfway down and curling up into a position that allowed me to PLF the landing. This got so bad that my first standup wasn't until jump #63, and even after that, I never managed to stand up more than ~7% of my landings. This was of the main reasons that I never went to higher wingloadings and swore I'd never swoop. Fastforward to the present. Remember that part about my instinctive feelings for canopy flight. In a little over a hundred jumps, I had worked my way through the flight range on my Mantas, R4's, and Laser 9's. I knew exactly what each of them did in response to toggle, slow flight, riser input, and even weight shifts. In short, I was getting bored under canopy. I knew I didn't want a higher wing loading, but I did want a more manuverable canopy. So, I went out and got me a semi-elliptical. I don't know what to say other than the landings just clicked. I'm not sure why, but somehow the fear became manageable and I could finish out my landings. Now I have a new fear. I used to look at swoopers and think "No way, those dudes are insane." Now I watch swoops and think "Ah I understand now, I've got to learn how to do that!" I've already worked out a tentative savings buget that will allow me to buy an ultra-high performance canopy by the time I've finished the 500 hop n pop's I'm planning on doing to build my CC skills. I went from the guy who said, "never", to a guy who's heart is telling him "I can do that in a couple of years". When I take a step back for the emotion and look at it intellectually, that scares me. I still don't understand why I was able to suddenly overcome my fear, and I wonder if it won't just reappear someday down the road. That's frightening because I know I've reduced my margin for error a great deal. I also worry about the possibility of trying to downsize sooner than 500 jumps. I mean afterall, I was able to convinvce myself I wanted to enter a discipline I swore I'd never do, so how hard would it be to convince myself that I only needed 100-200 (or less) skill jumps before downsizing? Does this make sense to anyone? Has anyone had similar thoughts? -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

You can get used to dialations. What really sucks is when they pull stitches from the cornea. It's a f'ed up feeling watching a doc come at your eye with a razor blade and a very pointy pair of tweezers. Still, diaations are nto fun, so you definitely have my sympathises. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I have a friend who's the knife defense instructor for the Tulsa, OK PD. At typical pistol engagement ranges, the average joe can close and stab you 4-6 times before you can finish the draw. A speed holster typically will lower than number by one or two. But even people with mongoose-like reflexes and a quickdraw holster all got stabbed at least once during his experiments. Of course since most stabbing victims don't realize they've been stabbed until afterwards (ie continue what they were doing before being stabbed), that makes it a somewhat phyric victory for the knife-weilder. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I first came to know Chris at the end of last summer. I had moved to CO and my size and old reserve at this altitude were a really unsafe combination. I needed a new reserve. Most companies would have told me I would have to wait until they could find an opening in their production schedule. Instead, Chris turned Precision's production schedule on it's ear and managed to get me an R-Max 288 made in record time. It says a hell of a lot about a business person's character when they ignore their training(ie keep production flowing smoothly) to do the right thing. And I am just sorry I never got the oppertunity to thank Chris in person. Blue Skies Bro, -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

My bad, back when I was a Sea Cadet we were given a tour and were told that the building had been designed to withstand an airburst from an h-bomb. -Blind Yeah, but the WTC towers weren't designed to survive a nuclear attack, the Pentagon was. In fact, my main thought I had on 9/11 after seeing the damage to the Pentagon was "Huh, I guess the designers were wrong." -Blind Not saying I buy into the conspiracy; BUT, the Pentagon was in no way, shape or form built to withstand a nuclear attack. And yes, I used to work there; I was involved in the actual ACE renovation/re-construction about 5 years ago. It was actually built in less than two years as quick office space. "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I fly a Safire 2 and if I had to guess, I'd say you got caught by the fact the Safire's flare power is in the bottom of the range of toggle motion rather than the top. There's nothing wrong with the canopy. If you flare the Safire fully, it has tremendous power. My first jump on the canopy, I came in and thought I wasn't getting any flare, and just buried the toggles the rest of the way. It was a bit of a suprise to find myself about five feet above the ground when I had been less than a foot above it a second before. That taught me just where the flare gets good on the the canopy, and having learned that, my landngs have been nothing but sweet since then. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Well that and the fact that they are outrageously expensive to produce. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Nope. IIRC, Clinton was the last ex-Pres to recieve security for life. From now on, ex-Pres's will recieve security for 12 years after they leave office. The logic is that this will yeild a significant cost savings and prevent minimal security risks as most of the sensitive information the ex-pres knows will no longer be sensitive after 12 years. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Yeah, but the WTC towers weren't designed to survive a nuclear attack, the Pentagon was. In fact, my main thought I had on 9/11 after seeing the damage to the Pentagon was "Huh, I guess the designers were wrong." -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Every spring, Oklahoma gets a lot of rain and they have to open up the flood gates on the lakes to control the water levels. After they shut the gates, the bigger cats are trapped in the stream below the floodgates. Grand Lake terminates at the Pensecola damn at Langely, Oklahoma. Below the spillway is Blue Hole state park, that's prime noodling country. And FWIW, I have a lot of respect for the guys doing this. A few years after they built the Penescola, they had to send divers down to clear the inlets for the hydroelectric turbines. They divers came back up way early and refused to go back down without a shark cage and weapons. The cats there are that big. At another lake in OK back in the 90's, there was a 7 yo boy who almost died after a catfish swallowed his leg. Luckily he was a strong enough swimmer that he was able to remain on the surface long enough for some people to get to him and convince the blue cat that he could find an easier dinner somewhere else. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Juat an update to my post. I jump an RTS because I fly big canopies. The Mirage sales team didn't realize that RTS's normally don't have dive loops, so I got my rig sans the requested loops. When I called, they bent over backwards to make it right. Also earlier today, I got a call from them regardign the post I made in this thread to make sure I was a satisfied customer. So I defintely give them points for that. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Team Extreme has landed in the back of a boat before and for one of the Bond movies, a jumper was required to land on a small float(~ 4x4 IIRC) towed behind a boat. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I've always wanted an An-72 Coaler. Twin turbofan tailgater, need I say more? -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I've made a living as a packer and rigger, so I have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. Given that, and the fact that I occasionally just don't feel like packing, I have no problems letting someone else pack my rig. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I've jumped both Mirages and Infinities and packed both even more as a paid packer. Both rigs are excelelnt and in the end your decision should be based off which ever one you can get the better price on. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."