BlindBrick

I won't presume to tell you want to do, I'll just share my experience. If you can take something away from it, great, if not, it's not a big deal. When I began jumping I had a degenerative eye condition known as Keratoconus. Among the effects of K was the fact that I was effectively night blind. That presented a problem to me becuase I knew I'd eventually get my D liscense, which requires two night jumps. My S&TA told me I could get that waivered, but I wasn't willing to to settle for a restricted liscense. I thougth about it for a long, long time. I ultimately decided that at I probaby had about a 90% chance of getting hurt and at best I had a 50/50 chance of surviving a night jump. I then tried to figure out why and just how important those night jumps were worth to me. In the end, I realized that it wasn't about the "D" liscense but the need to prove to myself that I wasn't as helpless as society was trying to tell me I was. I also realized that that proof was something I was willing to risk my life for. Once I realized how important it was to me, it gave me the courage to go through with it. It wasn't easy by any means. My first night jump was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life, but knowing what it meant to me allowed me to do what had to be done and get through it. And once I had done it, I realized that jump had been one of the most intensely satisfying things in my life. Hope there's something in that experience you can use. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I have ADHD and it is extremely difficult for me to actively recall more than 2-3 things when I am in an environment where I am having to process a lot of sensory data, like during a jump. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

After all, he does have his own city. He can drive as fast as he wants without getting a ticket. Actually, Vatican City is considered a seperate country from Italy, so he even has his own country. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I really want to get into doing alot of canopy control drills now that I have my new canopy (Safire 2 269, loaded at 1.2). I know I tend to forget stuff while busy so I was thinking about one of these http://www.fogdog.com/sm-schutt-football-wrist-play-holder--pi-864389.html to hold a short checklist for in-flight reference. Does anyone here have experience using these in the air? If so, what's the pro's and cons? Right now I'm thinking the most obvious cons are in-flight distraction and a snag hazzard. I think the distraction issued can be addressed with a lot of pre-flight practice to ensure that you never glance at it for more than a second or two. Snag hazzard I think might be moot if I wear it on the arm that I wear my watch and altimeter on. Just looking for thoughts, -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

MEBENALLY and I both attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Ask Scotty Carbone if you can buy his van, it'd be one stop shopping.

No Shit, there I was! Though I was gonna die! -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

At my home DZ we had a guy celebrate his 800th jump by doing a naked static line from altitdue in Feburary. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I don't have a lot of jumps but of those I do have a little over 92% of them ended in some form of PLF. So, I've had time to experiment and refine. If I find that I'm coming in with a lot of horizontal speed but little vetical, I'll flex my knees and bring my leg toether almost like a PLF except that they are not quite touching and my right foot is just a few inches ahead of the left. The flex in the knees allows me to absorb the vertical momentum while having my feet like they are lets me take one or two baby steps. As I take these steps, I let my forward momentum lay me over and use the energy from the steps to due a shoulder roll which puts me over on my back. Also during this time I am tucking my chin against my chest (very important). Once I am laying out flat, I lighly arch my upper body and balence myself on the rig (is easier than it sounds). This lets my rig absorb the force rather than me. I've also found that dragging my heels will reduce the skid and thus wear and tear on the rig. As you can probably figure this does run the risk of damaging the rig, but I've always figured better the rig than me. If you use this method, always be sure to do a quick visual inspection on the rig afterwards. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

But what after the canopy leaves straight flght. I'm not a swoop god, but I've done front riser stuff up high with big canopies and it was a lot easier to due front riser turns on a 250 as opposed to a 300. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Maybe in some cases, but usually the reason you don't get car sick while driving is that your sight picture is different than when you are riding as a passenger. In fact, some poeple who get horribly car sick can get major relief just by sitting behind the driver rather than on the passenger side of the car. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

I was looking at my non-collaspible PC the other day when I realized that inisde it had a line running to the apex that would be pretty easy to rig a kill line to. I've got more enough materials to make a kill-line bridle. The problem is that I've never looked too closely at how a kill line PC works. I mean I know the theory, I just don't know the implementation. Just visualizing the system, I was thinking that once the canopy left the d-bag, the drag on the empty bag made it fall at a slower rate than the canopy, which in turn allowed the canopy to draw the kill-line and collapse the PC. Am I even in the ballpark? If not any suggestions? I know I could always just buy a kill-line setup, but I would really like to learn this kind of stuff. Plus, the way I am visualizing it, as long as the bridles attached, cocked and has integrity, the worse problem I could have with a bad implementation is failure to collapse the PC. Am I on the right track, or is there another failure scenario I am overlooking? -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

You must be one cool dude, no adrenalin. I think what he means is that you do not notice it anymore. Whuffos are always saying to me "That's got to be a rush!" Not really, I don't even notice the adreniline high until I am on the ground. For me, skydiving has always been an intensely personal quest to overcome my limitations. I was going blind when I entered the sport, and to me it was a chance to do something that the vast majority of people never do at a time when people were telling me I could no longer do things that the vast majority of things that people do everyday. Don't get me wrong, I like meeting other jumpers, doing formations and, now that I have my transplants, enjoying the view. Those things are all nice, but what keeps me coming back are the times when I achieve something that I had been struggling with and the knowledge that if I look hard enough I will always find something else in this sport that will challenge me. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Though that's the record, giving birth young is not that rare in latin/south america due to increased levels of pollution and hormones in foodstuffs. Also factoring in are poverty and the fact that some of the cultures in the region have tremendously different moral views upon such things. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

If you do it right, it's on the edge of the roll. It really doesn't make a whole lot of difference once you have a bridle extension though. -blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

You know somebody ought to make a video to show people who bring skids to the DZ. Basically find an old prop and hook it up to a tractor's PTO drive. Hold up a large cantaloupe and say "This is your kid" Throw cantalopue into the prop and say "This is your kid left unattended at the dropzone, any questions?" -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Nope, there was at least one other actor the played Superman before Reeves. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Jump #10, extremely low unstable opening in a spin. Looked over at my left side and most of my lines were gone. Like 3 or 4 suspension lines and only one control line above the cascades were intact. Too low to chop, so I had to try to bring it home. Jump #50. Another low opening(used to have trouble reading an altimeter) resulted in two out after AAD activation. Foolishly chopped my main while in a bi-plane. Had the displeasure of watching my main risers tangle in the reserve control lines on the right side. Luckily that cleared, but I was so rattled that when I realized I was low, I panicked turned on to final, downwind. Tried to PLF but had too much speed and ended up cartwheeling a little over ten yards. Very sick, and weird, feeling to be doing that, especially when one of the points of rotation is the top of your head. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Oh yeah. If my choice is losing money to a slot machine or a woman with the best enhancements modern medicine can provide, I'll always go for the girl.

They've been tryign to make the movie for over a decade. For various reasons, usually egos, it always gets derailed. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

It's worth pointing out that in OK, T.U. is University of Tulsa. That might be important to Texas fans, because as bad as your guys are, they don't suck near as much as the T.U. Golden Hurricanes. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

Not sure. I know there were several companies that developed prototypes, but I think they are waiting on MPAAD's intro to the States. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

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

let's put it this way. If you could skin all the kittens I've killed, the entire US would be walking on kitty carpet. -Blind

For a long time, Wal-Mart's corporate offices in Bentonville, AR had the worlds largest datastore. It was well into the Teras back when people were first getting impressed by gigabyte drives. -Blind "If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."