NWFlyer

You really can't go wrong - both of the DZs will take good care of you. Elsinore, as another poster mentioned, has the Excel camps which are designed to take newer jumpers and help build their skills jumping in groups. They're a blast, and the organizers will build successful jumps based on the skill level of the people who are there that day. Perris also has organizers working that are happy to put together jumps for newer jumpers and you'll be sure to have a lot of fun there. I jumped at both DZs as a sub-100 jump jumper and had a great time, learned a lot, and did some successful skydives. I still enjoy jumping at both DZs as often as I can get down there. At either place, just ask at manifest who is organizing for the day, introduce yourself, and be up front about your jump numbers and experience. They'll take care of you. Oh, and since you're moving in "about a week" be sure to mark your calendar and come by Elsinore for the Chicks Rock boogie. That'll be a great way to meet a TON of people and have a blast. It runs from 9/30 to 10/3. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

At least I didn't say anything about pillow biting in the middle of the hangar! "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Yeah, but you got to meet me! 'twardo, nice of you to show up when you finally recovered from your reunion. Great to meet both you and Ralffers. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Damn hard to find in the woods after a cutaway, too. Good thing I have gifted friends.

At least two intermediate 8-way teams said they'd like to stop at 8 (which Bill told us was the original plan for the day) and ended up doing 2 yesterday morning. But yeah, because of the bad weather (and threats thereof that didn't come true), the pace did end up being weird - for me doing 4-way and 8-way, my pace was 2, 8, 9, 1 over four days. Would have been nice to spread it out a little, but with the forecasts they were getting, I can also understand the desire to keep it moving (even though it turned out the weatherman was wrong). My 8-way team trained 8 a day, so pushing to 9 wasn't a huge difference ... the only thing really affecting endurance (at least in my particular case) was that by the end of the day I had a nasty cold coming on. Even though I was tired, I would have loved to do one more because I knew that my sinuses would only get worse overnight ... and they did. It's a day and a half later and my right ear still hasn't cleared from the one jump we did early yesterday. Though I don't have other events to compare it to, I thought the meet was very well run and well organized, and that the team at SDC did a phenomenal job keeping everything running smoothly. The communication, the calls, the loading, the pilots managing so many planes in the air, the grounds crew picking people up - it all worked together quite well. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I jumped a canopy that was solid black (which faded to more of a dark charcoal gray after a few hundred jumps) with red ribs for three years. That thing went into stealth mode in any kind of lower-light situation (days with cloud cover, sunset load). When I bought my current canopy (new) I went for high visibility - it's neon yellow and neon orange. It's hard to miss me.

Oops, just realized I read your post as "this week" instead of "this year." Nevermind. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Um... it's possible that all the belly flyers from a world-renowned DZ were at Nationals this week. There were 59 4-way teams and 20 8-way teams up in Chicago! "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

:22:2 owed (and paid) for my first trip to Skydive Chicago and first USPA Nationals. Did 2 4-way practice jumps on Friday (our entire training season!), 2 4-way comp jumps Saturday b/c of wx, 8 on Sunday, 9 8-way comp jumps yesterday and 1 just after sunrise today to finish it off. Bad wx was forecast for today (but it's fucking GORGEOUS) so they crammed as much 8-way as possible into yesterday. Had planned to add on 16-way but my sinuses aren't cooperating ... boo. What an amazingly memorable experience! Kudos to Skydive Chicago and the USPA for putting on a fantastic event. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Intermediate draw: 1. 21 F 13 2. 19 K C 3. D G 10 4. H A J 5 5. 2 M 6 6. B 17 8 7. 7, 18 8. O 1 N 9. P E 3 10. 16 4 Jump off 14 Q L "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Intermediate draw (for those who want to play along at home). 1. 6 9 2. N B Q 19 3. H F 15 4. L 8 18 5. K 11 21 6. 2 A C 7. O G 14 8. 20 P 4 9. M 1 D 10. 13 J 7 Jump off 1 22 E 20 "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

The problem with getting turned around trying to get away from Logan is that you pay a "stupid tax" every time you end up on the wrong (toll) road. I think it cost us an extra $5 just to get headed the right way to Pepperell last year. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Evil. At least that's what Remi told me today. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Considering your age, has it occurred to you to stop living under your parents' support and make your own way in life ? When do you think you will consider yourself "grown up" ? im not going to turn down almost free health insurance. i pay this difference that it costs to have me on the insurance. forking out 400+ plus a month for no reason just goes against common sense. Gotta back you up on this. In addition to the cost advantage, given the current disjointed state of our health insurance system in this country, anyone who has access to group insurance (through an employer) is wise to take advantage of it - going into the individual market is higher risk to you; there are a lot of protections provided to those insured through groups that aren't provided to those on the individual market. So if you don't get insurance through work or school and are faced with the choice between buying it on your own or getting coverage through a parent or spouse or domestic partner's group coverage - you're almost always better off choosing the group coverage. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Depends on a lot of factors for me. 1) Are they steady or gusty? I'll go up in higher winds that are steady. 2) What's the landing area like? Things I'm considering are size, availability of good outs, direction of the wind relative to objects that might cause turbulence, etc. In a wide-open landing area I might go higher than a tighter, turbulence-prone landing area. 3) What's the weather like generally? Are there storm clouds lurking? Are there big temperature shifts going on? Is the wind direction making big swings (light and variable is one thing, but a switch from 15 north to 15 south and back again indicates some sketchy air may be around). 4) What are canopies doing on landing? Watch a load. Are canopies bucking or otherwise looking "squirrelly" on final? Those are just some of the things I consider - all of them have helped me to build up my "gut instinct" about when it's time to sit down. Of course the best thing you can do is to watch the old-timers. When the only people on the load have

Flying out tomorrow night - be at the DZ by Friday morning. 4 & 8 way Intermediate for me... and sticking around through the 10 and 16 way schedule to hang out, watch, and even participate if someone needs a warm body to round out a team. Looking forward to my Nationals! "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

What does the Postal Service have to do with skydiving? Assuming that was a typo and you meant USPA, the USPA has no force of law whatsoever. The sport is self-regulating. Other than the parts of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) that apply to skydiving operations, there are no laws governing the sport. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

So as someone who's a complete outsider to the bigway world, I'm really curious about this. What's a better way to include people who have a wealth of bigway experience to bring to the table but haven't attended a camp (or haven't attended one in a long time)? In what little I have seen (bigger boogie jumps) it's important to be able to validate someone's credentials and currency before you put them on a bigway. This thread has outlined two ends of the spectrum ... the "old boy network" (I know you and can vouch for you, or someone I know knows you and can vouch for you), or the "camp network" (you've demonstrated your skills to me recently in a camp). Should everyone have to submit an application for a record, whether you're coming up through the camp route or not? Is it the idea of having to document/prove your skills/experience/currency that is problematic or is it the fact that it's called a waiver and only required of those who aren't taking the camp route? "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

They must be getting evangelical - there are even athiest songs now! "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

The BPA magazine is quite good but also pretty pricey to have it sent to the US. The thing about Parachutist is that it's necessarily going to be "safer" as the magazine produced by the association. However, the quality of the content is something you can do something about - the majority of the articles are submitted by members. Pitch them a story idea and write it. Then the only "wooden" writing you have to complain about is your own. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

As others have said, buy used. I just picked up an AltiTrack for $150. I've wanted one of those for years, but didn't want to pay $350+ for one, so I was patient till a great deal came along. I purchased my Pro-track used, and both of my Galaxy altimeters used (really only needed one but one fell in my lap for a good price so I grabbed it as a backup). Keep an eye on the classifieds here and respond quickly. This site makes it very easy to keep up - on the classifieds main page there's a link for New Ads that will give you the last 2 days worth of ads. "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

I've chosen all my canopies (Spectre, Pilot, Pulse) for good openings and what you describe as "stress free but fun." They've gotten gradually less snivelly, but they're all known as solid, reliable, forgiving canopies when it comes to openings. I don't want to have to worry on opening, and I want the flexibility to be able to jump with larger groups from time to time - a canopy known for wacky, off-headers wouldn't work for me. After 200 jumps on the Spectre, I wanted to try something with more glide, and the Pilot had that for sure. Put 300 jumps on it, then got the Pulse. If anything, the Pulse's glide is even flatter. I like the more positive openings relative to the Pilot and the reduced pack volume. I've no interest in swooping, and my canopy choices have reflected that as well; none of them are known for being great swoop-training canopies, though I suppose with enough skill any of them can be swooped (just ask Tony Hathaway if you can swoop a Spectre...). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

Still pretty mixed for me, because 1) it's hard for me to look at this case (one to which I have a strong emotional attachment) in a vacuum separate from how I feel about our criminal justice system's ability, in general, to accurately and fairly assess guilt or innocence on a consistent enough basis to warrant death as a punishment and 2) I know very little about the evidence from first-hand experience (I've been told the evidence was strong, and I've no reason not to believe that, but since I wasn't in the courtroom listening I can't confirm it). "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

For anyone who uses an iGoogle homepage, here's my countdown gadget: http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://seanregan.com/countdown/countdown.xml&source=imag&up_event=Lost+Prairie+2011&up_event_year=2011&up_event_month=6&up_event_day=23&up_event_hour=8&up_event_minute=0&up_font=Georgia&up_showWeeks=0 And a web counter ... http://ennasirk.com/countdown.htm "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

We have video. Thanks to those who passed on leads.