NWFlyer

-Ask a lot of questions. -Listen to the answers. -Ask more questions if you still don't understand. -Get a copy of the Skydivers Information Manual (SIM) and read it. -Read it again. -Read and review any other materials your DZ gives you. -Poke around these forums if you want, but don't try to learn to skydive on the internet (unless you're reading the SIM online). -Write down questions you have and bring them to your instructors next time you're at the DZ. -Spend time at the DZ when the instructors aren't crazy busy if you can (weather holds, weekdays, after hours) and ask more questions. -Take it all one jump at a time (this can be especially helpful with the SIM - you can focus on the dive flow and learning objectives for the next area so you don't get totally overwhelmed with new information). -Practice. All the practice on the ground is free. Do it as many times as you need to in order to lock it in. -If you're not connecting with a particular instructor, give them a chance - ask them to explain something differently, or see if you can reflect it back and ask "Am I getting that right?" Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right communication style. And if all that doesn't work, it's okay to say "Can I try working with someone else?" -Visualize. Run through the complete dive flow in your mind a bunch of times before you actually do it. Run through it with your instructor(s) before the jump, several times if needed. Ask questions if you don't understand a step. -Relax. Many people in this sport are "naturals" then there's those of us who have to work really hard just to achieve mediocrity (like me!). It took me 37 jumps to get my A license, and at 800+ I only now feel mildly competent. "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

Coincidentally, I put my check in the mail this morning. "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 click on the classified ads all the time - I've gotten some great gear deals that way. "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 just tried a trick a friend told me - put fresh sheets on the bed before leaving for vacation. Makes the return that much sweeter. It sure was nice to come home from LP to nice, clean sheets! "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

Been closed for 2+ years now. Closest would be Skydive Sacramento in Lincoln, CA. "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 me, probably not since Daria was cancelled. "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

In a move designed to make me feel really fucking old, MTV turned 30 yesterday. It brought back memories of those days, back when my neighborhood didn't even have cable, so the only time I got to watch MTV was when I visited my grandparents in another state (they did have cable). I still remember my uncle walking into the living room and saying "You watching that crazy music channel again, huh?" Now, of course, I occasionally drive a rental car with satellite radio, and Martha Quinn et. al. are the DJs on the 80s station, not the hippest kids on the block on that new "crazy music channel." And of course, MTV hasn't played music in years. First videos played on MTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_music_videos_aired_on_MTV "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

From the OP: "Just wanted to communicate an "incident" that I witnessed yesterday in the hope that it will help people with their decision making process." No one's suggesting you have to do anything. Just to throw another example on the pile ... last year I watched a jumper get clipped under canopy at about 150-200 feet. Top skin on a couple of cells (the ones right of the center cell, I believe) split open partially. The jumper didn't have a lot of time to do anything but continue on his final approach; he chose a half-flare PLF landing and walked away dirty but intact. Several things saved his ass (recognizing the problem immediately, not panicking, knowing not to do a full flare, and being able to execute an excellent PLF), but the biggest one, I think, was the fact that the canopy in question was a moderately loaded Spectre. If he was jumping something more aggressive or more highly-loaded, the outcome might have been very different. (Edited to add this is someone with close to 10,000 jumps and 30 years in the sport). I've got no problem with people choosing to jump higher-performance, higher-loaded parachutes, providing they have the experience, the skill, and the judgment to handle them in such a way that doesn't put me or other jumpers in additional danger. But I personally choose lower-performance and lower wingloading, and I've been very happy with that choice and the extra margin of safety it offers to me. "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

That's not Lost Prairie specific. You guys do that everywhere! "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

It depends. If you're a real outlier size-wise, this may be excellent advice. If you're in the average height/weight/build range, it may be overkill since most people who are within the average ranges can find a used container that fits well enough to be both safe and comfortable. Of course, you'll have to be patient to find something, but it's probably out there. I've done 800+ jumps in almost 7 years on a used container. It was very gently used (10 jumps) when I bought it, and I made one modification to make it fit me better - I had a longer chest strap put on as it was built for a guy who was about my height/weight, but since he lacked boobs, the chest strap was a bit too short for me. "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

If you just want redundancy, see if you can find a used ProDytter (which will just do freefall alarms) to go along with a new or used version of whatever you might want for freefall logging. That'll get you what you need and no more for a good price. "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 started a similar thread a few years ago. I think you're spot-on - we are creating a culture that sets the expectation that anything other than downsizing is less acceptable. "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, it's super-popular, especially in the summer. You might google "Alcatraz package tours" to see if you can get that date as part of a larger tour package with other activities. You'll probably wind up paying a premium but maybe you'll be able to get the dates you want. If you're staying at a nice hotel, the concierge there might be able to help as 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

So.... after all this back-and-forth (and, dare I say drama, here's my first-hand Lost Prairie Boogie 2011 report. -The weather was terrible -The skydives sucked. -The beer was warm. -There were too many damn Canadians. -The boobies came out on Topless Tuesday. -The junk came out on Wobbly Wednesday. -There was "be kind to Canadians" day. -People went to the fire tower and the last two Otters of the day buzzed the tower. -Lots of time was spent at the lake. -Mad John organized daily Almost Sober loads. -The Cock Chorus sucked less. -The Crack Choir sounded pretty great. -People told bullshit stories around the bonfire. -Lots of poker was played. -Some visits were made to Moose's pizza. -No wind landings were typically entertaining. -Saturday ended with a beautiful sunset cross country down the valley and a two-Otter flyby. -The Skydive Arizona crew kept manifest running smoothly and the planes humming. -We did our business in Pee-Wees porta potties -There was pie. -There were fireworks -We all came home covered in Prairie dust. For anyone who's ever been to LP, that list of stuff oughta sound awfully familiar. The sky did not fall (well, unless you count that wicked hailstorm we got on Monday!). But here's what else I saw this year: -Arizona Arsenal added some great freefly/tracking/hybrid/etc. organizing & coaching. -Registration included a boogie t-shirt. -We could land right in front of our campsites/packing tents on a flat, green landing area (though I think we have Mother Nature and the wet winter/spring to thank for the "green" part). -Registration also included Saturday dinner -RVs had the option of electrical hookups right near the manifest building. -There were EMTs from the Marion fire department on site during all jumping hours. -There was a bar; no, it won't ever replace the Lost Prairie Lounge, and this year's was only temporary, but it provided a place to gather, and dance, and make jackasses of ourselves after hours. From what I observed, the operators of Meadow Peak Skydiving and Skydive Lost Prairie worked together well to keep both the fun jumper and the tandem/student operations working smoothly throughout the boogie and if there was any lingering hostility between the parties, I certainly didn't see it. I realize this was only my 7th Lost Prairie and I don't have the history of those of you who have been coming for way longer than that, but I gotta say that I appreciated the fact that all the boogie traditions were maintained while the boogie also evolves. This boogie is special because of the people and the traditions that they make and carry on, but at the same time, it will always be evolving and needs to evolve if we want it to continue being around 20 years from now. It better be - I already put my name on the list for the 2031 Montana SOS record. "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 most injuries, $500,000 is plenty even if you have a hospital admission and one or more surgeries; where $500,000 starts to be not enough is if you really break yourself and require many months or years of follow-up care (nursing, therapists, multiple surgeries, expensive medications/treatments, etc.). Not likely, but a possibility and you could blow through that $500,000 pretty quickly. "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

You never know who knows the right person. It's how I got my current job. I called up an old friend from college who lives in San Francisco. He's in a very different industry from mine, but he's very well-connected professionally and we had a great chat about the general state of the market, people he knew, etc. He promised some follow up on a few leads, and it was nice to catch up with my old buddy. The very next day he emails me and says "So I was out with a bunch of friends last night and can't believe I forgot this name" and sends me the name of a guy who works in finance at my current company. Now, I don't do finance work, either, BUT, he is the finance guy supporting the VP of IT in the area I do work in. I have a quick chat with finance guy, he gets my resume in front of the VP, who sends it out to all her direct reports; turns out they're about to kick off a project using a very specific technology that I have experience with. Boom... interview ... job ... been there almost 3 years now. When my brother was in his MBA program he volunteered as an adult leader for a local Boy Scout troop. One of the scouts' parents happened to work for a local hospital that was looking for someone to do a strategic analysis project - a perfect project for an MBA intern. Through those casual interactions, my brother made a valuable contact and got his internship. "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

Well, if anyone's still following along at home, I went a bit outside of my original budget and chose the Canon PowerShot D10. I owned a Canon in the past and it was probably my favorite one that I've owned, so that swayed me towards this one. Just arrived today and in two minutes of playing around with it I found the basic settings and setup to be very intuitive. I've set it up to minimize the use of the battery, but I also have two backup batteries on the way, so I should be able to make it through my 9 days off the grid. And my 2 8GB cards should hold thousands of photos. "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

Yes, but it's all going to be set up differently this year. Still, you'll have a great time. "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

No shit, there I was, on a skydive with John Mitchell.... I kid, I kid, all of my jumps with John have been pure fun! I'd have to say this one, when I had somewhere around 250 jumps. Took me several months to really get my head straight after that one. "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

There should be at least one food concession on site; if you want to buy your own stuff for cheaper options, you'll need to get that in town - there are no stores within walking distance and no stores of any serious size very close at all. That said, there's always people heading into town (either the little town locally, or the more sizeable town 40 mins away) who can either take you with them or pick stuff up for you. "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

If I were a hiring manager (or screening on behalf of a hiring manager - which I do a lot) and that were your answer to "What are you looking for in your next opportunity?" your resume would get filed immediately. "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

Either the computing world has slowed down over the past few years or I'm just getting old and less interested in following it. My work laptop is a Dell Precision M4400 that's over two years old and it's still a hell of a machine. Also, our IT folks are pretty cool... especially considering they have to put up with a bunch of engineers all day. I'm happy with the new one I picked up yesterday, and glad to have something a little faster (and with updated versions of the M$ apps), but my old one was just fine, too. It's just that (like Bill's) it had gotten to the point where the whole boot sequence was ridiculously long so that any time I did have a problem and had to reboot, that was 10-15 minutes of lost productivity. But if someone had cleaned out and reimaged my old laptop, I probably could have been happy with it for a couple more years. I don't do a lot that requires heavy-duty speed/power, so what I had was more than adequate. The standard issue HP's we get take a lot of abuse - my issues seemed to be all OS/software related - the hardware was doing great. "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

Whenever you are at a dropzone where there are organizers who are working with people at your experience level, work with them. At the larger dropzones (especially during events) they'll have a variety of organizers working with different groups. Find the one that's appropriate to you and as long as they're doing jumps that are reasonably sized for your skill level so that you can learn and grow, jump with them. It kills me to see jumpers go to a big dropzone with great resources and not take advantage of them, and instead do the same jumps they do at home with the same people. A good organizer will teach you so much, and you'll have fun doing successful skydives to boot. If your own dropzone is having local organizers on the weekend, ask if there will be jumps appropriate to your skill level. If so, be there and jump! If they're bringing in an outside organizer, same thing. You may find that if your dropzone brings in a big outside name, that person will be organizing more advanced dives for those with more advanced skills and experience, but it's always worth it to ask. Always be honest about your experience when you're asking to jump with someone, and stay small for quite a while - you'll learn more and have more likelihood of success on smaller dives, and you'll be able to stay safer as well. By the way, I still follow all of those suggestions. I'm not above an occasional zoo dive for a friend's milestone jump, but in general I try to make all of my skydives quality skydives that help me meet my own goals, or that help bring someone else up in the sport. I try to take advantage of all the local organizing that my dropzone has, and to jump with the big names either when they're visiting or I'm at a larger dropzone. "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

and yet another one announcing their departure instead of just discretely fading away I was gonna tell him that we have a thread for that. "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

That's a very old address - obviously someone's using a very old card! http://www.uspa.org/AboutUSPA/USPAStaffDirectory/tabid/151/Default.aspx "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