JDBoston

There are probably lots of people out there on the forum who know a lot more about mortgages than me, but what I found out worked well when I bought a place as a young person with not a lot of money was: call about 20 small local/regional banks (more eager to get business = lower rates and less bureaucracy) for quotes, and find one that would do a package like this: 5% down, 15% fixed rate loan from another bank, and 80% adjustable rate loan from them. The 15% fixed loan plus 5% down lets them treat it like 20% down and therefore waive PMI (mortgage insurance which is non tax deductible and thus a waste of money). Also you should get zero points and get them to make the closing costs go away in exchange for a slight interest rate hit. That way you lay out less cash up front. Of course, a lot of them also have first time homebuyer programs especially for loans under a certain $ amount (typically under $100-$150K), which have lower rates and better terms. And one very specific piece of advice: do not use Chase Manhattan for any part of your mortgage, ever. Good luck! Joe

No shit, I think there's a real long way to go too. Joe

Just some objective thoughts on the whole idea that we are headed for a police state where citizens' rights get trampled.... - We are still holding open elections for public officials last I checked - The government agencies usually can't even perform their stated functions well, let alone effectively spy on or harass or repress its citizens - when was the last time you walked out of the DMV or the parking office or talked to the IRS or something and said, "Wow! What a high-tech place! What a bunch of smart, competent people!" .....Nothing personal against people in government jobs, this is just a broad generalization based on my experience...... - If you want to learn what a real police state looks like (Communist Russia 1920-1960) and how it comes to be, block off about a month and read The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. We're still a long ways off. HOWEVER.... if you want a little itty bitty taste of what a police state might feel like, read this quote from Ari Fleischer (Bush's spokesman) in response to what Bill Maher said about bombing being cowardly and not hijacking. He said "they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." Now what the F*CK is that? I don't agree with Maher, but Fleischer's version of things isn't what I signed up for either. That, and the fact that we can (and do) detain people pretty much indefinitely without evidence.... I'm all for safety and security, but repression of free speech and the practice of holding large numbers of people incommunicado without presenting any evidence are two things everyone should be keeping a careful eye on. Back to the reason for the thread, the whole gun issue, I think citizens should be allowed to have guns but only if their backgrounds are clean of major crimes and if they get some kind of training. I don't know enough about the current laws to have an intelligent opinion on them, nor, obviously, do I own guns. I think it's reasonable to own them for recreation and self defense. But I DON'T think you'll ever need them to defend yourself against the government, unless you plan on purchasing helicopters, dogs, thousands of trained soldiers, snipers, explosives, and tear gas as well. Basically, if the government wants to get its hands on you or even kill you, it pretty much will. And that's the way it SHOULD be in ANY country. The key thing is to make sure the government is made up of ethical, rational officials, and that its policies are humane and democratic. Then we'll have a more humane and democratic society and the crime rate will go down, and fewer people (though there will always be some) will be out there trying to rape/rob/kill you. So if you're concerned about the state of the state, or crime, go vote or do some volunteer work. Gun ownership isn't necessarily a problem, but it's not the solution to anything either. That's my two cents. Joe

> Besides, I've been told much worse things by women I was after. The one that takes the cake: "You gotta come back to our place and meet the doctor in charge of us!" < Bill, I don't understand. Is there something abnormal about that? ... Seriously, Viking, I could tell you lewd stories about both Jehovah's Witness and Mormon girls, some from personal experience, some second-hand, that you would not believe. Based on my limited interaction with them, their morals tend to be an either/or thing. Either a saint or a sinner. No in-betweens. If you luck out and get one of the sinners, you get the added satisfaction of a great story. But you have to at least give it a shot. Best of luck and let us know how you make out. Joe

I guess the strict ones would not be able to use a Cypres or an altimeter. Hmmmm. Sounds like an Amish skydiver would have to be a little more daring than most of us. Especially an Amish freeflyer. Now CRW, maybe they'd be more suited to that. All they'd need is a hook knife, right? Joe

What I found works is telling lots of whuffo friends that you're going to jump. Then you have to, otherwise you face the shame of explaining to your friends that you just "didn't feel like it," which they will assume means you were scared. That said, there are definitely good points above about not jumping if you're sick, out of sorts, etc. - anything that might compromise your health or safety or that of others. It gets a lot easier, believe me - you just have to keep pounding on through until it feels more normal. Joe A-38502

First off, let me say that I only jumped here on 1 day, but the vibe I got at the place was awesome. Everyone is super laid-back and friendly, and there is a large contingent of relative low-timers that made me (another low-timer) feel very at home. It's beautiful out there in the woods, and the scenery from upstairs is great. The plane climbs fast too. My only regret is that I did not get to stay for the parties, which I hear are kickin'. BUT, a couple things to keep in mind: the landing area is not the greatest. It is long, narrow, bisected by the runway, and the good part on the near side of the runway is (I believe) restricted to C licenses and above. There are trees on all sides throwing off rotors, and it may have just been a weird wind day, but in the 5-6 hours I was there, I saw an inordinate number of people pound in pretty hard on the landings, including some very experienced and competent jumpers. Also, and I'm not making any value judgments one way or the other, I saw some pretty aggressive canopy flying there. The way the winds were blowing, people sometimes had to essentially swoop the spectator area to avoid crossing the runway. One guy clipped a tent. Again, I was only there one day. But I think all data is good data if you're planning on jumping somewhere. That said, I will 100% be back there as soon as I get my own rig (the rental selection is somewhat limited). Next time I will stay for the partying too.

Clay, The ruling elite are rarely in financial difficulty in any country, even in Sub-Saharan Africa which is just one big mess. Their goal in every country (naturally, when you think about it) is to keep amassing wealth and power while directing the anger of the population at other targets, such as other countries with different belief systems. People like Hitler were good at seizing on popular discontent and a feeling of inferiority/insecurity and channeling it into hatred for other groups of people as a means of increasing their own power. Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi still seem to be in power after all the bombing and economic starvation we threw at them. That's because people in the street there hated (and probably still hate) our guts and both leaders knew how to inflame those feelings and keep them focused on the US. If we start causing widespread misery in a country that hasn't even formally declared war on us, even if we bring them to their knees, there are a couple of post-war scenarios. One is like Japan where we have to reconstruct their government, run their country for 7 years, and pour in billions of dollars. Another is like post-WWI Germany where we create the perfect environment for another pyscho to rise to the top. I don't know exactly how we can feel avenged and still avoid both of these scenarios. But I would like to see us at least make an effort. And it will require some thinking because the enemy here is a fundamentally different kind of animal than in either of those two examples. Joe

I think we may be missing the forest for the trees here: when people have adequate food, shelter, sex, and some amount of peace, they don't spend as much time trying to kill others. Right or wrong, I think people in a number of other countries like to blame us for their problems (war, famine, depressed economies, etc.). If these problems were directly addressed and mitigated by them, us, or someone else, I have a sense that a lot of the hostility would go away. I'm not saying we should respond to attacks by sending out food drops and hookers, but I think everyone needs to open their eyes to the fact that a group's political beliefs (and the amount of suffering they're willing to endure and inflict for their leaders) are often strongly affected by their economic/material circumstances and can thus be changed over time. Unfortunately, I know this takes the fun out of the idea that some people are permanently and irrevocably different and dangerous to us and the only solution is to exterminate them. Perhaps the Psych majors here (I know we have a few) would like to chime in. Joe

I think you hit the nail on the head, Bill. There are a lot of people on both sides who think they have a reason. Incidentally, I wasn't talking about simply bombing all non-civilians, but finding specifically those people (to the extent that it's possible) who were responsible for/connected with this attack. A trial is certainly a very morally appealing idea, but I would be pretty concerned about the things sympathizers might try to get us to release some of the defendants... it's tough to even bring morality into this discussion, so from a purely practical standpoint, I think that executing the leaders of an organization (in a non-indiscriminate way) is a pretty good way to diminish its staying power. It also might make future leaders think twice before ordering people off to do their dirty work for them. Joe

Good point SpeedRacer. I can see how it would have been possible to interpret my post that way. My feeling is that no country ever "has it coming" when you talk about something like this - not us, not Japan, and not any Arab countries, even now. Acts like this are horrible and wrong no matter who commits them and for what reason. They should not be answered with the same kind of acts, but maybe with something like what you described, or in any case a more targeted approach. It's just hard for me to sit and listen to all the "bomb 'em all" shit. People need to stop and think about what they are advocating we do in other places, and realize that it looks an awful lot like what just happened in New York. Clearly we do not live in a fantasy world and we do have to make hard decisions about how to respond and take hard actions when we do. But we do not need to root for a war like it's a football game. Joe

Let me see if I can make it a little clearer: there are 3 options. 1) do nothing, 2) bomb the shit out of non-civilian targets, or use other methods to find the right people to hit, 3) fuck it, bomb everybody. Option #2 is the one I think makes the most sense. Is that better? Joe

A couple points. One: my grandfather actually worked on the A-bomb and I do not hold the individual soldiers and people who were part of the war effort responsible for the orders they were following. Two: Japan attacked primarily soldiers at Pearl Harbor, not civilians as we attacked in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Three: You say you have no animosity towards the Japanese yet the women and children in those cities "deserved" to get burned alive for decisions made by their leaders. Interesting logic. Four: Most people are sheep and have the unfortunate potential to do despicable things given the right leaders and situation. Witness the many Germans who went along with the Nazi party, or neo-Nazis in many countries nowadays, or any number of groups. Does it make more sense to kill all the sheep, or look for the shepherd? I absolutely agree with you that we need to find the people who did this and the people who helped them. But we do not need to slaughter people who weren't involved. The point of my email is that war is a very ugly business and we in the US do not hold any kind of moral high ground that allows us to go out and commit acts that we deem terrorism or war crimes if we find ourselves on the receiving end. That is what I think people easily lose sight of. Joe

Gulf "war" aside, I think it is a good idea to remember that our own government has carried out some of the most massive slaughters of civilians in the history of modern war. Especially in Japan during WWII - 100,000 civilians when we firebombed Tokyo, to say nothing of nuking two other peaceful cities just to make a point. We can talk (or write) till we're blue in the face about why that was different/justified/whatever, and sure we won the war and it may have saved many more lives in the long run, but let's not forget that killing civilians is still killing civilians - people, like an earlier post put it, "whose only crime was waking up and going to work." And though I wasn't even alive back then, I'm pretty sure there was some amount of excitement in the streets here in the US when people heard about those strikes.... So while this event is horrific, and tragic, and disgusting, and all the rest of it (especially to me since I lived in Manhattan for 2 years and have a lot of friends there), we need to admit to ourselves that this is what we tend to call war when we're doing it to other people. The only difference is that the American people didn't consider themselves to be at war right now, and whoever was responsible for this shit DID. Now, the most practical and effective response to all this may in fact turn out to be carpet-bombing the hell out of some far-away place, for all I know. I'm no military strategist. But that would be a sad and shameful day in American history. I strongly hope that we can figure out a better way to prevent future attacks on our cities and our people without having to resort to the mass murder of noncombatants like the one that has just been inflicted on us. Just my $0.02, Joe

Exactly. Let's say Timothy McVeigh had blown up a building in Rome, Italy or something instead of OK City. How would we feel if the Italians came after our entire country (or all Americans, or whatever) as a response? As natural as that feeling might be.... And I just said Italians for arguments' sake, don't mean to provoke any Italian jokes or anything. I am still waiting for news from a bunch of friends in NYC. From where I just moved 2 months ago up to Boston. Not much fun, and I can't fucking get through to anyone on the phone. Let's all keep a clear head and pray if you're religious for everyone who was in those buildings and their friends & family. Joe

When I click on "write review" I get a blank page. I am using IE and Windows (NT, I think). Our systems guy says the issue is on the dropzone.com side, not ours. But he doesn't know exactly what it is. Help please? Thanks, Joe

This thread cracks me up. My friends and family have been giving me shit about having ADD for many years now. I can barely sit through a rented movie without getting up to check email, read a couple pages of something, stretch, etc. I have never been actually diagnosed with it, and it certainly hasn't held me back in school or work but I get a real kick out of the fact that it might somehow lead to skydiving. If only all those protective parents knew, Ritalin would be the hottest drug on the market! Basically I think skydivers are people who realize that most everything else (except quality time with F&F) is just a game you play to fill your time, get money, and help you spread some of your DNA around, not anything inherently logical or necessary or productive in and of itself. Skydiving seems to me like a kind of protest against the prevailing idea that the way most "normal" people live actually makes any kind of sense. Hell, skydiving makes all the sense in the world. There's you, gravity, and approximately 80 seconds for you to save your life. How much clearer could it be? Doesn't hurt that it's a shitload of fun, and everyone boozes a lot, not to mention the fact that it's also a pretty good line to use on those occasions when you are trying to spread some of your DNA around. Joe A-38502

Funny, you say "nap" as if it's a joke. In fact that is exactly what my instructor did on my first tandem jump. It was kind of incomprehensible to me at the time, but now I can see how it would be possible if you were on, say, jump #12 of the day, like he probably was. Joe A-38502

Since my AFF was relatively recent here's my 2 cents: TURNS Don't be afraid to turn slowly just to make sure you have more control and it's easier to stop. They told me the biggest mistake people make on turns is starting them too hard and not being able to stop in time - i.e. your 90 degrees turns into 180, etc. STABILITY I got "chippy" on a couple AFF jumps (I assume you know what this looks like, if not it means you are seesawing up and down - first your head goes high, then your feet go high, etc.). It comes from being too stiff in your arch and your legs. A quick way to stop it is to 1) RELAX your torso, de-arch a bit and go flatter, and 2) bring your legs back towards your butt a little bit. Just remember that you don't have to be THAT arched to be stable, nor do you have to make an effort to hold every fiber of your body perfectly symmetrical at all times. In fact if you try to do this it will make you less stable - so it comes down to relaxing. As far as relaxation goes, different things work for different people. Just keep forcing yourself to go up and jump and you will start getting more relaxed. Again I would recommend Dr. John DeRosalia's book Mental Training for Skydiving and Life, endorsed by Arizona Airspeed and others. Or you could try simple home remedies like SMILING (which actually will relax you, believe it or not - just like on Ally McBeal) and joking around with people in the plane. Good luck! Let us know how it goes - Joe A-38502

Well, Skydiving, geeks, and Dune. Who woulda thunk it. Frankly it's amazing any of us get laid. Just kidding, I have read all of the Dune books - the ones by Frank at least, not his son or whoever picked up the torch. There's some neat shit in there. What worked for my fear, as I mentioned in a different thread, was telling everyone I could think of that I planned to jump on X date so I couldn't back out of it. It didn't make me any less afraid, but it did prevent me from bagging on something that deep down inside I knew I wanted to do. Not that I'm a professional advice giver or anything, but let me suggest a couple things: 1) buy Dr. John DeRosalia's book Mental Training for Skydiving and Life. Do a Google search to find his address or send me a private message and I can give it to you. It is well worth the $18, trust me. I think lots of other top notch skydivers out there have read it or trained with him, including Arizona Airspeed and others. 2) If you don't want to go to that much trouble, read Parachutist a lot, stare at the pictures, and visualize yourself doing some of that cool shit as a future D-license holding badass. If you can get excited about the possibilities it helps with your motivation to get through the initial barriers. 3) On the plane, take deep, smooth breaths. Ideally take up Yoga, they will teach you how to relax the right way. You won't necessarily have an epiphany like, "wow, now I know all I want to do is skydive." But you may find yourself getting in the car and going to the DZ because somewhere deep down inside you feel like that's really the only reasonable thing to do on a sunny day. Good luck and keep us posted! Joe A-38502

Thanks for the clarification. Actually, in point of fact I DID already know there is a difference, as I noted in parentheses in my previous post. I was merely suggesting that both midgets and dwarves apparently want to be called "little people." Perhaps they were tired of getting mistaken for each other so they just said fuck it, people just aren't going to remember what the difference is so let's both be called little people. Generally my understanding of the difference is along the lines of what you said, with the exception that i believe dwarves are always short and bow-legged with little short arms, thus it is Andre the Giant and not Andre the Giant/Dwarf. Wouldn't want people to think that I was ignorant about the classification of these strange little creatures! But thanks for looking out for me anyway.... Joe A-38502

Good job! I was last out on both my high solo and my first jump on my own pack job... that last one was a trip. We had a full Super Otter load and had to do a go-round because people took too long at the door. To quote our fine pilot: "Get the fuck out! What the fuck's taking so long?!" Not exactly calming. But it opened!! Joe

I mean, if you can't laugh about congenital birth defects than what CAN you laugh about?? Personally I think midgets are funny as hell. They skeeve me out a little bit but I'm sure if I could meet and befriend one it would make me more comfortable. I actually have an ongoing debate with a coworker about whether they like to be called midgets/dwarves (there IS a difference!) or "little people." I have had several people tell me that the latter is now the accepted way of referring to them. Come on all you midgets, "little people" sounds so stupid! Anyway I wholeheartedly agree that they should all be encouraged to skydive. Imagine a stack of midgets... like something out of Wizard of Oz with those flying chimps and whatnot. Bring it on! Joe

Hey Larissa, Well put. I think you hit the nail on the head that skydiving is all about faith and willingness to step up and take control of your fears and your actions. I had a lot of the same feelings you did when I was a student. I only have 27 jumps now, but trust me, the fear diminishes quickly (not that it's quite gone yet...). My initial solution to the problem of conflicting motivations was to tell everyone I knew that I was going to get my license. I'd also tell them which days I was planning to go jump and which level I was on. That way, I knew I'd have to go jump. I'm a very proud person and how could I go back and tell people I didn't jump? Not an option. The main mental hurdle to get over is your feeling about the space between the plane and the ground. Initially, it's the unknown - a place you're new to, where you lack control over your fate. Once you tumble a few times and recover fine, or nail a couple new moves, you start realizing that the air is a medium like any other - water, for instance - and that you ARE able to navigate through it. Most people learned to swim when they were too young to really remember overcoming the fear (including me). But I'm convinced that it's a similar concept. You know how good you feel in freefall? Well, just look out the window on the ride up and keep telling yourself "there's no fear out there." Say it enough times and your mind starts believing you... I also had the feeling that skydiving wasn't for me. There was always a little voice in the back of my head saying "you're not like these people; you can't do what they do." Well guess what? To paraphrase a line from Pulp Fiction, "that's fear, f***ing with you." The only thing you need to do to be "like them" is to tell that little voice to go to hell, and listen to the part of you that knows that flying your body through the upper air is one of the most beautiful and unique experiences a human can have. Not to mention expensive... but let's not dwell on that part. Anyway I'm not trying to write a book here, just know that there are plenty of ordinary people who have felt the same way you feel now and just kept forcing themself to take that little step off of security and into the wind, one time after another. I know you can do the same thing. Best of luck. Joe A-38502

Gaggle, passle, flock. I prefer the bird-related terms. Joe