JDBoston

One reserve ride, no cutaways. Jump #36 or thereabouts. Dropped the handle (I have a pull-out) before getting the pin out, and couldn't get a grip on the handle or the bridle after a few seconds so decided it was time for plan B. Had a nice terminal reserve opening.... actually, it wasn't that nice.... but it definitely opened. Totally avoidable, had I spent 5 minutes on the ground rehearsing how to find the bridle on the back of my rig. Had a similar situation again recently, and was able to get to the bridle no problem. I am also taking steps to make sure that situation doesn't occur any more. Bigger pud handle, and more mental engagement at pull time. Both times it occurred I was wearing gloves - shitty leather gloves the first time, and NFL receiver gloves with separate liners under them the second time. Joe

Well, in my experience most dogs don't understand English so you can safely make fun of them without fear of hurting their feelings. If the dog is afraid of the people it lives with, there are probably deeper issues than whether it thinks they're making fun of it. Just a few thoughts. Joe

Yeah, I guess it all depends on your situation. My rigger packs a lot of Racers and doesn't mind them at all. Jump Shack can be a little quirky and stubborn about what they believe is safe or not, which I am assuming is why they refused to make you a reserve pillow, but at my stage in my skydiving career I'm not making any nonstandard requests of them yet so I haven't encountered that. My customer service experience so far has been great. I was back and forth with Nancy on the phone a bunch of times while my rig was being made, tweaking design stuff etc., it came out just like I wanted, and recently when I wanted a different-shaped pull-out handle made, it was no problem at all. Nancy met me down at Lake Wales with the new handle & lanyard, put it on the rig for me, and off I went. But, to each his own. Joe

I have two categories. 1) Subjects that are NEVER funny, such as rape - surprised no one mentioned that yet, or maybe I missed it... 2) Subjects that may be pretty crude and offensive, but can be funny given a certain teller and a certain audience - race, handicaps, sexuality, etc. etc. - people poking fun at their own group is usually a lot more palatable than when it comes from people outside the group. I'm neutral on Holocaust jokes because I have Jewish friends who will throw out an occasional one. I don't think they're particularly funny - like other people here, I have distant relatives who were on the sharp end of the whole thing, and I don't think there's any real humor in the situation in general - but I do understand humor as an occasional way for some people to make very hurtful things tolerable. Likewise with 9-11. You won't ever hear me cracking a joke about it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them become more mainstream in a 5-10 years. That's just how people are. In general, I think a joke's in bad taste if it's a basically offensive joke and you don't know your audience well enough to know how it will be received. Joe

What you describe (10 within 10 meters) is the accuracy requirement for a USPA B license. Not exactly a tall order for a reasonably competent canopy pilot. Joe

I bought both a Cypres and a main online from people I'd never met and it worked out fine. On the Cypres, I called a local DZ to make sure the guy was legit (he was in TX). On the main, I had the guy send it to a well-known rigger in MA for inspection and had the rigger act as the middleman - i.e. he told me it was OK to pay, I paid, the seller told him it was OK to give me the canopy. It's not too hard to keep everything simple and at the same time avoid getting screwed. If you're dealing with someone who doesn't want to do things that way, with some kind of safeguard, then that should tell you something. Joe

Would never happen, mine are WAY too big to make their way under the straps once I get them cinched up. Sometimes I worry about my rod catching my cutaway handle though. Joe

I have a Racer I bought last February and I freefly (or at least sit...) in it all the time. It has zero velcro - tuck tab riser covers and the walrus teeth for the main flap. No problems at all. Love it. Joe

He cleared it by pumping the brakes, hard. Joe

We got a couple sessions in at Skyventure when we were down there for the Lake Wales boogie this weekend. My buddy and I each did 15 minutes of sitflying in the tunnel with coaching from Steve Blincoe (bigshot freeflyer, believe he's a national champ...). Anyway, for our 15 minutes of tunnel time, in addition to video and very attentive coaching real-time in the tunnel, we got probably about 3x our tunnel time in debriefings afterwards. I can't say enough about how good Steve Blincoe is. One of the times we went (4 of us total, for 1/2 hour), we got done at about 10 PM and despite the fact that Steve had been jumping all day and coaching stuff at the tunnel afterwards and probably just wanted to go home and sleep, he spent about 1.5 hours with us debriefing with the help of the video. Anyway, Steve's a super-nice guy, loves his job, and knows his shit. If you get a chance to get coaching from him, in the tunnel or the air, I'd recommend it. Joe

We had zero problems carrying our rigs on Southwest from Hartford to Orlando and back. At Hartford, they wanted to check the rigs out and seemed to be most curious about the pilot chute springs, not the Cypres. Three of us went through in a row and they only balked at 2 of the rigs. I believe all 3 had a Cypres. One of the TSA supervisors (?) wandered by and asked the TSA woman why she didn't just open it up to take a look. I politely explained why this would be kind of a hassle. Then he asked why I needed to carry it on. I explained it was the single most expensive thing I owned and I was very protective of it. Then another TSA woman wandered by and mentioned that her son was a skydiver. Basically we were very polite to all of them, kept our cool even when they suggested doing things we didn't want to do, cracked an occasional joke, and it worked out fine. I had my hook knife in my checked luggage. Coming back through Orlando, all three of us again went through right after one another, and no one batted an eye. We picked our gear bags up off the belt and continued on to the gate. Joe

Two experienced jumpers had a canopy collision at

Yep. Joe

Who's going? There'll be a bunch of us northerners down there. Joe

Allow me to summarize this perennial debate. Everyone loves the rig they have right now. Most major gear manufacturers have given at least one person a bad experience. Riggers and other knowledgeable people still continue to disagree on the benefits and disadvantages of every manufacturer's distinctive approach. I have a Racer and have never had any problems with it. Next? Joe

I was able to find a cheap & easy solution to this with the help of some bored people at Jumptown on a bad weather day. After cutting a notch out of the foam liner in the ear area so the Dytter would fit, I glued a piece of spandex (with a glue stick) to the foam liner around the ear area, completely covering the ear area from the side that faces the outside of the helmet. Then I just pushed the Dytter into the ear area from the outside. I can hear it just fine through the spandex, I can press the buttons through the grate on the outside of the helmet, and it's held tight by the spandex on the inside and the helmet shell on the outside. I'm very happy. Joe

Without knowing much of anything about the relationship, I think it's likely to be a simple character issue on her part, not a relationship dynamics issue. If you'd been married for 10 years or something, you might have more to talk about. But 15 months and she's doing this shit? Uh-uh. Bottom line, basically I think there are people you can trust and people you can't. Hey, most people can fuck up once or twice, and that's not always enough to blacklist them for life, but this is different. The lying is the biggest thing. People who lie even when they're caught usually have genuine psychological problems. NB: Sorry to be crass, but I am assuming this whole time that she actually cheated on you w/this guy, not just that she went out for ice cream and flirted with him. It DOES make a difference IMHO. Anyway, STAY AWAY FROM THIS GIRL! Joe

1. What are you thoughts on base jumping?? (i.e. scares you to death, can't wait to do it, etc.) Intriguing but scares the hell out of me. It's almost like it scares me more the more I jump. I see myself get a little nervous trying something new skydiving - a bigger RW jump than I've done before, or whatever - and I think, this is nothing compared to trying something like BASE... 2. Does this forum affect your feeling toward you base jumping and why? (i.e. do you want to do it now from stuff you have read or not do it now) Has made me slightly more interested but only because I feel like I understand the feelings & factors involved a little better now, and it's easier for me to be interested in something I feel I can grasp, even a little bit... 3. If you do want to jump, how many jumps (just a guess) do you think you will have when you will be ready to jump and has this forum affected that number? Has it cuased the number to be higher or lower and why? 500 absolute minimum and I'll probably keep putting it off even at that point. If anything the forum has caused that # to be a bit higher, since the feedback I've seen from experienced, probably-impartial BASE jumpers is a little different from the feedback from BASE equipment manufacturers, and seems more reliable... 4. Hypothetical- If you made a couple of jumps with a experienced jumper or attended a fjc, would you be comfortable continuing your jumping on your own, with just the information from here or Blinc? No. That doesn't fit inside my tolerance for risk... I phrased it differently the first time but didn't want to seem like I was flaming anyone cause I wasn't.

Funny, I thought some smaller sports cars were representative of that syndrome as well. It's an epidemic! Joe

True, but the plane isn't for vanity. There's simply nothing else that'll do the job. If you have something more fuel-efficient like a hot air balloon, just for example , give me a call and I'll come jump at your place. Joe

Yeah, and all their stuff is so cheap.... NOT!!! Who's their target audience? It sure isn't your typical rural resident. $183.50 for a sweater. Looked comfortable enough, but damn...

BA in Linguistics. Predictably, my jobs since school have had absolutely nothing to do with linguistics. No concrete plans to spend more time as a student, but you never know... Joe

She can't wrestle, but you oughtta see her box... I can't believe no one said it yet. Sheesh. Joe

40124 you mean? Otherwise that sounds like a pretty long processing delay... Joe

I'd go from 42 feet with no gear whatsoever over water... Joe