mdrejhon

Belligerent isn't available any more? Damn! I liked that one. We have a few 24-packs of Belligerent left. Would you like some? Although I personally prefer Red Bull or GoFast beverages.

Certainly a good idea. We will need to keep everyone happy: Freeflyers, accuracy, CRW, RW. Kirsten Johnson can take care of RW jumps (SCR's, 20-way), while someone else takes care of accuracy, etc. Another volunteer just recently offered to cover 4-ways (which could cover the novices and newbies). Volunteers will be needed to organize each sub-event at Rainbow Boogie. I will be having a meeting with Martin this month about this to cover some of this. Ideas and volunteers are welcome -- especially if you have instructing and load-organizing experience. We want to make every Solo, A, B, C, D licensed jumper happy with this first of a kind event.

Oh HELL no!! Nontheless, we need ideas on the contests for winning prizes that some of our sponsors will be giving us. Like the gift certificates towards a new rig, etc. It needs to be fair to the newbies and novices too, or we need multiple classes (novice class, expert class) for separate prizes. Maybe an "ugliest rig" contest, as one of the contests? Everyone would get to vote! Ideas welcome! I know Kirsten Johnson will have some things planned. We will all be brainstorming about this a little bit later on, but we're also keeping a list of new ideas.

I wanted my own. Housing prices more than doubled around here in many places in the last 8 years. Right now I'm happy paying only a little above ~$500 utilities-included in a large 2-bedroom downtown apartment (~1000sq feet) with heating, air conditioning, large balcony, dishwasher, and robot vaccuum. (Okay, I purchased that last item!) No property taxes or condo fees, all the heating and air conditioning I feel like at fixed cost. Only 2 blocks away from two supermarkets and tons of restaurants. Even a 30 year mortgage in a similiar place would require me to pay almost twice that for the same thing, and that does not include taxes/utilities/fees. Eventually, I'd like my own place, but it looks like I'll have to make some tough choices down the road. Share with a loved one AND still rent out a room to really good roommate like the one I have now

I saw another thread that a dropzone in Venezuela has $13 tickets to 15000 in AN28 aircraft.

Damn... I don't know what to say. Just be there for your mom even if it is by telephone at times; I lost an aunt to cancer in 1988. My family cancelled a trip to Florida and Disneyland before she died. We were glad because she deteriorated so quickly, she would have died while we were still on vacation. It's very sad you have to go through this; You can count on my support (and a lot of others) at Rainbow Boogie 2006 (if you still plan to come!).

Although I am in my early 30's, sharing an apartment and not owning a car helps quite a bit. Some of us like to avoid the iron ball of mortgage or expensive car/insurance payment and spend it on vacations and jumping. I spent the equivalent of 25% of my income last year (first year of non-tandem skydiving). I did sell some of my stuff, such as my entire Star Trek DVD collection (Got almost $1000 total), to finance the purchase of my skydiving rig.

Not yet. At least there was no problems when I drove through the border, either for me as a Canadian and a friend as an American. Things may be different at airports (they are a bit more strict about it at airports). However, I strongly recommend making sure your passport is current, or getting one if you don't have one. Just to be safe.

Nah. I'm single.

I have heard from numerous BASE jumpers that a more productive and less chaotic first jump might be the Perrine Bridge, because they have a less distracting atmosphere and a more permanent BASE school near there, and is open all year long rather than just 1 day, and that the landing areas are much better over there... (Keep in mind there are 100,000 people at Bridge Day!) Even though I do want to experience Bridge Day sometime. BUT.... I'm a BASE whuffo, so in fact, don't even listen to me -- ask your questions in the BASE forums or at places like Blinc Magazine (a popular BASE website). And definitely look at all the accident videos (to scare you into learning properly.) Disclaimer: I know NOTHING about BASE.

I highly recommend that BASE jumpers be mindful of the fact that we are trying to keep good publicity for the event and to keep the event safe and uneventful, with no injuries. I'd hate it for an inexperienced BASE jumper to injure himself off an antenna near the Rainbow Boogie. Perhaps set up a Perrine Bridge or Bridge Day "mini BASE boogie" for another time among the 5 or 6 BASE jumpers I expect to be at the boogie. There could be more than that, but as far as I have heard, about 4 of you are BASE jumpers and I suspect there's about 2 others. There could be even more than that, I'm not sure, as I have not asked everybody if they have made a BASE jump. But enough jumpers to know that there looks to be an unofficial meeting of gay BASE jumpers exchanging stories around the bonfire. (I do want to BASE someday -- so call me a potential jumping buddy -- but I've decided I need plenty of skydiving experience, and plenty of accuracy canopy control skills and also first taking a course such as Apex BASE.)

Three other people appear to be editing this article at the same time. (Although one person seems to be removing the links that I've added). I've cotacted a volunteer at Wikipedia to clarify rules for listing links in the VWT article. (I'm not the person who removed any links, by the way.)

To be fair, we are also in talks with two other gear manufacturers who did indeed express interest! Either way, let's be nice to our sponsors!

The Rainbow Boogie Blog (www.rainbowskydive.com/news) has now been updated. Two new sponsors have been added! ToBe is a local gay newspaper that will be covering the event. Jump Shack has provided gift certificates that can be used towards a new rig, and we'll use this as some kind of a prize or draw at Rainbow Boogie 2006. More sponsors are on their way.

It needs to conform to Wikipedia's encyclopediac rules and guidelines, so I made some more edits. I noticed I made some errors too, thanks for correcting them. Just so you know. (Can you keep it down for a moment... The corrections took me over 30 minutes... I'm trying to jobhunt at the moment... LOL)

I tested one of these LED altimeters. Please let me know, I really want one of these sometime this year.

Maybe it could be a great demo sport in 5 to 10 years from now -- after tons more windtunnels open. (SkyVenture seems to be going gangbusters here.) I remember the IOC was once petitioned by USPA about allowing skydiving/parachuting as a demonstration sport, but that failed. (Someone more familiar with that effort, could elaborate further.) What about wind tunnels? Granted, wind tunnels will need to be much more widespread in each country, but the publicity of the closing ceremonies could cause a few new units to be constructed. As a side spinoff, it would make the skydiving sport more popular too.

Dell 30" LCD monitor with 2560x1600 resolution.

Don't laugh just yet. The broken camera is worth $200 disassembled. Three broken cameras can be turned into two good cameras: One with a broken lens, one with a broken screen, and one with a rusted motherboard. That still means two good lens, two good screens, two good motherboards. Just disassemble, swap the parts around, reassemble. Presto, two working cameras! I do this kind of stuff, trust me on this one. The broken camera is worth $200 disassembled in the right hands. These days, for most people, it is cheaper to buy replacements than to repair stuff. Not many repair stores repairs cameras, but eBay over the last few years, is opening a whole new market of home-based repair (for me it's only an occasional hobby). Thousands of people make it a hobby or a living to save a few dollars by repairing broken stuff. eBay has made it much easier to buy replacement parts for cheaper than directly from the factory. Today, because of this, it is not unusual to get about 15-40% of used market value by selling the broken gadget of a popular model (camcorder, laptop, camera, handheld computer, cellphone).

Not always a dumbass. A few years ago, I purchased two broken iPaq handheld computers (with different broken parts - one had a cracked screen, the other had a bad motherboard) for $100 each off eBay ($200 total) I disassembled, swapped good parts, reassembled, and I had a working color handheld computer that was worth $400. Needless to say, I resold the carcass of leftoverr parts for $100. I kept the working handheld computer. Total gain: $300 worth of value. eBay is a self-repairman's dream, so selling broken cameras and broken laptops will gain you quite a bit of return of money as long as you are honest and accurate in describing what works and what does not work, with plenty of photographs. I also sold a broken laptop motherboard for about $200 too. (I replaced it with a good DELL motherboard for $400). Some repairman company bought the motherboard from me -- apparently they knew what they were doing. Dell's website had laptop disassembly instructions somewhere deep in their website, and I downloaded them. Anybody that has built a few computers, can learn how to disassemble/reassemble a modular electronics gadget such as a laptop, camera, or handheld computer. In fact, the broken camera that you sold, has a fully functioning camera motherboard and a fully functioning color LCD screen -- worth about $200 disassembled and can be recycled to repair/refurbish maybe 3 or 4 other broken cameras of the same brand. Just like a disassembled car is often worth more than a fully assembled car; you can sell each part individually for repairing other cars. It's more effort, but people speciallize in this sort of thing too. Also, your 'dumbass' left you some greatly positive feedback: "Awesome Seller!!! Great Packaging and Speedy Delivery!!! Thanks!!!" Clearly, he was satisfied.

Come on, throw a few firelogs into the Bonfire Thread about Rainbow Boogie

Added bodyflying. Wikipedia Editing Instructions (anybody can edit a Wikipedia article): 1. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_wind_tunnel 2. Click "edit this page" (works anonymously). 3. Add your extra information. Errors and vandalism is easy to revert (i.e. someone wrecking someone else's article) by clicking the History tab, clicking an old article, selecting Edit, and saving it. Instant revert to a backup. It automatically keeps backup copies of all edits, so any bad edit can be easily reverted. It's a great community encyclopedia with lots of great reading.

As a contributor to Wikipedia... I've added a link to the vertical wind tunnels article to the Wikipedia 2006 Closing Ceremonies article, which is now featured on Monday's "In The News" on the Wikipedia Main page. Hopefully this brings more traffic, since Bodyflight Network is now only two clicks away from the Wikipedia main page for today

It's not about something that is broken and it is not about fixing something. Your words. It's not about fixing something that is broken - it is about improvement through time tested technology but only when it becomes more trustworthy than without, and right now it's too early to tell the direction skydiving and AAD's will be in 20 years from now. You are right that there isn't really a need NOW. But I am saying the potential is there to need improvement in the FUTURE. Remember we can't accurately predict 20 years into the future. Not me either. Please remember technologies have a knack of simplifying over time. While today's complex computers, such as Windows-based systems, crashes a lot and/or put up a lot of problems, you have to remember that computers more complex than complicated full size room 1950's computers are routinely in wristwatches, elevator control electronics, modern pacemakers, medical machines, even a wireline phone headset, etc. (Even a simple caller display chip with display, for example, contains more computing power than a 1940's room size computer). It is the point of the point of time-tested technology that start to become more trustworthy with it than without, where it's clearly and easily an improvement by virtual unamious opinion, rather than a scary complicated add-on with unproven track record that makes a gadget more complicated and more crashprone (like a Windows computer collecting an infestation of viruses and spyware, or hardware problems such as dirt clogging the CPU fan, etc.). Obviously some predicted technologies, such as the vaunted 1950's nuclear engine for never-have-to-refuel cars, never came to fruitition -- now that we all know how horrendously complicated and dangerous nuclear reactors are. (It is interesting to note that *Current* trends of accelerometers, appear to be going in the direction of simplification, not complexification.) One of the many great examples of "complex technology undergoes simplification" is the wristwatch, comparing digital versus analog. A mechanical analog wristwatch is orders of magnitude simpler in terms of number of parts, but typically more unreliable, does not keep time as accurately, and requires more maintenance. A digital wristwatch contains greatly over 10,000 separate parts (counting each individual transitor on a chip) that were designed in a specific way one way or another by humans. Yet remarkably ends up being more reliable, more inexpensive, and more accurate nowadays. In fact, today it is now harder to design an analog wristwatch than a digital wristwatch, because a university Electronics engineer (or even high school Electronics student) can more easily put together off-the-shelf parts for a custom digital wristwatch than an analog watch of the same size. It's remarkable how complex technologies gradually, over time, becomes simple. To a watch engineer, a off-the-shelf wristwatch chip is just one additional part that was previously designed and tested for years by other chip engineers - this engineer doesn't need to have an understanding of each transitor inside the watch chip, just need a basic understanding of the generic logic, protocol, and/or now-familiar programming language the particular chip uses. Likewise, as technologies simplify themselves into easily manipulatable parcels (single copmonents), they become easier building blocks, even though each individual building block (chip) is very complex inside. And yes, I'm definitely aware that a hugely evil side exists in a complicated gadget, but I am also aware with how certain former complex technologies end up becoming time tested super-reliable, greatly simplified into a single time-tested off-the-shelf component, and very well-integrated into society with a proven track record and easy for a low-wage engineer to work with. Whether you're stepping into an elevator or you're glancing at a wristwatch. Anyway, this thread is yours -- enjoy -- I'm just letting this thread die as I think excellent good points have been successfully made by multiple parties (yourself included too).

Bring the story, bring the story. A lot of us would love to hear about it. There'll be a bonfire.