mdrejhon

One of my good friends in New Orleans had a stroke... According to the little information I have now, from his parents in New York state that seem suspicious of me (because they don't know me), he was stuck in New Orleans in a nursing home taking care of the old ones there. (He's a nursing home worker). He had a stroke and his condition is unknown right now. It sounded like it was really bad there, but there was limited information. Reading the news about dead bodies in nursing homes do not help eiither... It sounded like he was not rescued right away, either... but little information I know, and I am unable to ask for any more information. I don't even know if he's still alive. We had many good moments together camping, and a lot of memories. I'm feeling pretty sad right now. I feel so helpless...

How about RXL? It actually sounds like a sequel to RSL. Reserve eXpedited Line.

Try rebooting the computers, the cable/DSL modem and the router. Some sites just "die" because of various things that happens like a bad cached IP address or whatever, that needs to be cleared out...

I donated my other shoe to the dropzone in their "orphaned shoe" pile

I gave up having a car and now live downtown. I carpool to the dropzone instead. That's many thousands of dollars per year saved. I do use a carsharing service when I need it. (VRTUCAR, which is similiar to Zipcar)

Oops. I seem to have mis-read something. My apologies. You are correct.

This is similiar to Extreme SkyFlyer ride at the Canada's Wonderland amusement park, which I rode in 1996, and which was what made me decide to try skydiving (I did a tandem the next year).

Incorrect. You're talking about read speed, not access time. Access/Seek is faster from flash, you must be talking about read speed which is slower than a hard disk. Modern flash can go 10-25 megabytes per second in read speed, so flash "read speed" is catching up to hard disks nowadays.

I had my first two high altitude rides (9000 and 10,000 feet) and really enjoyed them. However, after exiting a longer than usual spiral (About 6 or 7 revolutions), I did notice my legs almost start to fall asleep at 4000 feet! I just grabbed both left and right risers and lifted myself a little for about 3 or 4 seconds to relieve pressure. That fixed the problem instantly.

Extreme SkyFlyer ride at Canada's Wonderland amusement park in 1996. I did a tandem the next year, 1997. It still stuck in my mind. Did another in 2002. When my 31st birthday came to pass, and I was in a new job, I decided to go for a freefall progression course. Decided I'd regret it more if I didn't fork over the money for the opportunity. I did see a demo jumper land 20 feet away from me back in 1988/1989 and the skydiving movies in the early 1990's, but Extreme SkyFlyer was the one that made me decide to want to try it for sure.

I accidentally forgot to spit gum when I went on a jump. I did not notice it until I noticed I was still chewing after I landed! Apparently, I had kept it in my mouth in freefall and had been automatically chewing during canopy flight and didn't realize it! This would be more dangerous for a first time tandem (when they gasp, gulp, or scream). thoough...

Hit all cylinders. Diversify. Get the word of mouth through friends, family, etc. Do the online job sites too, but don't just do online resumes only, go to some of the office buildings in a suit and present a copy of the same your resume in person too. FedEx instead of Fax to grab attention better. Use a resume improvement service to get ideas of making resumes more eyecatching. Offer free overtime. Do some volunteer work too, in due process of getting eventual real work. Show initiative. Read the jobs-wanted ads in science-related and biotech-related publications. Visit your university/college again and find out what companies have partnered or recruited there. Etc etc. It's painful, I know. Keep working at it!

People are taught differently, but right now I am taught to be aware of the jump run direction at exit. So I try to quickly look at the jump run direction through the window before I exit. I can now recognize landmarks such as the forest to the north and the rivers to the south, as well as familiar farmhouses surrounding the runways even if I can't see the runways. I am also now taught to turn 90 degrees then cup to go up, if I am very low (too low to easily see the formation, ie more than 20 feet low, and easier to look up by turning head to the side), That way, I don't accidentally float forward under the formation when I try to cup, since many RW newbies have a tendancy to shift forward or backwards when they cup. However, I haven't gone that low before, so I haven't had the opportunity to test that out. I am a floaty guy and I almost always float above, not below. Getting much better at fallrate control now after a lot of RW jumps this weekend. Please note, different dropzones (or different instructors) have different rules I bet...this is just simply what I have been taught so far. (Note: Earlier, I think I mentioned my answer would be to track early. I take back that newbie answer. Now I would look for the formation above me to the best of my knowledge, slide at least a bit away to give some horizontal separation so I don't go underneath the formation, and then keep watching the formation while cupping like hell until my own breakoff altitude and then find my own clear air at my own breakoff altitude, paying attention to people above and to sides, in addition to watching the air in the direction ahead and below that I'm tracking to.)

I think another reason why I bent my legs in is because I was floating up a few inches and had to compensate for that and the people behind me was pulling me to a potential dearch. I knew that people grabbing at me would affect my arch, and I was working to compensate that, and may have erred in bending my legs in - I'll keep working at it - but fallrate was one of my primary objectives since I was flying an easy slot on that first 9-way (For that first 9-way I didn't have to move between points, unlike for the subsequent 6-ways and 7-way jumps where I did some flying between points) Either way, see me smiling -- I had lots of fun!

I figured that out, when I was doing the several 6 and 7-ways that I went on after this 100th. I was concentrating on fallrate matching and I now have an automatic instinct to stretch my legs out before letting go of grips. When connected in the center, I kinda bent my legs in when I was trying to fall faster, but I know that it causes me to backslide when I let go. I managed to successfully no-grip fly to my slot in a couple of stars or partial stars before the last people did though! (Though I admit several had more challenging slots) I am learing a lot, pretty FAST. The 9-way was the catalyst that got me invitations to subsequent RW, and I am looking forward to continuing to be invited. I can finally fly to my slot from an unlinked exit within seconds without going too low, though I have only done this up to a 4-way level so far. At this moment, tracking seems to be my weak link (I was doing a newbie legs-apart track, now I am trying to learn a flat track that involves legs fully together, like the pros do. It's really hard and unstable, and I am going to pratice this on several solos as I have. I am using the 2000 feet airport runway as a horizontal ruler and my altimeter as the vertical ruler, tracking cross-run from 11K down to about 5K in tracking-pratice jumps. Trying to hit the magic 1:1 angle instead of a steep angle... I once saw a good surge of horizontal motion sometimes, I need to try to reproduce that... One of the instructors have showed me how to flat track. I had 9 RW jumps for the weekend. I did a 10-point 3-way, that was my best so far. The 9-way was 2 points, the 6-ways was 3 and 2 points respectively (for my slot, it was 2 and 2 respectively for whole formation), and the 7-way was 2 points (for my slot, 1 point for whole). So I thankfully was not the weak link, I was trying hard to not be the "slow one, the weak link, the meat missle". I was not perfect, but I am getting better. Two or three funnelled exits (but did not break up and the formation flipped back belly side up within 1000 or 2000 feet), with the rest being good exits (both diving and relative wind exits). Two instances where somebody else flew under the formation, and broke us up. For some more pratice, I'm considering maybe trying joining the Gananoque "4-way scrambles" competition if I can find partners to do it with, for Oct 1st, depending on my licensing by then. (Have to write to the origanizer.)

It is useful to remember Prohibition from history class. I think pot should have similiar legal standing as tobacco (i.e. legal but heavily regulated). I've seen many pot smokers more responsible than chain tobacco smokers, that it's silly to call that occasional pot smoker an abuser rather than the chain smoker. Note: I have never smoked either.

Yeah, that's what happens behind the scenes. At the front end, bottom line, it's just a "BUY" and "SELL" button on my computer. I can click "SELL" before clicking "BUY" for a short position. Everything else happens automatically behind the scenes. The brokerages, clearing houses, stock exchanges, computer systems, floor traders, and all that, do the hard work, paid-for by the commission charge I pay per trade. In the front end, it's a lot simpler - sometimes deadly simple. I'm a longer-term guy though, not a day trader.

:18:3 Not telling about the smiley, but it wasn't at the dropzone. 18 jumps in one weekend, since it was a Twin Otter boogie. Yes, that's $600 CDN of jump tickets. Ouch. Bonus altitude is yummy, though! It is still very rare to have a Twin Otter in Canada for skydiving, and there is only one full-time Twin Otter to the best of my knowledge. Beer - 100th jump - A license (soon B) - First 9-way

You cannot predict the market. Sometimes the stock bounces up, so that's why many keep holding on. And other times, other buyers think the discount is like a bargain -- a sale on stock. So people that sell, there are always buyers. I've owned stock that was, say, $5, that fell agonizingly $2 before going to $10. I had many temptations to sell while the stock went from $5 to $2. But I did not. (1000 shares, that's $5000 down to $2000). At least, that was $10,000 when it recovered. Yes, sometimes a stock never recovers. You can never know. There are times you make money and times you lose money. In the long term, you hope to earn a lot more money. Often, good and smart research make it profitable instead of a gamble. Other times, people treat the stock market like a casino. It depends on what kind of mindset you have. Over the last 100 years, the stock market has gone up "on average", so the odds are stacked in your favour if you make the right decisions and stick to it for more than 10 years to average out the good and bad times. If you don't feel like dealing with stocks, leave it to the professionals and buy mutual funds or an index fund (which matches the stock market index)

Nobody pays original value ever (original value may be matched only if it's also the current market value too). People (buyers and sellers) deal in the current market value, which fluctuates. This is another whole ballpark that needs explanation, but think of an auction of a seasonal item. At one time, an item may be valuable and another time it may not be. A stock market is often like an auction for shares in a company. It's been modernized and automated to the point where all you have to do is click a button to buy or sell. Often easier than eBay.

In my trademarked PlainEnglish(tm), which may be somewhat watered down, it's actually more complex than this, but, here goes: It's all done automatically. Whenever you buy stock, you also automatically give short sellers permission to sell your shares. It's implied automatic permission, as long as the shares are in 'electronic' format. But you can ask for the real shares in paper format to be mailed to your address, you can prevent short sellers from "borrowing" your shares. You can sell your owned traditionally shares ("long" positions) even if they are lent out. When you place a sell order of your existing shares (that were already lent out) -- it just automatically forces the short seller to sell back to you *instantly* (the brokerage/exchange computers will automatically buy them back for you and put it back into your account instantly, so that you can sell instantly). Computer systems keep track of what shares are available for shorting, and automatically forces an instantaneous buy-back of lent shares. In fact, that Microsoft shares or General Electric shares or Coca-Cola shares in your retirement account, may currently be lent out to somebody else right now without you really knowing. The shares are 'virtually' there though anyway, because you can sell anytime -- if they're lent out, you get the shares back instantly if you feel like selling right now -- the computer systems pretty much guarantee that. So it's as if you've never lent out the shares! In fact, if you own ANY mutual fund containing stocks, I can pretty much guarantee you are indirectly affected by a short position -- A mutual fund containing stocks, often let them be lent out. (And it doesn't have to be hedge fund)

There's no time limit for a "short position", although this is indeed typically a short-term position. (Also, see my post above)

Good explanation: http://www.fool.com/FoolFAQ/FoolFAQ0033.htm You just borrow somebody's shares and sell them (i.e. for $100 per share). The company bombs and the stock is only $50 now. You buy the shares back and give it back to the person you borrowed from. (It doesn't even have to be the exact same shares by serial number, just shares of the same ticker symbol). Because you sold at $100 and bought back at $50, you make a $50 profit per share. That's how short selling works, in layman's terms. All legal. It's actually all automated so all you have to do is sell before you buy. The stock exchange computer systems automatically does the borrowing and returning the shares. However, it can be somewhat dangerous, if you sell at $100 and the company skyrockets to $250, you can lose more money than the principal.

Well, I would never say never... I'd like to do legal sites like, Bridge Day, MOAB, and Norway someday. Pretty high heights. But I'll go to BASE school first. (maybe 2008?)

Welcome to the "lost shoe club". I lost my shoe somewhere around my 48th (or so).