wartload

Now THAT was funny!!

Quick story - I hope I get it right! UL aircraft designer Chuck Slusarczyk once worked for NASA and was assigned to a project developing bird-proof windshields. To test various materials and configurations, they built what they affectionately called "The Chicken Cannon" -- a pneumatic device that would launch a whole fryer at the mockup being tested, at speeds equivalent to a jet aircraft in flight. Once they were through with it, an agency in the UK asked to borrow it. NASA complied and shipped the thing off to them. Several days later they got a very disturbing call. On the first test, the bird not only penetrated the test windshield, it also went through the testbed itself ... and the wall behind it. "What should we do?", the Brits asked. "Thaw the chicken" was Chuck's reply.

You sure she isn't biting out his eyeball?

If it's in an area where you can do this, put a big scented candle (lit) on a chair under their nest.

Chevy Chase. I used to get that all the time when I was skinnier. It even got to the point that, when I moved to a new town to go to grad school, the guy running the only barbershop nearby thought that he was cutting Chase's hair. I stupidly told him, "No, I'm his brother ... and I don't want to talk about the cheap $)#7)@@!! You'd think that he'd toss a few bucks my way, so that I wouldn't have to drive that POS V.W. out there!" The next couple of times that I went in there, the guy loudly told all of his customers that I was Chevy Chase's brother. He really bought it. From then on, I had to go to another town to get my quarterly hair cut.

A guy in one of the clubs I jumped with did it as a joke ... with a T-bow. He just did a PLF in the pasture and was fine. I think it makes a HUGE difference to be expecting your canopy to open that way!

I'm allowed to say that. I'm orange. You aren't, so you can't!

Stainless Gas

Another FANDANGO vote! I have a very small collection of films worth watching every year. That was one of the first added.

We get it ... we get jokes ... we just don't understand why they call it "Orange" when it isn't orange and they don't even grow there.

Starting today, I'm an official Nielsen Ratings family for a week. The question now is, do I dutifully keep a diary of all my genuine video watching (which I'll probably do, after all, they sent me a buck!), or do I put down that I watch nothing but porn? Suggestions?

Another drumstick ...

Marc - I know that this must be emotional hell for you and for all your family. You will have many unanswered questions. They will, unfortunately, probably remain unanswered. Save these sentences that you wrote, and remember them when it hurts. He sounds like a great guy ... so devoted to his wife, to his land, and to farming. The pain of doing without them clearly was unbearable for him, and he made what was, for him, a rational decision to end that pain and to be with his wife ... and ultimately to become part of the land. Part of you already understands that, and the rest of you will accept it eventually. I'm sure that you and your family have a million great memories of your grandparents. They are what you need to have in your mind now.

Of course! How else would the Corona company move that crap that the spring-breakers swill in Cancun?

This is taken from another thread ... it explains why they don't have pink whales hanging there... http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=1011 Oh ... NSFW

Must be a Tejas thing.

I've got Verizon. The company has more than their share of useless arrogant pricks working there, but they seem to have the best coverage.

The Wallace brothers, of course...

Yeah ... especially the way that Americans speak it!

I use the pleated filter in our AC system (good advice, Brains) and also think that the Oreck works very well. They advertise that their machines are based upon the systems in nuke subs ... and they are correct. I used to ride an FBM. Oreck's URL is: http://www.oreck.com/air-purifiers/air8.cfm?bclick=36 I haven't got any interest in them beyond the fact that they seem to work well, and the HEPA units that we had before didn't do as good a job.

The no-frills model runs about $350. I think that I might have a catalog with them at discount, though.

General comments -- I'd avoid the ones that use HEPA filters. Got two of those and the replacement filter costs quickly made them more expensive than the others. Also got an Oreck and have liked that so far.

The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense ... by Michael Shermer I HIGHLY recommend this book, not necessarily for the topics that Shermer discusses (although they are interesting), but for the approach that he takes when evaluating them. This book can do a great deal to turn a bright person into a logical person.

Three great bits of advice that a guy gave me when I started riding motorcycles in the days before they had lessons and special license endorsements: 1) You are entirely invisible to all cars, except the ones that want to intentionally run over you. 2) There are gremlins in the road. They wait until you aren't paying close attention, then put sand, oil, holes, uneven pavement, or some other hazard under you. 3) The driver on the road who is most likely to hurt you is yourself. If you ever get the feeling that you have become a great motorcycle rider, get off ... and don't get back on until you fully realize that you never will be.

I have, too ... It's interesting, to me anyway, that the current generation's terminology seems to reflect how the media has talked about the sport over the last several years, rather than how those inside the sport traditionally talked about it. Have we lost our roots? Just musing on this theme ... One reason may be the ease of entry to the sport. If you have a stack of cash, and are interested, you can soon call yourself part of the fraternity. By the time you have genuinely earned your place as an authentic participant, you (and your cohort of fellow students) have adopted the media's vernacular as your own. The big change seems to have come about with the advent of tandem jumps. I have a neighbor who insists that she's a skydiver (and proudly/loudly calls herself one at social events) because she made one tandem jump. I have a hard time NOT telling her that she could as easily have been a sack of sawdust. In earlier times, you came into the sport as a student, rather than high-speed luggage. Although SL students ("dope on a rope") seldom had malfunctions, there was always a chance that they could, and they'd be on their own if they did. I think that this may have caused students to study as much about the sport as they could, and about the only place to learn was from other participants. There wasn't really much of a body of "popular" literature available then--and you almost had to be in the sport to even learn where the few books on parachuting could be bought. Adding to this need to learn was the perception that you, as a new parachutist, would be pretty much responsible for yourself. I first heard about AODs (ADDs) after I'd been in the sport for 3-4 years. Even then, they were for the (very few) rich guys, or clubs bought them to let students use. Within a few jumps, students were taking care of themselves: pack badly, and it's your ass; have a malfunction, and you need to know how to do a cutaway and deploy the reserve. More often than not, newcomers back then learned the language of the sport from experienced parachutists in sometimes very basic, but intimate environs. Now it seems as if fairly large numbers of students assemble at large commercial operations. They show up there with pre-conceived ideas and terms, often gotten from the 'Net, popular magazines or TV programs. Then they share them with other students. There's almost a sub-culture of new jumpers. Small wonder that the language sounds more like USA Today than old issues of Parachutist. Another thing that I've noticed is that, although I'm more than happy to call a "square" canopy a parachute, they really have always struck me as being something distinctly different from round canopies. They perform far more like soft-winged gliders. That's not at all a bad thing. It's just different. I first learned how to be a parachutist. Later on I learned to fly airplanes and Ultralight aircraft--on which I'd often kill the engine and fly as a light glider. When I returned to parachuting, and flew my first "square", I thought that the experience was distinctly more like flying a "draggy" glider than like steering a parachute. The landings were a world apart, as well. So maybe that explains things a bit...maybe the terminology has changed with the sport. It's entirely possible that what's being done now is not sport parachuting, but new evolutions of flying--both in freefall and under canopy (even though I smile at the new "flying" suits, knowing that similar "moth" and "bat" suits were used by some very early exhibition parachutists).