MarkM

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    3,000

  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by MarkM

  1. MarkM
    A dog attacking someone that isn't threating it or its owner is hardly a mistake. I love animals, especially dogs, but if they can't behave properly around people then they need to be put down. It's usually the owner's fault the animal acts that way, but I've yet to see a bad owner turn into a good one.
  2. MarkM
    If a dog bit me like that I'd beat the shit out of it so it'd never even think about it again. If it bit a loved one I'd just kill it. It's 100% unacceptable for an animal to bite a person unless it's defending its owner.
  3. MarkM
    Omar got a girlfriend. Haven't heard of him jumping for awhile. I know Matt still jumps and I've heard he's going to the PR boogie, but I'm thinking he's doing a lot of "other life" stuff now too. If we want cool vids and a lot of action going on in the scene, we need to keep injecting fresh blood into the scene and make sure they stay active. Boring flocking videos aren't boring to someone who only has 20 wingsuit jumps.
  4. MarkM
    Hmm page not found....
  5. MarkM
    Cut up your girlfriend's favorite thong and use that. Not only will you get in valuable packing practice, but you'll have more time and money for skydiving.
  6. MarkM
    The nerve/fear response is biological. You can't not feel it. Evolution has made it a requirement. So anytime you do something your instincts associate as "dangerous", heights, speak in front of crowds, ask a pretty girl out, interview for a job, your body is going to react the same way until it learns doing that won't kill you(you do it enough times). Brian Germain has some goods books on the subject. You can control the response by tricking your body into a less heightened state. Slow down, breathe deeply, focus, flow.
  7. MarkM
    Best I can guess is it's the MTV effect. Casters figure the average viewer has the attention span of a hamster so they cater to it by shoving a bunch of OMG-FLASH-VIDEO-QUESTION-FLASH-FLASH at the viewer. I mean, the interview was sort of like "LOOK video!" "So Justin, do you do this crazy insane sort of thing like X." < Insert normal sane adult response from Justin > "LOOK video!!"
  8. MarkM
    I'd say that was some pretty good responses to some haphazard all over the place questions.
  9. MarkM
    Follow Orange1's link in post #2. Parent's divorced. Dad signs waiver, kid dies. Mom sues. And even if both parents signed a waiver, a grandparent could sue. A brother could sue, etc etc.
  10. MarkM

    Sebastian Blog

    MarkM replied to DSE's topic in Wing Suit Flying

    Nice. I can't wait to be back and jump on new years.
  11. MarkM
    I had 201 jumps. I started doing nothing but tracking around jump 120 until I had the numbers for wingsuiting. I think the tracking really helped.
  12. MarkM
    After 10 jumps in a GTI I picked up a PHI, which was an intermediate to advanced suit. Lots of tail wing, pretty twitchy. Not a good suit for a newbie. 10-20 jumps in on it found me on my back flat spinning through 4k of altitude before giving up and deploying in the spin. I got lucky and didn't get tangled up in my deploying main. With Tonysuit's buyback program there's no reason not get an intro, or to pick up one of the 500 used GTI's out there. Learning on a small wing will give you some forgiveness.
  13. MarkM
    Just throwing on another "sign off on this" requirement isn't going to solve anything. People will sit in the course, remember just enough to pass it, then the day it's over go out and buy a 2.0 loaded katana and spin it into the ground taking out 3 people in pattern along the way.
  14. MarkM
    It'd be more like buying a car that has 1km on it. If reserves are built so flimsy that jumping them a couple times is "abuse", then we should be using mains as reserves since they're built so much better.
  15. MarkM
    Just because the manufacturer wants them inspected every X jumps or pack jobs doesn't mean they're wearing out any faster. It's just prudence. Sort of like having a fire extinguisher inspected every X days. But it's sure true a lot of people want low jump/packed reserves. I think this is much more psychological than anything else though.
  16. MarkM
    I don't think the design of reserves is all that much different than mains as far as construction and materials. I'd guess that it'd take hundreds of jumps for wear and tear to set in, but I'd love to hear if I was wrong.
  17. MarkM
    Every time my Neptune has failed it froze the screen at a set altitude or setting. I once passed opened tandems at 10k, thought to myself "huh they opened high, wonder why" and then noticed my Neptune wasn't moving from 10k. I trust my eyes, internal clock, audible, what other jumpers are doing, open canopies and not just once source of information.
  18. MarkM
    Freak out. Pull immediately, which would be my main just out of reflex and habit. Hope my buds do the same. Hope we end up with enough vertical separation so we don't fly into each other and wrap. Deal with any 2 outs and find a suitable landing space ASAP.
  19. MarkM
    When you prepay for an AFF course you generally get a discount. I wouldn't expect them to give you full price back on the remaining 2 jumps, but they should refund you something for the unused jumps since it's their choice, not yours, to not continue on with it.
  20. MarkM
    Mach 1 wingsuit, about 400 or so wingsuit jumps, Lotus 136 loaded between 1.1 to 1.2, no camera and I usually pull at 3k, if not a little lower. If I didn't jump a wingsuit I'd probably pull on the high side of 3k.
  21. MarkM
    Hey no worries, I happen to be the founder of Wingsuiters Are Crazy Kids(WACK for short) and would be more than happy to officially recognize the record attempts for a small fee of $2k plus travel expenses.
  22. MarkM
    Then why not jump a classic on those flocks? The latest greatest wingsuits on the most skilled guys is like the fat guy in RW wearing even more weight and telling the skinny guy he needs to arch harder to keep up.
  23. MarkM
    The thing I liked most about my SL jumps is that I worried about failing less. Fail an AFF jump and you're out a good chunk of change. Fail a SL jump and you're out a lot less money. I went from one system to the other and overall I felt a lot less pressure on my SL jumps. I was doing a lot less during each jump and if I blew it, well, I'd just done another skydive and it didn't set me back much money. If I hadn't started on SL I doubt I would've gotten into the sport. But it was sort of a no brainer to jump again because I had already paid for the expensive jump(the FJC jump) and my other jumps just weren't that expensive. It made it easy to go back out the the DZ again and again and get addicted to the culture.
  24. MarkM
    Yeah, wait until you're ready to downsize. My guess is you'll end up buying gear that can fit a 150 and 130. That'd last you quite awhile. Also if they don't have anything smaller than a 200 at Deland, Sebastian does. They have a couple rentals with 170's you can play on when you get to that point.
  25. MarkM
    I wouldn't rush it. Wingsuits are more complicated for a lot of reasons that aren't immediately obvious and the skills needed to handle those issues just come in time with jump numbers. Traffic patterns, navigation, avoiding the plane's the tail on exit, body awareness, dealing with tandems, body position on pull, dealing with extra gear, being arm restricted after deploying, landing miles off a dropzone, etc etc. Wingsuits have a great safety record and I think a lot of that is due to the minimum jump rules.