MarkM

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    3,000

  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by MarkM

  1. MarkM
    Um sorry, went on to Key West Didn't see any tents or anything up at the airport when I blew through, so I kept tracking west. I should've brought some Sebastian stickers, I could've plastered the bars here with them. They love it when you do that. Hope to see some peeps tomorrow at the boogie. And Dre, they sell some funky pipes here you'd love. Shops full of them, manned by guys with bloodshot eyes munching nachos.
  2. MarkM
    Cool cool, someone's going birdie! I wouldn't worry too much about "old tech". You're buying your first suit, not your last one. Heck, I think Cynthia has a classic and I could barely keep up with her and Matt in my PHI.
  3. MarkM
    How are they going to find out if their closing loop is too frayed? How are they going to find out how their Cypres should be turned on, should have the batteries changed or have a maint done. How should they know how to check to see if their 3 ring system is hooked up right? If their PC is properly cocked? If their spandex PC pouch is too loose? No one is going to hold your hand off student status with any of the above. If you're not the type of person that can get correct information on the most basic aspects of the gear you own, you shouldn't be jumping.
  4. MarkM
    If you're a student, sure, but a skydiver with 100 jumps who doesn't take the time to understand a very simple piece of equipment on their rig? A girl died this year because she didn't understand her Cypres(she set it then drove to the DZ at a different elevation) and that's a much more complicated piece of equipment than a RSL.
  5. MarkM
    If a person can't pass the combination lock test, then they shouldn't be putting themselves into that situation. If a skydiver can't pull their handles because their either A> freak out or B> don't understand how the handles work, then they shouldn't be skydiving.
  6. MarkM
    About 1/3rd of my jumps prior to wingsuiting were tracking jumps. I don't know why I liked to track so much, maybe it was covering the ground or just how it felt when you flew through the sky. But it was always what I liked to do most when jumping :) Unfortunately it's not easy to find people to track with, except for the rare tracking jump at the end of the day. Most people don't consider it a "discipline", just something you do at the end of a jump. On the up side birdman jumping is like tracking on steriods. So when you can finally get yourself into a wingsuit, you'll be in heaven, and you'll have an entire community of people to flock with that understand what it's like to carve up the sky.
  7. MarkM
    Because it stands out in freefall and because it matches the gear. And the gear isn't plain because it doesn't have to be. It's not the only sport like that too: http://www.k2snowboards.com/products/boards/boards_detail.asp?productid=15 Sorry if the attire of the sport isn't meeting your personal expectations.
  8. MarkM

    Dreams of Flying

    MarkM replied to ephrin's topic in The Bonfire

    I've heard other skydivers talk about dreams very similar to ephrin's.
  9. MarkM
    Cool. Warm showers, hot food, sleeping with the AC on, TV... it's the little luxuries you miss.
  10. MarkM
    Babe, leave The Hoover alone
  11. MarkM
    I'm a Linux admin. Well, technically I also work on BSDI boxes and I'm the lead admin for some old legacy Sun boxes. But if the Sun boxes break, I sorta just hit them with blunt instruments until they work again, so I don't know if you'd call that admining.
  12. MarkM
    I pull and know quite a few other birds that pull higher than normal in wingsuits. The lack of arm movement and the need to cutaway your wings can complicate fixing a problem with your main.
  13. MarkM
    Better exclude birdies too.
  14. MarkM
    "I jump. I fall to the earth. That's enough activity for me." I'll admit to being a member of the lazy bumb brigade. When I fly wigsuits or do physical labor, I actually do enjoy feeling sore the next few days. I just get bored of working out for the sake of working out.
  15. MarkM
    Not really. The keys lives off of tourism. The sooner they can get people back there spending money, the better off of they are. So long as it doesn't hamper repair efforts, of course. I guess it'll depend on whether or not the airport is being used for emergency services. Wendy will be the one to make contact about that. But I imagine things are really disorganized down there at the moment(if it's anything like Fort Lauderdale), so it may be some time before they're able to get an answer on it. I do know that right now you probably won't be able to buy gas from West Palm on down to the keys. Hopefully that'll improve next week.
  16. MarkM
    Well Fort Lauderdale got hit pretty hard. Power is out pretty much everywhere and they were saying that only 18 traffic lights were working in the county. But they have water/ice stations setup, the grocery stores are open and well stocked(just no refrigeration) and people are cleaning up their yards and streets. The power/water system took a hit, but people's houses and buildings seem to have held up really well. I'm at work with generators so I've had power all through this. As soon as they rotate me out I'll probably flee up north and camp at a dropzone until the lights come back on down here. If I'm not gonna have power, I might as well not have power while being at a DZ.
  17. MarkM
    According this study, the citronella collar works better than shock anyway. http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/6.6.96/barking.html
  18. MarkM
    Now that sounds like a plan. I got a lot of dvd burns- er I mean I've bought a lot of dvds recently too.
  19. MarkM
    That would be fun
  20. MarkM
    Yep, I got my tequila.
  21. MarkM
    Yeah, but if you're in Kansas and your only obstacle on an out is the chance of hitting a cow.... round reserves aren't a bad choice for a student.
  22. MarkM
    I think Aerodyne switched over to the same ZP material PD uses a little while ago. It lasts longer than the SA stuff. To the orig poster, it competes with the Sabre 2. People pretty much love or hate either canopy for whatever reasons, so your best bet is to demo both and see which you prefer. PD has a great demo program, but I don't know if they'd give you a 190 given the WL and your jump numbers.
  23. MarkM
    Cool. Any idea on what the reqs for this will be(is chamber training needed, etc?). Also what's the altitude they'll be going up to?
  24. MarkM
    Yep. I went from 15 second delays on SL to AFF and I was even axious whether or not I'd be able to read my altimeter in freefall on my AFF jump(never had to before, I'd just count then pull). It was pretty silly, but so are a lot of fears.
  25. MarkM
    I think I lost it at about 8k and when I finally was under canopy I was under 4k, so I did spend some time at it. Attached is what it looks like. Black is handle, blue is the tab, yellow cable, green is velcro, red is how you need to pull it. You can put about 2-3 fingers in the handle. What I don't like is that it reduces your grab area for the handle(not that big a deal if it easily comes out), and you have to pull down across the velcro to release the handle. That's what I was having the problem with. Here's the post where someone else had a hard pull with the wings on a PHI and actually tore off the tab http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1835712;search_string=tab;#1835712