Zennie

It would have made a great cover shot. The only thing I can think of is that Parachutist requires film for the cover. I think all of the others can be digital submissions. I know Josh flies a digital still camera so maybe that's why. Josh? "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

That's easy! Eat! F#$%! Skydive! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I've had the best luck, both in sit and head down, with the "turn the body" approach. It keeps things simple. After a while, your hands (and feet) sort of learn how to help steer on their own. Ramon gave me a good exercise that helped a lot when i was starting. The key to the game is to always maintain heading. So take a heading in your sit. Do left and right 360s and try to end it right on heading. When you have that, add in cartwheels, again stopping on heading. Finally add in front & backflips. Again stopping on heading. Eric Boyd added that when you're first starting it's better to work on one thing... such as turns... in a skydive rather than trying them all in the same jump. So try turns first. get that down. Then try cartwheels & get them down. Then try flips and get them down. Then try to do the whole routine in a single skydive. I have the sit routine down. Now I'm working on the same for head down. I have the turns so I'm now working on cartwheels. When I have the HD routine done I'm going to try and get both a full sit & HD rountine down in a single skydive. Then it's on to doing the same with a stand. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Did someone somewhere say the "B" word? I just check weather.com and accuweather.com and they both forecast Rosharon as partly cloudy tomorrow and Saturday. weather.com has thunderstorms pushed back to Monday, but Accuweather still has them on Sunday. Take it all with a grain of salt, but the forecast trend has been to push the thunderstorms further out toward early next week. Let's keep our fingers (and toes, legs, arms & eyes) crossed for at least jumpable weather.

Get home from a long day of work when, 'lo & behold! My pizzas arrived! That's right gang, I ordered two pizzas from Gino's East and had 'em shipped to my front door. Had the spinich 'za tonight and all I gotta say is... MMmmmmmmmm! Real pizza again!

I'll be there. Also pretty hard to miss... yin yangs all over my suit. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Josh posted the pic in the photo competition. It's here. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Hey! How'd you get those! Playgirl promised me they wouldn't get into anyone's hands until the Enron issue came out! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Hey! How'd you get those! Playgirl promised me they wouldn't get into anyone's hands until the Enron issue came out! "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I consulted my instructor and several experienced jumpers, discussed pros and cons and made my decision accordingly. I don't want to get into a huge argument about this either, my main intent was to counter Richard's implication that the only "smart" or "safe" option is to go with the RSL. I contend it's not that straightforward. So in the interest of keeping this from devolving into yet another RSL debate, I humbly bow out.... "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

No it's not. It's "no brainers" that kill people -- that is, not using your brain. This is the crux of what I was getting at in my initial response. You advocate RSLs for people and cite "safety" as the consideration... implying that those who do not advocate RSLs somehow are throwing safety to the wind with an airy wave of the hand. My point is that safety is the sole reason that I detached mine (at 20 jumps, BTW). Not to be cool or reckless. If she is the type of person who even thinks for a second she might brainlock and not pull the reserve handle, then I'd agree that an RSL may be for her. Otherwise, it's open to debate as to which is the "safe" or "smart" option. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I didn't give an explanation because I didn't want this to degrade into another RSL/no-RSL debate. But since we're there now... here goes. It really boils down to three major factors: 1. The RSL serves one purpose and one purpose only... to get a reserve out if you cut away and forget (or hesitate) to pull silver. That's it. That's all it's for. I know that if I pull the red handle, I'll pull the silver handle. If I don't... well I deserve whatever I get. 2. There are far too many situations where you have to remember to unhook your RSL.... flying camera, windy days, CRW, for example. 3. There are many situations where you want separation from your just-cut-away canopy ... spinning mals, for example... and an RSL can make a bad situation worse. An RSL killed at least one jumper last year when it fired the reserve before the jumper could get separation from his main. I want the freedom & flexibility to decide when my reserve is coming out of the container. An RSL is automatic & inflexible. These are the safety reasons I was referring to. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

First thing I did off student status was disconnect my RSL.... for safety reasons. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Kinda sorta. It's here now. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Hearken back, if you will, when Zennie was a wee jumper just off student status. I sure as heck hope I didn't come across that way after you guys took me up (cause I'm always stoked when I jump with you guys).

About 1/2. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Take a close look at the door on that shot. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Condolences Chuck. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

I guess one possibility (I'm no fluid dynamics expert by any stretch) is that an object generally tends to take a path of least resistance (or greatest stability). If a canopy is flying into the wind, it will encounter more resistance than if it flies downwind, since the nose has a larger profile than the tail. My guess is that if you put it in a wind tunnel, the downwind configuration would create less turbulence over the airfoil than heading upwind. The downwind flight would be a more stable configuration so the canopy, with no other forces acting on it, would tend to configure itself that way. This is just my little pea-brained-pseudo-science mind working. Engineers please correct me if I'm wrong. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

My pleasure. Stay away from the dessert links. Seriously though, congrats to Scotty on quitting drinking. Sounds like you guys are doing great!

Then you didn't have good hummus. I always get it when I go to a Greek restaurant. The hummus and gyros meat are my Greek restaurant yardsticks. I tend to like it a little on the tangier side with the tahini (sesame paste) more pronounced than the garlic. Spread it on warm pita bread.... yum! There's a specialty grocery that did a sundried tomato hummus that was out of this world. Haven't been able to find it lately. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

MMmmmmmm.... hummus. If you can't find it here it can't be found.

This is a really interesting approach, and it has a lot of merit. Understand flawed decisionmaking processes and that knowledge can be applied to help you in any situation. Good things to try. Good way to make the most of hop-n-pops. I read this part and thought how wonderfully Zen that is. You're "there"... in the moment. Interesting that later on they note that he was a student of Zen. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."

Sweeet. I ran into his friends out at S-land yesterday. It was kinda windy so they decided not to jump, but I hope we were good hosts!

Actually I should probably add a fourth category in there now that I think about it. And this one accounts for a lot of the low turn incidents... 4. People getting into a "box-in" situation, whether it be obstacles, wind or something else, and opting to do a hard turn low rather than either a braked turn or taking your lumps with the wind/obstacles. "Zero Tolerance: the politically correct term for zero thought, zero common sense."