Zennie

Part of it may be that I was a huge Randy fan when he died. He was just amazing. A lot of people can play power chords and do runs up and down the fingerboard. Randy was able to capture the mood of a song. If he had just jumped out like a normal person... ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

That's gotta be posed. No way it'd get over you like that. Not unless you had Monezuma's Revenge or something. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Paul - Thanks a million for those drills. You're right, I'll prolly be working drill #1 for scores of jumps before even venturing to #2. I'm sure I won't get to #3 until my jump numbers are in the hundreds. Right now I'm obviously still learning how to fly. I want to be competent at RW and freefly, so I'll be working on that as well. So, like I said, I'm sure I won't be putting a camera on for quite some time. I forget where I read it, but someone said that to be a good camera flier, you really need to be a good freeflyer. Do you agree? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Heh! You'll fit right in.

Hehehe... when I saw the subject. I went "Oh, s#|+! Here we go..." ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Kev - The Dead analogy is a good one. I wasn't one myself but a lot of my college friends were. I remember when they started getting more popular after In The Dark and a lot of them lamented all the "wannabes" that started hanging out at shows -- being clueless and starting fights & stuff. So I think your observation is correct -- the more people you have, the more likely you're going to have some people who just don't get it. As far as skybytch's comments... I don't see anything wrong with people making money in the sport. The instructors and DZOs need to make a living and keep the DZ open. I will say this... I've been seeing more of the experienced people getting in on 4-ways with less experienced people and offering tips. One guy in particular refuses to let you say "I'm sorry." when you mess up. He says "Don't say that. There's nothing to be sorry about. You're learning." That to me is sort of what the "spirit" is all about. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

I'm all for a "standard" IRC chat. Just lemme know what server. In fact, I'd like to see a permanent room up for us. Last thursday I checked the www.dropzone.com server and it was still running. So in theory we might be able to just use that as our server & open up a room. I'll try it tonight (or someone else can try today). ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Funny thing. On most rides up, you can definitely feel the tension until you reach about 2.5K or so. I'm one of 'em, though I'm getting better. I've been one of those that has been afraid of flying for a while. Takeoffs are bad for me (and landings in Las Vegas). I'd get all sweaty palmed. Since I've been jumping I've been a lot better about it. Especially since you learn a bit about airplanes just by being around them all the time. I can almost say I enjoy the ride up, but I'm not quite there yet. I do like the door seat though! ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Every DZ must have one of these. There is a person at our DZ who would easily win the "Most Likely To Wind Up In The Incident Reports" contest. This person is actually a pretty competent skydiver skills-wise. That's not the problem. It's his attitude that's gonna kill him (or someone else). The problem isn't failure to take accountability, its a failure to even recognize a mistake. Even worse, it doesn't seem like he recognizes the subtle (and not so subtle) hints that people drop. So I dunno. Hopefully he'll wake up on his own. A lot more people would jump with him if he just toned it down a few notches. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

This was one of the things he was talking about. How everyone charges for everything. The other thing he mentioned was how people at some DZs get seriously in your face when you screw up. Fortunately that hasn't happened at my DZ, but I have heard about it at others. In the old days, he said that someone would walk up, tell you you fsckd up and then look after you to make sure you learned from it. He also said the screw-ups were what made the sport fun. Now they're causes of anger & stress. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Tiger - Thank j00.... er.... you. Seriously, this is exactly the kind of thing I think people are talking about. I'm gonna join, even if I don't have enough jump numbers to help yet. Great idea and concept. Plus it's great way to satisfy the "coaching" requirement without requiring the person to pony up yet more money. How'd you find out about this? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Just got back from the DZ. Had an interesting discussion with some folks that have been in this sport a long time (like pre-Para Commander days). To make a long story short, they were lamenting that the sport, and especially the people in it and their attitudes, has changed considerably. They felt that some of these changes were ruining the sport. For example, one thing they said they noticed was that in the "old days" experienced jumpers would take new jumpers under their wing and show them the ropes. If they screwed up and did something stupid, they basically told them what they did and helped them make sure they didn't do it again. He said a lot of that old guys watching out for and helping the new guys was going away. Kind of referred to it as a "spirit if skydiving" thing. So this question goes out to those of you that have been doing this for a while. Do you see a lot of changes in the people? What do you see and what impact do you see it having. And more important, what advice can you give to us new people to help keep the spirit alive? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Thanks, this is the kind of input I was looking for. How would you recommend working into it? What skills can I work on now to ease the transition? Any drills or exercises you can think of? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Experienced camera fliers may have already dealt with this, but I've been wondering this for a while. How do you prevent serious whiplash/neck fractures on hard openings -- especially when some of y'all wear pounds of stuff on your head? One thought was a neck brace sorta like what footbal players wear. I'd think you'd have to protect your neck somehow. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

See that's the subtle distinction. To me, that would be "dork". ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

I think he's asking what structure did the Israeli person jump from? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Yuri Kuznetszov does it. I think Troy Hartman has done it (or at least plans on doing it -- he talks about it in interviews & on his website). Anyone here wanna take bets that in our lifetime someone comes up with a wingsuit that you can actualy land sans parachute? I bet they will. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Ooooo yeah baby! Natalie Portman! ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Please tell me you mean skydiving jump and not BASE. If you haven't skydived yet, you definitely need a couple hundred jumps at least before you attempt BASE (except maybe NRGB on Bridge Day). If you are an experienced skydiver and are trying BASE. Coming here for tips on setup is the wrong place. You really need to hook up with experienced BASE jumpers and ease into the sport. BTW. A good online resource for BASE is Blinc Magazine. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

skybych - Yep those are good too. Ozzy was just never the same after he lost Randy though. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

So when are Derek & Super going? ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Hrm. I'm all over the place... Doors Pink Floyd Zep Old AC/DC Stone Temple Pilots (old stuff) Nirvana Cheap Trick (Live @ Budokan rocks!) Tool Black Sabbath A Perfect Circle Deftones Godsmack KoRn Van Halen (pre-Hagar) Creed Slayer Static-X (not too keen on "Machine" though) Metallica (black album & earlier) Megadeth Pretty much anything blues Zydeco Hair bands? With the exception of Motley Crue -- yuk! Yeah I know this is pretty dark stuff. It's weird 'cuz I'm generally an upbeat, pacifistic kinda guy. I just always liked the intensity. Then again, I'll get in these moods where I'm just kinda tired of listening to depressing stuff so I'll put in some Mozart. ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie

Glad to see you haven't let it get you down. We all make mistakes. One of the many rules in skydiving: "If you can walk away from it. It's a good skydive!" I'm real fussy about my equipment. I like my bridle just so near my hacky (as in making sure as little is exposed as possible). I almost feel naked without my straps tightened. I see folks get on the plane with their straps loosened and I just can't do that. What if you have to bail at 1500? Anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and move on. It's all good!

Thanks HH!

When I got off student status I talked to my instructor about it. He had one question for me: "When the time comes, will you pull the silver handle?" I said "Yep." He said, "Well there you go." ------------ Blue Skies! Zennie