RandomLemming

They say that Singapore is a fine city... Do this, get a fine. Do that, get a fine :D

I've just finished my AFF recently, so take everything I say with an ocean of salt. Nothing you have ever done is like skydiving. I've climbed, driven in rallys, jumped off a bridge with a piece of elastic around my ankles, worked in Braamfontein, and nothing comes close to jumping out of 'planes. I signed up for my AFF for all of the wrong reasons. I'm not sure I'm continuing for the right reasons, but I'm carrying on because I feel like I just don't have a choice. I can't go a day without thinking about my next jump. It is an escape. For about 20 minutes at a time, my life just doesn't intrude on me. All the way to altitude, I just sit there visualising the dive... I love that feeling when the door opens and you're sitting there with the wind in your face watching other people get out. Or even better, when you help open and close the door for people getting out early (hop and pops). And as you step out the door, everything changes. I'm still terrified of the door (well, more for looking like a 'tard for not jumping or falling out when I didn't mean to), but once you're out... wow! My first solo, I actually flew. I had my whole dive routine planned, but it was planned based on when I'd had instructors, so I still had 1500ft before I had to pull when I was done. So I was looking at the ground, saw something I liked the look of and tracked towards it. I was flying across the sky under my own control, doing what I wanted! Yeah, it's an escape. But it's more an escape TO something than an esape FROM anything. I have a good job, a loving wife and a generally ok present life... I have nothing to escape from really. But every chance I get, I just want to escape TO skydiving.

I just finished my first ever skydiving video, and the one thing I'm least happiest about is the music. The first 5 minutes are ground school... The next 7 minutes are skydiving. For the DVD menu music I used Joe Satriani, Just look up. For the actual footage, I used Iron Maiden, Aces high followed by Where eagles dare. Timing wise, it works ok, and a lot of the tempo changes work nicely with fades in / out and scene changes. But it still doesn't seem to flow quite right.

I've now jumped at 3 DZs in two countries, and I only have my AFF and one solo :D It largely depends on the DZ. Some places will want to do a checkout / coached jump with you, even though you have your AFF. This is just to make sure that you are safe, as they didn't see you for your AFF. As far as I am aware, each jump counts towards your A, no matter where you do it. The only issue is getting the DZ to allow you to jump. Others may correct me if I am wrong on this :D

Heh - I was fine on my solo exits with an Instructor... no problems there, but then Ed was very good about putting me at my ease. My problem came in on my first total solo. I wasn't jumping with anyone, there was no-one going out the door at the same time as me, and for some reason that terrified me. Sure, by this point I had 9 jumps in my logbook, and graduated AFF, but that solo... I think the only reason I went in the end is that I was scheduled to be second out the door and there were about 8 other people waiting behind me. I couldn't have faced them if I backed down, so I jumped out of the plane :D Turns out that it was the most awesome dive of my (seriously limited) jump career, so it was totally worth it. That's what I'm holding onto for my next solo - that feeling of freedom... planned my own jump, then jumped it - You'll love that!

Sorry about that :( Hope it's better next time you're out :) I did my AFF recently, then I had to do a check-out dive at the next DZ I went to. I was terrified of the door all along, but I got out because there was someone else waiting for me (instructor). My first solo, I very nearly went back down with the plane :) But it seems to get easier every time.

I have the Go 500, and I'm very happy with everything except their support for adding new maps under OS X and Linux (however there is a workaround at http://tinyurl.com/rdf74) I've used it in the UK, Spain and the USA so far and it's been brilliant in all three locations. The only gripe I have with it is that it can take a couple of minutes to find Satellites when you move a long distance from the last place you used it. To give an idea of what it's done on this trip so far: SF Airport -> Sonora Sonora -> Yosemite Yosemite -> SF Driving around SF SF -> Lodi Driving around Lodi Lodi -> The Big Sur The Big Sur -> LA Driving around LA LA -> Lake Elsinore LA -> Las Vegas Driving around Las Vegas I've also used it in the Raleigh/Durham area on a previous trip, and it worked great there as well. It has steered me wrong once so far, but got me back on track in under 5 minutes. I like the way the voice prompts work... The faster you're going, the louder the voice. Also, if you're going faster, you get your next instruction sooner. So if you're doing 120km/h, you get your next instruction at 2km. At 60km/h, you get your next instruction at around 800m. It also repeats instructions closer to the action. Maybe I'm just useless, but I really get a lot out of the colour screen as well. When I have a quick look at it, my route is the big purple(ish) line, and that's all I have to find. It works better for me than mono, but that's just a personal choice. Hope that helps some ?

heh - you'd think. But I've been dragging my wife around dropzones for the past month, and I think she's tired of watching me sit in hangars in crap weather :D

Have a look at http://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/Unlocking/unlock/o2.htm They claim that they can unlock that phone. It'll cost you a bit though. I've used them with a sony ericsson in the past and it worked fine.

Hi all, I'm thinking of going out to Skydive Elsinore tomorrow but the forecast is partly cloudy. Can any regulars there tell me if that normally means you get some jumping in, or should I just stay in my hotel? I'm trying to hit as many DZs as possible in my last couple of days in the US. I figure seeing as I got signed off student status, I may as well make the most of it before heading back to blighty :D

I'm starting the run south to LA tomorrow - via the big sur and santa barbara... you there for anything fun ?

So I've been in the USA for 5 days now. I bailed out of Yosemite early because all we were having was rain and snow. I then spent 2 days in Sanfrancisco in the piddling rain, and a hard drive out to Lodi in a storm. 5 days into my trip and I hadn't seen sun once. And to make it worse, today was supposed to be the start of my jumping with Ed at Lodi. Well, it turns out Ed must know someone in management because we had BEAUTIFUL weather all day. So I spent the day jumping out of perfectly good aeroplanes, and 6 jumps later I feel like I never have before. Ed was great and has the patience of Job. The bad news (for the rest of you that is) - apparently I'm not a student jumper anymore... I've got 8 jumps under me now and I can't wait to get back up! I LOVE THIS SPORT! :D

*ROTFL* I'm sitting at work wiping the tears of laughter from my eyes. And I've only been married for 5 years. Ish. I think. Oops.

I had the most awesome Rhodesian Ridgeback named Induna for years - he was great, until we moved. For some reason, once we moved he went mental and tried to eat me. After the second trip to the doctor to get me stitched up, my parents made me give him up. But he was the coolest dog a small boy could have :)

I love my work, but I hate my job :) I love solving problems, turning messes into things that can easily be managed by random joe's off the street, resurrecting dead things. I love the pressure when things go pear and pulling it all together. I love walking into an office 5000 kilometers from home and seeing people smiling at me because I've helped them in some way. I love it when my team gels and gets on with things. I love the productive streak we have when management takes their annual vacation. But I hate the bully's - the people who think that it's alright to walk up to someone's desk and start yelling at them. I hate when my manager flat out tells me I'm not good enough to do something, despite the fact that I've never failed on a single task I've been given (except for one people issue :D) or missed a single deadline.

I just wish more women could see that the marketing is a lie! I worked in an ad agency for a couple of years, and I got really tired of hearing women friends complaining about this 'impossible image' the guys in advertising were forcing women to live up to. Firstly, women choose to compete or emulate that look, for whatever reason. Secondly, a lot of the people propagating the "stick with a gucci necklace" standard are WOMEN! I've seen a LOT of female account / relationship managers, and a lot of female ad buyers, and they all pushed that image pretty hard.

hehehe - I could be that guy :) We eventually solved it with "My side" and "Your side". For a couple of months, I got instructions of "Right - Your side" and "Left - my side" Apparently it's a common side effect of dyslexia, but it can be cured with constant re-inforcement. Of course, gods help me when I'm driving left hand drive vehicles because the sides change around :)

If I jump, should I deploy my parachute? I wish I'd sodding asked that before my first jump since I went and forgot. Now the first page in my logbook will forever read "Instructor assisted with deployment". Assisted? Yeah right!

I lost quite a few friends and family members in the 2 years before I moved to the UK, and I didn't deal with at all at the time. I laughed it off, toughed it out and became a workaholic. 10 years later I'm finally paying for it. I've turned 30 and realised I wasted the last 10 years of my life hiding from my feelings and from death. I used to climb, bungee jump and race cars when I could. Then when my mom went, I packed it all in. I moved to sitting in front of a computer 12 hours a day making money. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe I would have felt like a moron for balling my eyes out and wailing like a girl, but it would have been healthier to deal with things then, rather than leaving them this long and dealing with them in the ways I have been for the past few years. re-reading this, I'm not putting it right I guess... Hopefully this makes sense to someone :)

Despite the best efforts of the guys at Freefall University, I was still without my first two levels of my AFF video this morning. I stupidly forgot to get the DVD finalised while I was out there, so Andy went to all the effort of burning me a new finalised DVD and posting it, but Royal Mail put a bullet in that solution. Well, they didn't put a bullet it in exactly, but they did manage to scratch 7 kinds of hell out of it despite it being packed in 3 layers. I guess you really can't make anything idiot proof :) This morning I took a chance and took my unfinalised DVD out to the Sony store, and one of the guys there spent quite a while helping me out. We found a DVD recorder that would play the content, and managed to finalise it. He must have spent 20 minutes helping me out, so I bought them a box of Thorntons chocolates. The final result - I now have my DVD and my friends and family can finally have a good laugh at the fact that I'm too stupid to save my own life... Awesome :)

I'm not sure about Yahoo!, but depending on what country you live in and what network you are on, there are a number of e-mail to SMS services available. I found a couple for the UK just by searching on google - but they are all chargeable. Depending on your cellular network, you may be able to get better options there.

Thanks a lot... I've sent a message to the school asking which model recorder they use, but I'll PM you as soon as I have the info.

Hi all, I know this is a little off topic, but it is kinda skydiving related, so please bear with me :D I have a DVD with my 2 AFF jumps on it. We didn't finalize the DVD before I left the DZ, as we were continually hoping to get some more jumps in. Now I'm home in the UK, and I need to get this video off to send to someone, but I can't seem to finalize it. The DVD was recorded in a Sony DVD recorder. The media is DVD+R. I've tried my powermac and my Linux box. They both note that the DVD is appendable, but nothing will let me get at the data. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I could resolve this ? Thanks in advance!

I think I may have found a cure for the smile. Be grounded for the second day in a row because of weather, but more importantly, be sitting at the DZ an hour after I was supposed to meet my instructors here, pirating bandwidth. It would be nice to know if we´re binning the day so that I can get on with life, rather than sit here waiting for people or a phone call. Grrr. I´ll take you up on that offer to get a new smile :) I´ll sort out my trip to Lodi tonight and let you have the details shortly.

Thanks all... I've not ached like this for a long time, but still, I struggle to care. I jumped out of a plane. On purpose. Twice. I'm guessing the ache will end in a day or two. Can anyone tell me when the big dumb grin is likely to fade ? :D