wildfan75

Jump naked!! You don't have to worry about your shirt getting in your handles and your shorts flapping against your leg tricking you into thinking your leg straps came loose. Just try to avoid landing in a corn field naked. My first non-jumpsuit jump was a naked jump. Very different going from a jumpsuit with booties to nothing at all. The three other people I was jumping with really gave me heck about wearing my full face helmet but I told them to stick it were the sun don't shine. And for the record, I was close to the corn field but did not land in it!

Our team flipped a unipod on our first ever competition exit. I'll have to try to get it uploaded someplace. The only dropped grip was our inside center dropped a leg grip about half way through the flip on me (o/s center) but as soon as we flipped back over, he got it. The look on Solly Williams face (the coach for the meet) on the debrief was priceless.

Or find someone that had to put themselves through college. While I was heading off to work so I could pay rent and books for next semester, on more than one occassion, I would have several friends that were calling in sick so they could go party that night since Mommy and Daddy would just give them more money. I might not have had as great of a GPA in college as them, but I came out with a heckava lot better work ethic. At that point in life, you can teach someone how to do a job, but you can't teach work ethic. IMO

I forgot to put my visor down on my Oxygn on my second coach eval dive. It was a Cat H so I climb on the step (182) thinking that I would have time to put it down on the step while the "student" was getting set in the door. The "student" didn't act very student like and got set immediately. So I gave the count and went. I'm really glad that I learned a little bit of mantis. It comes in handy when on the hill trying to watch the student's exit and trying to put down your face shield. Luckily I saw enough to pass and the shield didn't rip off. It was February in Wisconsin after all. It would have been cold on the face.

Thanks for the gender correction, Tony!!! Aaron-I sent you a PM. And just to make sure to set the record straight, Aaron didn't get a response back from Bob because he's in Alaska jumping on the glaciers at the moment. And not only do I make the best prime rib, I also scrub toilets, clean the bar, do the dishes, manifest and pack my own parachute!

Very nice!

Todd (aka "Obee") will be happy to hear you puertorriqeñitos are going to be there!

Oh my god, I just blew tea out my nose... OMG, I can't wait to get home. I HAVE to see this! I tried to open tshirthell.com in my office and the webfilter blocked it as a tasteless site lol Hehe as I said it's a really good one but I could imagine some trouble with the average hill billy Unfortunately it's not on t-shirt hell anymore... The best part about that t-shirt is the picture of Mary holding her finger to her lips as to say "Shhhhhhhh". My ultimate favorite t-shirt from that site is the baby onesie that says "I ripped mommy a new one".

If money is an issue, why not check around and see if anyone in your area does static line progression. It will save you quite a bit of money and usually by the time you have 25 jumps, you'll be in the same place but with more money in your pocket for gear. And it costs a heckava lot less if you have to repeat a level. Also look for club dz's with 182's. Sure you won't get to jump the pretty Otter, but you'll save more money there. Good luck, have fun and be safe!

Aahhh, Todd's favorite shirt shop...tshirthell.com. Although Todd has many t-shirts from that website that he wears at the dz, I draw the line when he shows up at my office with his "I don't need a condom. The AIDS will kill the baby"(true story). We occassionally have to go over the boundries of of having "real people" on the dz (like during Operation Freefall) and that wearing the shirt that says "A thousand of my potential children died on your daughter's face last night" is not recommended when having dinner with my father. But we can't kick him off the dz. Who would mow the lawn???

I demo'd a Sabre2 150 for several skydives and had them put my Silhouette back in my container. Openings are waaaay toooo slow for me. An ideal opening for me doesn't take 1000+ feet and end in closed end cells. The reason I was demo'ing was because I wanted more flare out of a canopy than I was getting with my Silhouette. The flare was great with the Sabre2. Also, I'm not looking to get into swooping or HP landings, and love the glide path of the Silhouette. The Sabre2's steeper glide path was not my cup of tea. Overall, I think the Sabre2 is overrated. If you love the Silhouette, the Sabre2 is not the canopy for you IMO.

I had a Factory Diver that I bought used. I put about 350 jumps on it and then I bought an Oxygn A3. I'm from Wisconsin and jump all winter long. I wanted to get something that I could flip the visor up on those few jumps that it starts to fog/ice up under canopy during the winter vs propping the helmet on my head and hope it doesn't fall off. Otherwise I would have stuck with my Factory Diver. A few people at my dz have Z1's and one person has replace his with a Factory Diver and one is keeping their eyes open to replace it. The complaint is that there's too much to do to secure it (getting the chin/neck material out of the way, tightening it, then there's the strap, etc).

If you're still in the East Troy area, contact "Fast" on dz.com (Derrick in real life). He's an instructor there and very involved with their club. Good luck, have fun, be safe. Lynn

We had a tandem cutaway too, and an 80ish year old man called 911 after seeing the canopy that was cutaway trickle to the earch. He later showed up at the dropzone and asked if the skydiver "made it". We explained to him that it was just a cutaway canopy and when he started to explain how he thought he was watching someone wrapped up in their canopy die he started crying. He got a well versed lesson in three rings that day.

:5:1? * Two 8 way formation loads (I got to be in chase both times!!) * One 3 way with the ten thousand jump wonders * One 2 way after putting out two s/l'ers * One 4 way team practice jump I spent A LOT of time manifesting and tandem/student coordinating this weekend. I think I might owe beer as I think it was the first time that someone actually got paid to do manifest at my dz. Thanks to the TI's that all pitched in for my tip. It was GREATLY appreciated!!!!

I am so glad to see the Couch thread go up! That means its getting close to go time! See everyone there!

I'm 120 miles away from my dz. I will be going to every other weekend starting now. The only think that really, really sucks about it is that I get to go from only spending the weekends with my fiancee to every other weekend until the house sells or I find a job out there that I can still afford my house payment.

2006: FJC & 1 S/L jump $140 FJC & 5 S/L jumps $240 20 jump package to get you to A license $500 (included gear, jump, instruction, sometimes video) If you had your own gear: $14 from 10K (182's) 2008: FJC & 1 S/L jump $140 FJC & 5 S/L jumps $240 20 jump package to get you to A license $500 (included gear, jump, instruction, sometimes video) If you had your own gear: $15 from 10K (182's) I [heart] Bob [/heart] !

Welcome!! I'm a jumper in WI too. My home dz is Skydive Wissota in Chippewa Falls. After you get your license, be sure to come visit us! And you'll definitely have to come for our Pumpkin Toss Weekend in October. What could make skydiving more fun than it already is more than tossing pumpkins out at 500' on the way up(we put an old vehicle in the field as a target)! Have fun and be safe! Lynn Edited to add: And we're open all year round on the weekends so if you need a winter home to jump at...we're there!

Rehmwa is going to cream his pants when he sees this thread. Stebah--Thanks for sharing it with us!!!!! Editted to add: I just saved this to my jump drive and gave it a test drive. This is awesome! I've been printing off the dive pools from the NSL the last six weeks or so to take to the dz. We've been using to those for our dives. Instead of standing there going "I don't know, what do you want to do?", "I don't know, what do you want to do?", we only have to decide how hard of a dive we want to do and pick a division. This is definitely going on the computer at the dz!!!!! Thank you so much!

Sorry, I guess I just assumed that he talked to the dz since he said he's been told to send a deposit. My bad. Agreed, if you haven't already called, definitely call.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount this as a scam. I come from a very small 182 club dz. We don't take credit cards at the dz but offer paypal through our website. If there is a large group, Bob asks them to make a non-refundable deposit. Sometimes the time line doesn't allow for some to send a check or money order in time. We have some tandem masters that live 130 miles away from the dz. If a group calls and says "Yeah, we're going to have 20 tandems this Saturday", we have our staff come in for that. What happens when they don't show up (which has happened). We have staff that spent $90 on gas to be there for your group and now they are out that money. The non-refundable deposit covers those expenses in the event that you don't show. And for the record, our dz uses a paypal account with a Yahoo address. It could very well be my dz. It's no scam. Its just a small dz trying to break even.

If anyone is teedering on going or not, GO! I was at East Troy last June when Guy was there and had a great time! I actually thought about skipping the wedding I was in town for to keep jumping!!

After having a self induced 2 out and cutting away my main on freefall #6, I did my landing pattern on my reserve according to my landing pattern...from the previous weekend. Yep, that's right, on jump #6, I landed downwind on my reserve. It wasn't until 2 weeks later that someone told me that I did that. I'm the person that everyone used to come out and watch land because I was sure to biff it. I went through flaring unevenly, I went through flaring too high, flaring too late, everything. I had people meet me half way back to the clubhouse asking "Other than your ego, are you okay?" on more than one occasion. I expected the bowling speech several times. One Sunday morning I spent about 2 hours going over landing and flaring with our then current S&TA. I got on top of picnic tables to try to figure out perspective, I watched videos, I asked every stupid question there ever was about landings. People don't come out to watch me land anymore (except when I downsized). I miss have an audience. Don't beat yourself up for mistakes. Learn from them and become better. In fact, don't think of them as mistakes. Think of them as opportunties to learn and improve from!