AndyMan

I'll tell you a story, which goes back to when I was a student. It's one of those "when I was your age, when our model t's broke down..." stories. I learned through a Tandem-AFF progresion. I was living in Toronto, and driving to the US every weekend, because this DZ had both an Otter and did AFF... Both of which I couldn't get at the Canadian DZ's near Toronto. I was just barely off AFF, I think I had 15 jumps or so, didn't even have my 'a' license when we went up to Skydive Toronto to jump for the day. For those that don't know, Skydive Toronto is a static line factory. It's pretty much all they do there, they fly crappy planes and throw students out on S/L. I met some of the students going through the S/L program, and they literally were green with envy that at 15 jumps I was able to not only jump on my own, but jump with people (who happened to be AFFI's). They were mind-blown that you could actually get freefall on your first jump... See, they'd tasted freefall for brief moments in their 3-second delays, and they knew they wanted more. The next weekend, five of them showed up at the AFF program in that New York turbine dropzone. They didn't even know AFF was an option, because this S/L factory didn't offer it, and bad-mouthed all the people who did. The students felt they'd been cheated. AFF definately isn't for everyone. Some people can't learn quickly on the accelerated regime. Some people end up having to repeat multiple levels which can get real expensive real quick... But I think those people are the minority. For the other people, the freefall they get early in the progression is the hook that keeps them in skydiving. "It's the freefall, stupid". as the saying goes. Both AFF and S/L are perfectly valid, perfectly safe ways to learn how to jump. If you're fit, confident, and well-coordinated, AFF is a hell of a lot more fun. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Well, yes! Bigger DZ's have separated their landing areas for years. I jumpt at Chicagoland, which isn't nearly as big as the "big DZ's" and it has a swoop lane that non-swoopers avoid. I'd prefer my DZ go even farther to separate traffic, but you gotta take baby steps, I guess. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I finally got my 'D' license early in the summer, I had more then 500 jumps - the "new" requirements, even though I could've gotten it years ago under the old ones. Having bigger licenses does not make you a better skydiver. Don't get the license unless you really believe that you're that good. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

There's been three incidents this year where somebody swooping has colided with with somebody else, and at least one of them dieing. Lake Wales in the Spring, Roger Nelson in the summer, and aparently a guy colided with his fiancee last week. I understand he passed away and she's scraping by. As more people are getting into swooping, this will become more and more common, unfortunately. Dropzones NEED to separate their swooping traffic from the non-swoopers, at least. It is unnaceptable for swoopers and those flying big conservative canopies to be sharing the same airspace. Volkeswagon Beetles don't run in Formula one races, after all... Big DZ's like Perris have their swoop pond far away from the main landing area, which is far away from the student landing area. This is ideal. At the very least, DZ's should have a "swoop lane" that non-swoopers know to avoid. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I'd love to know how you got the clips into Premiere, but I guess I'm not allowed to ask that here. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I don't think there's tracking comps in the Nationals, but I could be wrong. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Actually, I agree with them. To me, anything where the competition is judged isn't a real sport. This is especially true where any of the judging is based on "artistic impression". Artistic impression in sports? What is this, ballet?!?!? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

No. I do like piercings, but not on the face. It can look so gross at times... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Has anyone bothered to actually ask what this would cost to clear real music, or are we just assuming it'd be prohibitively expensive? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I jump almost exclusively in the mid-west, which means that for the most part landing off means landing in some farmers field. Usually corn, but sometimes soybeans or some other comodity crop. I've followed my stuff down in the past, and this is my plan in the future. The plan is always subject to change given circumstances, of course. Because of the conditions I jump in, I do not consider landing off the DZ to be dangerous. It's a hassle, I don't necesarily like being in the middle of a corn field when the corn is 8 feet tall, but I also do not particularly enjoy replacing expensive equipment. I will follow my stuff down, every time. In fact, I follow other peoples stuff down pretty regularly. I usually ask myself as I'm following somebody elses stuff down why they aren't doing it themselves... I jump at a relatively big DZ, with a relatively small landing area. Landing off is essentially a fact of life, subject to Murpheys law. It's a skill that jumpers should be confident in, confident enough to do it intentionally to recover their expensive gear. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

My favorite RottenTomatoes review: "So disappointing they may as well have bussed in Ewoks to save Zion." Oh well. I'll go in with piss-poor expectations, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

At my DZ, the biggest, baddest swoopers all tend to be DZ staff. Indeed virtually all the good swoopers are staff... including the DZO's. It's pretty unlikely the DZ will make their staff walk farther, resulting in fewer paid jumps each day. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

So... the packing data card goes with the reserve, then? I was wondering this, because I'm trying to sell my rig, and the card has notes of Sunpath and Capewell service bulletins in addition to the packing history. How is this suposed to be consolidated when we piece out the rig? For example, how will the buyer of my Jav know who did the main closing loop attachment service bulletin? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

We had a car with Sirius a few monthes ago, and initially loved the choices. After a few days we started to get really frustrated at the short play-lists - they appeared to be even shorter then the crappy clear-channel stations we got over FM. So... we ended doing a lot of switching between the different stations... in the end we gave up and went back to WXRT a local FM station with un-noticable play-lists. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yup, a bunch of drunken skydiver sitting around the bonfire, with a 20 foot screen showing off our creations. No profit, no revenue whatsoever. It's tough to get a better example of fair use outside of research. That said, the fact that I want to take it from DVD over VHS is irrelevant. It's not that I bought the wrong copy, I want a high resolution digital copy, so that means DVD. Copyright is not cut and dry, nor black and white. As the saying goes, this is not a democracy. That said, if you're going to make a blanket statement "this is not allowed", then you'll get an argument from me. Now, who here can help me figure out how to legally sample a dvd? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Then I think you need to read up on the doctrines of fair use and personal use. Yes, it includes the right to sample. A good start is here: http://www.lessig.org/ _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Indeed, I would love to know how to legally practice my rights to sample from DVD's, there's some WFFC footage I'd love to integrate into my year end. I'm very disapointed that we're not allowed to talk about this here. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yeah, I've been having better luck with WMV. I've got a Dell 8200, which has a gig of Ram, a P4 at 1.7, and a 5400 rpm disk. I just downloaded the Microsoft Windows Media Encoder, and it's doing a pretty good job of de-interlacing and losslesly compressing the file. I should've tried Microsoft first, I guess. I'd heard so much talk about DivX, I'd figured it was the way to go. My bad. I'm surprised Premiere doesn't do this natively... But I guess what I'm trying to do is a different market. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

VirtualDub won't read the AVI that Premiere produced... it says "couldn't locate decompressor for format 'dvsd (unkown). VirtualDub requires a video for windows (vfw) compatible codec to decompress video. DirectShow codecs , such as those used by Windows Media Player, are not suitable" I had exported from Premiere using 'Export timeline / Movie', and picked Microsoft DV AVI . Thoughts? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The gun-rak is on my shopping list... I love the flexibility of the new plate. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I voted yes. When I bought the canopy I was a bit aggresive in my canopy sizing, but still within recomended norms. I then proceded to put on some weight which makes me even more aggresive to the point that I'm now in the "expert" wingloading on my Stileto, and I don't feel I'm an expert skydiver. I do think its ok because I got to this wingloading gradually, and think I fly ahead of the curve. I'm at 1.6 with 500+ jumps, so a bit behind most published limits. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

How can I get a clean AVI export out of Premiere? While my final destination will be tape, I want to export some high quality AVI's or MPG's. I want high quality, these are not for the WEB... They're for being played on my laptop. All the exports I do are either interlaced, or very large files that won't play without Media Player stopping every few seconds. The obvious answer is "check your settings", but I can't figure out which settings I should check. When I started the project, I choose the DV Standard 48mhz... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Your profile is empty... Where do you live? I would love to see you try some AFF-style jumps, where you go straight to freefall with instructor assistance. I think it'd help you get over these mental hurdles. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Why do we need a room? We've got a perfectly good tent.... They're soundproof, right? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Same here. I ditched mine at Rantoul, and the hundred jumps I've done since then - no problems whatsoever. I bought a new rig last week, and I won't put one on this one. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.