AndyMan

After 2 years, I haven't needed to. Possibly because I jump with a d-box, and only use new tape. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yes, i'm talking about the ones that are in the side of the d-box. Since you're mounting on a flat-top-pro, they're no longer usefull, so drill 3 new holes in the bottom and relocate. Yes, my dbox has foam preinstalled in the bottom. just drill through it. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I used the 3 screws that came with the Bonehead d-box. I ran the screws up from inside the FTP, and put the bolts inside the dbox. Use small bolts and the foam will compress around them. Or, use the funny counter-sunk bolts (whose name escapes me) that came with your d-box. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I have two Merlin suits, I'll never get another.4-6 weeks delivery turned into 12, with unanswered emails and phone calls. The quality of the Merlin suits are half decent... Emphasis on "half". After a few hundred jumps stiching is coming out. I had to replace the velcro sandwich on my wings after less than 50 jumps. Now I'm experimenting with Tony Suits, and am generally much happier. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Is there a risk that the new location of the cutter not having protection from the backpad, will be more susceptible to damage from external forces? Thoughts? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I have absolutely no doubt that the government has the ability to hide peoples identities, and even repeatedly give people new identities. They sometimes even do so openly, for example with the Witness Protection Program. There's no reason to think they do not also do so clandestinely. The problem is this plane seems to be tied to torture, and is owned by someone with either multiple identities, or one very false identity at least - and that false identity is tied to the CIA. It seems as though the government is going to very great lengthes to make sure that the people condoning (and performing!) torture are insulated against any kind of criminal or civil action. That makes it very dificult to argue (as they did with Lt. England) that any torture is the misdirected act of a rogue soldier. By protecting the individuals, they're makes the instutution itself complicit. Land of the free, indeeed. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

clicky Mysterious jet tied to torture flights Sat Jan 8, 9:40 AM ET By John Crewdson Tribune senior correspondent The first question is: Where is Leonard T. Bayard? The next question is: Who is Leonard T. Bayard? But the most important question may be: Does Leonard T. Bayard even exist? The questions arise because the signature of a Leonard Thomas Bayard appears on the annual report of a Portland-based company, Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC, that was filed in August with the Oregon secretary of state. According to federal records, Bayard Foreign Marketing is the newest owner of a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V executive jet reportedly used since Sept. 11, 2001, to transport suspected Al Qaeda operatives to countries such as Egypt and Syria, where some of them claim to have later been tortured. The Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) has declined to discuss the plane. But one retired CIA (news - web sites) officer said that he understood the Gulfstream had been operated by the Joint Special Operations Command, an interagency unit that organizes counterterrorist operations in conjunction with the CIA and military special forces. A search of commercial databases turned up no information on Leonard Thomas Bayard: no residence address, no telephone number, no Social Security (news - web sites) number, no credit history, no automobile or property ownership records--in short, none of the information commonly associated with real people. And yet, someone signed the name Leonard T. Bayard to Bayard Foreign Marketing's annual report. The report, which describes the company as an "international marketing firm," lists Bayard's principal place of business as a suite in a historic downtown Portland office building known as the Pittock Block. But a visitor to the suite who asked to see Bayard was told by a receptionist only that "Mr. Bayard doesn't work here." The telephone number on Bayard's annual report is listed to a private residence in a rundown section of northeast Portland whose doorbell went unanswered earlier this week. Calls to that number, however, appear to be answered by a bank of operators. An initial call was answered as "Baynard Foreign Marketing" by an operator who insisted she never had heard of Leonard Bayard. A second call two minutes later was answered as "Bayard Foreign Marketing" by a different operator, who said that "Mr. Bayard is away from his desk." A message left by a reporter went unanswered. The CIA has long had a well-known practice of "backstopping" local telephone numbers for its proprietary companies around the world, whose calls are forwarded to operators at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Scott Caplan, an attorney whose offices occupy the same Portland suite as the one listed by Bayard Foreign Marketing, identified Bayard as "a client" but declined to say more. Public documents show it was Caplan who filed the incorporation papers for Bayard Foreign Marketing when the company was created in August 2003. Ann Martens, a spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, said that knowingly filing a false corporate document in Oregon is punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a $1,000 fine. November sale Leonard T. Bayard--whoever he may or may not be--became the sole owner of the mysterious Gulfstream jet on Nov. 16, according to public records compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites). The records show that Bayard Foreign Marketing purchased the plane, for an undisclosed sum, from Premier Executive Transport Services, whose address is the same as that of a Dedham, Mass., law firm that incorporated Premier Executive in January 1994. The Massachusetts law firm's address is shared by a second company, Crowell Aviation Technologies Inc., which according to Dun & Bradstreet claims to have only a single employee and $65,000 in annual revenue. Government records show, however, that Crowell is one of only nine companies, along with Premier Executive, that has Pentagon (news - web sites) permission to land aircraft at military bases worldwide. The same day it transferred ownership of the Gulfstream to Bayard, Premier Executive sold an unmarked, 3-year-old Boeing 737 to Keeler and Tate Management LLC of Reno. That company's address is the same as that of the Reno law firm that incorporated it in October 2003, records show. Like Leonard T. Bayard, the only named principal in Keeler and Tate, one Tyler Edward Tate, also appears not to exist in any public records accessible by the Tribune. Premier Executive's only listed executive is its president, Bryan P. Dyess. A person with that name does appear in commercial databases, but his only addresses are two post office boxes in Arlington, Va., not far from CIA headquarters. Premier Executive purchased or leased the new Gulfstream V in 1999, FAA (news - web sites) records show. The plane's original registration number, N581GA, would later be changed by the FAA to N379P, and again to 8068V. The first public mention of the Gulfstream appeared six weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, when a Pakistani newspaper reported that Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, a 27-year-old microbiology student at Karachi University, had been spirited aboard the plane at Karachi's airport by Pakistani security officers in the early hours of Oct. 23, 2001. There is no information about where Mohammed was taken. But Pakistani officials said later that Mohammed, a Yemeni national, was believed by the U.S. to belong to Al Qaeda and to have information about the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (news - web sites). Since Sept. 11, unnamed U.S. officials have been quoted in several publications discussing the U.S. practice of "rendition," which involves sending suspected terrorists or Al Qaeda supporters captured abroad for interrogation to countries where human rights are not traditionally respected. Well-documented case One well-documented rendition occurred in December 2001, when two Egyptian nationals, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery, were flown aboard the Gulfstream from Sweden's Bromma airport to Cairo. A Swedish television broadcaster, TV4, reported last year that a check of the plane's registration number, N379P, showed it belonged to Premier Executive. The Swedish ambassador to Cairo later said Agiza and al-Zery both told him they had been tortured by Egyptian police. Al-Zery was released in October 2003 without charges. Agiza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his alleged membership in an Egyptian terrorist group. The Swedish government has called on Egypt to agree to an international investigation into the torture charges. The government has said it had been assured by Egypt that the two men would not be mistreated. Another widely reported rendition to Egypt occurred in January 2002, when the Gulfstream arrived in Jakarta, Indonesia, to pick up a 24-year-old Al Qaeda suspect and dual Egyptian-Pakistani citizen, Muhammad Saad Iqbal, and transport him to Cairo. German intelligence sources later said Indonesia refused to permit subsequent renditions to Cairo after learning that Iqbal had been tortured. An international network of "plane spotters," hobbyists who log the comings and goings of specific aircraft around the world, have posted on the Internet photographs of the Gulfstream in various locations. The Sunday Times of London, which claimed to have obtained the plane's flight logs, reported in November that the plane was based at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. The newspaper said it had flown to at least 49 destinations outside the U.S., including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, other U.S. military bases, as well as airports in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq (news - web sites), Morocco, Afghanistan (news - web sites), Libya and Uzbekistan. Two days after the Sunday Times report, Premier Executive Transport sold the Gulfstream to Bayard Foreign Marketing. On Dec. 1, records show, the FAA assigned the plane yet another tail number, N44982. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You'd think that, but I have asked PD that very question, and they've never given anything even remotely resembling a real answer. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I would trade it in for a digital. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Both appear to be very good devices. If I were buying right now, I'd probably get a Vigil.... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

This may seem obvious, but it deserves mention... Make sure you use ACE silicon lubricant - NOT Ace silicon glue. The bottles are amazingly similar, and are often found side-by-side in the store. Ace silicon glue on your cuttaway cables would be a bad thing... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Strangely enough, Craichead and I are discussing flying down to Florida for a relative's wedding that weekend. She's still recovering from shoulder surgery, so we won't be jumping. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I used to fly a Velocity helmet without chin-cup... It works OK, but if you're interested in being paid for video you really need the stability you can only get from a chin-cup. If you're only looking to do it for fun, then maybe the best (cheapest) solution is to just take the chin-cup off your veolcity? Otherwise, take a look at some of the other helmets. I first looked at the Gun-Rak because I thought I liked the Clam-shell, but I ended up buying a Flat-Top-Pro when it became obvious it's simply the best camera helmet out there. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

PC-120 100 jumps before the IR transmitter (night shot) blew. Extended waranty replaced the motherboard, and 400 good jumps since. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

www.pia.com/skydance _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

It's written right beside the one that says Americans have a right to bear arms, of course! _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Sort of. It's true that the beer tastes less flavourfull as it approaches freezing. The effect goes away as the beer warms. That's a very different thing than storing it cold. Cold storage of beer is definatley a good thing, and the closer to freezing you can get without ice crystals forming, the longer the shelf-life. If a beer is stored to near ice-cold, you definately want it to warm before drinking. Often that's accomplished by pouring into a room-temperature glass. For the record, the US major breweries have some of the least time-efficient distribution systems anywhere. US beer spends more time in warehouses than in any other country. Here, more than anywhere else, cold storage is critical. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

So now you're a church? How many churches do you know? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Who do you want to run the world? The group that broke into the Watergate? Or... the group that got sucked off in the Oval Office? Maybe the group that tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib , or the group that's accused of doing the same in Guantanamo? Every group, no matter how noble its intentions, will have dark spots. It's best not to judge the whole by the actions of a few. Personally, I find the idea of humanism far more appealing than the alternative. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

That's funny. You think there is one! _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Regardless of the veracity of the claim.... It is well known that the definitive cause of the Genesis crash was a very obvious (and in hindsight, stupid) design flaw by Lockheed Martin engineers. The system was guaranteed to fail. The "Deceleration sensor" was designed and installed upside down. Theoretically, the parachutes COULD have fired during the acceleration of takeoff, but in hindsight it's completely inconceivable for the system to have operated correctly for landing. If you care, read more here: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6541 Any connection between the failure of the Genesis probe and this manufacturer is entirely coincidental. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I'm confused. I bought a G-II a few monthes ago. I don't think the K2 replaces it... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Please don't be so dumb. Clearly, it was Monica's fault. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Last night, Craichead and I had a red-sauce with basil, sautee'd mushrooms, goat-cheese, and clams. Best Pizza Ever _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I just posted this in the other thread. I'm going to repost it here. Why should corporations be protected by lawsuits from consumers, when those corporations are the worst offenders? Every time the discussion of frivolous lawsuits comes up, the example cited is ALWAYS the case of a person suing a corporation. Ever wonder about why all frivolous lawsuits are people against corporations? Answer: They're not. Most sucessful trial-lawyer consider marketing and "press management" a big part of their responsibility. Many corporate lawyers write the press releases that end up heavily quoted in articles like the this one. www.groklaw.org had a great article discussing this last week, but I can't get the clicky because they're down. Not surprisingly, any talk of "tort reform" tends to revolve around the issue of stopping people from suing companies. That disturbs me. If you ever dig into the issue of frivolous lawsuits, by far the worst cases are almost always businesses against businesses. Here's a great example, Allstate sues Kraft because a toaster strudel caught fire while being (over) heated, and did significant damage to the house... Because somehow Kraft is responsible for a dumb-assed person over-cooking a pastry. http://www.record-eagle.com/2003/mar/31toast.htm. Here's another one: Caterpillar sues the Walt Disney Company for portraying bulldozers in a negative light in their movie "George of the Jungle 2." http://www.boycottriaa.com/article/8472 A third: Mattel also sued the recording label MCA when musical group Aqua released the song "Barbie Girl." Mattel claimed that the song defamed Barbie becuase her name was used as a sexual innuendo. Both suits were dismissed. http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/ip/mattelmca72402opn.pdf On the contrary, the most oft cited example of a consumer-lawsuit gone wrong is the McDonalds hot coffee case. In reality, this is a great example of how lawsuits to work, to help people fight when they've been legitimately wronged. http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm I have no idea if this above Walmart lawsuit is merritted. I DO know that the press article attached would have been largely quoted verbatim from a press release written by the defending attorney. We, as consumers of media, are horribly ill-equipped to judge the merrits of the case. I do know that judges are very well equipped to "judge" the validity of the complaint. That's their job. Let's leave it to them to judge, then we can all arm-chair quarter-back after the game is over. Corporations are using the notion of "Frivolous lawsuits" to get out of very legitimate lawsuits every day, while launching countless ones of their own. A good primer on this notion is here http://www.atla.org/homepage/bizvsbiz03.aspx. __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.