BikerBabe

YAYAY! We'll be the short girl contingent...two of us for every one of Girard! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Those aren't clouds. See, Arizona is very dry and dusty, so we get a lot of that "haze" Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

One of my friends and a fellow skydiver is a professor at Ohio State. He also set up and teaches a skydiving course, for credit! http://www.service.ohio-state.edu/students/skydiving/Templates/course.html Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

That's a great pic, JP! So who all is on the 8-way stuff already with me? come on, only two more slots, you know it's be cool. Craig can come up with some of the most interesting skydives! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

True, it is early season there, and most of the teams that train there or travel to train there are taking a few weeks off since Nationals just ended. There is a Wal Mart out by the highway in Arizona City, if he can bum a ride with someone. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Does he mean the DZ, or the town? Don't go in town. Just don't. It's bad. I'm highly surprised if he's bored at the DZ. Jump man, jump!!!! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

BTW, Dave is on the 2003 advanced class gold medal-winning team, Inferno. Yeah, tunnel camps pay off. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Well, actually, that's one of the other ways that was shown to me in the tunnel. You could do a big flat X as well! The de-arch works better for me, however. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

0th (OK I added this later): Dress for success. If you are a faster faller, wear a looser suit, etc. 1st. Get out from under the formation 2nd. Turn sideways to the formation. If you continue to face the formation, looking up just makes you arch your upper body more and defeats your slowfall. If you turn sideways, you can still de-arch and look at the formation. 3rd. Get into your best slowfall position. If you don't know what I'm talking about, get some tunnel time and practice going up and down in the tunnel about 1 million times. Basically, de-arch THROUGH YOUR HIPS as well as your upper body. I try to touch the base of my spine to my rig. Usually this involves dropping my knees as well. It's hard to coach something like slowfall over the net. get a coach, go to the tunnel, and practice it. Sometimes, if the base is falling really slow, you'll never get up there. I was on a 20-way once, went low, and couldn't get back. My protrack said I was falling at 98 mph...in my 4-way suit!!!! I think at that point I was hosed. I went and changed into my freefall gear. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Oh, Oxford was a GREAT place to be in high school. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Oh yes, if you don't have much RW/belly coaching, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend doing a tunnel camp first. I sorta did it backwardss, did an airspeed 4-way camp, THEN went to the tunnel. I know if I had done the tunnel first, that first skills camp would have been much more profitable. Perris's tunnel will be up and running by then, too. www.tunnelcamp.com Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Wildblue, I lived in Dayton for a few years. as for mine: Oxford, OH, home of the original Miami University. Chartered in 1809, it (and OU over in Athens) was the first institute of higher learning west of the Applachians. Also, Miami is called the "Cradle of Coaches" because of the large number of famous/successful football coaches who either played at Miami or coached there: eight national "Coach of the Year" winners, including legends such as Red Blaik (Army), Woody Hayes (Ohio State), Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame), John Pont (Indiana) and Bo Schembechler (Michigan). Miami’s great pro alumni include Weeb Ewbank (Colts and Jets) and Paul Brown (Browns and Bengals). Weeb Eubank was my mom's patient for years after he retired in Oxford. Betcha didn't know that... Oh, and Miami was a university before Florida was a state, and the people who settle Miami, FL were originally from the Ohio valley. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Go here: www.airspeed.org Find Kirk Verner's email address and shoot him an email to ask about when the Airspeed skills camps are happening this season. There's usually one going on around either the beginning or end of March. Or, try DanBC's Perris Performance Plus. Links are on the perris website: [/url]www.skydiveperris.com[/url] Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

LOL...I didn't say how LITTLE came flooding back. Oh, there was no underage drinking, mind you. none at all. nope. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. Just IMAGINE how we let loose!! Halloween in Athens was a weekend away from prying parents. I have a vague memory of kissing a complete stranger on an athens street, something about a guy dressed up like a tree, and crashing in some frat house. Looking back, we were damned lucky nothing bad happened to us! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

OMG...memories of high school road trips to Athens on Halloween! What a riot! Saw your post and it all came flooding back. Or, at least the parts I can remember. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

LOL, I'm sure Lee already has you on the list!! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

LOL, I have a protrack. It used to go only about ~100 jumps before the low battery warning, then maybe 40 jumps more. Then I discovered why! See, I live 2000 ft higher than my DZ. So every time I'd drive home, it would continue to recalibrate itself, wasting the batteries. So I RTFM, learned how to actually turn it off manually, and voila! no more short battery life! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I think I'm with Mar on this one. From personal experience, If someone is not qualified, even if they are a local, they should not be on the jump. But if the organizer knows people from neighboring states who are qualified, what's wrong with inviting them to be on the jump? State records are also EXCELLENT PR for the dropzone, and if you play it right, you can get a lot of media coverage, sponsorship and other support from the local community. Let me spin a tale of the most recent New Mexico state record attempt. Our current State record is a 13-way (yep, you saw that right). We were going for 22 (conveniently, one full otter load). 1. We are the only DZ in the state, and we have one Cessna 182. So the locals who don't travel much have very little big-way experience. 2. One of our locals is a big-way organizer who travels elsewhere to do his job. 3. We scheduled an otter. The LO chose the locals he thought were qualified, then filled out the 22 by inviting people from CO, AZ, and TX. He had to. We don't HAVE 22 qualified people. We probably don't even have 15. NM is interesting, I think it's a cultural thing, but most people here don't spend a lot of money on things they see as "frivolous" or "extra". So...not a lot of skydivers. 4. We lined up sponsorship from some local companies and some gear manufacturers, which allowed us to have some great door prizes (ProTrack, 50% off a new rig, etc). Our plane owner is also one of the senior reporters at one of the local stations so we were guaranteed local news coverage. We're also lucky to have a local who knows just about every manufacturer in the sport. 5. The attempt failed. The people who have hundreds of 4-way, tandem and coach jumps weren't able to hack it, and due to not wanting to hurt feelings (and lack of depth of talent), cutting wasn't considered. 6. But we still got great press! And there are still poeple who come for tandems that mention the news story they saw a year ago about skydiving and they have wanted to try it ever since. We're trying again next year, but with better planning and preparation. You use what you have, buit if it isn't enough, as long as the effort is there to include locals, I see no problem with bringing in out-of-state people to fill in the gaps. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Check your PMs...there's several routes to get there, and it depends on what you want. Speed? Scenery? Speed: I-40 to I-25 to I-10. Scenery: Grants, NM to Quemado, Quemado to Show Low, etc. I'd say through Flagstaff is the longest route, even if it is all interstate. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Am I the only one laughing HYSTERICALLY at that? Tears are coming out of my eyes. My coworkers think I'm insane. ROTFLMAO!! Why is this funny to me? WHY?!?!?! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

you know, y'all may be silver medalists, shit-hot skydivers, and all-around good people, but DAYUM, you're loud in your team room!!!!!! Especially when playing trivial pursuit, which I always thought to be a laid back, quiet kind of game... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

hmmm....I think if you asked most gays, they would tell you they don't want SPECIAL treatment, they want EQUAL treatment under the law. Right now, in most places, it is perfectly, legally OK to deny someone something if they happen to be gay. A landlord can refuse to lease to someone who is gay. An employer can refuse to hire someone who is gay. I am all for a law that disallows these practices. Is that special treatment? Is that any more than anyone else in this country is getting? REALLY? Whereas, it is NOT legally OK to deny someone employment because they are black or because they happen to worship pink elephants. Does that mean that African Americans fought for and won "special treatment?" Is not allowing an employer to discriminate against Buddhists "special treatment" for buddhists? They don't want something "different than the average Joe." They want the same as the average Joe is getting. How is prevention of discrimination considered special treatment? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

LOL!!! I've always been an arguer. Bad logic is one of my pet peeves. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

well, here's the thing. Based on the law as explained above and scrutiny of certain groups, the issue of an all-black retirment home is a completely different (albeit related) one than that of an all-gay retirement home. The all-black retirement home would be subject to strict scrutiny as defined above by lawrocket. The all-gay retirement home is not. There are no laws on the books that define homosexuals as a suspect class (a la race or religion), or even as an intermediate class (a la gender). So you could try to pose the same argument, but it wouldn't legally hold water. In order to legally fight against something like this, you'd have to allow that which you seem to be opposed to. Meaning that constitutional protections would first have to be extended to include sexual orientation as well as race, religion, etc before you could legally fight something like this. So in essence, you are arguing for gay rights! WTG, storm!! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

good visualization works wonders, really. I would stress that visualizing herself doing it right is the key. Also, if there is a particular thing that happens on every jump for her, perhaps anonther good use of visualization is picturing herself dealing with the problem in the proper way. For AFF, I would stress that her mental state while visualizing is very important as well. If she visualizes tense, she'll BE tense. It will really help how calm she is if she visualizes herself being calm during the skydive. Also, the more details she can add into her visualization, the better. i.e. the feel of the air on her hands, the look on the face of her instructor, the smile on her face, EVERYTHING contributes to a more realistic visualizastion, which will help her have a more successful skydive. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!