SivaGanesha

It does appear to be a criminal offense: a misdemeanor on the first offense; a felony on the second or subsequent offense: http://www.cairco.org/legal/legal.html 8 U.S.C. 1325 - Improper Entry by Alien (a) Improper time or place; avoidance of examination or inspection; misrepresentation and concealment of facts; Any alien who - (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years or both. The subtle distinction here seems to be that being in the country illegally is a civil matter, while entering illegally is a criminal matter. Generally people apprehended along the border have not been charged criminally in the past, but lately it seems that prosecutors are getting tougher and are sometimes prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Why? And what does that even mean? A state is supposed to have considerable autonomy to go its own way and make its own laws under the Constitution, although admittedly the federal government has in practice been gaining in power for a long time. Wyoming is, indeed, supposed to have as great a right to set its own laws--for internal Wyoming matters--as California does. With proportional-only representation in the EC or Senate it is much harder for states like Wyoming to enforce their rights. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The last time, I think, was in 2000 when Cheney claimed to be a Wyoming resident. Cheney was actually from Texas but had he admitted it he would have lost the Texas electoral votes, since the Texas electors could not constitutionally vote for both a Pres (Bush) and a VP (Cheney) from Texas. Had Cheney not claimed to be from Wyoming, Lieberman would have become VP in 2000. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

And they bitched and moaned about their jobs going to India for the cheap wage... The dot-com situation happened because Clinton doubled and then tripled the number of H-1B workers allowed into the country. This created a huge shock in the industry because it overnight turned a huge shortage of IT workers into a huge glut of IT workers. Outsourcing to India is a factor too but it was a longer term process. The increase in the number of H-1B workers changed the dynamic overnight. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Getting rid of the electoral college would be quite tricky. If we went to a system where the nationwide popular vote determined the presidency, we would also have to have a uniform, nationwide, system for determining just who is eligible to vote, how votes are counted, how election rules are enforced, etc. If you are going to add vote totals in, say, Florida and California, etc., you have to be sure that a vote in Florida means exactly the same thing as a vote in California. The rules for voting have to be exactly the same nationwide. This would mean that the federal government would have to get directly involved in running elections in a way they are not involved right now. Do we really want to do that? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Those who are passionate about science should earn a living--via other means--during their early adult lives. Later in life, when they are financially independent enough to not be dependent on research funding by others, then should return to their passion of science and self-fund it. Making scientists earn a living via other means for awhile would have the side effect that they'd probably learn how to deal with people better--an additional benefit. At least when I did a PhD program the vast majority of funding came from DARPA (defense money). The funding to come from civilian agencies such as NSF was a very small percentage of the total. Even doubling or tripling the NSF percentage would leave it a small percentage. The lion's share of the funding--and hence the ability to control the research--would still lie with DARPA. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

... How do you propose researchers do anything without a source of funding to pay for it? By doing what Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia did--by first earning the money in a different field in order to fund their own research. Those who are truly passionate about science will have no problems with such a requirement. Einstein, in his early days at least, wasn't reliant on outside funding--he earned a living via other means. When you accept money from others in order to do a scientific experiment, those funding the experiments have control over how the results will be presented. There may still ultimately be an unavoidable objective truth underlying the experiments but the funding agencies have control over the "spin" that is placed on the presentation of the results. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

This Wikipedia article implies that what drives science is the search for objective truth whereas in practice what drives science is the search for research grant money. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

What is the "part of the aircraft that sticks out"? Is this something that can be altered...it sounds a little dangerous and at the very least it sounds like something your DZ needs to be more aware of. Was this before the door was open or after? Was it part of the door? It has been awhile since I've jumped from a 182...my more recent jumps have been from a PAC 750 or Caravan...but I don't remember any parts of the 182 sticking out that would be likely to catch the flap and move the pin. Perhaps the DZ aircraft can and should be altered a bit to remove this problem. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I don't think it is selfish to have children; however, I think it IS selfish to want grandchildren if your children don't want to have children. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Even though there is not much time left in Bush' term, the reason for potentially pursuing impeachment at this time is that it would prevent Bush from pardoning himself. If Bush is impeached and convicted, even after he leaves office, then it opens the door for criminal charges in the regular courts if he is believed to have committed while in office. If Bush is not impeached, then he can just pardon himself. I'm not necessarily saying Bush is, in fact, guilty of impeachable and/or criminal offenses. What I'm saying is that if impeachment is the right thing to do, it should be done regardless of the timing. It is important to set the right precedent in these matters. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Interestingly, the Marijuana Party of Canada is a legitimate registered political party in Canada. (Indeed, technically speaking they have been a legal party for longer than the party that currently controls the Canadian gov't). One of their official candidates in the 2000 Canadian election was a skydiver from my original DZ back in Canada. Part of his platform seemed to be that he needed to smoke pot for 'medicinal reasons' related to lingering pain from--you guessed it--a serious skydiving injury. I have no idea whether his original injury was caused by jumping while stoned--it occurred very close to the time I originally started the sport, but I wasn't at the DZ when it happened. However, I highly doubt he started smoking only after his injury. The DZ in question had never had--and still hasn't ever had--a fatality. By all accounts, though, they--and he--were very lucky that day not to lose that perfect record. On one level I agree with all the comments about safety, etc. But I have to say that on another level I'm kind of proud to have once smoked a joint at the DZ with a founding member of the Marijuana Party of Canada. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I am pretty sure it was his sixth jump overall: 1st jump, 1944 or so, emergency jump during WWII. 2nd jump, 1997, AFF, I believe on the anniversary of the 1st jump 3rd jump, 1999, AFF, for his 75th birthday 4th jump and 5th jump, 2004, tandems (he did AFF training but winds were too high), for Reagan's funeral/his 80th birthday 6th jump, 2007, tandem, for the reopening of his presidential library "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

When you remember your first jump better than you remember the first time you had sex... "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I've logged (and gotten signed) wind tunnel time in my logbook as well. Wind tunnel time, of course, doesn't count as freefall time or as a jump out of a perfectly good aircraft, but I think it is still good to have a record of it. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I tend to get that one, or some variant, a lot too. Funny thing is that it always seems to be presented to me as a good thing--like they think they are confiding some good news in me to brighten up my otherwise miserable day As in, they say, in the sort of somber tone you might use at a funeral, that they "take a lot of comfort from" the alleged fact that I will have a "mercifully painless death" since I am allegedly going to die in freefall before having to suffer the pain of bouncing. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The one I seem to get a lot these days is some variant of: "Whuffo you jump out of those airplanes more than once?" It isn't phrased quite like that, of course, but the basic idea is that I think many whuffos probably know someone who claims to have done a tandem, so they can sort of understand doing one, and only one, tandem just to "find out what it is like". But they simply cannot imagine why anyone would ever want to jump out of a plane more than once let alone dozens, hundreds, or thousands of times. An example would be one whuffo friend of mine who has a bit of a weight problem--I don't think he ever met a bacon cheeseburger he didn't like. He came to the DZ once to do a tandem, but he was over the DZ's maximum weight for tandem students, so he was turned away. He then told everyone I knew that, yes, he had been too heavy to jump, but having been to the DZ (and not even having jumped!), he was qualified to say that anyone who jumps more than once is "obviously stuck" and "has nothing going on in their life". Obviously I am not the most experienced skydiver in the world, but I obviously have a lot more experience than him--he was just trying to tear down what I did because he couldn't do it himself. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Thanks for the reply...I'm in Northern California but may be moving (for non-skydiving reasons) to Southern California soon. So I am interested in hearing about DZ's throughout CA...I know there are a lot of DZ's but as noted I'm interested in the ones that have a strong focus on AFF as opposed to tandem. Thanks again...I'll check out Perris and Elsinore. Blue skies, David "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Why would I need a skyride certificate--is it not possible to call Perris directly? My DZ from earlier this year sent me to Perris to do wind tunnel training. I did do the wind tunnel training at Perris but haven't jumped since. I had a sense of a much better atmosphere at the wind tunnel than at my original DZ but I didn't have the time to check out the rest of the DZ at Perris. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

What is the best DZ for AFF in the Sun Belt anywhere in the USA? Many years ago--in the 80's--I jumped fairly regularly for a couple of years in Canada and qualified for my CSPA A license. I am now 42 years old. This year I've been trying to get back into the sport--it has been so long so I basically need to start again from the beginning and that is fine with me. I made a few AFF jumps at a DZ in California earlier this year but I had the sense that they didn't really want to be training AFF's. They told me point blank more than once that they only do AFF because they 'have to' and prefer tandems because that is where the 'real money' is. They seemed perfectly safe and competent but I just got the sense that I'd learn more from somewhere that wants to be teaching me and wants me to learn and I just didn't get that feeling with these guys. A couple of negative reviews on dropzone.com about this drop zone in recent months have confirmed my gut instincts about this place. Any suggestions as to a good DZ for completing the AFF program? I'm looking for a place that enjoys training people to become newly licensed skydivers as opposed to a tandem mill. I am in California so California is ideal. However, I have some flexibility in my professional life--I work out of my home--and can and would temporarily relocate elsewhere in the country if I felt the best DZ to learn was not in CA. I don't want to wait until spring so I think it would need to be somewhere in the Sun Belt. Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Blue skies, David "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

But the instructor ISN'T "right there" when you are landing on an AFF jump, although they may be "right there" in freefall. Their advice should be given the respect it deserves but you alone must make the decisions re the landing from the very first jump. When I'm in a position where I'm going to have to take responsibility for an important decision (and, again, this applies to other things as well as skydiving) I like to seek out multiple points of view in advance, rather than relying on a sole individual, no matter how qualified. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I agree that their own instructors should be the PRIMARY point of contact for advice. I do not agree the instructors should be the SOLE point of contact for advice. Sometimes the point of view of someone who is only slightly further along can be helpful because sometimes the perspective of a peer is helpful to have. Sometimes instructors (in anything, not just skydiving) forget what it was like to be students. My own background is what it is--many years, few jumps. I do not pretend it is anything other than it is. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

May I ask why? Was it a good flare? What position was their body in? Something must have gone wrong in the flare for them to have broken something. Why was a PLF necessary and why didn't they do it if it was necessary? I'm not disputing your experience but the way it reads it sounds like they did everything right but still had a negative outcome. What is the missing piece of information--where was the human error? It sounds--from the nature of the injury--that they may have flared too high and a better flare might have saved their ass (no pun intended ;) ). To me this underscores my point that the flare is the most important part. It is true that someone could always, on every jump, come in with half brakes, land into the wind, never flare, and if they did a good PLF every time, and they would be fine. But that's not the goal of the sport and that's not what students are taught--students are taught to flare from the very first jump. (Yes, if the OP was taught something differently at his DZ, he/she should go with whatever they were taught.) Once you've decided you are going to flare, the first priority needs to be doing it right. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

May I ask why? Was it a good flare? What position was their body in? Something must have gone wrong in the flare for them to have broken something. Why was a PLF necessary and why didn't they do it if it was necessary? I'm not disputing your experience but the way it reads it sounds like they did everything right but still had a negative outcome. What is the missing piece of information--where was the human error? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I agree with AFFI who said that your instructors should be your primary point of contact with questions--however, sometimes the view of someone closer to your own experience level can be helpful providing you always give precedence to what your instructors say. So here are my two cents worth if you haven't gotten in the air yet--but hope you have by now! I jumped for awhile in the 80's using round canopies and am now starting again, essentially from the beginning, with AFF after 20 years out of the sport. In my view, the PLF is mostly a holdover from the days of round canopies. With rounds, they didn't want you to attempt to judge when you would actually land--they felt that a first jump student risked injury if they did so. Instead, once you knew you were coming down in an obstacle free area, you would point your canopy into the wind, put your feet and knees together and slightly bent, and look out at the horizon. Then you'd wait for gravity to do its part--usually gravity obliged ;)--you wouldn't necessarily know exactly when you were going to land, but you would have the perfect body position to fall and roll as soon as you did. With modern square canopies, there IS a lot of emphasis placed on judging when you are going to land so you can flare at the right time. With squares, IMHO, flying a good pattern, approach, and flare is far more important than the PLF. If you do a good flare, the landing is going to be pretty soft regardless...and if not, well, it may be another story entirely. The PLF is available as a backup if it looks like it may be a hard landing, and you should certainly approach with your feet and knees together and ready to do a good PLF. But the best case scenario isn't to do a good textbook PLF. The textbook PLF is really designed for use with round canopies. Back in the 80's, I had some difficulty with the PLF as well, and my instructor spent a fair bit of time working with me until I could do it at least respectably before I got in the air. I'm not sure if your instructors will spend quite as much time, because these days it is a backup to doing a good flare rather than the primary landing method. The key, IMHO, is just to let yourself fall. If you are positioned correctly, with your feet and knees together and slightly bent, you will naturally fall to the side and then roll if you just let yourself fall. But of course there is a resistance to doing so--to break your fall in some way with a hand, etc, that just takes practice to overcome. One thing they used to do in teaching the PLF, that they may or may not do as much now given that they seem to spend less time on the PLF, is to have you put a piece of paper between your knees. If your knees remain together throughout, you should be able to complete the PLF without the piece of paper ever coming loose. Focusing on using your knees to hold that piece of paper between them seems to help a lot in keeping you in the right position throughout. Anyways good luck with your jump--and, like I said, take anything I say with a grain of salt if your instructors say something different. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014