SivaGanesha

Let's say someone is serious about skydiving and wants to become a licensed and eventually very experienced skydiver--not just a one-time bucket list thing. What would be the best introduction to the sport be for them? Note that I'm not allowing multiple answers--for example, if someone starts with a Tandem but goes on to do AFF, their introduction was via Tandem. If you answer AFF, it means they would do an AFF first jump with no prior tandem or tunnel time. Etc. Your thoughts? There are multiple ways of getting an initial intro to skydiving--which is best suited to really training someone to become a skydiver? "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 completely agree that most DZ's will try to introduce new skills only gradually so that students and newer licensed jumpers can build their abilities in a safe fashion. And I'd say that it is wise to do so. But I also do feel that the possibility exists for newer jumpers to find themselves in a situation where they are in over their heads due to the fact that much more is 'legal' for a newer jumper than is necessarily smart. "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 thought there were exceptions to this rule under certain circumstances--assuming you are referring to USPA rules as opposed to the practice at particular DZ's. For example, the USPA BSRs require that student group freefall jumps be conducted with a Coach, Instructor, or D license holder--but there could be people on the jump who aren't coaches/instructors. USPA BSR's E 6 a: Basic Safety Requirements The student is supposed to at least be done Category F, though--USPA Section 6.1 B: Advanced Progression I've always wondered, though, how much sense this makes. Theoretically according to the SIM, a 4-way with two D-license holders and two students just done Cat F would be legal. Even though the two D-license holders are presumably highly competent, the two students will still need to achieve horizontal separation FROM EACH OTHER at pull time. Given that the tracking skills up to Cat F are pretty minimal, there would seem to be some question as to whether this could be done safely. "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

Your experience may well end up being different, but I can give a couple of data points as to what my DZ did re recurrency, both times after layoffs of about 2 years: First recurrency jump: with 4 jumps, and Cat A being the highest level successfully completed, I needed to sit through the whole FJC although I was charged only for a refresher. On the jump itself, I was allowed to do a Cat B and passed. Second recurrency jump: with 60 jumps, I had obviously been close to my 'A' license, but never quite completed it. Did a much briefer recurrency. The recurrency involved a thorough review of flying the pattern, emergency procedures, and gear checks--but was much more perfunctory on other points. Dive flow like a coach jump and the instructor is open, to a degree, to suggestions from the student as to what to focus on on the jump. I now need to do ANOTHER recurrency jump this weekend, but this time I do officially have my 'A'. I'm guessing it will be similar to the second recurrency jump I've noted. But, again, each DZ has the discretion to determine their exact procedures for recurrency jumps. "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 generally vote for adults--people who actually act like they meet the Constitutional age minimum of 25 to serve in the House--as opposed to spoiled children. My preference is to vote conservative to libertarian, but if none of the conservatives or libertarians are acting like adults, I'll consider a Democrat who puts themselves forward to provide some needed adult supervision. "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

Have you been successful in signing up for Obamacare? Or have technical glitches prevented you? Note that I'm mainly interested in the experience of people in the 36 states without their own exchanges that are served by healthcare.gov. The other 14 states have their own exchanges and there, apparently, the experience has been better. "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

Legally the situation is quite simple. He is American born--a US citizen. And a Canada-wide warrant is just that--Canada wide. Valid anywhere in Canada. Not valid anywhere in the USA. They (US authorities) would need a basis under US law to arrest this guy--and it does, indeed, sound plausible that no such basis exists. As a US citizen he can't just be denied entry to his own country on a discretionary basis. When it comes to extradition, it also sounds a bit dicey. Although this guy is described as a violent sex offender, that is based on crimes he committed in the past. This time around the crimes he is accused of are significantly less serious. Essentially he served his time for his violent sex crimes. Right now his only legal constraint is that he is under a peace bond--which seems, roughly speaking, to be the Canadian equivalent of a restraining order. And he is accused of violating that restraining order by cutting off his electronic monitoring bracelet--but that is ALL he is accused of right now. In the USA that would be a misdemeanor, not a violent felony. Although it is theoretically possible to extradite for a misdemeanor, I gather that in the USA people aren't typically extradited from one state to another solely for a misdemeanor--much less from one country to another. So I think it is unlikely extradition will be successful unless evidence of new, more serious, crimes in Canada emerge. And I also can't for the life of me figure out WHY Canada would WANT to extradite this guy. He won't be spending the rest of his life in a Canadian jail solely for violating a restraining order. He'll be back on the streets fairly soon. Maybe he'll re-offend when it comes to sex crimes at some point in the future--maybe he won't. But if he does re-offend, I can't for the life of me figure out why the Canadian authorities would go out of their way to ensure that he's on Canadian soil when (if) he re-offends. His Canadian arrest warrant will likely keep him out of Canada for the rest of his life. Seems from a Canadian (not necessarily US) perspective that's a reasonably good outcome. "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

If Boehner had been sharp, he could have embarrassed the Democrats by calling the vote for yesterday afternoon when 8 Democrats were unable to vote because they were rotting in jail: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/house-democrats-arrested-immigration_n_4066253.html If the numbers are correct the vote would have been: Yea--200 Democrats + 19 Republicans - 8 Democrats rotting in jail = 211 votes Nay--232 Republicans in total - 19 Republicans opposed = 213 votes "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 thing is that at some point after Oct 17, we won't have enough money to pay ALL our bills so will have to prioritize. No one responded to my thread yesterday about prioritizing payments. However, while I believe that Treasury technically and legally could prioritize, it would require prioritizing amongst the following bills (among others): A--active duty military paychecks B--Grandma's social security check C--interest payments for Chinese bondholders Picking door number C is probably the one least likely to cause a meltdown of the world economy. But you can appreciate that choosing C over A and B would be a politically extremely difficult decision for the administration to have to make--and clearly they hope to avoid being put in this situation. There's also the concern that interest rates would rise if the risk of default increases. It does not require an actual default, merely the risk of default. I believe we are already seeing some increase in short term interest rates as the risk of default is deemed to increase. Note also that the Washington Post concludes that Moody's is saying that the USA's AAA credit rating would be preserved. This is a conclusion that the Post is drawing but it doesn't actually say so in the part of the Moody's memo that was included. A risk of default can result in a credit downgrade even if no actual default occurs. "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

It is often claimed that if the debt ceiling is not raised, Treasury would lack even the technical ability to prioritize payments: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/debtceiling_10-03.html Thus--according to this belief--even if it would be desirable and legal to give first priority to, say, interest payments on bonds, Treasury would not technically be able to do so. This claim seems hard to believe, though, because it seems to me that in a shutdown situation--even without the threat of default--we are ALREADY prioritizing payments--and so we must have the technical ability to do so. So, for example, with a shutdown, Social Security checks still go out, but paychecks for federal workers are held back until the crisis is resolved. And there seems to be some ability to tweak these priorities as the crisis progresses. For example, active duty military would have potentially also had their paychecks delayed, but Congress passed legislation ensuring they will get paid even during the shutdown. The exact priorities might change as the debt ceiling is breached, but it seems hard to believe that Treasury doesn't have the technical ability to do so. "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

Yes but the distinction isn't relevant here. Those are British terms used in the UK and other Commonwealth countries that still recognize the UK queen as head of state. That doesn't have much to do with Ireland which got rid of the UK sovereign as head of state in 1937. Just to be clear: this is a politician from the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland does elect MPs to the British parliament although, given that sovereignty is not fully resolved, they don't always take their seats. Given that an Irish politician is commenting on events taking place in Northern Ireland, there is clearly a secondary message here beyond the criticism of Obama: Ireland has not fully renounced its claim to Northern Ireland. "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

Don't get me wrong. I love boobies as much as the next guy and it takes a very rare circumstance indeed to cause me to turn down the opportunity to view the mammaries of a female of the species. But when page 1 celebrates human suffering with epithets like "Gotcha" or "Stick it up your Junta" I won't be turning to page 3. "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--appreciate 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

Yes the IP's were vastly different. Haven't checked WiFi from home but will try tonight if this isn't resolved by then. The laptop on the same WiFi works. Strange thing regarding the IP when using the laptop on the WiFi. The IP address given by typing 'ipconfig' at a command prompt differs from the IP given by whatismyip.com. The ipconfig one is similar to the one given by whatismyip.com on my BlackBerry. The whatismyip.com one on the laptop on WiFi is quite different. Hope this all makes sense. "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

Still the same error message at that link! Done! "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

It's a BlackBerry (on Verizon) and I'm just using the standard operating system and browser that comes with the BlackBerry. The problem appears just by accessing www.dropzone.com. Usually the home page starts to come up and then it quits and the error message appears. The problem appears both when using WiFi or cellular--I just tried both. This is in the Seattle, WA area. "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'm having trouble accessing dz.com from my mobile smartphone. There is no problem when accessing dz.com from a desktop/laptop computer. This problem started around 7:30 PDT yesterday (Tuesday 6/11) and is still continuing. Anyone else having problems? The message I get is "Access to dropzone.com was denied." "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 should probably clarify--the specific problem that really stood out in the OP's post--referring to post-license low number jumpers as "students"--isn't something I've really encountered as a problem at either of the DZ's I jump at. I would, however, echo what others have said though--and that is that after one has earned one's 'A', it is harder to be enthusiastic about getting out to the DZ just to do solos. Don't get me wrong--I'm sure I'll be back soon--but I did feel a let down in my own enthusiasm level shortly after getting my 'A' since solos just didn't "do it" for me anymore. Not sure if that is DZ culture or just a stage in a young jumper's career that is unavoidable. Yes the attitude of continuing to learn is very important. Perhaps sometimes us low jumper types may THINK that we don't have much to learn on a solo jump whereas there's almost certainly a lot to still be learned on every jump--even solos. "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

At what point--in your opinion--does a jumper have the ability to make an informed decision? Note that this ISN'T the same thing as asking when they can safely take on specific risks. Everyone has their limits. But at a certain point presumably you would trust someone to make their own decisions as to what those limits are, to seek out whatever advice they need, and to basically manage their risk--as opposed to just being told what to do. When is that point reached? Note that if that point isn't always reached by 50 jumps, it is presumably reached not long thereafter. The USPA allows jumpers to acquire a coach rating with just a B license and 100 jumps. If the USPA is allowing someone to serve as a mentor to younger jumpers--even in a limited context--presumably that means that they are, at the very least, capable of looking after themselves and making their own decisions about things like cameras. "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

Presumably someone is capable of surviving a normal skydive on their own after completing AFF--ie 8 jumps or so. If they aren't capable of doing so, one would wonder why their AFF instructors cleared them to do a solo skydive. So presumably at least some more learning takes place between 8 and 50 jumps. Whether that learning is enough to allow them to safely jump w/camera, I am not qualified to judge. "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 way you've phrased it answers your own question and explains why us low number--but licensed--skydivers might be hesitating to continue with the sport. There's no such thing as a "post A license student". We've earned the right to be referred to as skydivers--not students. We are not students any more--we are skydivers. Use the proper language to refer to us and we might be more likely to continue with the sport. Make no mistake--those of us with low jump numbers clearly have a lot more that we still have to learn. I don't think that anyone is disputing that--certainly I am not. But referring to someone post-A license graduation as a "student" is insulting to the time and effort they've put into this sport getting to this point and may explain a lot about why you aren't seeing as much retention as you might hope for. People have many options as to how they spend their hard earned money--and their hard earned time. A bit more respect to those who've earned their licenses would go a long way to ensuring better retention from recent A license graduates. "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

There is no evidence--that I am aware of--that Obama was born in Kenya. But even if Obama WERE born in Kenya, he would still qualify to be president. If born outside the USA, citizenship typically--at the time of his birth--would derive from the father. But there is an exception if the child is born out of wedlock. Obama Sr never legally divorced his first wife--a Kenyan woman. That means that, technically, Obama Sr's marriage to Obama Jr's mother was never valid--since a bigamous marriage isn't valid. In that case Obama Jr was born out of wedlock, and in that case citizenship derives from the mother--making Obama Jr a natural born citizen. So from a legalistic perspective it really doesn't matter where Obama was born--he qualifies to be president either way. But--again--I'm not aware of any credible evidence that Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii. "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

It's difficult to see, though, how one can get rid of illegal voting without also disenfranchising some people who are perfectly eligible to vote. Some might say that is an even greater loss. Voter ID laws can disenfranchise many who are legally entitled to vote but don't have proper ID. It also gets back to the original topic of this thread. Suppose someone's citizenship is not in dispute--but they are claiming residency in a new state where they want to vote for the first time. Should we require an extensive list of criteria such as where they pay taxes or what deductions they or their parents claim? If we don't, then no doubt a few will vote in states where they really have no ties and shouldn't be voting. But with such restrictions, some will definitely be disenfranchised who should be eligible to vote. Which is the greater evil--turning a blind eye to the fact that a few may be voting in a state/country they shouldn't be--or disenfranchising eligible voters to ensure nobody votes who shouldn't? "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

In the short to medium term, providing illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship might actually help the Republicans. The reason is that right now, illegal immigrants have little to lose by also voting (illegally), so some do and presumably usually vote Democrat. But if you give such people a path to citizenship, then they have something to lose--their chance at citizenship--if they are caught voting illegally. Many who might have flouted the law when it comes to voting as non-citizens will now follow the law to keep on the path to citizenship. The result will be lost illegal votes for the Democrats for the next 13-15 years until these people actually become citizens. "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

True some are going to be right and some wrong. But the photo (that you are referring to) isn't conclusive either because it shows him on the ground--not on the boat. Who moved him from the boat to the ground? Do we know? It doesn't look like he was capable of moving under his own power by that point. Someone I know who lives in the neighborhood says that he saw local police--and later state police from NH who were called in to help--but not federal agents. I don't know that my friend could see the actual house/boat, though--so that's not conclusive either. I never claimed that MA law enforcement has him. Even if they did briefly, they clearly don't any more. I just would have preferred that MA have had jurisdiction/custody from the beginning. I'm not expecting that to happen now. "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