-Scatter-

One advantage will be when you're looking to buy a used first rig, it will probably be easier and cheaper, because you'll start out smaller than the more in-demand {170,190,210} starter range.

Your DZ probably runs like a finely crafted swiss timepiece, but where I jump, it goes more like this: Arrive and manifest on load 9. The tandem that didn't show earlier showed up, so two of us get pushed down to load 13. The someone on 12 gets hungry so I get pushed up to load 12. Jump load 12. Get down, now I'm hungry, so I'm thinking I'll get some lunch before manifesting again. Then someone comes up and says "we need one more on load 14, can you be packed in time." So instead of eating I start packing as fast as my inexperienced packing hands go. Then an AFF wants to redo the level she just failed, so all of load 14 gets bumped to 16. At that point somoene has somewhere to be before 16 is going up, and has to scratch..... How precisely do you plan to set up a reservation system for that? As far as I can tell, hauling up-jumpers around at a single cessna DZ is something to do when there isn't a tandem or AFF taking priority.

Good God... Can we next mandate everyone has a warning label tatooed onto his dick? Someone might do stupid things with it otherwise.

I'm piecing together gear, and I had no real problem finding a 4 year old Cypres 2. Sent it in for maintainence and I have no doubts its 100% as good as a new one. I still haven't found a decent used Spectre 190...

Actually, that would perversely make it easier. One big reason that literally half the people who start it are off in a week is the Georgia section is really, really tough. Ass-kickingly tough, even if you do know what you're doing. Good luck!

I don't have a TV. I have a projector hooked to surround sound and a DVD player, but it has no tuner and no cable. So, if someone wants to watch a movie, that's possible, but you can't fall into the "eh, we'll just watch TV" trap. Plus, you can't watch TV when the weather is nice and sunny, because you can't see. What do people do when they come over? Wild sex, obviously.

I have a friend (who is also an ex-girlfriend) who was relating one of her recent dating misadventures and asked me "why would a guy turn down sex?" I made her promise not to be mad at me if I answered, then said "well, you kiss like a starving animal eats." It cuts both ways. Yeah, she got mad anyway.

God, that cat is such a pussy. Tandem? pff. There's a 15 square foot parachute in the classifieds at the moment...

Bullies bully for status. No one beats their wife for status. At least not in any social circles I hang out in.

That's precisely my take on it, yes. Your kid should beat the shit out of the (primary) bully. The lesson is "picking on this kid may get me hurt." That's a lesson he can learn in a very short period of time. I'm either cynical or realistic, but I have little hope for him learning "I should be a productive and respectful member of society" in time for it to do YOUR son any good. Beating the bully is not escalation. Its responding in kind, in terms he understands well. Like you said, going to the police is "going one better" i.e. escalation. We're completely agreed on this point at least. What started out as an issue between one child and one worthless punk now involves one child, one worthless punk, two parents, a grandmother, a brother, a school bus driver and some indeterminate number of law enforcement. At least. A fire that could have been stomped out somehow got... bigger. Surely you agree some fuel was added. Now, if your kid was smaller, weaker, or otherwise not likely to stand a chance in a fight, then what you're doing makes sense. But, you've got to realize that "My child is weak and afraid" is exactly the message you're sending. To the bully who is now hanging around waiting, and to any other bullies looking for a convenient new victim. But, he's not my kid. I'm not saying your course of action is wrong. You obviously care a lot about your son, much much more than anyone cares about the little POS 15 year old. I just don't think its going to be the optimal solution.

I did read the whole thread. I don't have kids. Were you ever a middle school boy? I was the scrawny way-too-smart one that just changed schools at the beginning of middle school and knew no one. I've been in this situation. Repeatedly. Within a year and a half it had stopped entirely, because I was willing to fight back. Did I win every fight? God no. Did I start ANY of them? Nope. Did I try ignoring and reporting it first? Of course. I'm not disagreeing with you about the road both these kids are on. At all. But, they're not the only two kids with abusive home lives who bully people who won't fight back in the town.

Wow. Nice can of worms I opened up here. In the 12 year old's world, no there's no pecking order. Look at it from the point of view of the 15 year old. The kid has probably been abused at home. Like was said, he's a small, angry 15 year old. if he could find a peer to victimize, then he would be doing to, because that would make him feel better about himself than beating on a 12 year old. If he felt like he'd lost the interchange by having police intervention, he wouldn't be hanging around your house. If his dysfunctional family felt like he'd lost the interchange they wouldn't now be harassing other family members - they'd be ashamed and shut up. Clearly they don't. Kicking the parents' asses might work too, if they were around. Realistically it'd just make for more beatings for the 15 year old, reinforcing the view in his head that it is acceptable to abuse the weaker and smaller. Gratifying thought, though.

Which part do you disagree with?

I hate to say it, but this won't stop until your son just gets down and beats this kid's ass. Then, it will stop immediately and permanently. Middle school boys don't fight for fun. They fight to establish a pecking order. The fact that this 16 year old kid is trying to prove dominance over a 12 year old means that he's already at the absolute bottom of the 16 year olds, and the 15 year olds, and the 14 year olds, and there's probably a 13 year old that kicked his worthless ass too. If your son had simply busted him in the chops, he'd go find an 11 year old to bother. Going to the law instead puts the kid in the pecking order above your son. That's NOT where you want him to be. Win, lose, or draw, a clean, public fight ends these things. Permanently.

When my color laser printer was new and amusing, we'd routinely goatse the credit card companies. Full page. In color. /I'm a bad person

Because the mother will believe it. This obviously isn't about the son. Its about the mother. *edit to elaborate* For the purposes of discussion, lets ignore the whole "does IQ testing measure anything meaningful" and assume that a professionally given IQ test will give a reasonably accurate assessment of the kid's baseline intelligence. The kid is not performing well in school right now. There are really two possible reasons why he isn't. 1) He's unintelligent, and performing according to his ability. 2) He's performing below his ability for some reason. Mom clearly believes that #1 is true. I suspect that most of the people who have voted not to test believe #1 is true. The assumption is that if there's outside confirmattion that #1 is true, the kid's life is essentially written off. But, what about if #2 is true? Quick personal anecdote. I transferred schools in 7th grade and throughout middle school was running about a C average. I got in about a dozen fights those two years. What would have happened if no one had ever said "John, you can do better"? I ended up being voted "most intelligent" of my graduating class in my senior yearbook... I don't see the mom telling the son "You can do better" if she doesn't believe it. If he gets tested and suprises her (for whatever value of suprise. Maybe he's of average intelligence) then perhaps she'll reassess and tell him that. If he doesn't get tested, what evidence does she have that she's wrong?

Is he a lazy slacker? I don't see how he can lose being tested. Clearly, his mother already believes that he's slow. She's not going to change her bahaviour if this is confirmed. She's got no reason not to change her behaviour if its not tested. She's shown that she has faith in the results of this test, so if it turns out she's wrong, its a huge positive for him. At the end of the day, its just a number. Some people chose to make that number their identity, usually because they have very little else going on in their lives. *coughMensacough* Besides, even if he does test out with an IQ of 75, he could still grow up to be the president...

I'm looking to purchase a new container (I'm tall and scrawny) for my first rig, and stuff it with used things. I'm leaving towards Wings. I'm planning to get into wingsuiting as soon as I have the jumps to do it (hopefully by the end of this season.) Wings offers their wingsuit mods at no charge when ordering new. I know I'll pick up a "normal" length bridle if I do order it with the mod. Otherwise, is there any downside/danger to having a wingsuit modified rig when its not being used for wingsuiting? thanks

I'm going to out myself as a big geek here, but if you had hit G-LOC, would you have had any chance of not burning in? It seems like a gyro-accelerometer-altimeter package could be put together relatively easily that would detect a spin where it is not possible to maintain consciousness, and automatically perform a cutaway. Obviously you'd want to have it lock out below 1000 feet or so. Have it look at both the instantaneous G-force and various time intervals of G force (10g for 1 second, 8g for 5 seconds, or whatever) and the rotational speed (more than one rotation per second coupled with the above acceleration threshholds)

Of course, there are actually number-of-employee threshholds for most of these. As a 2 man shop, you CAN discrimiante based on just about anything you want. The more you know...

I always found cattle prods to be a stimulating present.

And people wonder why all the cool kids are going private.

Trekking poles are a must have for me. I really like alcohol stoves - you can make one out of a couple beer cans, or just buy the MSR one for thirty bucks. For a 4 day trip, this is unquestionably the way to go - much lighter. Tablets suck - when you're thirsty you're thirsty NOW, not in 30 minutes. My core pack weight is down to 10lb, I've cut my toothbrush in half, and I'm not willing to drop my 8oz filter. For a 4 day trip its hard to beat the mountain house type meals.

Albert Belle's corked bat was a problem because Albert Belle is an asshole, not the other way around.

My problem with the secret and its ilk is it misses the most important step: Work your ass off Which, of course, doesn't sell videos/books/CDs/speaking tours/personal life coaches or whatever. I wonder if I can visualize the rain breaking and the clouds clearing...