dterrick

Marcus, I've jumped hackeys (borrowed rigs) but generally jup the plastic tube. I feel the handle style will make little or no difference in your ability to grasp it. May I suggest that some flexibility exercises are in order? After all, pulling is kinda important. some specific manouvers I practice before Most every jump is a lot of shoulder stretches... Stand feet shoulder width apart in a door frame, place arms in BOX position (90 deg, 90 deg) and lean forward. "Fall forward" or Arch and hold for 20 sec while concentrating on RELAXING. Repeat. Another stretch I do is to place my forearm in front of my chest (again 90 deg elbow) and gently pull /rotate with my opposite hand on the forward elbow until I feel resistance - hold 20 seconds. Yet another is the clasic 'windmill'. Slowly rotate each arm 10 times in as close to a propeller motion as you can as close to your body as you can. As you gain flexibility you will be able to bring your arm closer to your body. Do each arm forward and backward. Disclaimer here - I'm not a licensed "anything" re physiotherapy but these things help me. If you are serious about gaining flexibility, ask around and grab a 'qualified' personal trainer and have a session designed for you. Cheaper and safer than another reserve pull... Also, talk to your rigger about the specific setup you have - you may have a correctable situation, but any flexibility improvements you make will also make you a better skydiver. -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Pie??? for an A license? Maan you picked a tough DZ. the nornal convention is just 'Beer'. Oh well, I got pie for my 100th and it's actually kinda fun in a warped way, but you sure feel like you've arrived. Congrats!! -DAve Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

THERE's your excuse ... tell them it's a skydiver cult music thingy and if they don;t get it well, @#@# them and here's to you One thing I've learned about skydivers in particular is that we have an, um, eclectic taste in tunes as a generality. Most often we'll llisten to a bit of anything... so what if she's a female Barry White?? -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Welcome to the forums Arthur!! (Love your avatar) Michele's article mades us ALL feel as if we've known you ... she has incredible talent in this respect. Your story in its' self is also incredible - some of us have suffered temporary disabilities, but to endure the degeneration of MS AND THEN do something that many able bodied people refuse to do 'why-ever' is an incredible testament to your will and Mind over Matter. Skydiving is wonderful 'therapy' ... do you think you could write it off?? . Seriously, may you jump as often as your mind requires ... it sounds like your body will do whatever you tell it that it can. Blue Skies -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Gotta admit I need to go back to the summer I was 19 and working for a resort lumberyard while attending University... but I have one that's almost as good - if not as tragic... There were 3 of us 'joe jobbers' ... Boss's nephew, his frined, and me. We all drove the 1 ton delivery trucks on a daily basis in the small lumber yard with a circle drive and pole sheds surrounding. At night, the trucks were parked in a line behind the main building, facing the NEW pole shed. The day before I had knocked a mirror off truck #1 backing up a steep tree-lined hill making a delivery. That night it rained and the yard was a swamp and I was wearing big bulky rubber boots. Being assigned to back out the closest truck to the pole shed I failed to disengage the gearbox before starting the truck... BAM!!! Right into the 2 story pole shed's main triple 2x8 beam cracking it in two. My foot had slipped off the clutch pedal (Really... this is long before the days when you had to have the pedal in to start a vehicle). My apology was accepted and the senior hand and owner rebuilt the 3 ply beam into a 5 ply beam. Later that day, still shaky, I took the mirros off the OTHER side of the same truck (all 3 incidents on ol' blue). Yikes. Here's where it gets good.... The owner's nephew was the one to rag me the most about my faux pas (passes?) and I took it "OK". three days later, 'smartass' takes it upon himself to start a 'forklift lapping' contest around the yard. Our 'game' was rudely inturruped by a customer neening something rom the upper loft. on resumption, nephew-boy proceeds to tear SIXTY feet of tin roof off the same pole shed - having failed to lower the forklist's boom after we used it for actual work. Boss was not so kind this time. "We" fixed the tin roof ourselves... in 90+ degree heat Ah, to be young and stupid again ... who knows what havoc I could cause with what I know now

"All I want ...bang bang bang..." Hollister Love kicks! I was just on visit from Canada ("eh") and for the SECOND time I visit that cool little DZ. SMB looks cool, I WANTED to go to Lodi to fly Bill's Stearman, but the love at Holly-town brought me back...yet again. Make sure you ask to get invited to the Thursday night "Palo Alto Problemfest" ... beerz with da gang is a blast and you may get to see some of that "hot girl on girl action" that LizzieB and Celljumper keep talking about ...I did

...was done a year or 2 ago by our local hard rock station, Power 97 FM. Seems to me the 'dare' was for $970... Actually, there was an entire month of crazy gags and tha was just one of them. I'm still wondering, speaking of strange names, about my favorite NASCR redneck 'Dick Trickle' ... naiive parents or clever,um, marketing? -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

TRAITOR!! I thought you wanted a CRX??? Seriously Viking, nice ride. My next 'summer wheels' will be that or a DelSol. the Toy DEFINATELY has the nod for styling but the del sol with the slidy downy rear window is as close to a 'vertible as you can get. ...and that nice long trunklid with a window that gets out of the way, well... shall we say al fresco? Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

clicky: http://martin.bruno.free.fr/USA/2003_07_20_DropZone_Hollister/index.htm -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

....should be on the same website as the "Metallica E-F chord" lawsuit. Frankly, since there is no longer any originality in music I decided I needed an 8th note, "H", pronounded 'waughhhh". (as in Do-Ray-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do-Waughhhhh!") Most people will find singing any song composed in "waughhhh sharp major" is inherently easy to sing, if displeasing to the ears of others (who gets the reference?) -Damn, when "I" was a geeky kid nobody chipped in and bought ME a computer... waittaminute... weren't no such things as PC's back then. I used to 'play' with an IBM punch card machine when I was a budding geek (and Dad went to work on a Saturday) -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

My sister's dog did black of night, I lay sleeping crap on kitchen floor http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#howtowritehaiku Can 'night' be a season???? -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Dictionary says Don was right aboot us, eh Yes, four syllables As for the 'piss poor' We got rocks and trees and lakes Wonderous nature [Mr. Smart Ass] a Haiku is ALSO supposed to make referecne to a season or to nature [/Mr. Smart Ass] -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Geez Jason that could be taken two ways... one way might be a compare a US$ to that of a country of which "The USA" was born... but being Canadian I'm already painfully aware of international currency issues and won't go further on that one. I haven't seen the ad that spawned this thread but the last time I was in France found it VERY cool to walk into a MicckyD's and order a beer with my Big Mac. And I seem to remember that it cost me the equivalent of DOUBLE the Canadian cost, after currency conversion. Hmmm.... subsidy?... well SOMEONE is sure being subsidized -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Soooo, nobody's said where or when yet. Is this some kind of secret skydiving society or something, Mmmmmmm? Do tell. ...and Seb, "watched laundry never cleans" -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

I'm perplexed. While house-sitting here in California I have stayed AWAY from the TV except to watch Lance Armstrong kick but in the tour de france ...(will it be 5? Could Tyler Hamilton be a new underdog?) Anyhoo, Monday night I watch Married with Children for the first time in years (and years) and there's an episode where Bud Bundy is convinced by a real live hottie (not his regular blow-up ) to go skydiving. Horrible, horrible scene with them all wearing old open face motorcycle helmets with boom mics 'so they can talk back to the jumpmaster' . Ya, it's cheesy - there are no '3 rings' where they should be (maybe they could only afford a container?) but it's skydiving. Incident one. Tuesday night, elevenish, I think, I watch an episode of MacGuyver . Maybe been ten years since I've even seen a rerun and on this one... you guessed it ... a 'friend' buys a heap of a DC-3, and they're up in it when an engine quits. "Ten miles from the runway" the buddy says but one landing gear fails. Good ol' Mac crawls into the 'only' parachute on board and down into the gear bay. With a handy O2 bottle that 'happens' to fit the broken hydraulic line, he makes the fix and then falls out as the landing gear deploys. Gratuitous shots of a semi-square (ex-mil spec maybe?... before my time) and a PLF landing. Of course, Mac knows exactly how to coil the lines and para-hike to the hangar. Incident two Finally, as I write this I'm recovering (sunburned again) from a day's thrashing through Marin County's twistiest roads and tallest trees. What's on TV? Spies Like Us with Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd. Within ten minutes of the opening scene... guess what? Yup, kicked out of a C-130 (no static line), bad talking/tumblefuquing in freefall and wacky deployment of big brown 7 cell squares (looking suspiciuosly like Raven 3's). Incident THREE Now tell me, please... can this be a fluke? What am I destined to tune into tomorrow? Anyone? Bueller? ...Bueller...

Oldsmobile or Borealis? Seriously, at Gimli Manitoba (Canada, eh) we are often treated to Northern Lights - just imagine getting yourself into a 'state' after the Beer light is on and then lying out in the middle of the field and watching the sky glow green and swirl around. . Add 'Astronomy Domine' or other suitable works by Pink Floyd (which one is Pink??) and you have a real mind blower. Fantastic set of photos - pity they can not emulate the swirling, dancing nature of the true spectatle. It's NOT true that you must be near the poles - but it IS true that the effect becomes stronger. I'm guessing those photos were taken in Iceland or Scandahoovia somewhere near the Arctic Circle -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Our DZO has flown BigAir stuff since 'forever' and will be VERY happy to hear of the "Henry Ford Theory" application. I think Brian's position is quite sensible from a manufacturing and marketing persepctive... and if the Sensei truly is a category-killer one of three things will happen: either (a) 'sponsored swoopers' will (eventually be allowed to) pay a (relatively) high price for custom orders or (b) consider themselves sort-of sponsored by flying the Big Air colours or (c) lose. Any which way, it is clear that parachute design is quickly evolving to match the damands of those on the sport's cutting edge. Maybe someday I'll get there. In the mean time I owe it to myself to look at a Lotus alongside a Sabre 2 ... -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Find it? Hell mine's right out there in the open . My fave was the 'anti gravity exercise ...'to this day only a good sit exit out of a Cessna geves me the stomach quivers ... you have no idea how surprised and disappointed I was after my first jump NOT to find that feeling ... I LIKE it -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Nice weblink Lou! Between the real world tales from those of you sharing and the links I've followed, this has been one of the most entertaining and enlightening threads I've followed in a long while. Neil (neilly), please let your friend know that he has helped bring out some very valuable discussions quite by accident and we're all better for it ... and that he would almost certainly enjoy the chance to get 'sucked out' at 3,000 ft on a a static line

Hey Neil, interesting scenario but I'd agree with Bill that you propose TOO many variables to predict any success. Frankly, having watched most of the movies with bad and/or unrealistic skydiving scenes in them, Hollywood makes it appear possible. 'Wally' would likely never get the door open. If he did, decompression would be only one problem - the 5-600 mph wind blast would be quite another. If, and only if, you weren't torn apart or your rig torn from your body at those 'jumprun' speeds you're likely still a minute away from functionally useful air. More likely, the pilot would see his little "door ajar" light and dive the plane till the wings broke off. He'd beat you to good air and you'd have much less chance of getting sucked into the engine. Now, once the plane got down to a couple hundred mph and maybe 15,000 ft or so, I'd say "DB cooper already did that" but it's not been done since ...except at WFFC when they bring the 727 and "everybody does it". -Dave PS: Bill Cole's done some 'strange' things involving parachutes ... trust him on this one

OK Bill, that's TWO today .. you got a special book of this stuff somewhere? -Dave 22/7 !! Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

eee-yup... We knew something was strange when the sunset load returned before you did... So did you all just see the glowing neon Beer Lights on the ground and decide to swoop the parking lot or what?? Hmmmm... And I really DID have an off DZ landing. The local kids are sarcastic but a couple of 'big kids' drove me back. "...10, 11, 12, 13.... OK who's missing?" "...I saw Dave going thattaway..." I guess 2.5k is abit low for a cross country, eh?, but what a lovely evening for a para-hike it was. I might even have found my way home -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Hi Danny! I just re-read the front page post and it sure DOES seem to me that you need to be within 120 days if you;re fully TSO'd. You and I both know that the gear knows not where it is being jumped but it would sure stink to be rejected at manifest until you had a 'rush pack' by an unfamilliar rigger... not that there won't be all kinds of top people at an event like WFFC. I'd be willing to bet though that such a high profile event will be one place that DOES enforce the 120 day rule if fo no other reason that he FAA 'just might' send someone snooping. -Dave Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

2:2:1 ...trips to Hollister in one day. The first one with my sister's dogs who decided they didn't like being tied to the car (don't blame them) so I drove them home an hour and a half later just before being called to manifest for my first load. Polished out the scratches they left on the car in displeasure, and drove the 78 miles back to Hollister in 52 mimutes (do the math, not bad for 'heavy' mid afternoon Hwy 101 traffic) 2 jumps on a borrowed Javelin with a Spectre 170 (thanks Kari!!) - 1 bad ass funnelled 9 way attempt (first time I've funneled a group that large ). Nothing quite like letting a 4 way suddenly become a 9 way "Zoo Dive" (plus camera) - the video is sure to make out year end bloopers reel and might possibly earn me an A.S.S. rating. But as Sebazz might say, "it's all good". I'd add a case for off-DZ landing but I've done that before, just not in the USA, and not on borrowed gear. Maybe lite beer for that one? -Dave PS: in 2 jumps I pretty much survived the Billvon canopy test criteria - should say something for the ease of landing a Spectre ... you shoudda seen the faces on my co-jumpers when the dudes in the Suburban who picked me up and drove back to LZ told them all "I had landed on their vehicle" (snicker snicker, seen that new Jeep ad? that's NOT me) Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

Hmmm, Mac user perchance? Not my machine, likely not the best thing to do to my sis if I want to keep visitation rights -Dave ...missing XP pro and my cable modem Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)