snowmman

Jerry, You need to call the newspaper. Call a couple of them.

This is my weapon, This is my gun, This is for fighting, This is for fun. So, you want my gun huh?

Fuck you Jerry. You're an ass. Worse than Jo. Worse than me!

You won Jerry, Congratulations.

I have decided to hide behind the forum and make unfounded comments.

No one noted it, and I'm for sure not the one to tip the hat properly but Robert Howard died (SOG ..we talked about him a while back when we were all reading Plaster and Waugh's books) Quite amazing that in the first obit they don't seem to really get who he was (edit) I just noticed google news now has him headlined with better obits. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-obit-decorated-soldier,0,7351940.story (edit) better obit here: http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/80016797.html If you didn't see his site before: http://rlhtribute.com/ wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Howard (edit) We joke around a lot about real stuff, bogus stuff, current events, political stuff, military stuff. We were just talking about brave. But I think we can all agree..(if you remember my accounts from Plaster's book or read the web pages), that Howard was a pretty brave guy.

well that settles it. I know statistics, and it sounds to me skydiving is about puking. 377's a liar and was trying to sandbag me. Hell, now I realize how Jerry was going to kill me: drowning in my own puke? Maybe cooper drowned in his own puke? It's possible?

They are among their friends. They don't get something to eat. They wait 2 hours for their load. In the meantime, they drink 2 Red Bulls to get them amped up enough to believe their own BS. They hyper-ventilate on the plane and their nerves go off the chart. Their first peep out the door pumps all the oxygen into their system. When they land, they puke. Even a tandem is easy compared to a solo jump. So, it's easy to sit behind a keyboard and theorize. It's easy to type on a keyboard and not worry how I get to read it :) How the fuck does that work? Any pukin involved?

Hey wait a second. No one told me that 18 year olds puke with this thing. That's it, I'm backing out. (I look to 18 year olds for guidance) Whew! close call. (edit) I'll amplify although it's obvious to anyone. Young kids think all they need is bravado, and don't feel the pressure or need to learn everything..or, say, even more than they need. Old farts cover their asses by learning everything, so hopefully its really boring, no matter what happens. Boring is good. Now if you're saying, learning doesn't matter, and there's a sensory effect that makes you puke regardless of mental prep, well okay. I guess that's possible. Must be a lot of pukin at the DZ?

It is really a bummer seeing the young guys coming home with missing parts. Hey anyone who's part of giving personal or other support to those guys...that's a pretty cool thing.

I'll start another flamefest here while I'm thinking about it. Someone posted (I really just forget who) here the phrase about "skydiving's history being written in the blood of pioneers". And regardless of whether it's true or not, I thought it was the most bullshit thing I've read in a long time. I mean, sure people die.. But I would think you honor their memory, examine what went wrong, and figure out how to try to make that not happen again. On the other hand, if people just take risks which are predictable and die...I'd think you want to just say "Man, he just put it out there. You gotta respect that, but he was playing it too close" I guess that's part of what makes me think there's too much chest thumping here. The way you guys talk about injuries and deaths. Now I'm just reading a couple of threads..so obviously I don't have a clue here....But that phrase really struck me as something you'd want to stamp out of your brain. I would think at any point in time, people operate within the bounds of acceptable risk. So there's no such thing as writing the history in blood. There's just ongoing injury/death at a constant level in any risk sport. (edit) Sluggo got me thinking of this with his comments about "bravery". I'd rather hang with someone who knew what the fuck he was doing, then someone who was "brave". Bravery's for other stuff. Not the main part of a sport? (edit) tying this all back to the Death Woods Jump...in my mind, when it occurs, it will be zero risk. Now it's fair to ask whether I am misinformed or not. Obviously I will manipulate the situation so that there is "apparent risk"..i.e. others will think there is risk based on their perceptions, but I won't. That's really all that goes on in all risk sports. No one just puts their hand in the tiger's mouth knowing it will get bit off.

I don't read the other threads here, but have scanned them. Even though I would assume a lot of of what's written is bullshit like most forums (people just writing off the top of their heads...context being loose..people just having fun... the macho element etc.) there are things that stick out as grains of truth. That all makes sense. If you can't pick out the grains of truth I would think you shouldn't be jumping anyhow. Getting to see how other people think about the nuts and bolts of things, what to watch out for, etc etc. Seems like a positive thing. Even the negative elements...it gives you the heads up that different folks take their skydiving doses in different ways, and you should always be thinking for yourself, rather than getting dragged into someone else's view of the thing. Seems like a good thing, beyond the social aspects.

Yeah, it definitely seems like people who had to learn like 10-20-30 years ago, had it a lot harder. less knowledge, worse gear. No tunnels. I can see why the old farts get crochety. Kids get to say they're "skydiving" without having to go thru the same learning curve, and it can't help but take away from the feelings you had in the past. I think that's why it's important to have it all be personal..the memories, the motivation and why you do it in the future. It always changes, and there's always the next generation that makes anything you did look stupid. But that doesn't mean you didn't enjoy it while you did it.

Sluggo said "I hope you aren’t making fun of him because he’s an amputee. You did know he’s an amputee… didn’t you? Boy, that’s really crass! " If Jerry is an amputee, what does that have to do with anything? If Jerry thought it had anything to do with anything, wouldn't he have brought it up? Why do you bring it up if Jerry didn't?

Sluggo reminded me "The really funny thing is that all four of these people never even once bragged about being brave and/or pointed to these incidents to show others how brave they were/are." We really haven't demonstrated the fine art of bragging to it's perfect extent here. Let's hear some brags. I thought 377's and Amazon's little chat about some jump details was a perfect example of a little in-sport brag...The key is being subtle...you can't just come out and say it..gotta be implied.

377 observed "Snow probably already has snowshoes, GPS, heat packs, Goretex clothing and other items cached in all possible areas where Jerry may take him." Just prepping the route. What's wrong with brushing some moss off the holds? You know Amazon talked about training (military) and deaths. That's why I asked Jerry to talk about stuff that wasn't training. Because training has to be controlled/structured or it's stupid. It's like you don't learn anything if you die. You're just dead. How come people mix up training and "the real thing"..(I guess in the military, because you don't want a lot of the real thing..too much dying) Is it because people don't do training in skydiving? If so, isn't that a problem? I always wondered about this skydiving training thing. Seems like part of the problem is you force people to learn stuff where they are exposed to the same risks as they are after they learn. How does that make sense? How do you graduate the risk taking? I guess everyone must be confident in some of the backup procedures. But then you guys say there's still all these ways things can screw up, even with your backup procedures. Sure seems like just russian roulette to me.

nice stories Sluggo. Are you saying there's a winner and we owe you money or something? I didn't think anyone was talking about brave except you. We were talking about whether you die in the death woods. That has nothing to do with bravery. That's just living or dying. Hey! people live and die every day. How brave of them. (edit) Sluggo: if you want to try to play some kind of ethical or moral card, you need to establish a context where people care about how they're perceived. How exactly do you think that applies here?

DUH It would really suck for Jerry if a girl can do this kinda thing and he can't.... that seems to have been the story of my life... surpassing others expectations and their own self imposed limitations. I hope you aren't going to let these slackers do this the easy way. Must be - At night, light rain, same temp, same exit speed, same gear, and shoes. At 80mph out of a Cessna, they might keep the loafers on. That would hardly be fair. Hey I'll let everyone off the "let's prove snowmman is full of shit" hook by agreeing that all the evidence and comments from folks here, say, if Cooper jumped, he was probably injured on landing. Now who knows to what extent that would limit ground mobility. Since you're not going to set me up for ground injury, it just can't be apples to apples. Note this morphed into a Cooper jump reenactment, only because Jerry's original proposal (let's go into the dark woods together, just you and me and a blindfold and see who squeals like a pig) wasn't scary enough. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it and Jerry, maybe I should have worried about that first option more..... (edit) Jerry: My understanding was you're a big time jumper. How come you haven't responded to Amazon's taunts? Not worth it or?? I'd be interested in stories. Amazon has given a few. (edit) My understanding for this adventure is I have to just show up right? I can't understand the motivation others would have for organizing it, but so be it.

While SI acknowledges it's role in publishing a link to the TSA screening procedures on the popular social networking site Dropzone.com, we deny any connection with today's release of information about the weapons carried by air marshalls. Corporate Drone Snowmman said "We see no profit in such a move and will not invest in that". http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tsa-security-cops-blast-release-handgun-information/story?id=9403793

Georger, you said "McCoy on the other hand knew exactly where he was. " review the other jumpers and decide if they knew where they were any more than Cooper. Hell, start with Guatemala! or LaPoint! (edit) 377: cool robot dog. I'd not seen that. Thanks for posting.

377 joked "When Snow's robodogs deliver a ransom demand it doesnt go to a stewardess. It is delivered to a boardroom. Snowmman Industries gets a majority stake in the airline, not a mere $200,000 and a quartet of ragged out chutes." :) honestly I'm out of that part of the business now.. (edit) hey! remember I said I just need 3 guys (women?) armed up and I could take over anything? Gotta recruit somewhere!

okay, this is a little too personal, but it's worth sharing. So I hook up with this guy I've never met and we go up to Canada to do a very hard route. It's very cold and we're all nervous, and failure possibility is high. We do a warmup thing and it goes okay and finally the big day comes and we leave at like 2 or 3AM for the long walk in, which is tough because you don't know if anyone else is going to be on the route until you walk in a couple miles. So we get there and there's like two people gearing up... In the dark you can't make them out..just a mash of gear and goretex and headlamps. You really want to yell "what route are you doing"...but hell even in the middle of nowhere in the dark, you have to act casual, and let it trickle out.. Finally they say something and we realize it's two women. Fuck! two women beat us to our route, even though we left way early. But it turns out they're going to do another route two over. So we do our route. And we do get it done, although we never did anything together after that, and I left the trip early. So you can see it wasn't buddy buddy. But I remember in the tension of the whole thing, I'm looking over at the other team of two women, and they're in the same rough situation as us, and it's really cold...And the stronger woman is belaying the slightly less strong woman up, who's moving slow...and she's chattering (freezing, waiting for her partner to arrive with her coat) but encouraging her partner. And I forget now what it was, I think one gave the other their coat, and I realized then that watching those two women, they were a vastly stronger team than us. (although we were on the slightly bigger ego route). If I remember right, the one woman was the first US? woman to summit everest, I think it was. Makes one reflect on oneself.

Hey Amazon. If you are a woman. I do this thing with my dogs, and it's like mostly women there. All kinds of women. Kind of interesting. I mean it's just dogs, so you don't expect much from the people. And this one woman, she's on the PA, and getting everyone organized. Nothing special. And then someone mentions to me how she used to be a fighter pilot. Really reinforces how easy it is to have a bias that's just way off base. (i.e. mine).

I've never really paid attention to to all the logging/paper stuff. It's interesting to me, because they were planning to log a parcel right next to my house, but people got up in arms and shut them down. Got me thinking about how little I know about logging. I've done some reading. I liked stories I read about college kids going up to Canada for the summer and planting trees and how they got competitive with each other ..they get paid by the tree, and there's actually a lot of detail about what makes a plant hard or not. You can imagine they get real focused about every little detail. And then there are crews that go thru to thin out, with brushcutters. It's like another little niche culture. They talk about their tools with the detail of any other profession using the same tool day after day.

In my experience hitchhiking, there's a reasonable chance that when I'm hitchhiking on an interstate (I-5) that a cop will stop to check my ID and tell me to get off the road. But with a reasonable story, they'll give you a ride to the next exit. If I tell him I just hijacked a plane two days ago and jumped out of it an walked thru the woods and need a ride to Portland, will anyone get in trouble? I don't really care, but I'm sure I'll get a ride to Portland. (Starbucks!)