wolfriverjoe

Don't forget that a lot of the campaign stuff (events, travel, catering) have been done with Trump owned services. So he's paying himself for all this stuff. With money he may be able to write off as a tax deduction. Or may just get given to him. It's a rather interesting shell game. One in which he profits, no matter what happens. The only question is how much. If he can get donors to pay back the loans he made to his own campaign, he's going to make a lot of money off of all this. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Because an honest and respectable instructor wants to see their students succeed. Become safe and active jumpers. Not see them screw up to generate more income. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Ginormous. Combine two synonyms to create a new word. Why not "Engantic"? "Butt Naked". Really? It's "Buck Naked" and has been for a long time. But for some reason, ignorant people changed it. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=butt%20naked "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

And I wonder how Hillary will fare in prison Probably about as well as Scooter Libby did. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

If I'm not mistaken, you're referring to the wisdom of crowds. More or less. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

3:1 against. 25% chance of winning. I was agreeing with the odds presented in the OP. Although there is no direct connection, the "collective intelligence" of a large group of betters has demonstrated itself to be pretty accurate. Barring a huge individual bet that would skew the odds, history has shown that the odds do a pretty good job of predicting outcomes. I can't find a link with the info, but back in the 50s & 60s, US intelligence agencies made this discovery. And they started utilizing it. Analysts would bet bottles of good liquor on their predictions. It was a way of quantifying a hunch. And while not perfect, it turned out to be reasonably effective. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Don't bet on it. Right now there are 4 basic viewpoints.* Like Hillary Hate Trump enough to vote for Hillary Like Trump Hate Hillary enough to vote for Trump. I don't see an indictment changing any votes except for maybe a few of the "like Hillary" ones. And most of those are convinced that the whole investigation is trumped up (pun not intended). * - There's also the "Hate them both and won't vote for either of them" that includes me, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that anyone but Trump and Hillary have a chance. And you & Quade can argue odds and semantics all you want. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Trump has a real chance of winning. The "hate Hillary" plus the fools who actually are falling for Trump's propaganda groups are bigger than anyone realized. I don't think 3:1 odds for Trump winning are all that far off. I hope like all hell that I'm wrong, but the idiocractic party seems to be taking off rather well. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

The key idea is "centerline thrust." In a normal twin engine layout, losing an engine means all the thrust will be coming from one side. It makes the plane handle rather badly. Badly enough that the majority of training for a multi rating is on dealing with engine out situations. So Cessna designed the 337 to eliminate those problems. If you lose an engine, you simply lose half the power (which is a problem, but not as difficult of one). It was a very effective solution. Effective enough that there were crashes due to pilots getting their multi rating in a 337, then going and crashing a "conventional" twin because they had an engine failure and couldn't handle it. Enough crashes that the FAA decided that pilots who took their mulit check ride in a 337 had a "limited to center line thrust only" on their license. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

And I will say again - Do you really think that a boy would go through the harassment that would come from pretending to be TG just to get a look inside the girls locker room? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

He tells people what they want to hear. He gives them someone to blame, someone to hate. And it's a "someone" that most of his base already blames & hates (Muslims & Mexicans). I caught a bit of him on the news last night (CBS maybe?) saying "Hillary will take your guns away!!!" Admittedly, HRC has called for the disbanding of the NRA, and expressed interest in an "Australian style" of gun control (which is confiscation). But Trump has expressed dislike for guns and an admiration for the 90s "Assault Weapons" ban (there are clips of that out there). Yet the idiots want to hear what he says, so they disregard anything else. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Bolding mine. There's the problem. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Seriously? Think about that one for a minute. Given the way typical high school kids treat anyone who is 'different', what kind of a life do you think a TG student would have? The hatred, taunts, harassment, and even physical violence would be a nightmare. Kids who are far less different than a TG have committed suicide over this sort of treatment. And I doubt any of the girls would go for it (real or fake TG). http://dailysignal.com/2015/12/21/why-these-high-school-girls-dont-want-transgender-student-a-in-their-locker-room/ "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

So far it seems to be working here. For you. Yes. For those like you, of course. But how about for anyone of a different faith? Or a different skin color? Or even from a different region of the country? Or do those "different" people simply not have any rights in your "enclave"? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

From the article: Actually paying attention to the voters? Not playing "party politics"? Scandalous. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Goggles, gloves, a couple spare pullup cords, a spare closing loop or two (your rigger can show you how to replace it), a ziplock bag full of rubber bands. Maybe a balaclava if you jump in colder conditions. Personally, I keep a couple rubber bands and a pullup cord in the Packing Data Card pocket. I have a Square One bag. One main area, plus a big and small pocket on the back. Shoulder straps so it can be used as a backpack. My rig goes n the main area, with my helmet (open face) over one upper corner. I can get the two suits I usually use in the bigger pocket, all the rest of the stuff in the smaller one. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I've said for a long time that if a presidential candidate ran promising serious election reform that I'd vote for them, regardless of their other issues... Abolishing the Electoral College and instigating an alternative voting system will be the best thing for politics that's happened that I can remember. If Trump REALLY did this? Man, I'd throw up a little in my mouth on the day but I'd almost have to vote for him, then keep my fingers crossed for the next 4 years that he didn't destroy the world. But first, I'd have to believe that he'd actually follow through with ANYTHING he says, and that's a bit of an issue. The problem with real election reform is that the people it would negatively affect the most are the people who would implement it. Same with term limits. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

PJ O'Rourke endorsed HRC. Really. It was on NPR's "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me". http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/45920_Yes_PJ_ORourke_Endorsed_Hillary_Clinton_Today Not exactly a "ringing endorsement." "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

No. But it's not as common as I think it should be. OP: Have you put the word out at your DZ? Some of the "crusty old guys" grew up in the sport when a new jumper would get the "hand me down" rig from the DZ. Usually an older, "less pretty", but serviceable rig with a nice big, slow canopy in it. That rig would serve a new jumper for the first hundred or so jumps, then be sold (for a fairly low price) to the next guy in line. It's fallen out of fashion to a large degree, but there's probably a suitable rig in the back of someone's closet that the owner would sell to a new jumper for a reasonable price. Again, not new, not pretty, probably not free-fly appropriate (but you should spend that first hundred or more jumps getting good on your belly anyway), but serviceable. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Naw, I was just having some fun => ***I don't think any of us have a problem with taking in "your poor, your tired, your weary..." but it should be through the proper channels. I agree completely. Jerry Baumchen Except that the door for the "poor, tired and weary" was closed a while back. There's virtually no way for an ordinary Mexican or Central American to immigrate legally to the US. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that helmets offered little or no protection. Even an unlined (or "barely lined") CF shell will absorb a fair amount of impact. The ProTecs and Bennys are even better. I had a rough landing wearing a ProTec a while back. As I PLF'd it out, I heard a loud "Thwack" through the helmet. After I got up, I found a pretty good gouge/scratch in the helmet. I looked around and found a good-sized rock sticking an inch or so out of the ground (grass runway). I'm gonna guess that I would have had a fairly serious head injury (skull fracture or worse) without a helmet. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I didn't want Clinton since I don't like the idea of the Presidency being swapped back and forth between two families (you can actually check this by doing a search here), but between Trump and Clinton there's no question she is the more qualified of the two. 8 years ago I called Hillary unelectable and at the time she was. This time . . . she's really the only logical choice. I remember you didn't want Jeb Bush for pretty much the same reason. And it's one I agree with. But the problem with HRC being the only logical choice is that logic seems to have gone out the window this time. Jerry Baumchen mentioned the "silent majority" a few posts up. Trump seems to have really grabbed hold of it. As I noted a while back, he was polling in the low to mid single digits as the typical "I'm not a career politician" candidate. But once he railed against Mexicans and Muslims he skyrocketed. The closeted bigots and xenophobes jumped on his bandwagon so fast it was stunning. While logic and reason seem to indicate he can't beat HRC, some polls are showing the opposite. 6 months ago I would have bet very heavily against Trump becoming the nominee. I would thought it virtually impossible for him to win the election. Now I'm not so sure. I think he might be able to pull it off. He's taking full advantage of his "promoter" ability. He's basically figured out how to manipulate the stupid people to support him. And he's doing a pretty good job of it. He's got the full on "demagogue" thing down pretty good. Combine that with the virulent hatred a lot of people have for HRC, add in the fact that there are a lot of men who would do pretty much anything to keep a woman out of the Oval Office (admittedly, these are the same ones who would have done practically anything to keep a black man out), and you have the potential for the Idiocracy party to win. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Its far less about the helmet being effective protection for the wearer (I agree that it really isn't) and more about making sure the helmet is secured. In the event of a crash, a helmet securely on the head may or may not do much to protect the person wearing it. But if its simply being held in someone's hand (or sitting on their knee like I do during normal climb), then if the plane crashes, that loose helmet will fly around in the cabin, potentially causing injury. In other words, I don't really care if the helmet protects your head or not, I just don't want it bouncing off of my head. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Yes, it is. I'm going to guess that you've seen it. I've had a long and stressful day. That was nice. It made me smile too. Thanks.

How have you guys done this to yourselves? How were you left with Trump and Cruz as the only options when someone like Kasich, who at the very least has the advantage of appearing to be a real human person and not a cartoon, was still in the race? It's mind boggling! Well, 434 put it nicely in post 1001. The "people are people" and "pure stupidity" comments are somewhat redundant. P.T. Barnum was right. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Well, if you are basing it on scripture, which part? Many of us are familiar with it, even though we don't accept it as unvarnished truth. I have a funny feeling you think BHO is the anti-christ, in addition to being a Muslim. And a Kenyan. And a Socialist. And someone who wants to destroy the country. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo