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good idea dave, i think i need a mantra. mine this week will be, I WILL NOT GET BELLIGERENTLY DRUNK PRIOR TO THE TOURNAMENT. (save that for DURING the tournament...so that i too, can finish in the money) c ya thurs.

i'd say 60-80 pics, with more than half of those being exit/freefall/deployment. shooting 20D w/ canon 20mm f/2.8.

Mark, Great post...feel free to hang in this forum more often!

we must've both gotten drunk and ordered shirts on the same night. could it have been last thursday night, perhaps? i just got mine too, it's mighty bitchin! i haven't been able to listen to many shows lately, but i must thank the SDR crew for putting on the poker games. the games have helped fund my alcohol habit quite nicely during the off season when i can't be drinking student beer at the hanger.

a couple of weeks ago? dunno...i think i drank that week away already.

thanks for all the great heads-up play, dave! i'm itchin for thursday already.

santa got me a canon 17-40 f/4 L, but it's still in the mail at the moment!

lew - i make $60 for a vid&digi-stills student package after the cost of my jump and the dz cut. it's the same wage earned for a tandem package. later, b

chuck, when i think about what makes one lens better than the next, i think of a few factors - maximum aperture (how "fast" the lens can be in regard to grabbing light), weight (how much i want strapped to my noggin), focus speed (how fast the AF motors go), and quality/clarity (how good the glass is, how sharp the image is). depending on the type of shooting you're doing, you want to find a mix of these factors that suits you at a cost you can handle. the f/stop, as mentioned by a couple of the other guys, is a way of stating the aperture size of the camera...how big or small the iris/aperture/hole of the lens gets. it is a math ratio that stands for the focal length of the lens divided by the stop #. for example, i've got a 20mm f/2.8 lens. 20/2.8 = 7.14mm iris diameter or a 3.57 radius. area of a circle = pi*r^2, or 3.14*3.57*3.57 = 40.09mm^2. when you stop down the lens to f/4, you're halfing the amount of light that goes through the sensor. 20/4=5dia, 2.5rad. 3.14*2.5*2.5 = 19.6mm^2. rounding differences aside, you can see that when i shoot with my 20mm lens, a f/2.8 setting will have a 40mm^2 sized aperture, whereas a f/4 setting would give a 20mm^2 sized aperture. when you're using the Av setting, it tells the camera, "i want you to shoot with THIS sized aperture for each and every shot". then based on the current ISO, the camera meters the shot that you're looking at selects the corresponding shutter speed that will give you the proper exposure (or as close to "proper" as it thinks).

great night for efsJumper for placing in both tourneys...huge props to you! also big props to dave for finally spelling "losers" correctly! really though, dave, many thanks to you & stump for the tourneys & skydive radio, much appreciated!

yo dave! i just started show #19...that music you heard was a "ring tone"...you hear that instead of the typical ringing sound. come on...all the cool kids have 'em! i tried to pick up right when you hung up, but i had been drinking too much to remember that i was going to hear from you that night, so i didn't know who was on the other end. lemme know if you want a new sprint phone/contract and i'll do what i can to hook you up! anyhow, see ya at the tables...18 peeps so far!

hey dave, if the loser's tourney is going to be a regularly scheduled event, it might be worth putting the start time for that game up as well...you know, for anyone who might be stuck missing the first tourney due to work. bill "4J" o

The only time my camera has gotten moody in freefall is when the contacts on the lens get gunked up over time. Clean them with a pencil eraser head and good to go. Might not work for ya, but just a suggestion. When does the camera stop working? Can you still take pics inside the plane and on climbout, and then it won't take anymore until after opening?

you'd have been laughing if you saw my face when those cards came out. i had nearly finished a case of beer by the time those jacks started showing, and my jaw was dropped and i was re-counting the cards on my fingers. i have NO poker face, so online play is great for me!

bump! see ya there tonight dave! i've already rationalized that the tourney won't count as drinking alone, so it should be a good time.

The 2K FF2 gives you a similar top-mount of the Optik with better side-camcorder protection. (http://www.2kcomposites.com/). Lots of folks on the forum like RAWA as well. There are several threads in this forum about camera helmet choice...I recommend reading the forum in its entirety from start to finish...a couple hours and several beers later, you'll be all caught up. Cheers, BillOOOOOOooo

I've experienced $0.99 draws of Yuengling in Titusville...it rules!!! I have no clue when I'll make it back that way, I need a pregnancy or wedding, or something...

If you go through Titusville, lemme know and my friend's dad would be happy to help you out with that beer. PA is a crazy place...i couldn't quite comprehend the drive-thru liquor stores. I did get really drunk out there both times i've visited, so I can't knock the place!

Firstmost, I'm thankful that I'm still alive and have feeling in all of my appendages (sp?). A slight shift in circumstances could have changed that so easily. I'm thankful for the friends that are still around that I laugh with everyday. And I'm thankful for my friends who have already passed away and have made me live for the better. I'm thankful for a job that no matter how much sucks, provides me with the funds to buy a house and jump when i want to. I'm thankful for things that make me smile like cold beer, beautiful women, and my goofy family. I'm so happy to be who I am and experience the things I do as opposed to being a brain-dead vegetable. Huge props to whoever is upstairs for guiding me to where I am at today.

mmmm....toasted PB sandwich...deuce, i got to say this is the one post outside of the photog/video forum of yours that i think i've responded to. bravo! :) everyone gets stuck trudging through the muck at one point or another...just depends how we take it.

Die trying. First, toss the your handles, then untie your shoes, do something...shit...put some fabric out there.

the first one you mention sounds like ep 305, stranded in space (per this site - http://www.brotherssmith.50g.com/q03.html)

I really hope you're right! I want UT to slaughter Colorado in the Big 12 conf championship, Iowa State to take #2 in the North and win the Alamo Bowl, and then finally, UT to kill USC in the Rose Bowl. You've got the whole conference rooting behind you! :)

Hey Ian, Peter's assessment of the changing of the distance of the marathon is correct, just slightly different in length. Why the personal attack about stupidity? How many marathons have you run? http://www.athensmarathon.com/marathon/history.html

Karen, here's a few more pics of Waldo for the collection. Just screen grabs off video from CF04. Waldo is one of the warmest, most amazing people that I have ever met in the sport. I was lucky enough to meet him my first year at Couch Freaks in 2000, and partied with him each year...we even got one awesome night of partying in with "Homer" this year, the eve/morning hours before he was called down to Katrina. Got to catch him in Iowa again early in October at the Otter in Brooklyn, I felt it to be an incredible treat to see him any time of the year other than the boogie. I know this news is ripping up his extended skydiving family and it must be doing numbers on his real family as well. We are there grieving with them, they're in our prayers. The boogie won't be the same without his welcoming hugs...seeing him at the boogie was better than Christmas morning, you just knew you were in for something good. We were working on plans for a club trip to Vegas in march and he was all stoked for it. I was already imagining the wild tiger print pimp outfits that he was going to bring for stutting down the strip. He wanted to hit KC for the Big 12 tourney as well...like me, didn't care about the sports as much as having a reason to party and see everyone. Just Sunday night, he was congratulating me on buying a house, looking for a date on the house warming party, and anxiously awaiting March. Between Vegas and the tourney, it was going to be one helluva party month! I feel bad for never making it out to Floatzilla, that sounded like the place to be. We're all anxiously awaiting details. Maybe then it will help this feel real...cause right now, it's like a bad dream. Definitely haven't sorted out all the feelings yet. I'll hunt around for some more photos and memories to share with everyone. One of our club members put it well, "Celebrate his life to help deal with his passing." No doubt. Blue skies, Brother, missing you like crazy already... Bill O