JJohnson

Okay, now right up front I'll say that NORMALLY, I'm pretty cool with students. I'll make idle chit-chat and joke with them to put their minds at ease. However, while at the Byron Boogie 2 years ago I did something to a female tandem student that in hindsight I probably should not have. CLAY, get your mind outta the gutter it had nothing to do with BOOBIES. I was playing around with sit-flying and was doing a solo out of the skyvan. I was the last person out before the tandems. This girl was quiet and kinda cute, so naturally I was turning on the charm a touch. When the tailgate opened I could tell it got to her. Like looking out your garage door and seeing no driveway, so to speak. The mass migration of the lemmings throwing themselves out the door didn't help either. As I proceeded to the open gate, naturally the tandem masters were right on my heels to not get hosed on the spot. As I got to the end of the ramp I turned around, reached out to her and said," Have a good jum....OH MY GOD I'M FALLING!!!!" and threw myself out of the plane backwards. My last view of her was eyes the size of coffee saucers. At the time I thought it was pretty funny. On the ground she didn't say anything to me, but she looked a little pissed. I feel bad for it now, but I still giggle over it from time to time. I hope her therapy is going well. Anyone else got a good one? JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Cool!! I remeber parts of this movie from when I was a kid. I saw the movie poster years ago when I started jumping and have never been able to find a copy. Thanks for the update. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Fair question. Due to my chaotic work schedule I don't get to jump anywhere near as often as I'd like to. I average 100 to 120 jumps a year. I started with RW, now I'm trying to develop Freefly skills, dabbling with a camera and trying out swooping. My canopy progression had been slow and cautious. At 38 years old I don't heal as well as I used to. I know I can handle almost any canopy for a few jumps, but have no desire to find out my limitations the hard way. As I progress I plan on getting another rig specifically for swooping and may go X-braced, Comp Cobalt or airlocked. Jury is out on that until I cross that bridge. The risks involved with the X-braced canopies didn't seem like something I needed to add on at this time. I can develop my skills on swooping on the Cobalt 120 and go from there. I'm digging that canopy alot right now. So I find it pretty cool that Yoshi prefered the Crossfire to the Cobalt, which is the opposite of how I felt on the same 2 canopies. I wouldn't mind comparing the Crossfire 2 to the Comp. Cobalt. I really can't wait to start comparing Atair's Onyx to the VX, Velocity etc. I have to also admit, that I like te idea of Spectra over HMA or Vectran. I don't like to have to worry about lines. I'd rather have shrinkage than snapage. MHO. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I am curious what you did not like on the Cobalt. Compared to the Crossfire I love it in every way. If the Crossfire 2 is what they say it is I look forward to trying that and I'd love to try a Competition Cobalt. As of now I do not think I am ready to bite into a x-braced, did not see any overwhelming advantage to the airlocked and nothing else seemed to aompare to the Cobalt. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I'm at LP, fyling out Friday morning, plan on having my first jump there by 2:00 pm. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I should clarify, I was asking out of curiousity. My next canopy will most likely be a Comp. Cobalt, hopefully follwed by the Onyx. What type of lines are they using on the Atair tri-braced monster? (I assume you have seen and jumped it? If so what is it like?) JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Thanks for thoughts, sorry about your friend. Peace. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I always evision Little ohnny looking like Calvin. It seems to fit. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I distinctly said BI-sexual. As a woman I'd do everybody.....of course this based on me being a male, finding females good looking and guys repulsive. Were I chick, I might find females unattractive....But I was trying to leaves all my options open. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

That's easy. I'd change to be a girl. Be a bisexual and screw everything with two legs. Be a total slut. I'd sleep my way to the top. I'd be in porn flicks, I'd wield the power of seduction like an avenging sword. I'd sleep with captains of industry and blackmail them for their money. I'd seduce politicians and sell the photos to every newspaper in town. Why I'd even sleep with people I didn't like just to see the expressions on their faces when I'd stop halfway through and leave, I'd...... I'm sorry, was this my out loud voice again? JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

The teacher walks into her classroom one morning, looks at the assembled smiling faces of her 2nd grade class and announces: " Class, today we are going to play the Alphabet game!" Murmurs of excitement spread across the room, and one child asks," How do we play this game, dear teacher?" The teacher explains." Well, I the teacher shall select a letter of the alphabet and one of you, the students shall provide to me a word that begins with that letter. Pretty easy huh? Let's start at the begining, with the letter A." Little Johnny immediatley shoots his hand up in the air shouting," ME,ME,ME,ME!" The teacher knows however that Johnny will say something dirty like Asshole, so she picks Little Cindy. Cindy stands up and says, " A, A is for apple." "Oh very good", says the teacher, " Let's continue. How about the letter B?" Again little Johnny nearly leaps from his seat, screaming," ME,ME, Oh I gotta have B!!" But the teacher quickly has words like bitch and bastard spring to mind and decides to call on Keith. Keith stands up and says," B. B is for bicycle." The game continues and every letter Little Johnny pratically flys out of his chair begging for a turn and each time the teacher thinks of a nasty word that Little Johnny will shout out. Finally at the letter R, all of the other students have had a turn, some of them twice and poor Little Johnny is squirming in his seat mumbling,"Please, please, please please.....R,R,R,R,R,R,R I gotts to have R." The teacher thinks for a few minutes and cannot come up with a bad R word. Relucantly she says," Okay Little Johnny, heres your chance. R" Little Johnny stands up slowly in his moment of triumph, knowing he has the best R word in the history of R words. He eyes the class, his gaze coming to rest on the petrified teacher. "R. R is for Rats." he says slowly. Very quickly he spreads his hands out in front of him about 2 feet apart and shouts," RATS, BIG FUCKING RATS WITH DICKS THIS BIG!!!!" I love that joke, JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Had this occured during the daylight, it wouldn't even be worth honorable mention other than I dumped lower than intended. At night, with shit for ground reference and an audible screaming at me.....well it got my attention. It was a sublte reminder not to anything for granted, keep focused and never get complancent. I am thankful that every stupid mistake I've made while skydiving have never ended with any serious results. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I would agree that most skydivers are mental. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Forgot about this one, happened in June. Thought I'd relate it to ya'll for general purpose. We were doing some night jumps, which I love. Weather was good. Minor clouds, bright full moon. We had a full otter load and were making two passes and staggering groups in each. I was second to last out on the second pass. I had two other freefliers behind me. I was planning to dump at 3500 feet and had my protrack set at 4500, 3500 and 2000. I had informed the people behind me where I was dumping and also knew that the guy in front of me was dumping at 3500 as well. I did a simple sit fly, enjoying the spectacular view. *****At this point I'll interject myself. Close to all of my jumps have been on my first rig, a used Racer. It obviously was made for someone a touch taller than I. It sits lower on my back and a bit wider than my VooDoo. For the last 150 or so jumps, my VooDoo has been my primary rig********* At 4500, I get my first tone, I roll over to my belly, slow myself down and wait for 3500. At 3500 I get my next warning, wave off and reach back to get my hackey.........and mutha fucker......I miss the bastard. Muscle memory keeps bringing my hand to the spot where my Racer would sit. This has happened about 8 times over the last 100 or so jumps since having my VooDoo. No biggy, I start searching for the hackey, I got time......Well I must reached or stretched for it and I end up rolling over to my back. I remember thinking "oh this sucks". I laid my hand on the evasive little prick while rolling back to my belly as the flatline started screaming in my ear. I'm thinking now," God I hope I don't go through the previous jumper's canopy." Now I am not a low puller. Never have been. Even in daylight hours I like to be in the saddle at 2500. I throw the bastard out, feel the snatch force kick in and pray I ain't got so much as line twist. The demo Cobalt 105 opens fine, I land without further drama. On the ground my Protrack says deployment altitude was 1300, which is about what I figure I was in the saddle by according to my wrist mount. Lesson: 1) Don't waste time waving off on a solo nignt jump, nobody can see it anyway. I should have grabbed the hackey from the sit, rolled over and dumped. 2) Train your dumbass to find the handles...everytime. I was 2 seconds from going to option B. Complacency can kill. For the next coupla days, everytime I put my rig on, I keep reaching back to train my mind that this rig still fits differently than my Racer.... JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Okay, just for the sake of comparison, because I have jumped neither, what makes one better than the other. I understand the principles of each, and I think that both simply try to make the canopy a more rigid wing. The X-braced by added spans of material and the Airlocked by not letting air out of it easily. For those of you out there who HAVE jumped both, I'd like to hear opinions. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Safety is a concern, in that I have no probelm denying someone a jump or limiting myself. What I take offense at is skygods not lowering themselves to teach others. It's not like anyone is born with 1000 jumps under their belt. We prosper as a community by sharing our knowledge. I rarely do RW jumps anymore, mostly because of that cliqueish community. I'm not opposed to a group of people wanting to jump together alot, because they found a groove or a zone. But not every jump can be a 10 pt 20 way. Most of the RW I do now is at LP with a load organizer named Mad John. The loads are a riot whether they go good or not. The man is awesome, takes all skill levels and safety is his biggest concern. He will run an all low timer jump sometimes and limit to high level jumpers occasionally to. My last 100 or so jumps have been entirely devoted to freefly. Lots of skill to learn, and most of those jumps are solo. I don't mind paying for coaching, but by far and away more freefliers are willing to teach low timers, than RW jumpers. mho JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Well, I've never been one to side with cliques. My problem is that I love and hate everyone equally. It's a real dilemma. I'll give you the shirt off my back, until you cut me off in traffic. Then I want to see your corpse lying at my feet with your eyes missing. 5 minutes after that I'd love you all over again. I can hang out, jump with anybody. Better or worse skydivers than me... I don't care. How the jump goes is not important. Everybody lands safe, who cares how many points were turned? Life is short, have fun, play hard, party naked, nobody gets hurt. Egotistical skygods I have no use for. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Well, if many people are going to be dealing with the dog you want a family personality. Golden Retrievers are a grat dog, would not harm a soul, except maybe other dogs. They do want to be center of attention. They are also hyper. PitBull is another great dog. Highly undeserved bad reputation. In had one from pound for 15 years. Best dog on the planet. Loved everbody and everything, except frogs. Those would be my choices. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I once took my new unjumped rig to Texas, got rained on for 5 straight days. While sitting in my hotel, I put it on....just to bond with it and fell asleep wearing it. Woke up 5 hours later. It was pretty comfortable until I rolled onto my back. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

My problem is that I went about this method with a gattlin gun and committed indiscriminate genocide on my gray matter. Under X-Ray my noggin looks like a hunk of swiss cheese. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

That was funny. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Thanks for the vote, but I never intended this to be a win/lose ordeal. It was meant to to provoke thought, hear opinions other than my own, learn somethings, make people look into their own heart and maybe help someone else. My search goes on regardless. For now I am still a confused soul, believing in SOMETHING, that I do not understand, but feels good. Kinda like women. This will be the last post I make on this thread. But if anyone else comes up with something good I'd love to hear it. How about those Bears? JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Interesting point. I can only guess that my assumption comes from feeling/desire/hope or fear. IF we have an immortal soul, I would hope it was for a reason and that reason being that there is an afterlife of some sort. Now if the afterlife were run by the same human souls, then the afterlife would not be much better/different than life. We would still be human by nature just not in a mortal body??? Bill Clinton might still be in charge of something? So I guess my assumption is that a God, who I again assume made us and gave us this soul would be running the afterlife. I would like to think that we are held accountable for our lives. The thought of really good people living lives of suffering and simply dying is morbid. The thought of rotten bastards like Hitler not paying the dues for their shit just ain't right. If this is reality I want no part of it. I mean if there is no God, if you have no immortal soul and we simply live and die...why not do whatever you want: Rape, kill, rob, plunder and steal to your hearts content....you have nothing to worry about. Human justice is not sufficient justice or reward. Is life imprisonment really good enough for what a rapist has caused? Is lethal injection good enough for what John Wayne Gacy caused? No and that doesn't even take into account criminals that are never caught. There are people in the world who live decent lives everyday, help people for no other reason than they wanted to. These same people get shot, bombs dropped on them, get bit by snakes.....whatever. Is this right? So maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of fairness and that is responsible for my desire to want a God calling the shots. My personal preference on the afterlife would be that God is like a big party host, greats you at Heaven's door and inside is one wicked bash where you get hang with all the rest of dead people. Unlimited free jumps, free beer, no shitty music and spreading the love. I can deal with reincarnation, so long as when I come back I still know all the cool stuff I learned this time around. Despite titling this thread "Proof of God" I will readily admit there is none and none to disprove. It is a matter of faith. But the thought of there not being something really bothers me. I can only fall back on what I know. I was incapable of quiting drinking/drugging. I asked for help and got it. Since that time, despite my considerable ego, I have not been able to take credit for so much that has happened to me, nor give credit to other humans for so much else in this world. So I choose to believe in a concept of a higher power, who for lack of better terminology I call God. Could I be wrong...yes I could. I am operating under any misconceptions..probably. Am I making assumptions based on insufficient information....oh yeah. But I got nothing better to go on. Arguements were placed before me for which I had no answers, which forced me to concede that the odds were in favor of a God. At least that was how I digested it. In many ways I envy people who have firm conviction in ANY belief....religous or atheist. At least in their mind there is no question and they can run their lives by that belief. Knowing the truth would be really cool. As soon as someone has the answer let me know. Until then I go by what I got. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

I couldn't pick any favorites, I read 3 a month and they all become a blur after awhile. LOTR series was great Stephen King's The Stand was good. The Princess Bride was equally as good as the movie. The Once and Future King Groucho, Chico, Harpo and sometimes Zeppo Napalm and Silly putty by George Carlin JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"

Again, by definition, if you believe in anything other than random chance, you are agnostic. Because you are questioning the reason of who what why. Which is my point. And you do care to some extent or we would not be having this debate in the first place. You would have never responded to it at all. There is no burden of proof amigo. There ain't no proof I can offer to you that would hold up. You know that and I know that. My entire rant was to question an atheist's conviction. By your admission, you ain't one. Whether you agree on a definition of agnostic don't really matter. Peace. JJ JJ "Call me Darth Balls"