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To plagiarize a few words from that great American Islamic thinker Louis Farrakhan, Islam is "a gutter religion". The whole faith from start to finish is a ripoff of Judaic and Christian scriptures. And a 7th century A.D. religion claiming an ancient Jewish city like Jerusalem as a "holy site" ? Complete bullshit. These people are the enemy. That's the way they want it, that's the way they get it. You might want to recheck your sources on that one. Farrakhan claimed it was Judaisam, not Islam that was the "gutter religion". "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

If you don't want the circle to continue, break it. If you believe in what you say, why didn't you tap the lady on the shoulder, say excuse me and politely ask if she could move her bag so an old woman could sit down? Why leave it to the bus driver to attempt to deal with? Why roll your eyes and not say anything? By not saying anything you continue to allow an issue to propagate. When a young mother allowed her son to sit and bounce up and down while he sat on a chair on the bus literally right in front of a frail, old woman who had just got on at the front of the bus and was stood right in front of him, and who both the mother and son had seen (they looked at her as she was quite obviously very old) and chosen to ignore, i tapped the boy on the shoulder and asked him politely if he could stand so we could allow the old lady to sit. I thought if neither of them would acknowledge her, i had to make them more aware that i thought their behaviour was not acceptable. What happened? The mother asked the boy (who was at least 10 or 11) to simply stand, and he did so. The old woman gave me a look and smile that said more than a 1000 thank you's ever could have. The boy was fine standing right there with us, holding the rail, the mother smiled as the old woman thanked her for asking her son to stand and i thought atleast she can now sit. Next time, interject, politely, instead of just biting your lip. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

LMFAO! I read these quotes the other day, knowing not a great deal about scientology, and thought to myself "Are Trey and Matt on drugs?". Then i read the Rolling Stone article above and reread these quotes are realised how hilarious they are! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Thanks for the links - just finished the RS article - was very interesting and not only backs up what i thought about Scientology as expressed in my initial post, but now makes me realise i probably was underestimating how fucked up it is. Who on earth would not only believe all the rubbish esposed by a guy who wrote pulp science fiction and decided to sell out to make some real money, but actually pay tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the "priviledge" is just lost on me. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Is it some kind of kooky cult? It seems like it to me, going on what i've just read on their website. I took their "free" personality test for a laugh but you need to go into a test centre where one of their "certified professional testers" will go through your personality with you. Some of the questions were odd, some were very weird, and some were hilarious. Anyway i just had a look - L Ron Hubbard has the look of a cult leader about him, not sure why. Am i being too cynical? What's it all about and is anyone out there a scientologist who can explain the benefits it's brought to them. Also is it true you have to donate x amount of your income to them? I heard that that's something that you have to do. Albeit i'm going in to this post with a certain amount of heresay but it reeks of a self help money making scheme for the disillisioned and those who lack true strength of character to run their lives for them etc. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

And I thought my yearly membership for the gym was expensive... Wow, 90 minutes... That sounds like it was a "blast"... It helps if you own a tunnel "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Me personally? 2.5 mins lol. However when i was at tunnel camp last month there was a guy there who had apparently logged 200-300 hours in a year at various tunnels. When i was there over a 2 day period he had bought 3 hours to fly with Babylon the one day, gone to another tunnel then come back to fly some more the next day. He was in the tunnel continuously for a freaking long time. I couldn't say for sure exactly how long but upwards of 30mins probably. He was doing a lot of back carving and transition work, so 3 dimensional/freefly stuff mainly. He was having a lot of fun - they all were and it was very entertaining to watch, even when they were just messing about. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Last night i watched a really unsettling and gut wrenchingly sad documentary called "The Falling Man" - mainly centred around the identity of the person in this pic and the emotion of the jumpers/fallers caused people when published afterward, as well as the search to see if it was possible to find out the identity of the "falling man", and the ultimate revelation that it was less important to search for the identity of the man, than it was for us to consider the awfulness of one's plight of being in that position, and the inhumanity of how some members of the human race can do such awful things to other members of that own race (at least that was my interpretation of the closing comments). What i want to ask is this - do you think the image of the falling man, or even anyone who jumped/fell or their plight deserves the outcome that it received? The images were never really published or looked at since the horrific events of that day, or Sept 12th, apart from a 2003 piece for Esquire by the guy who took part in the documentary last night. The documentary rightly mentioned the central theme of pictures of the event were of the heroic work of those working in the aftermath. I firmly believe that the images of those poor souls should not be relegated never to be shown or pondered upon because of the emotion they cause within us when we look at them, and how readily they summarise the true horror of the day. While they are truly hard to look at, i feel that almost keeping them out of sight (and therefore mind) almost denies their existence, when to me, those images force you to imagine and confront within yourself the true horror of what happened to people before the inevitable collapse of the buildings. Although the 2 towers collapsing obviously caused far greater loss of life, for me, seeing the jumpers/fallers in pictures makes it seem far more "real" in terms of the horror of that event (i don't know if anyone knows what i mean by that, but even when i see the 2 towers go down today, there is still that "this is unbelievable" and "it looks like it's out of a film" feel) and to think that, given that you can understand the jumpers must have thought to themselves, "if i don't jump i will die in the flames", forces you to think about the gut wrenchingly awful predicament those poor people would have been in, whereas those trapped inside the building would most likely not have known their fate - which isn't of course any less of a terrible fate, but the jumpers would have known they would die and were forced into that position. I don't know, i just came away from the documentary obviously upset and shaken by it, but with a hope that the pictures will not be "brushed under the carpet" away from mainstream exposure, which effectively they seem to have been since Sept 12th, when they were published and received such backlash from people that they have effectively almost entirely been airbrushed from existence. I can understand the anger from some people on Sept 12th, seeing those pics blown up in the Morning Post (in Pittsburgh, i believe it was?) but i think the ensuing silence and almost denial of the pictures is a real travesty, especially to those who died while jumping/falling, almost denying it ever even happened. In fact, one guy took solace in the fact he (seemingly) had managed to identify his wife from a series of 2 photo's - one of her standing at a window, the other of her falling - and this put his mind at ease, knowing at least what had happened to her. What do you guys think? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What do you call the police who can't solve every case that lands on their desk then? Odd logic that one... "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Thanks for the replies everyone, i'm sold! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I have flicked through a few copies at the dz, but they were all quite old (as in 5-10 years old). Is it worth getting an international subscription to this publication? Looks ok, but would like to know from readers what they think. Thanks "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Tatoos are played out, i would never get one. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Some info from Skydive Sibson received in an email yesterday....does anyone know what a SMG 92 is like? Is it like a Pilatus porter? Climb rate etc? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Yes, me. I thought the EXACT same thing when i read it in the bath last night but just forgot to post up when i got out. You beat me to it because i'd completely forgotten about it until i just saw this post now. I think there is probably some missing info. I imagine what he means by his "first 1000 jumps" are probably jumps from maybe jump number 100 or more onwards, as someone with that many jumps probably rounds things up and down a fair bit compared to you or i who only have 200 or so jumps. Thats what i put it down to, but yeah, i thought the same exact thing as you i.e. that it was quite odd to "appear" that he started on a canopy that had such a high wl. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

He was pretty funny but i never see his posts on here anymore. Is this the Sudster? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I read both Skydiving and Parachutist. Every month, Parachutist publishes the fatality/incident reports and does a yearly safety awareness/incident report round up for the year, which i think is a very good way to continue thinking about and assessing the risk of what's going on. Even though the monthly fatality reports in Parachutist can be a little thin on the ground, it at least gives you some advice and makes you aware of risks/issues you may not have considered. The BPA's mag has nothing like this. All we get is reports in the minutes papers, a separate handout, which is often nothing more than cursory description of what happened and numbers of non fatal incidents with nothing to be learned from them. Why does the BPA not publish a yearly fatality report and/or safety advice to go along with it? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Does a G92 have seats or are you sat in between legs facing the tail? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Yeah i noticed they mentioned a G92 on the website. What's up with that? How comes no Let? What's a G92 like in comparison? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

How did you make 400 jumps over 2 years of being unemployed? Just curious "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

This is what i'm talking about. I'm not talking about some 24 year old who has 100 jumps. I'm talking about this sort of example. I knew these sorts of people must be from "industry", it's got to be the only way this sort of thing can happen. "Dad owns a dz and you can jump for free all you want", sort of thing. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

It's normally mid march but i haven't had anything official yet. I'm guessing they will probably group email everyone - i'll post up when i get that, if no one else has confirmed it before hand. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Interesting thanks for the insight. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

that explains nothing as to how a 20 year old kid can have racked up $50,000 worth of jumps over a couple of years. Not every young person on the dz can afford that. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Did you even read the second paragraph of the post? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I'm talking about 10's if not 100's of thousands of dollars worth of jumps. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts