Newbie

I see loads of young (early 20's) skydivers who have made thousands of jumps, spent hours in the tunnel, are world champs etc - how are they doing this? Are they dz babies? Are they funding themselves via their parents? Have they made money very early on in life and spent it all on jumping? Does anyone know any young and very experienced skydivers and know how they have funded their jumping careers. I'm not jealous of them, i really just am curious to know how these young un's are funding themselves through the sport so quickly. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

There is no magic number. Experience is knowing how to accurately weigh the risk of what you are doing against the reward that doing it will provide to you, coupled with the ability to walk away from something that you deem too risky. Is a person with 30 jumps experienced if they decide not to go up when the wind speed is being very variable, or if they turn down the offer to go on the 3 way with 2 guys who have 100 jumps each? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What's March 11th got to do with anything? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I could be wrong, but i would guess anyone who cares about the general well being of children? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I just saw a heavily pregnant woman smoking while i was out at the shops and it made me angry - i feel sorry for the child, they are disadvantaged even before they have left the womb, poor sods. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

i bought some SportRX goggles just before i went on AFF - great investment - you just need to remember to take your specs in your pocket so you can put them on when you get on the ground, unless you want to walk around in your goggles in the packing area If you are going to Spain soon, call Sport RX, order them and get them to ship it straight to the AFF school you are going too. I can't remember exactly how long it was but the turnaround is quick - maybe a week or so? Enjoy AFF! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Nope. The guy is a putz. First of all, his job is to set an example, not to be "down" with his students. Students, generally, use a lot of unacceptable language, and the job of the teacher is to discourage this--what if Mr. Dawson had said, "Get the fuck in here now," instead? As for the word being "twisted" from it's original meaning, I don't even know what to say. I've tried a couple of responses, but had to delete them. "Twisting it from it's original meaning" is a good thing, not bad, but that doesn't make it okay for authority figures to use it to those in their charge. At the very least, it was disrespectful and inappropriate, but I had the feeling from watching Dawson that it was a little more than that. rl What do you mean, you don't know what to say with regard to it being "supposedly" twisted around from it's original meaning? The whole point of that argument - and this case in point proves it so - is that it hasn't been twisted from the original meaning at all, and it's still carries with it the association of derogatory, rascist term the word originally had. As far as i'm concerned, you can't have a single word mean different things and have different connotations to people of different races, that's just silly. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What do you guys think of this... http://www.wimp.com/racistteacher/ What do people expect when this word is bandied around just - as the reporter says - like the word "dude" is, and when you have Chris Rock making skits like these: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/niggaplease.html I personally think the guy shouldn't have used it - but he did, and all he is guilty of is trying to be "down" with his students. From the impression i got, the guy didn't seem to be a rascist, just an old guy trying to gain the respect of his students (or maintain the respect) by trying to be "down" by using their everyday slang - and it backfired. If anyone is guilty of the offence this has caused, it's all the so called "hip hop heads" who have allowed this word to be twisted around from it's original meaning. You can't on the one hand argue it's a form of saying "whats up" or "whats going on" and all innocent and what have you, and then on the other get pissed when a non black person uses it as a young black kid uses it and accuse him of rascist behaviour! That's moronic and goes against the belief that the word is harmless, as it's obviously not. Here is a good summary of my thoughts from Davey D, someone who has been down with hip hop for almost 3 decades... http://www.daveyd.com/nigaornigpol.html "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Spoke to one of the instructors there today - no one hurt which is good news, some clearing up and sorting out to do (obviously) but they are still open and operational apparently. The Let is due back next month, they have the calendar for 2006 posted up on the website, and it looks like it's all systems go, which is good news. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What's opsec? OH sweet jesus....go join the army will ya? I hum it cause I can (Henry 3:16 I'm in the UK, we have different terminology here. I didn't want to assume it was operational security. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What's opsec? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4697896.stm Why do we only learn about this stuff now, 4 years after it was thwarted? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

From what i can gather, this sounds like a guy who is agreived because - although clearly an immigrant of sorts himself (last name: Sztolc), he feels that, by having the Council grant permission for Martin Hodgson to turn his large house into separate flats, it will *obviously* encourage a stream of low income residents into the area, naturally. Given that planning application for this is in the SW16 area (Streatham Vale), and Mr Sztolc lives in SW16, i fear he is retaliating because he is concerned that as a result of this endless stream of "immigrants" "filling up" "his" borough, it will naturally devalue his own vastly overvalued property in the area, naturally because all of these poor people streaming into the area will ravage it in a mini crime wave. (again - ) I know Streatham, and South Streatham, and Streatham Vale - the area he refers to. Much of the housing there is over £1 million in value. It is NOT protected, or listed buildings that would prevent this sort of thing happening in the first place. This person obviously feels threatened by the action of the Council who - as per the WHOLE of London and the UK's housing strategy in general - is trying to create more living space and supply in a situation where demand is still increasingly strong, and growing. For first time buyers trying to get on the property market, the need for converting houses into flats is paramount. Without first time buyers, the shrinking demand could be precipitous for the housing market, and if Mr Sztolc realised this, he would understand that converting large houses into flats is de rigeur for most of London (victorian conversion, anyone?). Without these buyers, or renters to rent from the buy to let landlords, the housing market in London could downturn, in turn causing a devaluation in his own property. I can't stand people like this guy. It's prime example of utmost selfishness in the community. Places like Lambeth could do without him, let me tell you. Why he lives there, i have no idea, what with Lambeth being one of the most multicultural boroughs in the UK - he should be in somewhere like Knightsbridge or Chelsea, where the only faces are white. London is enough of a rat race, without people like this guy trying to spit venom at anyone that dare mess with his plans for this city. I see this all the time, and i think the only thing you can do for people like this is to get them to understand perhaps they have spent too much time in the big smoke, and to get our now before they have a coronary. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Drink law success claim attacked Anyone can massage figures, and there is no way you can glean accurate data from a law that only came into force 2 months ago, and one that has hardly had any serious take up as of yet (most places are not even offering extrended drinking hours, let alone 24 hour drinking). Money has been thrown at binge drinking precisely when the law came into effect - let's see what happens when the effect of that has run dry. There is no way in the world the binge and excessive drinking culture of the great British public is suddenly going to be miraculously eradicated through the implementation of extended hours drinking. It will take years to assess and see whether the law has any sort of change - positive or negative - and is not something you can even begin to assess in such a short time frame. There needs to be a much needed cultural overhaul in this country before we can start to see any improvement in after-drinks behaviour for most. Quite how that is brought about is anyones guess. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

hate to stray from the topic, but just being an infidel put me on their list. Just want to make sure - when you say "their" list, do you mean every single one of the 1 billion Muslims alive today, or just a select few? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I think the cartoons were offensive myself, but 2 wrongs do not a right make. Besides which, if Iran wanted to do something as "wrong" as the Danes had done, they would have ridiculed Christianity, the predominant Euro/Danish religion. Again, what have the jews - and specifically the holocaust - got to do with anything? Iran is doing nothing more than using this as a means to attack the jews (or Israeli's specifically - who are all jews). If they wanted to do something "equally as bad", they would have fought on a level playing field and set up a competition to see who could ridicule the Christian God, or Jesus or something. Again can you, or anyone, please explain what this whole episode has got to do with jews/Israel? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

When you punch someone can you blaim them for punching back? Can you explain what jews have to do with the currently fatwah being issues on the heads of Danish people/journalists? How do jews tie into this? Is it because all jews control all the media, everywhere? Or is it because, like Mohamed, a figure who can't be proved, the Holocause likewise cannot be proven to have happened, so seeing as they are both ficticious, they can be ridiculed together? Which is it, i'm curious to know? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Justice prevails, then. Let's hope they use that time to get his deportation papers ready to be signed when he gets out. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4690224.stm "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

YOU HEATHEN! GO AND BE EDUCATED!!!

He's hilarious! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

As you can see, it's alive and well. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/06/message.bottle.ap/index.html Message in a bottle: Don't litter Monday, February 6, 2006; Posted: 7:14 a.m. EST (12:14 GMT) NAPEAGUE, New York (AP) -- A boat captain who sent a message out to sea in a bottle says he received a reply from Britain -- accusing him of littering. "I kind of felt like no good deed goes unpunished," Harvey Bennett, 55, told the East Hampton Star. The plastic bottle was one of five that Bennett placed in the ocean off New York's Long Island in August. Last month, he excitedly opened a letter from England, and was stunned by the reply: "I recently found your bottle while taking a scenic walk on the beach by Poole Harbour. While you may consider this some profound experiment on the path and speed" of "oceanic currents, I have another name for it, litter. "You Americans don't seem to be happy unless you are mucking about somewhere," says the letter, signed by Henry Biggelsworth of Bournemouth, in the southern county of Dorset. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I don;t know what i would have done, much as i'm sure no one would unless they were in that situation. To have a go at people who were inthat situation, seems both pointless and unjustifiably harsh to me. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

I'm just curious - the last time you came face to face with a nut with a hatchet and gun, and you were unarmed, did you rush over and decide to engage him, unarmed? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Nice turn around in direction - from someone who wanted to drill Alaska and boycotted Kyoto, it's refreshing to hear him say the US must end it's reliance on oil. Quite how he aims to cut demand by 75% bu 2025 is anyone's guess, but it's an interesting turnabout in events, that's for sure. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/31/postal.shooting/index.html Why do these incidents always seem to happen in America, with the odd exception of things like the Dunblane shooting and the odd incident in Europe/Australia? Why do so many people pick up guns and go on shooting murderous shooting sprees in the US? You can't say it's purely down to gun ownership as there are places with more guns per capita that don't engage in this sort of psychotic behaviour. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts