smiles

SAD I feel like such a whiner, to rant about rain but here goes: A west to east flow of Pacific air has dumped enough rain on Vancouver that a record set in 1953 could be broken Monday after 29 consecutive days of rain. It's especially bad in Vancouver because it's overcast, our body clocks go out of sync because when we think it should be day, it's too dark. Booo hoooo. Seasonal affective disorder causes an increase in appetite and sleepiness. Exercise and the use of a light box can turn someone's mood around in about a week, as with SAD there is a drop in brain chemicals like serotonin (neurotransmitter) and melatonin (hormone.) This week I am hitting the slopes, and purchasing a light box. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

The fans were obnoxious (as usual) You would think they would be booing Bertuzzi now--- sure Jack Johnson was in the wrong when he took out Downie but the excessive booing was beyond the scope of the wrongdoing. Hockey fans here are crazy SMiles

Canada won the gold medal on Thurs. night when they blanked Russia 5-0 to win their second straight world junior title. Head coach Brent Sutter, great defence, great hitting, superior goldtending & 22 hearts of GOLD, what a team!!! Teams like Russia, the United States and Finland had a wealth of talent-- but Canadian's know their hockey eh?--despite having a younger and less-experienced roster. While the non-goal that should have been a goal for Russia (it wasn't disallowed, it just wasn't called) would have changed the score, it would not have changed the end result. The person to blame is not the ref, or goal judge, its the Russian coach. Also a team with heart uses a situation like that to build on. If Canada was disallowed a goal it would have made them play harder to get it back, but not Russia. However, it does illustrate that the IHF needs to review the system for officiating. The performance of the American referee was the best of any of Canada's games, but, maybe the IHF should consider going to a two man system like the NHL (especially with no centre ice). SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

can dogs look up? Merry Christmas! check out Santa Rawks!! SMiles

I am so excited....just got my tree for 2005 in the living room. My theme every year is to purchase a real tree and this year is a beauty Norway Spruce, I fell instantly in love! So- the burlaped root ball is tough to stand and the only heavy duty container I could find big enough was my fav Budweiser cooler...(King of Beers!) Therefore I have named my tree..."Bud" "Bud" stands 4 1/2 ft. tall and is real bushy and thick!...when planted in spring at our cabin he will grow 50ft. Don't care for tinsel or garland but love loads of tiny lights...this years theme outside is blue/green LED lights and also found tiny ones for the tree also blue/green. Ornaments are also hand made over the years, nature theme. Pinecones we collect, and the hand made mouses in bed! 1/2 a walnut shell is the bed with a acorn glued inside. The acorn (mouse) has ears made with felt glued, eyes painted on with felt pen, and a blanket of felt covering him, also wool tail hanging from walnut. Happy Holidaze! check out Santa Rawks! SMiles

Someone new to the drug or in a strange setting, may suffer acute anxiety and have paranoid thoughts (amazing how any study came up with this!) Personally I feel huge benifit to smoking/eating THC or Hash Oil besides the mellow out affect. THC causes the feelings of euphoria, creativity and a sense of well-being as does skydiving. THC is useful for reducing muscle spasticity - helping Multiple Sclerosis patients, there is evidence that for those with Asthma, smoking THC is beneficial. Good therapy for my eyes. Yearly I maintain appt. with eye specialists that explain they can tell if a person has diabetes by looking in their eyes…re: micro aneurysm. I have had diabetes (type 1) for 40 years and eye specialists cannot believe how perfect my eyes are. No symptoms of micro aneurysm or glaucoma, perfect eye sight. I also have a chronic illness called Crohn's Disease. Abdominal pain along with nausea, vomiting (=lack of appetite=weight loss) which all lead to low blood sugars and difficult control of my Diabetes. Use of THC eases the pain and gives relaxing & soothing effects, lowers stress, gives me a great appetite (the munchies) with no nausea or vomiting or weight loss. I make my own THC butter and use that to spread on bread, add to food or hot drinks. A side effect of Crohn's Disease is rheumatoid arthritis and TCH also relieves pain for this. Inflammation caused my pancreas to stop producing insulin, also caused Chron's Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis. My body's immune system was overproducing constantly which causes inflammation. Due to 3 years of treatment with a drug called ramicade, which has changed my body chemistry so it no longer overproduces alpha cells causing inflammation, I now do not need to take anti-inflammatory medication the rest of my days. check out Santa Rawks! SMiles

keeping in shape for Christmas Eve! my flash animation.... Santa Rawks! SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

Icarius Aerotechnics- Mike Fitzgerald was at my d.z. in Canada converting our porter to A-34. (owner of F-GODZ) and within 1 week was flying back to France. He spent time showing me beauty pics on his laptop of F-GODZ and huge amount of Porter's painted by same fellow that painted his Icarius logo on F-GODZ. He explained that Pilatus will only paint the horizontal stripes (not cool for a porter as makes it appear longer than it is) I forget the name of the painter but Mike had graphics and pics for every step of the job. http://www.icarius-aerotechnics.com/pages/main_en.php check out the photo gallery for pics SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

I feel for you same happened here in Vancouver B.C. Canada- tickets were sold around the world online, and then sold for huge. Just great to find people in Europe selling tickets for my hometown concert on e-bay. So- I went out and purchased their dvd, cd, book collection for $40 to find out that dvd wasn't in 5.1 surround, and only 3-4 songs. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

You got that right!! I often wonder if the reason I get stirred is the sound I luv- or story being told.....or the lyrics......but then I fall to peices with tunes that I cannot understand lyrics: (Sigur Ros- icelandic).....sound so crystal clear you could cry http://www.sigur-ros.is/ (scroll down to choose webcast from iceland) I am hurting from last night, got together with everyone here to listen/watch Hipeponymous. Re: The Tragically HIP concert -That Night in Toronto- 2 DVD's 5.1 surround, 2 CD's loaded with 37 tunes (The best of the Tragically Hip) makes for a party to be long remembered. Watching/listening to the concert with great sound got us all stirred ...(along with booze) Everyone sang their heart away, danced, yelled, screamed lyrics (even if they were not right) for hours on end........and of course those like me ---cried tears of joy. The band has a diversity from rockin tunes and melodies that grab your heart, they are so complete with lyrics pounding from their hearts.... I get goosebumbs-right through listening to their tunes, and with lyrics like this to sing to: O' for a good life, we just might have to weaken and find somewhere to go go somewhere we're needed find somewhere to grow grow somewhere we're needed ...... let's get friendship right get life day-to-day in the forget-yer-skates dream full of countervailing woes in diverse-as-ever scenes proceeding on a need-to-know in a face so full of meaning as to almost make it glow Tears for Wheat Kings, Sundown in the Paris of the prairies Wheat kings have all their treasures buried And all you hear are the rusty breezes Pushing around the weather vane Jesus more tears for Courage, Watch the band through a bunch of dancers Quickly, follow the unknown with something more familiar. Quickly something familiar Courage, my word it didn't come it doesn't matter and Fully Completely, Bring me back in shackles, Hang me long out in the sun. Exonerate me, forget about me I recommend measures for ending it. Lover, she simply slammed the door. She said, "you're gonna miss me. Wait and you'll see." Fully and completely. and Ahead by a Century First we'd climb a tree and maybe then we'd talk Or sit silently and listen to our thoughts With illusions of someday casting a golden light No dress rehearsal, this is our life That's when the hornet stung me and I had a feverish dream With revenge and doubt tonight we smoke them out- You are ahead by a century And the tune I cannot get out of my mind today.............The Darkest One (video of this tune was played on set with Trailer Park Boys stealing a engine for a truck) Come in, come in, come in, come in from under these darling skies come in it's warm and it's safe here and almost harkening off to a time and place now lost in our imagination ..... where the wild are strong and the strong are the darkest ones and you're the darkest one huge tears for: So Hard Done By Interesting and sophisticated refusing to be celebrated it's a monumental big screen kiss it's so deep it's meaningless one day you'll just up and quit and that'll be it just then the stripper stopped in a coughing fit she said sorry i can't go on with this yeah that's awful close but that's not why i'm so hard done by and my favorite (need kleenex) Grace, Too SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

i luv skydiving related stuff, and have learned abit with t-shirt design- (a little more involved than just drawing a graphic) you have to have info like: -what file format does silk screener use...(adobe, corel draw...) -what color/colors t-shirts used for screening -how many colors used in graphic (2,3,4,color process) -each color in graphic is separated for screening, and darkest color is screened last (outline allowed for bleeding) (color separation) -ability to "mirror image" in printer software oh ya, what idea's do you have for graphic, what saying/text/name if any??? SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

many characters outstanding at my d.z. my choice is Taras.... a man of many faces/characters... these pics are tiny - but check out his website: http://www.tarasmovies.com/ SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

ahh, I was fortunate to be on the first load flying at the d.z. Saturday-----what a difference in climb!! 12,500 in just under 9 min.....and or launch was so incredible!! After 4-5 loads porter was flown back to have a new lighter step designed I believe they are using a dinged strut from a cessna. After huge sushi dinner we were all drinking champagne to the wee hrs. Turn around was only 4 days thanks to Mike Fitzgerald and our pilot Grant Toews who also does all maintanance on the aircraft--sign off was done by Transport Canada on the 4th day also. Mike headed back to France on Sun. He signed my logbook with his Icarius Aerotechnics decal, He did actually bring a week of sunshine with him as after he took off, it started snowing............... Deb & Gerald Harper (dz operators/owners) will be updating with Markus Herzig and sending new pics of our super porter A-34 (chances it will be also getting a paint job!) yee ha! SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

Nice attitude! thank you for your imput. The message: Reminds me of the f**k head that sent a editorial into our local newspaper that defamed our d.z. operator for having "mechanical faults with aircraft" due to the forced landing. This person went on to educate all on the fact that he as a skydiver had made 900 jumps in aircraft around our country never experiencing any difficulty with take-offs, and added "our d.z. was not safe" into his report, as if it was impossible for aircraft to have "mechanical faults." Regardless, made the 1st jump yesterday out of our pilatus (which just became super porter with A-34 installed by Mike Fritzgerald (F-GODZ) with 4 days turn around and him flying back to France today. Mike is one awesome dude, even signed my logbook including his decal for Icarius Aerotechnics. I am speachless.....09 min. climb to 12,000...my guts were a tad queezy around 8,000 as so used to the A-20 taking atleast 25 min. to climb. Talk about something to celebrate!! SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

can I use "boned man"?? SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

After studying all weekend to prepare for a 3 hour exam Mon. morning, and leaving early to have time to study before exam….my vehicle decided to stop running in the middle of a very busy intersection………(fuel pump) zzzzzzzzzzzzz I am not mechanically inclined (female) but now understand a bit about the fuel pump (and cost to repair.) Usually located inside or near the fuel tank, the fuel pump's job is twofold: To push fuel from the tank to the injectors, and to create sufficient pressure so the injectors will deliver the correct amount of fuel under all operating conditions. So- no big deal when driving a car…… Aircraft Forced Landing There is considerable risk of injury and aircraft damage when a single-engine aircraft experiences engine power loss and the departure path is not clear of obstacles, which is often the case. I was aware of a forced landing of aircraft at my dz years ago and all I understood was "mechanical fault." Never asked any questions to learn more but confirmed for me wearing a helmet & seat belt on take-off. Abbotsford Para-Centre Vancouver Canada Pilatus Porter 2001 An engine run-up was carried out before take-off, which indicated normal engine performance. The take-off, was normal, with full engine power available. While the aircraft was climbing through approximately 900 feet above sea level (asl), engine power rolled back in five seconds to about 46 per cent Ng, the rotation speed of the engine gas generator section, which is less than flight idle power. The pilot applied full throttle but engine power did not increase, and he carried out a successful forced landing in a hay field about 1½ miles off the end of runway. In this occurrence there was an area available for a forced landing and the aircraft was landed without damage, and with no injuries to the five passengers on board. The field used for the forced landing was flat with unmown hay at a height of about one foot. After the landing, the engine continued to run at less than idle power, and the pilot shut it down. The aircraft was pushed to a location closer to an access road, and was repaired in the field where it came to rest. The fuel control unit (FCU) was replaced and an engine test run was carried out successfully. The aircraft departed from the field two days after the occurrence. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) investigated this occurrence for the purpose of advancing transportation safety. It is not the function of the Board to assign fault or determine civil or criminal liability. http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/air/2001/A01H0003/A01H0003.asp (I copied info here from this site) Prior to this occurrence, the engine underwent an inspection for a propellor strike and the engine was reinstalled. At the time, it was decided to replace the FCU, because the engine had been a bit sluggish and the calendar time since overhaul was nearing the recommended interval. A replacement FCU was obtained from International Governor Services Inc (IGS), an FAA-approved overhaul facility in Broomfield, Colorado, USA. After the engine was installed, some field adjustments were made because the engine was difficult to start. In consultation with IGS personnel, some FCU adjustments were then made, and the engine appeared to operate normally. The reason for the engine power loss, or roll-back, was a loss of vacuum of the fuel control unit (FCU) acceleration bellows, which resulted in the FCU reducing fuel going to the engine to minimum flow. The FAA Airworthiness Approval Tag (FAA Form 8130-3), which accompanied the occurrence FCU when it went to the operator, did not indicate that the FCU had undergone less than a full overhaul. It would appeared at that time there needed be some clear indication of the type of overhaul carried out so that those carrying out maintenance activities will be given the opportunity to better evaluate the serviceability of an FCU. The occurrence aircraft was not equipped with an emergency fuel lever. This optional device is designed to bypass the action of the bellows assembly by mechanically moving FCU linkages, allowing fuel to flow to the engine. The emergency fuel lever is mandated for some single-engine transport operations, but not if it is operated under visual flight rules (VFR) during daylight. Safety Concern--FCU Manual Override Many single-engine aircraft are not equipped with an optional emergency fuel lever. This option would allow restoration of sufficient engine power to continue flight for instances where the FCU acceleration bellows is breached or other compressor discharge air problems occur. A manual override system for the fuel control unit (FCU), is an approved optional installation. A manual override system is required by regulation for single-engine turbine-powered aircraft in commercial operations when the aircraft is used to carry passengers at night, or during instrument flight rule operations. It would appear that the risks of single-engine operations are less during visual flight rules because forced landing areas can be seen. However, take-off areas may have obstacles, which may not allow a successful forced landing. The Transportation Safety Board is concerned that commercial passengers may be subjected to higher than necessary risks when being carried on single-engine, turbine aircraft not equipped with a manual override system for the FCU. The Board will continue to monitor this safety issue. Consequently, the Board authorized the release of this report on 06 February 2003, July 2001 was the date of the forced landing. So, my question is: how many jump from aircraft that has FCU manual override, and is this a safety concern? SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

...as I have been jumping from the aircraft flying here for over 10 years- I take it the recent more powerful engine- would be your interest to come west???? Personally I feel that the "fellow jumpers" are priority to the aircraft........and travelling to meet other jumpers is a good experience.

hey, Ian... Calgary aint that far away- I may be heading that way next summer....(it's a small world!).. Karen (the one that is bragging about porter engine) SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

out in the Fraser Valley....Abbotsford, Hi! Many of us have left for the winter (Mexico, Australia, Arizona...) Halloween us "left behind" did Rocky Horror pic show at the Vogue (Granville) with drinks after...and went to see Warren Miller a few weeks back...the "Wheel" won a door price ($800. snowboard) Some will be up the hills for Xmas (Whistler/Hemlock) but will let you know for our Xmas Party. Pitt Meadows, Chilliwack and Abbotsford DZ out here -all beauty's. Don't be a stranger! SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

Hey, Nice pic, actually think I remember meeting you 2. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

You got it! C-GROO's (porch/step) is a beauty....8 & 10-ways are a dream-one out on wheel- 5 on the porch a breeze - (can even hang on the porch) 2 inside front are really 3/4's outside on porch.... Ride up is real comfy in Porter as our bench is designed so we straddle it---as Otter you are tilted sideways on bench. The width of the door is perfect on Porter compared to Otter. We have boogies every season with Ponce & bring up the Otter from Kapowsin, or Otter from Monteray Bay- but cannot beat the Porter for launching. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

thanx for the link, great site! http://www.pc-6.com/history/340.htm Mike Fitzgerald's (Icarius) F-Godz also read F-GODZ "Godzilla" is the world's most powerful Turbine Porter at: http://www.bkpc.co.uk/news.htm and: SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

1. I was thinking champagne 2. I would have to shoot myself (can take away my flash myself though) ahhh, the shark teeth do bite! will find out this weekend. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

winter months?? Ahh, had all kinds of old memories zap my brain jumping the C-182 to 6,000 ft. on the weekend.... Unreal scenery with the low lying fog all the way to Bellingham!! Weather permitting we fly and this weekend Sat. is looking good....(also chance Porter will be flying) http://www.vancouver-skydiving.bc.ca/index.html for contact info. SMiles eustress. : a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.