TomAiello

Oooh! Ooooh! Pick me! Pick me! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In all honesty, if taking over the oil reserves were the goal (I don't think that's the current US goal in the middle east), I'd actually find it refreshing to just say "we want that oil to run our big, fat, polluting, American cars, and we're going to roll our tanks over there and take it." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I imagine it's more a function of the wing shape than whether it's rigid or not. The fact that you can't instantly collapse it to respond to and adjust for instability issues is going to make a blown exit a very, very interesting situation. The good news is that you ought to be able to get a feel for the exit mechanics jumping off a rooftop into mattresses, or using some kind of pendulator type system. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Jaap, I think you'll be fine in Italy. Do that first, and then decide if you're comfortable enough to move to the (lower, more challenging) Swiss jumps. The 3rd "standard" stop on that trip is in France. Next time you're down here I can sit down with a road map and show you a good 2 week loop. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

There is a large bold faced link at the top of every page in the BASE forum which explains that at length. It's pretty silly to argue that you didn't know about it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Ron, EBSB52, Come on guys, you can discuss the points without making attacks on the other posters. If you can't respond to one of their points without saying something about them, it might be time to walk away from the keyboard for a bit. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I find it interesting that a bunch of the same folks who are saying the Bush administration is just wiggling the numbers to their advantage are also taking the Clinton numbers as gospel. Honestly, I think that pretty much every administration (Clinton, Bush, whoever) mashes those numbers as hard as they can to put themselves in the best light. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

This has now made the mainstream media, so I'm bringing the thread back in. Press report here. Blue skies. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

In the early 80's, people not abiding by these types of compromises was one of the problems. It might be easier to avoid such conflicts by not making any specific compromises at all, and instead saying something like "everyone promises to exercise their best judgment in regards to safety." A "no aerials" rule off a terminal wall is obviously just plain silly, and trying to get people to stick with it would be pretty much impossible. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Actually, you're both making the same point. He was just making it in the opposite way. Some people will respond to any statement by using it to defend/attack their favorite political cause/person. I believe he was saying that he expected some people would use that bit to start into a criticism of some politician or other. Same as you were saying that some people would surely use that bit to start into a defense of some politician or other. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's ok. I am good with economics, and I'm a conservative, and I think taxes are pretty much the worst thing that can be done to a man. But I still don't buy the central premise of that article. Taxes ought to be reduced (in my dream world, eliminated) because they are a fundamental affront to human freedom--not because I can wiggle some figures enough to say that doing so actually makes the government money. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Wireless + Laptop = Life Changing Technology As a result of this combination I will never again buy either a desktop computer or a computer without wireless. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I know a guy who bought a rig from him that supposedly had an in-date square reserve in it. The guy had to fire the reserve, and it came out round. I've verified all the elements of the story (i.e. I saw the reserve in question, as well as the receipt for the rig). I've heard that this is the one and only time this ever happened, and the incident has reached somewhat legendary status amongst the Ralph gossip crowd. Edit to add: I believe the listing for the DZ (not the gear shop, but owned by the same guy and run concurrently) is here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

...if SC shouldn't be split into the "I want to argue" forum and the "I'm interested in thinking and learning" forum. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Always get the biggest hard drive you can. I have to clean video (the downloaded kind) off my hard drive every couple months, and I just don't have enough room for video (the kind I've shot) editing. Plus, if you use iTunes on that machine, you're going to chew up HD space as well. My experience using computers has been that a larger hard drive is never a wasted investment. In fact, it's almost always been, for me, money better spent than a faster processor, more RAM, or heck, almost anything else. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Truthfully, as someone who often has to wade through pages and pages of posts in this forum, I'd say that 75% of it is just that--argument for the sake of argument. The relative minority who's actually interested in learning and thinking about things can often be drowned out. Props to you for being part of that minority. That's a very interesting question. I think it would be interesting to compare the degree of organization, and especially support from relatively "legitimate" looking groups. I suspect that you'll see more of that in the Islamic world, but in neither of those cases (christian terrorism in the US or Islamic terrorism) are you going to come close to say, the level of involvement seen somewhere like, say Northern Ireland. Crossover groups aside, I do think that in the world today we've got more organized, more active, better financed, and more aggressive terrorism coming from the Islamic fundamentalist segment than from any other segment. The especially worrisome thing I see is the global character of those activities. Sitting in Idaho, I could be relatively certain that the IRA wasn't going to blow me up. And sitting in London, you could be equally confident that some American survivalist's weren't threatening your wellbeing. But the Islamic terror movement, in so far as we can call it that, appears to be much more wide spread than any other such thread. That, I think, is why we're seeing more calls for some kind of coordinated global response, and more characterizations of these actions as a "war". -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

We've had at least one court case in which the whole public endangerment thing was beaten, so the jumper only had to deal with the trespass type stuff. The "you might hurt someone" really doesn't hold water in a logical sense, and I bet that anyone would have a pretty good time against it in court. You have more chance of getting hit by a meteor than a BASE jumper, simply because meteors don't try to avoid you. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Don't forget that the motherlode of terminal jumps is in Canada, way over on the other side of the country. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I actually often hit the profile link to check location, especially in this forum. We are all, to whatever extent, products of our environment, and I find it interesting to see how the viewpoints of various folks from different places reflect that. Personally, I expect that someone from Israel is likely to have much greater firsthand experience with terrorism and security than almost any of the rest of us. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think criminal record is an issue to many people, especially if it turns into a felony conviction. There are some specific places that have specific anti-BASE ordinances as well, and one of them (which is a pretty historic landmark) has a fine of $10,000 written into the ordinance. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I got a letter that was specifically tailored to respond to mine. I know this because my wife used the ABP letter system and got a "stock" letter. My ABP letter was a little more customized, and I got back a "stock" letter, then a week or so later, got another "customized" response (in which the term "BASE" was used, despite the fact I hadn't used it anywhere in my letters). It was still pretty much political yammering, but at least it was on-topic, and showed that someone had actually read the thing and composed a couple paragraphs just for me. I have seen one quite positive response, via letter, but as it was not my letter, the details aren't really mine to share. In general, it seems like the folks from less populous states are getting more personalized responses, which makes sense, I suppose. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've received 2 responses. I know that several other people have, as well. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hey, I didn't say we'd empty the whole thing in free fall. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yes we are, dammit! Skreamer, come to Idaho, where the white guys with assault rifles live. We can chuck you off a bridge and unload a drum of 7.62 from the AK, all legally, and all within 10 miles of home. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You realize that this has nothing to do with "his" news culture, as the poster you are responding to is not an American, right? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com