TomAiello

Funny story. When I was 17, I looked up my height and weight on some chart the USDA handed out in my high school. I was then (and still am, only much worse so) "obese". And at 17, I was an All American swimmer. I expect to spend the rest of my life being obese. I guess I'll just have to live with it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I thought USC looked pretty good. Of the eight sides playing in those two games (offense and defense for each team) I thought the standout star was the Auburn Defense (which, funny enough, doesn't have any of the "stars" for the talking heads to go on about). Without seeing the game played, we can never know. My guess is that USC's offense is closer to Auburn's defense than Auburn's offense is to USC's defense. So I think it would be a very low scoring game, with a slight edge to USC. But I'd still be cheering for Auburn. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It was a joke about the "name given at birth" thing. Feral and 7 are Aussie BASE jumpers who have both legally changed their names. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've ripped three pilot chutes in similar ways, before I learned to hold the bridle tight, rather than the PC. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I started the monday after Bridge Day (that's the end of October, for those who don't know). I weighed 212.5 (29% body fat, according to my Tanita) then. I'm now at 182.5 (21%). And I've had to re-set my deep brakes four freakin' times. So: 212/182/165/30 Aside from regulating my food intake (not much) I started exercising semi-seriously for the first time in about 8 years. I'm up to about 5000 yards of swimming daily (that's about 90 minutes, for the non-swimmers amoung us). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I bought them from Basic Research. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Everyone posting in this thread: I'm not going to let this devolve into a flame fest of personal attacks. I think Peter did a good job of expressing his thoughts without sinking to straight up personal attacks. The photoshop job, on the other hand, was not acceptable in this forum. Say what you think of the activity, if you like. But I'm not going to let this become a bunch of cheap shots at individuals. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Having seen Sam's video from the bullet cam, and video he shot at the same time with the PC105, I can definitely vouch for the truth of this. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I wear Crispi's. I like them alot. I've never tried the Hanwags. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You don't know Feral and 7, do you? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

About 10. I'd have to stop and count them up. The most recent one was in October of this year. One jumper had already landed safely. The other (four) of us walked down to the injured jumper. Even had their been no one on the ground, I'd probably have decided to run down the hill instead of jumping. I check my cell phone for service at every jump. On the jump I was just talking about, no one had cell service (of 3 phones on the load). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't think that's what Kerry had in mind. I did plenty of reseach into it (remember, my wife is a doctor, so we're fairly interested in what's coming down the pipe). However, it is possible I misunderstood his plan. Can you explain it in greater detail? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Those profits are also driving research and development that makes healthcare better for all of us (and, eventually, for lots of people who didn't contribute to the profits, usually because they couldn't afford it). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If there were only two of us, It would take a lot to get me to jump. Picture both of them in the landing area with broken legs, slowly bleeding to death, and unable to get out or summon help. I'm the only possible rescue personnel, and I'm taking risks with my ability to perform potentially life saving rescue procedures? Me making the jump can wait. Me providing medical attention, or summoning rescue personnel, or otherwise dealing with the situation, cannot. The only way I'm jumping in that situation is if I know that my friend is going to die before I can reach him on foot. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't think it's a matter of being physically up to the job. The truth is, I don't think it's a matter of being mentally up to the job, either. I can think of plenty of 16 year olds who would qualify in both these regards. The issue that concerns me is being emotionally up to the job. That means not wanting to bring all your friends along, not needing to have video of yourself on every jump, not being primarily motivated by a desire to be in magazines, and a bunch of other stuff that I'd worry about with most 16 year olds. But most of all it means being able to withstand the psychological impact of witnessing major, sometimes fatal, trauma. Repeatedly. I wouldn't want my 16 year old daughter to have to deal with that. "Scarred for life" is an overused term, but that's my worry, here. I think that if you put almost any 16 year old (myself included) through say, a high accident summer in Southern Norway, they'd come out an emotional wreck, and the consequences would stick around for a long time. I've seen plenty of 25 year olds have problems with these issues. I doubt that any 16 year old is going to be able to cope. If it was my child, I sure wouldn't want her to go through that kind of thing at that age. And don't even get me started on the idea of throwing a 16 year old girl into the feeding frenzy that is the (vastly male, mid 20's single, and macho) BASE scene. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I believe conspiracy to commit illegal aerial delivery would be a felony, even if the underlying charge was a misdemeanor. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

This sounds like a very good idea. Whould you administer the 2nd tier privately or publicly? I'm thinking a baseline tier provided by a government "crash net" with an upper tier of private insurance (and medicine) sounds pretty good. I'd worry about all the public medical centers we have, and how to transition them, though. That's pretty much how health care is run in Malaysia, for example. They have a very basic "public" system (frankly, I'd want ours to be better, especially for emergency care, which is pretty scary there) and a private, for-profit health care system which is pretty much on par with US healthcare. Is that the kind of system you are picturing? Preventive medicine free to all, most emergency (accident) care free to all, other procedures paid for? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

One of the primary differences between collectivists and individualists is that collectivists presume the individual is most important as part of the group, while individualists assign the group importance only as the result of it being a joint barometer of multiple individuals. I'm more of an individualist--but I think those two questions are equivalent. "What do we give up?" Is the same as "what do I give up?" When the "I" in question is part of the group forming the "we". -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Ah, now I see. We'd be much better off without the doctors. Didn't we just go over that? Clearly the way to better medical care is to close down all the medical schools, hospitals and clinics. Modern medicine is undoubtedly just a conspiracy by the rich to exploit the poor. By the way, I don't see any reason that everyone (regardless of income) is not free to read up on homeopathic remedies, and create and use them for themselves. So, if we just shut down all of our medical facilities, we'll have universal healthcare (at the state of the then current art) _and_ we'll have fewer deaths. Clearly we've all been blinded by the military-industrial-medical-capitalist conspiracy. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The Holocaust. Either that was the most racist thing I've ever heard, or you need to elaborate. Please tell me it's the latter? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm missing the parts where any of those articles (with the exception of the one written by a homeopath, who would be difficult to describe as unbiased) discuss advantages of homeopathic medicine. They appear to describe problems with our current system. Let me repeat what I said above. We have the worst possible system--except all the others that have been tried. That means that I'm aware there are problems, but I dispute your claim that your suggested alternative is demonstrably superior in any way. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

For example, the Balanced Budget Amendment? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Why do you suppose our technology (medical or otherwise) has advanced over time? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm right there, too. I did make some jumps--and spent some money to make them, though. No money spent on skydiving, however. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Where's the option for "BCS is broken"? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com