TomAiello

You know what happens when you assume things. As Tree noted, many of those aerials are easily recognizable to experienced BASE aerialists as (what was Dwain's phrase? ah, yes) "flailing BASE gainers" or derivatives thereof. Very few Americans are really doing good, precise aerials (the man in black is a notable exception). You have to find Aussies for that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

How many jumps do you think JT has? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

DZ.com locks you out of your old posts after a set amount of time (6 hours? I think?). I've edited the original post to reflect the new addresses. Thanks for all the work, Mick! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Standing on the railing attracts the attention of motorists. They tend to (a) stop to hoot and holler--which has causes 3 accidents on the bridge that I know of in the last year, or (b) think someone is committing suicide and freak out. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Shhhh. They don't know yet. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Does that mean he's puked on every object? Including a B.. S... whatever? Eric Lee is the real deal. Definitely. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm pretty sure you could get one cheap from Dennis Murphy. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Very silly, most of the time. There are no B's in Twin Falls to jump. I was actually discussing the rail jumps made at the local S. I don't really think of it as "mine". I'm pretty sure it belongs to the people of the state of Idaho, so I guess in a sense it's very fractionally "mine" though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm with Tim, here. The blatant disregard for (a) BASE community ethics, and (b) the reasonable requests made by law enforcement at our most precious legal site, both shown (and shown _off_) in this video disgust me. Come on guys, effectively telling the sherrif to go stuff himself, then parading the video around the internet (and selling it) _ain't_ exactly the smartest thing in the world. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I own a home in Twin Falls, Idaho. I didn't realize you lived here as well. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I noticed a fair number of cute girls pulled out of the crowd and invited in, too. I think it was the "rock concert" mentality of it that bothered me. I'm pretty sure the FBI didn't hand out passes to their van at random to people they thought looked cool. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I don't agree. Putting out videos of jumpers breaking the few rules that apply to an object, then shrugging it off when other jumpers complain, and essentially saying "we'll keep doing what we want." What does that sound like to you? Because to me it sounds like exactly what happened in Yosemite 25 years ago. And it certainly was not "the best" way to get BASE "accepted and appreciated" there, was it? I can hear the flatbed starting up... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Please tell me your post was sarcasm.... Tim and I are _old_ friends. He was around when I made my first skydives and BASE jumps. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

For future reference: Posting identical posts onto the end of multiple threads is called "Spamming" a forum. Please don't do it again. Thanks! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Wow. I sure wish I was cool enough to stand on the rail like that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What was the area out by the exit point, during the day? I believe it was officially called the "Red Bull Party Zone" or something like that? Anyway, that's the area I'm talking about. I doubt I was misinformed, because I was standing there watching the events I reported in my post. I'm not pointing fingers at you (or anyone else, really) here, Jason. I just thought the "Red Bull Athletes Only" area out there by the exit point was a little rich. I _did_ get free Red Bull from their bar at the Holiday Inn on saturday night. Fortunately, one of the GoFast guys was there to provide the vodka out of a brown paper bag. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Hmmm. Last year they had a "Red Bull Athletes and their groupies only" area right at the exit point. I can only assume that was because they had given some kind of sponsorship to the event. Perhaps Jason can explain the relationship in more detail. I must admit that this particular bit of publicity nauseated me. Apparently you had to get some pass from the cool Red Bullers to get into their private lounge area. I almost puked when I saw their bouncer tell Moe Viletto that he wasn't allowed. It seemed insane to me that some Red Bull flunky was telling Moe that he wasn't "cool" enough to be in their private "BASE jumper" area. Space, I'm sure you know who Moe is. For those of you who don't, all I can say is that Moe has forgotten more about BASE than I will ever know. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Space, The point is not that you could do a one off jump from a site, given enough resources. "Burning" means many things. In my mind, having the authorities declare jumping of a previously legal site to be illegal is the worst form of burning. By your definition, that flatbed didn't "burn" the Captain. I believe it did. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Pretty sure that was MD from Canada. At least the security guys there told me that he jumped it well before FB did. I'm pretty sure that he jumped both "event" objects in KL well before FB visited. And did at least a few jumps with full cooperation of the owners. No need for a film crew, no big sponsorship, no thumbing his nose at the building security. I believe it was MS from Sweden who first jumped the smaller tower up north of there. Again with cooperation of the owners, and again without the need for a big song and dance act to prove how cool he was, get some sponsorship dollars, and sell some energy drinks. My point is that those objects were already "opened" in that sense. And that all FB's antics were likely to do was piss off the building owners enough to make events harder to organize. Thankfully, a bunch of other BASE jumpers, who are a little more thoughtful of the rest of us (like AB and SS) jumped in there to get the legal events going. I'd say that building is "open" _despite_ FB, not because of him. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Huh? I must have totally missed Red Bull providing anything like that at Bridge Day, when they sponsored it. And they certainly haven't had any medical staff out here when their sponsored athletes are jumping. I don't think that's the issue. The issue is whether Red Bull jumpers take care of BASE. And whether Red Bull sponsorship actually encourages them not to. It's possible that RB Europe is acting differently than RB USA, but I don't have any specifics as far as Europe. Personally, I still like the GoFast! approach better. They open objects and hold invitational events where a ton of people get to have fun. Red Bull appears to mostly want to get their sponsored jumpers off stuff for their own publicity. In my opinion, GoFast! is _far_ better for our sport (I'm talking corporate entities here, not energy drinks). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I disagree. Here in Twin Falls, the general population is more concerned with our disregard for law enforcement than for injuries we do to ourselves. When someone is injured (or killed) here, the general response is sympathetic. When someone is seen as disregarding the police, the response if generally negative. Culture varies. Your experience on legal sites in Europe may be pointing you in the wrong direction as far as site preservation in Idaho. Idaho is a very "Cowboy Conservative" kind of place. Get hurt, and folks pitch in to help you. Snipe at the sherrif, and folks band together into a posse to string you up. Obviously you have more knowledge about Switzerland than I do, but I had the impression that landing on the long grass was a big issue for the locals there, too. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think the LP's position is that companies should _not_ be taxed, but neither should they be subsidized. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I've both seen and experienced that, often enough that when I'm doing an edgy jump, I'll repack the PC right before exit. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Me too. The study I read seemed to conclude that the biggest difference in opening (in terms of the distance they used) was at the beginning. In other words, the sooner after packing, the bigger the difference (so 1 hour-1 day was larger than 1 day-2 days, and so on). Let me see if I can dig up the real study, though, as I'm just working on memory here. Also, remember that the study wasn't on BASE gear--it was on military rounds. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

More informed discussion can be found on the ABA Forum. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com