TomAiello

Definitely. I bet if you had someone on a full dose of medical ketamine, you could amputate a limb and they wouldn't notice. In fact, I'm sure of it, because they use it for that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Yuri did those flights with Robert. He told me that Robert and he had about the same glide angle, but Robert was moving faster in both the forward and downward directions. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Remember that 813 is in the UK, where the rules, not to mention the definition of "criminal offense" may be different. A while back we had a very confusing discussion about felony v. misdemeanor, a distinction which apparently doesn't exist in some places. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If she took up BASE, she wouldn't have to wait for the weekend or the plane. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Did you check the Dropzones section? Some reviews here and here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Street "Special K" is scary stuff. Quality is variable, and the experience isn't much fun. On the other hand, medical grade Ketamine is probably the most intense hallucinogenic experience I've ever had. It's all just flyin' your body. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Take out the "loaded" part of that sentence, and you have what I learned in hunter safety class at age 14. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

84 is generally faster, and a better road. 93 is pretty fun if you have a nice car and want to drive fast, though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Shake down some elementary school kids for Ritalin. It works wonders. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What's it called when a business does it in response to government action? I think I disagree with your assessment of this as censorship. Censorship means saying "you can't say that." When an individual, group, or corporation refuses to broadcast something the message is more like "you can say whatever you want, but _I_ am not going to say that." Calling this censorship is a bit like saying that if I don't pay for your views to be promulgated I am censoring you. Two different things, there. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

What about people like Outrager, who have clearly already paid their dues? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

He's a professional stuntman who lives in LA. He's a brit (I believe he's got some military background). He's a skydiver, BASE jumper, and generally nice guy. He's a lot of other things, too, I'm sure. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Although I hesitate to ask...What town was this in? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

As there is already packing for hire pretty much all summer at Norway's most popular site, it may be a little late to draw a clear line. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think you're right. I'm generally of the opinion that forward speed generates lift, which means that a faster flight (in both forward and downward directions) will achieve better glide ratio. Robibird posted a long discussion about this, either here or over on the BLiNC wingsuit forum a while back. You might have a look and see if you can find it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Do you think that it is good to have packers available at legal sites/events? I've seen packers in Norway, Bridge Day and Malaysia. I've also seen some paid pack jobs used on illegal jumps, but that is much rarer. Anyone care to comment on either the safety considerations or ethics of paying for a BASE pack job? Thoughts, anyone? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I thought the movie was pretty good. Exiting off their camera booms after hours was pretty fun, too. And I still think of TR (who did the 'vette jump) as the real star of the show. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Sure you can. Did you not read my post above. Um, and did you not read mine? Per capita numbers don't give any information about relative urbanization. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

GoWayLow posted the same idea on BLiNC. Definitely a good one. Edit to add: A slightly more time intensive way of doing that might be to just pick off the tail pocket. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm not sure about the OJ case, but many states have laws invoking "homestead protection" for a person's primary residence. Usually there is a dollar limit (unless you live in Florida) to the value of the home that can be protected that way. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Have you checked out Diverdriver.com? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

As far as splitting up, I'm assuming that's (a) not really an issue, and (b) well discussed in advanced with appropriate documentation signed. In terms of avoiding inheritance issues: You could do something like putting the assets into a corporation that dissolves automatically upon the death of the other principal, with the assets automatically reverting to you. Or, you could just make sure you have an appropriate will in place. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

If I were a lawyer, I'd argue that there were liable parties (i.e. the corporation and the DZ) who were not named in that suit, and move for dismissal. If you segment your assets sufficiently (i.e. your skydiving gear is owned by the skydiving corp, your home is held by a personal trust) it shouldn't matter if they sue you personally. In my opinion, the best asset protection strategy is to own nothing in your personal name. It's easy to shift assets around amongst various other entities (none of whom are the "you" that might be liable) in an ongoing shell game, until the plaintiff's attorney's bills mount so high that the plaintiff gives up and walks away in disgust. In answer to Remi's question: Nothing prevents them from suing you (or anyone else). The strategy is to make it not worthwhile for them to do so. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Keep in mind that I'm not a lawyer, so this is just my advice. If you're really concerned, I'd call a lawyer and ask. Consider forming a corporation of some kind (one of the simple ones like an S corp or an LLC--I prefer LLC's personally). Have the corporation employ you as a skydiving instructor, and have the DZ employ the corporation as an independent contractor (doesn't really take any effort on the DZ's part, so that ought to be easy). If you've got a flow through corporation (so, not a C corp), you won't have to file any additional taxes or anything. You'll just have to declare the income and expenses of the corporation on your individual tax returns. If a student sues the corporation (which shields you), you can just have the corporation declare bankruptcy to discharge the debt, then dissolve it. An upside to doing this is that you can all all your skydiving expenses (rigs, cameras, jump tickets, even gas to the DZ) business expenses, and deduct them from your taxable income. Be careful doing this, and make sure your income from skydiving slightly exceeds your expenses from it in most years, or you'll risk an IRS audit. If you want an additional layer of protection, consider forming another corporation to hold your assets (so that even if you personally are sued in your capacity as an employee, your assets will be safe). You can get fancy with this, and form the corporation somewhere like Nevada (which has very good corporate privacy laws), or not, as you feel the need. Another protective strategy would be to put all (or some of) your assets in your wife's name only--assuming you're not in a community property state. That way, if you get sued for something she had nothing to do with, they can't take "her" house, cars, etc. Nothing can ever totally protect your assets. All you can really do is make it such a pain to get at them that it won't be worth the lawyer's fees. There are a ton of good books out there on asset protection strategies. You might try doing a quick search on Amazon (or just go to Barnes and Noble and look through them) and reading up on the subject. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

A good canopy pilot is one who: 1) Can land anywhere he wants to (accuracy). 2) Can land without injury anywhere he wants to (soft landings) 3) Can land safely in various wind conditions/directions (cross/down/etc) 4) Can fly his canopy such that landing is possible at any point (flare out of a turn) 5) Knows when it's impossible to guarantee a safe landing, and doesn't get under a parachute in those cirumstances (judgment) -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com