Deuce

I'm trying as hard as I can not to specialize. I want to be best at camera suit, but I'd like to get my head-down sharp enough for me to be safe in large head-down formations. I want to be welcome to jump with whoever is there, so I want to be proficient at all of it. Except BASE. Maybe someday.

Renaud, on the N70 the bracket that lifts the flash up you can put a toothpick through it to hold it all the way open. I think the problem with them is they blow shut, so you have to brace the little popup flash in the open position or it can chatter.

Well, she said 2004. I'm gonna be in Eloy, why would anyone want to be anywhere else.

Holy Cow, Bill, what an essay. How about small-scale hydroelectric? Lots of smaller dams, smaller lakes, but a large volume of plants? I'm very pro-nuclear, don't Japan and France generate almost all their power that way, and with a great safety record? I recall reading that one of the problems with US plants is the variety of designs, as opposed to the standardized plants that Japan and France use. I remeber in 1982 or 1983 Hawaii got nailed by a huge storm, and they hooked up a couple of aircraft carriers to their grid. Those Navy nuclear powerplants would seem to be a fairly easy off-the-shelf solution.

Last bump.

Go to Eloy for the '04 Holiday Boogie! I've stayed in the bunkhouse and at the Super 8 at Perris. You just can't beat the bunkhouse for the money. There's two sets of bunks in each room, I had the whole thing to myself. Clean bedding, like $5 or $10 bucks. Clean bathroom at the end of the hall with showers. The Super 8 is clean and inexpensive too, and is a very short drive from the field.

When I worked mids I used earplugs and eyeshades, but that doesn't help when heavy construction is bumping your house. I HATE not being able to sleep!

Bump. I just want everybody to have a chance to respond.

"I wear a helmet, but I don't wear a bra" Mujie to Skymonkey regarding the "go fast, take chances, and don't wear a helmet motto"

Franck had back surgery last week. They put screws and rods in his lower back, I think he said L5. They fused the bottom ones, and are fitting him with a full torso brace so he can walk. I'll check on him later this week. It's very nice of you to ask.

Dave, originally everybody on the loads were going to get video of the jumps for instructional purposes. A couple of the jumpers asked if I could put it on DVD, and I had just bought a computer with that capability, but hadn't done it yet. I put it together when I got back to California, and then thrashed around with this ridiculous truncated version of Premiere that came with the machine. With the help of my comrades in the camera forum I figured out I need better software, and it's coming. The formation load jumpers have already paid. Once I square them away, we can work something out through PM's.

To me too, Wendy

I apologize for not getting your videos to you by now. I have the movie done. I need some compression software to burn it to DVD, though, and I'll have that in a few days. The learning curve on the video to DVD software was steeper than I anticipated. The movie goes 45 minutes and includes a bunch of fun jumps and nignoggery from Friday and Saturday, as well as all the formation jumps on Sunday, and the DC-3 flyby. I will also include nearly 400 stills from several of the attendees. I've got two cameras on all the formation jumps and three camera angles on 4 of the six. Anyhow, I think it'll be worth the wait for you. If you're all done waiting, I can transfer the raw footage from my camera to VHS and ship it to you in the next day or so. I think the DVD will be worth the wait and I should have it out by the first part of next week. Thank you for your patience. JP

I got a cheap airgun laser sight, mounted it on my video box, and then adjusted the laser so that it was dead center in the video monitor. Put the helmet on, and then adjust the ringsite so that the laser dot is dead center. That laser dot also helps to set up your still camera.

I've only known Lisa with auburn hair. Show me the blonde Mouth!

I avoid all the technical stuff that surrounds shooting. The bullet-worship about how gee-whiz expansion blah-blah, often overcomes what shooting people is about. It's about putting holes in them or through them. A .45 will put a .45 inch hole in what you shoot it at, it may get bigger in the target. I had a Glock 21 (14 round .45) last time I was out there, and there were two other cops with Glocks. All the 1911 variants began having malfunctions by the end of the week, the Glocks did not. It is a superior design.

Well, a known terrorist is a threat to others, and a fetus, generally, is not. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the state legislatures will determine whether abotion will remain legal within their state. That "right" is guaranteed in the California Constitution.

I graduated from the three tactical handgun courses there, met Col. Cooper, drank his wife's Iced Tea, and got to look around in his gun room. It's a neat place, staffed by pretty sharp people. Don't call the mascot a crow, though, they will remind you "It's a Raven!" It's fun to stir them up, though. One poor dope in my advanced class shot himself in the foot with his .45 while I was there. While this does not speak well of the almost universally high caliber of the student body there, it does address the topic of handgun bullet damage. A young ER Surgeon was in my class, a former full time SF soldier and current SF reserve officer, and when the knucklehead popped a cap into his foot, the surgeon took the guys shoe off and had us all come over and look at the wound. "See that? Hydrostatic shock is bullsh*t." There was a neat .45 entrance hole and a pretty neat .5 exit hole. Ball ammo, but even black talon wouldn't have had much opportunity to expand in the brief period of time in the foot. Rifles cause far more traumatic wounds, I suspect the wrist injury that Billvon describes may have been caused by a rifle round.

I've been blessed by this chronic pain condition that keeps me vigilant about keeping my weight down. I eat a very high protein diet with low carbs and exercise a little bit every single day. Stretch, situps or the wheel thing, pull-ups, pushups and curls. Walk for at least 20 minutes every day, usually with ankle weights. I don't have time to go to the gym, but this regimen has really been working for me. I lost a hundred pounds two years ago, and kept it off, and even gained about 10 pounds of lean mass this last year. For me, it's about a little effort every single day.

I just got one for home, and it came with the round plug with a serial port adapter.

The top part of the switch can be pried right off. That leaves enough of the red button to get through the wall of the helmet.

Lisa, ask your boss for an ergonomic evaluation of your workstation. (All claims like this for my division go through me). It's cheaper than a single worker's comp visit by you. Cheap and easy fix is a Fellows wrist rest, with a gel pad, and a roller ball mouse, like the Microsoft trackball optical. By setting your wrist down and not lifting the weight of your arm to move the mouse, you will allow the injury to heal. Bring a heating pad in and heat the injury a few times a day too. Tendons don't get much bloodflow, and that's what you need to heal up. (I just learned this from a doctor's visit regarding my knee). The corizone injections will reduce the swelling, but don't promote healing unless the muscle is allowed to rest. It is a worker's comp injury, so get the boss to spring for the wrist pad and new mouse, he'll save a lot of money by making you more comfortable. JP

Well, I think my problem is mostly caused by working with uncompressed video, which is all I can do with the software I have. The Eloy video I'm working on has 18 minutes of the 6 formation loads (3 cameras) and then about 20 minutes of zoo dives and hybrids, and 5 of fluff. About 45 all together. I write the project to AVi, because I don't have MPEG2, and Viola, an 11 gig file. When I get the full version of Premiere, with the compression software, I guess my problem will be resolved. I was just thinking you could only keep a very few projects on your hard drive and you'd use up your space really fast. I think I'll get it eventually, but I'm making some bonehead mistakes right now. I appreciate everybody's input.

Beware Premier LE! I just recently got a Sony Vaio editing computer that came with Premier LE. It doesn't have the MPEG2 compression software that I need to put a 45 minute video onto DVD. The full version upgrade is $299. You need at least 200 gigs to really work with video and pictures too. I know many of the folks here are more efficient in using their computers, but for novices it sure looks like the Mac is a better option for video editing. If I didn't have to use a PC at work, I'd be using that small Mac notebook for sure.

Q, what suit are you wearing for that? Suds, nice form in the back-track!