nigel99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk Check out the audio tape in this video, I think it is really well done. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

That is why I mentioned 7 hours of actual work. I tend to BE at work for many more hours than I work solidly. dz.com for me at work is easy in the sense that I am the boss and if I slack off too much the income drops pretty quickly. There are times where I am virtually living at the office trying to catch up, but because I am "doing" so much I end up needing frequent breaks probably working 45 minutes in the hour. Personally that way of life is easy to become a habit (even when the requirements aren't there) but over the past 18 months I have forced home up the priorities list - to the extent that we recently took our first ever 4 week holiday. But one thing that I have learn't is that getting out of the house and office really helps breaks the work mindset. I took the boys wild camping in Dartmoor 2 weekends ago and it was really nice just having time with them. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

That is an interesting comment as it is one of the key reasons that John Rich quotes for gun ownership. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I am interested to get opinions on how you fix your work and home life balance. It appears to me that you can easily get trapped into an endless cycle of always needing to work, otherwise you feel that you will be falling behind. It has been bothering me lately as personally it appears to be a never ending treadmill that if you stop for a weekend you will drop behind. I know that I can't work productively for more than 7 hours (actually knuckling down without simply present and slacking). The problem is that clients come to expect that you are on call 24/7 and so you are stuck with people expecting responses for 12 -14 hours a day. I dropped having blackberry email 2 or 3 years ago and have removed my mobile number from my business card (although with key clients I still give them my mobile). While I am trying to restore the balance it really struck home last night when having a couple of beers with a client (not as bad as it sounds being a Sunday night as we had to fly to the US for meetings). The client mentioned that they liked travelling as it removed family interfering with work and expecting attention the morning/evening. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/09/the_32_of_gdp_question.html Opinion on Irelands finances. The thing that interests me, is what jobs are "secure" in a global downturn? I guess the worlds oldest profession is pretty stable, but I can't really think of any others. I am in the design business and amazingly we are busier than ever before (partly due to companies cutting back internal resources and moving to outsourced partners) but you get the impression that this is temporary. Lead times for electronic components are now back to what they were in the late 1990's and early 2000 at 20+ weeks, which is interesting. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I agree with you. Nothing substantial has been fixed, we have just moved the debt around (I see you are in Ireland - so you are well aware of the problems!). I think that the UK is particularly vulnerable as we don't produce enough to warrant our lifestyle as a nation. Luckily the government is doing pretty much everything it can to cut back on the debt as quickly as possible despite the bitching so that should help us. It is worrying that the US is digging itself deeper and quicker into debt to try and stabilize things (my personal view is this is short term political expediency and based on a policy of leave the next lot of politicians to take the heat and pick up the mess). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Mama Mia Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://www.serv.org.uk/ I stumbled on an article on this charity and thought that it might interest 1 or 2 of the UK motorcyclists. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

thats obviously fake - we all know that muslims are as dumb as rocks Just kidding - it would make sense that people who are less educated fill the gaps with other means. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Stumbled across this and thought it was quite funny. Hopefully it is still legible after being resized. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

A picture can be worth a thread Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

yes it was total fatalities. I am not sure how many were canopy related but I am pretty sure it is the landing that kills most skydivers, very few people die in freefall Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I agree with Phree with one exception the first 1000 milestone. I suspect that at about a 1000 jumps people get a second round of additional confidence and push their personal boundaries again or more (I am a little over a 100 jump wonder so this is speculation!). One thing that I noticed when compiling the figures originally that surprised me was that the breakdown based on age does not tally with what I expected. That is younger jumpers do not dominate the fatalities. I realise this could be down to younger people being more resilient and therefore surviving greater injury but it could also mean that much of the "noise" we see here on dz.com regarding pushing the envelope is simply the skydiving equivalent of AOL inches? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

You have heard of the munchies right? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

thanks I wasn't interested until your write up. The fact that it is the same person who wrote the screenplay for West Wing sold me (that series was genius). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

A few months ago I tallied the fatalities from 2004 to 2009 broken down by jump numbers (it was just a quick capture from dz.com reports into excel). The way I captured the data doesn't allow for more detail than what is provided in the graph but with 107 fatalities for jumpers with 250 jumps or less and 38 for 250-500 jumps it is quite dramatic. Obviously there are millions of people with 1 jump and alot less with 500. The spike at 5000 is because I simply did 5000+ Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Well its definately Duanes hands in that photo. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

thanks Wendy I think that sums it up nicely. I seem to share Rhys view (on this topic). I certainly don't believe the religious mumbo-jumbo but I am not satisfied that science has answered all the questions unequivocally either. That doesn't mean that they're incapable of ultimately being answered by a complete understanding of science, just that our species hasn't come to that complete understanding yet, given our species' current level of development. I agree completely - but in my opinion we are not there yet. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Not only have you successfully pissed off the ladies of dz.com you've got alot of husbands out for you as well Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

thanks Wendy I think that sums it up nicely. I seem to share Rhys view (on this topic). I certainly don't believe the religious mumbo-jumbo but I am not satisfied that science has answered all the questions unequivocally either. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I have seen a similar effect when people have tried to set the resolution different to the optimum display setting (for example the screen I am using has 1440x900 recommended - but it screws up if I go up or down 1 setting). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

um smuggling it to school is the symptom and you are right his disobedience is the main problem. My wife is on side and the school is right to not allow knives (we have no problem with that). I dislike the UK law as I feel responsible use of a penknife is healthy (his actions were not responsible if I wasn't clear in the first post). The fact that I feel UK knife laws are excessive is really a side-note. My wifes argument with the school is terminology (and follows 95% of the gun arguments here) in that a pen-knife that he uses for carving is a tool and NOT a weapon. She has no problem that he is in deep trouble for taking it to school (in fact she wants to confiscate the knife for good) she would like the teacher to understand that it wasn't taken in as a weapon which is what was stated. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My boys are 10 years old and I have been slowly letting them take responsibility for owning penknives. They have been allowed to use them under strict supervision and not allowed to leave the house with them. Well today we got a call from the head-teacher one of them smuggled his swiss army knife off to school for bragging rights. Now we are in a shit load of trouble for allowing our son to carry a weapon. Under UK law he is wrong and he had no business taking it to school. My wife is trying to convince the school that a pen-knife is not a weapon and that while he has done wrong - it was not a weapon. I was going to take him down to the local police station for a "chat" with the person at the desk - but have thought the better of it as god knows what over-reacting bureaucrat I run into and we end up getting charged. Anyway I am really pissed at him as it has taken my about a year to convince my wife that despite the culture here regarding knives they need to learn to treat them responsibly. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

We all know who Rhys is. It's not that rousing. Guys while I really don't understand why Rhys believes what he does - this thread appears to me to be very close to a PA Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.