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I would recommend against this if you can. I also had a tendency to land and then fall down on my knees when I was learning so had some beautiful bruises on the knees and thought I'd pull out the old volleyball knee pads to protect myself from further injuries since I certainly wasn't going to stop jumping for a few weeks to let the knees recover. Ended up pivoting on one of those knees in the doorway of the plane without lifting the knee and tore my meniscus. Doubt I would've done it if I hadn't been wearing the knee pads. Bruises go away in a few weeks, torn meniscus, not so much. What? How the Heck did you do that? You sure it wasn't a prior tear you didn't know about earlier? Think carpet & hardwood flooring installers. Those guys spend several hours a day pivoting on their knees. If you had a weak knee that was about to go. It would've went anyway, pads or not.

My non-instructor/still-Newbie $0.02? I could PLF nicely right from my FJC. What I couldn't always do, was fly my canopy to a position to do a nice PLF. I'd get surprised & slammed during the last few feet. My knees especially took a beating during several of my student jumps. I was tempted to wear a set of leathers w/body armor, but didn't. I do wish I'd worn some cheap knee pads, though. You can get a set of slip-on knee pads for about $12. They'll fit under your jumpsuit, & won't get in the way. You don't need any other pads. Work w/your instructors to better fly your canopy, & practice PLFs. The ground can hurt you no matter how much padding you wear. Make learning how not to take those hits a priority. Corrupted Mr.Miagi quote: "Best way to avoid getting hit? Don't be there." Edit to add: I forgot...never...NEVER land on your ass. You can really hurt yourself.

Cool! Bullet Time from The Matrix .

"If she was your mother, wife, gf, or sister, what would you recommend she do?" You're not asking me, right? Being a non-instructor & a Newb, I don't have a qualified opinion on that.

I'm debating having booties put on a used suit I bought this year. Bev said she'd do it for about $100. Dunno if she'd be willing to do other make's suits, though.

"(the spent fuel can't be used in weapons without reprocessing)" A really big Dirty Bomb? Plutonium reservoir poisoning? If it's not going to make a dent. The risk doesn't make sense. >Guess they'll have to stop stealing jobs from Americans through H1B visas then, huh? Oops. I usually don't post in SC. A little slipped out of me.

I don't like to get that involved in my cooking anymore. I sense that The Shah doesn't, either. Crock Pots = Cool. Smokers = sounds too much like work. I grill up some burgers or chicken, & I'm good to go.

Finally! A used rig I won't bitch about the asking price on... Ouch. That one is definitely adding insult to injury. I hope he/she had very good insurance for the house, & everything in it. I recently lost a lot of sentimental pix & vids to a PC virus, & am upset about just that. I can't imagine losing an entire house.

We recently signed a deal with India to reprocess fuel for us." Wait a minute. They afraid of proliferation. But, they don't mind shipping the crap back & forth to freakin Asia?! "If you train hundreds of people, and build several facilities, that have the ability to separate enriched uranium and plutonium from spent fuel, then those processes, skills and equipment will be more available to people who want to make weapons out of that spent fuel." Guess they'll have to stop stealing jobs from Americans through H1B visas then, huh? There aren't enough defense sector personnel already trained in this sort of thing? Big cuts are coming in that sector. Rather than retrain our people. They're going to send the stuff over there to another country??? Yeah, that makes F***ing sense.

"56 bones in 50 years." God Damn... Evil Doug-nievel, in the house?! They need to give you a new American Indian name after all of that.

"Do you have a medical degree?? Any experience with orthopedic surgery?? Have any idea what you are talking about??" Let's see: 15+yrs in varied forms of nursing, in-patient & private sector. Three years in the ORs/PACU of a large area hospital. One of my personal Orthopaedists is the staff Ortho for a national sports franchise. Aside from my clinical background, there's almost 30yrs on a bike. I still go on racetracks, but only w/karts, now. In short, "Yes," I have the degree, experience, & know what I'm talking about. "The fact is the hardware is STRONGER than the bone itself (duh).." This is an amusing quote. Do you really think a thin strip of titanium is stronger than a 2" diameter Tibia? Ever seen a Femur re-fractured w/a rod already in place? A strip or rod will bend. A rod will shatter a length of bone bad enough to require cadaver bone be used for the repair. That, instead of a nice clean break. The strip will have screws going through it. Those screws can split the bone. The screws are stronger than the surrounding bone. That's the problem. She has seventeen of them... I've seen a lot of patients over the years who received horrific care in Florida. The State is not known for cutting edge health care. You might think you know what you're talking about. It doesn't take advanced training to envision what large titanium screws through the bone will do in a hard impact. I'm sure you mean well. You're mistaken in this.

Whatcha yellin @me, fer??? Buy a George Forman grill & be done w/it.

>What are they doing? Using up old weapon's grade material from >decommissioned warheads? France? No, I meant us, not France. If you've the choice of having dangerous, radioactive but useless waste. Or, recyclable fissile material, plus less dangerous radioactive Plutonium? It seems like a no-brainer to go w/recycling. Thanks for teaching me a bit about this. I'll buy a book about it @some point.

What are they doing? Using up old weapon's grade material from decommissioned warheads? Is that just cheaper to do? Better than producing some troublesome byproducts like you said? We already have a problem in that we've got more waste now than a place to put it. Granted, I don't know much about it. It seems like a flawed approach, though. We've got spent rods sitting in numerous semi-secure sites. Would they not be better guarded within the facilities? Nuke power is the biggest bang we have. It doesn't seem right to just piss away that resource by burying it in the salt mine.

The Smokers I've seen have still used charcoal around the inside. Guess there's another kind? Ever seen this guy? I think he has a freakin PhD in grilling: http://www.primalgrill.org/recipes.asp Not_fur_nuttin, but one of these will cook whatever you want: http://www.georgeforemancooking.com/default.aspx The grills work a lot better than some of that site, though.

I'm glad you guys are happy w/your FJs, but Toyota still sucks. There's a whole lot of Toyota owners out there, including me, who aren't happy @all w/their vehicles. Buy one before they get around to screwing up that model line, too...

A question on that, if you're knowledgeable. I know there's a nuke engineer or two on the board. Spent rods are a problem because they take thousands of years to decay enough to be safe. If they're still that radioactive? Can't they be re-refined to, as you said, recycle them? Why isn't that done? I'm sure Iran or North Korea would love to get their hands on all our spent fuel rods.

Maybe it was. It's in an old Jav. So, sorta like a Dolphin. It had both handles, but w/extra cables, & a lot of slack. I didn't like the look of it. Though, they told me it would function as a normal two handled system if I need it.

Wait a sec... I just remembered something. Toyota had made rumblings that they were going to cancel a few model lines that weren't selling well. The FJ was one of them. They were going to offer 30% discounts to clear their inventories. I think that was about a year ago.

"Whooo run Bartertown?"

If you're changing insurance carriers @the end of the year. You need to finish this before then, not after. They could easily refuse to pay for it as a preexisting condition. The risk of your hardware causing a catastrophic injury needs to move to the front of your mind. It's a real risk. New bone growth should fill the screw holes completely in about two months. You live in SoCal. You can jump year round. We read the incident forum to find what caused an injury, & prevent it. By your own admission, you've identified the cause in your case: panic. A part of your anxiety now is probably your sense, on some level, that your leg isn't really ready, yet. If I may? Use the next 2-3 months wisely. Get your leg back to 100%. Work on your skill set & panic issues. In short, come back when you're really ready, not just frustrated. The sky isn't going anywhere. Don't jeopardize the rest of your life for the sake of a few months.

I posted to the OP, Stan, not you. I also reaffirmed my Newbie status again so as not to ruffle most feathers... I never suggested quitting if they can't find a non-SOS student program. You inferred that for your own gain. By your rationale, a Newbie could jump a GoPro no problem w/a suitable amount of instruction. The modified SOS I saw looked a bit scary. A new student doesn't need to be distracted by thinking about anything other than the jump. I've seen that posted here many a time by instructors. I agree w/it. As someone who is still very close to their AFF days, I can tell you. Were I handed that rig not even halfway through my training? It would have scared an already scared student. Even if nothing went wrong on the subsequent jumps. I'd have been thinking about the different configuration & slack in the cables. Argue w/someone else. To the OP, I'd be curious to see a couple of pix of their SOS harnesses. I want to see if they're modified the same way.

You haven't seen that container. I have. It's right at the service limit of what I'll jump. I've no doubt it's perfectly safe. It's just that it has lived a full life...(disclaimer: I'm not a rigger, but am a Newbie). I don't think introducing change during the student period is a good idea. I initially stood over this rig & questioned what the different components were. If I had still been an AFF student @the time. It would have scared & distracted me. Extra hard housings stuck into the rig. Extra cables, including the extra slack in the cutaway cable (ball-ending was below the D-handle), all looked a bit scary. I'm a firm believer in the KISS approach.

If I had seventeen titanium wedges through my Tibia & Fibula. I would think long & hard before engaging in any high-risk activities w/o having them first removed. If another fracture occurs. You could have several bite-sized pieces of bone in unsupported flesh. Small pieces of bone & metal w/sharp edges, is the last thing you want right next to the nerves serving your lower leg. Not when you're still slamming into, & tumbling across the ground. The body doesn't stop the instant a fracture occurs. You could be left facing partial paralysis or an amputation. I vote for having the hardware removed. It's no longer helping you, but could really hurt you. You can utilize the next three months doing training tandems. Finish getting yourself together, first. Then, you can return to solos when you're really ready.

You asked for other people's (not instructors) thoughts. So... I've jumped an SOS-equipped rig a few times. I wasn't crazy about it. It adds complexity. You still have both handles. You have extra hard housings, & longer cables, though (w/extra slack). I was told I could do my EPs the same as before, if needed. More slack & a possibly harder pull left me less than enamored. That particular container is also >20 yrs. old... If it's all that's available near you? Obviously, the system does work. Especially if still a student, though. I'd opt for driving a little farther.