Bob_Church

There's also the very real possibility of starting something that then burns up more time than you're aware of. Especially if you're looking up. On most jumps you've just had 60 to 70 seconds to play but now you could count the number of spare seconds on one hand.

I know I'm getting into heresy here but I've always pulled my cutaway then went to my reserve. I've never done the one hand on each handle thing and I've never understood any advantage to it but plenty of disadvantages. But then I've never looked at a handle. I took Pat Works' advice and practiced until I knew where they were. On my fourth malfunction I'm convinced I'd have bounced if I hadn't broken two rules. One, never cut away a total. But I did and when the reserve launched the main released. It wrapped around the reserve but the risers were disconnected to they just sort of wound that way too and were tossed aside. It left some pretty good burns on the reserve but I was ok. The second was looking at the handles. I was going through a grand and head down terminal. If I'd had to tear my eyes off the ground to find my handles I'd have gone in. No two ways about it. As it was while my mind was being overloaded at the sight of treetops flying away from each other my hands pulled my R2s then the reserve.

I think University campuses have gotten so bizarre that most people just can't imagine it. They had a movement to make hate speech a violation that would get you expelled and wanted to make any statements that supported Trump's candidacy hate speech. There was bickering over the graffiti wall where anyone is supposed to be able write anything. The head of one organization bragged that he hung out near it so he could beat up anyone who wrote hate speech, like "Vote Trump" in the name of peace. This was in a meeting attended by the President of the University who then shook his and everyone else's hand and congratulated them on their activism. But then had no problem with painting "kill all the cops". Not that I expect anyone who doesn't want to believe these things to accept that they happen. Continously.

Welcome to The Sport.

My first square had it. It was the opposite of a slider. Complicated, a pain to set up and seldom worked. Oh, and it tended to damage the canopy. Sometimes it would open so hard it pressed my risers into the side of my face. The only thing that saved me was that this canopy was such a worthless piece of shit that it usually took over a thousand feet of blue green blue green to finally open. That, basically, was its reefer system. The thing that made it a little hard to believe you should switch to the slider was looking at all these complex things that weren't working very well then being told that this little simple to use thing would. But it did.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the US Constitution covers property rights. Fourth amendment Amendment V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. And yet..... A LOT of people have lost their property when either no crime was committed or nothing that would justify that level of punishment.

When I was a kid, I had an aunt who was a Pentecostal, and her adult son was a traveling evangelist. (I'm reminded of him every time I hear "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show"). This woman had scrapbooks full of news clippings about the death of Marilyn Monroe, and at ever opportunity would pull them out and bore my mother (her sister) to death talking about it. I think some people are just wired to worship celebrity. And the really strange part is that people continued following these false oracles like Marilyn and Elvis even after Ziggy Stardust came out.

But I was thinking about the people who can't commit suicide. What keeps them from it? What keeps someone like Larry Nassar from hanging themselves in their cell?

Here's something I've wondered about that involves the people who study suicide. I know they look into people who have attempted suicide, or people close to those who have successfully killed themselves. But what about the people who by any measure of logic should want to die but will fight tooth and nail to live. Maybe it isn't something in the suicide victim but something missing, whatever that thing is that keeps people from pulling the trigger no matter how much they want to and how hard they try.

Although I am not a fan of the term Evangelical Christian, it is understandable the effort being made by this organization. However, there is one group, Evangelists for Social Change that is pushing more left. I believe the largest groups voting for President Trump in the next election will be those employed and white middle-class females. Evangelical Christians are simply non-denominational. IOW, they don't aspire to religious doctrine. There are some strange subgroups out there in the Evangelical Christian population. I was always amazed at the people who border-line worshipped Elvis after his death. Many of them saw themselves as Evangelicals but saw nothing wrong with holding a man in that much esteem.

If there were any skydivers within 100 miles you know who the old farts in the pilots lounge will blame it on.

Penalties for first offense are so serious and long term, plus looked down on socially in most circles that anyone who goes through that and still drives drunk has other problems. And that I think is where the real problem is. How do you deal with someone who won't or can't quit? How much can you do to someone who has already lost everything but still drinks and drives? You see an article about someone who's had five then killed someone on their sixth. "How can they allow this?" But how do you stop it? Are we willing to lock someone up for life, and at how many DUIs? And it's all pretty ironic when you see so many people behind the wheel while on the phone. How long is it going to take us have that same sea change that we've had on DUI and domestic violence about that?

I view this as putting words in my mouth that I did not use. You didn't say that and I didn't mean to make it sound like I was saying you did. But, and this isn't about something you said, people who think that the results of High School bullying are sadness can never understand why these shootings happen, so what's there to discuss? I think the discussion has bottomed out.

I'm done. Once we reach the point of trivializing all this by calling these victims of bullying "sad" then I have nothing to say, at least not that wouldn't get me banned.

If that was my position it would be. But trying to make a point here when nobody wants to hear it is like wrestling a greased pig, so I'll quit wasting pixels on it.

"Considering a large part of the rest of the world has been able to. Yeah, I am pretty sure it is possible. There is precedent. Would you suggest otherwise? " Only if the plan includes massive cutbacks on the number of guns available in the US. There are hundreds of millions, not tens of thousands. Until then, we have to go after the reason kids are going over the edge. It's just way too easy for someone to get a gun here to see it as something that can be stopped with gun control. When the 24/7 bullying gets to be too much it's very easy to get a gun. We need to change the factor that can be changed. I just did some checking. In 2016 there were an estimated 3.5 million guns, both legal and illegal, in Australia. There are over 300 million in the US. And I don't think that counts illegal ones. The FBI estimates that 500,000 guns a year are stolen. Gun manufacturers make another 8 million guns per year. Talking about keeping people from getting a gun in the US is like doing away with gravity so we don't need parachutes. We need to take a serious look at why so many young people turn to guns now no matter how much we might not like what we learn. If you google and find charts of school shootings per year it's very hard to ignore the rise in these types of shootings in the past few decades.

It would help if people, and not just employers and insurers but everyone, would start recognizing mental health problems the way we do more physical problems and treatment was provided and sought out. It would be. The rest of the world deals with mental health issues as well, though mass shootings are rare in developed nations. Hence, hard to put too much faith in better mental healthcare preventing mass shootings. Well, one thing I'm resigned to and will accept and stop posting on is that we will let any amount of carnage continue before even considering a reality that might require some limitations on our access to the internet. The NRA has nothing on the smart phone industry.

It would help if people, and not just employers and insurers but everyone, would start recognizing mental health problems the way we do more physical problems and treatment was provided and sought out.

And they're not easy to win against. They love their pot sniffing dogs here in Athens County and they're never ever wrong. After all, if they find pot after saying the dog alerted it proves it works and if they don't you're so glad to get out of there you just go, quickly and quietly. In the early 70s they pulled over a local lawyer who also is well known for fighting for defendants charged for pot. The dog alerted (how do you know when a police dog alerts? Well, the deputy tells you it did) but as hard as they tried they didn't even find a seed. So they let him go but McGee didn't let it slide. He wrote up an editorial about it for the Athens Messenger. He won. Well, no. Next week in the Athens Messenger was an editorial from the Sheriff. He never named McGee and passed the article off as just an interesting tidbit about law enforcement dogs and pot. According to him some pot smokers are right out of Reefer Madness. They need pot every waking moment and smoke so much that it comes out of their skin and because of that you should keep your daughters far away from them. And in some cases a person is such a mary jane monster that the smell of it coming out of their pores will cause a dog to alert. So in the Name of God stay away from anyone who may fit this description.

They have another phrase that covers that. White Privledge! No, in my case I mean actual Affirmative Action. I know about White Privilege and I figure I've gotten my share of it but not this time. Growing up we never had a phone until about 1972. Then it was decided that we needed one for awhile. Now, back then long distance was expensive and we just didn't use it. Period. But one day I saw a big sign on this building with an 800 number claiming that calling that number was absolutely free. It got me interested in the whole "free long distance thing" so when I got home I called it. The really nice lady assured me that yes, she was all the way in Pittsburgh but the call was free. I thanked her but as I was hanging up she said "don't you want to put in an application, as long as you're here anyway?" I knew this was a serious waste of time, I had no chance of getting a decent job but I gave her my info. A short time later I got a letter asking me to come to the Lafayette hotel for a test. I'd never even been in the Lafayette before, it was way above our status. But there I was, being tested by a black man for a woman's job. There were about two dozen of us but, as the very nice black man assured me, as the only male applying if I passed the test I got the job. And I did and I did. Working for Bell Telephone was an incredible break. I now had a better job than anyone I even knew, plus I was now the only male operator in Southeast Ohio and second in all of Ohio. The weight of that hadn't occurred to me all that much until one of the janitors was telling me how I'd probably get a write up in the paper. After two years there the writing was on the wall and I took a job at GTE in Athens.I'd always wanted to live in Athens but more importantly all phone companies were consolidating so within a year the Marietta operators were moved to Columbus but Athens was where GTE was moving everyone to so I got seniority quickly then an outside job. Then through an almost, but not quite, as odd a set of circumstances I ended up managing OU's Art School's photo labs then computer labs. It's been a long strange trip, and started off because of Affirmative Action.

It's a strange world. I'm a middle class white guy, retired, who's doing pretty well. I've had some very good jobs and the last one, the 20 years at OU's School of Art was one that made me occasionally think "they pay me to do this?" But I grew up poor white trash and by partying through high school had doomed myself to that life, no hope, until Affirmative Action gave me the biggest break of my life.

Deja Vu all over again. When I started the slider wasn't quite universal yet but it shortly took over since it worked so well. It not only worked well but was easier to use. It was beautiful. And for 40 years or so now it's been doing its job. At least until recently. Some of the equipment seems to have finally evolved past the slider. What I'm hoping is that Bill Booth or some of the other gear Einsteins are working on a replacement. Not a modified slider but a whole new piece of technology. And no, I don't have a clue what it would look like or how it would function. But that won't matter. I'll buy one when they release them.

How long until someone goes to a gay baker or T-Shirt designer and orders one with "God Hates Fags" written on it?

"Social media are not the cause of shootings, any more than humans are the cause of climate change. I’d say that social media are less causative than humans, but both contribut" High School kids are committing suicide over what people post about them on Facebook. Is it really that difficult to believe that some decide to take the bullies with them?

Definitely. Looking at bullying (and social media amplification, and better mental health diagnosis and treatment) are all good things to do. Still, no matter how much you work to head such behavior off, it can happen. I think everyone would agree that if a kid does snap, it would be best if they can't get their hands on an AR-15. Do you believe that there is a way to keep kids from being able to get their hands on a firearm they could use to carry out a school shooting?