Bob_Church

Sorry, poor wording on my part. I wasn't meaning to limit it in any way to this thread.

I ran across this this morning for the first time in many many years. I'm trying to get things sorted in hopes of a show and I'm digging out the ones I want to get framed. By the way, the matting made it sit odd in the scanner and I didn't take time to rig it flat. The real one doesn't have that weird slant. It was taken by Mel Nathenson in the early 90s or so. The story is that it was supposed to be entered for a Pulitzer but his boss messed up some paperwork or something. It wasn't a surprise. It shouldn't matter but Mel rubs people the wrong way and there's little doubt that the omission wasn't an accident. Or maybe the whole story is bulshit. But anyway, Mel says it all ended well with the guy taken into custody so there's that. But a Pulitzer would have been nice.

There are several things that I miss about rounds but to be honest I think the main one is being 25.

Damn. Down in Mcarthur, a tiny town on the way to the airport where I jump, there's one those "mentally challenged" guys who is always sitting on some businesses steps and is about 250 pounds and he wears that shirt a lot, but even he has too much sense to let me take a picture of it. I've tried. Often. Maybe he should give this kid's mom fashion tips.

Yeh, but it does beat a handful of toadies posting endless reach-arounds. Bob Church

The other thread about cool exits reminded me of this, but it's not the sort of cool exit. My second wife started jumping right after we got together and she got fairly good quickly. Maybe it's something about being a 5 foot tall American Indian who weighed next to nothing but she picked it right up. But she never quite learned when to stop talking. That was ok in the little WV DZ that we jumped at, seriously attractive young women could do what they wanted. One summer an old skydiving friend moved to Cleveland so we spend the weekend and go out to Parkman, one of the nicest drop zones ever. Xenia is my favorite, but a long shot but Parkman is definitely second. I haven't been up there for awhile but they always had a group of very good skydiver who would jump with anyone, even Lesa and me. One afternoon the proposed an eight way from two C185s and to be nice they were going to be in the base plane while the two of us and two other much less experience were in the chase plane. This was to give us practice flying, which I think one of the other two had asked for. Great. But then. But then Lesa started telling them that the base needed to stay in one spot, not turn or slide. She'd has this problem before, she told them, as I just averted my eyes and died inside a little. Then she reminded them a couple of times on the way to the planes. I was afraid she'd ask the pilot to remind them on jump run. So, finally, EXIT and I immediately notice something going on with the base, then it hit me. They turned several points as we approached and just as we were getting there finished, leaving them in exactly the position we'd plan the base to be in. This was about 1983 and I didn't get back up there for maybe 10 years and Lesa was just a memory. But when we were talking and introducing ourselves to each other one guy said "Oh yeh, you were with the girl with the mouth." That was me.

I wonder about something mounted on a strap that could be clipped onto the risers after opening. Maybe something funnel shaped that compresses the air as it leads it to a small propeller with airspeed determined by the electricity it generates as it spins. It would need to be oriented correctly which brings up a few possible problems but also a few solutions so I think that could be overcome. Then have a wire from it going to a video camera so that the air speed is overlaid on the screen letting you review what you did to cause certain speeds and how quickly the results changed, that sort of thing. I think it could be done. The big question though "can it be done by me" is another thing. Fortunately I still have a lot of friends on campus. Frenchy, in the chemistry department can fabricate anything. He built my smoke brackets for me and is alway making something for faculty and students.

http://www.newsweek.com/buzz-aldrin-unidentified-flying-objects-extraterrestrial-life-astronauts-876900?utm_source=email&utm_medium=morning_brief&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_content=headline&spMailingID=3135546&spUserID=MzQ4OTU1NTA4MTIS1&spJobID=1010392748&spReportId=MTAxMDM5Mjc0OAS2 An old frequently debunked story but only of interest to me because I've know Sheri Edwards (or however she's spelling her first name this week) for many many years. She is the founder, owner and sole employee of "The Institute of BioAcoustic Biology in Albany, Ohio." She'd go from one batshit crazy scheme to another but several years back hit on this one and has stayed with it since. She has an answering machine. You call that machine and talk into it awhile. She then analyzes your speech patterns then calls you back telling you what form of cancer or other disease it is that's been bothering you. And she's absolutely dead serious. And crazy as a shit house rat. I worked with Bill, her husband, at the phone company and he was a really great guy and seemed intelligent but so very very long suffering. Imagine starting your day in a break room full of rednecks waiting for today's job orders only to see that today's headline is another one of your wife's ludicrous schemes. edit: I forgot, she has a web page of course. https://www.soundhealthoptions.com

I can‘t sit through Troma mobiles. The only one of these that I saw all the was through is the first one. We saw Samurai cop in Nashville at a Rfftrax event When Mike Bill and Kevin tore into it.

You picked a great time to start, having the entire summer ahead of you. Have fun and stay the course!

I've long suspected that auction houses deliberately low ball their predicted selling prices, sometimes by a ridiculous amount, to draw out more bidders thinking that maybe they've got a shot at that newly discovered sheet of hand written lyrics by Lennon that was just found and listed at $350 but of course goes for 2.5 million. Take this map. They're valuing it at $20,000 but I'd pay that in a moment if it were offered to me. It will be interesting to see how much it actually goes for. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/us/jfk-cuban-missile-crisis-map-auction/index.html

IMO wrong term to use anytime, anywhere. Tariffs are just The Trumper bloviating about whatever has crossed his mind within the last 15 minutes or so. Trump will go into the ash heap of history & the global economy will continue. Jerry Baumchen I know people, a lot of them, who debate Trump like he was just another President. But I just can't do it. He's an aberration who got put in the White House despite who he is for reasons I won't bring up again. But to me he's way too bizarre to try to work out how he really feels or what he's trying to do.

Dutchboy and df8m1, thanks for the input. I didn't know about the new developments with ultralights and model rockets, I'll check it out. My one plan was to leave my slider uncollapsed and measure the noise coming off of it but calibration would drive me insane.

Revenge? Do you have trouble reading? Do me a favor and at least debate people in an honest way. My reasons are clear in that post. They were just a few lines down. Do I need to repost it for you? The original premiss for trading with China was to encourage it to be more free. That premiss has turned out to be false further more. If they help denuclearize North Korea I could change my mind. That is the bargain I would make. No nukes in N. Korea = trade with us. Nukes in North Korea = no trading with us. Ten years ago ... it was unclear which way China was going, there were signs that things would improve, but from my observation the progress has regressed. Xi is now dictator for life, China is creating a "social credit" system to monitor and mold the behavior of all of it's citizen. Religious freedom, a measure of freedom in general is going in the wrong direction. I'll provide this news article as just one example. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world/asia/china-bans-bible-sales.html Look at how they are slowly straggling democracy in Hong Kong. They have jailed book store owners for selling books critical of the government. People that speak out in support of democracy in Hong Kong are harassed by thugs from the government in Beijing. The once free press in HK is now starting to self censor. Do you support this? From my perspective, the experiment is over. I support shutting it down. We should build our own iPhones. We buy products made in ways that Upton Sinclair would find hard to believe but nobody cares, thinking it gets them dirt cheap computers and phones. First off, is it so important to buy cheaper and cheaper stuff that we'll live with people working under inhumane conditions. And the irony is that we don't save money in these things. We pay one way or the other. We put people into desperate situations so that we can save a few dollars then end up paying for it in terms of security, because desperate people do desperate things. It's amazing how cheaply Americans have sold their souls for electronic toys.

I'm sorry if this came up earlier and I missed it. If so let me know and I'll delete this and read that. Has anyone come up with a device for measuring airspeed while under canopy? I've been kicking around ideas but haven't come up with anything I'd want to jump with. In 2014 Ed Vickery came to our reunion and among other things showed us slides of the gear he used when he was developing the Paracommander and getting ready to land a square before anyone else had but I was hoping for something a bit less suicidal looking. I was wondering about a cup type anemometer but how far would you have to get it from your body to get an accurate reading. What I'm really hoping is that someone says "they came out with a device that works a year ago, where have you been?"

You're quoting WOLA? There's nothing much to say after that.

NIDA put the number of addicts in the US at 626,000 in 2016 and rising. Keeping that many addicts serviced on a daily basis is going to take a lot of heroin, not a few baggies shoved up someone's ass now and then.

It will be interesting to see how and if this affects the availability of heroin in the US.

I remember when I first started and Gary W warned me about drinking beer and skydiving. He said it was a rainy day so he drank a shitload of beer, then the skies opened up and they put a load together. He said "Bob, as I exited," and then he had to stop and choke back a tear and start again, "Bob, as soon as I exited I was stone cold sober". I thought he was going to start crying when he said "I wasted all that good beer!"

Ain't it the truth!

John put a bar down the center of the top of his beech and we'd do James Bond exits. Once I was hanging off the side opposite the door and on exit I let go, slid backwards, then slid forward coming in sixth. Well, you had to be there, it's the way it just slid together. And then there was the time I was inside in the lineup when, through the window, we saw a flash of red on that other side and we knew it was Neil falling off. The count instantly became GO!. Those were some good times, but long ago and far away.

I think I'm remembering this right, it's been awhile. I'd face out and the other jumper would face in as well as we could in the door of the 182. I'd reach down and take their leg and they'd take mine. Then we'd launch an accordion. It went even better out of the beech and made for a nice base, fast falling if you tucked up and plenty of grips on a no-slot dive.

The mind boggles.

So it is better to leave a mentally unhinged halfwit in power??? It makes more sense to me to have a constitutionally-prescribed method for the sane members of government to remove an insane member. I don't know where that's coming from. If it becomes necessary then, well, it's necessary. But I'd hate to see us get to that point with any President. As for Pence, I suspect that after a short time with him in power we'd dearly miss Trump's incompetence.

Only when it is a D president and the R's control Congress. Today, I doubt that they would impeach him. Jerry Baumchen I would hate to see any President impeached. It doesn't seem all that different from a coup with members of the government overruling the vote. And I felt the same way when it was Clinton's head on the block.