Bob_Church

"It's a rumor and thoroughly debunked. I can't find anything on an AP news site, just these indie blogs. I don't really know who this Victor guy is, how much pull he has and if his organization is really the Teamsters or some fringe group. Gov and FEMA all deny this, etc etc etc." Wow, it's really quite amazing. It's kind of perfect for this sort of thing. You've got this pissed off guy jumping up and down but speaking another language so we have to depend on what we're told. And the best way of getting away with a lie is to make it something people already pretty much believe anyway. The only part that didn't sound right to me was the Teamsters involvement, but I thought "maybe it's just this one local." I'd hold onto that note for copy and paste if I were you.

Speaking of fake news, I'm honestly starting to wonder if Trump and Cruz aren't secretly married. They're a perfect couple. Trump has proven it with some of, ok most of, the stuff he's said and now Cruz taking the time to piss and moan over Trump tossing paper towels to people waiting in line. Can any unmarried couple be that trivial about criticizing each other?

That's the problem. Should we do something to prevent this sort of thing? Sure. But what? And I'm not even talking about legalities or the second amendment. If they stopped making handguns today there are still enough for at least a couple each for everyone. The one thing that helped at one level was stop and frisk, so of course that was banned by the same people who want to be protected from guns. After something like this happens we want to do something, but it's when we get into the "we have to do something, this is something, let's do it" mode that things just get more screwed up, not safer.

I wonder if the shoot was legal? No, not the firearm, the filming. If they were trying to avoid getting the permits and paying fees and all it would explain why they didn't let anyone know.

Thanks for the map. If I ever get my retirement dream together, which includes a small but self-contained van/camper, it could come in handy. Bob

I emailed USPA and got this "Bob, We do not have the list published. Attached is a scan of the first few pages from our night 4 stack. Clint Vincent D-7624 Department Coordinator, Membership Services " I especially appreciated the Night Four Stack list. I was fairly low time then and that was the first jump that I organized. That is, I saw when the date for starting the award was, contacted the best jumpers together for it and all. Not that big a thing, but it felt like it then. It's spooky up there with almost no moon, lots of clouds and winds so strong that we opened over Ohio to land at Ravenswood Wv airport. I came in fifth, on our five stack, despite never having come in later than three. Three was my slot but I came in too hot. That four plane looked like a pale ghost ship, but I got Gary Westmoreland right in the knees. At this point all we had to do was fly it the required time, but Gary yelled "ok, let's plane it now, then Mig yelled, much louder "NO! JUST FLY THE THING." His main reason was to keep us from funneling it so he could get his number but the fact that we were over one of the widest spots on the Ohio River, being in the curve, with nothing but the darkness of forest and Kaiser Aluminum's power station to see, except of course for that tiny dim strip of blue light way way off in the distance that was basically the only spot to land mad his request seem downright reasonable.

I'm having trouble adding the links but it looks like Colorado is recording death by deliberate poisoning, including prescription meds, as poisoning instead of suicide. Or more likely both. Evertime I switch from one site to another to cut and paste all of my text goes away so sorry about the lack of cites.

Of you're still looking into this send me an email and I'll put you in touch with a guy with a lot of articles about these jumps. churchr@ohio.edu

How does that work? Landing at Four Corners, w/ one foot in Colorado, one in Arizona, etc? Not landed, but included. We flew about six miles into Kentucky, C&P at 10k, flew to the river and crossed into Wv, then flew North to Huntington where I turned left, crossed into Ohio rhen landed at South Point. Between how Huntington looks from the air, the seemingly endless forests and the river of it was incredibly beautiful especially being a perfect blue sky and fluffy cloud day.

Iago, I really apreciate all of the info. Thanks Bob

Yeah I know... I grew up on 80's rock n roll... But somehow, Keith Richards is gonna outlive them all. We ordered in a bunch of Macs to replace one of the labs about 10 or so years ago. That's not unusual but what was new is that this model came with a built-in camera and would take a picture of you during setup. Those little cameras don't have that much range so they really exaggerate wrinkles and any other blemishes. When I fired up the first row my first thought was "why do these computers all have Keith Richard's face on them?"

It's amazing how much an extended power outage can mess things up. I know it's cliche' but we never really appreciate it until it's gone. We had a derecho and were out of power for about 10 days and it seemed like years. I can't imagine what they must be going through down there.

A friend (Jerry Waters) just sent this link to me from a local news source. http://www.wsaz.com/content/news?article=449086453 The best I've done is three states on one jump. And it was so much fun that we did it again as soon as we got packed.

We've already lost Alvin Lee and Keith Emerson. I know there are some others but it's too depressing to look the names up.

Remember when campuses and liberal groups were bastions of free speech. Well, it ain't the sixties any more. There are several groups of self appointed loud mouthed censors patrolling Athens looking for something to offend them and then going on the attack. You'll notice that they've skipped right past the question of whether it would matter if it was a swastika. No, they make the rules. https://www.athensnews.com/news/local/nazi-flag-or-party-flag/article_d5f6ea5a-a6cc-11e7-8a3c-c79b8fabd944.html

N/A

Damn, I'm dreading my wife hearing about this. She loves his music, goes to his concerts and all. I'm not crazy about his music but we both really appreciate him as a DJ. You could teach a great music appreciation class based on his hourly programs.

Iago, are the Teamsters on strike there? It's hard to get reliable info from the press.

"Puerto Rican born and raised, Colonel Michael A. Valle (”Torch”), Commander, 101st Air and Space Operations Group, and Director of the Joint Air Component Coordination Element, 1st Air Force, responsible for Hurricane Maria relief efforts, has the following comment: …They have the generators, water, food, medicine, and fuel on the ground, yet the supplies are not moving across the island as quickly as they’re needed. “It’s a lack of drivers for the transport trucks, the 18 wheelers. Supplies we have. Trucks we have. There are ships full of supplies, backed up in the ports, waiting to have a vehicle to unload into. However, only 20% of the truck drivers show up to work. These are private citizens in Puerto Rico, paid by companies that are contracted by the government”.. (link) The ports are so full of relief supplies they can’t fit any more on the available space. CNBC ground report confirms Colonel Valle’s ground report"

It's not just about age. We had a young woman who was doing very well as a skydiver and having a lot of fun. Then her new boyfriend explained to her that a necessary part of skydiving is downsizing and that she "really should" be jumping a canopy that was much smaller. She made some jumps on it and quit jumping. The smaller canopy sucked the fun out of the sport for her and her boyfriend had convinced her, and many other novice jumpers, that downsizing isn't an option, it's an expected part of the sport. Experienced jumpers who are having fun with smaller canopies is great but I don't understand this growing attitude in the sport that if you don't downsize you shouldn't be here.

Would we we get to wear a yellow sash?

One thing I would recommend is to talk to people your own age about canopy sizing and be aware that there is a thinking among many skydivers today that smaller is always better. I've seen people quit because the canopy size they were recommended kept scaring or even hurting them. Don't buy into it. Besides, some of us enjoy being in the sky and aren't in such great hurry to get to the ground. Or hurt.

I'm surprised at a pilot allowing this. I lose count of the number of times I get reminded "only step on the black strip" on every Stearman jump I make, sometimes two or three a day. There's no good reason to believe that if someone lost their grip they'd fall back and off the wing instead of through it.

Sorry, I thought it was in this month's issue. It's in the April 2017 issue, page 45.

In this month's Parachutist story about incidents over the last year they talk about a Stearman taking off with two jumpers on the wing. I've got a lot of biplane jumps but I'd never heard of anyone riding on the wing except of course during jump run. Is this common? I've sort of thought about it, but not as something I'd really do. And I can't imagine it's legal. Or did I read the article wrong?