Muffie

+1 This is my favorite thread on dropzone.com. Tell us more!

Yep, that was the one. Thanks! Looks like the discussion of the incident has another video of a handle dislodged at the door that wasn't fatal, but hard to tell what kind of handle. I'd assume also a metal handle.

Bill, this has happend. With a fatal result as well. While preparing for the AFF jump on the door, the student pulled by accident the instructor's D-handle... I think I read about that incident on this site. I tried to find the incident yesterday - was definitely posted on here and talked about within the last three years - but I am crap at using the search function on here. As I recall, the instructor had a loose reserve handle, the student reached out to grab it to help put it back in or let him know(?), ended up pulling the handle, reserve deployed and impact with the tail of the plane killed the instructor.

Shah, Maybe the mail order option would work for you. Take the cost of dating the four or five women you're currently seeing and add it up over a year. Let's say 4 dates a week at $75 a date (this is NJ so I'm going a little higher on the per dinner cost) - $300 a week *52 weeks = $15,600. Not to mention any gifts, dating site costs, drinks for women who blow you off, clothes for going out, etc. When you factor in taxes, commuting costs, clothing costs, etc. it probably isn't that far off what a wife making $35,000 a year would bring home. Of course, this assumes that if you had a wife you'd stay in and cook meals more instead of hitting the town all the time. Just a thought...

Best Quote ever

Normally I wouldn't bother engaging with you, but what the hell. Thats an illusion created by the useless Hollywood movies. A lot of people end up living alone which is far better then being in a shitty relationship or worse, married to a person who hates your guts. Fine, the OP doesn't need to listen to me because I'm a woman. But both you and Shah through your posts have shown serious negativity and bitterness where it comes to women and as a woman I can say that when I get that vibe from a man I walk away and that's not going to get the OP where he seems to want to be. IMO, he would be much better served listening to guys like JohnMitchell who seem to have found a good, solid relationship. I haven't seen him post on this particular thread yet and don't know him in real life, but from what I've seen on here, he's a guy another guy could listen to and learn from in this area. Fair enough?

Caution: serious answer here. Seems to me you at least have the right attitude about it. You're not looking for perfection, you're looking for someone who compliments you - whatever that may be. You have been in love before and are still willing to be, so you're giving it a shot and risking yourself which can sometimes be the hardest thing to do overall. I do think there is someone for everyone (but, hey, what do I know I'm just a woman) - at least I've seen some screwed up, crazy ugly people who have found love and happiness and I think if they can do it, anyone can. But I also think that for some people there's a much smaller population of potential partners that would truly make them happy. And dating in the average match.com world just isn't going to be uplifting for that type of person. My advice: follow your passions, live your life, but keep an eye out for possibilities. And never, ever, ever, ever take dating advice from Shah. Ever.

I think new profiles default to saying that someone is a photographer and most new users on here will likely not be, so it would be better to have it default to not listing new users as a photographer and then let them choose. I noticed mine said I was a photographer about a month after I joined and I saw someone mention it about another newbie's profile today and she also didn't know it said that until someone pointed it out.

I voted yes, although I believe that if I asked the right question I probably could learn anything I need to know from my instructor. I jump at a smaller commercial dropzone so certain things that come up on dz.com or that you'd see at a larger sportie dropzone just don't come up there. And while there are a lot of experienced guys around my dz, I'd never have heard half the stories I read about in some of these threads (like scary stories from the old days) at my dz.

Did you receive the notice via facebook (as in, when you log into facebook it shows as a notification) or only via e-mail? If via e-mail it's probably spam trying to get you to click on some link. Look at your junk folder and see how many "Susie wants to be your friend" e-mails end up there that are complete b.s. because you don't know a Susie and most facebook messages use first and last name.

In Taupo they were down yesterday, but BAU today. Very sad day for NZ.

Hey baby. Check out my pic. Short hair and no facial hair. How YOU doin? hahaha. One item off the list, 999 to go. What's your opinion on horror movies? love 'em... what do i win? Sorry, you struck out at number two. According to the link someone posted a few days ago that determined that women who like to drink beer are more likely to have sex on the first date, there are also three questions that determine compatibility: 1) Do you like horror movies? 2) Do you like to travel alone in a foreign country? 3) Would you be willing to chuck it all to go live on a sailboat for a year? For me it was a "hell no", "definitely," and "of course." Ah well...

Hey baby. Check out my pic. Short hair and no facial hair. How YOU doin? hahaha. One item off the list, 999 to go. What's your opinion on horror movies?

Answer: It depends on the woman. Personally, I only like men with shorter hair and no facial hair. It doesn't have to be a buzz cut, but if I can't see the back of his neck, it doesn't do it for me. And no goatee, mustache, beard, etc. On the other hand, my mom loves hairy men. The longer the hair the better. Full beard gets triple points.

At the dz yesterday we were chatting and one of the girls made a comment that part of the reason she thought she'd ended up with her current skydiving boyfriend was because they had similar fall rates. The more I started thinking about it the more it kinda made sense (similar fall rates = like jumping together = more time spent together = ya know), so figured I'd go to the masses and see what people thought. So, for those of you who have dated a fellow skydiver did fallrate matter? (And by date, I mean something that lasted longer than a boogie)

I like reggaeton music (Don Omar, Los Benjamins, etc.) for workouts. Good beat, entertaining lyrics if you speak Spanish. I'm also mostly cardio with light weight sets, though.

Same advice as NeedToJump - get a good coach. They'll help you set a solid progression that lets you continue to add new skills while solidifying what you already learned. I did two and a half hours with the same coach and he judged my progress and added in things as he thought I was ready for them. I didn't have backfly down 100% when we moved on, but I found when I had to go back to it a little later I was much better at it just because of general progression working in the tunnel.

I tried finding a few outside Boulder. The contents of the caches themselves were less than interesting, but it was a nice excuse to go for a hike in a new place and let me use my new Garmin.

Just finished The Apostle by Brad Thor, most of the way through The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind, and have Royal Exile by Fiona McIntosh on deck.

Agreed. I'm a newbie, so was using their suits not my own.

I've only flown in the tunnel in Colorado, but found that anything that was tight orevented me from getting what felt a lot like razor burn from the suit. The first week I wore a t-shirt and sweats and my forearms and lower legs were pretty red the next day. After that I wore a long-sleeved fitted hiking/yoga top each time and put on spandex under my sweats and was all good. I'd also, recommend heavy lotion on your face/neck. And if you happen to have long hair, get a balaclava or else you'll be dealing with some serious tangles even if you put it back.

People who have a whole conversation on their cellphone while using a public bathroom. Ew!

Here's a link to one of the incidents: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3942395#3942395 As I recall, jumper at a boogie that was used to high winds at his DZ in Puerto Rico decided to jump in high wind conditions at the boogie. One of his friends from Puerto Rico commented that there was a definite difference between the winds at the two dzs even though the MPH were approximately the same. Here's another one: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3780982#3780982 Per fatality database: "Jumper suffered a hard landing while jumping in high winds. The landing caused a broken pelvis but the jumper died at the hospital for surgery to repair the injury." Another one from March 28, 2010: Per fatality database: "Jumper was on the 5th load of the day. Winds were reported to be between 20-25 MPH at 3000 feet. Jumper was performing a wingsuit dive which went as planned and opened without malfunction over the designated spot at approximately 4000 feet AGL. Jumper was seen steering canopy upwind and continued to fly that heading. Jumper was blown off the airport into a wooded area recently cleared for development. Jumper's canopy was seen to apparently collapse as the canopy was still flying backwards due to the wind conditions. Jumper suffered blunt force trama to the neck and head upon impact and was found deceased at the scene. It is suspected that she hit her head on remnants of recently removed tree stumps. Jumper had been current and performed approximately 30 skydives within the last 30 days." Edited to add 2nd and 3rd incidents.

See GLIDEANGLE's excellent list of suggested reading. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4052172#4052172 From Safety & Training in case I screwed up the link.

I've been following this thread with a lot of interest and was going to stay out of it and just observe, but just wanted to add another thought. I think one of the issues here is not trusting the AFFI and his experience which I think is essential. I trusted (and still trust) my AFFI implicitly. Before I started my AFF course I knew that he had been at this for 25+ years, had a boatload of jumps and experience, and knew far more about this sport than I will probably ever know. So, if he grabbed me with two hands and threw me halfway across the plane, I'd likely be shocked but I'd know that he had a damned good reason for it and would tell me what it was when we were safe on the ground. I'd rather have a competent asshole for an AFFI than a cute, friendly AFFI who doesn't know all the shit that can go wrong or is too busy trying to be nice to help me learn the skills I need to survive. This sport can and has killed people at every level of experience. To the OP: Be glad the JM cared enough to work with you on what he perceived as an issue. If you get to 100 jumps and you react to people who try to help you like you've been doing here, they're just going to walk away and wait for you to bounce. Harsh but true.