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I've never smoked a cigarette either, not even during my 2 year stint in the Navy with my buddy being a chimney beside me. But this one time, an Austrian girl was smoking what I now know was a cigarello, and it just smelled so sweet and fantastic, and I thought, "what the hell, still isn't a cigarette". Tried it once, twice, no effect? They told me to hold it "in", and being the non-smoker that I was, I thought they meant deep "in" your lungs...... Of course, hilarity ensued. Problem was, while I was going through my usual morning sneezing fits the next morning, I kept smelling that scent from the cigarello.. Checked the chair, places I touched, my hands and arms, and even my hair, and I just couldn't figure out where I'd left such a concentration of the scent from the previous night. And then I picked up one of the tissues that I'd just sneezed into, and .. discovered my lungs' way of saying "right back at you". Good luck with your gums and teeth.. for it took my lungs a week to clear the remnants of that one encounter...

After reading through all the replies here, what intrigues me is the fact that these dealerships are still offering the manual options... From a sales point of view, manual vehicles are clearly harder to sell, and generate less revenue. This means that there are less economies of scale to manufacture those manual options. The sales guy also receives less commissions on the sale, and is of course less inclined to promote this harder-to-sell vehicle. What I'm curious about is, if you guys had your eye on a particular vehicle model, would you actually walk away if there was no manual option to choose? Because if the consumers aren't turned off, as a manufacturer, I would simply consolidate my production lines...

Interesting vernacular! Thank you for the clarification Seems like it's the same in the Netherlands as in Singapore, where "manual" holders can drive both, but "automatic" holders are limited to auto transmissions. No offence here; half the girls I know took the "auto" licence test so as to avoid the trouble of learning how to work the clutch, while only 1 guy took the easy route (he certainly got tons of ribbing from everyone else )

What's '4 on the floor'? I'm curious, does the US or the EU differentiate between a "manual license" and an "automatic license"? Or is it as long as you can work it, you can drive it?

Yes, good point.. I suppose it's all about whatever works best for the individual. For me, the intervals between jumps were productive and I feel as though I gained more than I lost. I had time to read up and study on things, watch some of the video captured by my instructors and say "What the heck was THAT?!" when look at my body position, and had time to go to the tunnel to work on correcting the problems. I might not have been able to do all that had I taken a very aggressive AFF course. But like I said, that's just what worked for me. No offence to the posters with thousands of jumps here, but I too has a similar experience as with BigMikeH77. I had many weeks of gaps between jumps 1 through 4, and a one year gap between 4 and 5. With each additional jump and debrief, I added a little more knowledge, and I also had the time to watch videos of how others did well or failed in their jumps. The intervals gave me time to digest the information clearly, which aided me in every subsequent jump. Conversely, it was the back-to-back-to-back jumps in one day that I could never quite seem to get things corrected, but maybe that was just my experience. Whatever works best for the individual indeed!

Sounds like the Chinese youth are becoming more Americanized every day. We need to send LawRocket over to China and start some Personal Injury lawsuits. Well, too bad the bell fell over him instead of on him; that would've been more effective at preventing future occurrences

Designated Drivers. ( I answered that, because I think you aimed that question at me. ) Ah.. Well it was actually an open question, but thank you!

This, always. Certainly gotta have a window seat to pair with that too. But NEVER on a seat that doesn't recline, or within 2 rows of the lavatories...

Unfortunately, while I was technically ok at playing the piano, I could never sightread the notes... I inadvertently grew up memorizing where to glaze my fingers for every single piece, and moved through the grades by banking on perfect Aural scores, but I'll never forget the embarrassment during the sightreading portion of the grade 6 test. After which, I figured there was no point in obtaining the grade 7 or 8 certificate if I couldn't really play anything without a month of prior practice. The theory tests were strangely fun for me though! What're "DDs" anyway???

Absolutely hilarious! I wonder if the skydiving version will follow next...

Thanks John! I've been wondering about that for the longest time, and no one has been able to give me a good answer on "why we need to stow our brakes during packing". The previous answers were usually about hard openings or etc.. Just for technicality though, does setting the brakes help with cell inflation by pulling the top skin back to open the nose, or by changing the effective angle of attack of the wing, thereby preventing the canopy from flying forward too much and closing the nose with the top skin? That also brings another incident to mind.. I was visiting a DZ and jumping a rental Test-235 (could never figure out which manufacturer made a series named "Test" either..), and that particular canopy had horribly long snivels (softest openings ever though..). 7 seconds of snivel on the first 2 jumps, 11 seconds on the third. Was only in the saddle at 1,700 on that third jump; really should have stayed more altitude aware, and chopped it by 2k. Thing is, I know it wasn't brake fire coz I always set my own brakes immediately after landing, and I know it wasn't the packer coz I had the same guy for the next 10+ jumps (on a different rig of course), and it was a high speed streamer, so it didn't look like a slider lock either. But it did look a lot like the video posted by coticj, so all things considered, are there any other factors which could cause such a reluctance towards canopy cell inflation? Thanks again!

That's.. not entirely true right? If it's 52000.4967, 52000 is 5 sig. fig. Memories of math from a long time ago

Well, I'm pretty sure that jumping at 650USD a pop is one way to ensure that you remain in the 5 out of 6 that aren't millionaires...

Lol! I'm actually more interested to know from you all, do the non-native English speakers actually "hear" in the other row??

Apparently the Brits imparted more of their culture here than imagined... Certainly took me a while to adapt to "Dutch Time". "Toothpaste and gum?!" Wow... But FWIW, I've certainly met my fair share of generous Dutch people, and I'm pretty sure that your colleague must really be an outlier!

Does 3-4 months at each location count? If so, the hardest adaptations were: Shanghai, China: Had to get used to the fact that Caucasian foreigners are treated better than Chinese foreigners. (Sounds good to everyone else here, doesn't it ) Took me two months to get up to speed on conversational negotiation before they stopped quoting me "Caucasian prices" too; but the service provided was always different. The Netherlands: The way everything is so incredibly "on time". Shops will always close on time, people will always leave work on the dot too. Work time is strictly work time; I really wasn't used to the idea that I wouldn't be able to find anything after 5/6pm. The "fat people" quote is close to the mark, but as someone once told me, "commenting about their country is like commenting about their wife. He can say that his wife is ugly, but you can't go to him and say 'your wife is ugly', you know?"