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Genie

Rec.skydiving - Sound off!

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Hey all,

I used to be Noelle from Ireland on the wreck... still any of you old bods still around?? (waves and Bill Von who she knows is still here :)

I'm thinking of Treetop, Jim Bozo, Snuffy (still alive?) David (still fighting with Snuffy?) Peter from Oz, Marc of weightvest fame, among others - you know who you are :)

How many still around and active here instead now??

Looking forward to catching up with y'all...

Genie/Noelle

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I posted there, too, even though I wasn't skydiving at the time :ph34r:. I pissed off just about as many people there as I do here.

But I quit going there when it got stupid. I'm just not big on the flaming and the FB-type of back-and-forth most of hte time.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)
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I'm here.

TreeTop dropped off the face of the Earth a few years ago.



Chuck? is that you?? ! Hey! Sorry to hear about Treetop, i still suspect him for being the guy who very kindly got me something sent to me in the mail, which i do still use :D

And Peek, Wendy, Remster - all names ringing a bell.. its been a while... i eventually gave up when every single thread devolved into a Snuff/David "oh yes it is!, Oh No it isn't" pantomime sketch... havent been back since..

It was fun back then tho.. i dont think i wrote too many inflammatory posts myself, but I did seem to find myself in the middle of some of them :D And then at one stage in a quiet little dz somewhere in the states, someone said oh ive been dying to meet you since i heard you were coming, i read all your stuff on the wreck - and i nearly died on the spot lollll

Still jumping, but still in my "Skydiving is a journey and not a destination, and im just strolllling on down the path.." Monday will be my 12th anniversary of my first jump, and i have about 220 jumps now lol :D
Couple of breaks from jumping here and there.. the year i went back to college to do post grad in 1 year fulltime, instead of 2, and after I broke my ankle on landing and ended up travelling in Asia for 4 months - Score! but still love it, still love the people and the places :D

Great to say hi to you all again

Genie

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I was on rec.skydiving before I started on here. Been a long long time. I did try getting back on rec.skydiving a few times but the format of that forum as I knew and loved, had changed to a way that I couldn't make sense of, so I stuck to dropzone.com.
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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TreeTop dropped off the face of the Earth a few years ago.



Actually Treetop has shown up here a few times within the last year under different names only to be quickly banned.

I see peanut post on occasion. I think Snuffy and Jerry K are still arguing on rec-dot.

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Hi folks

I got into rec. late.

user name probably R.I.P.

Old fiddle posts here ..... snow white.

Can anyone do a snuffy imitation. One peer peep will be enough.

Snort, fart, check the spot before you exit, something about a tree,....... on and on.

I miss rec.:)
K-RIP

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Peanut (snuffy's dysfunctional "underling" ;)) is here, but nowhere near as prolific as he was on there. Rev Jim, Winsor, etc. About the same. Ynotssor (Tony) haven't seen in awhile, but I think he's "here". Several others I can't really think of this early in the (pre-work) AM.

Who remembers Nipple-Boy?

Me? ...Over there, I was from an early-on experience and resultant given nick-name: Orange-Splat.

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

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Who remembers Nipple-Boy?



The rec.skydiving S&TA? Not only do I remember him, I've tried to emulate him in all my skydiving endeavors since.

(OK, not really)

But gawd, some of that shit was funny. Nippleboy and Night Stilletto Backwards CRW. The absolute internecine warfare over spotting, exit order and separation (Helpful guy: "Here, let me help you think of it in another way: imagine you're in a balloon that's motionless over the earth, and a tractor is dragging the DZ in one direction..." Everybody else: "Wait, what?") until John Kallend, Winsor and others helped graphically unfuck the rest of us. (I just threw my hands up and volunteered to be the tractor driver when this shit would start)

I dropped off USENET around about 1999 or 2000 and then Snuffy showed up, so I missed 99% of that. I'd poke my head back in and see just PAGES of incomprehensible drivel from this guy and go "Uh, ooohkay.." and off I'd go to do something else.

IMHO, the funniest thing I ever ran into with rec. was being at Bridge Day in 1997 and meeting Winsor and billv, and like an friggin' excited fanboi I turn to my (now ex-) wife and say: "Honey, this is Bill V!!!" Of course not being a skydiving or on rec., she's got no damn clue who Bill is. So in that sort of droll "I'm nodding because it will make you think I know what the fuck you're talking about" way she says "Who?"

I don't know who was laughing harder after that.
NIN
D-19617, AFF-I '19

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Hi Noelle!

Some of my favorite posts were from Dan Rossi about his experiences as a blind skydiver, especially the one about the origin of "flare when you hear the crickets." Anyone know if he's still around/jumping? I also remember someone in true rec dot fashion posting long lines of nonsense to confuse his speech synthesizer :D

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I wish I was there to see the look on what's his name's face.;) Sounds like she had her B| moments.:ph34r:

How long as it been since rec. went off line[:/] check that.

How long has it been since rec. went off the net.? Sounds like I missed the best years, but I was a happy camper until it got you know[:/]

F-troop #1

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Some of my favorite posts were from Dan Rossi about his experiences as a blind skydiver, especially the one about the origin of "flare when you hear the crickets." Anyone know if he's still around/jumping?



+1

A Dan Rossi Story below.
Quote

When we last left our sandwich, (he can't be considered a hero), he had
just screwed around with the pilot of a Cessna by conspiring to trick the
pilot into believing that he was spotting the load. This was humorous as
Dan only had 28 jumps at the time. Oh yeah, he is also totally blind as
well.

This being Dan's first four-way, and not having planned it very well, Dan
climbed out of the aircraft, waited for exactly one of the other three
jumpers to climb out, and then he left. This did cause a bit of
consternation among the two jumpers still inside of the airplane at the
time. One of whom never made it into the formation due to having left the
airplane feet first on her back in an attempt to get out in time.


I'll pick up the story from there.


So, I am in my first 3/4 of a four-way. Nothing too exciting is
happening. We are just holding on and smiling at each other. At least I
was smiling. The other two jumpers were probably frowning as I had blown
the exit and we were now a bit short on the spot. We broke off and I
dumped. Nothing out of the ordinary.


My radio guy was talking to me as if everything was hunky dory. Never
said anything about possibly, maybe not, quite hitting the DZ exactly.
Nowadays I am aware of the telltale signs of a bad spot. Things like
hearing my radio guy saying, "OK Dan, just hold it there." followed by
long periods of nothing followed again by "OK, looking good, just hold it
there." Or the occasional paniced shrieking over the radio of, "LISTEN
TO ....!!". And you know it's a bad spot when the radio man is saying,
"Dan, we kind of see canopies out there but you're too far away to tell
you apart." And you are certainly aware that it was a bad spot when the
last thing you hear over the radio is, "Dan, you're at seventy five feet,
you're in the trees, good luck."


Getting back to the point here. I am flying along under my canopy, like
absolutely nothing is wrong. It is a beautiful evening. There is no
wind. It is nice and warm. Everything is just spiffy. Little do I know
of the drama unfolding on the ground. This DZ has been open for a couple
of months by this point. They've got a blind skydiver in the air and he
is about to disappear into the trees. They are running through the fields
radio in hand trying to keep line of sight with said blind skydiver and
talking to him like nothing is wrong. Unfortunately, at some point, a
hill got between them and myself and the radios stopped working.


Meanwhile, under canopy, I am still thinking that things are OK. However,
it does seem like it's been a bit since my last radio communication. The
radios are one way so I can't ask for anything. I'm getting a little
nervous, "Come on man, talk to me." Hmm, what is that sound? Sounds like
... like .... crickets? WOW! I must be getting pretty ..... WHAM!!!!!


Those were, in fact, crickets. What I mistook as typical, pleasant,
everyday cricket chirping, was actually crickets screaming, "LOOK OUT!
HE'S GOING TO LAND ON US!" Which should have been my cue to flare.
However, being inexperienced at the art of cricket interpretation, I,
instead, flew my canopy at full flight into the ground.


My buddy had followed me down and had landed just ahead of me with his own
little scare. We were both landing in a nice big clearing. He looked
down at the tall grass in the clearing and noticed a fence post sticking
up through the grass. He thought to himself, "Hmm, I'll just land over
there by that fence post". You know the old adage, "where there is
smoke, there is fire"? Well, it can be modified slightly to "where there
are fence posts, there are typically fences". My buddy realized this
fact in time and was luckily able to pull off a decent landing anyway.


He watched me coming in. He figured I had to be listening to my radio man
as I was heading right for the middle of the clearing. He got a bit
suspicious when I didn't flare when he would have flared me. And he was
pretty sure I didn't have radios when he saw the spray of dirt and the
line of grass being mowed down as I body surfed through the clearing on my
chest.


I came up spitting dirt and swearing a lot. I had gotten a bit scraped up
but nothing too bad. My buddy and I picked up our gear and headed for the
road. A woman had stopped to watch our landing and so she offered to give
us a lift back to the DZ. On our way back, a swarm of paniced skydivers
came running along and we stopped and let them know I was OK. We had to
send someone out looking for my radio man who was still wandering around
in the woods trying to talk to me on his radio. We eventually got
everyone back to the DZ and it was beer o'clock anyway so we called it a
day.


When I explained what had happened, hearing the crickets screaming and
all, we all said that I should have flared when I heard the crickets. It
was a big joke, and we all laughed. However, a year later that joke would
come in very handy indeed.


Flare when you hear the crickets. REALLY!
Dan Rossi

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Hey all,

I used to be Noelle from Ireland on the wreck... still any of you old bods still around?? (waves and Bill Von who she knows is still here :)

I'm thinking of Treetop, Jim Bozo, Snuffy (still alive?) David (still fighting with Snuffy?) Peter from Oz, Marc of weightvest fame, among others - you know who you are :)

How many still around and active here instead now??

Looking forward to catching up with y'all...

Genie/Noelle



Of the people who used to post on wreck, most are out of the sport or dead.

It used to be that when one of us died it was skydiving-related, but now it seems more likely that we are succumbing to cancer and such.

The half-life in the sport is only a couple of years, and most participants are around no more than 7 years (I should track down the source of those stats).

Anyhow, the de-evolution of rec.skydiving was so repellent that many people lost interest in an on-line skydiving community. For the rest of us, DZ.com has taken the place of recdot.

All things being considered, I prefer getting banned now and then to putting up with the endless drivel on recdot. It would be nice to have a killfile, however.

Blue skies,

Winsor
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