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Cayce

whuffo concerns

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In the past twenty years, I've learned.

1. Don't talk to whuffo's about skydiving.
2. When surrounded, pretend to be a whuffo.
3. Never tell your boss you skydive
4. Never date a whuffo
5. Never marry a whuffo

t
It's the year of the Pig.

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"I just recently cracked a couple bones in my left ankle on a landing, and they ask me if I plan to jump again after I heal. WHen I tell them "Yes" I get some real stupid looks and comments."

My wife broke her ankle a few weeks ago just walking out to our truck. I guess I should just buy her a Hoveround and tell her to pass on that dangerous "walking" she seems to enjoy so much!:S
“Keep your elbow up!"

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heheh hoveround...
hey tonto, why #4 & #5? i'm onboard with the others! i thought by pushing the idea my friends would want to do it too. big negative. (even though it's something we talked about before... whatever.)>:(

If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off!

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In the past twenty years, I've learned.

1. Don't talk to whuffo's about skydiving.
2. When surrounded, pretend to be a whuffo.
3. Never tell your boss you skydive
4. Never date a whuffo
5. Never marry a whuffo

t



I disagree with the list, in my humble inexperienced opinion... I don't push it with my friends, but they are genuinely interested and have some really good questions that you might expect someone to ask at a FJC. I mean the first week or two I was bouncing off the walls and could not help boring them with my experiences, but I have calmed down.

I found out two older female business acquaintances, one employee, and one vendor, both jumped round parachutes in the early 80’s. If I would have kept quiet, I would have never learned about their past or been able to ask them about the skydiving culture from back then.

Our office manager, who a month and a half ago wouldn't even think of a roller coaster, let alone a tandem - asked me if I would arrange for a tandem for her. She saw some of the videos I downloaded and asked a bunch of fair honest questions… She then said, “I want to be a stronger person and overcome some of my silly fears. The only way I can do that is face them head on.” I told her skydiving is not a game, it is serious. I think she is mentally ready to be a “good” tandem candidate right now, I think she has it in her.

My good friend asked me to do a big favor for his business. I found $200 on my account at the DZ as a thank you, with a "please let me come out and watch you jump sometime" message attached.

So far, the only people who are not 100% supportive are my parents… I can’t knock them for being worried about me, even at 29 years old… But, from conversation, ¾ of all their fears are unjustified due to lack of knowledge of the equipment, and ¼ are completely justified… Education, I hope, will help them rest easy about the ¾ that is unjustified.

Now, I do have to admit, I wore my "Jumps from Perfectly Good Airplanes" shirt in downtown Palm Springs California when I was there on work- and if I only had a penny for everyone who gave me the "he is insane" or "does he really" double take. 2.5 seconds was the average double take time...:P

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1. Don't talk to whuffo's about skydiving. CHECK
2. When surrounded, pretend to be a whuffo. CHECK
3. Never tell your boss you skydive WISH I HAD NOT
4. Never date a whuffo MY BAD
5. Never marry a whuffo HHMMMM, STUCK IN THE
MIDDLE.




t


.Karnage Krew Gear Store
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In the past twenty years, I've learned.

1. Don't talk to whuffo's about skydiving.
2. When surrounded, pretend to be a whuffo.
3. Never tell your boss you skydive
4. Never date a whuffo
5. Never marry a whuffo

t



Amen

I still need to fix #4, but I completely agree with all 5 points ;)

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In the past twenty years, I've learned.

1. Don't talk to whuffo's about skydiving, unless they ask and keep it short or lose there attention.
2. When surrounded, pretend to be a whuffo.
3. Never tell your boss you skydive unless it's your dad who will never appreciate it.(even though he agreed to me taking her ashes up over their country club)
4. Never date a whuffo with thoughts of it lasting unless they want to jump!
5. Never marry a whuffo see #4

just my thoughts.













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It's true, alot of people will never understand why someone would jump out of a perfectly good airplane. At first, I loved telling people about my skydiving, but lately only if people ask, then i'll talk about it. Mostly because it's always the same response. YOU'RE NUTS!!! I think skydiving is a sport just like any other.

***Free bird Forever

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I don't think you have to stop talking about it altogether. My co-workers are often like that with the death-wish talk. This one guy is the worst - always comments like "You must have a death wish", "You're just falling, whats to learn!", "So when are we gonna see you in a wheelchair?". But then one of the coolest moments happened. He came over to my desk, and as soon as he saw the big picture on my desktop of me flyin, his eyes just lit up and he said "Oh my god - is that you?" He got this huge smile on his face and just sat there staring that that picture of me in the clouds with a huge smile on my face. It was like he finally got it, at least a little piece of it. Since that day, I don't hear all those negative comments anymore.

Some people think its cool, some think its crazy, some are envious, some are disgusted, some don't care. But after a great jump I can't help but sharing, and I have found that most people like to hear about it (to a certain extent).

Unfortunately, in my case the people who I'd expect to care, don't. My husband is very supportive, but his family is the complete opposite. I try to tell them about my jumps, they ignore me. I invite them to come watch, they say "I don't want to watch you do that stupid thing, how boring!". I expected them to take an interest in it because its something I have a passion for. But they didn't. It hurt my feelings. But at least MY family and friends want to hear my stories. :)
"At 13,000 feet nothing else matters."
PFRX!!!!!
Team Funnel #174, Sunshine kisspass #109
My Jump Site

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I just tell them that the more I learned about skydiving, the safer I thought it was (which is true). Tell them that 3 times as many people die SCUBA diving every year. Tell them the fatality rate is about 1 for every 80 to 100 thousand jumps made, and most of the fatalities are people that do things that you're explicitly taught not to.

I do agree with other posts that say that some people will never understand how safe it is, and wuffos will NEVER understand what it feels like to skydive.
There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

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LOL Ron ... I know several ladies who were kinda turned on this thing. The problem is that their interest goes down when they realize that you are not particularly interested in partying late in town on Friday nights and spend too much time at DZ jumping out of planes instead of entertaining them on weekends ... ;)
I worried about you when saw a couple of people out on sunset load. Did you get in?;);) (j/k)



LOL, Anton I’ve found that I can date them on weekdays for a while. Oh sure they get tired of being second fiddle to a sport but I can usually get a few weeks of dating in first.

Well Anton, let me give you an example of spin for the whuffo chicks that dig the “Danger Guy” thing.

I’d describe the formation load Saturday night like this to other skydivers.

“I was first diver out on the training plane. I had a collision going out the door and went unstable. I tracked over to the base that was building and for the life of me could not find my slot. I ended up going low and never making it in. I was facing an off airport landing and decided to get as close as I could and go for the downwind landing (in a 3 to 4 MPH wind) and only have to slog through 20 yards of muddy field instead of 50 yards. The landing was more brisk than I thought and I biffed in and rolled in the mud. I left an imprint that looked more like a chalk outline of a body at a murder scene than anything else. The whole DZ laughed at me that night. The next morning everyone pointed out my impact crater from 1,000 feet on the ride to altitude for anyone that missed it the night before.”

Now here is the story I told to the ladies at the office.

“Yea, I was on a 36 person skydive Saturday night. Jumps that big are particularly dangerous. It was great to be in the second airplane and have to fly over to the formation; it’s the harder position. It’s really cool to see that many other people in the air at the same time. Big skydives are really dangerous when it’s time to open my parachute though as you don’t want to get caught up with someone else and plummet to your death in a tangled mess of nylon. So I flew away from the formation as far and as fast as I could at breakoff. It put me so far away from the landing zone that I had no choice but to land in a dangerous field, who knows what obstacles were lying hidden the in the foot of mud. The winds caused me to land dangerously fast, and you know I just downsized to a higher performance parachute too, so it was a blistering landing. I managed to hit and roll it out and not break any bones that I know about. We drank beer that night and regaled in the fun we had! My performance was even talked about the next day on plane rides to altitude”

See it’s all a matter of spin!
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

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i get the same thing at work, my coworkers refuse to have anything to do with what i love, i actually get made fun of because i am so involved in it. whuffos will never understand what skydiving does to a person, how addicting it is. a few of my friends like to hear what i do while i'm jumping but for the most part the people i know can't comprehend how i could love something so much.

i've never been preached to about it, but go figure christians would find a way to make it look like a sin.

don't ever expect someone outside the community to understand.
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

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As far as I'm concerned skydiving brings you closer to that supreme being; It lets you float with the clouds and kiss the sky, what could be more heavenly than that. As Andrewwhyte said " You just need new friends. We'll be your friends." What you need is to talk to like-minded people that understand your new passion; welcome to the skydiving community.:)

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