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"Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man and a stupid man's idea of a smart man."

It's flair. And we all have to have at least seven pieces of flair.

To some degree. But like anything, there are limits. Sure Mussolini made the trains run on time, but if you supported Mussolini, nobody is going to believe you did it because of his public transportation policies.

I hope you got that fabric for free. It totally saturated my screen and caused strange artifacts around the edges. Hideous. Lee

You know there are a lot of facets to the sport. I've found my self drifting from one to the next over the years. skysurfing, freestyle, CRW, base jumping, rigging, manufacturing, now I'm working on rockets and it looks like we are going to get the money to expand it into an orbital system. I don't think I could have done any one of those things for thirty years. Life is really more about growth. Some time that means turning in a new direction but in the end you may find that all of these things are interconnected. What you do is informed by all that you have done before. Every thing you have learned will carry over into what ever you do next. Maybe you'll build a container next. Maybe a pilot rig. One with low pack volume fabric. A better smaller canopy for them. Don't want to deal with a TSO? Maybe build a base rig. Want to do some thing new? Maybe build a modern version of a Sorcerer for the wing suiters. They jump slider up all the time. Maybe it's time they started carring a reserve? Or if you want to stick with canopies, how about doing some thing commercial. High percesion cargo is a thing. Militaries are investing large amounts of money in it in all sizes. There is a contract for a powered one to extend cross range. How about a high altitude eye in the sky, an air deployed aero stat. High altitude balloon. You can shoot down a drone even a big one at 30,000 ft but it's a lot harder to hit some thing at 80,000 feet. Who know were life will take you. Right now I'm actually taking an on line course. Fundamentals of space vehicle guidance, control, and astrodynamics. It's been a while since I stretched my brain cells this hard. Loving it. Getting into math I'd never dived into before. The only real secret in life is to not allow your self to become stagnant. And I still say the solution to all of your problems is to take out an ad in Parachutest or what ever you have over there selling canopies. You are now "Manufacturer" and blow a big fat raspberry at them. They don't want to run your ad, fine put it in parachutist and sell them here. Let me know and I'll renew just to have a copy of your ad to frame. Lee

Hi Quag, IMO you are not doing that. You're just commenting on how you feel & your current situation. Eventually, everyone makes their last jump. The reasons why vary across the board. I have really loved reading about your DIY canopy building; having done one myself. Wherever, the world takes you, the best of luck to you. Jerry Baumchen

Take your wallet. The big one.

I've spoken to all the chief instructors of the DZs that I frequent, and at this point, with my rigger rating and years of experience I actually have a pretty good image in the sport. However, a lot of the CIs are still in the mindset of "I'd rather you did that somewhere else", or "ooh, I'd like to get someone else to sign you off to do that". Shoutout to Rich at Langar for just being really chill and mellow and letting me get on with things. I think the real problem is that there has never really been a BPA system in place for odd cases like me, and I thought becoming a rigger would fix it. As for the sport, I was never that interested in it that much. I think my mistake was to fall in love with the idea of jumping rather than jumping itself. I think I've seen and done enough to get a fair view of it. Never say never though, I can always come back. I haven't even sold my rig yet. However, I have to realistic about the number of jumps I can do and the level of skill I can ever attain on my budget. I promised myself I wouldn't bitch about skydiving here. I don't work at the moment. I was looking at getting into rigging full time but who knows now. Maybe a sailmaker or a kayaking/paragliding instructor.

John, I was joking. It was a simple word play thing with the silly goal of getting Yoink to smile not to get you to frown. Don't be so serious.

You STILL have difficulty jumping homemade parachutes? Still jerks out there trying to restrict peoples' canopy choice, beyond just wing loading and similar... Are they worried about liability? Plenty of people under normal parachutes hurt themselves. I recall the rigger rating thing was an issue of the BPA, an organization that is always fun to make fun of for its conservative stupidity, but it sounds like the current problem is more local. I guess I should re-read all 21 pages of this thread before commenting on the problems you face, but anyway. You've had tons of dedication to go through the whole process of designing and building your own canopies. Sorry to hear you aren't that enthused about regular jumping but you've put more time into the sport than some who come and go. There are other parachutes out there that are fun to learn to fly or rig up too, whether getting into swooping or putting vintage gear back in the air, but you've had your own thing going. (For example, I've had fun with weird canopies, whether jumping rounds or Rogallo wings or doing intentional cutaways or using belly mount reserves or modifying a canopy to make a tiny cutaway-only canopy. All these activities are enough to scare some DZ owners too!) By the way, what do you do in 'real life'?

Sorry for the lack of updates in the last year everyone. I finally got my rigger rating in December and made another ZP canopy. Here's the video from earlier this year. https://youtu.be/fpTBNnXoY9U It actually flies alright. Unfortunately, despite spending several years and really big chunks of my own money getting my rating, I've still found it difficult jumping homemades at a few dropzones. That, a long with a few other factors, means I'll probably be winding up my jumping for now. It's been an amazing journey, and I've met some great people ( a lot of them are in this thread). I've made some great experiences and I'm happy to be moving on in a relatively positive way.

A. I completely agree with Yoink that one can agree with some parts of what someone says or stands for, while decrying the rest. Because if you let your disdain for a particular characteristic drive the rest of your opinions, you're letting that opponent drive your opinions. Isn't that one of the things we don't like about Rush -- that whatever a liberal says is bad, no matter how innocuous? With Trump, there are so many reasons for disdain, but it still holds. B. Wolfriverjoe commented on the ease with which Trump re-enabled all the racism and misogyny of the 50's. But, really, he's doing exactly what any populist (or advertiser) does: tell people they deserve x, y, or z, and that he'll give it back to them. White men did used to have the default opinion in the US. In many cases, they still do. Some people find that comforting, because it means that there's an identified "strong" person to take care of them, others because it means they're still in charge. The fact that it was not acceptable for years to say so out loud in public really meant that we were waiting for enough of the people who truly held those views to die, or pass into irrelevancy. Because while anyone who honestly holds those views will bring their children up to hold the same ones, without the public approval, they won't be able to reinforce the weaker white-macho socialization of others, and so it'll be weaker. Currently, my hope is that the impeachment enquiry finds enough strong information to convince a significant number of Republicans that there really is a there there. Or that it finds little enough for the Democrats to say "we can't find enough to impeach." An honest admission on either side would be refreshing. Unlikely, but refreshing. And C: Ron, if Satan is causing the poop-throwing, and Trump is doing it, does that make him God's tool, or Satan's? Wendy P.

And once again you step over the bounds of acceptable discussion to direct insults. Your MO of posting is to make indirect insults like this far beyond what others have been banned for. It's not clever. It's not subtle. In my opinion it's unacceptable on this forum and you should be given a ban for it. Make an argument without being insulting professor, unless that’s beyond your faculties? I can understand how people support Trump. I can even agree with some of his ideas. That doesn't mean I agree with the execution of those ideas or support him when he does abhorrent things. To simply suggest I or any other poster here is 'Ignorant' just because they disagree with your particular view is unbelievably arrogant and unfortunately, is a typical response of yours. This is a discussion board. To engender discussion requires at least an effort to understand a different point of view. You've missed that for a while, IMO. Your premise of 'enabling a racist makes you a racist' is fundamentally flawed. It doesn't. You can support Trump's economic policies while decrying his social ones, for example. Not speaking out against racism doesn't make you a racist - at worst it makes you a coward. Sometimes it just makes you human. Make better arguments that don't devolve into name calling.

If you don’t want to be considered racist, bigoted, etc. then stop enabling a racist bigot who admits to grabbing women by the pussy, who betrays allies for personal advantage, whose business acumen is demonstrated by multiple bankruptcies that left his investors holding the bag, who ran a fraudulent “university” and whose foundation was forcibly shut down for illegal activities. Pretty simple, really.

Hey Folks, The past weekend we had the opportunity to release Flips's ashes- one more skydive for him. Skydive Tecumseh was a wonderful host, the weather cooperated, and we had friends of his from all over the country paying respects. Flip flew well as the crowd of friends and family watched from the ground. His ashes formed a column that morphed into a cloud than he floated across the sky, visible for all to see until the final jumper touched down. Organizing credit goes to Ray Ferrell, and the attached videos were shot by Steve Kenet and Alan Merhar Blue Skies my Friend, Blue Skies Mark Flip's ash dive - Steve's View.mov Flip's_ash_dive_-_Alan's_view_(1).mov

Fools? Marks (victims of a con man)? Blind? Completely, totally & utterly ignorant and insular? I am no longer able to understand the otherwise decent people who actually back that idiot. The evidence of his criminal behavior is overwhelming, yet they continue the "Fake News" garbage. It's absolutely disgusting.

On October 7th, his friend, Brian, posted this on FB: Update on Jimmy T. I visited with him today , Monday , 10/7/2019. He was sitting up in bed and we were able to converse lightly through his device in his neck . It is challenging and frustrating for him. I've seen him happier , but it was good to see him in an improved state. He is pretty angry right now at his predicament , hopefully this will improve with time. As far as visitors are concerned , I quote, " I don't want to see NOBODY ". He is assuredly on the mend and he is ready to go home right now. ( we just need to find a three mile long feeding tube and I think we rig rig something up for him)

Thanks for the update Mark... Thinking of you, Jimmy!

Hi all, Sorry, for the late response, forgot to check back in, must be the Alzheimers kicking in ;) Thanks for the info on Active Skydiving, I'll give them a ring and see what I can fix up abroad, be nice to escape the weather for a week too :)

2 hours ago Wes posted this: He is still in ICU, but sitting up. Still not able to speak (whispering to communicate). Starting physical therapy this week, he's strong, but will stay in the hospital a little longer. I will post more as soon as I get updates from the family. . . They want to thank everyone for all the thoughts & prayers. . . .Let's keep praying. . . Blue skies everyone!!! Thanks for the update Wes. Get better Jimmy, your friends and family love and care about you my friend.

Jimmy was one of my JMs in my student days, back in 1975. He helped me learn about the wonders of freefall. We've been fast friends ever since, give or take a couple decades. I will even put him on our prayer list at (Episcopal) church tomorrow. I know Jimmy will be doing all he can to fight his way back. Much love to all.

Please tell Jimmy that my Dad survived a quadruple bypass a decade ago and we only had to bury him last week. He survived 89.5 years, raised 4 children, competed at two Olympics, etc. Since Jimmy looks younger and healthier than my Dad, we expect him to last even longer.

LOve You JimMy get home soon your grand kids need you and your garden needs weeding

They would fold up on users too low to do anything to save your ass, after a number of people were killed they got banned. I used to know someone who had one and he would land it post ban. Everyone thought he was an idiot for jumping it. Cut away rig would be a good idea if you plan to jump it.

Okay, if you must. Do not attempt to land it.

Hey Folks. If you are interested there is a Celebration of Life Event being help at the Chelsea Rod and Gun Club on Oct 12 2019 @ 5:30 PM. Here is a link to the Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/616515138873753/ If the link doesn't work cut and paste. Please check it out and if you can attend click on "Going" so that Rebecca has a head count. We are also hosting a Boogie in his Honor at Skydive Tecumseh on the Napoleon airport starting @ 9:00 Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There will be a Twin Otter on site to support this and all are welcome to come jump. Here is the FB link for that https://www.facebook.com/events/391083248149531/ Again, If the link doesn't work cut and paste. If you can attend, click on "Going" so the organizers have some idea of head count. Mark PharrSide/FlipSide

Hi. My name is Mandy Baker and I'm Neil Baker's daughter (my mom is Carole). My father recently passed and I'm trying to find old pictures of him. I saw this post and I'm assuming it's the same Neil Baker because its the right area and dates. I don't know how to see the pictures that were posted on here but if anyone has any pictures or even stories about him please share them with me. My email is [email protected]