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i try to remind folks that it was the liberals who are the reason we have a country, as the conservatives were loyalists. that really pisses them off and puts things into perspective.

I can fill in a little more of the history. Skydive Arizona moved from Coolidge to Eloy in April of 1991, and that's when I became increasingly involved in management and Safety and Training. There had already been some experiments with skysurfing, and I put together the 1993 meet because I realized there were enough skysurfers out there, and why not do it? We were trying to raise our profile; 1993 was when we hosted our first World Championships in FS, too. I had already met Pete McKeeman, who had started the World Freestyle Federation. His main goal was to get skydiving on TV and he succeeded to some extent with the WFF. He had word that ESPN was looking for sports to put into a new extreme sports show and was trying to sell them on Freestyle. At the '92 WFF meet in Eloy, Bob Hallet put on a display of skysurfing. The ESPN guys were kind of funny, they looked like college football coaches and knew NOTHING about skydiving. But they liked the look of skysurfing! Pete took me on as safety/loadmaster/cat herder for the X-Games, and I worked five out of six of them. (The first one, over the spectacular setting of Newport, RI is one of the best skydiving memories I have, and I've got a lot!) Don't forget that the X-Games Skysurf team was awarded an Emmy for the aerial photography one year. Besides the team camera flyers, a lot of the jumps had outside freefall camera, and the Eagle Cam chase helicopter delivered more spectacular footage. When skysurfing was cancelled, Pete gave us the word like this: "The executives say we're the best team they have worked with, but we just don't sell Slim Jims and Mountain Dew." Skysurfing was driven almost entirely by television. The famous Pepsi Goose commercial, shot over SDAZ with Troy Hartman, made it all the way to the Super Bowl. Almost everyone taking it up hoped to score on TV. But it never became popular with skydivers in general. I once took a phone call from a journalist looking for a story on skysurfing and she asked me how many people did it. "Oh, worldwide, maybe thirty." "What, I thought it was really popular! Is the small number because it's really hard, or really dangerous?" "No. Most skydivers see no reason whatsoever to tie their feet together with a stick. That really interferes with what you can do." I'll end with some safety comments. In all the jumps I was present for, the only serious injury was when Patrick de Guayardon and Eric Fradet did a tandem board jump. It got a little sketchy, so they decided to cut away. One system released slightly before the other, then the second system only released one binding, which pretty much tore up the knee of the victim. But he eventually got away clean. The biggest concern was boards falling on something - farmers, airplanes on the ground, cars, whatever. Not as bad as a skyball, but they would definitely do damage, even with a pilot chute to slow them down. But the perception was interesting. At the X-games immediately after that year three competitors died in non-Skysurf accidents, the whole crew was taken into a meeting by Pete, saying we would be asked about it. He made it clear that he couldn't tell us what to say, but he asked that we try to explain the circumstances did not involve skysurfing. But it was kind of weird. When we mingled with people from other events and they found out we were from the Skysurf unit, they were like "Wow, these guys are REALLY extreme. I only broke my arm in the half pipe." When the X-Games dropped Skysurfing, recruitment largely stopped. The media moved on to other fads for commercials. You can't run a Nationals or World Meet without at least 30 plus competitors in an event without losing a lot of money, so I was one of the voices begging USPA and the IPC to drop it. They did, and that pretty much killed Skysurfing. By the way, at the World Championships in Eloy where Eric Fradet won gold (after being second so many times in so many meets) I checked with the French Head of Delegation about something I suspected should be brought to the attention of the crowd at the awards ceremony. He was then, and still is as far as I know, the only person to ever win gold at the World Championships in two totally different events: 4-way Open and Skysurf. Bryan Burke, now retired from SDAZ

The US has been particularly good at marketing itself and presenting a beautiful, idealised (and also fake) image of itself to the world... It has done so through things like film and celebrity culture, and by selling this notion of the American Dream... It has promised success and possibility to *anyone* who is creative and/or hard-working... But underneath this facade lies an underbelly of race, gender, social inequality/discrimination... The Trump regime has in many ways held a mirror to American society and served to show the world a more realistic picture of America, warts and all... But make no mistake... Just because people didn't "see" it, doesn't mean these problems are new. In fact, the problems have been festering and worstening for a very long time. I remember very well when people were talking about the fall of the American Empire during the Bush (Jr) administration (and probably before as well). There is talk of this again, but just as no one is immune to a fall from grace, so could the US pick themselves up and rise up from the rubble... It's anyone's guess. We are all watching in a mixture of awe and horror.

Generally a circus has clowns. Maybe no circus cause the circus is following the clown around?

Actually, the media is treating him very gently, given the rampant stupidity he's been displaying and the blatant lies he's been spouting. There has been some significant criticism of this. Some news outlets stopped running his 'briefings' live because there were so many lies in them. It was bouncing around FB right after the 'inject disinfectants' crap: 'There should be an automatic Pulitzer Prize given to the first journalist who shouts out "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?!?!" the next time Trump says something that stupid.'

KInda funny how the accusations against Kavanaugh & Trump were ignored by the right. How the accusers were threatened, ridiculed and attacked. And how the right basically ended up saying "it's not that we don't believe you, it's that we don't care". And NOW those same people wonder why Biden isn't being roasted over this.

Everything else is for sale in government, why not equal access to the law? Yeah, I'm in a bad mood this morning. Wendy P.

Well, that's what's up for debate. It can be for governing organizations to agree on. If there are new rules, technically none are being bent. :-) I wasn't implying that. Fair enough, I wrote something about "the whole industry" for convenience, when it really is a 'significant part of the industry, that can only be solved on an industry-wide level'. Unless affected DZO's just ignore USPA rules. It doesn't help some small northern DZ if a bunch of people at some big southern DZ were still jumping regularly in early March, unless all of their instructors vacationed at the southern DZ too. In some places, most might not have jumped since October. Although I have jumped a bunch in snow in winter, it isn't uncommon for some northern DZ's (eg, in Canada) to be closed end of October until some time in April. Not having jumped for 150+ days, in a regular non-pandemic season, is not seen as a big deal here in Canada. (Although some refresher jumps might be done, tandem recurrency jumps, Safety Day, that type of stuff.)

What are you guys going to do for another 4 1/2 years? They'll have to open up another forum.

Just outstanding. Thank you John.

Best reply lol

At the very least pullet surprise

Well that's going to be well into 2021 just FYI. I am pretty sure the CDC's recommendations for social distancing are now a semi-permanent thing. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t believe the virus is real, but there are many people who feel the risk is not high to them, they don’t care, or they are otherwise more motivated by external factors (e.g. making money). Usually the phrase is something to the extent of ‘well just how long are we supposed to stay home?” That is a valid question, but also we’re not even really that far into this thing. Stay at home orders have only been in effect for around five weeks in most areas so it hasn’t even really been that long yet. The only thing that is clear is the USA is on track to become the most infected, most hit, most poorly performing country in the world with Covid. We already lead the world in infected cases and deaths by a far margin and by the end of next month we may have the highest rate per capata of infected people. No matter how you look at it, the United States is getting completely handed. We are in dead last place in this race. I think what we saw early on was people saying, ok the risk is real so we can deal with staying at home for a bit. But now after a bit people (largely small businesses) are getting strapped for cash , they are bored sitting at home and so now we have a situation where making money is more important than saving lives. So it went from 'lets all stay at home for safety' to 'ah, it's not actually that bad we need to get businesses back open'. Even though when you look at the numbers, the hard data clearly shows there are hundreds of times more infected roaming around right now than there was when we first closed down. There are also many, many people who straight-up minimize the risk. They just genuinely believe the risk is marginal and it's not something to be concerned with. That's quite common.

Why does anyone do something dangerous? It could be riding motorcycles (street or track), fast cars, scuba diving (caves & shipwrecks especially), hunting dangerous game, climbing (rock or mountain), and on and on. The answers are as varied and wide ranging as the people doing it. The rush, the challenge, the satisfaction of doing something most others wouldn't, the cameraderie of being around like-minded people, and many other reasons. Dan BC had a quote that bounced around FB a couple years ago. Something to the effect of: What we do is really, really stupid. Intentionally throwing one's self out of a plane for fun would be the dumbest thing in the world, except for the fact that flying through the air, with no support at all, just you and the sky, is the most amazing thing in the world. My reasons and responses to the wuffo question of 'why do you do it' has evolved over the years. Currently, I will answer 'Because it's the most amazing and incredible thing I've ever done, and my life would be dull boring and grey without it.'. That doesn't discount the risk. I've been around long enough, seen enough and lost enough friends that I understand that any time I go out the door, it might be the last thing I do on this earth. I have asked myself more than once: "Is it worth it?" The answer someday will be 'No, it's not'. That will be the day I hang it up. But not today (well, whenever stuff opens up and I can go up again anyway).

this is where you are wrong. there should be no exceptions to the currency issue. the number of days may be arbitrary, but they are very real. it may not mean that exactly at 61 days you are unsafe, but since there is no possible way to tell for each individual, this is the way we calculate. it is a very real hazard going out of currency and it would be stupid to invite the government in to mandate rules because we couldn't keep the ones we make ourselves. it would also be stupid to risk death of even one person because of a little inconvenience. i could give a rat's ass what you do with your life, but i damned well care what you do with another's. it has to do with time, not the cause such as your drunk driver's analogy, as all of these skills are perishable. since we cannot determine to the day which ones go, we draw a limit based on acceptable safety margins. we do not adjust those margins when they are inconvenient, otherwise why have them at all?

I have resigned myself to the fact that I may not be jumping anymore this year. Even if/when anti-C19 measures are relaxed at the appropriate time it may be not such a good idea to immediately cram yourself into an airplane with 18 others. Especially with people willing to travel from all over the area. Are you certain you or one of the others on that load are not infected?

just burn your rig. that should kill the virus nicely.

Mental health is a medical issue.