Merrick

ROCK ON Brudda!!! Glad you had a good time Kris, sure wish we coulda been there to... woulda been nice to jump with the "Grand Master D" again. We sure miss you guys down in OK, hopefully we'll be able to make it back down there one of these days. Blues! Merrick

Ya know, if you're just dying to spend money, I know something you could spend it on ......jump man! Blues!

Finally!!! Somebody else that "gets it!" Thank you O-Wise-One. Blues! Merrick

I'd definately say yes... depending on the rigger. My wife has a Mirage made for a pd126r... when we bought the rig it had a Raven Dash-M 109 in it that fit very snugly. After jumping that for a while and deciding it was way to small for comfort, I ordered her a brand new tempo 150 (one of the new ones w/the spanwise reinforcement). Some riggers took one look at it, said it wouldn't fit and wouldn't even try... Finally I took it to the Augger Inn Rigging loft at Raeford and they got it in there no problem. It's hard as a rock and REALLY wants to come out, but it looks neat and she says it feels fine. Hope this helps! Blues! Merrick

Ummm... settled or not, that didn't sound like a personal attack to me... now if he'd said something like, "you were'nt there so you have no room to critize anything you fucking knob!" Now that's an attack! lol j/k man! Blues! Merrick

Dude, what's wrong with your ride that the left brake keeps coming unstowed? Not implying anything, just curious if it's something that needs checked into or what. However, I can't think of anything off the top of my head myself that would make that happen often. Blues! Merrick

This movie rocked! Yes, the dialogue/acting had a bit to be desired, but like Quade said, what action adventure movie doesn't?! Also, in an action movie the stunts are supposed to be grossly eggagerated (like jumping his bike 50ft in the air without any sort of ramp). As for the skysurfing scene, I figured the same as a few others have already said, it was made to look that way. he needed a board for the snowboarding, and he needed to get down to the mountain... parachute + snowboard = crappy skysurfing by a first timer. I don't think it had anything to do with the winds/turbulence or inexperience on the stuntman, if you'll notice at pull time the guy flipped and was rock solid for the pull..... it was meant to be that way! The stunts were right on, and my 2nd favorite line of the movie (the first already having been mentioned) "I wish I had a video camera... cuz this is gonna be one hell of a TRICK!" LOL Blues! Merrick

RWS just released (2002) the next generation of micron, which is basically that you can get it for any size canopies you need. I think the biggest they used to allow was 150sqft. Blues! Merrick

OK, had a chance to pack up the rigs this afternoon & take a few pictures.... The pictures aren't that great because they're just frame grabs from my PC9, and they never really turn out that well. Anyway, I hope you can get the right idea from these pics. Blues! Merrick

They ROCK!!! My last rig simply had velcro to secure the toggles... the Trulok are less of a hassle than even those. The velcro would fray & chew at the excess brake line you had to stow, but the trulok keeps everything out of the way nice, and there's not additional wear & tear. They're easy to stow, and I've never had any problems unstowing them, plus they seem way more secure.... I love em. Blues! Merrick

I'll pack mine up, take a few pics, and post them a little later for you. Blues!

ROFL - "Who's da monkey???"

I just ordered a custom Micron in February... I couldn't find my invoice on it, but I want to say it took just under 3 months. Although it felt like a LOT longer! lol I was beginning to get very impatient toward the end, but to be honest, the wait was well worth it. The rig Looks, functions, and feels awesome!!! Thanks RWS. Blues! Merrick

Damn, YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL!!! lol Seriously, Congrats.... if he's not a jumper, hopefully you can convert him, there's nothing like experiencing the greatest thing on earth with that perfect person! Blues!

Well, don't know about the cops.... but the EMTs were real nice, as well as the hospital, nurses, and the Orthopedic surgeon! As for being bummed about it being moved to Rantoul, that's pretty moote this year since we can't make it. However, I did notice that by the end of the last week last year there were a LOT of people cutting out early... I heard a lot of "this sucks" and "I'm going to Chicago next year!" I think the move will be a good one, just can't wait to see if for myself. Blues! Merrick

Ahhhh... That's Awesome. I've been looking for something new (skydiving related).... don't worry tho, I won't steal yours! Blues! Merrick

Hmmm.... I've been into all kinds of "X-treme" sports (if you can really call them that). I raced BMX when I was younger, that led to flat-land freestyle and vert competitions when I got a little older, I was actually ranked pretty high in our area on flat-land, and my claim to fame is that I was invited & went to Matt Hoffman's house to ride for a Saturday when I was 15. LOL Next was skateboarding (vert & street), a buddy of mine started doing that instead of riding, so I tried it out too. Then in college all my friends would drive to the city and tear it up on their roller-blades, so I started doing that too, grinding rails is a little harder than it looked! Only did that for about 2 years, then I started riding motorcross. I loved the speed and the air... so naturally, skydiving was next (I think I may have topped out ). It seems I always trade some sport in for another. I traded BMX for freestyle, freestyle for skateboarding, skateboarding for rollerblading, Rollerblading for Motorcross, and finally motorcross for skydiving (yes, I sold my bike to buy my first rig). Skydiving is the first thing that I haven't gotten bored with fairly quickly... and I picture myself doing it until I can't anymore. Yes actually, and I clear it by 10 feet! Nice hypothesis but I disagree... to 'toot my own horn for a second,' I got pretty damn good on vert ramps on my bike, did that mean that I never mis- judged or mis-timed some trick or simple landing, hell no. No matter how good people get at something, they are always going to make mistakes.... Period. There's just not as much room for error in this sport, that's all. I've seen guys with thousands of jumps biff in on a normal landing approach, the planet doesn't give a shit how many jumps you have. Blues! Merrick

ROFL - By then??? Whaddya mean, you're not coming back to the states NOW? DAMN... can't I get a moments peace!

ROFL - that's the funniest damn thing I've read in a long time.... at your expense Bill, appreciate it! Blues! Merrick

I realize it's a new canopy, but fyi.... if it were mine and the slider seemed to be hanging up fairly consistently I'd check the grommets on the slider for snags and have a rigger inspec it and the lines as well. It's probably nothing, but you can never be too safe. Blues! Merrick

that may have been a shot in the dark, but logically you may not be far off. If your bridle fits tightly under your closing flap, or you stuff it up in there REAL good, and then you barely pulled your PC out because of the hard pull, it could have taken a minute to get everything out above you. Hell, you may not even have gotten the PC all the way out... just enough mesh out to catch a little air and it took a minute to pull it the rest of the way out..... *shrug* Blues! Merrick

Hmmm.... I jump a Hornet 170 (loaded 1.33:1) with a 24" ZP pilot-chute... haven't had anything but wonderfully on heading openings. I don't think that's the problem, I'm gonna go with the flock here and say that packing or poor body position was probably the culprit.

Exactly what Kris and Indyz has said, but I'm just going to add a few things.... my wife had a problem with this (among other things, huh Kris) on her student jumps, after looking at one particular video of her when she dove out and brought her legs up to her but she also brought her knees toward her chest (think fetal)... don't do that you'll flip-n-flail, try to maintain a good arch with your feet on your butt and your arms straight out. The other thing is I was told not to jump toward the tail of the airplane, jump kind of diagonal out the door (toward the rear, but out some). I'm not sure if that'll make any difference, but that's what I was told... hope this helps. Blues! Merrick

Yeah, I know how to set all that crap up, but that's what I was trying to avoid, it literally takes about 10 minutes for this damn thing to connect to the ISP 75% of the time. And, other than this problem, we really don't need to set up separate users. I've tried that too, and while leaving the connection up it doesn't work.... if I do that, log the connection back off, then back on it will work... but notice the aforementioned "pain in the ass!" LOL Blues! Merrick