Luna

Being that the guy knows absolutely nothing about what he's got, my guess is that it has 8 reserve repacks on the card, so he thinks that means 8 jumps. That's just a guess, but where else would he have come up with such a precise (and low) number? I sincerely hope that Jason gets his rig back! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Yeah, don't feel bad about it. My first solo exit was my 2nd Casa exit. I felt confident about it because the first one, with 2 instructors holding me, had gone well. Just backed up to the edge and hopped backwards. This time I de-arched and my hands hit the tailgate as I fell away, and it took a good ten seconds of flailing and flipping around to finally get stable, then I proceeded to spin out of control when I tried a turn. Only tried one because I knew the dive was going to be a do-over anyway and the spin had freaked me out. 2nd try on solo exit went just fine. Don't worry, you'll get it.

Maybe someone else has more info, but all I can say is that I've heard of jumping going on down there before (obviously the Kitty Hawk demo for the 100 years of flight, and I've heard of a few others), but I don't know where. There is no USPA DZ down there, and that's all that I know for sure. Sorry! It would be an awesome place to jump, that's for sure! Have fun! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Closest is going to be Skydive Suffolk in Suffolk, VA at about 2 hours away. Next closest (and I'm biased toward, of course), is Skydive the Point in West Point, VA at around 3 hours. We have one guy who comes up semi-regularly from the Outer Banks. After those, I think the next closest is going to be over 4 hours away. Let me know if you decide to give STP a try!

(From USPA web site) Cani Lands Smallest Parachute (05/12/04) Brazilian jumper Luigi Cani reportedly landed an Icarus VX 39 (square feet) at Perris Valley Skydiving, near Los Angeles, May 12. Several jumpers have landed a VX 46, but Cani and Icarus Canopies believe this is the smallest parachute jumped and landed to date. The smallest known commercially available parachute is the Icarus VX 69. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Yeah, I just noticed one in my VERY small local paper for a local bank. It was one of the old rounds with all the slits cut in it (please forgive my lack of knowledge on this). The ad was for some kind of overdraft protection or something like that. It said something like "You wouldn't jump out of a plane without a parachute, why would you...blah blah blah...it's nice to know it's there if you need it." I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Check out Skydive The Point in West Point, VA. One of the most scenic in Virginia, right near a river, lots of forest, etc. Check around www.skydivewestpoint.com to find some pics. We'd love to see you out!

Yep, from Norfolk, Skydive The Point is around 45 minutes to an hour. Come out, jump with Carol Clay! We are a very laid back club DZ, very friendly. We're jumping a Twin Otter for the summer. We jump weekends, and weather and pilot permitting, we try to fly a C-182 on Friday's starting around noon. PM me and I can give you all the info you need, and answer any questions that you have about the area as well.

No, Life of Pi is by Yann Martel (here). I haven't read it yet, but have heard nothing but raves about it. Recently I also read The DaVinci Code, and have to disagree with Michele on that one. I was totally blown away by the book, so much so that I've since read Angels & Demons, and am currently reading Digital Fortress, also by Dan Brown. If I could just recommend one book though, it would have to be Power Vs. Force, by Dr. David Hawkins (here). I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

So many that have already been mentioned, so I'll mention a few others: Banana Republic (I was raised a Parakeet and often refused to go to sleep until this song played if Dad was playing the Changes in Latitudes album) A1A Bob Robert's Society Band Man, every one of his songs is awesome. I've only seen him in concert about 3 times, though. I feel like such a failure as a Parrothead. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

If you've made it to Skydive Virginia, then Skydive the Point is just a little further. We have many regulars who drive down for the weekend from Northern Virginia, though Baltimore is a little bit farther. Check out www.skydivethepoint.com for more information, and let me know if you are planning to head out. There's plenty of room to spend the night, and we have showers and all. There are a couple of us DZ.commers that jump there. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Wow! You are one lucky guy...but I already knew that. She is one great lady!

See thread here This is very disheartening. Incidentally, my Senator is on the committe in question, and my husband & I both wrote very eloquent (well, at least we used spell-check ) e-mails expressing our interest in the bill. We received back a letter which in part said the following: So, when I heard this news, I fired off an e-mail back at him: Maybe I shouldn't be inflammatory, but frankly it pissed me off. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

They were on the Early Show together this morning, and she said she was not going to sue. She's still bothered by it, but she's moving on. They've talked it out, their perspectives are different (she: He violated me. he: She was taunting me), and he's very sorry that she felt violated the way she did. She said that CBS and Mark Burnett have been really good to her, helping her get over it (I am guessing this maybe means they provided her counseling...?). I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

It's going to be 14 or 15 episodes, so that qualifies as a real series I think. I've heard they are already talking about a second season. SK's accident I think is just a peripheral story, though he is saying what is depicted is very close to what actually happened. The series really is going to focus on the hospital and the things that went on and are going on there I think (not the actual hospital he was treated in...the one in his twisted imagination). They put out a book called The Journals of Eleanor Druse: My Investigation of the Kingdom Hospital Incident that gives much background to the series. It says it was written by Eleanor Druse, a main character in the series, so it's hard to say if SK wrote it or not...he did not write the Limbauer book, so who knows, but it's still a good and quick read with good background information going into the series. There's also a rather interesting web site that ABC put up for the show: www.kingdomhospitalofmaine.com. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

I've BEEN counting down the days, for weeks now! Also for the new DT book, which they moved up to a JUNE release!! YIPPEE! I can't get enough SK! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Actually, it does NOT have commercials, and didn't well before XM. News stations, etc. do, but I think a lot of those are feeds and beyond their control. We picked Sirius because we were more impressed with the channel lineup they had over XM. It's $12.95 a month, but we got the lifetime subscription so it doesn't matter. Absolutely love satellite radio! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

"True Companion" by Mark Cohn. Perfect wedding song! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Reader’s Digest – That’s Outrageous “Blow-hards and Buffoons: Their senseless rantings are poisoning political debate” By Michael Crowley Thomas Jefferson must be apoplectic in the Great Beyond. He warned that only people who are “well-informed can be trusted with their own government.” Well, look what’s become of us. I met up recently with two old friends in California, Jeff and Mary, who told me they are worried about terrorism. But it’s not Osama bin Laden they fear – it’s George W. Bush. These are otherwise sensible people: He’s a doctor; she owns an antiques store. Which is why I was stunned to hear them predict that Bush will stage a terrorist attack this fall to ensure his reelection. “Seriously?” I asked. Seriously, they said. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, not after seeing an “ad” on the web-site of the liberal advocacy group Moveon.org, that compared Bush to Adolf Hitler. That’s the sort of vitriol that’s “informing” the public today. And it’s hardly confined to the Left. During the Iraq war last spring, some conservatives said that liberals were secretly hoping Saddam Hussein would teach President Bush a lesson in humility. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly growled that “some Americans were rooting against their own country – that their ideology was so ingrained it was better for them if things went badly in Iraq, even though that would have caused more American casualties. Welcome to the politics of America, 2004. Thoughtful debate has given way to angry, polarized arguments in which there is no compromise and no middle ground. Shades of gray, you ask? Stop being so wishy-washy! When it comes to abortion, you’re either a baby-killer or a religious nut. Try to explain that women should have some abortion rights, but that a fetus is also more than just body tissue, and you’re likely to get shouted down in midsentence. And good luck talking about affirmative action – whether you’re pro or con – without being called a racist. Politics have become a year-round blood sport – both for the partisan gladiators and for the media that cheers them on. For evidence, just scan the bestseller lists. There you’ll find liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, whose book Dude, Where’s My Country? hit No. 1 by taking aim at “screaming, foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers.” Moore also calls George Bush “an appointed President [who] uses the dead of 9/11 as a convenient cover, a justification for permanently altering our American way of life.” From the other side comes conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who sold a half-million copies of her book Treason, arguing that liberals are “either traitors or idiots” who routinely “side with the enemy” and “aim to destroy America … with their relentless attacks on morality and the truth.” Flip on the TV or radio and you’ll find dozens of partisan talking heads in a nonstop shouting match of escalating nastiness. “The only thing that sells is the screamers,” laments Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Twenty years ago, there were a lot more shows with reasonable discussions. Today people just yell sound bites at one another. And if you don’t, you’re not used again.” Communication might be easier if people at least believed one another. But in today’s debate, everyone assumes their enemy fights with weapons of mass deception. Comedian Al Franken’s hit book purports to chronicle the Right’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, while another recent book explains The Lies of George W. Bush. Conservatives, meanwhile, are convinced that a left-leaning media establishment deliberately mis-informs the public. Former CBS News producer Bernard Goldberg topped the bestseller list last year with Bias, a book that charges liberal journalists with distorting the news. Ann Coulter was in the thick of the fight again with her book bluntly titled Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. It’s awfully hard to have a constructive debate when everyone thinks they have a monopoly on the truth. And it’s not just journalists and pundits who are stoking all this rage. It’s the politicians themselves. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has flatly declared the case for war against Iraq “a fraud,” while a fellow Democrat, Rep. Jim McDermott, suggested that the capture of Saddam Hussein was timed for maximum political benefit. In response, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, called these remarks “moronic” and said that Democrats have “nothing to offer the public debate but rage, resentment and quackery.” Even the business of government is being paralyzed. One Congressional committee meeting broke up last summer when an angry Democrat called a Republican “a little fruitcake” and challenged him to a fight; the committee chairman eventually summoned the Capitol Police. Expect things to only get worse as election day approaches. After all, the media and politicians know that people love to watch a good tussle. But all this debate, with so little intelligence, comes at a very steep price. Consider this: Some experts are expecting a big surge in new, young voters that could account for 10 percent of the electorate – and perhaps decide the Presidential contest. Hardcore liberal and conservative groups are spending big money to help bring out the youth vote. But if young Americans do unplug their iPods and tune into politics, what will they make of a poisonous discourse that insults more than it informs? Some may just pop their headphones back on in disgust. The rest will go to the polls on election day, where they’ll join the long lines of uninformed citizens.

He's jumping at Skydive The Point, and Jim Crouch definitely follows the ISP! According to that, D1 is an optional no-grip exit, and D2 is a solo exit requirement. My first solo exit was on D2, which I think is the standard that he uses. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

I wish they had shown the whole jump, because they had closed the roof, so that had to be BASE jumps from within the stadium. Damn, why didn't they show the whole jump? That fuckin' ROCKS! I'd love to know who did it too! I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

we welcome you too, after all the policies of GWB could hardly be called libertarian I thought this was a Liberals Unite thread not a Bush Basher's Rally? Oh wait it must be the same thing. Uh thanks but no thanks. I was just trying to be inclusive.... No, Benny, if you were trying to be inclusive, you would not have started a thread like this. The last thing that you are being is inclusive. Don't delude yourself. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!

Hey Tom! It's already been said. Your JM will be on your right side, and you will be "front float" on the outside of the airplane, if you get the King Air. If you get the Cessna, I'm not sure how it will go. I hope you get good weather for this weekend! You'll do great, don't worry!

Hey, how do they know that we aren't all just the same person using different logon's? Sure, we've met each other, but how do they know that? Oh, wait, Skymama has met me. Damn, vouched for by a greenie, I guess I'm real. I'm walking a marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Click Here for more information!