FlyingRhenquest

"Well, yeah, you can do that, but you'll need a live goat, a kiddie pool full of KY Jelly and a parachute." I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

A local pizza place is right next door to a local sushi place. I'm trying to convince them to do a sushi pizza! They could cook the crust, then take it out and add a layer of that tuna sauce I was talking about earlier and some bits of raw tuna, salmon and yellowtail. I bet it'd be good! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I think it's more that I just wasn't familiar with it. It had a kind of funky taste that reminded me somewhat of durian. Like any other number of pungent foods, I'm guessing it's an acquired taste. I'm generally willing to keep an open mind about such things, but that one was too salty for me to eat regularly. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

They're too salty, and pizza is already pretty salty. I do like 'em on a salad though. Also in tuna sauce, which is basically just tuna mayonnaise flavored with anchovy and capers. I could see that being good on a pizza, if you could figure out how to cook it without the sauce breaking (Or put it on afterwards...) A local Asian restaurant sells something called "Nasi Lemak", which I think is Korean for "Lets' see what we can get the white guy to eat." It appears to be fried dried anchovies with a soft-center fried egg on top. VERY funky, and so salty I could feel my blood pressure going up while I ate it. I did eat it though! Might even do it again if I'm in a particularly weird mood... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I never had one in AFF. I've had a couple since then, neither one very bad. They're easy to deal with, and not really a big deal at all. One of our AFFs today had a line-over and had to cut away on his checkout jump. Now that'll get the ol' heart pumpin'! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Maybe they found the funk. Strangely appropriate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vziriyVgk24 I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Meh, it was supposed to be nicer than it actually was. It was supposed to get up to around 60 today but it stayed cloudy all day and never made it over 40. I got a couple of jumps in yesterday and if it's nice I'll do two or three more tomorrow. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah, the various spring grip strength exercisers are pretty nice. I like the gyroscopic balls you can get too. I met a katana instructor once, and when I shook his hand it felt like it was made out of steel cable. At that point I don't think you even need the katana anymore. If you're attacked by ninja warriors or something, you could just crush their skulls with your bare hands! That's a grip! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Got a new electric razor and was reading through the warnings. Yadda yadda yadda don't charge near a sink blah blah blah... 5. Do not drop or insert any object into any orifice. Wait... What?! OK, I'd like to see the lawsuit that drove that warning's inclusion on the list of warnings. Now that I think about it, I might include it on my short list of "Life's Lessons" when anyone ever asks me what I've learned over the course of my life. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Gnu C++, Make and Emacs on Linux. Mostly because I'm comfortable on Linux. With the C standard library, you have full control over the OS, and the tools to support development on Linux are extremely robust. Among must-haves I always install are Cscope, the GNU debugger, the electric fence library and cppunit. I'm very much a fan of writing unit tests as I go. I'm not yet as gung-ho about it as some of the test first guys, but I think unit tests are essential to good software development. I find C++ to be underrated as a language. With good practices, you can write code to be pretty much bulletproof. You have to let its type safety work for you, though. Most programmers don't do that. Actually most programmers don't use C++. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah, with all the meningitis in the news lately I'd be off like a shot to be tested for that. I tend not to like doctors in general. They're always going on about their "real medical degree." They get all pissed off when you point out you arrived at the same conclusion they did with just a couple minutes of Googling and looking up the symptoms on WebMD. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Wait, what? Have you ever had King's Island "Roaring 40s" blue cheese? If not, I am going to task you with a cheese quest! Go forth and seek cheese! A co-worker gave me some Wisconsin smoked cheddar the other day that was as good as anything I'd ever had at an importer. We have a lot of small dairies around here that make some respectably good cheese. Maytag blue is supposed to be pretty good too, but I've avoided it for fears of seeming cliche. Maybe it's time to rectify that situation. Sure we're not FRANCE, but we still do some respectable cheese. You just need to avoid the stuff from the bug food corps that's a couple molecules away from plastic... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Oh, I actually read that SIM. I just don't recall it off the top of my head. I didn't pay the currency requirements much mind, it was some amount of time which I couldn't imagine spending without having to do kind of a lot of skydives. If I tried to spend however long that was not skydiving, I'd probably end up gnawing my own arm off. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Stop giving lousy advice! That MAY work out OK if a person is using a canopy that is really big and can't be stalled, but it is terrible advice if not. You mean like a student canopy? The kind a student might be flying? Even if you know someone is a student using a student canopy, you don't know whether they can stall it. The "punch it" part is also wrong. Yeah yeah, I also seem to remember a disclaimer about taking landing advice from people on the internet but I find that the student and rental canopies I'm on, you pretty much have to do that. I need to wrap the steering lines around my hands 4 times to even come close to stalling them, or get on the rear risers. I've had to be quite forceful to get a decent flare out of those canopies. I also have to lean forward -- I've put the toggles where they told me to in ground school and been told by people on the ground that I didn't flare at all. Once I get my own rig and canopy I'm going to have to do a high pull jump and lots of practice flares and canopy stalls, to work my way out of that habit. I also plan to take another canopy course at that point. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Is this the new jumper depression I hear so much about? After you get off coaching you're left to your own devices in a big new world. It's a different experience than you had previously. I find it helps to have some clear short and medium term goals. You can pick the thing you're least comfortable with (exit, freefall or canopy) and work on that. Or you can find someone to coach you in something you haven't done before. It's just a matter of you setting the priorities now that you've acquired the skills to keep you alive. I was a bit overwhelmed for my first couple of solo jumps after I got off coaching, but I have a medium-term goal I've got my sights set on, and will take any group invite I get, if I feel I can jump with that number of people safely. I'm not going to be going after any world record formation attempts anytime soon, but ended up in an 8 way speedstar on Friday that was a blast! I'd gone in there intending to work on my exit, which I'm really starting to like at this point. Second jump someone wanted to jump with me, and we ended up in a 4 way that I screwed the exit up on. We decided to do it again and by that point here were 4 more people. One of the guys took video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwAdtM5Za0 I'm the guy in black in the formation. We didn't get the formation built up past the three who went out the door first, but it was still a lot of fun. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Stop giving lousy advice! That MAY work out OK if a person is using a canopy that is really big and can't be stalled, but it is terrible advice if not. You mean like a student canopy? The kind a student might be flying? I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Next couple are REALLY fun! By now it sounds like you're relaxing a bit and learning to control your body in the air. Barrel rolls and flips are fun and you'll be ready to do them when you hit those levels. On my 7 jump the instructor had me fling myself out the door of the plane (more or less literally,) grab my ankles behind my back and flip for 5 seconds. That's still one of my favorite exits! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I had some vacation time that I had nothing to do with, and couldn't stand the idea of sitting around in my underwear like a slob playing video games all day. So I decided to learn how to skydive. First one was terrifying. I didn't feel so frightened, but I got a look at the instructor's video a week or so later and look way more scared than I remember feeling. I really don't know that anything can really prepare you for what you are about to experience. Just relax and go with the flow as much as you can and remember this isn't a competition. Don't be ashamed to admit you're afraid there either. It would actually be weird if you weren't, looking out the door of an airplane. I probably could have saved myself a couple of AFF do-overs if I'd know about the "indoor skydiving" wind tunnel ahead of time, and put in 15-30 minutes there prior to going. But the couple of jumps I probably could have saved myself cost about the same as that much time, so in the end it's kind of a wash. A couple of them were unavoidable in retrospect. I did learn not to try to get a big AFF student in the door and two AFF instructors out of a king air. This particular exit is extremely awkward. Once I was to the point where I could actually climb out, I could jump out of the king air. While they had me kneeling in the door, not so much. At some point around jump 4 or 5 I realized that what I was afraid of was losing my grip before I was ready to go, and falling early. And I realized that I had a parachute and was planning on doing that anyway. I think that was right after the point that I was completely convinced that this whole parachute thing would actually work and save my life. Once I realized that, I got a lot more comfortable in the plane and was actually able to relax a bit. They'll tell you to relax each time, of course, but this seemed like an unreasonable request during AFF level 1. Don't freak out of you have to redo some levels. Each jump teaches you something, whether you're ready for the next level yet or not. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I don't recall if you'd need to do the ground school again, but you'd probably have to repeat the jumps. Every DZ seems to handle that a little differently, so show 'em your log book and talk to them about it. More importantly, do you think you could jump safely if you didn't repeat the ground school? It's been a couple of years, do you think you remember enough about it? Even if you have to repeat the levels, you still have that experience from last time. It's not like you're starting from nothing. A couple of jumps to get back into the groove isn't that bad. The important thing is to pursue the sport safely. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I haven't found warm gloves I really like. I'm a fan of neoprene, but none of the sporting good stores around here carry any. Or really any good gloves at all, really. I think this is why the Internet is killing retail. I usually use a pair of bionic weight lifting gloves. They're not particularly warm, but they don't get in the way of my skydive either. I also got some a grip master and powerball hand exerciser when I started the sport. I figured it might be a good idea to have a solid death grip in skydiving! It helps when I'm climbing around on the outside of the king air like a spider monkey. Plus, if you meet one of those people who thinks handshakes are a competition, you can crush their bones. Bonus! As for your landing, it's hard to say without looking at it. I'm sure it's a great idea to take landing advice from random people on the internet, too. With that in mind, it's usually either that you flared too high or didn't flare hard enough. I assume they don't talk you down on the radio, or you could just ask them what you did wrong. Did you have a good idea of wind direction when you came down? Maybe you could get a friend or another skydiver to video a landing? You can get away with a good bit if you have a decent PLF. If you're not comfortable with it, find some place open and padded and practice it. Maybe even intentionally PLF your next couple of landings so you can do it like it's second nature when you need to. Eventually you'll know within a split second of flaring if you need to or not. A few generic pointers I've picked up on landing: - Arms all the way up on approach. You want to save your power for your flare, and braking will only mess that up. - Always be ready to PLF. - Take a canopy course ASAP after you get out of training. If they'll let you do it during your coaching jumps prior to your A license, do it. Good canopy skills could save your life one day. Dangerous advice removed I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I drove by one of their plants on the way down to the wind tunnel yesterday. The feeling I had was that once upon a time, someone at the top was very proud of the place. Somewhere along the way, it feels like the corporate executives stopped being so proud of their products and started caring only about two numbers; their salary and growth figures for the shareholders. I don't know if it's possible to make great things if you don't take pride in your work and the things that you built. But enough social commentary and nostalgia. You know, conceptually, Twinkies are not difficult. Oh, it might be tricky to replicate the bland spongy texture of the cake (or Wonder bread,) or the sickly sweet filling, but I bet just about anyone with any baking experience could do a bite-sized sponge or pound cake, fill it with real whipped cream (And no product that has a 'K' anywhere in its name) and produce a damn fine snack. They probably couldn't do it as cheaply as Hostess did, since a few cents of space-age polymers will always cost less than real ingredients. Get the sense I'm a bit lukewarm on Twinkies? I can't rightly say when the last one I ever ate was, but it wasn't recently. Though I will say that I ran across a recipe for battered, deep fried Twinkies that sounded somewhat interesting... Keep in mind that there were thousands of people involved in their production. I wouldn't be surprised to see the more popular products pop up soon. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if Kraft or General Mills purchased the brand at the liquidation sale. I wonder who will sponsor the various Peanuts holiday specials now. I also can't recall the last time I sat down for one of those. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I stumbled across this bit on Youtube. It's quite well reported. It's almost amusing how dispassionate the report is, in this era of sensationalized news broadcasting. So not only is it nifty for touching on a lot of the science of the sport, it's also a good example of what journalism is supposed to be; reporting the facts without introducing any of your own bias into the report. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5S-SGxHjqw I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

That's a good point. I see a lot of people freak out because they had to redo a level. My instructors seemed worried that it might discourage me, despite me telling them that often times I learned more from this "failure" than I would have if the jump had gone smoothly. Everyone learns at a different rate and in different ways, but after a couple thousand jumps the ones who stuck around all look about the same. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Congratulations! Just stay on that altimeter! You'll have your A license in no time! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Congratulations! Did you bring beer? I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?