FlyingRhenquest

Hmm. I don't think MY catapult would SET YOU ON FIRE! Other than that. Yeah, kinda like that! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Hmm. Do not like. Maybe if we had some sort of... CATAPULT! Then the ride up would be as much fun as the ride down! [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67fFDiPRsrk[/URL] Yeah! Kind of like THAT! Only bigger! MUCH bigger! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I see your Fleetwood Mac version of Tusk and raise you the Camper Van Beethoven cover! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rY6JWRDn1Q I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I know I'm not "normal." I wear black and martial arts tabi boots in my "professional" day job. They put up with me because I'm also pretty freakin' good at what I do. A lot of them seem to think I'm cool. And I AM pretty cool! And modest too! Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never worked somewhere where being different has been a problem. I wandered in to the IBM call center I was working at in the early 90's one day in blue jeans that I had sliced vertically up the legs to make a bunch of holes in, soft leather boots, a tie-die and a denim jacket with a red fox airbrushed onto the back. Someone looked at me as I was coming off the elevator and said "You must be a manager, because no call center employee would think he could get away with that at IBM." Except I did. So don't be afraid to be who you are! People seem to be willing to accept a lot! Maybe you'll even learn something about your co-workers that you didn't know before! Get 'em all around in the conference room and show them the video for your last jump! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

To Venice? Shit, I'd do that! Bah! Which one has a better dropzone? I seem to enjoy mucking around in Eastern Europe. Romania was a blast last time I was there, and the wine's good! I liked Austria, too, though I was so jet lagged while I was there I didn't get to explore much. That was well before I started skydiving though, so I couldn't tell you much about the dropzones. Just that the food and beer were fantastic! I think it actually works better if you can't communicate. Since damn near everyone speaks at least some English, I'd suggest pretending that Klingon is your native tongue. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Nope, usually they're more afraid of other things and aren't thinking that far ahead. I went through the program in July and was quite nervous on the ground, in the plane, and at the door. About the only place I wasn't that nervous was outside the plane after we jumped! Somewhere around Jump 4 or 5, I stopped being so nervous around the door, but my instructor showed me one of my jumps before that time and I look terrified going to the door! I actually look more afraid than I remember feeling at the time. The program is there to teach you all those things. They won't let you past a level until you can be stable and hold a heading. For the first few jumps you can be pretty unstable -- I know I was. But you have 2 instructors holding on to you (Or at least that's how AFF worked where I went.) It's surprising how quickly arching becomes an instinct, and just arching will resolve most of the unstable situations you're likely to find yourself in. Find yourself flipping? Arch! On your back? Arch! Funnily I've tried to get on my back on a couple of jumps since I got out of AFF, and always end up instinctively arching as soon as I get over, which flips me right back onto my belly. If you're still unstable... arch more! It's a scary thing to be doing, jumping out of an airplane. Especially when you're not familiar with your equipment, the planes, the process they use to get you in the air, or any of that stuff. I think it's a mistake to just deny that fear -- it's normal to worry about things. You need to recognize your fear, acknowledge that it's there, face it head on and don't let it stop you. You can tell yourself "I know I'm afraid and this is normal, but if I can just control that for like ONE MINUTE, this experience is going to be awesome!" One other thing, though, I am three times your age. This IS a risky sport. On my first jump, and every jump since then, I realize that there is a small but real chance that I could die on this jump. I've had a full life, have few responsibilities (No kids or very close family) and am willing to accept that risk. You should ask yourself (And perhaps your family) if you died on a jump, how would it affect your family? With so much of your life ahead of you, your answer may be different than mine. If it's not, perhaps we'll bump into each other at a dropzone at some time in the future! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

It wasn't THAT hard, really. You know, your odds of being killed in a car accident in any given year are about 1 in 6000 or so? Even if you eliminate ALL risk from your life, you will still die sooner or later. You just won't have had much to live for along the way. So who's crazier, me, who has an immeasurable amount of fun jumping out of airplanes, or the guy who lives his life paralyzed by fear of an event he can not avoid no matter what he does? If I pound in this weekend with double bag lock, well I had a good run and I accepted that risk when I got on the plane. I'd rather go that way than getting T-Boned by some jackass in an SUV on my way to work. Neither event is likely enough for me to spend time worrying about it. Now if I start BASE jumping or proximity wingsuit flying, my life expectancy would go down enough to worry me. Seems like everyone at my dropzone knows someone who died, and the story almost always starts "Yeah, he went on a BASE Jump..." I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I'd file a police report. While you're at it, have them take a look at the eyebrow-raising number of fatalities at the Chicago dropzone and see if he packed for any of them on the days their accidents happened. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I bet that line won't work in Hawaii. Probably not, but it was true in this case. I googled on "Seattle fantastic sushi" and drove (from Denver) the the first place I found. Had sushi at Kisiku, found it to indeed be fantastic, turned around and came home. The sushi's good in Seattle, but the traffic would drive me nuts in a matter of days. The roads between here and there do wonders for your perspective, though, which was the main reason I wanted to do the trip. I did get nostalgic coming through Coeur d'Alene. Did some IT work for the dog track there back in the early '90's. The place has really built up since then. I remember there was a floating restaurant on a lake that was also pretty nice, near there. If I'd had a bit more time I'd have stopped and tried to find it again. All that was before I started skydiving. Now I'd probably go, do a skydive, THEN have sushi. And beer!

For a smaller job I'd suggest something like the GIMP, which will run on Windows, Linux or OSX. But for a couple hundred, you want a batch job and for a batch job you need a command line program! And the only command line program I've ever known for that sort of thing is ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php). Sounds like you want its "Transform" functionality. In Linux (Or Windows with Cygwin and a bash prompt) you could probably just drop all your images in one directory and do something like this at the command prompt: for i in *.jpg ; do resize $i -resize 50% smaller_$i.jpg; done If you do the base install for Cygwin, I'm pretty sure you can select imagemagick as one of the optional programs you can install. Maybe the GIMP, too... I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I suspect most of the sushi I've had was not as good as the sushi you had that day. I'm planning to take a week in Hawaii once I can fly a wingsuit competently, but it may be a couple of years before the PTO, funds and training all line up. I'll have to remember to try to scope out some good sushi while I'm there. I've found that telling a sushi chef you just drove 1600 miles for "dinner, here" does get you some very tasty sushi, though. I've found a couple of good places very close to home, now, and always ask the chef what's good that day when I go in there. I got some VERY nice red snapper and hamachi sashimi for lunch with this strategy today. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

http://www.bash.org/?488793 I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

The crosswind landing wasn't bad at all, as far as landings go. I wasn't particularly happy with the pattern I ended up flying. Retrospectively I really shouldn't have been jumping with people on a day like that, should have pulled higher and should have put more planning into my pattern. If I'd deployed in a spot of my choosing after a nice relaxed freefall, I'd have dropped right into the pattern, flown base and crosswind, turned to the wind and taken the elevator straight down. Under normal conditions I fly a pretty good pattern (And have taken the canopy course.) Under abnormal conditions, I need to give myself more room for things to go wrong. Or just not jump them. If conditions had been even a little more dicey that day, I'd have just wandered off and found something else to do. It was right on the edge of what I felt comfortable jumping. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

I had a brain fart one day right off AFF training and ate the arrow. That's not the sort of thing you do twice! Especially after your AFF instructor yells at you in front of his current class, "Did *I* teach you to do that?!" and makes you demonstrate a PLF! :-D Really though, the downwind landing wasn't all THAT bad, and you're probably going to have to take one eventually. I intentionally took a crosswind the other day, 17 knot winds and I just barely made it back to the landing area. Didn't have time to turn on final, and said "Fuck it! I'm going crosswind!" That wasn't bad at all, either, though it was more work than I like to put into landing. Good practice for jumping in Hawaii, once I get my B license, a fat wad of cash to travel to Hawaii and a couple weeks' PTO. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Here's Ours: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=40.163572,-105.164937&hl=en&ll=40.163674,-105.165119&spn=0.003665,0.00464&sll=40.167959,-105.097854&sspn=0.234543,0.296974&t=h&z=18 Easily visible starting around 5000 feet or so (not so much from 10K but I'm not so worried about it then.) and you just land the direction the arrow's pointing. They also have windsocks everywhere out there, though those aren't so easy to spot from space. Taking a canopy course would probably help if you haven't already. It certainly improved my landings and my confidence in doing so. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

The Left Hand Brewery Rocky Mountain Mixer, actually, a random assortment of all the beers they make! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah whatcher wanna do is (Here, Skeeter, hold my beer) ok so you just need a small caliber handgun, and you just shoot the little buggers whenever you see them! Then when the neighbor complains about the random gunfire coming from your property, complain about the moles coming from his property! Or, you know, get a cat or two. Mom and Dad feed a stray who is entirely happy to just hang out in the yard killing moles and rabbits. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Oooh... is THAT why they call it "Lookout Mountain"? I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yikes. Hit breakoff and track like... something that tracks a lot! Check. I was in a 7 way yesterday and ended up lower than everyone else. When I go belly down, I fall like a bat out of hell. I tracked off at the break-off altitude AND waited to 3K to pull. Barely made it back to the landing zone, but at least I got well clear of the group. I'd rather land out than endanger anyone else with my newbieness! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Reckon it'd be worth losing 5K on every jump? We're a lot higher than sea level! I'm looking forward to visiting the folks down there at some point and doing a jump from 18000 feet AGL! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Would you use the glasses as goggles? I see a lot of people just wearing shades on jumps, but I don't think my usual shades are up to the task. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

It was still a bit nipply at 12K AGL this morning. And windy as hell. I forgot how windy it gets here in the Winter. Oh well. It's my first winter skydiving. We'll see how it goes! There are usually some pretty nice days down here on the plains (Longmont) so I'm not terribly concerned. Now you watch, it'll be like the worst winter EVER. I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Yeah, I've been wearing skintight gloves for a while now just because my hands were getting scratched so often. So my hands didn't get as cold as they could have! But it was still pretty chilly! Just a little wind protection goes a long way! If I were going to do a lot of them in the winter, I think I'd want a full-face helmet too! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Friday after work I called the dropzone and asked if they were still flying. They told me they had a load going now and might be able to get one more in, so I drove over. After a bit of skydiver-wrangling, they managed to pull together another load. I told them I wanted to do a high pull and they said it'd be OK as long as we went NOW, which we did. So I'm the last one out of the plane at 11,800 feet, get stable and pull, fully deployed at 10600 feet with about 15 minutes of sunlight left. It was AMAZING! Actually the first thing out of my mouth was "Oh my GOD! This is AMAZING!" The second thing out of my mouth was "Oh my GOD this is COLD!" ha ha ha! But I didn't mind! It was a beautiful ride down, with the sun turning red and reflecting off the clouds. Took 11 minutes to get down according to my Neptune. I just hung out in my holding pattern until I got down to my usual approach altitude. Looking out to the horizon, I saw a passenger jet 20-30 miles off, doing his approach to DIA, and I'm pretty sure I was higher than him! All in all a very cool experience. Probably not one I'm going to repeat until summer rolls back around again, though! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

Personally I feel like the drive to the airport is less safe than jumping out of an airplane! Especially if you make that drive on a motorcycle! It is a rather expensive sport though. Is your wife OK with it? I know more than one skydiver who's broken off a relationship after the "We need to talk -- it's me or the skydiving!" talk. By women who vastly underestimated his love of skydiving, apparently. If you have health and life insurance, make sure they'll cover a "Killed in a skydiving accident" eventuality, or consider supplementary insurance to make sure that if the worst happens, you don't leave your family hanging. No one wants that to happen, but if you have such responsibilities in your life you still have to have a plan for if it does. All that being said, good luck on your jumps! They should be awesome! I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?