Cepheus

N/A

I don't know if I can adequately express how sad this makes me. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

In St. George, SC -- all it says on their home page is that they are 'closed indefinately'. http://www.blueskyadventures.com This makes me very sad -- I learned to jump there, made all of my jumps there (12, big number, lol) - and after several years being away from the sport I finally am bringing in enough money to get back into it -- and they're closed! Does anyone know what happened, why they're closed? I would really appreciate knowing what caused the death of the place where I found my spirituatality... Thanks -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

I never had trouble with my ears -- except one time, when I tried jumping after getting rid of a head cold. Well, I thought I got rid of it. Rode the plane down. That was the worst pain of my life, and the only time I'd gotten airsick. Like, ever. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

I did several tandems at first while I was still learning my passion for the sport (I mad one tandem my first day, then came back the next weekend during a boogie and made 3 more) before starting AFF at level 3. I did manage to graduate, but that was my last jump. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

Much as I wish I could say I was... I'm not. The world runs on $$$... The sad part is that I'm sitting here with a $130 check for some tech work I did recently. But as soon as I pop that in the bank it's going to get sucked dry. Bills suck. The sucketh verily. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Not necessarilly new to the forums, but given as my last post was several months ago, I thought I'd re-introduce myself.

I've been out of the sport for about a year and a half now. Money problems. Not a day goes by when I don't think of the jumps I've made -- I remember every single one of them. Every time I think about stepping up to the open door of an airplane at 15,000 feet I get chills and my heart-rate elevates -- see, it just did it. Is it worth it? I think the real question is, "Is it worth living for a century, only to look back on your empty life?" Most people would answer 'No' -- even the "safety always" types. I think the only answer that counts, though, is your own. My own personal question, at times, has been, "Was it worth learning your passion, only to deny it to yourself for over a year?" I almost always answer yes... Sometimes, very, very rarely, I feel like I'd be better off having never jumped. Then I kick myself in the ass and force-feed myself skydiving-related material -- movies, pictures, websites -- until it sinks in that I'm still hooked, I'll always be hooked, and that I know DAMN WELL it's worth it! Besides. I'll jump again. Even my absence from the sport will not shake my addiction. Thanks, Chad, for this opportunity to voice how I feel without starting a new thread. I hate looking like I'm trying to get pity, but I likewise hate not being able to talk about it. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Like I said, when I hear back from my DZ, I'll let you know.

Lol, thank you! But I'm fairly certain it's gonna be more than $50. To my credit, I did email my dz yesterday asking how much it would cost. They haven't replied yet though. When they do, I'll let you know. I really, really appreciate the offer.

No, it's not a physical problem, it's a monitary one... Things are *very* hard around here -- if it weren't for the kindness of my mother giving me a place to live, I'm pretty sure I'd be on the street... I did have student loans to deal with -- but I was finally able to get them to defer them. Took a big, big burdon off my shoulders, lemme tell you. The reason I'm saying "I will jump again" and not setting a date is because I don't know when it will happen. I'm at the mercy of the job markets, and so far there hasn't been any mercy... I've been making a little bit of money every now and then selling my software to friends, and keeping that updated, but it's usually just enough to cover what new bill or expense crops up the next day. You know, I just thought of something... I will have a reprieve, if it comes through, in Februrary. A friend of mine is paying me $1k to build her two computers... Maybe I could put some of that toward getting back up in the air again? Yes. Yes, ok. If this computer deal comes through, that's exactly what I'm doing. I won't be able to blow it all on skydiving, much as I might like (hehe), but I will at the VERY least get myself current again. And you guys are right. It is in my blood. I am a skydiver. And I need not whine about not jumping, because there are those of us who haven't jumped in far longer. There are those of us who aren't *able* to jump, ever again, for one reason or another... I'm not special, in this, and it's not the end of the world if I go some time between jumps. I think I'm just being melodramatic. Thank you, guys, for the confidence boost, and showing me that this really is my place (the sport, that is). That being a skydiver isn't about having x number of jumps -- it's about the love of the sport, and the commitment to the sport, regardless of your jump numbers. And that, because of this, I will always be a skydiver, in my mind and heart, if not always in the air. I need to visit the DZ more often, too... I need to get over this idea that I'll do nothing but mope while watching everyone else have fun. I can still at least have a learning experience -- I still need to learn how to pack, for instance. ;) -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Well, it's been a year since my "most recent" skydive. Sometimes it saddens me to think of what I have "lost," by not jumping. I just finished reading an old post I had made here about 5 or 6 months ago on this very same topic -- and I have made a decision. Or rather a revelation. Or something. I haven't lost shit. I still have my memories. I remember every second of what it felt like when I was in the air. Every second. Total recall. Well, minus those times I blissed out so completely (aka, sensory overload ) that I wouldn't have remembered them even if they were stamped into my head with a hydrolic press. Hehe. And I still have my dreams. About one a week, sometimes more, for the past few months. They're getting more frequent -- my mind's way of holding on, I guess. I am not ready to let go of these experiences. I suspect I never will be. But I am worried. What if I won't have the guts to start back up again, when the time comes that I am able to? What if I back down, say "No, it's been too long, it's a part of my past now," and generally chicken-shit myself out of it? But deep in my heart I know this is an impossibility. I know people who have tried it once or twice, then quit never to jump again. They're cavalier about it, consider it just "something fun" they did once, but don't give it a second thought. Not me. I did it 12 times, but for how often I think about it, that number should be much higher. Despite this long break, skydiving Still has an amazing effect on me. More than a year later I'm still able to accellerate my heart rate simply by thinking about stepping out the door of a twin otter. Night after night I usually wind up unable to sleep because my thoughts turn to those few days I spent at the dropzone, laughing with friends, hanging out (both on ground and in the air), the triumphs I made, both physically (damn AFF level 4 spins! ) and emotionally. I have not reverted to my introvert ways. This has to say something, doesn't it? I mean, How can I really believe something that has so much impact on my life can simply vanish without a fight? No. Consider this my solemn oath. I will jump again. I will. I don't know when, and I don't know how, but I will. I have to. I was made for this. I only felt right with myself during those 12 times I found myself suspended in air. I will get this back. No matter what. Ceph, aka Erik Forbes Ps: for those who remember my last post (or who might look it up ), I have learned VB.NET, and became quite proficient at it in a rather short period of time. If you're interested in any software I've written, check out my site listed in my signature line. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Same here. I have very rudimentary packing knowledge -- 12 jumps to my name, btw. Did I forget to mention that? And as for taking out a 20k loan and blowing it all on jumps... Wow, that's horrid advice! Although..... -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Ugh, even those with the papers are getting crapped on lately... *sigh* I do have a plan... I'm planning on starting college next year, so I'll be set for at least 4 years. Maybe by then the economy will have straightened itself out. If not, well, I'll deal with it then. I've always been a firm believer that if I'm ever going to make it, I'll have to do it myself. That'll probably never change. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Yeah... You're right -- it is rather pessimistic to say it's my 'last' jump... Cause, if I have my way about it, it better damned well not be I know my post probably came across as whiny, or whatnot, and if so, I certainly didn't intend for that. I just... needed to get that off my chest, and who better to tell it to than fellow skydivers. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Well, I only think it fair that if I'm gonna start hanging out here more again, you'll just have to start hanging out there more again too I know Alli'll appreciate it -- By the way, you don't know about us, do you? :) AlliKat, her name is -- she and I have hooked up. :) I'll have to post some pictures. She lives in California, and I of course live in South Carolina. LOL -- can't get much further apart and live in the same country (well there is Alaska, but I won't go there). Recently this year I spent 9 days with her and her family, and had the time of my life. We met in HollyLisle.com chat, and that was the first time we'd seen eachother in person. :) And I've got tickets to get back out there again, next month!

Hey you! Miss you at hollylisle.com too -- we didn't scare you off, did we? :) -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

I performed my last skydive to date on 12-15-02. That's 167 days go, today. This is miserable. I dream about skydiving -- actually, I dream about not being able to skydive, and it's worse because I'm at the dropzone, watching everyone else have fun, and I can't. I still get the Parachutist magazine from the USPA -- and I can't even look at it. It sucks, because skydiving was more than just 'jumping out of a plane' to me. To me, it was... It was a spiritual experience for me. Or as close to one as I'll ever come. I don't even know what to say. No words, I have no words. I still get a rush just thinking about even boarding a jump plane. Thinking about the experiences I had brings them all back to me, as if I had just lived them yesterday, and yet it feels so distant, so much a part of my past, that I'm afraid I'll never get it back. Skydiving changed me. I went up, that first time, as one person, and I came back down someone wholly different. It was a profound change -- I am much bolder, more outgoing than I was. I've found a happiness inside myself that I never knew was there, and it took jumping out of a plane to bring it out. And for 167 days, it's all I've been able to think about. That's not true. I think of other things. I have the Game I work on. I'm learning VB.NET, recently, and it's keeping me occupied. I have Alli, who most of all has been a great distraction (hehe). But sometimes, when I think it's passed out of my mind altogether, something happens to bring it right back in focus, and I relive the experiences I had for those short months. I don't always appreciate those memories as much as I probably should (this post is part of that), but... I don't know how else to react. The worst part about all of this is the fact that it wasn't my choice to stop. I simply don't have the money for it. No job (how in the HELL can a person with vast experience in building computers, programming, and networking be without a job??). which means no money. No money means no skydiving. It's that simple. *sigh*. I know I'll jump again, some day. But damnit, I don't want it to be years down the line. Every weekend that goes by, I feel like I'm wasting something. It's been like this now for 23 weeks. Just another day... I don't know what I'm going to do. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Actually mine does something very similar, only on a syllable basis. It splits every word into their syllables, the counts how many occurances of each type they are, and pops em into the database. It also analyzes which letters 'connect' the two syllables, counts them, and adds them as Letter Pairs into the database (like in the word 'generate' which splits into 'gen|er|ate', 'NE' and RA' are two letter pairs. The generater uses this frequency data to first select a starting syllable, then it asks the database for all the Letter Pairs that start with the last letter of that first syllable. It them picks a random letter pair, then asks the database for all the syllables that start with the last letter of the Letter Pair. The process continues, splicing syllables until the desired number of syllables creates the word. I actually wrote the Syllable Stat Collection program about 3/4ths of a year ago, while sitting around bored... I slapped a simple interface on it, and that's what I use for the back-end data collection. The generator itself I wrote a few months later, and has been sitting like that until today, when I finally created the Extrapolation feature I've been itching to do. Extrapolation basically does the same thing, only it has to make sure the syllables that are getting replaced match up with the existing syllables. Wasn't too hard -- took me bout 2 or 3 hours. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I never had the motivation. I thank AlliKitten for that.

Ooh -- hadn't thought of that! Excellent! -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

http://68.58.244.113/rng/index.asp And that proves it... That's a Random Name Generator, programmed by yours truly. Pain in the ass took me 2 days straight coding to write, but it is, if I do say so myself, one of the best generators in existance... (I'm not prone to bragging, so this is a big step for me! lol) Instead of using hard coded letter combinations and crap like that (like most of these generators), it accepts a list of words (most any languages), then splits the words into their syllables, and collects statistical data about how they connect to other syllables. All this is done behind the scenes -- the result is that every single word is pronouncable (as long as the input was -- garbage in, garbage out). While most of these generators produce maybe 2 or 3 usable, pronouncable words in 10 (if you're lucky), mine has been capable of producing decent words in nearly all its runs. Of course, tastes vary... Additionally, my generator has a feature called Extrapolation. Feed it a word, and it'll break it down into its syllables. Select which syllables you want it to change, and it'll show you a list of words, extrapolated based on the data you've given it. What does all this mean? I haven't jumped in 3 weeks...... Ceph has WAY too much time on his hands. -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

My problem eventually proved not to be in my arch (I have video on the jump I made before I finally passed that proves it), but in the way I was using my arms. Every jumpmaster I've jumped with has half-complimented and half-complained about my arch (guess I was making them work, hehe)... I do, for one... Last few jumps I've made have been in some... interesting winds... Gotta love being yanked around 20 feet from the ground from the turbulence coming in off the trees... And the winds weren't all that bad... Heh Keep it up, though. Get up to the DZ every weekend -- every day, if you can and they're open. It pays off in the end, big time. The more you hang around up there -- even if you don't jump -- the more you'll relax when you do jump. It's all about the people.

There's also a few registry settings you can play with to get it running... **puts away hacksaw** -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.

Easy enough -- it won't let you. **puts away the peg leg and eyepatch** -- Skydive -- testing gravity, one jump at a time.