lauras

We're very proud of our Paul! Well done, Springbok! Zhills misses you!

And how were you (or your religious leaders) planning on enforcing this?

Wow. Let's see if I get this right: according to you & your interpretation of what is the "right" religion or belief system, Ruthie & Janet get to burn in hell because they love one another. Even though they're good people who do admirable things for others. That's pretty cool. edit: spelling

Oh, have I got a big bone to pick with you, Hotpants. Oren's already posted about having been raised by his gay mother and her partner of 25 years. Let's review: these two women own several very successful businesses in New York City & East Hampton. They own 3 homes. They've raised 5 children who are all comfortable and hold their own. They pay their taxes. They've saved for their retirement. They are very involved in charity. And here's something that should ice the cake - over the strenuous objections of their kids, they voted for your man Bush in the last election (that part is still a mystery to me, no matter how many times it's been explained). Tell me how Ruth & Janet and the many gay domestic partners are leading to the decline of morality of the United States.

Lisa asked that I wish you a very naughty bday. The good twin & the bad twin miss ya! xxoo

Kel, we'll miss seeing your smiling face around the DZ! Please come and visit or Oren will hunt you down & kill you. You know you always have a place to stay! xxoo Laura

Hey Travis: I'll second for Florida Orthopaedic Institute. Dr. Adam Morse is my personal fave shoulder dude. Offices on Dale Mabry at University Community or at the Institute on Telecom Parkway, right off of Fletcher. They also have a great PT center and chiro, Dr. Reina. www.floridaortho.com Can you tell I've spent some time there?!

from another thread... i like to spread the goo up to about 1/2" above and below the bootie/cordura seam. if you want the leather to be non-skid, then coat the entire leather area, but be aware that when you wash the suit, the goo may peel in places.

Zhills locals haaaate jumping during Sun-N-Fun. It's just a little too exciting to have all of those specialty planes without radios zipping around the airport. Reading tail #s is something I like to do on the ground. That said, Sun-N-Fun is a cool event to go to.

I was the instructor on the radio on that particular skydive, an AFF Level1/CatA. The student was fully briefed on her canopy flight right before her jump, and she pointed out her playground, downwind, base & final legs both in the landing area and with an aerial photo. While the student didn't respond (she didn't hear the radio) to instruction to turn, I was very relieved that she at least flared at the right height & DID a nice PLF... several times. It scared the crap out of me when she didn't get up right away, but she waved her arms shortly afterwards when I shouted at her on the radio. When I asked her to tell me about her canopy flight, the student said that she was ovewhelmed by being under canopy, although freefall was great. She remembered what she was supposed to do, but didn't hear the radio after a while and thought she was too low to turn. She was also freaked out by the airplanes parked by the end of the runway and the Otter coming in to land. The student ended up with a bit of a burn on her ankle and a scratch on her face. I would imagine she was pretty sore the next day too. It could have been so much worse if she hadn't flared and PLFd. It probably also helped that the student is very fit and in good condition. I think this was a big learning experience for both the student and me...

Contact okalb here on dz.com. His Velo 120 is loaded at 2 to 1, and I think he has about 500 jumps on it. He also has about 500 jumps +/-on a Samurai 136, and 400ish on a Safire. I think he has a handful of jumps on a Katana 120 and a Stiletto 120. Or just wait...he'll probably pop his head in here pretty soon!

It may be Bell's Palsy. As everyone has said, please go to the ER as soon as you can, or at the very least, see your doctor first thing in the AM. My brother had Bell's Palsy about 5 years ago. An ear infection went beserk and a nerve running along the side of his face was affected, leaving him with paralysis on one side of his face. Please get it checked out and let me know if you need any further information. Good luck!

A couple of weeks before Nats, my teammates & I were in decent enough tunnel shape to fly about 48 to 50 minutes out of an hour. We'd hop out long enough to quickly dirt dive the next one and then get back in. The tunnel rat would get to use the time the chamber was empty, or one of us would try (key word = try) to knee fly while peeking out to see the whiteboard. After debriefing, we'd do another 30 minutes - 15 minutes each for front & back pieces. We all had great lats! I miss training. Post-neck surgery, I could barely fly 3 2-minute rotations. It's gotten a lot better, but without having the motivation of a team to train for, my tunnel condition is just ehh. Frequent fliers: do you think performance deterioration is more physical or mental? Is there a saturation point?

I second that emotion. I went through Bram's AFF course a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea how much I could learn about skydiving and instructing in one short week. And you're right about the debriefs - I thought I had decent recall and then I got a Bram Debrief. Both Bram & Elly were very thorough in every aspect of the course and I learned a tremendous amount about how to be the most effective instructor I can be. Remember Barbara Woodhouse's old TV show "No Bad Dogs"? Well, "No Bad AFF Students" kept running through my head the entire week.

Have fun dodging grown men puking up and down 5th Ave.! You might want to wear hipwaders.

Half of my extended family graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in one form of engineering or another. After you become a California resident for a year, the tuition drops pretty dramatically. Living expenses can be high if you're into convenience, but if you're willing to live in shared housing, it can be manageable. PM me if you'd like more details. Cal has an amazing alumni network and you've got the entire Silicon Valley right there, just waiting for new worker bees once you graduate.

big boobs.

lockers available right behind manifest for a buck a day. room for a rig, helmet, jumpsuit and misc. other stuff.

We put a tyvek tag around the left side lateral (assuming there isn't a ROL there) with the "it's a pumpkin" date. Every repack that's done onsite and everyone that checks in on our dz gets one. As I'm tagging, I'll tell you if you're due within the next couple of weeks. We'll also remind people when they pick up if they'll need CYPRES batteries or 4/8 year check on the next repack. Other than that, you can't really force people to pay attention to when they're next due. You just hope that they notice when they're doing their gear check. That said, I'm always mesmerized by the people that freak out and actually get angry at their rigger when they show up to jump out of date. IT'S ON YOUR RIG. What do you want me to do, club you over the head every 120 days?

There's just something about expensive hotel rooms that makes girls' panties hit the floor. I think it's the combination of high-thread count, room service and anonymity that makes people want to go at it like.. well, you know.

I'm thinking Jody needs to hook a sistah up! Congratulations dude!

It's a running joke among our friends that the Africans are taking over Florida skydiving! Just quickly, off the top of my head you've got: proswooper AKA Paul Rossouw (Zhills coach, etc) Sally Hathaway (Synchronicity, owner of Paragone Rigging @ Zhills) Bushman (Aerodyne) Solly Williams (Majik, Skydive Deland) Gary Smith (Majik) Kevin Shafer (PD) Chromy (RW/Tunnel coach @ Deland) and there are a lot more hanging about at just these two dzs. I've also got a Namibian squatting in my guest room for 3 weeks during the Zhills Easter boogie! Slowly but surely, I'm learning how to say some horrible things in Afrikaans. Nice, eh?

Hey, hey, easy now. So that's why you kept telling me "4-way looks like soooo much fun! Why don't you go do that?!"

I think the speed of a person's recovery is dependant on whether or not the surgery was planned in advance or as a result of trauma. From what I understand, trauma orthopaedics is a totally different ball game and recovery can be a long, painful road. A friend who absolutely wrecked himself in a skiing accident (tree = bad times) and had cervical fusion (among other fun operations) has a very different opinion than I do about post-op. In my case, as soon as I woke up, all of the horrible shooting pain and numbness in my right arm and hand were completely gone. The first 48 hours post-op naturally sucked a whole lot, but I only needed pain killers for 5 days. I never really got used to sleeping in a hard collar though, and I was such a bitch on wheels, people ran away from me for a couple of months.

No, not a smoker (unless it's been a late night at the dz bar) and Foggy is correct - smoking greatly slows down the fusion. I had my fusion plated AND I got to wear a lovely hard collar for six weeks. My surgeon admitted that he had a very conservative approach towards recovery. Even though I bitched mightily then, I am very happy with the end results. And yes, I'm jumping!