Nightingale

if you have any kids, save it for them. If you are on good terms with your ex, ask them if they would like it. Otherwise, keep it around for a few years... you don't want to get rid of it now and regret it later. you can always hock it later down the road.

Perris has a student circle, and a grass landing area for more advanced folks. students catch hell if we land on the grass.

REI (and other sporting goods stores, and also Eddie Bauer, I think), carry long underwear made out of silk. much warmer than the thermal stuff, and much thinner and lighter. Great for skiing too! On my next jump, I'm wearing that, and Adidas warmup pants to keep the wind out, under my jumpsuit.

hmm... City of LA is looking for 911 operators... weird hours, high stress, but the pay ain't bad www.lacity.org click on "jobs available"

focus on school. finish school. the sky will be there when you're done, I promise! and school will let you land a good job, which means more $$ for jumping! It will work out better for you in the long run.

Cruise control turns off the second you hit the brake, so if it was cruise control, then he didn't have his foot on the brake, and if he had his foot on the brake, it couldn't have been cruise control. other than that, dunno.

hmm... I cross my legs under canopy because it seems to take some pressure off the "ouch" points of the legstraps. Been doing it from jump 1. Didn't know it was something "experienced" folks did... I just do it because its more comfortable. LOL.

powerpoint's pretty easy... once the presentation's done (which Lew already did), all you have to do is click "view" and "slide show" and then each mouse click advances it one step.

Not even remotely true. Why do professional photographers get signed releases from subjects unless they are being used in a purely news-related venue? While you do, in fact, own the image itself, unconsented use of that image (of a non-public figure) in many different ways could land you in very hot water. Example: If I shot a photo of you using one of my excellent widgets, posted it to my excellent widget website without a signed release, you could sue me out of business. Actually, Kramer is right, at least, he's right for the state of California. Other states' laws vary, so check your state. In California, if you take a photo of someone in a public place, doing something everyone can see (you can take pictures of people landing their canopies, but you can't sneak into the restrooms), then you're okay and own the rights to that photo. You can't go on to private property (tresspassing) and take photos, because thats an invasion of privacy. The courts would consider the dropzone a public place, because access isn't controlled, unlike someone's house. What you can't do: 1. Take a picture of someone on private property without their consent. If they're out in public, fair game. Even if you're standing on public property (the sidewalk) but shooting on to private property (through someone's window) that isn't allowed. 2. alter a photograph to defame someone's character (you can't take someone's head and place it on the body of someone who just did a naked jump to make it seem like the first person was the one who did the jump). 3. use someone's likeness, even if the photo was taken on public property, to promote or sell something without their consent.

and the last one

okay! here's the pics, then!

Oh! Sorry! Wasn't really trying to advertize, more trying to get feedback on what people liked.

hehe... ok... I listed a couple on Ebay. These are girly ones made out of the swarovski crystals that've been sitting in my bead box for ages. I've got beads to do more unisex/guy style ones, but I need to get cord, so here's the sparkly stuff for now. edited to remove advertising links.

hmm... is there any way you could land on their field? that'd definitely be cool!

I make jewelry, and I was thinking about making some pin necklaces and putting them up on eBay. Just wondering what everyone's opinions on them are, and if it would be worth my time. I enjoy making jewelry for fun, and the other stuff I make sells pretty well at boutiques and stuff, so I figured I'd try my hand at some pin necklaces, if there's an interest out there. I haven't seen a lot of folks wearing them at my DZ, so I'm not sure if they just aren't into them, or they're not wearing them because they're jumping and wearing jewelry and jumping is bad.

I'm working on a master's in education right now (only 2 classes left! YAY!) and my current professor is fascinated by the way you can use skydiving in making what the students are already learning more real. I've been to a couple of schools and talked about it, and what the teachers (and kids too!) seem to like is how you can take what they're doing in class and apply it to skydiving. This is more high school, but my physics teacher friend has borrowed all my videos, and is having the kids calculate stuff like lift, windspeed, and air resistance under canopy. His class is having a blast... they're even building their own parachute models and are dropping eggs with canopies off the roof of the school to test their theories. My prof is an AP math teacher, and she's got her students calculating the failure rates of parachutes and figuring out the odds of a double mal. The kids are way into this, mainly because its about death, and high schoolers are morbid that way. Talk to their teacher a few days before... find out what they've been learning in math and science, and see if you can apply it to skydiving. Have they been studying weather? Tell them how different wind speeds affect your canopy. Are they doing geometry? You can talk about angles and flare heights and all that. Find some way to connect skydiving to what they're doing in class already. The kids will like it because they'll feel like they have some kind of basic knowledge already (and kids LOVE being the experts!) and the teacher is gonna love you, because you're giving her a real-world application for what she's teaching.

why was there duct tape on your container in the first place?? GooGone works wonders, but I dunno if I'd trust it (or lighter fluid, same principle) on a container. Your best bet is probably to ask your rigger.

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those are AWESOME pics!!!!!

I read it while I was waiting around at the DZ on sunday hoping for a cloud hole big enough to jump through. Never did get to jump, but I finished the magazine cover to cover. I just liked one of the photos and wanted my own copy. If the magazine doesn't show up by Nov. 15th, I'm gonna call them and bug them about it. Their website says they don't consider the mag late til after Nov. 15th.

Michele- call the gas company back. tell them you just had surgery, are stuck at home on medication, and freezing your ass off. You're home alone. You can't go anywhere else to get warm. play it up. whine. do anything you can to get sympathy. perhaps they will then squeeze in a little time to fix it for you.

you've got a group of 50! the DZ will probably give you the discount anyway, because 50 people is a lot! talk it over with them and see.

do you have to make it an official club? why not just have meetings in someone's dorm room? universities can't control what students do in their own free time... just because members of a club happen to go to the same university, it doesn't necessiarily follow that the club has to be associated with that university... just walk around wearing skydiving t-shirts, and people will walk up to you and ask. easy way to recruit! I've worn my "If you want to fly, get out of the plane!" shirt around campus, and I get a ton of people walking up to me to ask about it, and I'm not even an undergrad!

I just got my membership card for USPA... was looking forward to the magazine, but haven't received it this month... does it usually take a month or so to start receiving the mag, or did you get it shortly after your membership card?

get the statistics on caving, scuba, shooting, etc, and re-petition to the next person in the chain of command. Approximately 30 skydivers die each year compared to 105 people who died while scuba diving, 856 bicycling, 7,000 drowned (365 in bath tubs), 1154 died of bee stings, 60 snowmobiling, 47 water skiing, and 300 died after being hit by lighting! Then of course there are highway fatalities which number upwards of 50,000. ** There are over 5 million skydives each year as reported by the U.S. Parachute Association. Out of the 30 or so annual skydiving deaths, most are due to a few common and avoidable errors: low turns, improper gear and failure to pull. Using some common sense and maintaining your gear reduces the odds much further. Automatic Activation Devices (AAD's) and Reserve Static Lines (RSL's) could probably have prevented many of those deaths. But not all skydivers have those optional features on their equipment. About 5 deaths every year are due to rare double malfunctions (both main and reserve) or other "freak accidents" that training and caution can't prevent. Whittling the odds of death down to nearly 1 in 1,000,000 puts skydiving on par with someone in the general population (including skydivers) getting hit by lightning. **you and I know these are apples/oranges comparisons, but they'll help your case**