Nightingale

1. Cats 2. Mice 3. Fish 4. Computer 5. Flute (handmade wooden, irreplaceable) 6. weapons collection (at least the expensive pieces) 7. karate and travels scrapbooks 8. clothes that's about all that'd fit in my car.

I have a few friends who've worked as flight attendants or pilots, and they really like their jobs... depends on the route, tho... you don't want to get assigned something dull.

are you jumping the same rig every time? That could tell you if its the pilot chute or something else with the rig, or something you're doing... if you have the same rig each time, maybe its a mechanical issue... if its a different rig, maybe you need to do something different.

All of the Mt. Baldy area has been evacuated as well.

its not really a jump up, more of a little bounce to set the rythym so your JM knows when you're going to jump. It wasn't a weak step back, it was that I didn't step back at all... The next time, it was a good, strong step, I promise.

the door's up above you... the skyvan door is so freakin huge that you can stand all the way up and still have a foot to spare.

dunno bout elsinore, but its not smoky at perris... wind is blowing away from the fires.

hehe... that one's easy. $$$ I only get paid enough to do one AFF jump per weekend. I could've done two this weekend, but then I wouldn't be able to jump at all next weekend. Two weeks between levels 6 and 7 sounded like a lot of time to me, so I just try to space things out evenly. The longer I go between jumps, the more door anxiety I have, so its better for me to jump once a week rather than two jumps one week and zero jumps the next.

My instructor at Perris told me 2-4 weeks.

Ok... back by popular demand. AFF 5! Not my best skydive. But, I passed. My personal goal for this skydive was to get myself out of the plane without incident, since it took me about 5 minutes at the door last time! LOL! So, I go into the school and ask for Shelly. After paying my fees, I get taken to the back of the school, where she's packing her canopy. We go over the dirt dive. Floating exit, release, left and right turns, forward motion, and pull. Then we manifest. And it's not the Otter. Its the skyvan. Apparently, you can't do a floating exit out of a skyvan. So, new exit. Just stand facing away from the door, bounce up, down, and step back out the door! Hmm... I think I can handle this. Okay. Shelly shows me briefly how to do a gear check before I put the rig on. She shows me how to turn on a Cypres and what properly routed threerings are supposed to look like. I'm still landing on radios, so we get the radios and check them, I grab my goggles, helmet, and altimeter, and we're all set. We walk over to the benches, where we run through the dirt dive once more. I'm feeling very confident. Not too many butterflies. In the plane, Shelly is so relaxed that its hard for me to be nervous. We're at about 10,000 feet and everyone's giving fives and wishing for great jumps. I get my helmet and goggles on. We're now at 12,500, and people start jumping. Ok. Our turn. Shelly and I line up at the door. We're trying to spot, but I'm not close enough to the door. Shelly tells me the dropzone is right below us. Ok. I believe her! We turn and face the inside of the plane. Raoul's there, filming a tandem. He's got the camera pointed right at me. Great. Now I'm on film. Joy. So, we bounce up, and down and oopsie, I forgot to step back. We're still in the plane! LOL. Ok. Try again! Up, Down, stepback! ARCH! Whee! I'm flying! I get stable and do my PRCT. Good. Everything's where it ought to be. Shelly moves around to the front as I check my altitude. Looking good. She releases me, and I start to turn to the left... corrected. I get the signal to turn left, and do a 180 degree turn, altitude check, and turn back. Overshot it a bit, but corrected. Now I get a signal for a 360. Ok. I can do that. Oops... feeling a little out of control here...arch harder! Ok...stable again. Good. Shelly tells me at this point she gave me the forward motion signal, and I did it, but I don't remember. She gave me the signal to check my altitude...OMG 5000 FEET! I reach back and pull. Good canopy. Riser control check is fine, toggles release fine, control check good. Ok. I play around with the canopy for a bit and set up my landing pattern. Sigh. Flared too high again. Landed in a pile of straw. On my face, again. And, for the record, straw ain't as soft as it looks! I have a ring of scratches around each ankle that REALLY sting. Owie! So, the truck comes out to get me, and I hop on and ride back to the dropzone. When I get back to the school and drop my stuff, Shelly asks me what I remember about the skydive. I tell her. She asks me if I remember 6000 feet. I say no. She laughs. "Remember when I told you to check altitude?" I nod. "It was 5000 feet. I pulled." She chuckles... "No. You pulled at 6000 feet!" OOPS. I'd misread the altimeter. I'd spent the canopy ride wondering how the heck I'd missed 6000 feet... turns out I didn't. Shelly suggests I look at some video footage of Raoul landing, because he keeps his camera rolling as he lands. He pauses the video and says "That's what 8-10 feet looks like." I've been flaring at 15-20, so I've basically been taking a 5-10 foot fall. Landing hasn't been too painful, just rather humiliating...sigh. Next time, I wanna land on my feet, dammit! I'm still on radios for level 6. So, I passed. Personally, I wouldn't have passed me, but I'm okay with that. I think its just that my last skydives were so good, I had an average one and I think its really bad. The thing is... remember my personal goal for the skydive? Get myself out the door without much incident? Well, I did that. I had fun. I passed. It was a great jump. Next time, Shelly gets to push me out of the plane! I won't be dealing with door anxiety there... They want you to be out of control and then get into a good arch and find your stability. I think I can handle that. I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait til next Saturday.

This is what I've already got, kenpowise, in Illinois. I'll ask around some more if none of these are close enough to you. Academy of Self-Defense, Ltd. Address: 22 E. North Ave. Northlake, IL 60164 Phone: 708-409-0800 Head Instructor / Rank: Jay Larkin, 3rd Deg. Black Belt Rob Hanrahan, 2nd Deg. Black Belt Style: Ed Parker's American Kenpo, Paul Mills Charatin's White Wolf Kenpo Karate Address: 7614 Madison St. Forest Park, IL 60130 Phone: 708-771-4425 Head Instructor / Rank: Patricia Charatin, 3rd Deg. Black Belt Style: Ed Parker's American Kenpo A- Academy of Self-Defense & Fitness, Inc. Address: 3753 W. 95th St. Evergreen Park, IL or 9056 S. Harlem Bridgeview, IL Phone: 708-499-1500 708-430-3355 Head Instructor / Rank: Ray Pohl, 4th Deg. Black Belt Style: Ed Parker's American Kenpo Littleton Kenpo Karate Address: 7735 Conventry Lane Frankfort, IL 60423 Phone: 815-469-0345 Head Instructor / Rank: Jim Littleton Style: Ed Parker's American Kenpo Smith's American Kenpo Karate Academy Address: 2500 Bluebird Ct., #1 Springfield, IL 62703 Phone: 217-529-3478 Head Instructor / Rank: Troy Smith, 6th Deg. Black Belt Style: Ed Parker's American Kenpo, Paul Mills / Shaolin / Dragon

I've never done SL, but most of the folks I know who learned SL say they wish they'd done AFF. Including my instructors. Perris offers both programs.

Your profile says you're in Indiana... dunno how close you are to this place, but its an excellent organization. I can find you some more schools if you need. I'm one of the moderators on the largest martial arts bulletin board in the world www.martialtalk.com so I have a lot of connections in the MA world. Let me know what you're looking for, and where. Universal Kenpo Karate Dojos 50 Professional Court, Suite B Lafayette, Indiana (765) 446-1920 (AKKS)(FKKE) I would highly suggest Kenpo Karate. I did a lot of research before selecting a style, and even did Tae Kwon Do for two years, and Kenpo is basically down and dirty self defense without all the fancy stuff. Its saved my life at least once. Been training for 14 years now, but we've had yellow belts (beginners) save their lives using something we taught them the night before. Think about it... if you have to defend yourself, do you think you're going to do a jumping spinning hook kick with your foot connecting with his head?! HELL NO!. You're going to kick out his knee and get your ass out of there, and that's what kenpo teaches. Let me know if you need any more info. -Kris

You'd never see a hetero man dressed like that.... sure you would... just turn on WWF.

Dude, you better hope the boyfriend KNOWS about this... or you're likely to end up flattened when he finds out who took the pictures. Also: if you're serious, tell her to make sure she's wearing photo quality make-up... it makes a huge difference, because it reflects the light differently. what you see on models in ads is NOT the same stuff sold in most stores. MAC is a good brand. expensive, but worth it.

Your score was 28 out of 30. That is a very good score, you would have a good chance of passing the Mensa test.

nope... hetero is a 0 or a 1 homosexual is 5 or 6. bi is 2,3,4 two het options, two homosexual options, 3 bi options.

http://www.pflagphoenix.org/education/kinsey_scale.html some interesting reading... I was wondering, with all the discussions going on about what makes someone gay/straight/bi, where everyone fit in on the Kinsey Scale...

http://www.pflagphoenix.org/education/kinsey_scale.html Kinsey Scale... interesting... lots of good info on this site.

lol... 50%

start looking for another job... take the first one that comes along that will work for you financially...quit the old job before you get fired. then, when you've secured a new job that's paying your bills temporarily, you can spend a lot of time hunting for the position you really want.

Interesting thing: if you park at a broken parking meter, they can't ticket you! In LA, they put little red hoods on the broken meters...and everyone thinks it means no parking, so they park somewhere else. I always park at the broken meter, and never have to pay, and never get a ticket.

LOL... walk down the street with a five week old kitten peeking out of your shirt pocket... I guarantee you'll get WAY more chicks.

OMG what a pretty kitty!!! And Michele, Pie is adorable too! so much personality!

Gia- Look into driving into Fullerton or Union Station and taking the metrolink from there... there are stops in Camarillo, Moorpark, and a few other places in that area. www.metrolinktrains.com