Nightingale

I would think its wrong. Your grandmother has a right to know what's happened to her companion. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of killing animals... My vet says 90% of the animals he euthanizes can be saved... the owners just don't want to pay for the medical care!!! If an animal is truly in extreme pain and there's no hope, that's another matter. I am a firm believer that when you adopt an animal, you have made a commitment to that animal. You have committed to give that animal WHATEVER care is needed to keep him or her happy and healthy for the rest of their lives. I could live in a much cheaper apartment, but I'd have to give up my cats... they're family! They're not to be traded away for an extra $300 a month. Far too many people see the lives of animals as unimportant... sad.

shouldn't affect the alti... but if you're that concerned, check the rig, and carryon the alti.

These are the DZs I know of... PERRIS AFF 1 = $309 AFF 2-3 = $185 (two jumpmasters) AFF 4-8 = $165 (one jumpmaster) ELSINORE Level 1 $289 Level 2 $179 Level 3 $159 Level 4-8 $149 HOLLISTER Level 1 $270.00 (includes Logbook) Levels 2 and 3 $190.00 (each) Level 4 and 5 $175.00 (each) Level 6 and 7 $175.00 (each) Total Price for AFF Levels 1-7 $1,350.00 Pre-Paid Discount Price for AFF Levels 1-7 If purchased before Level 1. Does not include repeat levels. $1,350.00 *10 free jumps on completion of course Pre-Paid Discount Price for remaining AFF Levels If purchased before Level 2. Does not include repeat levels. $1,140.00 *6 free jumps on completion of course

I've heard some WONDERFUL things about SkyU at Perris.

the thing I find scary about tandems is you're sitting in the plane with your seatbelt off and the door open and YOU DON'T HAVE A FREAKIN PARACHUTE!

Keep in mind that everyone's issues are different. My big thing is door anxiety. However, on AFF 2, what made it more difficult is that I kind of adopted other people's issues... there were a few folks on the board who were having stability issues. For me, stability comes naturally. I'm a martial artist and a dancer. Finding my center of gravity and using it is something I've been doing for many years. However, I was very afraid that stability was going to be a problem for me, because it was a problem for some other folks here. I was expecting a problem where there was none, anticipating a problem, and therefore freaked myself out. Some people have stability issues, some have canopy control issues, some have door issues, some have other freefall issues... each person's experience is unique. What I write is probably a good general idea of what you're going to do, but what's going through your head is going to be totally different... Skydiving, for me, is a head game. I told my mom on the phone a few days ago that when I get my A license, its going to mean more to me than my college degree. She asked why, a bit horrified. I explained that for me, school was EASY. I show up, I do my homework, I get a good grade. That's just how its always worked. However, with skydiving, it sure as hell ain't easy. That first step out of the door is the most difficult step I've ever taken in my life... which is why the A license is going to mean more... because it's going to be a LOT harder to get.

Well, like I said last time, I was gonna stop posting these, but people kept asking me for them... so here goes... Yesterday, I did AFF 4. I had some HUGE nerve issues, mainly because for a while we were grounded due to high wind, and I was already worried enough about my canopy landings, after ending up face first in the dirt last go round. The dirt dive went well. Raoul told me that we're going to exit the plane like usual, and then, once I'm stable, he's going to move from my right side to my front, holding on to both my arms... then, when I'm stable, he's going to let go. All I have to do is stay in front of him and stay stable. That's it... no brainer, right?? So, we get geared up and get on the plane. Raoul has arranged for me to jump last, since he knows from last jump that I do better if I can take an extra moment to leave my nerves at the door. And then its my turn... Oh My God. The nerves hit me so bad that I didn't know if I was going to jump or not. I think what really did it to me was that there was no second jumpmaster. I knew Raoul wouldn't let me freefall alone if I wasn't ready or was unstable, so that wasn't a huge issue, but that second jumpmaster gone was a pretty big emotional hurdle. Then, I started thinking about my landing... which SUCKED last time. My landings have been getting progressively worse, and if the pattern continued, I'd probably kill myself this time around! Panic Attack...breathe...push all that fear down through the floor of the plane. Deep breath... look at Raoul (who's looking a little impatient by this point, but I can't say I blame him) "Am I okay?" I get the thumbs up, and we lean out, and in, and out, and WOW! I had a good exit, despite the nerves. Once I'm in freefall, life is wonderful. I get stable and do my practice ripcord touch. Altitude check. 10,000 feet. Raoul moves to grab my arms. Still pretty stable. He lets go. YEEP! I freak a little, and get a little wobbly. He grabs my arms again and gets me to breathe. Deep breath. Altitude check. 9,000 feet. He lets go again. Ok. I can do this now. Arch, breathe, steady.... Oops, he's moving a little to my left... wait a sec, that's me moving! Better turn a bit to fix that. Ok. back in line. Hmm...little to the right now... fixed. 7,000 feet. He's moving away now... I need to straighten my legs to fix that. I'm going backwards a little. Ok. All better. 6,000 feet! LOCK ON! 5,000 feet! Wave off. PULL!!!!!! Ok. I got a little unstable on the wave off, but all was fine. Canopy deployed with no problems. Shape? good. Spin? no spin. Float...yep. Cool! Good look at the canopy, no twists or broken lines. Slider's down. Everything looks good! I do my control check with my rear risers. No problems there. Takes a bit more muscle, but I want to practice. I unstow the toggles. Both are fine. Ok. Control check with the toggles. Looking good. Because I hung out in the door for so long, I was WAY north of the dropzone. I hear Raoul on radio telling me to head straight back to the circle. We've got winds coming from the south, so it may take a bit to get there. Ok. I can do that. I'm now at 1000 feet and setting up my landing pattern. I hang out over the canal and cruise towards the swoop pond. Now at 500, time to turn left... now, left again towards the circle. I didn't quite make it to the circle. I flared too high, at more like 20 feet than 10. I just held the flare, knowing I didn't have enough time to unflare and flare again. I hit the ground on my knees, but it was a much better landing than last time!!!! YAY!!! and, the obligatory Note To Self: Sticker Bushes are Obstacles!!!! Those things freakin HURT. So, I remove myself from the sticker bush and untangle myself from the canopy. The truck comes by and picks me up. I'm grinning like a freakin' idiot. That was an AWESOME skydive. Wow! I go into the packing area, and Raoul tells me I met all the requirements and I passed!!!!!!!!!! He encourages me to work with a different instructor next time, because you get different feedback from different people. Makes sense to me. I know I'm ok by myself in freefall now, so I'd be okay with changing up instructors now... maybe Kai or Vinnie next time. Being alone in freefall was the most amazing thing... I can't wait for next time. I wanted to go today, but I had some things I had to get done at home, and by the time I was done, the dropzone wasn't taking any more reservations... guess they were busy today. On Friday, then. That's ok.

My friends all gave my friend Meggie silly gifts for her bridal shower...one of the gifts happened to be a rather large, anatomically correct vibrator... glowed bright blue from little lights inside when it was on. It got buried in a drawer and forgotten about (so she claims)...until the day her nephew was over. they'd been playing hide and seek indoors, and somehow, in the process of hiding, Jonathan had gotten a hold of this vibrator... and, being six, assumed it was a lightsaber... just as Meg's bro and sister in law arrived to pick up Johnny. He went running out of Meg's room waving this light up, glowing, vibrating dildo complete with balls screaming "Look, Mom! Auntie Meggie has a Lightsaber!!!!"

my folks always tried to be quiet... but I distinctly remember hearing them for what seemed like several hours in the middle of the night when I was twelve or so... My bedroom was two rooms down the hallway, and both rooms' doors were closed! So, although I was a rather naive twelve year old, I did understand what was going on... and opened my door, screamed at the top of my lungs "WILL YOU TWO FREAKIN GO RENT A ROOM?! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP! ITS A SCHOOL NIGHT!" The um...unusual noises stopped, and were replaced by the loudest laughter I've ever heard from them. My mom yelled "Sorry! We thought you were asleep!" I shouted back "I was! You woke me up!" Much laughter again. My dad then yelled "Go back to bed, kid!" So I did... and all was quiet.

Set it to "Anonymous call blocking" anyway. Family and friends can unblock their numbers by pressing *67 before dialing you. Dunno what phone company you have, but if you're getting completely swamped by telemarketers, like I was when I first got my new phone #, Pacific Bell has a service where if the call is "out of area" or "anonymous" PacBell will answer the phone for you, find out who it is, and, either put the call through if its a general person you haven't told them to block, or if its a telemarketer or collection agency, they'll tell them not to call you again, and report them if they do. your phone will not ring in the last situation. the call gets intercepted before it even reaches you. This service helped me out a TON... the folks that had the number before me were being chased down by something like twelve collection agencies, who liked to call in the middle of the night, and refused to believe they had the wrong phone number. Three months of PacBell answering their calls put an end to that.

The cable guy can't enter your house without your permission. Nobody has the right to be inside my home unless I have invited them in. That's the law. During the daytime, I am never home. I'm either at work, karate, or the dropzone. If someone is in my apartment when I'm home, it means they're in my home at night. Cable guys and repairmen don't work nights, and they don't show up at an apartment unless you call them... logical assumption if someone is in my home at night and were not invited: they're up to no good. And with knives, you really have to LOOK at the person to see where you're aiming. By the time I throw, I've had to look at my opponent to find an appropriate target. That look will give me a real good idea of who I'm aiming at as well. This is the reason I do NOT own a gun. Guns make it too easy. Aim for the center of the mass, pull trigger. With a knife, you have to be much more selective about your target, because there is a lot less velocity backing up the weapon. I also make it very clear to my friends and family that I keep weapons in my home. You may have neighbors who are polite and friendly. My neigbors dont' have any interest in getting to know the other folks in the building. Most people don't even know their neighbor's names, where I live. None of my neighbors would presume to come into my apartment uninvited. The apartment complex across the street has a drug and gang problem. Robberies are fairly common in the downstairs units. We hear about a couple per year. I live upstairs, because most thieves don't want to carry a television set or whatever down a flight of stairs, and windows make for much easier access than doors, and the only way in to my place is through the door, or a window that's twelve feet off the ground. In my neighborhood, 99% of the time, someone who is in a home uninvited after dark is up to no good. We've even had two serial rapists operating in the vicinity. Basically, what it comes down to is if someone is in my home at night and they were not invited there by me, it is a reasonable assumption that they are there to harm me. If you are in fear for your life, the law allows you to take appropriate action. I have spoken to several police officers, and several lawyers about situations like this, mainly because I was a martial arts instructor for several years, and I needed legal information to pass along to my students about when it is and is not appropriate to use martial or weapons skills.

absolutely. You have to judge the situation. I wouldn't harm someone for standing around in my front yard... I might call the cops if they hang around too long. No point in chasing after someone who's obviously leaving either. However... you wake up in the middle of the night... hear a strange noise. Grab your weapon (whether its gun, knife, or convenient baseball bat or whatever) and go to investigate, assuming that its probably nothing. You come face to face with a stranger in your hallway. You are between that stranger and his way out. now what? "Um..hello, Mr. Criminal. May I kindly ask what you're doing in my hallway?" riiiiight.

I live alone, in an apartment. My father is the only other person with a key, and he would have the courtesy to call first, and ring the bell when he got there. He would never enter without my permission... because he KNOWS where I keep the throwing knives. and, in the scenario you listed, I would hope my neighbor would have the courtesy to come ring the doorbell before snooping around in my garage.

you may not have the time to make that distinction. What are you going to do, walk in on a burglar and ASK him whether he's there to hurt you, or if he just wants your stuff? By the time his actions make his intentions clear, it is probably too late.

ABSOLUTELY a justifiable homicide. My personal philosophy is that if someone is in my home without my permission, it is a JUSTIFIABLE and REASONABLE assumption that they are there to harm me. I don't own a gun, but I do have a beautiful set of Hibben throwing knives that live on my bookcase right next to my bed.

hmm @hotmail.com @yahoo.com @nightingalesnest.net @lafd.lacity.org @martialtalk.com

FTP is File Transfer Protocol MUCH, MUCH faster and more efficient than the web based uploading... you just click on a bunch of files, hit "send" and they're done, all at once. very easy.

I completely agree. I've always advised him (but ONLY when he asks for my opinion) that if he's not in love with her, he needs to leave. The kids are going to pick up on it eventually, too, especially when the two of them are shouting at each other all the time... they're both living in fear, and both a little too comfortable to leave. now, from my perspective, that situation would be a living hell. For me, relationships are based on trust... if that trust is broken, the entire relationship has no foundation left. I couldn't handle being in a situation where every time your SO goes out the door to work or to hang with friends, you're wondering if they're actually with someone else... My policy, since being cheated on, has been that once a relationship is clearly a committed one, cheating means its over. period. I can forgive a lot, but that kind of betrayal is simply unforgivable.

looks like just deleting the executable file should do it...won't do any harm, at least. From a few virus related websites (McAfee, Norton, etc): This Trojan horse has been distributed on some sex-related usenet newsgroups as Quickflick.mpg.exe. The filename may fool some people into believing it is a legitimate .MPG movie file. When the Trojan horse is run it attempts to download and silently run another program from a website. The program it attempts to download is believed to be a copy of Troj/Subseven a backdoor Trojan horse, but at the present time it is no longer available on the website. Upon execution this trojan tries to download a trojan (trojan.exe) from a web site and attempts to execute it. At the time of this description the file trojan.exe, which purpose is currently unknown, is unavailable from the above website. DownLoader is known to have been distributed from this website using an Internet Explorer vulnerability. A vulnerable browser would download and run the trojan just by visiting the web site. Note: Spam messages have been observed that try to trick the user to visit the above website. At the time of writing the homepage shows a white empty page with a "This site is temporary unavailable" message, but actually opens 5 more browser windows, each containing a different exploit for different Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. One of these exploits tries to upload and run the Downloader on the visiting system.

I pay for hosting with Earthlink. They've been WONDERFUL. I know they offer free sites to their dialup subscribers, so you may want to check into that.

legalize the stuff thats relatively safe/not addictive, such as pot and LSD. Personally, I'd rather deal with someone who's high than someone who's drunk. I don't use drugs, and I don't even drink very often, but I don't believe in taking away other's abilities to make their own choices about such things.

ok. that's an easy one. when you sign up for free webspace, you are given a certain amount of allowed data transfer. sites that are more graphics intensive use more data transfer space. If I have an image that is 46kb, every single time anyone views that image on the web, it uses 46kb of data. Free sites, to limit the amount of drain on the servers of the host, limit the amount of data transfer so they can keep their costs down. If a site has exceeded the allowed amount, you see that message until it times out and access is restored.

I have a friend who habitually cheats on his live in girlfriend... (and he gets hell from me whenever I find out what he's been up to!) his reasons: 1. he's got two kids with her. If he leaves, he's afraid she'll make it very difficult for him to see his children. 2. he supports her financially so she doesn't have to work and can be a full time mom. If he leaves, she'll have to get a job, and he doesn't want his kids in daycare. 3. he's not in love with her. she is aware of this, yet chooses to stay. 4. she is aware of quite a bit of the cheating that has gone on, and he knows this. she chooses to ignore it, so he's taken that as approval to continue. Personally, I think his actions are dead wrong, and that cheating is not justifiable under ANY circumstances. If you've committed to be with someone, either uphold your end of the commitment, or admit that you can't and go your separate ways. My friend is well aware of my opinions in the matter, and it has definitely affected our friendship in a not so positive way.

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Wait until you're at least of legal age, especially if your partner is older than you are. Don't want to get them into any legal troubles over something you consent to, right? I am a firm believer that if you are too embarrassed to walk into a store and purchase condoms, you are not mature enough to have sex. If its something you're embarrassed about, ashamed about, or afraid of "getting in trouble" over it, you're probably not ready either. other than that, you've got the basic "if you don't feel ready emotionally, you aren't ready." also, I think that it being with someone you've dated for a while is probably a good thing. Your first time is something you won't ever forget, so you want it to be a good experience, and its more likely to be a good experience if your partner actually cares about your experience as well as his/her own. because people are getting married later and later in life now, I don't think waiting for marriage is overly practical, but hey, if that's what someone wants to do, then that's their choice. I guess what it all comes down to is that we have to make our own choices, but I think this is something that needs to be carefully considered rather than something done on impulse, if only to make sure protection is readily available.