freakyrat

You need to listen to these people and get medical treatment as quick as possible. I was bitten about a year ago from this past March. I was bitten on the back of the left thigh. I ended up having a M.R.S.A kind of staph infection. Fortunately my doctor drained the bite and gave me a prescription for Levoquin which cleared up the whole thing. All I ended up losing was about one layer of skin around the bite and fortunately mine wasn't bad and drained residual blood for about a week. The only residual effect I had was some arthritis in that leg for about six months. Things are fine now and you really can't even see where the bite was. Each case however is different with these critters so get medical help as soon as possible. Chris

I could feel the reserve metal connector links and bumpers through the back of my container poking me in the back under the shoulder area. I don't feel this now with the slinks. I've made several jumps since my last repack and it is just much better. Chris

My Chiropractor worked mine out with heat and ultrasound. I also saw my x-rays which showed how the nerve under the right shoulderblade got a little pinched and aggravated one of the vertabrae. After several sessions stretching it out etc, he gave me some exercises to do with a band and they have helped. Also use good posture when sitting etc. Most of my problems come from sit-flying. What other posters have said about some weight exercises will help also. I also got replaced my reserve connector links on my PD reserve with reserve slinks and this helps also. Chris

Rhino, agreed, One of the men in the unit was former Army Specialist Michael Hughes who is a Legislative Aid for Senator Diane Feinstein. I met him at a legislative reception in Washington this past May. He's a little guy and it's hard to believe that a guy his size could be this bad ass Army Ranger but he was. Some of the smallest can be the meanest when pushed. Anyway he's very personable and who knows maybe he'll run for office someday. Chris

I forgot the one local airport where the other airlines raised hell about Rynair getting unfairley subsidized. I think it was Brussels Charleroi. My hometown gave Allegiant Air 50% off landing fees, couter and gate rents etc. They also offered it to the present carriers serving the airport if they would start new service to other cities. Chris

Funny, I've never had a bad flight on Airtran and once when I was flying from Houston to Ft. Lauderdale I was one who volunteered to get bumped in Atlanta as they needed several seats. I got a free flight coupon and got booked in the business class section on the next flight and got to FLL about two hours later. They also fly to Bloomington-Normal. The town with the grandiose 14 million dollar terminal building in the middle of a farm field that is very close to Rantoul and the WFFC. Southwest is very good at what they do and that's why they have been consistently profitable and cities around the US clamor to try to get them to serve their airports. It was written that they send all kinds of gifts to Southwest hdqtrs. to back their request up. Also a real secret is emerging in the airline industry. Niche airlines like Hooters Air, Allegiant Air and Trans-Meridian are entering secondary markets with service to popular vacation spots like Vegas and Orlando using full-size jets. Most of these secondary airports are close to the airports that the big boys fly out and these carriers have no problem filling seats operating from them. Allegiant Air is going to start weekend service to Vegas from my hometown airport which is 90 miles from Chicago on Aug 5th and already their 150 MD-80 jet flights are solidly booked up. Southwest got their start by flying from secondary airports near major city centers and just recently branched out to major airports like PIT and PHL to take advantage of the weaknesses of USAIR. Even though this went against the original Southwest philosophy they nonetheless have shown they can make money at it and stimulate traffic. PIT is going to re-open up 12 unused USAIR gates for USAIR again because of this traffic stimulation. Chris

Now is the best time to buy, Southwest just sent me an email with sale fares that are effective during times of the WFFC. Chris

Jose. I know, I think some others on this group gave you someplace to start to find the data to. Like I said the US stores this data in Asheville, NC. Canada probably has someplace that stores the data to. Probably someone at NAVCANADA knows. Chris

Jose this is for CYXX Abbotsford, BC for today at 20Z for example from the RUC analysis from ACCARS. Analysis fro the US is kept at The National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC. Here is ABBOTSFORDS Analysis sample. (DD = 'A' means analysis) Pressure_Alt DD Dir Spd ---Temp--- DewPt (ft) (mb) (kts) (F) (C) (C) 311 1003.0 A 192 8 59.5 15.3 14.4 380 1000.0 A 193 9 59.4 15.2 14.3 390 1000.0 A 194 9 59.4 15.2 14.3 521 995.0 A 192 11 60.3 15.7 14.2 731 988.0 A 194 13 61.3 16.3 14.0 1017 977.0 A 198 13 59.9 15.5 13.7 1450 962.0 A 203 12 57.7 14.3 13.0 1886 947.0 A 225 10 55.6 13.1 11.8 2329 932.0 A 247 10 53.6 12.0 9.7 2555 925.0 A 251 10 52.5 11.4 8.5 2778 917.0 A 244 10 51.6 10.9 7.4 3231 902.0 A 233 10 49.5 9.7 5.7 3687 887.0 A 216 11 47.1 8.4 4.1 4153 872.0 A 206 12 44.8 7.1 2.3 4622 857.0 A 204 13 42.4 5.8 2.4 4849 850.0 A 214 13 41.5 5.3 2.4 5098 842.0 A 213 12 40.5 4.7 2.5 5580 827.0 A 218 13 38.5 3.6 3.0 6069 812.0 A 219 15 36.3 2.4 2.3 6955 785.0 A 223 16 32.9 0.5 -0.2 7664 764.0 A 227 17 32.5 0.3 -1.6 8362 744.0 A 231 19 32.2 0.1 -2.4 9261 719.0 A 237 22 30.7 -0.7 -3.4 9977 700.0 A 248 25 29.3 -1.5 -4.5 10275 692.0 A 242 26 28.8 -1.8 -5.0 11489 660.0 A 245 31 25.5 -3.6 -7.4 13057 621.0 A 245 36 20.5 -6.4 -9.5 Chris

Jose. Again here is a partial sample of winds and temperature aloft for Montreal Dorval at 18Z today up to about 15,000 feet. (DD = 'A' means analysis) Pressure_Alt DD Dir Spd ---Temp--- DewPt (ft) (mb) (kts) (F) (C) (C) 111 1013.0 A 40 14 69.6 20.9 14.0 183 1011.0 A 42 16 68.2 20.1 14.2 328 1006.0 A 43 18 67.5 19.7 14.2 492 1000.0 A 40 19 67.1 19.5 14.5 544 998.0 A 48 19 67.1 19.5 14.6 836 988.0 A 48 19 65.7 18.7 14.6 1279 972.0 A 50 20 63.3 17.4 14.3 1725 957.0 A 47 20 61.0 16.1 14.2 2178 941.0 A 46 21 58.6 14.8 13.9 2634 926.0 A 47 21 56.3 13.5 13.1 2680 925.0 A 46 21 56.1 13.4 13.0 3097 911.0 A 50 22 54.0 12.2 11.9 3566 895.0 A 57 23 52.0 11.1 9.4 4041 880.0 A 64 25 51.3 10.7 7.6 4524 864.0 A 67 26 50.7 10.4 7.9 4996 850.0 A 65 24 50.2 10.1 8.2 5016 849.0 A 74 24 50.2 10.1 8.2 5515 834.0 A 80 21 49.6 9.8 6.9 6023 818.0 A 79 17 50.5 10.3 0.6 6541 803.0 A 67 13 49.6 9.8 -4.5 7066 787.0 A 59 11 48.6 9.2 -9.9 7601 772.0 A 60 10 47.1 8.4 -12.8 8146 757.0 A 65 9 45.7 7.6 -16.6 8700 741.0 A 64 8 44.2 6.8 -17.7 9265 726.0 A 63 6 42.8 6.0 -18.0 9845 710.0 A 74 3 40.6 4.8 -16.7 10246 700.0 A 116 2 39.0 3.9 -16.0 11181 675.0 A 223 1 35.4 1.9 -14.5 12831 634.0 A 259 6 29.8 -1.2 -12.2 14324 599.0 A 269 8 25.0 -3.9 -11.2 15761 566.0 A 271 11 20.3 -6.5 -12.5 Chris Skydive Houston

Jose I work in Flight Service. One of our specialists has a website that has a link to an ACCARS computer analysis of upper air soundings. Use the RUC portion and type in the four letter identifier such as CYYZ for Toronto CYUL for Montreal etc. Use the major airports 4-ltr indentifier. You can disregard the winds and dew point and isotherm data on the chart portion and use the lower portion. Here is the link, hope this helps. http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/ Chris Skydive Houston

Just checked the web again and got an email reminder sent to me from Airtran . Their Lowest Fare (I assume you want from New Orleans) to Bloomington-Normal is 104.00 excluding taxes. That is cheap. Hope this helps. Chris

sorry didn't read the fine print.. Today's Southwest sale doesn't apply during the time of the Convention. Chris

Southwest started another sale this mornoing. Chris

Not taking it personally. Cheers Chris

First Off, badmouthing an airline that has a number of skydiving employees in all phases of their operation is in bad taste. Second, Southwest Airlines Chief of Safety worked very hard for you and me and all skydivers to get the Cypres AAD approved in the US for safe carriage on their airline and all commercial airlines. Southwest is a very good airline with very good dedicated employees. A lot of airlines contract out their C-checks and other heavy maintenance. Some do it in house As far as fares go, Southwest is running a number of special deals and also has "Ding" software for download where they will send you their daily fare specials. Chris Southwest Rapid Rewards member

You can book Southwest to Midway or St. Louis and drive. You also have the option if your in a city served by Airtran to book them to Bloomington-Normal which is just 50 Miles or so west of Rantoul. Airtran has or had a sale going on. Southwest sometimes has good fares to Midway. Chris

Take the ripped one to your Postmaster. Tell him (her) that they are using the wrong sorting machine at the sorting center for it. Skydiving Magazine needs to be sorted in a machine designed for flats. When Skydiving went to the glossy cover the USPS started using another type of sorting machine for mail and even though they still use a flat sorting machine for newspapers they are just ignorant when it comes to Skydiving magazine and run it through the new machine instead of the flat sorting machine. After six months of getting my magazine ripped to shreds I finally got some satisfaction when I brought this to their attention and said that I would tape all the ripped one's to a picket sign and go down and picket the sorting center and call the local media on it. Chris

Just thought I'd let you folks know. Thanks to Mike the letter carrier from OK for his tips which I showed to my Postmaster, my Skydiving Magazine arrived today UNDAMAGED. Thank you all for helping me solve this problem. Chris

I jump in Waller, TX and will retire from the FAA on Oct, 3rd as LM will be taking over our AFSS in Conroe the next day. I don't know how long I'll work for Lockheed afterwards. Chris

Wet Platinum

All Or Nothing CD - DJ Christopher Lawrence Chris

I had to use my PD143R Reserve and it flared and landed me just fine. I demoed a PD126R Reserve at Quincy several years back and it also flew like a reserve should and was real easy to land even in the heat. Chris

I think I maybe got the problem solved with my Skydiving magazine. Thanks to Mike the letter carrier from OK that sent me the messages on how to solve this mess. Anyway I'll give it a couple of more months to see if the USPS can straighten things out. The problem is not with the magazine it's that the USPS is running it through the wrong type of sorting machine. It should be run through a flat machine that is made for newspapers. Chris

Just thought I'd let you all know that I spoke to someone at Skydiving Magazine and they are going to try to take care of the problem with the USPS. I put the poll up because I just wanted to find out if this problem was widespread or just isolated. Seems like from your answers it is just an isolated problem. Thank You Chris Conroe TX