freakyrat

Pink Floyd at Rice University Stadium in Houston. A severe thunderstorm blew through 1/2 hour before the concert was over and the lightning flashes and the rain falling through the laser show was just awesome. Scary too. Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy tour 1973 at the University of Alabama. Just an awesome light and sound show on Stairway to Heaven.

while on the subject of dishonest car dealerships, I want to give you my experience with Gulf Freeway Toyota in Houston in 1985 which has got new owners after they supposedly scammed me and others in 1985 in a big insurance scam. I bought a 1985 Celica that came equipped with a fancy radio. The salesmen in this dealership would like to take publicity pictures of happy owners with their cars I suppose to entice customers to this dealership. It seems like for about two weekends in our area each one of us including a Houston Police Officer had their Celica broken into overnight (supposedly with master keys) and the radios stolen. (These were very clean thefts with no marks on the cars or the dash.) The dealership would then replace them for about $600.00 a pop and get reimbursed by the owners insurance company. In my neighborhood I found out in talking to my State Farm agent that State Farm got popped for about 4 radios and Allstate for about 6. I hadn't even gotten my new car transfered to my policy yet. Needless to say about six months later the owner of this dealership was run out of town on his ass back to Louisiana and hasn't been heard from scince.

here's more concerning the Houston situation with Bill Heard and also Landmark Chevrolet plus comments. This dealership chain has been dishonest for years and some of the comments to this article are just bizarre especially the one where the prospective customer had to call the police to get the keys to his own car back. http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080924_mp_bill_heard_closures.ac388a8a.html

They've screwed people in Texas to with both their Houston area delearships. Mostly bait and switch deals on cars and payments leases etc. They sometimes were featured on the local TV news consumer programs about customer problems etc.

Hey Mark Congratulations on your successful big-way camp. Jan thank you for assisting Mark as his interpreter. He is one amazing individual with a lot of determination whom I met a Nouvel-Air a few years ago. Mark keep it up and surely you will reach your big-way goals. Truly a TEAM EFFORT. Chris

My Katana's name is Capt. Morgan with the magenta, blackberry, lime, lemon, watermellon, lemon, lime, blackberry, and magenta PD factory pattern. It looks like a tropical drink.

I flew a Stiletto that was Blackberry, Magenta, Jade, Lemon, Lime, and Watermellon, One of the girls at Skydive Houston called it a fruit salad.. My Katana came off the shelf with similiar colors except no Jade and my Samurai has a variation of the Katana and Stiletto colors.

You folks would have had to watch the news about this scumbag and the heartache that he put these two families through by his actions especially Jennifer's father Randy. It wouldn't matter if he kicked a camera from KTRK (ABC) KHOU (CBS) or NBC or whatever. The guy had no respect fro human life and the prisoners in the Harris County jail did not take to kindly to him either. It's to bad he couldn't have been executed much sooner without all the appeals.

Blue Skies Todd. I remember that 12-way zipper we pulled off the back of the C130 at Quincy. Your organization skills in the dirt dive made the dive easy. It worked out great in the air and was a lot of fun. My condolences also go out to Todd's friends and family. Chris

This guy was a vicious scumbag. When he was approached by Fox26 News in Houston after he was arrested he viciously attacked the reporter and kicked his camera. When he was arraigned in Judge Mike McSpaddens court room someone in the Harris County jail wrote F___in Asshole on the back of his jail uniform with a magic marker or what appeared to be red lipstick. This clearly showed on TV during his arraignment. He got what he deserved.

ICE ICE baby. Unethical behavior by Commodities traders (Speculators) control the price. When you only have to put up 7% margin to buy futures contracts and you don't even have to identify yourself when you make a buy you can see where that leads. NO ACCOUNTABILITY. And you can thank former US Senator Phil Graham, His wife Wendy, Former Congressman Tom Delay and his wife and Sen Richard Lugar and the late Chairman of Enron Ken Lay for all this. They had a law paased as a rider to the omnibus spending bill that allowed oil to be traded as an unregulated commododity called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It failed twice in getting passed by Congress so they put it in as a rider to the spending bill that former Pres. Bill Clinton signed. Tom Delays wife was paid 200,000 dollars as a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. Phil Graham's wife was put on the board of Directors of Enron and they all cheered. Now we know what happenned to all these crooks and we are all paying for it now. (Fort Worth Star Telegram Article by Automobile Editor Ed Wallace) The way to correct all this is for ICE to exercise some control and ACCOUNTABILITY. Raise the margins to 25% and identify the speculators.

I have both a Micron and a Mirage G4. It's a matter of personal preference. The Micron's yoke design fits some people better. If you buy the Mirage get the full articulating harness this makes it easier to replace the main lift web center pieces if the rig is too short etc. Both rigs come with spacer foam which really improves comfort. Also both my rigs now have the PD Optimum reserve in them. The reserve containers on both rigs are small and the Optimum reserve fits very nice in both. My Micron was built for a PD143 Reserve and I have the Optimum 143 in it and the Mirage had a PD126R reserve in it that was kind of tight and was a bear for my rigger to pack. I have an Optimum 126 in it now and it is real nice. Neither reserve container is too soft with these reserves they are perfect and both rigs are so comfortable with this reserve setup. The spacer foam on the leg pads make a big difference in comfort when you are under canopy. Good luck and try both containers. They are both well made. Chris

Everything said in here is correct. Keep Your body level when you pitch and don't look up at it too quick. Don't do anything to the nose and don't roll the tail more than one or two turns. When mine was new I put it in the bag very sloppy and it still opened soft and on heading. Chris

A rambunctious Jack Russell Terrier. Fun Luvin and playful and always in need of attention and if the dog is trained well they won't tear up things. One of my neighbors has a female brown and white jack named sparkles and she is friendly as all get out and is one happy dog and is well mannered. Chris

Is Your Dog Codie sort of like a Jack Russell Terrier Mix?

Barry That picture was one of my best dives with Hutch at SDH. It was Mike Blanton's 300th jump and Hutch and all of us had such a blast on the dive and Hutch and I had such a blast doing the little ceremony afterwards. I remember you couldn't keep from laughing. At Hutch's funeral they showed a capsule film of his life and that picture of that skydive in photo35 was shown and I have to say I almost lost it. Debby Dodge was there and she helped get through it. All I gotta say is Hutch was a unique person and my life is much richer for knowing him. Chris [email protected]

First Eric, as a Vietnam era veteran (USAF Thailand 71-72 74-75) Thank you for your service to your country. Congrats on the new gear. Even though the V310 Micron is actually made for a regular PD143R reserve, I think you will find that the Optimum 143 fits in the container better as the freebag is made for a V308 (PD126R reserve) and a V310. Also the Optimum in the V310 is not to soft or to hard in this container and you like that the container doesn't fell like a brick on your back. Your rigger will appreciate packing it also. I have a V310 with an Optimum 143 and it just feels much better with the Optimum, Looks great also. Chris

There was a troop at Ft. Hood this past week that was going to get deployed for the third time to Iraq after only a short stint back home. He actually started cracking up and told his CO to F..ck Off. A counselor told his CO that he is either going to go back and commit some atrocity on the Iraqis, get himself or someone in his unit killed or kill someone when he comes back home.

Cheryl is an E190 Captain for USAIR. Cheryl flew for Piedmont before the merger. Last I heard Diverdriver flys an RJ for Air Wisconsin operating as US Airways Express Chris

Southwest was the carrier that first became concerned about Lithium Batteries such as those in our AAD's etc and other electronic devices. They worked with Cypres and the FAA to insure that our rigs equipped with AAD's would be safe for carrying on their aircraft and kept a low profile about it while it was being resolved. Their inflight manual incorporates the allowance of our rigs on board their aircraft. The lithium battery incident cargo fire on the UPS cargo jet at PHL which came about from improper packaging and handling is a reason we have the new lithium battery regulations from the FAA and TSA and is a reason why we should transport our rigs with AAD's and all other electronic devices as carry on baggage to comply with the new regulations. The Lithium batterries in our AAD's also comply with the original IATA regulations by their design. Again SWA was way out in front of the FAA on this issue and shows that they do put safety at a high priority.

The original AD said that the airlines had to comply within the next 4500 hrs of flight but allowed the inspections to be completed within 1 1/2 years from the date of receipt or at the next "C" or "D" check. The 737's involved were old classic models or the ones that you see at SWA and other carriers that have all those rivets and skin doublers and tear strips installed inside and out. That was 46 airplanes out of a 500 plane fleet of which after completing the inspections 6 were found to have small cracks which were repaired promptly. The whole thing was a recordkeeping snafu which caused SWA to just not get these planes in for this maintenance. Then when SWA found out they discussed it with Boeing and the FAA knowing it would take 10 days to get the planes to a heavy maintenance shop for the work. The FAA allowed them to fly the planes in question while this was being arranged. Safety wasn't compromised according to Boeing because of all the redundancy that was built into the skins on these aircraft mainly all the doublers and tear strips etc. The article truly is a sensationalistic load of bullshit. Jeffery Feith who was the lead investigator in the Valujet accident did an independent investigation of this whole thing for SWA and came up with the same conclusions as Boeing. Just for the record I flew on a 737-800 series acft. this past week on another carrier. that when the flaps were lowered for landing the flap track fairing cover that was in the exaust of the left engine just vibrated like hell. I've seen these do that on most 737's but not as much as this one did.

Kim, Just wanted to let you know that the Optimum 143 reserve drops in beautifully in my new Micron V310. It is neither to soft or to tight. It is just right fills out the container nicely. Sometimes when these small rigs get away from Florida and the humidity the reserves are just a pain for the riggers to pack and the rigs feel like a brick on the persons back. I also have a really tight Mirage G4 MT size container that has a regular PD126R reserve in it that is a real bare for my rigger to pack here in Dallas, TX and I'm going to be putting an Optimum 126 reserve into. These reserves should pack one size down from the regular reserves but taking into consideration that Dallas is drier than Houston the Optimum packs about a half size down in Vectors and Mirages up here and makes the containers look good and feel good on the jumper's back. Again the Optimum 143 reserve looks really good in my Micron and I have complete confidence in it. Chris

I don't know Rob but the Optimum 126 will fit better in my Mirage and I have to say the Optimum 143 fits great in my Micron V310 and the rig is extremely comfortable with the spacer foam backpad and added bonus. It just doesn't fell like a brick. Humidity has a lot to do in how the rigs pack. You can probably put a lot of canopies in these rigs in Florida but they are just to tight here in Texas. Some people would try to fit the maximum size parachutes that the rig can allow making it hard on their riggers and themselves when they pack. The Optimum is a great flying reserve canopy also. Chris

Just put a Optimum 143 in my Micron 310 made for a regular 143R reserve. I mean a regular PD143R would be tight in this container up here in Dallas but the Optimum fits nicely and fills out the container well and is not to loose. I'm going to put a Optimum 126 in my Mirage G4 MT which has a regular 126R in it now that is a bare to pack and close. The larger Optimum should fit very nice as a regular PD113R would have been a better fit in this particular container. Chris

Dave That's and outstanding painting. I still have your painting of the guy sitting on the cloud. The green one. It is framed on the wall in my home office. Chris