ChasingBlueSky

Most skydivers know how many miles it is from where they park their car at home, to where they park at the DZ. Most skydivers can tell you what the weather forecast is for the next two weekends. Just as much, most skydivers can tell you when sunrise and sunset is so they know just how many jumps they can squeeze in a day. More than once I have climbed into an airplane at many DZ's a couple minutes after shadows start to crawl across the ground (knowing full well it was sunset). However, I didn't do this until I had two "official" night jumps (per USPA) under my belt. I have over a dozen official night jumps now, and countless unofficial ones. Everything changes while jumping at night and I wouldn't suggest anyone that hasn't been properly trained and briefed on the safety procedures for dark flight attempt one of these "accidental" night jumps. (how many newbies know what moon shadow is?) BTW - I LOVE night jumps - but landing off in the dark is a very scary adventure. I've only had to do it once, and hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon. I knew I was landing off and picked a field I knew fairly well. I nearly landed on a fence I KNEW wasn't there in the morning because I drove past that spot on my way in to the dz, but it sure the hell was there that night and the only thing that saved me was the extra flare in my Stiletto. I was just lucky they didn't decide to put up a new power line in that field that day as well. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Glad you liked it - some Team Funnel members will be out your way for some load organizing soon. Not sure if they will have the Icarus demo's with them or not. Just keep your eye out for a guy that goes by Tequilla Bill! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Like to say I wasn't here posting because I was busy skydiving.....but with only 130 jumps in the last year, and my last jump was in October, and my USPA license is currently expired.....oh well _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

um, ok _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

So where would 30 posts in 2 years put me? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Good luck finding any duct tape in the stores these days _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

KazaaLite is free - It is a hacked version done up by someone that was upset about the Supernode and spyware in Kazaa. www.kazaalite.com is the best place to get it - and the zip file has instructions on how to install it. Its just a matter of running the install program, then replacing the exe file, and placing a host file in the system directory. Also, I see you still use Easy CD - once I switched over to Ahead Nero I couldn't remember why I used Adaptec anymore. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Nice and clean is the way to go, with as little in the taskbar, and almost nothing running in the background. I love to have great pictures on the desktop - but I like higher resolutions, at 32bit, with a 75 refresh rate. Because of this, the redraw of the screen gets on my nerves after a short period of time and I am back to looking at a solid color. BTW - you may want to think of switching over to KazaaLite.com No spyware on it. Run Ad-Aware and you will see just how many little programs are running on your system. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Someone needs to tell that dog to arch and get his legs out more! Just curious, why are they jumping with the dog in the military? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The shuttle had also initiated a 63% banked turn onto the left wing to help bleed off speed right before this happened (source:CBS news) _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Just heard the profiles of those seven on shuttle - most of them had a passion for flight, but they also mentioned that Laurel Clark was a skydiver as well. BSBD _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Dan Rather usually has the best sources on this due to his passion of space flight: The first speculation, before the NASA press conference: One of the twin rockets, during jetison on takeoff, may have hit the left wing and removed some of the heat tiles. The CBS NASA reporter says his sources in NASA say the last report from the shuttle was the tires on the landing gear in the left wing were reporting something wrong with their inflation level. They think that it also reported something with the left aileron. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Perris, choice of (most) stars. Any idea if she enjoyed it, possibly to be back for more (kinda like that Patrick Swayze dude.)? I was watching MTV the other night, about the history of the "Headbangers Ball." They talked about how nuts Dave Mustang of Megadeath was....something along the lines of "I mean, this guy jumps out of perfectly good airplanes!" gotta love those whuffos... Anyway, turns out Dave got the host to do a tandem, and "got him hooked" and he did about 40-50 jumps. Anyone know where Dave Mustang and Ricky Rattman used to jump? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Yeah, what she said!!

Guess that means they are one band I will avoid in concert so I can continue to enjoy their music. I actually have found alot of the newer bands I have seen in the last few years just don't have as good of a stage presence as bands I have seen in the past. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Yup. Esp with lines like this: I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless, and in that moment I am happy. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

If Nancy Regan isn't busy, maybe we can start another "Just Say No" campaign? All joking aside, yea, that would be a good idea. It seems like this is necessary since common sense appears to be a failure at this point and time. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Not everyone is saying that. I think what most of us guys are doing are thinking about how it could happen to us. We see ourself as a man that would respect a woman if she revoked her consent. But in this case we are thinking: How do you defend yourself in court? By saying "I didn't realize she wanted me to stop?" A guy has almost no defense against this - there is the physical proof that intercourse happened, but nothing that he can use to protect himself (esp if this is with a woman he just met - therefore, he wouldn't know the subtlty in her vocabulary). How does a guy prove that she didn't imply "this has to stop now," or better yet, how does a woman prove that she did want the guy to stop by what she said. No one is disputing that a woman has the right to prosecute someone that violates her, and yes, the laws in some states are not fully in the woman's favor. Usually in a rape case, it is one word against another. The reason the rape-kit was created was to provided hard-core physical proof in the woman's favor agains the guy that attacked her. In this scenario - consent has already been given, and a very subjective withdrawl of consent happened as well. We are taught in school over and over that "no means no." Most guys will respect that. All three people in this act share the blame - all three were consenting to the original act. I can see why you are defending the girl in this - but can you see why we are arguing the other side as well? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I have a friend that defines harrasment like this: "Being hit on, at work, by someone you do not find attractive." _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

(this is rather long winded) First off - I have been trained in HR and been taught to teach about Sexual Harrasment. In college I was a counselor and gave advice to guys on how to avoid these situations (ie, not to put themselves into the precarious position of being known to have a woman in their rooms alone after drinking activities to prevent them from being accused). Since I am a guy - I have a very limited understanding on how rape emotionally effects a woman. I have been taught the basics on how to counsel a woman after she has been attacked. That class didn't really prepare me for handling the situation and I was dumbfounded the first time someone very close to me was raped. That being said - I think one detail is being left from this story. Why did the girl feel she was raped? It isn't reported here that she actually expressed a true desire to have the guy stop. We have a very stripped down version of the details in that story. Why did she feel that a very ambiguous "I need/want to go home" constitued as a "NO, or stop right now." The guy could have thought, "Ok, she needs to go home after we finish instead of spending the night." I feel that if she had said "no"or "stop" or even used a pre-defined safeword to indicated the guy to stop, and the guy still continued - then she would have had a case to take to court. No argument there. No excuse that "once a guy starts, its unfair to not let him finish" (it may be cruel, but if she changes her mind and voiced it - then you have to stop). The fact that the court didn't give a guidline is a mistake on their part. I'm not asking for the judicial branch to give a definition of all the words and phrases in our venacular that a woman may use to indicate a guy to stop what he is doing - but a basic guidline would help. In reality, with this ruling, almost anything a woman says during the act of sex that doesn't directly correspond to the act could be used against the guy (ie, I want to go to the beach, your ceiling is on fire, I want to be in the kitchen, etc). This sort of open-ended interpretation of a law is currently used when deciding what is considered "indecent by community standards" in radio and TV broadcasts (re:people taking CBS to court for the Victoria Secret show). In other words, a woman could argue in court after the act that anything she said during that time showed that revoked her consent. It's good to see that the court is not throwing rape cases out like they used to in the past, and helping defend women. But this seems a bit extreme. Do you feel that in this scenario, a guy could take a woman to court for rape: Girl on top, guy says "I want to go home" and the woman keeps riding the guy for a given amount of time (say the 4 minutes in this case). Or what about in a sex-game where the only way to stop someone is by using a safe-word but the person doesn't use the safe word but keeps saying "no, stop." I'm sure this case can serve some good, and scare some guys into behaving better, and really listening to what a woman says. In fact, the judges probably wanted this on file to show that a woman has the legal right to revoke her consent even once the act has started (an idea that is as important to have on file much like the verdict that a husband is capable of being convited for rape of his wife). I've seen the damage that rape does to a woman, and I have seen the stats of how ofteen it happens. Anything to help prevent that is a good thing. I'm just worried that the precendence of this case will be taken advantage of. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Who are the Rodriguez Brothers? Hercules Rodriguez _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Right now.... October 27th was the last time I jumped...last Dr visit I was told March could be the best case scenario. Will find out on Tuesday exactly how good or bad the news will be. Figners Crossed!!!! Bo TF#3 _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Only 130 or so. Was off/on all year with an injury to my lower back. That injury now has had me out of the air since October, and will keep me grounded till at LEAST March. Have MRI coming up this week to find out if it is healing. Still - a great year. My first wedding jump, My first charity jump, Became a RB jumping out of a C130 (#398), jumped a ballon (#399), bi-plane (#400!), Bell412 (401), a Muff Brother jump 13-way magic carpet (402), and initiated a bunch of new Team Funnel members,. Had a chance to jump with some great names in the sport, and a whole bunch of great people. Not many jumps - but the quality far surpasses the quantity! Bo TF#3 _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I recently showed that video to a bunch of skydivers at a party. It pretty much pissed off everyone that it was included on the tape. Bo TF#3 _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I've had a chance to see a video of someone that had an accident while I was at the DZ.....I only watched it after the word from the ER was this person was stable. It was just like watching any other close-call video that all of us have seen at one time or another in this sport. It was scary to watch it - but all was good to know he was "stable" despite the accident. Later that day, the word from the ER changed to bad news and this jumper didn't make it. The memory of sitting huddled around a little PC9 view screen watching this guys last moments was the most surreal and unnerving thing I have done in a long time. I doubt I could watch this video again, nor do I have any desire to do so. I'm sure I did learn something from this video - but then again, I already knew not to hook it low. Would I be up for a possible video of me being out there for others to learn? Sure, but only if there is something to actually learn from it. Seeing another low turn gone bad on video isn't going to do anything for the sport when ALL of us know the end result of that. If it was a new situation that had not been filmed before or something along those lines....then show it so people can learn and stay alive. The only problem being - we know how the media is. Once in the public realm, it would be bastardized and churned out for some "extreme" video tape sold in the middle of the night on MTV. Bo TF#3 _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....