Emma

Well done Fruce, welcome back to the Light Side! I also lured a little freefly dude across to the world of tight-fitting suits and grips last week...it was beautiful! Bless him, he even managed to launch a 3-way! Prejudices aside, men look unquestionably better in flat-fly suits....so...figure-hugging...beats those unflattering baggy bolier suits any day........mmmmmm..... em

Hey! Yes, it is me that bought Karen's rig...How trippy! Sorry about not recognising you in Empuria...I think it was being in a different context (country/ DZ/ frame of mind/ temperature!) which threw me a bit....I was like, 'How could you have sold me this rig? I bought it in England!!!' What a twat I love that rig, by the way....I had hard-housings put on and the brake lines tuned ... I can actually fly it without spanking in now too (mostly...he heh)...It's such a nice, neat little container, perfect for a girly...really comfortable. As it's my first rig I wasn't that sure what I wanted when I bought it (cos I had about 25 jumps )but now I'm really glad I did...Thanks! (Wow, I went off on a 'oh I love my rig!' rant there for a sec!) Hope you guys are doing ok - are you in Canada now? Hope you've got good weather where you are! Maybe catch up with you sometime later. Emma

I'll move to the States...can we set up a skydiving commune where we just skydive all day and raise money for av gas by....erm......growing weed and erm......making soft porn movies? Maybe we could even get Mr Duchovney in a bit part, for Freaksis...she can be the 'fluffer' (they get to make the bits go...er...hard).... Hmmm, yes, it's all coming together now.....commune of skydiving and vice, set in the wilds of ...(Arizona's gone hasn't it? Any suggestions? I've never been to the States but I hear it's quite big...)...oh, somewhere anyway... Emma

Has anyone noticed how very WASP-y skydiving is? Nearly all white, male and middle-class (before we even go down the route of sexuality!) No doubt this is partly due to the expense of skydiving, which keeps it the preserve of the relatively wealthy. However, it is also a sport which, by design or default, fails to attract ethnic minorities, and indeed, women. Now, please don't bombard my post with intimate details of individuals who are 15% Hispanic or have an Indian second cousin.....I am just making a point as this is something I've noticed to be a fact.....good or bad. Of course if your DZ is 95% lesbian Pakistani women, that would be an interesting demographic.... Emma (white, middle-class, female)

I saw Sangiro's photo on the old forum. Believe me laydeeeez, he is a babe. AND a web guru. AND....a skydiver...wow.....all he needs now is to be.......single? and hetero? Could it be?...... Ahhhhhh.......sweet fantasy dreams..... E

Ben - you read my mind.....I had given up looking at these forums temporarily as of late, nothing but BORING BORING BORINGNESS!!!! Or manybe my boredom threshhold has increased due to the releative excitement of getting TEN JUMPS IN LAST WEEK HA HA HAAAAA HAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still bored tho'......can't we get some debate raging here?....Hmmmm, if there's one thing I DO know how to do, it's be controversial.....will get back to you on that one Benny boy, watch the forums Emma x

Hey! I got a pad! Name there is DZDiva and I live at the Creeper Pad......maybe see ya laters... em

What is this Happy Hour that's made everyone so...happy? I think I totally missed it! When/ what/ who etc etc? Emma

yeh baby, we'll see that Skreamer lives up to his name...heh he e

We have to use a Hercules for team training love, we like to take a few nibbles up for the ride to altitude, the whole burger van if possible actually, just in case we get peckish, y'know....But you can sit on my...knee, if you like E

Star Trek rocks, Jean-Luc Picard is a god. That's all I have to say on the matter. Huh. Piss-takin' philistines... emma

Arse! The Sabre scuppered me good n proppa! I always was shit at lying......(Damn damn DAMN!) Guess we might see you there some time then? (Don't be scared heh he ) Em

I know lover, I did the maths.......21 and a bit, dahhhling......and I actually said that I have to wear the lead, the other girlies have a wee bit more weight on them than skinny old me ....That's why our team name is The Anvils. Still up for it babes? We can't wait! mmmmmm

BTW, Grogs, chest straps tend to be ok, but we do often experience problems with our flaps....perhaps you could ...adjust them for us?

Jeez guys! Well, I jump a PD 230 and I load it at 1.3, cos I like to get some really fast, gnarly swoops out of the leedle beeetch over the hangar.....The CCI said I should really upsize, but I aint scared, heh heh...It looks especially cool with my sexy, skin-tight hot-pink fast-fall jumpsuit and purple helmet ....Mmmmm... Wow, are we ever one shit-hot se-e-e-exxxxy bunch of babes....I'm the skinny one in the team, I have to wear lead when I jump with the other girls, cos i can have a tendency to float a bit compared with them.... Come on down boys, we'll show you a few tricks Em

Not zackly a jump, but at the weekend I got to do a bit of wingwalking on an old Antenov biplane with the other 3 laydeeees from my 4-way team....Man...that was most cool...Although I did shit myself rather a lot throughout the whole experience (not literally, of course ). I don't know how we all held on, it was hilarious! I was gripping the struts so tightly I now have bruises on my legs, arms, hands.....Pretty freaky doing a fly-by at 150 feet past the DZ.... Emma

Respect. The show(er) must go on! Come to think of it, we have showers at our DZ now.....nice, new clean ones...just perrrrfect for after a hard day's jumping.... Although the new TurboLet we have has an AMAZING vibratory effect on the way to altitude...I had been enjoying its secrets privately for a number of lifts until someone brought its...er....massage-like qualities to the attention the rest of the plane...So I (and a lot of others I guess) were busted. Damn! Now we all sit there grinning at each other when we the engine revs up...he heh.... Shit my DZ is a filth bed! em

Srewbag - that is so true! The guys at my DZ are such a random bag of loons.....I would never have met them if I didn't skydive....We've got company directors, tree surgeons, scientists, students, ex-army, undercover police, accountants, sales people, ex-bank robbers, plumbers, millionnaires. Wow, and that's just my friends! It's really cool because we all jump together and get pissed up together and the age/ background differences don't seem to matter at all. Welcome Fallonflyer! You're gonna love it! (BTW, the geek thing is accurate too - maybe because we all spend our money on bloody skydiving instead of clothes/ fashion appendages? Outcasts and frrrrrreaks!) Emma

Harro - sick but very, very funny. Here's a couple from last weekend: 'Why do we have to sign an indemnity?' 'So if we break you you can't say it was our fault' 'Why does it say NEXT OF KIN?!!!' (incredulous) 'So we know who to send the bits to if it all goes wrong' Here's my favourite - and please bear in mind, my DZ does 50 to 70 tandems every weekend, affliated to various charideee organisations, and I was booking them in and taking payments. This lovely laydee was about 20th in the queue: 'Hey - I'm doing this TANDEM SKYDIVE for CHARITY!' 'Yes?' 'Will you sponsor me to jump? It's for CHARITY!' 'Possibly like the other 30 people in this queue? I also am doing a jump this afternoon. If you cover my ticket (£16) and give me five quid, I'll make sure it goes to Save the Children.' Actually, I didn't say that. But I wish I had. Honestly. Bless them. Emma

Anonymous 'Bob': RE:'If you can't seem to talk to your friends about anything at all, then maybe the problem is not that of skydiving. It seems as though the rift has been formed when your friends decided to pursue the more domestic avenue of life...... Yes indeed. It seems as if, just as (some of) my friends have 'settled down', I, conversely, have taken off - several times each weekend in a Turbolet 410, to be precise. My Mum is starting to question why I prefer leaping from 'perfectly good' aeroplanes, to getting married and impregnated. Hmmm. Tough choice. My Nan wants grandchildren. My colleagues think I'm so-o-o-o-o wacky! (Ugh) My boss looks at me every Monday as if he's surprised I'm still alive - because he actually IS surprised. A bit off the subject, but it reminds me of some nice old chappy we had down the DZ a while ago. His 18 year-old son was down to do a tandem, and so he was enquiring about how safe it is....The DZO just decided to tease him a little bit (well, it had been a long, tandem-filled day), and told him it was pretty safe really...In fact, he said, 'We only lose 20 or 30 tandem passengers here each year'...To which the bloke replied with a RELIEVED smile, 'Oh, well that's not so bad then, I suppose' !!!!!!!! Yes, we did put the record straight. But it was his own son! Does he think skydivers are crazy? Obviously, yes! RE: 'I also agree with you completely in that I have no interest in the words baby, family car, lawncare, or any other parts of speech indicitive of the nuclear family'. Buzz words in my suburban weekday hell are: fitted kitched 'Wedding' magazine Garden furniture Pension plans (oh yesssss) Stencilling (!!!!!) Tescos home shopping (actually very good for the time-poor) Anyway, it's Friday and we have a 3-day weekend here in the UK, perhaps I may even get to launch an exit that doesn't funnell this weekend! Emma

ANONYMOUS- RE: 'Just because you love it, doesn't mean that the whole world has to hear about it everytime they see you. ' True, true...and I agree that the world would be a bit boring if we were all the same....which doesn't contradict what I said. I really find that a lot of my whuffo friends WANT to hear about skydiving because that's what they think about when they see me again. Probably because (selfish or otherwise), I am at the DZ every weekend, weddings and funerals permitting...hence, skydiving is what they ask me about.... But my point is, they really get bored of hearing about it pretty quickly, but once they've set me off, that's it. It's a genuine dilemma! You know how obsessive it is, and this is where the possible problem lies. RE: Your comment that you skydive...'Not so I can run around and tell my friends and everyone I see what I did on the weekend. I'm not out to impress anyone. If people want to talk to me about it, I'll be glad to converse. But I don't pigeon-hole myself as 'just' a skydiver.' I find it's kind of the opposite. Whuffos can pigeon-hole skydivers as 'just skydivers', and that's what they want to ask you about, but there seems to be an impasse because you can't explain what it's really like, try as you might. Personally, I don't like telling people I skydive precisely BECAUSE of the ensuing conversation which I, and most of you no doubt, have had 100s of times. Trouble is, it IS an important part of my life, and you do share what's important to you with people you love. Except this is something you can't ever really share. Hence the frustration. I can't retract my comments about DIY and babies though...I didn't like those conversations BEFORE I started skydiving. They seem to symbolise growing up, and I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to do that yet...Scarily, more and more of my friends seem to be doing it and it's DOING MY HEAD IN! Rant #2 over. Emma

Can't think of any suggestions myself....although he is quite cute tho'....Which is probably irrelevant in these discussions. Like Pammi, I gave up on the nickname thing myself after 5 minutes of trying to come up with something cool and original (obviously). What's wrong with BenW? There's a great ....erm...CLOCK in London with the same name...and a BEAR...I think...erm, Gentle Ben wasn't it? See, i am no help whatseoever. Alliterating skydive terms...errr, there aren't any. I give up. Emma (boring non-'nick' name)

Personally I still 'forget' things about my skydive...especially on exit. I have a massive bruise on my chin and neither I, nor the 3 others on my jump, have any idea how it got there. I look like a battered wife, incidentally. It's an experience similar only to being out on the piss....limited memory, strange bruises, strange men in bed wi....Oh no, just the first two bits...(then again...hmmmm) Emma

I have an idea. Intentional cutaway. Far better than dealing with a messy main you can't lose that just ends up dragging you down anyway! Or - in reality...If he really does seem to be great, you'd better check he understands what skydiving means to you...a lot of whuffos just can't comprehend what an obsession skydiving is. If you buy him a tandem he may still end up feeling emasculated (cos he's got to be strapped to a big man himself, while his bird flies free all on her own!)....The only way, I guess, is to see how it develops. I'm sure it CAN be done (skydiver/whuffo love)...but can you really be arsed? Hope it works out anyways... E

Josh, The reason you got so many replies to this post is because everyone saw the title 'FEAR' and went, 'THAT'S something I know about!' Everyone feels scared sometimes - I am ALWAYS a bit nervous on the plane - sometimes even on the way to the DZ! However, it DOES get better, and if you decide to continue with your AFF, you'll find it gets easier. One of the biggest reliefs for me was when I could finally jump solo without an AFF JM....it almost became relaxing. In fact, I can honestly say that now I generally feel scared about screwing up the dive more than 'fear' per se. Keep at it - I think from your post that you know you need to do this again, you just need some support and to know that the fear will lessen as you do more jumps. I have to say, I also sometimes feel that an evil twist of Fate 'made my most important dream also my worst fear' - I oftn think that when I'm on the ride up, in fact! Good luck, I'm sure you'll get there! emma