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Thanks. I just surfed around productiontrax.com, and they have a similar commercial license: buy the music up front and you can freely edit it into videos that you'll sell to customers; but cannot sell copies of the music itself. Now its just a matter of finding what to use. (BTW, the DJ "sport stack" stacktraxx is no longer available.)

I want to get into tandem videography, including overlaying music onto tandem video and selling the DVD to the customer. I also want to do it right, i.e., without violating copyright of the musician, record comapny, whoever. I've looked around on some of the sites mentioned (digital juice, vasst, etc.) and have a few questions: 1. Is it correct that with these sites (digital juice, vasst, etc.) you pay once for the music (up front), and then you can make copies onto a dvd that you'll sell to the tandem customer? 2. There's so much content to choose from on these sites (digital juice has over 40 stacktraxx volumes for $69 each). Does anyone have any specific recommendations on one's that they use for tandem videos? Thanks.

Don't have plans yet for this weekend? Come to skydive the Point and watch the rain with us! We may even get to jump from the CASA at some point. And we'll definitely be partying hard, regardless of that bitch, Mother Nature. RW load organizing by Chris Wagner and Carol Clay. Freakfly organizing (is there such a thing?) by our local team, Freefly the Point. Don't forget about the Rock and Feather fall rate event. See who can clock the fastest and slowest fall rate. We have prizes from manufacturers that you've actually heard of. Fifteen dollar registration fee covers free beer, free camping, load organizing, and the right to laugh at whatever Willy tried to spell with the lawnmower. Twin Otter on Friday, Casa for the weekend. visit: http://www.skydivethepoint.com/event.htm -Andy

I have about 200 jumps on a Sabre 170 loaded at 1.1. I have about 300 jumps on a Safire 139 loaded at 1.4. I'm going to put another two or three hundred on the Safire then get a Stilleto 120 which will be loaded at 1.6.

Not sure what you mean by clueless. A Coach Course Director runs the course, and that person shouldn't be clueless. As for what to expect, it's all about learning to teach others. The skills and concepts that you have to teach are simple and almost instinctive to a person with a few hundred jumps. Stable exit, floating, sinking, forward movement, etc. The difficult part is conveying these concepts to another person, a person who has no idea what the hell you're talking about. The coach course is all about you learning how to teach these concepts to someone who has 10 jumps. That's the theoretical answer of what to expect. The practical answer is this: you brush up on your basic skydiving knowledge by reading the SIM (remember that thing?) and the syllabus; you sit in on and help teach a few FJC's; you sit through a two day lecture/discussion of the syllabus; you practice what you've learned through mock explanations, briefings, and debriefings; you take a written exam; you show your stuff on the eval dives, including briefings and debriefings. Hope this helps. -Andy

The USPA rating system currently has four categories: AFF, IAD/Static Line, Coach, and Tandem. USPA consolidated the instructional material for all in the new "Instruction Rating Manual." The manual is viewable at uspa.org under both the "Safety and Training" and "Download Docs and Forms" tabs. As for the cost of the coach course, there are a few things to consider. First, you will have to pay for your eval jumps (which consist of your slot and your evaluators), and you need 2 satisfactory eval jumps. At $20 per slot, assume three eval jumps (one screw up and two satisfactory), that's $120 right there. Second, you have to have the SIM and Rating Manual for ground class. You can download them for free at uspa.org or you can by them for a combined cost of about $50. Third, the class participants usually have to pay for the evaluator's time (2 days) in the ground instruction. Depending on class size, this can range from $25 to $50 per person. Last, you need to pay uspa for the rating fee. Last I checked that was $20. So for a ballpark guestimate, I'd say that the coach course is going to cost an aspiring rating holder somewhere around $215. Plus beer.

Anybody have ideas or experience with friendly competitions like the hit and rock, hit and chug, etc.? I'm looking for new ideas(other than above) and/or comments about organizing existing ones (like above). Thanks, Andy D24621

Ask 100 people about how to keep a Sabre from slamming and you'll likely get 99 different answers. So take this with a grain of salt: I used a brand new Sabre 170 (dom ~98) for about 200 jumps, loaded at a forgiving 1.1 to 1. Never had any of the legendary Sabre slammers, but did have a few stingers. I expermented with different packing techniques. (Had to with that slippery PD zp material!) The one I ended up with, for reasons of opening consistency and packing speed, was a standard pro-pack, quartering the slider with lots of material pulled out over the nose, and roll the shit out of the tail. Seemed to work and, like I said above, never made me see stars.

You are probably talking about an early model Odyssey with stainless hardware. I hadthe same problem. Put about 200 or so jumps on it with no problem, then reached up one day after deployment and wondered why my toggles were higher than normal. I could lossen the leg strap while standing on the ground just by contorting my body. Not too cool. Anyway, a short term fix is to put a rubber band on the cross bar of the friction adapter. I attached it just like a stow band on a d-bag. This puts some rubber between the stainless and the strap. It looks stupid having the loop just hanging there, and people are always kidding you by pulling on it and snapping it, but it does add some friction and keeps the strap from slipping. The long term fix is to send it back to Sunpath. They did the mod on mine, and I was without my rig for only about two weeks. (Never did reimburse me for shipping like they said, but I didn't really push the issue.) The new friction adapters work much better, although I think they shortened my legstraps. It's been an exercise in contortion to get my rig on ever since I got it back.

October 25-28, the 19th Annual Howlin' Halloween Boogie - Skydive the Point's biggest event of the year!!! We will have a a King Air for Thursday and Friday and Casa for the weekend. If we have enough interest, the King Air may stick around for the weekend and maybe we'll get up a few formation loads. There'll be a party every night, with the always fun Halloween costume party and contest on Saturday. Load Organizers will be available for advanced RW, novice RW, freeflying, tracking dives, etc. Free beer, camping, showers, dog tethers, etc. See: http://www.skydivethepoint.com/event.htm for details and registration.