Smokis

hmmmmmmmmmmmm You know, when I tell a dramatic story like that, it always seems to get a little more thrilling each time I tell it. Arch17,000?, maybe it was more like Arch10,000, but the excitement of the story carries more dramatic affect when someone stretches the truth a little. Especially when the intended listening group knows nothing about skydiving and that Arch17,000 is in reality arch3,000 away from death, but they will never know. Impatient employee, I haven't been around many DZ's, but it sounds like this story takes place on a saturday or sunday, which means in all likely hood, Mr. Impatient employee is probably more like Mr. Hungover. On my first tandem, my camera guy, my wife's tandem master and my wife's camera guy were all up at 3a.m. drinking by the fire the night before. Fortunately we are both still here. Flares? I'm still new, why does this throw you all off? 17 spins causing injury??? Have you ever done the spinning swing thing on the playground? I have, I'm sure I did at least 17 spins on a really big swing. I'm still here to tell my story and I don't recall any significant G forces on my body. I don't think doing it at 1500 feet in the air will add any extra g forces. And again, perhaps it was more like 10 spins or even less. But 4 or 5 spins is no where near as exciting as 17 spins. I do believe this guy at least expierenced an abnormal jump and in his retelling the story he may have stretched the truth a little. But lets not just write someone off for committing the same evil sins we all have.

Thanks for the replies. I think one of the things I'm going to really focus on is tracking and how to pilot. I know I really want to learn how to move myself around in the sky well before I start attempting things that are a little more outside of the box.

My biggest concern as a new skydiver is mid air collisions. How do you avoid them? I guess my biggest fear is being under canopy and someone, for whatever reason, ends up doing a low pull and crashes into my canopy. Or something like that.

Spec wise that looks like a really nice system. I know nothing about Sony's computers so I can't comment on that. Don't forget you will still have to pick up a monitor and possibly software such as Office (it only comes with a 60 day teacher/student trial version). But spec wise its the nicest system you've look at so far. Best of luck.

I know it seems crazy, but that is likely the most cost effective way for UPS to organize overnight shipping. If you notice, your package spent most of its time in PA. Probably was sent to a large sorting facility and then sent back out. It would be a lot more expensive to have sorting centres in every major city than a very large one in a few key locations.

The reason is overhead. Instead of going out and spending lots of money on equipment, trucks and all that other B.S. that is needed, they find someone else to spend the money on it. And if testing is something they no longer think they want to do, they just don't bother renewing the contract and they also aren't holding the bag with all the expensive equipment. It also looks bad on the city when they are the ones that have to tell the workers they are laid off. This way its the private guy laying the people off and not the big bad municipal government.

I called, after 20 minutes of being on hold I decided to just wait till Monday and hung up.

After thinking about it, I say get the dell mentioned earlier. Here's why 1) Its not an HP or a compaq :) 2) You can upgrade to a 128mb video card 3) You can add in windows media centre as an operating system if you would like. 4) You get the media card reader 5) Its new which will mean you get a longer warranty period than with a refurb. Plus you can get on site service options 6) You can add in MS Office easily when you purchase 7) You get a 19" monitor 8) Dells usually look cooler than the rest, don't forget you want to impress the ladies 9) I believe both systems you were looking at have integrated video cards which will eat up your RAM unlike the Dell upgrade which has onboard RAM specific for graphics. 10) ummm... you skydive!!!

Most of the folks that build don't build to save money, because it really won't save you much, if any at all. They build so that they can explicity select system components that they favor, and have worked best for them in the past. Anybody that's worked with PC technology for very long will have dealt with some stuff that didn't work at all, or worse, worked but didn't work right! Unfortunately, when it comes to PCs, that's the nature of the beast! I would agree, I think customization is the big driver here. But price is also a pretty big driver. Had I went out and purchased my rig at retail and had it built, I would have probably been charged $3000-$4000, but because I built it myself (which also means shopping around for the best deals for each component of the PC) I managed to only spend $2000. BTW I'm talking Canadian dollars.

Here, check this out: http://www.buildyourowncomputer.net/learntobuild.html This will help you give an idea of what its like to build a PC.

Forgot to mention, quite often when you purchase a video card that is designed to edit video on it, the software comes with it free of charge. You just have to install it yourself. If you do go the route of building yourself, you probably will want to have a friend that is at least computer saavy to help you make sure everything is configured right after the build.

You know, I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of building, especially if that makes it better & cheaper at the same time, but I have one question. Do you have to buy ALL the software (including windows) for a homebuilt? It seems like that would make it cost-prohibitive in a matter of picoseconds. Blues, Dave Most places will let you buy OEM versions of the software when you purchase items such as a motherboard and CPU. The cost is signifcantly less. You don't get the box or manual though

Because I live in Canada I'm not familiar with newegg.com, but we do have a company here in canada that I would consider similar, ncix.com I bought all my stuff from ncix.com when I built my rig. One service they offer when you are buying parts to build a computer from them is to build the computer for you. Does newegg.com do this? If so I'm sure there is enough computer knowledge between us all to help Dave pick his PC parts and then have newegg build it for him.

Thanks for the advice. I upgraded the monitor to the 19" ultrasharp monitor(presumably the difference is worth $80), added a card reader and firewire port, an optical mouse, and the basic Office package and it comes to $1358. Is it $500 better than the one I listed in my original post? Blues, Dave Actually everyone here does have a point. I built my own computer back in January and its very upgradable. If this option is available to you go that route. I suggested Dell because most people I know don't always knows someone that builds computers. However if this option is not available to you, Dell is probably one of the better choices you have. I just ordered my wife a laptop from Dell. I've always heard good stories about them and have purchased dells in the past for my workplace. I've also heard about nightmeres with Dell, but every company will have a customer willing to share a bad story. Dell probably just has more of them cause they sell so many damn computers to begin with. I'm sure their satisfaction ratio is on par with many other PC makers. As for your question about that dell computer being $500 worth more than the HP. To me, the fact that the word Dell is on it and not HP is worth the $500. I absolutely hate HP and Compaq with a passion. My last PC was an HP and that is what prompted me to learn how to build my own computer.

I just did a quick check and you should be able to get the exact same PC from Dell for around $1500 with a basic MS Office package. For what it sounds like you intend to use this computer for, I wouldn't worry to much about what DDR is or front side bus. Look around at Dell some more and you should be able to get a similar rig for well under $2000. And I would stick with the Pentium 4's for your applications. Take a look at this: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DE51RF2&s=dhs I would upgrade the Monitor, Video Card, and add in MSN office basic and you have a nice system.