spinmaster

My bedroom...not funny you say? I was home for xmas while in college and my girl friend cam over for dinner - it was my parents dinner party. Anyway we finished dinner, excused ourselves and left everyone else chit-chatting at the table. Went to my room and proceeded to have a little post dinner "desert". What makes this so interesting you ask? Well, my bedroom is right over the dinning room. 5 minutes into it and there's a knock on my door and it’s my mom - requesting us to stop shaking the chandelier! I later found out that they were all down there laughing the whole time. Dan

I'm not stalking anyone, but would like to. Does anyone out there do coaching stalks?

Those are some powerful words there. I feel better about the coming year just from reading it. May your 2003 be filled with a clear path and lots of blue sky.

How you doin'? I can put a cherry stim in my mouth and pull it out with a knot in it? Maybe we should introduce our mutual tallents to each other?

Fuck Fast Food!! I had Cheese on lightly tasted, heavily buttered Blanc Bread. It was served with a cup of creamed tomato. I washed it down with chilled tin of aged caramel flavored water. In other words, I had grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, and a can of Coke. Yummy!

Point out this simple little thought: If this is the right person, if this the right thing to do, if this is so special...then why get married on Christmas? Why do you need the biggest holiday of the year to make your wedding special? If it was so special to begin with, any day would do and you'd think you'd want your own day for that. Be blunt; tell your friend that anyone who gets married on Christmas is propping up that relationship. I'm guy and even I know that getting married on X-mas leads to X-marriages. How cheesy

I have two good stories. First - AFF level 1. I did a bad count launching of a C-182 strut. As a result the outboard instructor was a tad late letting go. Also, the inboard instructor who was hanging onto me was caught off guard and the result was that the two of us rotated a little more than is usual on the hill. I did all my checks as planned but the one instructor who was late leaving didn't see me check my rip-cord because the angle we were all at. When he finally cuaght up and got on the correct side I was finished. However, he wanted to make sure I knew where my rip cord was. So grabed my hand and put it on it. Not realising why he was doing this and knowing we were not at the pull altitude I looked at him and mouthed "Pull now?". Well, he had a full face helmut on so I couldn't see his reaction. And as taught in the class when in doubt - pull. So I did, at 8000'. Needless to say I blew way off the DZ, about a mile. Landed in a pasture 20 feet from barbwire fence on the left, 50 feet from trees on the right, and 30 feet from a pond behind me. And only the horse saw me stand it up. Second - #30 Landed on the taxiway. Bad judment on my part for distances. Landed to fast to run it out and had to PLF on pavement after two steps. Thank God I had on an RW suit and a helmut. I ripped open one knee on the suit and bounced my head hard enough to know that without the helmut, I might have been really bad. Those are my stories. Dan

I have a write-in vote: Pontiac GrandPrix GTP. It's stock with a 3.8L V-6 with a supercharger. It only makes 240HP which isn't great but it's obviously de-tuned at that rating. Add about $1500 in minor mods and you'll get close to 300HP without sacrificing motor life. Another $1500 and mods and you get close to 350hp on car that’s as smooth as anything on the highway. It'll get you to the DZ in a hurry if you drive any real distance to get there. Invest in tires and suspension mods and it'll run with just about anything then. It's a sleeper too. No one thinks this car is dangerous...but it is. Dan

ya!, those are real

I've had a DZ.com t-shirt for two months. It's already faded to a light blue color. Not that is cheap or anything. I've just had to was it about 6 dozen times already. Do I think it's not "cool" to wear everywere? No! I am by far the coolest of my non-skydiving woffo friends. I don't care how tired they are of seeing it.

My advice is go jump and after you land jump again, Then after you land again, go jump again. Then after you land again, go jump again. Then after you land again, go jump again. Then after you land again, go jump again. Repeat this until your hands hurt to much to pack. Then, pay someone to pack for you and then go jump again until you run out of packing money or day light. Then get shit faced.

You want a push? Why? Are you chicken or something? Girly-man! JK Blue Sky's Dan

This could be his way of saying he thinks you're cute. Forcing money onto him now might actually be a little insulting....on the other hand, not paying him might be taken as an invitation to start stalking you. I know, not much help here. Dan

I went to Detroit once, all I wanted to do was leave. Dan

I haven't read all the threads on this yet so forgive the repeated viewpoints. Skydiving isn't for everyone. Even for those who have one or two or more jumps under their belt. If at the end of the day someone isn't felling good about what they have done, they probably don't need to be in the air. Most of us, including me, forget that jumping out of the plane is easy; from there it only gets harder and more dangerous. For me personally, I had a scary first AFF but got through it ok and with my mind and sanity in check and had a feeling good about the hole experience. I can easily see how it can scare the life out of someone. After that first jump, if you walk away thinking you're crazy for having tried it, you're probably not the type to be doing this, however clean of a jump you had. Pushing people to go beyond their comfort level is not cool in this sport. It can kill you even if you don't make a mistake. We, as a group, do forget that and let our personal thrill cloud our views. I've learned to balance the pushing people to try skydiving with what I hope is a health dose of caution and explaining the risks involved. I personally don't want to have someone I convinced to try jumping, who didn't feel comfortable with the risks, get hurt, or worse, and have that on my conscience. Pushing to many people gets to many people hurt and that hurts us as a sport and as individuals. Think of it this way, how many of you would want to readily try any of the number of equally dangerous sports out there after having been push, talked into, coerced, into trying? My .02$ Dan Blue Skies

Damn, that was beautiful. I think that brought a tear to my eye. Dan

"it is going to be at the Omni on July 28.....a few weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!! " What, did you get knocked-up?

I know, if there’s not any picture or video, the rule is it didn't happen. Well, you going to have to take my word on this that it did happen. I did one jump on Sunday morning. As usual, it was a roll out of bed, put the baseball hat on, and drives 90mph to the DZ kind of day. And as usual, I wore the hat on the ride to 14.5K where I always proceed to stuff in my jump suit or t-shirt. Today, it was a beautiful, clear, and worm enough day to start with a t-shirt and shorts jump. So the hat is in the t-shirt and out the door I go. Great fun jump. At 3.5K I pull, and right as I am stood up…out goes the hat from the top of my shirt. That’s never happened before. Well, I get under the canopy, grab the toggles, give them a good pull, and look in the last direction my favorite hat had flown off in for one last look at it….and there it is falling at the same rate I am under canopy about 50 feet aft of me. I do a hard 180 causing me to lose altitude relative to the falling hat. I flare a little to slow the decent rate down. Do a few minor directional changes a close on it. And as I get to about 10 feet realize there is now way this is going to work. I’m closing way to fast. As I go by it I put out my right had as far as I can just hoping to hit it and…. Wham….I COUGHT IT. IT WAS IN MY HAND!!!!! First pass. Less than 10 seconds after deploying. I’ve never done anything like that before. What an incredible feeling. I hope everyone else had as rewarding a jump this weekend. Blue Sky’s Dan

that's just wrong.....

"Protecs will be "in" so I can look cool; maybe some kind of "retro" phenomenon. Until then, I'll be a comfy geek" Let me tell you about the time I had to PLF when landing on the tarmac...I had a Protec on and I still walk away with a massive headack from boncing my skull on the pavement. And I have thick head, just ask my wife. I can only emagine the damage that could have been done had I not had it on. Remember the one time you do need it could be the last time you need it if your not wearing it. Dan

1:3:1 All in all a very good weekend. It didn't rain like predicted earlier in the week. It was only partly cloudy - which i don't mind when jumping - and it wasn't to hot. To bad I don't have any pictures because I jump in my brand spanking new just arrived on Friday dropzone.com t-shirt. First jump in it so I'm assuming I owe beer for that. I'll be in Dusseldorf for 9 days....hopefully I can post numbers next week showing my first jumps overseas. Dan

I'm on my way to Düsseldorf, Germany on Monday for 9 days of fun and.....om, I mean 9 days of hard work. While there I'd like to get some jumps in one day. Can anyone point me towards a good DZ in the Düsseldorf area? Thanks ahead of time, Dan

I do sit-ups every morning...at least one anyway. I take long walks several times a week...usually through airports And I do curls several nights a week....usually the twelve oz. kind. Does that count as exercise? Dan

"Girl scout MINT cookies, frozen. YUMMY" I eat them by the roll....love those things. Dan

"He says reasons behind the correlation could be stress of a high-paying job driving people to drink or that more sociable people are more likely to achieve career success. " I drink...I get social...but I'm no richer for it. Maybe I'm not drinking enough.... Dan