ShadowPenguin

You are aware that Ticketmaster own Ticketweb, right? well shit on me

giggity giggity giggity!!!!

i think we all feel your pain....not to mention they are greedy lil sumbitches.....they charge you an extra $2.50 if you want your ticket emailed to you......PAY TO GET AN EMAIL ARE YOU KIDDING ME? snail mail will suffice. Ticketweb is better but not many places use them.

Yeah, I'm and ol fart...Beatles, Stones, etc.... I just try to find some place to hide when the trance starts.... lol thats cool though, I grew up on The Beatles, Temptations, Richie Valens , etc....my dad loved the oldies stations. My absolute favorite will forever be Pink Floyd, started listening to them in the 5th grade.

pfft...hater my CD book is so thick i use it as a weight in my trunk during winter when it snows, metal to classical, 90's 80's 50's 60's....etc.... with trance its less talkin more beats

I celebrate Halloween the ENTIRE month of October, from the 1st to the 31st.....best holiday ever hands down, can't wait for Devlis Night theres been a rumor flying around for awhile thats theres some old Hotel or something in Philly, called the 13th floor, i dont know if someone runs it but you try to make it up all 13 floors....most people never do BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!

missed it yesterday, but i'm DL'ing some of your mixes, hardkore is my fav. but I love a good trance mix, you spin any other styles? do you have a regular schedule on winamp?

lol, mine was the same way. I actually told her after taking her out to dinner for her birthday, she said "why do you wanna ruin my night?" and smacked me she didnt wanna know the day i was going, so the day I went afterwards I came home and just handed her my certificate they gave me i'll probably go this weekend for my SL course, I felt the exact same way you did on my tandem....i guess Enchanted is a good word for it.

another reason i like getting this feedback, being able to discern loads of crap from the real thing while i'm learning.

sorry man, from what I read of the rules i thought it warranted being in that forum but obviously i was wrong. Being a non fatal incident, as far as I was told by the indivual it was an actual incident, it seemed to fall under malfunctions, cutaways, or wraps, so naturaly that forum seemed appropriate and i used my best judgment. still new so i dont know if there is or isnt suit/equipment for a 370lb jumper, (part of my question in the inital post) if the question is if he actually weights that much check his profile off the link i provided, there are pics. just trying to learn.

I found this on another forum i frequent, i thought this would be good to post on here. http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showpost.php?p=189853&postcount=91 ****************************************** Usually people make a list of all the things they want to do during their life before they die. On the top of my list was skydiving. I had secretly wanted to go skydiving since I knew what it was, but I needed someone to be that catalyst for me, to make me do it. My first year of Univerisity I met a guy named Ash. Over many quiet conversations during our intro Lit class we decided to make the plunge. One autumn weekend we went to the skydiving academy in our area, and signed up. We went through training, paid our fees, were totally prepared to jump, but the cloud ceiling was too low that day, and we couldn't do it. So we were both given a voucher for a free jump at a later date, with a year expiration on it. Ash dropped out of school, and I lost contact with him, so it was just me as no one else wanted to skydive with me. That voucher sat on my bookshelf for nearly a year before I decide to do it, so I packed up my car with my two best buddies, and we drove the two hours to the skydiving academy. We arrived in the morning, told we were going to jump around 1pm. We sat around and watched other skydivers load up in the little single engine plane, the plane go up in the air, and watched the same people jump out of that small plane. As soon as they left the plane POOF the chute opened, each and every time. I decided to do a solo jump, I wouldn't get any free fall, but being the big guy that I am I thought that a tandum jump might be too difficult. Plus my goal list said skydiving, not skydiving strapped to another dude!! My name was called, I forced myself into this ugly purple jumpsuit which was too tight in too many places. I was given a parachute, straped in, and explained what would happen. "Look", the impatient skydiving employee said, "You have a chest strap and a back strap, do they feel tight enough." "Yeah." "On your chest strap is a one way radio, so you can receive instructions from the ground. Do what the guy on the radio says, cool?" "Yeah, cool." I was starting to get a bit nervous. "Now your the biggest guy jumping, so your in the plane last, and out of the plane first. Once your up there, you have to jump, so if you have cold feet let me know now." I just nodded. "Good, get ready for the ride of your life big guy." I got on the plane, decked out in my purple jump suit, my giant helmet, and my goggles. The plane took off, and my nerves started kicking in, my glasses were fogging up under my goggles. We reached 3000 feet, and the instructor opened the small door to the plane. The force of the wind was INSANE!! Now, if this was a simple get up and jump out situation, you would just need to build up the courage and do it. But with this jump you had to hang off the wing of the plane which is going super fast at 3000 feet. I pushed one leg out of the door and it was pulled back by the gusting wind. I used all my strength to bring my leg to the step on the plane. My hands clung to the support pole that ran from the wing of the plane to the body of the plane. Both feet now on the step, I had to reach out to where the support pole joins with the wing, and hang there to clear myself from the plane. I hung there for what felt like ages, barely able to hang on, my instructions yelled NOW!!! and I let go. When I let go I could see the plane get so small, so fast. All I could do was scream "HOLY SHIT!!!" as I tumbled through the skies. Now with the jump, you are suppose to arch your back and arms out, and count Arch 1000, Arch 2000, Arch 3000, Arch 4000, Arch 5000 then look up to check to make sure your parachute is open and enjoy the rest of the gentle ride. I counted up to Arch 17000 before my chute did anything. When my chute finally did open, due to some mismeasurements of my chest and back straps, they both flew up with the force of an opening parachute jarring my neck back with a direct chin shot. I was told weeks later that a force like that could have easily snapped my neck. Now, this is where the problems really started. I looked up, and my chute wasn't open and full of air. It was a ball of fabric and canvas. I was still plummeting to the earth at 9.8 meters per second. My one way radio was now about 10 feet above my head with my back strap and my flares. I couldn't turn, I couldn't slow down, I couldn't hear my instructor on the ground. I was told afterwards that my instructions was screaming into the radio "CUT THE CHUTE! CUT THE CHUTE!" but I didn't hear a single word. Now, I should have cut the chute, I should have launched my backup chute, but I didn't really piece the situation I was in while it was going on. So with my hands on my harness, I started shaking the straps with all my might, hoping to untangle the mess above me. And was I ever successful. Have you ever sat on a swing, and spun around until it wouldn't tighten up anymore. Then you kick your feet up, and you spin and spin and spin. I experienced the same thing at about 1000 feet. After spinning around 17 or 18 times I nearly fell out of my harness, as I didn't have a chest or back strap to support me. I was horizontal after the spinning, and if it wasn't for my mighty grip on the harness I could have dropped right out. I righted myself, I looked up, and my parachute was completely open. A near perfect situation, as I still had no flares, so I couldn't turn left or right, or slow myself down as I landed. And the landing, wow, that was an experience. Since I couldn't steer myself I was at the mercy of the wind. All I could do was hope I would land on grass, and not on any piece of the surrounding highway or runways. Well, I was a very lucky guy up until this point, and my luck was still with me, kinda. I could see that I was going to land in a big grassy field. YES!! No pavement!! Then came the actual act of landing. Since I had no flares, there was no gentle stopping. I saw the ground coming up quickly, and I really thought that maybe, just maybe I could run it out. My left foot touched the ground, then a giant step to my right foot. And then a 30 foot face first baseball slide. Kind of like sliding from 3rd base all the way to home. I came to a stop, I was finally on the ground, I spit out the dirt in my mouth and I caught my breath. I wiggled my fingers, and I wiggled my toes, and everything seemed ok, nothing broken. I had lived through skydiving. I go to stand up, and my chute fills full of wind and starts pulling me across the field until someone from the skydiving school jumps on it to collapse it. I stand up, and I am head to toe green from grass stains. I'm sore, but no worse for wear. I didn't really piece it together until I was driving home. I almost died, a number of times on that single jump. My buddies said that all day they watched people jump out of that small plane, and their chutes immediately opened. When I jumped, they just saw me fall, and all they could think was what are we going to tell his mother. ******************************************** his profile says he's 370lbs....do all DZ's have a weight restriction? I know mine is 226lbs. Would that have attributed to how this played out? Granted this is from a third party source, wouldnt know if he had embelished this instructors "impatience" or not. i'll try to contact him for more details if needed.

definetly, thanks everyone for the advice.

Come on man, you should pay attention to everything he says, including "hey my name is___" Get to know him, he may just save your life on day i plan on it, but did you remember everyones name you met your first time jumping out of an airplane? i was more intent on hanging on every word about how to stay safe and in all the excitement first names kinda got away from me.

thats one of the things i pride myself on, gaining focus in high pressure situations....granted i've never run into any 5000ft up in the air, but I wouldnt even consider jumping again if i thought i couldnt do it. btw...my first jump was at Maytown on Saturday, i wish i could remember my jump masters name, real cool guy, older, grayish beard. Amy was my friends jumpmaster.

When you first started jumping, did you avoid reading about incidents...specifially fatalities? If so, for the more seasoned jumpers, do you regret doing/not doing it? I definetly recognize the benefit of paying attention to and learning from other peoples unfortunatly fatal mistakes, I have been reading a lot of the entries in the incidents forum from a safety/learning standpoint, would you recommend a newbie such as myself avoid doing that too much? it's definetly waking me up to my own mortality, but it's not really pushing me away from diving again if anything else I find myself still totally excited to jump again. thanks for any words of wisdom.

it's insane, it's all I can think about, I can't wait to do my Static Line course next week.

Name's Danny, had my first jump yesterday, tandem at 10,000ft.....OH MY GOOD LORD!! I'm still buzzin from yesterday, I cannot believe what I just experienced and I know this is going to be a lifetime passion. I'm taking another class next week for Static Line and I can't wait untill i'm ready to jump solo. I have done every drug known to man in my younger days, but NOTHING AND I MEAN NOTHING, could EVER compare to what I felt 10am yesterday morning with not a single cloud in the sky watching all creation below me, that freefall most intense 40 seconds of my life and the next 3 minute glide down felt like an eternity...LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!! so that's me, nice to meet all of you, i'll def. be hanging around these boards every day. Danny A. Ephrata, PA