christoofar

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Posts posted by christoofar

  2. I've just got back from the convention, and since I was round for both of the recent incidents, here's my take:

    IT WAS FUN.

    The media is looking to sensationalize anything to fill column space. I used to work on a newspaper and I was guilty of this crime numerous times. The locals don't really care about the fatalities, they have been enjoying an awesome show when they walk out of that Wal-Mart with their groceries and think to themselves... "damn, I love where I live!"

    All the locals in Champaign, Urbana and in Rantoul that I have talked to have said nothing but kind and encouraging words about the convention, and were very kind, courteous and understanding.

    I even got a nasty gash on my chin from one of those damned golf carts faking a turn into a bicycle I borrowed to go to Martini Shot Films. I was courted off to the hospital in Urbana for 15 mins of cleaning up road rash and a half-dozen stitches. An extremely supernice couple from Rantoul who happened to be visiting a loved one in ICU took me back to the airport... both had nothing but kind words to say about the convention.

    So guys, with all the yellow-bellied journalism that plagues our sport, I'm fairly certain we'll be in Rantoul again next year.

    I think we've found our new home!

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  4. Quote

    Quote

    That would be christoofar in his earlier post .


    Ah, ok, then I did miss something.
    I agree with you there. Calling cops is probably not cool. Talk to DZO, deal with it, or find another place to jump.



    Y'all are right. It's better to just let the DZO handle it or wait until someone dies.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  5. Quote


    Could be worse. You could have the Muppet Show song stuck in your head....Why do we always come here?:)



    G--DAMMIT Sunshine! >:(

    Now I have that damn song in my head.

    Da da da da-da-daaaaaaa! Da da da da-da-daaaaaaaaaa! Da da da da-da da da-da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  6. The problem with Dallas and Houston are the two capitols of EAST TEXAS. And us Texans who grew up down in the Valley, from San Antonio to Corpus on south, and in the far west and panhandle get our reputations tarnished thanks to the lucivious culture of our East Texan "bretheren."

    My family has roots in McKinney (before all the yuppies started moving there... they owned the only general store which was closed down 15 years ago). It is more OK than Dallas, really. The other half is from McAllen, which is right on the border with Mexico. Many of the offspring live in all of the large cities and I visit them often.

    From my own experience having worked up there, Dallas life is fast-paced like Los Angeles, congested as Austin, humid as New Orleans and nutty as San Fransisco.

    I don't think I'll give up my greasy lard-laden authentic Mexican food and Everclear margaritas for the Big D and all the yankees living in it anytime soon. B| ¡Vive el puro San Antonio!

    Just my $0.02! :P

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  7. Quote


    Suppose there is a wrap or entanglement at 400 feet. What are you going do? Cut away and wait a few seconds for separation?
    - Jim



    Have you flown any CRW? Never cut away that low. If possible, pull the reserve and get as much nylon out there as possible.

    There might be some S&TA disgreement on this that I'm not aware of, but @ San Marcos and DeLand this is what they tell you.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  8. Phree: I corrected while you were typing your reply.

    As a low-timer in this sport and a non-DZ employee... there isn't much I can do except tattle-tale, I guess.

    But... now that I think about it, if these guys get me really pissed off... the poh-lice are only 2/3 mi. away from the DZ (in ref. to the heavy pot smoking+narco users).

    I can quickly call DPS, who are always more than eager to bust somebody so they can make the front page of the small-town paper so they make their mamas proud.

    The only thing is... if I do it I'm pretty sure I won't be going to the DZ again with all the negative vibes. It's a no-win scenario it seems like. Price to pay for living in a free-country, I s'pose?

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  9. Quote


    Right here... we have a no drug policy in effect at the DZ.



    Yeah, but that's for staff and when you actually catch people in the act, which is very cool. I wouldn't want the DZO, packers, pilots, coaches, tandem instructors or manifest under the influence of anything but adrenaline (nicotiene and caffiene is okay, too).

    Like baseball players, we don't want to have to pee in a cup before we get on a load, but I personally know people who get on loads hungover or feeling really bad or still have after effects from being stoned. I can't do very much about it except refuse to board the plane and let them all land off the DZ.

    These guys have way more jumps than I do... so I just keep my mouth shut and I stay away from them in the air. Do we really want to bother with drug testing the DZ customers? Is it worth it?

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  11. Quote

    i'm not going to argue that anything in this article is not factual. to my knowledge, everything stated here is true. Roger's history with drugs is no secret - i was told the whole story by Ron Passmore himself. i wouldn't be surprised to find that Ron may have had alcohol or marijuana in his system when he was jumping. but this article insinuates that somehow there is a connection between the two. just because Roger has a history with drugs and a jumper at his drop zone had drugs in his system when he died doesn't mean the two are directly related. i don't see why the reporter found it necessary to juxtapose these two pieces of information the way he did (media whore...?).



    Whoever is at a medium-plus turbine-DZ or larger who DOESN'T know jumpers that play with drugs, raise their hand.

    Anyone?

    Anyone?


    Heh.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  12. [replyShit can in deed happen low, but expecting an RSL to help in a canopy wrap or entanglement is inviting the reaper.



    Remster is 100% right! No one who does CRW uses RSLs... if they do they are asking for BIG problems.

    Canopy wraps and entanglements require seperation when chopping to avoid a re-entanglement when the reserve opens. It's happened before....

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Quote

    Please Chris, stop seeing a USPA D licence as a demonstration of high experience.... all you need is 200 jumps plus basic skills to get one....



    Okay... we need an "USPA Approved SkyGod" license... like the USDA-Approved labels we put on our meat when we buy it at the store? ;)

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Quote

    OK, i didn't see it posted anywhere, but I think that the guy who died swooping at SDC had something like 1500 jumps{/snip}




    {beginrant}
    High jump numbers have no meaning when it comes to whether you are capable of attempting a high-performance landing. If you don't believe me, pick up the phone and call Nancy LaRiviere.

    Example:

    Mr. 210lb Bigshot ex-Military Jumper has 2,500 jumps. Most of the early ones were on rounds. Then, the next 1,500 or so have been on F111s and large ZPs. Dude only does straight in approaches or the standard three-leg approach to land. Wonderful. He decides one day to play with the flymofos in the swoop pond and borrows a Stilleto 107 and swoop the pond. What do you think is going to happen in this situation? I wouldn't dare to watch it.

    Even with all his experience under canopy, Mr. M is in no way, shape, or form capable of doing a high performance landing effectively and is putting himself at very high risk. His D license and all his canopy flight contributes very little in him achieving a successfull swoop. I wonder... is this why we see so many more fatalaties from experienced jumpers than from the student-end of the fatalaty/injury spectrum?

    Swooping artists know how to fly their canopies well to the edge of their design parameters and have a keen sense of altitude and attitude awareness. The best artists work with large F111s or large ZPs until they exhaust the performance range, THEN work their way down to something faster, working on a better swoop each jump. Even then, this doesn't mean these guys and gals aren't going to get seriously injured or die when they biff, but it reduces the chances.

    {/endrant}

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • As a South Texan... anything north of Austin is crap and it is not Texas.

    Houston and East Texas is really Louisiana, but no one wants to admit it.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Michelle:

    I feel your pain. I can't do RW right now because my right shoulder is still healing up and the last thing I want is someone taking grips, going low and still holding onto me, and redislocating my shoulder again.

    I've been turning down ALL RW and freeflys with other jumpers since last November. Some of the experienced jumpers were really pushy about it too, as if they thought I was in some sort of clique! >:(

    I tried to do some rodeo jumps the past couple weekends but I kept getting out of sych on loads with my friends, either they would be on a load and me packing, or me in the sky and them packing.

    Sucks.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • PLEASE WEAR DEODERANT BEFORE U GET ON THE PLANE HOLYJESUS

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Quote


    Silly man. Why wouldn't he want a thong wearing, swimming in the river in a bikini gal like yourself?? ;)



    I wonder if it's true that a gay guy will go straight just to be in bed with Cher or Barbara for just one night...

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Oh god 2 more days of crap and I'll be on a plane to Champaign.... YES YES YES I am climaxaing... UGH! :D:D :o

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Having mountains in the horizon makes things a bit tricky. :) Unless you can also draw an imaginary line wherever you make out valleys and connect them... but it seems so much harder to do that. GPS is much better. :)

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • You said it, B!

    I am definately interested in doing an intentional. However, I'm not at the required number of jumps yet for one and San Marcos doesn't have an intentional rig with two mains, so I'd have to do it elsewhere. But, it's definately on my todo list!

    (DISCLAIMER... never "fake" a mal or intentionally cutaway on your own rig)

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • Quote

    Have you tried this? Getting stable from a low airspeed unstable position is not something most skydivers have any experience with; I would recommend you actually do it before deciding you can do it in X feet - since it taking X+200 feet could well be fatal, and that's just one more second.



    When you boil both sides down... all you get is: "There are no absolutes when it comes to using RSLs."

    I wouldn't go into BASE just to improve my reserve-opening capabilities, nor do I want to deploy upside down or in a nasty spin and trade one bad mal for another (and possibly worse) one.

    I'm sure if all DZs had hot air balloons we could work on low airspeed recovery skills (Yay, Rantoul!). ;)

    I'm perfectly happy jumping sans-RSL, or with one turned on or off. Doesn't make a hill 'o beans difference to me. I also feel the exact same way about AAD. They have their pros and cons. It's a personal decision and no one is going to make this decision for me.

    I do think one "safety" item that should be looked at more, aside from RSLs, is the need for hard housings. I feel these aren't being emphasized enough; aside from a piece Parachutist did on it last year.

    With all these high performance canopies out there, severe line twists and even riser twists make chopping a very difficult task, which would make the RSL a moot point, really.

    I am getting hard housings as soon as I can afford to in addition to a new CYPRES on my J1.

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

  • John... the original post was for black skydiving INSTRUCTORS. You ain't an instructor, but you run an awesome downwind landing!!! ;)

    ____________________________________________________________
    I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.