johnboy

Excellent find!

I'm always wearing gloves. The last jump I made without them, I had a BAD off-field stumbled landing, and the stick almost went the entire way through my hand. It didn't pierce the top of my hand, but the skin was poking up. I've grown a little smarter since being 19. Or, well, I've worn gloves ever since that jump!

I lurk more than post, and as such this is a rare occasion for me to make a request from the crowd, but a friend of mine has a little girl with a pretty ugly and rare neurological disorder. He's in the Pepsi challenge right now trying to raise funding for research for her and could use all the votes he can get. Your votes would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! http://www.refresheverything.com/curecdkl5

+1

This song got covered and was hacked to shreds. Here's Anne Previn singing in the right way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6E2whjUOcY&feature=BF&u=oz0hUI939fw&list=FL&index=8

Grateful never had to mean satisfied. I work my ass off, too, but I'm still working very hard to create some other options, too. Hang tough!

Were you at the Carivale last weekend? That was some fine jumping weather, although I did finally put on a long sleeve T-shirt on Sunday for the sake of jump run. Otherwise the shorts and t-shirt thing pretty much just rocks. Why did I ever move away from here so many years ago?

Nah. Need to find a chick with BIG boobs....

Feeling it for you, buddy. A friend of mine just lost his 7 year old niece this morning to brain cancer. Tipping my glass your way.

This is an amazing story. Thank you for sharing this. Just..... wow.

Something like that....

That's going to look awesome. I don't have any room above where I got this one, but dammit I wish I had thought of that! Oh well. I'm still very pleased. So you'll have to be the one that has Twardo's first jump and his first jump ship.

The lace on that thing looks to be about 4-5 inches too far to her left.

Yup. Wanted it simple. Da Vinci is one of my heroes and didn't want to change anything. Next one will be quite a bit more elaborate.

I've been thinking about it for a long time and finally did something about it a few days ago. Not the best picture quality given I was taking the shot myself. Still like it anyway. Woohoo!

Took me a second to figure it out and I was still a bit grossed out...

If you like sci-fi, Greg Bear and Kim Stanely Robinson are both pretty good writers.

That's a fairly broad statement. Helping my oldest daughter through 2 years of counseling to get her emotional issues under control (very nice not having dishes and chairs thrown at me and not getting bit anymore) has been very rewarding, and she and I have a much better relationship for it. Losing my construction business when my partner screwed me out of almost everything I owned and my soon-to-be ex-wife telling me this was my problem to fix has left me a bit more cynical. Working like a dog to keep nose above water was one thing when I was 19, but doing it again in my mid-30s has not been fun. Making good progress, though, btw.... Getting through the relentless ear infection I had last year that left me sitting on my butt for almost 4 months from the vertigo and taking 20% of the hearing in my right ear definitely made me happier. We all go through things we could be plenty bitter about, but some perspective can usually help relieve some of the pain and frustration. Actually, beer can help with that, too.... I've still got my kids and a goofy, loving dog to remind me of the most important things in life.

My daughter can have a cell phone as soon as she pays for it herself after she moves out of my house and starts dating when she's 32.... Maybe. The one computer she's allowed access to is in the living room, and I finally cancelled my TV service. Just too much garbage to wade through anymore. Although I'm already missing River Monsters. I'm hardly a prude by any definition, but my girls are too young to need to be exposed to too much of the world just yet. Its impossible to think that I can protect them forever, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to prepare them as best I can. And thanks for the compliment on my parenting, btw!

I realize I could have done things better, too. I'm just tired of taking all the blame for problems.

I, too, am coming a bit late to this conversation, but I've only one thought. As amusing as the was, I tore that page out before my 12 year old daughter started flipping through the magazine as she does every month.

Interesting thread to read as my marriage rapidly wraps up in an ugly mess. The selfishness factor is huge, and what baffles me so often is how either partner can forget that it's not a function of who's right, but what's right. Life is too short and the world is too damn small for anything else. I strongly believe that getting over one's self and recognizing this fact would solve a great deal of marital issues. Hell, that would fix just about any kind of relationship. When it comes to the minutiae of day-to-day life, I've never understood why chores have to split evenly for things to be "fair". What happened to just getting the shit done that needs to get done? The idea that a marriage should always be exactly 50/50 is just absurd. If things are going right, it will average around there, but life happens and sometimes one partner is going to have to carry a bigger load than the other. The problems occur when that balance gets disturbed too far in one direction and never comes back. At the risk of sounding off with my own case of "me me me", marriage counseling has revealed a great deal for me about the person I'm married to and how she just has no interest in looking at life through my eyes. I'm so tired of being told that the problems we have are caused by me and that I'm the one that has to make all the changes for us to get better. This isn't, never has been, and never will be a guy vs. girl issue. This is about people in general that can't put someone else in front of their own needs. It is my opinion that until we realize that there is something greater and more important than our own selfish wants, then we should not marry. I've been willing to do this for her for years, and while I fully understand that I'm no angel, she still can't see after 15 years that our marriage is more important, and even though we are still technically married, our marriage ended a long time ago. As far as the OP goes, sex is an important part of any healthy relationship, but if everything else in the relationship is falling apart, sex ain't gonna fix it.

I sold my drum kit. 9 piece Yamaha Custom Tour series with 12 cymbals. It was sad to see my beautiful drums go, but it paid for my training and my first rig. As much as I miss playing drums sometimes, I've never regretted the choice.

Interesting. Because from a distance, I was pretty sure it was a male spider.

I've no recollection of the dream, but shortly after I started skydiving, I woke up a roommate in college by screaming at the top of my lungs (still fast asleep, mind you), "PULL YOUR RESERVE! PULL YOUR RESERVE!" This was about 5 minutes before my alarm clock went off and I got up and went skydiving that day. It was after I got home that night that he mentioned it to me.