SimonBones

I tell you what, it'd make for one hell of an easy campaign. Whenever someone asks you what we're going to do about X topic, just say, "keep it how it is". At every debate, "I think it's good". Think about how much time, money, and painful thinking you'd save yourself. Hell I might consider running this way one day. It'd be soo easy! Vote for me, I won't do a damn thing and evrything will stay the same. I'm for NO change 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Seriously, has there ever been a candidate who hasn't campaigned a promise of change? When was the last time you ever heard a candidate say, "If I'm elected, I won't change a damn thing. Nope. Just gonna keep everything exactly how it is." Everybody is for change. It's become redundant and meaningless. But for some reason a whole lot of people cheer whenever a candidate says he's for change. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Rights are inalienable. Privileges can be revoked. Either way, I think disallowing voting privileges to convicted felons is incongruous with living in a democracy/representative republic. Good call on inalienable rights! The second amendment of the bill of rights CLEARLY states: "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." And I tell you this, If I ever go to prison, I want a gun. How dare they violate a prisoners RIGHT to have a gun? What if they needed to start a militia or shoot somebody? Rights are inalienable. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

This is a perfect example. Instead of somebody who decides to get into politics by: Having strong feelings about an important issue and campaigning, finds a talent in it and some support, runs for a local office, becomes a mayor, governor, head of X local, state, or federal department, or state representative, or however many other ways of getting into politics genuinely. Hillary sees an open seat in a state she's never lived in before and says, "Oooh! An opportunity to GET IN to the senate!" Some states require you be a resident of that state for 3 years, I guess Hillary found herself a little loophole for a power express lane. This, to me, represents an honest, moral, hard working and self-made character who I'd be proud to trust the fate of my country to I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. Every one of her carefully strategized attempts to appeal to every voter she can makes me more and more against her. Why does it seem that Obama and McCain just go out there and be themselves whether you agree with them or not? They seem to be hiding a lot less. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I'll attempt to make an oversimplified quick stab at this one. A full discussion of every little thing people may dislike Hillary for couldn't fit in an encyclopedia and would range from intelligent answers debating her political beliefs to superficially judgemental answers like "She's blond". But here goes... All of the current major candidates ARE politicians and with that said, are not innocent from acting like one by doing things like flip flopping on your political stances and doing positional favors to gather votes and support. It's a profession that requires a mastery of deceit and forked tongues. But there is a spectrum of how much of a "politician" (with the connotation hinted above) a candidate is. Hillary has a long list of dirty history between scandals, allegations, subpeonas, etc. Just read the wikipedia articles on each candidate, who's got the longest dirty laundry section? McCain has a very small basic one which almost looks pretty understandable (since all media and opponents try to "expose" politicians) and Obama has a surprisingly clean background. The old proverb of sleeping with dogs gets you fleas seems to fit pretty well with her as far as playing the "politician" part goes. She became a senator in a state she had little involvement in. She's constantly trying to alter her conceived image to mine for more votes (like powerful and ballsy one weekand crying the next week). She seems to be the worst at avoiding solid answers to plans and policies by throwing those BS statements out there like "what matters more are the people, and i believe in change for a better America" (doesn't really answer a thing). McCain and Obama seem much able to answer a question with honesty, staightforwardness, and thought. It seems like she's more after the presidancy because it's the next step up a political power ladder and less because she really wants to make something happen (even though she cried about it to a group of women at a coffee shop ). Let's not forget that she's sad nasty things about the military and it's service members. The list and debate can go on and on but that's just a brief oversimplified stab at at a view for you 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Huh huh... Don't you hate it when she spits? I beat you to it!!! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

In this case however, I was there standing behind the guy. I was always trained by more senior guys that anytime media, protesters, or any other type of person is clawing at you the best thing to do is not to say anything at all. This is what I chose to do. My friend however decided to step forward and say something in our defense. He almost made it to the end of his sentence before he got some spit on his collarbone area. Believe it or not the spitter was a girl. Yes it may be assault, but what does he do? Spit or swing? The newspapers would eat that one up. "Local service member punches out a woman" on the headlines. If you were lucky somewhere in the body of the news text it might mention the spitting. What else? Run and find a police officer and pout "not fair not fair she spat on me! Arrest her!" No, instead you just accept it, swallow your pride, and walk away. Hopefully one day that woman will grow up out of that phase and remember the day she spit in a young guys face for sacrificing 4 years of his life for the country's use (whatever they may want from him). I'm sure out there in Berkeley some marines recruiters and recruits (they're still just military service members) are still dealing with a lot of that stuff. I'm sure they're getting spat on, yelled at, pushed around, and possibly having their vehicles vandalized. The article says that the protesters got permission from the city to stage open protest against them EVERY WEEK in the parking lot out front of their office. Can you imagine working like that? Every time you drive into work, step outside for a smoke, or leave work you have to swallow your pride against people who want to shit on you? A lot of these marines working recruiting have probably served at least one tour over in the war zone and some have probably been in for other conflicts in the past decade like Somalia or Kuwait or wherever. Whether you want blood in Iraq or not, these marines don't deserve to be treated that way. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I have to disagree with some of these statements. While I do agree that atmonauti and tracking are different flying styles, docks are not impossible. In fact, our DZ frequently takes docks on tracking dives. Since taking docks can and is done on tracking dives, RW (working relative) and turning points is possible and is done. 2 weekends ago we built a 5 way docked formation all tracking. If lift is not generated on a tracking dive, why do our neptunes and pro-tracks read them to be in the 90, 80, and sometimes even in the high 70s (for the really fast ones) mph? I have frequently (on faster track dives) flown at an atmonauti angle in front of the rabbit. Basically it's all freeflying. Freeflying does not mean either sitfly or head down, freeflying is exactly that: free flying. We fly on all axis, one position/orientation fluidly transitioning to the next as if there were no middle. If you want to start drawing lines between styles within a discipline, then we need a new section for bellyflying, backflying, sitflying, standflying, head down flying, side flying, tracking, and atmonauti. Then why not seperate ones for back tracking, side tracking, belly tracking, frontmonauti, backmonauti, sidemonauti, and all the feet first monauti? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Wait until a jumper is sleeping. Take a dytter and make it do the alarm testing. Muffle it until the low siren comes and let it rip in his ear. He'll jump and start flailing and grabbing for handles. But they're just not there! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Looks like the hippie radicals are at it again: http://origin.mercurynews.com/alamedacounty/ci_8239736 In 2003 (around the time the whole Afghanistan and Iraq thing started)I was traveling in uniform at the Charleston SC airport and some of these military hating folks came up and starting barking a lot of angry shit at me. I was minding my own business. My friend (also in uniform) got spit on. Don't see why they have to spend their energy getting aggressive at other Americans. I'm sure they're off at a Hillary rally now. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Once you've clicked on "forums" then clicked on "Searched posts" then picked your sort order and done your search, you can't change between the two without going back and doing a new search. If you do a search from the top right, your only option is to do a relevance search. Yes there are ways around it, but I think it would be a nice little convenient adjustment that would allow for a little more efficiency.

In many search engines one is able to change the "sort by..." for their search. Here for example, a forum search automatically sorts to a percent relevance. I think ther should be a way to change the sorting to maybe sort by date for example. Sometimes when I search for information on something, I have to flip through several pages to find what's most recent because what DZ.com calls "most relevant" is back from 2002 or something. Then if there are dozens of posts on the same old thread, I have to search dozens of pages to find what's the most recent. I think that would be a nice convenience and a minor change. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

A few months ago after Jerry moved down this way and started jumping with us at Suffolk. I'll never forget the first AFF jump I did with him. I was reserve side. The student went to do his practice touches at about 11.5k and just as the student reached back, I saw Jerry's head pop up and give me this very strange look with a big cocked eyebrow. I had little time to be puzzled by the look on his face as the student was ripped from my hand as he threw out his pilot chute on the first touch. That's what that look was for . Then he actually shrugged at me in freefall. I laughed soo hard. It was a really short skydive for the student but Jerry still impressed me, he gives one hell of a debrief for a 15 second skydive! Thanks for letting me absorb some of your knowledge and experience Jerry just wish I had time to absorb more. -Simon 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Of course I would never REALLY put a camera on an AFF student like that. I'm just saying that if somebody did, I doubt it would result in death. It would probably result in bad footage and poor videography. Same thing if a kid with 80 jumps put one on. Doesn't matter anyway. He's got 80 jumps and looking around now. By the sound of his enthusiasm he'll bust out probably 50 jumps in the next month. By the time he orders a helmet, gets it, orders a camera, gets it, and assembles all of it, he'll probably be over 150. Tell you what, if we read in the incidents forum sometime in the near future that afrikankid went in because he had a video helmet, I'll buy you a jump (Sort of like bounce bingo eh?) 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Colon I do partially agree with Harry on this, I was down in Zhills for the New years thing and really didn't see much as far as organizing goes this year. The only organized ECFF dive I saw was the 42 way track (which was really fun). I asked several times about ECFF organizing and got answers about the weather and being exhausted from the tunnel. I even saw some ECFF sitting in the room playing playstation. I was a little disappointed especially since I drove 13 hours for my 3rd New Year with Zhills. Last year John was running around all day collecting tickets for cool dives. From what I recall, the organizer gets a free slot, so just collecting tickets and putting together a something won't cost your house. I still plan on going back next New Years, hopefully you can spread your freefly enthusiasm to the other guys. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I dig the way people bash everyone else here on DZ.com, I don't post too often but many times I like to grab a beer and sit back and read the angry mob threads. I don't think a newbie putting on a camera helmet will kill them at all. Hell throw one on an AFF student, the only likely outcome is that they'll forget to start/stop recording and have awful footage that is not worth keeping. I personally waited until I had over 200 jumps. Not that it would have mattered much. My first tape or two of footage really sucked. So Afrikan Kid, I bought a Rawa helmet. It was a great investment. I still use it and it's done me good through about hundreds of skydives and a couple dozen base jumps. It's not going to kill you. But at 80 jumps you probably don't have the flying skill to get anything good. Your footage will be mostly blue sky, shakiness, blurs, and other crap for a long time. You will have to change the way you fly for it. At 80 jumps it's really just not worth it yet. Don't forget all the additional costs like wide angles lenses, tapes, the better battery that won't die after one day of use. You will most likely pay more than you want. Wait until you have around 200 jumps or so, save up now, and get something NICE when you're ready to take it seriously. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I'm only 2 hours away, I'd like a schedule!!! You didn't mention this at Zhills!!! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I think one problem we face is the lack of talented freefliers and lack of people who put forth the effort to become one. I'm in a bad spot. I'm the best at my DZ which means the only way I can learn and advance is to take out some spaceballs when the winds allow it. Soo many people are too intimidated at how difficult it is to become a good freeflier and spend hundreds (or thousands) of jumps staying on their bellys because freeflying was too hard. Then there is the crowd who got into swooping and prefer hop and pops. Hands down freeflying is the most difficult discipline. Anybody can buy a smaller parachute and figure out where to pull a 180 to get a nice swoop (granted they won't be at competition level) and it will be much easier then trying to learn to fly a slot on your head. DOn't get me wrong, I love swooping my velo but good freeflying IS more challenging. Then there is the crowd who learned to sitfly and after seeing how hard that was, is pretty content at just doing dangerously huge sitfly zoos of various skill levels and assumes they will eventually become great head down flyers by trying to launch head down exits with people who don't know how to fly on their heads. I would love to hit up some compulsory dives but unfortunately there really isn't anyone else here or at a close DZ who is advanced enough for any of it. I have to travel to DZs far away to find someone else who can freefly well. At my DZ, when I head out to the boarding area, everyone seems content to just launch out 6 sitfliers and have another zoo dive. Taking the time to do solos and work on something or have a planned 2 way is boring to many people and their skills don't develop. Sure a zoo dive has been fun before, but at this point I've been on way too many of them. Sometimes I don't even want to manifest because it will just be another zoo dive and nobody wants to work on anything. Starting to get burned out here. Anybody want to move to Virginia and start a team? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Hey everyone! I've posted about this before and nobody could come up with a solution. Hoping someone may have a solution now that some time has passed. I've been trying to upload some footage for editing I fire wired out in Europe. Problem: I have a PC1000 NTSC camera and fire wired from a PAL camera in Spain. The footage shows up on my camera with a little "PAL" symbol on the LCD screen. When I try and upload it, my computer gets all pissy and won't take it. Even some TVs won't show it when plugging in AV cables (but some will). How can I get this footage onto my computer for editing use? Anyone? 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

- Get my riggers ticket - One of my photos make the cover of Parachutist - No friends die in the sport - Travel to more DZs (I slacked 2007) - More pond swooping and no chows - Set a head down formation record - Get my 100th BASE jump 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

I'll definitely be there again this year for New Years. It's the best boogie of the year! Though I can't say I'll necessarily want another round with that Finnish liquor... TK, Have you found anyone to get drunk and naked then fall into the fire again this year? If not I guess it's my turn. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

No spray paint, just written in pen ink on our back door. No idea who this guy is, maybe the forum could enlighten us. If he would have maybe called ahead of time I only live 10 minutes up the road... If you're that horny for a jump that you have to tag up our door I could just go throw you off an antenna. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Sorry we missed you Wednesday at our dropzone here at Skydive Suffolk Virginia... but thanks for tagging up our door! 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Many people will start off with slot flying in a sit for beginner skills. If you want to start organizing things bigger with generally lower experience levels I think (since I see this overlooked a lot) a big thing is to stress and practice proper break-offs. If the group is flying a sitfly formation like a campfire (shit even if it's just a 2-way) then stress the importance of properly breaking off by rolling onto your back and back tracking away. I know many people who've been sitflying for a couple hundred jumps but still say shit like "I don't know how to track on my back". It's one of the safest way to ensure proper heading from breaking away from a sitfly jump while watching where everyone else in the sky is. The same stress can be put on those flying head down in the formation to turn 180 degrees and back track away instead of just belly tracking away from their head down recklessly crashing into anyone who could be behind them. Back tracking should be taught right from the get go for new freefliers, starting on their first 2-way. Good break off is an essential part of organizing freefly formations and is often overlooked. I think it was last year someone was killed on a 2 way freefly jump out in Lillo from not having a proper break off between just the two of them. The bigger the formations get, the more essential this is. I'm sure many of us here in this forum have had some asshole in a head down just take off tracking on their belly while your behind them causing you to have to jump out of the way to not get pummeled. 108 way head down world record!!! http://www.simonbones.com Hit me up on Facebook

Then make Ambian a twice as awesome experience. Don't worry, be happy