peenut557

I find it interesting, if not ironic, that fellow skydivers feel the need to personally attack someone for making a slight criticism at the same time you're claiming to be 'open-armed.' Fine if you disagree with someone - I mean, the whole point of these forums are for discussion, right? But is there really any need to be nasty about it?

This bothers me all around! I think all the drop zones around Atlanta are great, whether you're at the Farm, Skydive Atlanta, or...heaven forbid....ASC. There are some great people there, as well as at Skydive the Farm. Hans is always welcoming and helpful (as is Tyler at ASC), as well as some of the other folks at the Farm, but I can see Peter's point. There have been several instances where we've been over there and Hans, Ian and Jesse were the only folks who'd talk to us. I'm realizing that's just the way it is. As much as I'd like to think skydiving is this open community where you can go anywhere and be welcomed with open arms at any dropzone, in reality it's not always like this. We learned that in our trip to AZ. Ralph, all the drop zones in Atlanta are great places with great friends. I promise you'll have fun no matter where you go. Blue skies :)

I am a statistician for a living, and trust me, numbers are misleading. First off, even if the 1 in 1,000 skydives statistic were true, you're talking 99.9% chance of NOT dying. There are plenty of other things in life with that same statistic. You're 99.9% likely to NOT die from that vaccine you get; you're 99.9% sure that condom is going to work; etc. Second, 1 in 1,000 seems like a very high rate anyways, since the denominator seems a bit low. If you wanted a TRUE picture of what your chances of dying were, you would have to take the total number of deaths divided by the total number of exposed (or total number that year to have ever jumped) - which I highly doubt is only 1,000. But it would make more sense to separate out the odds of death for fun jumpers from tandem jumps. Yet, what's the point of all this anyways? Seems a bit morbid to focus on those numbers if you ask me. I mean, I don't swear off sex because I'm scared of that 0.1% chance of getting knocked up . I'm a big dork...and love statistics...but they're often misused and misused dangerously, I might add.

Thanks, it was Leela from Futurama. Being a cyclops ain't easy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanga_Leela One jump on Sunday...but it was a great one!

I have recently become fortunate enough to purchase my first custom container. I thought, "Great! But, oh crap...which one?!?" I'm having some inner turmoil about which container to purchase. I currently jump a Mirage G3, and I'm sure I'd be happy to stay with Mirage, but, I've also been looking at the Vector 3-series Microns. I like that the Microns have the skyhook and I do get excited about the bells and whistles of Micron, like the magnetic riser flaps, for example. However, I've been told by a number of people that the Vectors are much less comfortable than Mirage and Micron does have a pretty long wait list (over 5 months!), whereas Mirage can get my container too me within 2 months. As it stands, I'm having difficulty deciding between the two. I'd be putting a 170 Sabre 2 into the container I purchase. Now, I know there's an abundance of knowledge out there! So, I was hoping someone might share some insight on this matter....

Since cats have sharper claws and better reflexs, why don't cats eat dogs, instead of the other way around? and What is so wrong with Walloons to make someone Walloonaphobic???

It's good to be a Gator!!

Congratulations!!

I finished up my AFF at this DZ and have started regularly jumping here. The staff are seriously amazing, especially AFF jumpmasters. On several occasions, I had staff stay late to give me some additional pointers. The ground instructor is an extremely qualified and great guy. As a student, the DZ does push you a little more, I think. I found myself flustered on a few dives when I was rushed out and taught 2 new maneuvers in less than a minute. But the staff was always there to help me out with something I was having difficulty with. There are some drawbacks. I've often been unable to dive due to high winds. Additionally, the landing area is quite small and landing off zone is frequent. I actually preferred this landing area as a student. If you can learn to land safely in a difficult landing area, you should definitely be able to handle landing in a larger area. I found this to be an asset for a student to learn more difficult landing patterns early. Things do get a bit chaotic at times at this DZ. Sometimes I think they take on more than they can handle, but they pull it off. This makes the DZ look a bit disorganized, but if you go out late in the afternoon when things are settling down the staff are very laid back and they'll give you lots of individual attention if you ask for it. All in all, I'm glad I chose this DZ for my AFF and I highly recommend it to others.