mabend

stop...my sides hurt!!! Haha, I know I know. I certainly wouldn't use it, but I've heard good things about it since it uses Kaspersky, and it's free.

Two things to remember in life: 1. Don't sweat the small stuff 2. It's all small stuff

Am I the only person that likes living on the edge? No AV here, no Ad-Aware or Spybot either. I'm a programmer, and I worked in IT when I was in college. I just use Firefox and keep Windows up to date. No need to worry if you just be careful. I did read an article that said AOL's new AV software is very good in the free sector, but only because it uses Kaspersky's detection engine which is one of the best out there. Other than that I would recommend Avast over AVG. AVG just isn't very good in tests. Safe surfing.

Woohoo!! Flyers! I'm hoping for a good season. I just heard about Niittymaki, I hope he's alright to play because I don't really like Esche.

Well at least you haven't done it yet. Just think how bad you would want to go if you actually knew what it was like I think the key to your situation is to continue to delay gratification until you have enough money to really get going. I'm glad I discovered skydiving now that I have a full time job and enough money to throw into it. I can imagine it would be rough still being in school. Good luck to you.

This is me so far, I've stood up the few landings that I've done solo, and I don't want it to make me over confident. I definitely agree with what you're saying. When the time comes that I have to PLF, I'm sure it will be hard for me to convince myself to do it because I've been so confident in my landings thus far. This goes along with my thinking that I kind of want some minor things to go wrong so that I can prove to myself that I can deal with them. I'd rather deal with problems early on then go through my whole life never having anything go wrong.

The best part is that it just keeps getting better. The last couple AFF jumps are a blast. I assume you'll be exiting solo on your next jump - it's so much cooler than having someone hold on. Then you get to learn back loops and barrel rolls, each jump is more and more fun. I just finished on Friday and I can't wait to go down and do some solo fun jumps. My graduation jump was incredible. I did the barrel roll, a 360, then I stopped the turn and was side by side with my instructor and we went into a track. So much fun. Good luck with the rest of AFF, and have fun up there.

Bumping this back up because I just graduated AFF on Friday. I did my last 4 jumps that day and wow, each jump was 10x more fun than the last one. I'm really starting to feel more relaxed up there and I can tell my arch is getting better every time I jump. I did my duty and bought a case, met some really cool people, and I can't wait to start jumping solo to work towards my A. Addicted for life.

No goggles on the guy, wearing sandals, and the kid has goggles but they aren't on. This looks like one of those silly staged pictures that you can get taken on the boardwalk. But hey, they're smiling.

Haha, I've never been much of a post whore on any forums, but I'll try my best Thanks for the welcomes

Well I'm still new to all this, so my 2 cents might not be worth that much yet. Also, let me start by saying that I'm looking forward to doing some night jumps, I'll bet it's a lot of fun. However, I can see why people think it's unnecessary as a requirement. I wouldn't compare it to parallel parking though, more like driving a manual transmission. It's part of driving so maybe that should be part of getting your license, but people go their whole lives without learning it for whatever reason. Sure, there may be some random time when you would need to do it (the first time I drove a stick was my friend's car when she got in an accident and didn't want to drive it home), but there are ways out of it (call someone who can drive it). Same with night jumping.. if it's getting close to sunset and you aren't comfortable jumping in the dark, just don't get on the plane. As with everything else in this sport, no one should have to do anything they feel uncomfortable doing. The consequence is far greater than burning a clutch on a car.

I made my first tandem at the beginning of July, and it was about the exact moment my feet touched the ground that I knew I was hooked. Shortly after, I found this site and I've just been reading everything I can find and lurking in the forums getting a feel for things. I figured it was time to post and say hi. My first solo after ground school was last weekend. Wow, now that was fun. It didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I guess my first jump can't be perfect. I got some good instruction and I'm going crazy waiting to jump again to get it right. In 2 weeks I'm taking a week off work to go down to Crosskeys and finish up AFP, but I might have to go this weekend to get a fix. Anyway, hi to all and I hope I get to know you all and jump with some of you as I get farther into the sport.