scottbre

Thought I'd add my own recent experience to this thread. I have been basically not jumping all year, because I perforated my ear drum in February due to being a little too congested. It was just like you had described: felt like my ear needed to pop but I couldn't get it to. After a trip to the doctor, it turns out it was because I had perforated my eardrum. This isn't a serious problem, if the hole is a clean smallish hole, just requires keeping water out of it (not really that hard to take a shower and not get water in your ear, I've gotten quite good at it) and avoiding anything that results in rapid pressure changes (holding in a sneeze, and of course skydiving). It had a minor effect on my hearing but more often than not, that small loss in hearing (something that I totally got used to and stopped noticing) will return when the eardrum heals and closes back up. More than likely the reason this happened was because I've had tubes in my ears multiple times while growing up, so there is a weak spot in my ear drums from those tubes. This can also be seen as a good thing because I sort of have a pressure valve that will blow and do minimal damage if the pressure is too much, versus the whole ear drum rupturing in a larger, more jagged and permanent way. Also note that when you are jumping, the faster you're falling, the worse the effects of the pressure change, because they are happening faster, giving your ears less time to adjust to something they already apparently have troubles with. I did some jumps in June after my initial perforation had closed up and it was the headdown dive that ended up re-perforating my eardrum, forcing me to go through the healing process all over again. This time I will make sure it has been healed for a few weeks (give the eardrum time to thicken a bit) before doing any fast flying. I've basically ruled out ever learning to scuba dive, because everything would be so much worse and painful if water came rushing into my inner ear after a rupture, and I still had to get back to the surface slowly. But hey, the good thing is that hop n' pops have practically no effect on the pressure in your ears, because you don't get the chance to experience the rapid pressure change. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

I heard it was because Don Kirlin became a Scientologist, and doesn't want to be surrounded by all those non-Thetans any more. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

It got down to -20 here last night (Indianapolis) which is pretty cold. Not that I really noticed thought, since I was inside watching the Colts kick the Bears' ass. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

I still think that one day, "tribal" designs aren't going to be cool anymore. The old design looks much cooler. Thank god I own a Wings. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

Does anyone actually expect our jump ticket prices to reflect this? Since gas prices have certainly been DZO's excuse for raising jump ticket prices, it certainly follows that a correct in the price of fuel would lead to a correct in jump ticket prices as well. What do you think? "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

Your right, he absolutely should have gotten it squared away to fly jumpers by now, but he hasn't, and probably never will. He didn't buy the helicopter to fly jumpers, and thus has no great drive to get himself commercially certified to fly jumpers. It's his (very expensive) toy and that's probably all it will ever be. Don't hold your breath. Seriously folks, whoever's running this thing has to know what the jump ticket price is going to be by now. Sure would be nice if you could fill us in. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

I didn't know Ted as well as some of the more regular jumpers at SGC did but I've still gotten to jump with him, hang out with him, and have stood around the bonfire with him on more than one chilly Ohio night. Goodbye, Ted. He made it into one of the best pictures that I took during the SGC Memorial Day Boogie 2005.

What's the deal with the streaming audio on the www.freefall.com website. It seems to just be some microphone that is turned on in some office. I thought that, in the past, this was the same thing as what was on all of the speakers at the convention. Anyone know what's going on with this. Would be nice to be hearing what the skydivers in attendance are hearing... "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

I can't believe you didn't put a steamroll as one of the poll options. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

I see a lot of flawed logic in the comments in this thread: If you know that you will die skydiving, then it will do you no good to stop skydiving, because you are still going to die skydiving. Causality is a funny thing, but if you absolutely know how something is going to be in the future, then it is stupid to do anything to try to prevent it, because it's going to happen regardless of what you do. For that reason, i wouldn't stop skydiving, even if I knew that it would eventually be the cause of my demise. Might as well get as many good skydives in before that inevitable bad one. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

This is going to sound insensitive, but so be it. There are enough "mourning" threads in the Bonfire right now, that nothing is served by these types of comments. They are rude and inappropriate. Everyone is affected when a bad weekend (fatality-wise) happens, but that doesn't give everyone carte blanche to spill their gloom and bad attitude into threads where others are trying to see the silver-lining and talking about something GOOD that may have happened last weekend. Our small community has suffered losses this weekend. That doesn't give you the right to tell anyone, who doesn't mention it in a post, that what they have to say isn't important. Show some respect for those wonderful people who still are in our little community and are just trying to deal with things in their own way, in this thread's case, by posting their weekend numbers. Now...

Jerry's Skydiving Circus is the closest to Bloomington. I think it's about an hour away. It's my home DZ. Nice people and 3 C182's. Send me a PM if you'd like more information. Scott "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

Who else is excited about this weekend? It's going to be a good time! So, great and mighty Justi, have you decided on the libations? See you guys tomorrow. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

Since I'm going to be there, I figured I'd register a vote. I'll be there with at least 3 others from my DZ who will be in heaven with a keg of blue moon. sporto's just saying labatts cause he's from tecumseh, and that's all they drink up there. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project

Whoops! I wonder if this will affect his job with the Discovery Channel. "Your mother's full of stupidjuice!" My Art Project