-Scatter-

Why not write a song about how you're too much of a pussy to skydive, or a song about how skydivers are fucking idiots, or how gravity always wins or how you're doing research on the internet about skydiving? Something even remotely true. I mean, why not go to a car forum and ask what it feels like to "roll with your homies" because you have neither a vehicle nor a friend, and never will? Same basic idea. Are you that much of a poseur?

IANAL, but I do have an LLC. It will not do a thing to protect you in this case. An LLC is useful if, say, you run a dropzone, and one of your employees does something which gets the dropzone sued. The dropzone is liable, but as you were not personally involved (only involved as it is your corporation) you don't lose your house or your personal assets. If you, personally, were involved in this skydive gone awry, then I'd expect both you personally and your LLC would be named. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that's how its been explained to me.

As an employer, I will say that I will NEVER hire a smoker again. I used to have three. Now I have two. Soon i suspect it will be one. I only have a ten person sample, so its not statistically significant, but my smokers take dramatically more sick days than my non-smokers. They take more breaks and they waste significantly more time during the day. I never cared before, which is why I hired them. I don't much care about the medical costs. Nonsmokers are more productive. As a private employer, how is it not my right to say that? If its not a protected class, I can restrict my labour pool any way I want. If I ONLY wanted to hire left-handed rockclimbing teetotaling skydivers with long hair, that's my business. If I can't find any, that's my problem.

There was a little person who made a tandem jump at my home DZ a few weeks ago. Of course, his torso was relatively normal sized, but I don't think he was over four feet tall.

Tom never goes anywhere without an entire posse of Scientologist enforcer type guys. Nicholas Cage wouldn't have a chance. Unless he took up kabbalah real quick, then Madonna would have his back...

I had this problem when I was going through AFF also. A lot of it is that I'm a very skinny guy, so no natural padding, and early AFF you're pulling at 6k, so your canopy ride is 2x to 3x longer than it will be in the future. A quick, dirty and ugly fix would be to get some padded socks, cut the toes off and slip that tube over the leg strap padding before you put the rig on. Three or four layers should give you somewhat more cushioning for under $10. Also, make very sure your leg straps are good and snug. If they're at all loose, when you open you'll be slammed down onto the straps harder. I bruised pretty badly if mine weren't tight enough.

I don't know nothin bout nothin, but I do know your reserve is a seven cell...

If you ban all dogs, its a policy. If you ban one guy's dog, its personal. One way or the other, why start a fight? You'd be really suprised how many people tolerate. I'll put up with your dog and the next guy's dog, but only out of basic politeness. I hate dogs. I'd prefer people brought pet flu virii. I don't hate "big dogs" or "yippy dogs" or "bad" dogs. I hate ALL dogs. Even skydiving ones. You'd never know it, and in my experience dog people would never understand it anyway. So I'll try to ignore your little angel and when it demands attention i'll scratch its head , and when it runs amok I'll stay quiet, and when you come over to gush about it, I'll have somewhere else to be. Its not my house, so its not my rules. Were I a DZO, no dogs. Ever. 100%

Skydiving survived the last major oil bubble in the 70s. Oil's a boom and bust industry. Always has been, always will be. By the time the aircraft designs adapt it'll be back to $20/barrel (inflation adjusted)...

I dated an ex-dominatrix for a while. Nice girl, she's a librarian now. Not a big deal, really. A bit juvenile IMHO, but we jump out of airplanes for fun, who are we to judge how people get their kicks? I'm a little curious why you feel you couldn't tell your family or co-workers.

$100 says oil goes under $100 a barrel again within five years. Deal?

Housing prices only go up, so you'd better buy now! Tech stocks only go up so you'd better buy now! Its a goddamn bubble, no more no less. Just like the tech stocks. Just like housing. It'll pop.

Why do people equate sleeping with lots of different people with lack of self confidence? I will never understand that. Its not that you claim to be sleeping with lots of women. There are man-sluts with great self-confidence. There are man-sluts with no self-confidence. Then there is you. You are posting about what a stud you are. On the internet. I repeat, You are posting about what a stud you are. On the internet. The pathos is coming off you in waves.

You do, and nope.

Its possible to do a great many things that weaker people think can't be done. Your lack of self-confidence doesn't impact the rest of us.

I got my new rig in today. Everything fits well except the leg straps, which are a size "small." I'm pretty scrawny but I really have to cinch them down HARD to get the pads anywhere near each other - where I'd normally wear them, there's about two to three inches between the pads, and maybe one inch of slack strap past the hardware. I called Sunrise and apparently my legs are right on the cusp between "small" and "medium" and I can send the rig in to be resized if I'd like. Great customer service. If I had about one extra inch of pad length, the rig would be perfect. However, part of me thinks after a few jumps when everything loosens up, the leg pads won't be as stiff and get me that extra inch. My question is: will the leg pads loosen up much as they break in? I'm kinda anxious to be jumping my new stuff already - impatience tells me to just accept it, prudence says to send it in and wait.

For your first point, because providing service costs me money. If I'm making $3 on a guy, I can't afford to spend $100 to make that $3. If I'm making $400 on the other guy, then I CAN afford to spend the $100 on service. This is the crux of why wealthy people get better treatment. The $15 guy isn't going to come up with a $10,000 order. I know, because someone who is in a position to spend $10,000 will make that known as soon as possible in the interchange. I do the same thing when I'm ordering if I'm potentially valuable to some other business. I'm a manufacturer not a retailer. If someone else is offering my products cheaper, they're either a dealer of mine (which is fine, we don't undersell our dealers) or they're a competitor who has figured out how to do it cheaper, in which canse I'd better go back to product design and figure out how to make it for $950. Again, survival.

Fundementally, because they pay the bills. We sold a bunch of stuff this week to a builder of $750,000 limousines. No one on earth needs a $750,000 limo. But, if it wasn't for the fact that someone somewhere decided they wanted touchscreen controlled LED lighting in their limo, I might not have money to jump this month. Its not a flaw in human nature, its pure survival. Given limited hours in the day, I'm giving better service to the guy who is routinely coming in with a $1000 order than the guy with a $15 one.

I'm not a DZO or a club member, but I do own and run a business. A few thoughts: First, realize that "sell it" and "turn it into a club" are the same thing. The club members would be purchasing the DZ from the current DZO. Therefore the questions are: What assets are being sold? The airplane? The equipment? Is the space the DZ is on leased or owned? What were the total DZ revenues for the past three years? If you don't get to see the balance sheets, then run away screaming now. If you buy this business, then you have to have enough income coming in to run it, PLUS enough extra income coming in to cover unexpected costs like $22,000 to fix the plane. What were the total DZ expenses for the past three years? If the DZO was buying titanium vibrating golf dildos, then maybe the money's there. If money's just not there, why buy a failed business? The BIG one: What liabilities are you also purchasing? Not having $22,000 set aside for an expense that should have been forseen is just poor management, plain and simple. I wouldn't be suprised to find that the DZ is in debt for significantly more than $22,000. If you buy the business, you buy the DZ's debt. The other big one: Who runs the place once the club members own it? Someone has to be there to answer the phones, pay the bills, schedule things and generally run the place. Saying "the club members will share the work" is as naive as "we'll take care of the puppy, mom, we promise!" If the money isn't there to hire a competent manager, the DZ will fail again. Who flies the plane? If its the DZO, then you absolutely can not count on him to stick around once he doesn't own it anymore. Whatever you do, don't buy 1/3rd of it, leaving the current DZO with control. That's just pissing money away.

When I did it (last year) just AFF was something like $1100. 28 jumps including the coach jumps was $1900. That means $800 for 20 jumps, five of which were coach jumps (so 25 slots) plus gear rental on those 20 jumps plus pack jobs. I don't feel that was out of line at all. But, I also somehow made it through without repeating any levels, and didn't get any videos, and the place I go is the cheapest in the area. The fact that it was a 182 DZ from 10,000 feet meant I had to move a fair bit faster on the AFF jumps than I would have from 14000. If I'd gone to one of the turbine DZs around and failed a couple levels, I could have easily spent 3k. OTOH, my DZ was running an off-season special around christmas for the same package for $1600.

I was thinking the whole package rates for local dropzones around here to get an A license via the AFF route. I guess you _could_ go through just AFF and stop, but...

"It seemed like a good idea at the time..."

$1500-$3000

When did you put your order in? I'm getting antsy for mine.

I've had good luck with Asolo. More recently I've had some joint problems and switched to mountain running shoes instead. Less weight on my feet really helped. Realize with any full leather boot that they're going to take a couple weeks to break in, so don't plan any major trips immediately (blisters).