froggie

A TEST.. TO see what the hell time 6pm PST time is on the east coast.... :) hey, i get confused easily enough....

okay, theres a certain way this joke must be told... as the joke gets longer and longer start talking quicker and quicker... Tell it like this: okay, theres this fly, and hes buzzing over a lake. The fly's thirsty so he says "okay, im gonna go down there and get me a drink" Sitting on a lilly pad theres a frog. the frog says "when that fly goes down to get himself a drink of water im gonna get me that fly and have me some dinner." Flying above the lake theres a hawk. the hawk says "im gonna get me that frog whos gonna get the fly whos going to get some water." SItting on the shore theres a hunter. the hunter says "when that hawk swoops down to get himself that frog whos going to get himself the fly whos going to get a drink of water im gonna shoot me that hawk and get me some dinner" Behind the hunter theres a mouse. the mouse says "when the hunter squats down to shoot the hawk whos going to get the frog whos going to get the fly im gonna grab the cheese that pops out of the hunters back pocket.... Finally, behind the mouse theres a cat. the cat says "when mouse goes to get the cheese that pops out of the hunters back pocket when he squats down to shoot the hawk whos going to get the frog whos going to get the fly whos going to get the water im gonna get me that mouse and have me some dinner..." (start talking very quickly...) So everything starts to happen. THe fly buzzes down! the frog leaps up! the hawk swoops down! the hunter squats down! the cheese pops out! the mouse jumps! The cat pouces. Everybody ducks. The cat lands in the water... THe moral of the story: WHEN THE FLY GOES DOWN THE PUSSY GETS WET :)

Cyber, my mornings usually consist of a BEC muffin from wawa w/ a wawa iced tea. But on the weekends i have the best breakfast imagineable at the dz... The DZO's mom runs The Long Delay Cafe and she makes these unbelievable Bacon Egg and Cheese muffins. Ummmmmmm. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water. You gottta try one when you come visit us here! (im assuming that you will one day :)

chuck, Im definitally going to have to try those tips that you posted! I hope i can get it right. about cocking your pilot chute and uncollapsing your slider.. I am a freak about that. As soon as the jumper sets the canopy down i uncollapse the slider and cock the pilot chute. then i set my brakes and run my lines. I seperate the line groups and lay the canopy down. I re-check the pilot chute. get the canopy in the bag. Make my first two stows. recheck my pilot chute. Set my risers. recheck my pilot chute. Finish the pack job. when stowing hte bridal i receck the pilot chute. The reason that im such a freak about this is that its such an easy thing to do, only takes 2 seconds. and if something happens and i give slack to that pilot chute and its not cocked then ive just screwed somebody quite badly. Malfunctions can happen, but im doing everything i can to ensure that i dont give somebody one. The idea that following the same precedure everytime is sooo good. It gets to be natural. and something that you do on habit, not on thought.

josh, Im not going to tell you that you should or shouldnt skydive. its too personal of a desicion for me to make for you. But what i can tell you is that it is normal. I admit it~ at least one time before every jump i think "why the hell am i doing this?!?! im terrified! is it worth it?" and then i remember all the good times ive had up there. i think of the 425 seconds of freefall time that i have accumulated and to be quite honest, those were the best 425 seconds of my life! i can remember most of them in clear detail. And i want to remember days more worth of freefall time. I remember how amazing and how different they all were. I remember the feelings of pride and accomplishment from the first time i landed my own parachute. The first time I was released and freefalling by myself. I remember the minutes of canopy rides that i have flown. I remember setting up my pattern and feeling so amazing when i landed upwind on all of those jumps but one where i landed crosswind with 3 mph winds. So when i become afraid i know that in only a matter of minutes its going to be over and im going to love every second of it. I know that im going to be so proud at the end. I know that im going to pull my own pilot chute and be responsible for keeping myself alive. Its like the ultilmate survivor test.. the question is, can you do it? we all get afraid. we all doubt our abilities. we all spook ourselves. the important thing is to remember how amazing it is. how great it feels. how much you love it. Good luck! kel

merrick, luckily the guys had taken a liking to me and didnt allow me to go "blindly where no man has ever gone before..." they took the towel off my eyes and i opened them and all i saw was ______!!!! damn did i lay down and get in the fetal position fast! it was hilarious. kel

This reminds me of the stomache muscle test (its got a medical name but i cant remember it). The Wild Humans CRW team showed it to me on friday and boy was it hilarious! You lay on your back and somebody holds you down by placing a cloth (tee shirt works great all rolled up) over your face, pulling you to the ground. you squeeze your abdomin muscles, trying to fight your way up without bending your legs. Finally they release the pressure and you try to sit up.... Then the joke comes in. pretty funny.

Speedracer, hey. if youre coming down to xkeys this weekend i can show you a few tricks that i have learned from some amazing packers/skydivers/riggers. Just keep doing it over and over again. It gets to be so easy its unbelievable. (for the most part). kel

Billy, it must be a skydiver thing.... multiple thoughts all flooding your brain at once. Attempting to get them out in any reasonable order is just plalin crazy! I love seeing posts like yours. makes me understand how excited you are (were). Congrats on the firsts! froggie

hey all. figured an update is in order... i found a rig. its not mine (yet) but the chances are pretty good that ill end up buying it. Manufactured in 1998 its a J1 with a sabre 150 main and a PD 143 reserve. Black and purple container, 16 inches long so it fits perfectly, white and purple main. In good condition. 400 jumps total on the system, no cutaways no reserve rides. Looking pretty sweet. Thanks for the advice guys! i really appreciate it!! kel oh yeah! extended bridal cover too! so its freeflyable! whoo heee~ Edited by froggie on 5/18/01 03:31 PM.

a CReW collision this week landed one jumper in the hospital via me and his friend. When asked how it happened I didnt lie, i just simply said: " i didnt see it, somebody found me. The guys were horsing around. Boys will be boys ya know?" worked beatifully. Dont lie, just play dumb.

albatross. No thankyou to the whole spandex idea! i have no desire to have my ass on display like that. The whole floating issue has only arrisen once. on my release dive. But my JM was able to stay relative to me. but then again, ellen isnt a big her either. she prolly weighs the same as me but shes taller. A weight vest might work best. Im really interested in Freeflying (how couldnt i be with Monkey Claw at my home dz? :) so ill need something to keep up with the 'big boys'. ah well. no worries. a jump is still a jump, even if my freefall is longer. :) hehe. oh! a thought! me, with this gear, jumping a birdman suit. can you imagine? hehe. ill be falling asleep in freefall, up there for so long. lol kel

Frank. ah hem! i am, and make a note of this, 5'1 3/4 tall! that would be an astonishing FIVE feet, ONE inch and 3/4 of an INCH tall. i might hit 5'2 one day. a girl can dream cant she :)......

harro, ohhh. ill have to suggest that to the boys this weekend.. :) im sure they'll like the new name. If you check out their site youll see the referances to drunken nakie runway times.. so they just might be up for bearing their asses. lol

Congratulations! new gear! thats soo rad. gotta come home and jump it at your old dz :) whooo heeee for you!

stac, do me a favor and take lots of pics 'k? cause i want to remember more then last time... :)

hey guys! thanks for the replies. im soo happy. found out that even the best are wrong sometimes :) no cypres but ah well. its still a damn good deal. And not something i cant slap on a credit card anyway, ya know? now i just gotta get me one of them there credit cards. lol Its not mine~yet. hopefully it will be, but it isnt yet. not mine yet. sorry, have to keep telling myself that cause i dont want to get tooo excited if i cant have it. but its still something pretty damned sweet to dream about ya know? Damned whuffos. im walking around with the picture of the rig under canopy (used in the ads), and naturally, these people dont understand why im sooo happy. THey just dont get it. ah well. stick to the skydiver friends. they understand :) didnt tell mom yet either..... froggie

okay. okay. The time has finally come. A beatiful, magnificant, magical, amazing, lovely piece of equipment has been dangled in front of my eyes and im in a daze. Picture this: J1, with a sabre 150 main, PD 143 reserve, brought in '98, one owner, 400 jumps on the entire thing. NO cutaways, no reserve rides. And im 99% sure the cypres is included..oh yeah, did i mention that its a black and purple container and a purple/white main? Its absolutely amazing, and an absolute steal! wish me luck guys.. hoping to make a deal this weekend! ahhh! I found all this out yesterday and was joking around about no being able to sleep cause id be thinking of the rig. Well, i wasnt able to sleep. 4 am and my 'friend' kept telling me to go to sleep. But i couldnt. I couldnt stop thinking about it. Its absolutely perfect for me. Weighs 21 pounds. That would put me (with gear) @ 136 LBS. A conservative wing loading.. I need sleep but everytime i close my eyes i see that masterpiece. I want it bad! froggie

Billvon, thanks for the info on the good semaritian law. Ill definitally be checking that one out. Im not sure though, cause the ambulance squad knows that i do basic first aid out there when needed and they havent mentioned that i wouldnt be covered by it.. but im definitally checkiing it out. to everybody: tonight the local FD and the neigboring towns FD (were right on the boarder) came out to the DZ. we went over the caravan and frankenotters build. Discussing where to cut and where not to cut.... Number of people on each plane on average (what to expect). we discussed bail out alitudes for jumpers if the pilot gives the go ahead to jump out... stuff like that. Then we reviewed a tandem rig and a student rig. I worked with Tandem JM to discuss the rigs. We taught the EMS people how to disconnect the RSL and how to cut away a canopy. I showed them how to remove a rig without cutting it. and thankyou Billvon, we were able to show them where to cut a rig if they have to (you posted how to before).. We also discussed the reserve canopy and how it is activated. Gave them some overlooked but good tips to handling a situation. Basically, we familiarized them w/ the planes that we use most often and the rigs that we jump. It was a really benificial drill and the chief from the neigboring town even got to go for a sunset fly along! he loved it. our pilot gave him a good show :) Kelly

Terrance, hey. yeah. sorry about the whole "shy" thing. saturday night i crashed out for a bit then headed home to sleep. Sunday was kinda hectic w/ that "lets land on the runway and not PLF" guy. He hung out for a bit. Drove home and said that he will be going to the doctors. Havent heard from him yet. Prolly see him this weekend. will let you know how hes doing. Stacy has a pic of your inverted shot on her website. check it out.http:// http://astro.temple.edu/~sweeks/kaplooey.html Glad that you had a good time at xkeys. we like it too :) Monkey claw Jam is coming up! hope to see some of you guys there! kel

Wingi, ah man! what a situation! glad to see that all the drilling paid off and you were able to stay cool and level headed. congrats on the safe ride. kell

a question... Does this mean that we (as dropzone employees) can stop showing the tandems the video with the guy with the long beard? i alwasy forget his name. It was made in 1981 or 1982.. sometime around there. Its in black and white and refers to tandem skydiving as an "experimental test jumper" experience. Ive gathered (from sitting in on so many tandem briefing classes) that this video sort of relaxes them. They get a good chuckle out of it. Skymonkeyone, can you answer my question? and can we keep showing the video if we choose to? kelly

... suddenly the whole "eyelashes on fire" incident from last week doesnt seem so bad anymore....

danhole, hey! make sure you find me this weekend. Ill be around all day on sunday, and parts of saturday night. Hope to see you all this weekend. kel

speedracer, hey man. it'll be okay. last week they predicted rain and all we got was some low clouds. put us on a 25 minute hold maybe twice all weekend. Still got a lot of loads up. Saturday night will be a blast anyway. Im planning on getting there around 10:30 PM at the latest. Stacy will be working manifest most of the day. If i dont happen to run into you on saturday night, you can find me hanging around out front Sunday AM, playing wiht the tandems :) In any case, ill see you this weekend kel