DescensionX

I tell them to imagine a wind starting to blow up from the ground. The wind blows harder and harder, until it is so hard that it picks you up into the air.

A coach is basically just like your experienced skydiving friends, except you give them money.

Bowing is universally recognized as a sign of respect. Nothing more, nothing less. To see it otherwise truly is nitpicking as the original poster said. "Protocol" is old, tired, obsolete, and irrelevant. No, I am not a liberal

I can read between the lines of what you write and "know what you mean". I really do, and I feel the same way. It isn't just a sport, it is a way of life. By the way, if you hang around on the site, you'll see that Brian Germain is an active member, and you can get to know him.

Take them to court. You would easily win a civil suit. You wouldn't even need a lawyer. Chances are, he'll give you the money back before it gets that far.

To identify a coral snake, the saying is actually: Red next to yellow, kill a fellow Red next to black, venom lack. BOTH snakes (Coral snake and king snake) have all 3 colored bands. They are just in a different order. http://www.floridaorienteering.org/nature/coralking.htm

Touche' I was thinking the exact same thing, but you said it well. I would go with the PD-190. The Sabre 1 will break your back, and nobody will ever buy is off of you. The PD-190 is a piece of cake to pack as well, which is crucial for a newish jumper. I had one and it served me very well. With the Sabre, you'll be constantly worried about your pack job.

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th!

I took my altimeter on a commercial flight and it read 6,000 feet. It slowly climbed and then stopped at 6,000.

I probably would not jump it if it was on my RSL side, but would if it was on the other side. But I'd get it fixed as soon as possible. Edit to add: I guess one could just disconnect the RSL and jump it without an RSL for a while.

I've been reading this thread with great interest. Thanks to all that have shared their stories. I can't pretend to understand, since I have never experienced the pain. I do research in the pharmaceutical industry, and also have an interest in depression, since I know so many people - friends and family - that have it. I saw an interesting show the other night on PBS. The doctor was talking about how his clinic does SPECT brain imaging on thousands of people's brains. The SPECT imaging allows them to "see brain function" by imaging metabolic activity, and they can see what parts of the brain are functioning highly, and what parts are not, and so on. Brains from all sorts of problems and also normal brains have been scanned. The thousands of brain images they have taken from people who have depression have revealed to them that there are at least 7 distinct subpopulations of brains with depression. So there are 7 underlying functional reasons for the depression (at least). The take home message is that depression is not a "thinking problem". It is a brain problem. There is something different about the brains of people with depression, and it is functional and biochemical in nature. Another take home message from their research is that with these 7 subtypes of brains, it requires different kinds of treatments to make them better. This is why so many people don't get better when they seek help. Most doctors don't know that much about the latest research. There are many effective treatments out there. Not just drugs, but also diet, exercise and getting off of alcohol and/or drugs is critical. A lot of people think they are self medicating with alcohol, but in fact the alcohol is just a temporary fix that numbs you out, and overall makes you much worse. Please get off the booze. You might want to try several doctors. Do research online and find the top people in the field, because you can get better. Don't just give up. This is your life, and you can make it better. Here is a link to that clinic that I was talking about, from the show I saw on PBS. If you have depression and no treatments are working for you, call these people (no, I am not affiliated with them in any way). Getting a brain imaging done will help them figure out the underlying issues and can tailor your treatment specifically for your problem, rather than guessing and trial and error. http://www.amenclinics.com/clinics/information/ways-we-can-help/anxiety-depression/ If not that clinic, there are many others. I hope the best for all of you.

I ran the fastest 5K of my life to these songs. Plus, they just kick ass. Trivium http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KImH_ioKGdM Lamb of God http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NvntVb0Q_o

Raceway Park in New Jersey is a drag racing strip, but they also have a road course. I think it is like $225 for 8 hours with your own car, or something like that. Click on this, then on the left navigation bar, click on "Road Course".

I must wonder why a chemical company would want to sponsor a bike race. "Better cycling, through chemistry!" BTW here is video of the push. It happens around 2:49: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmfk8E-PafU The irony goes even further. Amgen is the biotech company that makes Epogen. It is recombinant erythropoietin. That's the performance enhancing drug so many cyclists (and other athletes) use when they cheat.

The manual that came with my rig says to replace them after 500 jumps.

Unfortunately, this is a topic I know something about. I won't go into it, but suffice it to say I've studied this stuff. I have decided that conversations about AA should be avoided, since they inevitably end up in an argument, just like religion and politics. People are too polarized and dogmatic to really make any progress with a conversation. There is a LOT of research in this area. For several reasons, though, it is almost impossible to design a valid experiment to test the actual effectiveness of a given method. The consensus in the literature is that just about all of the quit drinking methods have the same success rate. But unfortunately it is low. One size does not fit all, and there are a lot of ways to attack the problem. A doctor would be the first obvious choice. Having said that, here are some resources for the original poster to look into. These are links to web sites, and a book, that are the most popular alternatives to AA, and easily accessable from the internet. Maybe your uncle will find one of these or more than one, useful. http://www.rational.org/ http://www.smartrecovery.org/ http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Way-Stop-Drinking/dp/1402736479 http://wqd.netwarriors.org/

Attraction varies with the distance from the Earth, so that is not a constant. Obviously, you can get far enough away that you are not even attracted by gravity. Yeah, but at 14,000 feet, the number is so close to 9.8 meters per second squared, that you can use that in simulations with relative accuracy. I was off by a decimal place too. I previously wrote 98 instead of 9.8! Makes a big difference!

Its kind of fun to play around with the numbers. Here is calculator for those that are curious. Use 98 meters per second squared (the acceleration due to gravity on Earth), and an initial velocity of zero. Even after 10 seconds you'd be going over 2,000 miles per hour. http://www.ajdesigner.com/constantacceleration/cavelocity.php

Yes, in a vacuum, you'd continue to accelerate with no drag. You'd be going like 1,000 mph (a guess) when you hit the ground. To the original poster - it sounds like your friends are as dense as mine! Edit to add: I forgot to add that the mass of an object in a vacuum has no effect on fall rate. All objects (regardless of mass) fall at the same rate of acceleration. Here's the math, I won't bother to write it all out here. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/ffall.html

I actually quit the sport for several years after going through this. After the third time it happened. But I am back now. I feel the celebration of life (as others so nicely put it) is so great with skydiving, that it is worth the inevitable loss we will all experience eventually. Great reward usually requires great risk. Either way it sure is great.

I'll never forget what my graduate school statistics professor told us on the first day of class. He said: "Numbers will tell you anything you want to hear if you torture them long enough."

A jumpsuit is an important tool for skydiving. I personally think it is well worth getting a custom made suit that fits just right. You need to ask your instructors how fast you fall before you can decide what type of suit to get. Different materials allow different adjustments to your fall rate. I would suggest getting a relative work jumpsuit first (with booties), since will will almost certainly make RW jumps for a while before you start freeflying (maybe not?), and you'll always want one anyway in case you want to jump with other bellyflyers. On the other hand, they're expensive, and you might want to wait until you get gear, so you can get a suit that matches the colors of whatever rig you buy! Your DZ surely has suits you can borrow until then. Learn all you can about jumpsuits (and all the rest of the gear) in the meantime.

I think I know where you are coming from. My story is somewhat different, but not so much. I started jumping back in the late 90's. I only put in about 200 jumps, but I still loved it. A couple of things conspired though, and I ended up leaving the sport. I had a daughter and that is surely a life changing event that I can relate with you on. There was also about 3 fatalities over a couple year period at my home drop zone, and I think all of those things combined to make me decide to stop. But now, it has been several years away from the sport. My daughter is a teenager now, and she is going off on her own more and more. I feel like I am getting a second chance to get back to my own life again. There was this empty space in my mind reserved for skydiving, and this year I decided I am returning to the sport. I think I had the same sort of feelings you are describing, but I tend to be impulsive, so I decided I am just going to go for it.

Half the time I am the seller, half the buyer, so I have seen both sides of this issue. In my opinion, I prefer eBay for online transactions. There is a structured system in place that can't be deviated from. The buyer has to pay first, before the seller sends the item. It seems to favor the seller, but there is a system of checks and balances to protect the buyer as well. It is not perfect (obviously), and it costs money since there are fees, but IMHO it is worth it. Especially for expensive items like skydiving gear. There is buyer protection and insurance that can alleviate much of the concerns discussed here. Buying and selling here is more like the wild west. The only time I ever bought a rig from a "stranger", they sent it COD, so I had to pay the deliveryman, after I looked over the gear for a minute. That seemed to workout well.

It sounds like you have a great outlook on life. And you're living it to the fullest! Your post struck a chord with me as a reminder to keep a positive outlook, even with all of the gloom and doom around us right now.