narcimund

My first reserve ride was due to lazy, cheap ineptitude on the part of the rigger who also owned the gear and the DZ. I was a static line student making a 10 second delay using student gear. The rigger/DZO thought rubber bands were just as good as elastic or at least less expensive. I rode a round reserve into trees because of that. I did NOT buy him anything. Later on he ended up in prison for airplane theft. I don't think my karma was the one damaged by this event. First Class Citizen Twice Over

My god what a waste of time! This doesn't go on for the whole 2 hours, does it? First Class Citizen Twice Over

***glad I'm not in the only one, my fiance, won't let me talk about it in her company, much less contemplate doing it. Skydiving... sure, can I come? BASE....no. My boyfriend and I are both excited to jump objects. We're taking him to his first base jump tomorrow for his 100th jump! First Class Citizen Twice Over

Different planes will have different mechanisms. Some have a 'remote control' with a linkage to the latching mechanism. Others don't latch open but just use airflow to hold it open. On those the pilot can cause the door to drop by changing the angle the plane meets the relative wind. First Class Citizen Twice Over

I pay the phone company $5/month to block calls that don't provide caller ID. The blocked callers can still get through if they're willing to record their name. Sales calls don't bother. I've gone from multiple sales calls and multiple hangups per day to none. NONE. It doesn't even ring. Just peace and quiet. First Class Citizen Twice Over

More than a small number of cases are reactive internalized homophobia. It's a lot easier to understand homophobia when you recognize that it's self-protective, as is most everything humans do. In its simplest and least harmful form, a person who is to some extent homosexually inclined, but fears the societal cost of being recognized as gay or bisexual, represses or outright denies it. If they're fearful that their homosexual impulses are involuntarily apparent to others, some act up with exaggerated heterosexual affectations. This can include heterosexual promiscuity, butch mannerisms, or aggression to homosexuals. In simple words, some people who fear being known as gay or bisexual and believe other might be able to tell, overcompensate with anti-gay behaviors. First Class Citizen Twice Over

I think you might have misunderstood the meaning of "sperm donor" in this particular case. First Class Citizen Twice Over

My company is one of those Spam Vigilantes. We're maniacal about being good Net citizens. We don't get blacklisted. We also return unused fees if someone leaves early, but nobody ever has. Sorry about your $50. First Class Citizen Twice Over

SkyDaemon and I will be at Twin Falls in Idaho for the anti-beaurocratic Freedom Day jumps. First Class Citizen Twice Over

Easy answer: Move to a web hosting company that maintains reputable servers. I can recommend one :) First Class Citizen Twice Over

This weekend an experienced jumper with a long spot tried a little too hard to make it back. Rather than land in a huge grassy field and walk 1/4 mile he stretched his glide as far as he could to hopefully clear a line of trees between the field and the landing area. He landed in the trees and lost a tooth on a branch. Later that day I found myself over the same field at an altitude that might allow me to clear the trees and make it back. I did the moving point trick and found I couldn't exactly say for sure if I'd clear them or not. So thinking about how useful my teeth are, I set up a nice pattern in the closer field and walked back. First Class Citizen Twice Over

How much laundry does your friend have??? First Class Citizen Twice Over

Four legs good. Two legs better!

Would you rather live in a world where you had that right, or a world where you didn't? First Class Citizen Twice Over

I don't get it. The listing explains the situation exactly. He quotes Airtek/SSK's position that they're unairworthy. He relates the "do-gooder's" position that they're dangerous. He makes his own case about their value. Everyone's gotten to speak up. The bidders have all the information. If he wants to sell these to knowledgeable, willing buyers, what's the complaint? Myself, I'd think twice about the mind of anyone who accepted his silly argument ("This cypres is fine. After all, brand new cypreses sometimes fail." As if occasional failure is a badge of honor that his merchandise is proud to wear.) But he has a right to sell crap and people have a right to buy crap. In this case the guy is being far, far more upfront about the fact that he's selling crap than say, most businesses. First Class Citizen Twice Over

Yes, my company, WebHostWorks.net, does a lot of enduser support. Many of our hosting clients are very small businesses that need hand holding to set up email or upload their websites. Unlike all the big web hosts out there, we answer the phone and talk you through the problem. You're twice as likely to get one of the owners of the business (2) than an employee (1) although to tell the truth our employee is better at talking customers through installs! First Class Citizen Twice Over

Think about the numbers here. The domain registration cost is the LEAST of your worries. I mean come on! At WORST (i.e., Nitwit Solutions/Verisign) it's a penny per day. At best it's a little less than 1/3 of a penny per day. Any business that invests a single hour of an employee's time solely to save that kind of money hasn't long to live. On the other hand, there is a REAL difference in service and I don't mean the little extras like email forwarding or search engine placement and that junk. The ease of using their website, the respect they show for their customers on the phone, whether or not they even answer the phone or force you to hold for an hour before disconnecting you. These things matter a LOT. Nitwit Solutions is absolutely evil that way. We've had many occasions where we've spent four hours in a single day trying to accomplish some minor task with them. They use all sorts of quasi-legal fraud to steal business from other registrars. My business, WebHostWorks.net, uses BulkRegister which is fine. We've moved over 200 domains away from the Nitwits and it was worth the effort! We have a few left to go then we're done with them forever! My advice is always to buy the maximum length registration possible. Currently that's 10 years. It'll cost one or two hundred dollars then you don't have to think about it for a LONG, LONG time. First Class Citizen Twice Over

My boyfriend and I have shared our joint personal account for almost 4 years. We own all of our money, our house, our car, and our business exactly 50/50. It's an exactly equal partnership in both responsibility and rights. We bring different skills and needs to it of course, but in no way is either one of us more equal than the other. It's the only way I'd consider having a serious relationship. If you aren't close enough to share your possessions jointly, how could you possibly share the more important things? Edited to add: Duece, I'm am simply FLOORED by how much I agree with what you wrote. First Class Citizen Twice Over

Before a year is gone, I bet this will change. 2002: The year before 1984. First Class Citizen Twice Over

You mean the John Ashcroft Memorial Bridge Day where they fingerprint you and make sure you show proper obeisance? Probably have body cavity searches and test your urine too. No thanks! I'll be at the Freedom Day in Idaho. Jump the Perrine in celebration of a last vestige of individualism and liberty. First Class Citizen Twice Over

It would be great fun to set up a routine to occasionally randomly choose a PM for posting in Talk Back. Think of the fun! First Class Citizen Twice Over

Don't other employers recognize this? Our business depends on our customers WANTING to do business with us, and that means we need to be BETTER than all the other webhosts and web designers out there. The only way to be consistently better is to make sure everyone who answers the phone/builds code/designs the network/builds the next server is doing his absolute BEST every minute of the day. And the only way to get that is to feed their self interest. Good employees don't work for our good, they work for their own. So we make sure anyone who works for us, employee or contractor or vendor, knows that extra effort makes THEM better off. Any other employers out there who feel like this? First Class Citizen Twice Over

Well, our employee liked his tandem. In fact, he says he wants to go through the AFF program. We must be total softies... in addition to the 30% raise at his 6 month review we threw him a bonus: his student skydives are prepaid. Why do we do this kind of thing? Well, the last job I had (8 years ago) I had a boss who made sure I saw cold hard cash every time I did something that made him extra profit. In exchange I made a real effort every single day to be more profitable. Everyone benefitted and I learned how well it works. Now I'm an employeer and our employee works hard for us, thinks for us, and produces for us. To keep that happening, we make sure that he sees personal gain every time he succeeds. Somebody tell me why every business doesn't understand this basic relationship. First Class Citizen Twice Over

Steering sport rounds is reasonable. The mods provide some drive and steering. ParaCommanders were amazingly maneuverable. You got good drive, quick turns, and even somewhat of a flare on landing. Experienced jumpers could even loop a PC. But these military rounds have no vents! Getting these things to shift around is damn near impossible! I had a reserve like these once... My one reserve ride I ended up in a tree. First Class Citizen Twice Over

Yes, I demoed my Safire before ordering one this spring. They were very nice about it. They even sent me the demo back after I ordered my main so I'd have something to jump while they built it. First Class Citizen Twice Over