ihazkittehz

Shah, you may need to revise your standards if you want that life partner. :) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1361658/Downside-dating-beauty-If-womans-attractive-man-relationship-doomed.html

I sort of see your point, but people are familiar with clothing. They understand that part of a t-shirt's purpose is to look not-dirty. Also, a t-shirt is usually pretty avoidable when you are walking around. When a packing area is busy, it can be genuinely hard to find a clear path. Combine that with ignorance (of the monetary cost of gear AND the safety risk that dirt imposes) and laziness, and boom - whuffos be tramplin'.

The reason they do it? Probably because the gear is on the ground. They don't know that its expensive. They don't know that dirt can cause damage. If they think about it at all, it probably goes something like this: "It's already on the dirty ground, why would my walking on it do any harm?" Make signs. Whuffos really don't know any better.

Okay, I watched this last night. And maybe I'm taking crazy pills, but to me this is OBVIOUSLY a type of audition video, not a final product. Have you guys ever seen any of the audition videos that people send in to get on reality shows? They look exactly like this. Poor (or no) editing, poor quality video, etc. This gets shopped to a "real" producer/network, and if they pick it up, voila. You have the next Jersey Shore. If that is the case, and they get a real budget, I think this could be awesome. I'm sure some of the boring or not-so-telegenic people would get cut, and it would end up pretty entertaining. If I'm wrong, and this is a final product, then yeah. This is pretty bad. But there's no way this is a final product, right?!

With that argument, you shouldn't have kids with any long term-type women either.

Doesn't everyone stand up to wipe? Have I been doing it wrong all these years?!

+1

It's probably pointless for people to give the advice not to buy a diamond ring because it's a waste of money. Hello, we're skydivers! We're constantly spending money on "pointless" stuff. But the ethical issues are real. I don't think even a truly unique sparkly rock would be worth the bloodshed. Just because the OP only asked for shopping help doesn't make that point invalid. If I posted asking for advice on how best to cook a baby, would you criticize the people telling me that it's a bad idea to eat babies in the first place? PS - My bet is deep fried.

Someone had a busy weekend!

:8:2 Did my 100th this weekend! Also did my first jump in rain. Didn't realize it was raining until we got out, and it was just as painful as everyone had warned me about. Overall it was a great weekend, though... and I can't wait til my man is back in town.

I think remembering your dreams is mostly affected by how you wake up. At least for me it is. In a normal night of sleep, you have more REM at the end of the night. On a weekend where I can sleep in (and get as much sleep as my body wants), I naturally wake up in an REM cycle and can easily remember my dreams. Weekdays, when I always use an alarm clock and don't get as much sleep, I rarely remember my dreams. If you've got the time it helps to lay in bed for a minute after waking up and actively try to remember the dream.

0:5:1 First cutaway yesterday! Not sure what happened (probably a toggle fire?) but I couldn't stop the spin, so off it went. I felt like a million bucks afterwards. Mostly I'm surprised at my first number, considering what's been on my mind lately.

Last night I dreamed that I saw someone go in. Probably related to the fact that I had my *st cutaway yesterday.

Sex. Sex sex sex. More sex.

0:4:1 Cutaway the boyfriend last week. Visited CSC for the first time and did 4 nice RW jumps.

I was in Chicago for a weekend, and I wanted to try out a dropzone in the area. Since I was only there for one day, and I'm still a very new jumper I didn't expect people to really include me, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. Andy, the load organizer, sought me out and put me on some great dives that were just at the edge of my comfort level. After each one he gave me a couple pointers - it was great to have him investing some time in me, even though I was just visiting. The Otter was in for repair, so we were in the PAC (my first time in that plane) - the ride to altitude was super quick. The landing area is small, but it is surrounded by open fields, and there is a separate swoop lane. I left with a really good impression of the dropzone, and would recommend it to anyone in the Chicago area.

How heavy are you? Have you made efforts to lose weight?

I am so sick of the Poor-Little-Nice-Guy schtick. Just because you consider yourself a "Nice Guy", doesn't mean that a) you are actually a nice guy, or b) that it entitles you to your choice of women. You seem to think that simply being nice to a woman should be enough to make her want to continue dating you. And you assume that if she rejects you it's because you were "being too nice." There are a million reasons why not every date leads to a relationship. Do you pursue a relationship with every woman who is nice to you? I'm guessing no. My advice is simply to treat everyone with respect, be yourself, and hope for the best.

I had a very similar experience. At the time I didn't realize that spinning was a very common problem for students, and assumed I was just the worst natural skydiver ever! It sucked a lot, and I considered giving up. Then I did 10 minutes in the tunnel. By the end of that I still felt pretty unsure of myself, but at least my awareness was better. The next time I jumped, I started spinning again! But then I took a second, relaxed, remembered what I had practiced, and fixed my body position. Spin stopped, and I finished the rest of the skydive like a pro. For those of us who weren't naturals in the sky immediately, the tunnel really is an invaluable resource.

This is a silly question, but I'm curious: When do you stow your brakes? I'm still a new jumper, and I haven't really developed a habit yet. Sometimes I stow them completely while I'm still in the landing area, but I feel like it takes too long, and I should be getting out of the way. Other times I leave them totally unstowed, but then they have more of a chance of getting twisted, and it's annoyingly sloppy. Occasionally I've just tucked them in the keepers until I'm ready to pack. Anyone have a good reason for doing it one way as opposed to another?

There are farms that treat their animals humanely. But you are worng to say that that is the norm. The vast majority of meat produced in the US comes from factory farms. These animals are not treated with compassion; they are 'products' and nothing more. I've given up meat because of this. Others may find that too difficult, so I recommend finding local farms for buying meat and other animal products. I'm glad that the farm you grew up on did things the right way. But I think you'd do better to encourage people to buy from you instead of supporting the majorly unethical factory farms...

I was also taught to avoid straight lines. On one of my out landings when I was a student I was very concerned about this. The field I chose had *something* running through it - couldn't tell what. I avoided it like the plague. Once I landed safely another jumper who had landed in the same field came over to tell me that next time, if I didn't want to deal with chest high grass, I could have gone for the nice mowed area. Yep, the very straight line I had purposely avoided! I still think I made the right decision.

You are correct - the cervix is only a few inches in. There's hope for you small guys! Anyway, there aren't enough options on this poll. There's a major difference between "Small, but knows how to use it" and "Small, so just jabs harder."

It looks like there are lots of canopies for me to investigate... At this point I'm not especially interested in CReW. Mostly because I feel like I need to work on my own canopy skills more before considering adding anything additional. Once my skills are up I will consider it, but I doubt that will happen while I'm using my first canopy. I don't consider myself fragile, but I definitely appreciate a softer opening. I guess one thing to note is that I'm not particularly strong. Ok, I'm a total weakling (but I'm working on it)! It seems to me like some canopies are harder to flare completely, so I need one that is a bit more responsive. And fugly landings are not worth a good price for me. I want a canopy that is forgiving. I'm right in the middle range of appropriate canopy sizes for my experience/exit weight, so at least that is working for me. Thanks for all advice so far!

I'm in that "rental gear" stage of my skydiving career. I want to get as much experience and info before committing to anything, but I also don't want to spend tons of money on rentals when I can use that money towards my own gear. So far I've done a few jumps on a Sabre2 and a few jumps on a Fusion. They were both fine... (what do I really know, though?) I actually preferred the flight and flare of the Fusion somewhat, but used Fusion canopies seem to be much harder to come by than Sabre2's. Should I try out some other canopies? Should I try out the Sabre2 and Fusion canopies again? How do you know when a canopy is "right" for you?