dsemac91

I dont think the battlefield 3 theme fits well lol....

Good edit otherwise

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I generally avoid Tiger...they are a second hand store...newegg, micro center, etc...You can't go wrong with the eVGA Classifieds...

Whats wrong with Newegg? I've built my last 6 computers from there and every single upgrade since I was 14 was bought from there too :P

you can get some sweet deals in the eVGA classified section though, I can agree there!

I've never bought from tiger direct though, I do like the prices they have on their bare bones kits though.

First off, I wanna REALLY recommend you build your OWN!
You will save money, and its a bit of a learning experience, and you can customize it as much as you want! youre not limited to a pre built towers restrictions.

for the Processor:
Intel costs more however the market for intel is much bigger than AMD's.
AMD is much more cost effective. But believe me when I say Intel outperforms AMD! However you probably wont notice this difference.

Since youre going to be mainly doing video editing, id recommend going with an intel chip, and nvidia cards, yes its the more expensive route, but there's only a handful of Motherboards out there that mix the two. Usually if you have an intel CPU , you have a nvidia gfx card!

Get your self an i5 or i7 like the poster above mentioned.

form factor for motherboard will depend on expandability and how big you want your computer, id recommend getting an ATX mobo, and a Cooler Master mid tower (their mid towers are pretty sizable, I know i have three :P) this way, you have all the slots and potential for upgrades if you want with out having to get a Full sized tower(they're huge)

Case:
As I mentioned a Cooler Master Mid tower
Heres one of the mid towers I own, with an ATX mobo, and 2 graphic cards running in SLI

My tower:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197

Harddrives: like op @ above mentioned

SSD's for software and os, and regular HD's for store of media. you might even want to consider a RAID set up, for performance parity/ back up! (if so, you might want to consider a FULL TOWER)

Memory:
youre gonna be doing video editing so you'll need quite a bit of it.
Memory is pretty cheap now a days, Gskill sells some damn good memory for really good prices lately. So that may be something to look into

for example: only $75!!! :P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231315

Video card:
not too important for video editing / photos, UNLESS you are doing some 3D work.... but if you do start playing games again.
Not sure what your budget is so id recommend going with something in the gtx 560 and up series (the 5xx series price just dropped with the 6xx series coming out!)

I'm not sure how knowledgeable you are with computers so I tried to be more general xD

Hope this helped!


*edit forgot

you absolutely will need to get a x64 bit edition of windows! (youll need more than 4 gigs of ram)

I just did my 32nd jump last week and I have yet to have a line twist! The worst I've had is half of a twist which undid its self!

I try to be as stable and well arched as possible while deploying. judging by most videos ive seen, a bad arch / instability will cause line twists

I'll start off with saying Im a College student.

With that being said I got to ALOT of Career fairs, (i've been to 5 this semester) and each fair had 15+ employers there.

So anyway, onto my point. On my resume, under activities/ hobbies /recreational etc (no that isnt actually a title on my resume) I put down skydiving, and every single time I've had an interview the recruiter / interviewer asked about skydiving, and 100% of the time so far its made a really good Ice Breaker, which then lead into a really good conversation relating to the job.

I've had lots of interviews this semester, and I dont plan on taking it off :P It's only served me well!

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https://vimeo.com/50565962

Makes me miss the summer already.

Thanks for the video!!

awesome video haha... man I was smiling the whole time. Looks like it was a fun Season for you!
What DZ is this?

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A group of Brits at Deland - they were there when I was doing AFF..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5tkTegtrBY

another awesome video, man so much fun. I wanna visit other DZs one day :P
Thanks for the find!

Definitely gonna reward my self once I graduate College!

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Don't ever try to convince someone to jump.

First off, if something were to happen to them, you would feel horrible, and they would feel pain, or worse.

If someone wants to jump, they will find a way, if they don't want to, why push them to do something they wouldn't want to do on their own?

I understand the "Wow, this the the best thing in the world" feeling, but face it, over 99% of the population will never do it.

Last of all, a new jumper is a boring person to be around after the first couple of stories.

I understand what you mean, I've gotten a handful of people to do it, and for most of them it has been a 1 and done kind of deal so it really
isnt for everyone, but... I have yet to see someone not like it. This thread wasn't a matter of pushing people to jump... but rather the fact
that I meet new faces on a daily basis on campus, extracirricular activities do come up often.. and often times I wish I had a nice little c
ollection like I'm collecting now!

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I thought this was kind of a fun one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdEQhAP4tPE

someone's boogie compilation.

Thanks, thats a nice compilation, definitley will be using :P

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Don't ever try to convince someone to jump.

+1

If someone wants to jump, feel free to light the path. But, to me at least, trying to pursude someone is an ethical no-no.

Don't worry, it won't be long until all of your friends are skydiving. That happens in two ways:

1. Some of your current friends may start jumping.

Or more likely,

2. Your current friends will be replaced by new ones.

I'm not friends with the majority of the people I was friends with in highschool, sadly some of them chose the party life, while I chose to
educate my self in college :(. I'm not saying im better than anyone by any means but we just parted ways and thats that. So I meet alot of new
faces on campus almost on a daily basis. And networking is definitley one of the perks of College, alot of times this involves going out in groups
and skydiving is an awesome group event :P haha....

I'm in alot of organizations in class, and often times we go out in big groups for social events, and I had suggested skydiving (duhh!) many showed
interest( about 23 people) this is awesome because the more people that wanna go the cheaper it is!

I recently got in touch with another friend who goes to the same Uni as I, and I took him to spaceland to do a tandem... now hes on AFF level 12!!
its awesome feeling to share this joy with friends.

your #2 is definitley the case with me! as I stated above haha...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzrt_-RSMj4

I love this one! This video always makes me want to go jump

ahhh such a fun video, Thanks for your addition! :P

So I'm working on a collection, im trying to collect skydiving videos (mainly off youtube as I wouldnt know where else to go) that show people having a great time, smiling, jumping etc etc with some up beat music in the background that really sets a good mood. I know this sounds vague, but a good example is Flo Rida's music video for "Wild ones",

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOR_HuHRNs
is the video im referring to.

I have plenty of examples from tandems, I'm trying to get more free fly/ solo/ belly videos etc.

I figured what better way to get them than asking here...

I have some video editing skills (3dsMAX and After Effects, im no pro by any means) but my goal is to get my college buddies, friends, and other relatives to jump. Too many of them are scared, and usually these videos really make them smile! Its good for convincing!

Thanks guys :D

Thanks for the input john.

Either this weekend or next weekend, I'm definitely going to give these advice a shot :P.
hopefully I can get an instructor there with me too so I can get a video and post it on here/ see what i'm doing wrong.

Now that you mention rolling my shoulders, I can think back and say that I have not been doing that or atleast not well enough, I worried about pointing my toes/ locking my legs out so much that I didnt do anything with my upper body xD

I just earned my A license in May, I have 31 jumps (trying to save money for gear by jumping less frequently but enough to stay current) and I still have a small little fear on the first jump of the day every single time, but once my parachute opens on that first jump i'm all set for the day.

Idk man, when I was a student I walked through so many different scenarios that could possibly happen and I would just day dream about how I would handle it, and if i ever had a doubt I would ask my instructors, over and over and over,(thats what youre paying them for right?)

Another thing that helped me is I watched (and still watch) many many malfunction videos on youtube... on a pretty much daily basis.

But for a pack job error, I think the best solution would be like the above guy mentioned: learn to pack! I'm jumping rentals and luckily the packers here have taught me a thing or two and are very nice. So I trust their work, but once I get my own gear You bet your butt im packing my own gear!

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welcome to skydiving man! tracking is a great skill that takes a lot of jumps to perfect, but there are a couple common issues like you describe that are easy to deal with. first most likely what is causing your teeter totter effect is that your legs are too close together. try widening your stand a bit which will greatly improve your stabiliy. secondly people tend to dive a bit when learning to track, so its important that your are pushing against the air with your arms and cupping as much air as possible to get good altitude conservation.

far flat fast are the trademarks of a good track. keep practicing!

Thanks for the tip man, now that I think of it I believe I can recall me pretty much locking my legs together side by side. Gotta spread em a little! :P haha

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More likely he is "teeter-tottering" because he is getting very little actual forward momentum/drive, and is at a progression point where his "ground-based instincts" are still over-riding his (still to be better developed) air/flight-based ones. In other words, his involuntary reactions and resultant body position ("balance" signals coming from his brain/inner-ear) is to correct for vertical (standing, not head-down) instability - and thus he is "teeter-tottering" the length (vertical axis) of his body, not lateral instability - as your leg-width suggestion would rather have him correct.

dsemac - You are right, without video though, there is absolutely no way for ANY of us on here to tell, or actually, effectively help you correct. First-person, in-air jumping with you, and observing/providing correction/feedback just simply cannot be substituted here.

Your profile indicates you are lucky enough to be at a really excellent DZ, with many talented, highly experienced instructors, coaches and available mentors - who I am sure would be happy to help you out with this. My advice? - Seek them out, in person, and look less for any actual instructional guidance to come from here 1st.

I am indeed very lucky to have spaceland as my home DZ, they have absolutely wonderful instructors here, and the atmosphere is awesome.... I understand this is the internet and asking for advice can be sketchy! I can only make it out to the DZ every so often (to stay current mostly) due to being a full time college student and not having much money ontop of that lol... So I try and gather as much resources as I can! And I figure it couldnt hurt to ask here for some advice.... After all its up to me to either take it or leave it!

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Point your toes.

THis is something that I thought I had down while i went through AFF at spaceland but I'll keep it in mind to make sure I'm doing it and not subconsciously letting up.

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Go talk to DJ (or any other instructor/coach there) and they will be able to help you more than anyone on here.

P.S.

DJ is a sucker for root beer so I'm sure you can easily get his attention if he isn't too busy teaching a course with a bottle of that!

Haha I'll keep the rootbeer in mind :P haha... sounds good man I'll ask DJ

Also As I said in the above reply, I only came to ask on here because I dont go to the DZ enough(just to stay current) so I figure I could gather all resources and opinions possible and make wise choices accordingly! lol

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I had a similar thing but i was suggested to loosen up while in track. make sure not to lose the position. This helped me at least and as you loosen up the sway goes away but of course u dont track as good so u slowly tighten up until you are going fast.

Having an experienced tracker jump with you will be the most useful of course... Just my 2 cents

I think ultimately what I will end up doing is just get an instructor to jump with me just like in AFF and have them record me and then we can go over the problems later on xD

sounds like the best solution

I've lurked this forum for a while now, before I even got my A license.... guess its time i finally posted lol.


My issue is with my tracking, I think tracking is fun I like it a lot in fact, but often when I straighten my legs out and bring my arms back I start something that feels like teeter tottering back and forth, can't think of a better way to describe it.

I'm sure with out a video of me it'd be hard to say, but does anyone have some advice I should consider about tracking?