themaninblack

got something none of you seem to know about....ANDREW W.K. I Get Wet. this guy is totally over the top good time fun ass party tunes and this album took me through my aff and my first season as a human bird. andrew w.k., all anthem, all the time. its loud, its dumb, its fun. best tunes off the album are "dont stop living in the red" "i get wet" "take it off" evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

vector owners stand by their rides: my ride is: 1991 vector II, faded black denim-ish stuff, utterly beat to shit, old rental rig, ugliest thing in the air everywhere i go, i will be its last owner cause nobody would want this old thing. its been thoroughly master rigger reworked to be freefly-worthy. all new velcro everywhere new boc, moved to the edge of the container fresh closing loop grommet all slightly frayed and pulled stitching restored and reinforced pin cover flap stiffener reinforced bridle cover pocket added on between the boc and the closing flaps-no exposed bridle and last but not least-elastic webbing added to inside of cover as a pin-cover flap tuck-tab retainer so even in a standfly the pin cover stays put. grand total: 110$ u.s. thanks don, 50 jumps later your work is still rock solid and was the only way my budget would support building a freefly rig. I like it and feel very secure in it...unlike the student rigs and rentals i was jumping before. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

Ok bottom line: I'm an extremely low-budget skydiver. I don't have my own helmet yet, been borrowing an old pro-tec the dz used to use as student gear before they chucked em into the never-used gear bin when they upgraded the student gear to boneheads. I dont even have a jumpsuit yet, jumping in jeans and t-shirt or a variety of carefully chosen sweatshirts. To be realistic I cant consider myself decently equipped until I've blown another huge wad-o-cash on other hardware...Bonehead:$2-300 jumpsuit:$2-300 pro-track:300$ software for track:150-ish? I spent all my money this year on aff course and subsequent jumping every chance I got....the cool hardware toys which you CAN jump without are luxuries...the jumping itself, however, is not a luxury....it is a necessity....although my costume plays hell with matching fall rates doing rw with people in tight slick suits. So I jump, unfashionably sparsely equipped with old hardware. I bought a rather well-used complete rig from the dzo, as cheap a rig as I could find that was still solid build quality in airworthy shape and suited my needs for $2,000 consisting of: 1 beat up faded black 1991 Vector II V5 container with boc: 1 basic black and gray 1988 pd 210 9-cell main: 1 1991 raven II reserve, no reserve rides, screaming hot fluorescent pink....I believe the specs describe it as "magenta" 1 cypres, 5 years left on it. I was warned by several experienced jumpers not to do anything other than basic bellyfly with this rig since it had no bridle protection and nearly slack pin-cover flaps, as well as worn out velcro on the riser covers, lousy grommets and a number of other items that needed looking into. I waited till the rig was paid off and was due for a reserve repack, at which time I had the rigger do a major overhaul/upgrade at the same time to make the rig freefly-worthy. Fresh velcro everywhere, solid. New grommets, especially the closing loop retainer which was so trashed it scared me...a new boc pouch, MUCH tighter, relocated a bit closer to the edge of the container...reinforced cover flaps with some kind of stretchy fabric elastic retainer sewn on which works so well I often go to repack and find the top cover still closed to the top flap...seems the bridle just pushes it off to the side a ways and pulls the pin out from between the covers. And a bridle protection pocket sewn on between the boc and the covers, I now have zero exposed bridle. The verdict: after a number of jumps in a crude sitfly or on my back I have zero issues with this rig...although it looks shabby as hell next to everyone else's Mirage g3's Racers Wings and Voodoo rigs, it seems tight as hell to me (tight like good way not tight as in uncomfortable tight)and it lets me do what i want in the air for a HELL of a lot less than something new flashy and expensive. Now I'm fairly sure I would be advised against trying to use a stock vector this old for a birdsuit, but what about this modified tight version? Can I Birdman this thing? Or am I going to have to resign myself to spending thousands more on new harness/container to go with the suit when I get one? I like this shabby old rig and am in no hurry to downsize, couldnt afford to anyway, and I hope to get several more years out of this thing. If it IS unsuitable for birding, could you tell me why, and what I could do about it to MAKE it worthy? (besides the cut-corners mod ive already read about) Sorry about writing a novel here but I felt that a detailed description of the rig and mods already done would save people the trouble of telling me to fix stuff thats already handled, as well as explaining why I took the trouble to overhaul/upgrade such an old rig...My budget simply can't support the megabuck flashy gear. If I have to go new, so be it, I'll do whatever it takes to get into Bird mode, but before i discard the old rig I'd want to see some serious convincing reason for not using it to bird...New Gear Nazis, the same people who keep asking me why I refuse to retire my 20 year old 4x4, have a new container and main every 6 months and trade in their s.u.v every year sneered at my trusty old vector when I said I was going to fix it up for freefly. The usual response was something like "eewww, THAT old thing? yeah you could fix it up, but why bother wasting money on it when you could just go out and buy a brand-new...." Gimme a break. It's the same reason I drive the old 4x4....it WORKS, don't it? It works just fine. I wanna birdsuit the sucker. will it work? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

hell yeah pick your weapon: all snipers? rocketarena? all weapons? redeemerarena? just, whatever you do, dont let me get my hands on a flakcannon or an asmd. anyone here ever seen the smiley face painted on the end of the flak shell? i can show it to you.... evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

hmmmm good point. hadnt thought of that. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

you got it. i CAN be killed, rest assured im no cheat...the greatest honor in the game is to be accused of using an aimbot or other cheat....those are easy charges to dispel however...i just invite the accuser to spectate me and judge for himself through my eyes if im using an autoaim program....every time i get an apology once they see its done by my own hands, wobbly aim and all. i used to be part of a 2-man clan called ourselves the strangers...we'd go in and kick ass till we drove everyone out of their own arena, then move on, or just take over one for awhile and thrash all who dared set foot there. i know i must come across as cocky....but ive earned the right to be. i AM that good. if anyone posts a server name or address in the near future i might just drop in....ive never fought a skydiver online....i bet their reflexes are better than the average player. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

ok. its been awhile, but.... i got a 1.333gHz athlon with 512 megs. i got a voodoo 5 accelerator. i got a custom homemade 4-axis optic joystick. i can get 830.53 frames per second in unreal tournament. i have an extensive collection of screenshots of me kicking the ass of entire clans at once and taking on 3-6 bots at once set at GODLIKE skill level...and winning. im not all that great a skydiver but im damn near immortal in the tournament...if you wanna take me on get used to respawning. you can run, but youll just die tired. bring da ruckus. tell me where and some advance notice and well have a war. i usually manifest as either "mr.hand" or "fucknuts meatpuppet" for testing and calibration. any takers? come one come all i seek a challenger. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

super thermite flare bomb made out of a shitload of fine aluminum dust iron filings and powdered magnesium for color, wrapped tightly in folded cardboard and 30 layers of duct tape. the result was a whitish purple flash, blinding even at noon, which made a shallow fused crater and burned the paint off the concrete in the tennis court i set it off in, resulting in immediate operator departure. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

theres a book out called Bad Astronomy that debunks the lunar landing conspiracy nut shit....theres no blast crater due to rapid dispersion of rocket blast over large square footage, etc....i read the guy responsible for the original lunar hoax show cornered buzz aldrin (second man on the moon) poked at him with a bible called him a liar and told him to swear on the bible that he did in fact set foot on the moon....buzz aldrin did what any great american hero would do in such circumstances....he punched the little nutcase square in the face. AMEN!!! evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

omfg i fell over laughing when i read pat mccrotch bwahahahaha

how about Main and Reserve? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

i got the coolest basic gear bag....plain black, backpack style, 3 major pockets, room enough for rig, goggles, alti, etc, but not helmet, cordura tough stuff, suitcase style strap handles on top and sides, had a leftover hook knife in the bottom, got it for free off the local rigger after a repack. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

what about the term "shitload"? as in damn i just bought a shitload of food? can be used to either describe a nonspecific quantity of something, or, it is also commonly known that a shitload means you have 8 of something. a couple=2, a few =3, a bunch =4, a shitload=8. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

had that problem a couple years ago. found out the others were spending the rent on fucking cocaine. they repeatedly blew off my deadline so i set one last one and said "i mean it." they blew that one off too... i refused to wait long enough for eviction proceedings, so....i moved out, at once, and since the power, cable and phone bills were in my name, i turned it all off the same day. go ahead guys, enjoy the place, freeze in the dark. stupid fuckers. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

my pd 210 is basic black and gray...black end cells, black center. what is up with these people and their screaming flaming colors? why not go with something nice and plain? (besides the fact that if i ever chop it ill never find it) at least my reserve is nice flaming hot pink..... evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

i got a muddy brownish 36 color swirly fuzzball cat about a year old i raised from birth....rides my shoulder around the house like a pirate parrot and loves riding on a spinning office chair....she'll ride it for as long as im willing to spin it.....when i stop her head bobs around for awhile, (dizzy) then she jumps off, jumps back on and looks at me with this look like "well what are you waiting for?" evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

pick the keyboard up and bang the short sides on a hard surface....knocks the crud out of the contacts..... evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

first off, congrats on the dive tom that was wild gave me the shivers just watching it....you must be one damn survival-prone human being. having never had a lineover i have NO idea how well ill handle it myself come the day, let alone near a cliff! darwin was right.....kid whos clearheaded enough to clear his lineover and land untouched gets to grow up to have kids of his own, or something like that...... second....just how fast does a base canopy open anyway? (in feet or seconds) i dont base and im still a novice skydiver but i DO know my pd210 snivels for about 7-800 feet easy...im not sure about exact time for the deployment of the pilot itself or feet taken to throw it out but i routinely dump canopy at 3500 feet and am not in the saddle fully deployed till 26-2500 feet...this thing opens so slow even if i dont roll the nose at all, just fold it over once, it still opens super soft and so slow it almost makes me nervous....part of that im told is i only weigh 135 lbs without gear so im underloaded, but still....the long deployments are the reason i tend to prefer to dump canopy a bit on the high side. and whats the fastest deploy you can get out of a base rig? how LOW can you go? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

ok i gotta speak up here seems nobody here remembers what it was like being a kid...what kind of talk is this? "hes not ready for a phone" crap? ill save the drama and simply state i have nightmarishly vivid recall of psycho parents trying to micromanage every aspect of my life. im 26 now. up till the age of 15 it was always "youre not ready for that" or stupid limitations on so-called "privileges" after months of debate im allowed to have a bicycle....but not to leave the driveway with it...so im left with the pathetic option of riding around in tight little oval loops in the driveway watching every other kid in town passing by on bikes free to roam the city wondering why my parents are this stupid. thanks mom....fxxk you. ...."youre not ready to own a radio yet." when i finally scored a junk clock radio of my own and fixed it i was told how lucky i was they were so lenient as to allow me to keep it....but im not allowed to keep it plugged in. waste of electricity. same for sharp shit....900 kids my age group are being taught to use power tools by their dads and im not allowed to own a buckknife at the age of 13 cause the parental units think 13 is waaay too young to be allowed to own knives while other kids parents buy them whittling knives and swiss knives for christmas....not ready not ready blahblah. same for a tv, a digital watch, a nintendo, a soldering iron, absolutely anything requiring any sort of responsibility. when i was old enough to realize it was an option (about 12-13 yrs) i had had enough and simply cut idiot parents out of the loop and made sure they didnt know what i owned and what i was doing when i wasnt around them. all through childhood and teenage years i was at war with the mentality imposed on me by adults that "you are a child and WILL accept being treated and restricted like one." screw that. a kid is ready for the responsibility of (insert adult responsibility here) as soon as it occurs to him\her to want it and is willing to understand and accept the consequences of its misuse. in this case an explanation of cellphone ettiquette (not in school, theaters, restaurants etc) would suffice. if he screws the pooch and gets in trouble with it, which likely WILL happen once or twice, deal with it! thats how the kids gonna learn! thats how I learned, but i had to do it the hard and stupid way since i had idiots for guidance...for me at least that kind of excessive control and restriction simply taught me that the rules are so senseless they dont apply to me just dont get caught breaking em and dont break the ones thatll get you killed...i decided there WERE no rules and its up to me to decide whats appropriate behavior and behave responsibly so i dont get mangled by some stupid decision. some time later at age 15 the whole stepfamily situation disintegrated and i wound up living with my real dad in the philippines for 2 years, and he reversed everything.....he placed ZERO restrictions on my personal posessions (i could own what i want provided i pay for it...want money? go earn some.) and hooked me up with a bicycle and cut me loose to do as i pleased....i had free roam of the entire city of manila...go where i want when i want, just call if im going to be later than 11:30 or so, no 8 pm curfew crap like typical parents impose on typical teenager, and he asked me basically use my head, try to stay out of trouble, dont hesitate to call if you need backup or pickup but dont make me come get you out of jail huh? with that level of trust and responsibility i never let him down and always DID call if i was going to be late, and proved his judgement sound in giving me as much responsibility as i was ready to ask for. thanks dad!!! putting tight restrictions on a kid's movement behavior and posessions just makes them conclude youre an idiot. give the kid far more responsibility than you think hes ready for, tell him "ok heres how it is im counting on you kiddo heres the basics i know you wont let me down" let him wear adult shoes and he'll grow into them...courtesy of my dad NOT treating me like a child hes the only member of my family with whom i have a cool relationship....hes not just father and valued advisor but a cool friend i can party with too. courtesy of that education by reality exposure i undid the bunk learning and got straight "a"s in the reality school of survival. i follow the rules of the road when driving not because i was told "you will follow rules that dont make sense because you have to learn to follow rules" but because thats how you avoid crashing into things! same for skydiving. there, there ARE no stupid rules the rules exist to keep us alive not just to teach us to follow rules. result: im a very very cautious conservative skydiver. kids can smell rote stupidity miles away and rules that are justified by the possibility that they might abuse the "privilege" just encourage the kid to cut you out of his life and decisions. a cellphone isnt a "privilege" its an ordinary piece of modern life that damn near everyone has. chances are the kid would see it something like "how come for me its a reluctantly granted heavily conditional "privilege" but to other kids its just something they have and use like any normal phone or tech tool?" ill sum it up with a quote from one of my favorite books of all time and possibly the only one ive ever read that accurately described the thought processes of kids, Ender's Game: "they have a word for people our age, peter they call us children and they treat us like mice." sorry about the extended rant but i seem to be one of the last people who remembers the fact that kids get routinely treated like property, pets or second class citizens, usually "in their best interests" or "for their own good" and how frustrating it was dealing with it. im opinionated as hell about it....this thread asked for an opinion, theres mine.....of course opinions are like a$$holes....everyone has one and everyone thinks theirs is the only one that doesnt stink.... i hope this rant provokes some debate.....i figure if im gonna vent then it ought not to be wasted.....comments? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

lmao.....thats exactly what i said in an email to another relative lately.....that so far the worst side effect of my new addiction has been a sore face from too much grinning. which actually makes me think of another good reason to be a whuffo....as a whuffo you dont experience a weird craving for thin air and the taste of clouds every time you look up and see blue. i kinda figured by now the fun would have gone out of it, but no....every time i land i find myself bouncing up and down doing the happy dance myself

think maybe the lot of you have already forgotten what it was like being a whuffo huh? its like a nearside/farside thing. now were all on the farside and would never go back, but before the red pill i had NO idea it would BE like this. i just know that before, life was grim gray cage of endless routine...now im living in a world where it seems like the skys always blue the clouds always puffy the grass a lot greener than before everything is brightly colored its ok to run around dressed like a clown with duct tape on my boots and everyone can fly. my whuffo friends cant stand it anymore. my family thinks im happily suicidal except my father who thinks this rules. im broke and as soon as i get paid half of it goes to the dz for my next 10 jumps and at the rate im going ill be in a birdsuit by this time next year. life before skydiving SUCKED life after A license RULES and every time i look up i get that damn wicked grin again. how the hell do you people cope with this? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

hmmm gotta agree with the matrix thing....i took the red pill this past may and ive had this incredible permagrin ever since. if the permagrins charge gets a little low all i gotta do is think of the last jump plan the next one or, in dire permagrin emergency, report to the local drop zone at once....administer 65 seconds of freefall, repeat as needed. damn am i glad i didnt take the blue pill evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

bummer what can i say? my own home dz is kinda turbulent, half the really cool people here have had arguments witht the dzo and vanished....im a relative newbie myself here set foot on dz may 5 2002 with 0 jumps im now at 65 just starting to reaLLY feel at home here and there IS no dz anywhere near here except this one....if it closed or changed dramatically id be crushed, wind up moving down south somewhere in search of bluer skies and i dont want to DO that....i love the northeast we have real weather here! hope you find somewhere friendly to fly.... evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

UM, WHATS A CANNOLI? evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.

hi...quick intro....im a newly minted a-license holder who just got into this weird world of skydiving...my level 1 aff was may 5...since then ive racked up 58 jumps and climbing...(is that a good progress rate? i have no idea what the average learning curve is in this game) and i already know what discipline im shooting for...birdman. when i learned of the existence of the suits and saw some video i was stunned....i didnt think it was possible to fly like that except when asleep. if the bare minimum before i can fly one of these things is 200, if i jump my ass off i might be ready to try a suit by the end of next season. ive been told im perfect for it....5'10" 135 lbs rockclimber build. figured id start a thread with one question and expand it from there...i want to know as much as possible before attempting to use one of those things....ignorance hurts. so: first question is, is it necessary to buy and fly your way through all 3 suits or can you start by taking it easy with something like a used gti? the idea being get into a skyflyer as soon as i can get my skills good enough to have a clue how to use one...im at a dropzone where there ARE no birdmen yet let alone coaching for it, i get the impression id have to travel a long ways to GET any coaching for this and im on a tight budget...casual travel to norway or richmond or wherever isnt really an option. im probably inviting a lot of man-is-he-an-idiot posts but if you have anything youd want to tell a newbie, go ahead and post it here....i still have everything left to learn dammit...im sure any birdman reading this will recognize the terrible case of skylust behind this post...i mean isnt that how you all got to BE birdmen? your comments opinions and smacks upside the head would be appreciated. thanks. evolution WILL be served, one way or another!!!! im not jumping, im imitating a reluctant meteor.