tbrown

Maybe you should confide this to your SO, she can mete out punishment. You'll feel better... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

During World War II there was a huge policy debate in Washington and London about what to do if American or British soldiers encountered Hitler in person. Should they just shoot him, or try to take him into custody ? They decided to try and capture him alive, if possible. It would've been a good thing if they could've captured Hitler and put him on trial, but of course things didn't work out that way. (Nowadays of course the Saudis would offer him a comfy exile...) But it sounds like the brothers wuz killed in a firefight. They should've known better, or maybe they preferred dying that way to having to face the Iraqi people in open court. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Hey, the man said he didn't mean to piss anybody off. I'm not pissed off. In fact for a hippie dippie liberal, I kinda like it. I got all the groovy touchy feely ideals in the world, but I really am tired of assholes who want to glide through life on my shoulders. As for English only, I've got a lot of respect for a lot of people here in California who speak English very well, in addition to their Spanish or Vietnamese, or whatever. Makes me wonder if white folks aren't a little lazy themselves about all that English. But uh, seriously, we are an American culture and we do have a language, and people who refuse to speak it, and they exist, need to re-think the issue. Maybe whether or not we even like this Bill of NO Rights, it's a very accurate little piece that sums up our national mood. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'm always sorta puzzled about why so many skydivers smoke. I mean skydiving's a sport, right ? Doesn't that make us some kind of athletes ? I mean we don't get up and do group calesthenics, thank God, or have to all go running the airport perimeter in the morning, but most of us try to be in some kind of half decent shape to avoid injurie, aches & sprains. So why do so many of us smoke ? Compared to just about any other random group of people, except maybe factory workers, I've never seen so many people light up in one place. Is the boredom of sitting around a drop zone between loads ? The stuff will kill you. Last year my wife and I helped her mom die in our home of a smoking induced mouth cancer, the poor woman's face resembled a chimpanzee's from the way the cancer took over. It wasn't pretty. She was a real beauty herself, in her younger days. The stuff wrecks your lungs, it strains your heart, it drives your blood pressure through the roof. It interferes with night vision and apparently causes skydivers problems on high dives. It doesn't even taste good. Statistically you could be better off with a heroin habit. Enough ranting, I AM a libertarian, people can smoke all they want, just not around me when I'm eating. But think of the jump tickets you could buy if you quit !!! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Also, let's remember we're flying in 3 dimensions. Just the simple act of pulling both toggles down should reduce your rate of descent and "float" you vertically up from your collision course while you initiate the minimal left/right turn, would it not ? Assuming that whoever cut you off is zipping on by. Hopefully anyone above & behind is paying attention to the near miss going on in front of them, because you're probably not looking behind you at this moment. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

People used to wear chest mounted Altimaster II's a lot more than they do now, so in the old days it was easy to take a peek at just about anybody's altimeter, in fact it was even easier because you could be watching them and flying your slot without looking down at your chest. They of course would be checking your Alti. But we had one clown prince who "fixed" an old broken Alti - with a drop of crazy glue ! It was always on zero. The DZO had told him he'd ground him if he didn't use an altimeter (there had been some low pulls on this kid's record...), so he put this piece of junk together and wore it. We all knew about it of course. Last I ever saw of the kid, he'd joined the Navy, don't know whatever happened to him after that. Nowadays I'm getting used to wearing a wrist mount, they're alright. My eyeball perception's pretty good, when I think the ground's big enough and I flare out of my track, I'm consistently at 3 grand. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The wife and I will watch Trading Places. She loves anything to do with houses, cooking shows (Iron Chef), antiques, and she's addicted to sitcoms. I usually prefer popping in a DVD, but I like the Star Trek shows (except for Enterprise, because it's depressing). NYPD Blue really surprised the heck out of me for how good it is, didn't even start watching it until about a year ago. I like history stuff on A&E, Discovery, and the Public Stations. And Sponge Bob - the kids and I LOVE Sponge Bob ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

In 1980 Perris briefly had an awesome bright yellow DC-3, "Forty Lima". Instead of the usual 7 cylinder Wrights, this baby had 14 cylinder Pratt & Whitneys, it was sorta like having two Wrights back to back inside each engine. Man that thing would HAUL ASS on takeoff, we loved it ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Khorosho! Prekrasni ! Siniye Neba ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

If you have to cut away from a collision...You are screwed. You can't get them off fast enough, and you cant cut-away while you are wearing them. And you can't pull your reserve with a toggle on your wrist either. Toggles around the wrists were also popular in the late seventies, especially among the earliest CRW enthusiasts. By 1978 USPA was telling people, though Parachutist Magazine, not to do it, for pretty much the above reasons. Sound like it's time for them to say it again. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Then they cancelled the Jerry Garcia stamps because they were afraid what could happen when people licked them. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

How about top & bottom skins one really bright color and then all the ribs another, like a hot neon green top & bottom, with turqoise or hot pink ribs ? Or you can use any number of different colors like that. I was also thinking of an all white canopy, with 3 cells off center having colors, like red/yellow/neon green, or stuff like that, just to make it look like a "splash". I'm looking at Spectres too, so these are 7 cell designs. I used an online canopy designer to do it. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

That stuff used to be standard operating procedure in the old days. But is the guy there to teach or get laid ? Could be both you say, but is he paying as much attention to his guy students or to the girls he doesn't think are as pretty or as interested in shagging him ? Not hard to see why experienced women jumpers wouldn't hang around. If the students are 18 there's nothing illegal about it, but your DZ has got to be getting a rep for "the place with the horny old coot instructor" (I'm older than him, so I can say that). I hope your DZ is progressive and safe, if anything were to happen to anyone, there's gonna be a lot of questions to answer. It's really not professional. Besides, doesn't Amsterdam have a legal and affordable red light district ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

From time to time stuff like this happens. In the eighties, first it was a batch of 3 rings improperly heat treated. Some of the rings distorted out of round from normal opening stresses. Everybody had to have a Rockwell hardness check on their 3 rings and some had to have their rings replaced. Then there was the acid mesh debacle, when fire retardant on round reserve steering mod mesh was linked to deterioration of canopy fabric to the strength of toilet paper - now there's a nasty surprise. Some people had to trash their reserves and it pretty well hastened the death knell of the round reserve. So now it's ripcord pins. Let's count our blessings, nobody's been hurt or killed and the problem's been identified and is being brought under control. A pain in the ass ? You bet ! But welcome to sport aviation. Anybody who wants to fly has to comply with this stuff, often out of your own pocket, whether you own a parachute, a glider, Cessna, Otter, or 747. This shit happens. It's unmanly to whine about it. Besides, what are we going to do, start suing the gear manufacturers ? The last time that happened, two of the major manufacturers said "fuck it" and got out of the sport market altogether(Pioneer and GQ Security). That would be good, who would we like to force out this time ? That's also where Bill Booth changed his company's name to The UNINSURED Relative Workshop, to poison pill the lawyers. In short, we pays our money, we takes our chances, and we sometimes pays some more money. But we like it that way. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I didn't jump when the kids were little, thought it would be selfish if I left them without a dad. They're older now. Known enough people who've died of cancer, one old friend was murdered in his home, a few more in traffic accidents. We're all gonna die sooner or later. I'm not speeding anything up. But every day should be special with your family and friends. You may not be checking out anytime soon - but one of them might. You never know... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Thanks one & all. I do believe you get what you pay for, and also believe some rigs are overpriced - I can only laugh at the $1800 prices I see for one or two brand names, but people still buy them too. I'm still looking along lines of an Infinity or Wings and haven't heard a bad thing about either, and plenty of praise for both. But asking around, like dirt dives, is free, so thanks again. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Been looking at the low end of the price spectrum at some pretty nice rigs, Infinities and Wings. Have run into a few people who are quite happy with the most affordable of them all, the Dolphin, though one of the happy campers also says it's a "Volkswagen" rig. Any opinions from present/former Dolphin owners ? Riggers ? Anybody got one on order ? I'm looking around and would hate to rule out a good functional rig just because it's not as sexy as the spendier stuff, some of which is frankly overpriced. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I jumped once up north in february, even with layers and two pairs of gloves I was numb and bordering on nauseous when I got back to the ground, needless to say I only did one jump that day I will never forget a Feb day in upstate NY, it was one of those deep clear blue days. about 5 degrees on the ground. We got the bright idea of taking the Cessna up to 7500 and doing some 4 way. One of the elder jumpers refused to go and warned us, "I don't think you're going to like it". But we were young and stupid, so what did we care. We got to 7500, we climbed out and exited. We got a 4 way and watched the frostbite spreading across each other's faces. The cold cut through all the extra clothes we were wearing. Down vests, long johns, and heavy gloves meant nothing. We shook our heads "no" at each other and broke off high. I think we were all open by 3500, really high in those days. All I can remember was how WARM I felt the moment that awful freefall stopped. It still had to be below zero, but the wind had stopped (I was under a round Paracommander) and the sun felt warm. When we landed, we found we could barely speak, our mouths wouldn't obey. Then came the warming up back inside the club house, it hurt so bad we were in silent tears. My face was numb for the next 3 days. Another precious memory! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I don't think a skydiver has actually ever collided with an airplane, or am I wrong? About 22 years ago a friend of ours was killed near San Diego when he hit the leading edge of a Navy L130 transport plane in freefall. He was a super nice guy and we all really like him a lot. I don't believe in naming names, but I think the airfield was renamed in his honor. We jump pretty close to March AFB and we get an interesting procession of B-52's, KC-10's, DC-9's, etc, generally at lower altitudes as they're on approach to March. Upstairs in the Otter we look for planes below on jump run. They're not that hard to spot. You'd also like to see if you're exiting within a mile or so of the DZ. You should never leap blindly out the door just because the green light's on. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

All the debating over adultery aside, the guy's been charged with first degree sexual assault. Which sounds to me like a polite celebrity version of rape, the particulars of the charge allege there was penetration and that it was forced. The issue that is the public's business is whether or not he is guilty of a violent felony. The adultery crap can be sorted out by a higher authority another day. Lots of people commit the sin of adultery without committing the crime of rape. Sounds to me like Kobe's on the "recovery" bandwagon now, a book and guest spots on all the talk shows should follow. It will be up to the DA to prove the charges to a jury. I don't think the woman would put herself through the humiliation of the whole process unless the charges were true. Guess we'll just see what shakes loose. But if he's guilty, lock him up. Just spare us the stories of all the soull searching and "hard look at himself" that he's going through, save that crap for Jerry Springer. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Big Brother & the Holding Co. - Cheap Thrills Grateful Dead - Steppin' Out: England 1972 Best of Blondie Suzanne Vega - Songs In Red and Gray Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed Beatles - Revolver, and White Album Hendrix Live at Fillmore East Allman Brothers Band - The Fillmore Concerts Santana - Caravanserai Jerry Garcia Band - Shining Star Miles Davis - Kind of Blue John Lennon - Imagine Frank Zappa - Zoot Allures The Who - Live at Leeds (new 2 disc version with live Tommy) Rod Stewart & Small Faces - Every Picture Tells a Story Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What is this, another decree from Cornelius Fudge ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

A family we know has a kid over on the north side of Bagdhad, he rides on top by the gun and tells his ma gets shot at almost every day. He's 19, his ma is on chemo for cancer right now. It sucks from all directions. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The lemons are a nice touch, maybe she'll squeeze them. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Sure, in a perfect world. I think the main issue with Bubba Bill was that he'd lied under oath in a deposition. As with Watergate, it wasn't so much the hummers or the burglary, but the lying that didn't sit well with Congress. It can be argued that Bush lied to Congress to mislead them. Personally, I believe he did and it should be impeachable. But the facts of life are that impeachment is and historically has been a political act. There's simply no way a Republican House is going to impeach W, or a Republican Senate come up with the 2/3 majority to convict. He could sodomize a goat in front of both houses and they wouldn't impeach him. It would be better to just vote his sorry ass out of office next year. Impossible you say ? That's what they said about his dad.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !