SBCmac

Both... Longest distance and time ... Your post is hillarious ... I'm soooo hung over today, I needed a pick me up

Michael McMurtrey “SBCmac” Age: 33 Height and weight: 5’ 7”, 160 lbs Birthplace: Albuquerque, NM Marital status: Single Occupation: Computer Geek (Database Administrator)… That’s my daytime BASE disguise … Hobbies: BASE jumping, Mountaineering, womanizer (I looooove women

Your post made me laugh so hard... Thanks for the laugh ...

Come on now, have some empathy for your BASE brother … Anger management is an ongoing challenge that takes many years to master … My dropzone.com counselor did recommend the pink velvet teddy bear though… May I ask where you got yours …

When I'm standing at exit point, doing my exit count, I feel more connected to world around me than any other time in my life... Once I step off and exit from the physical object that is connecting me to this earth, I feel freer in that moment than any other time in my life... Freedom from the world of bullshit we put up with every day... Freedom from mankind’s laws... Freedom from narrow minds… Freedom from mankind’s wars... Freedom from everyday worries... Just pure freedom from anything and everything… So all in all, on every jump, I jump to be free…

Awesome, thanks Tom... That's all I was asking

I'm not asking to argue... I'm asking what your last post meant... You post was directed at me, wasn't it!? So, since it was directed at me, it would be good for me to understand what you meant, right?! As far as getting together... Anytime... I'll PM you an talk about logistics... SBCmac

peterk, I'm not trying to start an argument, but I'm lost... I'm really trying to see the value added to this discussion from your post, but can't... So would you please elaborate so that the rest of us know what you're talking about??? Thank you peterk

Hello all... I have returned from the banned persons' solitary confinement cell today ... And after 7days of intense BASE anger management therapy, I have been rehabilitated and I promise to play nice ...

Tom... I lied about behaving... Does this mean I'm going to get locked out for a week now ... Sorry ...

Are you claiming you know me? "For starters" get your information correct... Yes, I have only been in BASE for three years (skydiving 9 years), but I have seen my share of what BASE entails, from jail to hospital time to watching my best friend burn in on a BASE jump. Second, I have been to Bridge day, and I do like the event. But like I said, I have a problem with people hucking off with no BASE training in front of thousands… And finally, “wrong side of the pond”… What fricken pond are you talking about??? And finally, what does any of the above have to do with anything that is being discussed in this forum? Not to mention, I bring to the table more than just my BASE and skydiving experience… I bring my entire life experiences to the table. So you may have been in the sport longer than me or you may be older than me, but don’t even try to compare life experience to me when were talking about training and preparation. As a Marine, I spent 9 months in the Gulf during the first Gulf war and 5 months in Somailia following that… I know what the lack of preparation and training leads to, serious injury or death and nothing else… So don’t tell me I have a skewed P.O.V… My view is my view, it's far from skewed… SBCmac

Point taken... Thanks tfelber

Exactly Hookit... Yeah, I have seen videos of things gone wrong at Bridge Day... The difference is that none of the family members, to date, have put one and one together and tried to sue for negligence yet. And like I stated earlier, it’s only going to take one family member who is able to connect the dots to see the negligence that is taking place by allowing jumpers to huck off the NRG with only 50 skydives. This is why in all the posts about “The Price of BASE” and “The Letter” are focused on getting BASE jumpers and their families ready for the what can go wrong in BASE. You skip all those steps to BASE and you get killed, there is a high chance that a family member will be looking for the answers of why they son or daughter got killed at a public event like Bridge Day… SBCmac

Uh, am I writing things that I can’t see and only you and Skypuppy are seeing? Where do I state in any of my posts that BASE is more important than Bridge Day? In fact I stated the contrary in my last post to Skypuppy. I said “So I’m sure Bridge Day will be around whether BASE is a part of it or not…” And I also stated “BASE jumping is simply one of many events at Bridge Day”… Again, that’s why I said “BASE jumping is simply one of many events at Bridge Day” in my last post… This is where I disagree with you… Yeah, BASE cannot affect Bridge Day or stop it, but Bridge Day can damn well affect the world of BASE. Again like I stated before, Bridge Day represents BASE to the NPS and the world. Let something go wrong with an inexperienced jumper at Bridge Day and the entire BASE community will pay for it in future dealings with the Bridge Day Commission and the NPS. It’s only going to take one jumpers family to sue Bridge Day, because of negligence, to change our world of BASE… Once… What does that matter? And what’s your point? I’m lost, where are you going with this??? What we’re talking about here is not abstract or hypothetical… Bridge Day is seen by others, Non-BASE jumpers, as BASE jumping. In fact, it is a proving ground as far as the NPS goes. What happens between the jumpers at Bridge Day and the NPS will greatly affect further legalization of BASE jumping on NP land. So this is again why I’m not excited to know that we let people, with only 50 skydives and no BASE training, represent BASE in front of the NPS and the world... Again I have no problem with new blood (We are all new blood… We didn’t invent BASE…) and I have no problem with Bridge Day itself. I do however have a problem with the approach that some of the new blood is taking when getting into BASE. I only mentioned Bridge Day because I think Bridge Day condones the few newbies’ approach to BASE by allowing inexperienced skydivers, with no BASE training, to hop off the NRG in front of the NPS and the world, hundreds of thousands of wafo’s, in such a big event like Bridge Day… SBCmac

You've got my cooperation Tom

Skypuppy, I don’t want to make your heart pacer skip a beat again, so if you can’t handle other people’s points of views you probably shouldn’t read any further… Just looking out for your own good, since you’re my BASE grandfather and all

Well, maybe both sides have legitimate arguments??? For example, why is it that skydiving newbies are downsizing too quickly and BASE newbies are burning objects? In both instances, newbies are impatient and want to progress too quickly. Instead newbies are not taking the time to get proper training, whether it is getting proper canopy training before downsizing in skydiving or in BASE getting training/tips from the locals in how to properly jump local objects. In BASE, us that go out and work hard to make objects jumpable get screwed when newbies go out and shit all over the hard work we’ve done by not getting tips on how to jump the objects properly. The new blood in BASE, that are being spoken of here, are those that take for granted the hard work that goes into making objects jumpable. BASE is not like skydiving, we can’t simply go somewhere else once all our objects are burned… That’s the whole point here… In both skydiving and BASE, newbies are not taking risks in areas that haven’t been discovered already. Newbies are taking risks in areas that have been well established by the experienced. So why reinvent the wheel when you can spring board off of the experienced and learn from their successes and mistakes. Then when you are par with experience in the area that you want to advance in, then take the risks where they should be taken, on uncharted ground… In both cases, there is no reason why new blood shouldn’t take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that exists amongst the experienced jumpers. New blood and growth are not the problems here; egos, lack of patience, and doing what’s cool to look cool are the problems with some of the new blood entering BASE and skydiving… SBCmac

Keep your head up brother... I'm sending good vibes your way, hoping for a speedy recovery and a better job than your last

I totally disagree… Go to the Vertical Visions/ Bridge Day website (http://www.bridgeday.info) and tell me that it’s not promoted as “BASE” jumping. Any wafo or skydiver that goes to that site or attends the event sees it as BASE jumping. Whether or not we want to consider it BASE jumping or not, it doesn’t matter what we think, because without a doubt they are BASE jumping. Don’t get me wrong though Tom, I definitely see your point in how experienced BASE jumpers don’t perceive Bridge Day as BASE jumping in its truest form. But the problem is not how experienced BASE jumpers see the event but how the surrounding community perceives it. And I definitely agree with your last statement about how the BASE community doesn’t serve Bridge Day and vise versa. Maybe the BASE community should take more of an interest in how Bridge Day is conducted. Have you thought about how the NPS sees the event. I’m willing to bet they see it as BASE jumping. So again, maybe the BASE community should develop more of an interest in how our sport is being displayed to the public in events like Bridge day, especially because of the role it plays with the NPS…

I also think events like Bridge Day give people the wrong impression about BASE as well. Anyone and their mother can huck off that bridge without proper training during Bridge Day. Sure, they require X number of skydives, but they do not require BASE training… I mean did you know that you only have to have 50 skydives to jump off that bridge on Bridge Day??? That’s crazy!!! A person doesn’t know their ass from a whole in the ground at 50 skydives much less know how to jump into dead air doing a BASE jump in front of thousands of onlookers during an important PR event!!! So again, events like Bridge Day that encourage the “just give it a try and see if you like it” approach, instead of encouraging proper training, are affecting BASE more than we know. As far as myself, I researched and sole searched for well over a year before I did my first BASE jump. And not to mention, after all my time preparing, I still took BR’s FJC to get started. And after all that, I still knew that I had so much more to learn. I also knew that I had to truly respect what I was getting into with BASE, I wasn’t just trying it out… To make Bridge day even worse, BASE manufactures condone the “just give it a try and see if you like it” approach by attending Bridge Day and renting gear to people with only 50 skydives. The funny thing is that you have to have the bare minimum requirements to attend their FJC and buy their gear, but you can bypass all that by renting a rig at Bridge Day. Again, I think this causes a negative ripple affect that we are now seeing in BASE with new blood… So there are a lot of reasons why I think we have problems with new blood in BASE… But I believe the main contributors are events like Bridge Day that encourage anyone and their mother to jump without training, it’s too easy to get gear because people are trying to make BASE mainstream, and people are getting into BASE these days off of a whim, instead of taking the time to approach BASE correctly. But if I had the choice to eliminate one of the above, it would be events like Bridge Day that allow untrained skydivers to do their first BASE jump. I think Bridge day is causing a ripple affect that we are just now seeing. And it’s only going to get worse if we keep letting people bypass proper BASE training… Just my opinion though

Very good point… The cool thing is that I mostly focus my attention on cliffs that are hard to get to and that are technically intimidating… But I see your point because we have one object here that is my all time favorite, that my friend and I worked very hard to open, that I don’t jump anymore because it’s being raped… And we had one of our A’s burned because of an inexperienced jumper… So yeah, I definitely see your point… So what can we do about it??? Again, going back to my earlier post, how do we regulate an illegal sport? Or better yet, how to we encourage new blood to see the big picture without trying to strong arm people? SBCmac

Where I live, over the past year and a half, we have seen a huge influx of new people getting into BASE… But, over that same period of time, we have also seen a large exodus/ increase of inactive jumpers, mainly the same jumpers that came into the sport in the same year and a half timeframe. So during the summer of 2003, in our surrounding area, everyone and their mother wanted to get into BASE. We ended up having two main groups of jumpers, a North crew and a South crew. A lot of the South crew were jumpers that tried it a couple of times but didn’t stick with the sport. A great majority of those jumpers were just people feeling like they were missing out on something and wanted to prove that BASE wasn’t what it was all cracked up to be. Again, they did one or two jumps and dropped out… As far as the North crew, kind of the same thing happened but people stuck with it a little longer before falling to the way side. All in all, both crews saw a large increase of jumpers and both crews saw a large decrease over time. Over that same period of time, we’ve had several cliff strikes, multiple broken legs, people arrested, and our first BASE fatality. I think over time people saw that there is a real shinny side of BASE and there’s a real ugly side of BASE… I’m not sure why each person chose to leave BASE and I respect them for leaving a sport that wasn’t for them… So to make a long story short… I think BASE cleans itself of the jumpers that are not in it with 100% respect and awareness of the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of BASE. So I’m not worried about the huge influx of new jumpers coming into our sport because of the trend that I have observed in my own area. Without a doubt, we will see an increase in deaths and injuries within BASE because of the increase in numbers of jumpers. But as we have all seen over the past couple years, death and injury does not discriminate in our sport… With this being the case, deaths and serious injury will no longer be something that just happened to some other crew, it will happen to each and every one of our crews. This being the case, being a new jumper will take on a whole new reality and seriousness that a lot of new jumpers today claim they understand but won’t until they are jumping with crews that have been struck by the ugly side of BASE… In the end, your remaining BASE brothers and sisters that stand next to you at exit point, over time and tribulation, will be those that you know for sure are there for the right reasons and are the ones that truly know the price of BASE… SBCmac

Very true... Very true... Good points!

I don’t know how this is possible, since most of all BASE jumpers do illegal jumps… And for most of us, that’s all we have. So how do you show the public that we are self regulating when we mostly do illegal jumps? Not to mention, I have no desire to attend public events… Why should I spend money to fly to events when I can BASE in my backyard? And finally, I have no desire to be regulated and I won’t let it happen… In my backyard, I will continue to jump what I want, when I want, and without anyone’s approval… The only time I will ever be regulated or ask for approval on an object is when I’m on someone else’s turf. In those cases, I follow BASE ethics and contact the locals… I consult the locals out of respect for my fellow BASE brothers and sisters. Other than that, I will not change the way I BASE so that others can have their BASE events. The only person that is ever going to give me the go ahead at an exit point is me, and only me… Please only take this as my point of view and not an attack on you Faber… I’ve heard this point of view before… And even some of our local BASE jumpers talk about creating a legal BASE association that opens legal sites locally… But as long as the vast majority of us have to do illegal jumps, I just don’t see how it’s possible for BASE to become legal and accepted as a sport like skydiving, since the very foundation of our sport is mostly illegal… The only way I see it possible is that all BASE jumpers worldwide would have to agree to stop doing illegal jumps for hope that one day we will have legal objects to jump… I have to be honest, I’m not willing to do that… Again just my view on BASE events and being regulated…

To all… I just want you all to know that I highly respect all your point of views and opinions… And I have to thank you for taking the time to enlighten me on why people say what they say, instead of just telling me off. And BASE813, by no means are my posts meant to be a personal attack on you. I’ve had these opinions build up from past posts, from other people, and yours just happened to be recent. Again, BASE813, I truly respect your motivations for creating your initial post. And I have to also say that I am truly sorry to hear about your friends. I’ve been there done that and it was the worst experience in my life. I truly hope that neither one of us have to watch another buddy die again. I still believe what I believe on this topic but like I said above, I truly respect and appreciate all of your points that you have stated… So hopefully one day we’ll all cross paths and share a moment in time… That would be awesome…