Morcyk

I think we're all missing the bigger picture here. And that is... what the hell was the poster looking for when he "stumbled" on this little gem?

All this time I thought I was a nice guy.. I AM 59% ASSHOLE/BITCH!

It's 3 tandems before AFF at the DZ I chose, but on my 3rd, I also controlled the exit. I would expect that anywhere you go, the will give you more and more control over the exit until you start your AFF cause then you really are in charge. For that first AFF, I did the thrust and relax thing and forgot about my legs. I still swear when the instructor told me to put my legs out further, they already were, hehe. And yes I know they weren't, they just felt like they were. As for hearing the instructor, as you do successive freefalls, you'll start to rely more and more on hand signals in freefall, so learn em!

Guess I just got lucky with my DZ, cause I don't believe I've seen a girl (non-tandem-student) that was not hot there yet.

Love Iron Maiden... but didn't really like them nearly as much after around No Prayer for the Dying. Few good songs on the next albums, but from No Prayer own down the chain to the oldest, I liked all the songs on the albums.

Hmm the only one of those I ever saw was Point Break and I really wouldn't consider that one a skydiving movie, so I didn't vote, but thanks for the list just the same so I can go watch some.

Because I'm a cheap bastard, it looks like the best choice for me this year is Edward Scissorhands. My wardrobe is 99% black, my hair sticks out in a million different directions and is also black, oh and my skin is pale. All I need to buy are the scissors.

Hmm, they default to jpg for me. Dunno.

Not only that, bu while your body is just aching now, what if the injury turns out to be more serious and you wanna take legal action? If you just did a skydive right after the accident, you will most likley lose the case. Of course if they turn out to be serious enough to warrant legal action, you would probably be barred from skydiving as well. As stated above, talk to the medical professionals.

Ground school for me filled in most of the gaps that were present in my basic understanding of skydiving. My main fears for the solo ones were, can I keep stable and what about landing. They cram a lot of knowledge in there and you really don't know for sure until you do that AFF. The stuff that's in ground school is also in the SIM, which you can download for free for the USPA site. I would highly recommend reading that. It gave me a lot more comfort cause it goes into lots of detail on how to deal with malfunctions, landings, etc. I had lots of anxiety about the jumps, but I remember someone that posted here at one point about splitting the jump into sections and that worked for me. I split it into the exit, the freefall, and the landing. Once I'm out of the plane, that fear turns to excitement, but getting out of the plane was the hard part. I just concentrated on the exit and managed to get myself out of the plane rather quickly that way. I was really terrified of that first AFF, but now that I did it, I can't wait to do the rest. Just pay attention to your instructors and talk to other jumpers when you get a chance. Even if I can't afford a jump, I still like to go down to the DZ and just hang out, watch the landings, talk to other jumpers, etc.

Lots of industrial gothic trance type stuff.

Good luck, it'll change your life. On the fear thing, when I did mine, I was excited as hell until those jerks opened the door and said get out. Seeing the video later, my face turned pale white. I remember being nervous, but apparently I was terrified.

I finally just got to the point in the SIM to know what the hell you guys have been talking about with this downsizing thing. I'd rather be damn comfortable with my current size (no I don't have one yet. need more research and a few more jumps) than to worry about downsizing cause some jerk is looking at me cross-eyed for using a student sized canopy.

Guess I'll just have to hope for the tv thing. I have a 5 day weekend next week, but provided I can drive straight through from here for 2.5 days without sleep, the round trip would take up my entire vacation time.

If you ask me, I don't think you should be allowed on the Internet unless you have at least a basic idea of what computer security is all about. You wouldn't leave your front door of your house wide open all day, so why would you do it with your computer? Yet lots of people do and that's half the reason that these viruses/worms/trojans always seem to "come back from the dead".

I would be Strawberry Short Cake. From the description, I suppose I should stay away from chick flicks if I don't wanna end up drowning in tears.

Michael Church. Hmm just doesn't work does it?

Yeah I don't need more rain. While I don't live in FL, I was about 500yds from that F-3 tornado that touched down in DE. That was freaky.

I'm with krazyskydiver, sounds like fun.

Guess I'll show my newbyism here. Any chance this is televised? Never seen any skydiving competitions b4. Or perhaps a website where I can see if it's close enough to drive to?

You can't experience the full flavor of the wings when they're drenched in bleu cheese!

The wings rock and .... dipping ur wings in bleu cheese is just WRONG.

I thought that was just a newbie thing too. The tandems never bothered me, but when I did that first AFP, I was sore all over. Didn't realize it was so strenuous or that I was in such poor physical condition. I guess it's deceiving that falling should be easy.

When I went in it was under the idea that I would be aiding in the national defense, but while I was in, all the prejudice that I encountered turned me off. I could deal with the inspections, the TDYs that never seemed to allow me to spend more than a day or two at a time stateside, etc., but it just seemed to me that there was a substantial amount of racism at a national level that dwarfed what you see as a civilian. This bothered me, so I got out. As for the transition back to civilian life, after 1.5 years of working temp and freelance jobs while trying to find real work, I almost went back in. Obviously from my above statement, I was NOT one of those hardcore special ops guys. I was an Arabic linguist and after all those years of studying the language/culture, I didn't hate the entire area the way I had when I went in. And yes, that's years of studying. The tech school was so long that if you went in on a 4 year enlistment, it was quite possible that you could only have about 6 months to a year of active duty left after school, except I was one of those money hungry guys after the extra enlistment bonus associated with a 6 year enlistment.

Waiting for 11:30 so I can go to a club (tried going before that and the only other person there was the bartender).