doorgirl

Hence my the use of the phrase, "at best" and in a prior post the word "debatable." While the US Constitution does imply the notion of "that which is not expressly forbidden is allowed." That doesn't mean it grants all rights to all humans unless there is specific verbiage to the contrary. For instance, not being a slave. I would say that not being a slave is a pretty basic human right and ranks much higher than "gun owner." Yet, it was only through legal actions that the right to "not be a slave" came to be. While it's all fine, high and mighty to claim the US allows "that which is not expressly forbidden is allowed." The TRUTH is some very basic human rights do NOT exist in any country without them first being written down. The notion of "that which is not expressly forbidden is allowed" isn't implied, it is explicitly stated. The ninth amendment states "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The tenth amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Just because the federal government is running roughshod all over the states and the people, at least as far as the restrictions written into the Constitution, does not make it OK. ... And as to the several statements about why the amendments are needed... Have you ever sat down with a team to write something, and perhaps realized after you were finished and people were reading it that some of your points weren't as clear as you intended? Did you ever put out an addition or revision to clarify key points? The Bill of Rights immediately followed the Constitution for that reason. Of course it took less than a generation for people in power to start maneuvering for more power, and sadly many Americans are as misinformed about the intended style of governance as our international friends here. Those of us who can look in our family tree to relatives that escaped extermination by chance know that privately held guns, both in the sense of individuals and unregistered guns, are the best way to keep at bay other monsters who may wish to wipe us or others out in the future. If higher gun deaths vs other countries was actually a good metric, I would view some level of increased gun death as a maintenance payment to prevent a potential future genocide. But how comparable are gun deaths rates as a comparison of the risk/benefit of privately held firearms? In the US, home invasions are very rare however in the UK the rate is terribly high. Having guns "out there" in the US makes bad guys and gals choose to wait til we aren't home to rob us rather than tie us up and do whatever when they rob us. What of other violent death rates? It has been a while since I looked up the numbers, but they are not so compelling. Does a murder victim care if they are shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death? Well, probably yes. I would have to guess that I would prefer to be shot and killed than beaten, stabbed, strangled, burned, killed through sodomization, stoned, or many of the other ways to kill someone without a gun. And as a member of the weaker sex, I would also like to have a tool that equalizes strength differences to protect myself from lethal or life altering attack. So yeah, those of you in other countries I would appreciate it if you could just sit back and enjoy the show rather than trying to interfere in our political fights. Check out these resources if you want to learn, and help us poor Americans by letting people vote with their feet to move to your country rather than changing us. And those of you in the US who believe in gun control because you think it will make people safer, I would ask that you poke around on the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership site for a bit to learn of both the racist history (and present) of gun control in the US and it's other influences. The jfpo.org website has some great resources.

How much experience and competence do you expect in a 9 year old? Not much, the burden of experience and competence rests with the instructor, now deceased. The instructor was a veteran who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been a firearms instructor for years. Apparently this isn't enough experience and competence. He failed to learn from the 2013 Uzi incident, and fortunately* he paid for that failure with his life and not the life of someone else. Yes, I think his poor instruction is a clear demonstration of incompetence. (*Best of all would be learning without injury or death, but better him than someone else - he was supposed to know the risks and mitigate them or shut it down.)

Yup, don't be a dick and try to be helpful if they don't know what to do. My routine if a TSA starts getting jumpy about my rig is to say " I bet you don't see many of these here. Do you want to grab a supervisor and anyone else who is available so I can give you a tour of this sport parachute system and you can take a look at protocols again?" It usually goes well, though I have had to be firm but polite at times. If they reach for the reserve handle, I don't shout stop or don't or anything. I say careful, pulling that costs me $60 and ruins my vacation. If they sass back, I explain the need for a FAA approved rigger to pack the reserve, and the time money and care involved. That usually gets their attention. Just deescalate and inform at each step in the interaction. It helps. But some people are just dicks, and I wouldn't put it past one of the more outstandingly dickish agents to pull a reserve precisely to ruin someone's day. You can't really give any advise about those people, other than be unquestionably right in your actions and responses and then fight back through appropriate and accountable channels. Get the dick fired, even if it takes a while

I won't mess up the data in your poll since my oldest is 19 months, but having my kids grow up with time on the DZ is big to me. I've watched plenty of skydiver kids grow up, both as they become adults and in the diapers to bikes stage. Plus some newly minted teens. For the younger ones, it lets them free range which is something most modern kids miss out on. The older ones learn natural consequences, including that some people seem to get away with everything and others are caught by consequences at every turn... and that some of those who get away with stuff one day don't and that the consequences at that point (or any point really) can be completely catastrophic. They are still kids, and sometimes they still make completely bonehead decisions, but it does seem that they are at least more aware of the consequences than their peers. I'd define success with their childhood on a DZ a lot broader than just the number of jumps they do. There is so much more to gain than just a future jumping.

Welcome to the world of sport, not student, canopies. As you move into platforms that people can start hot dogging on, you need to make sure that canopy skills and techniques you learned on pure student platforms at low wing loading translate. Talk to your instructors about that! The first jumps on sport platforms can get a little intimidating, my first on a Spectre 210 I ended up jumping a fence because I misjudged the penetration and was afraid to turn bc there had been traffic and I didn't want to turn low (chain of events, final consequence was just a hurt ego due to pure luck), my first on a Sabre 2 210 scared the snot out of me for no real reason at all, and it ended up on a Spectre 190 for a couple hundred jumps. I'm on a mom break now. I did jump a PD190 (maybe a 210?, it has been a while...) in a few places, including a higher altitude DZ. As it was older and I was loading it 1:1 or better, the flare left something to be desired but the flight was a lot more studentish flight than the Sabre2 or Spectre. I wouldn't rule out the PD190 in general, but it needs to be thought through just as carefully as any other canopy choice. The biggest thing for you to do is really talk through the gear choices. You need to understand the canopy and also the gear it is in. Getting the right combo gets to be difficult, and as unfun as sitting out a day jumping is, it is a whole lot better than an incident or near incident. Just because you get away with something that had every right to go bad doesn't mean you made a good call. (like jumping too big gear that has you peeking out from between the lift webs, not understanding the flight characteristics of a new canopy and choosing the likely path of injury over turning into someone else, etc - these are all personal experience). Basically, you need to talk with your canopy instructors now more than ever about what gear and combos are options for you now and in a couple steps down your progression and why. This will help you better understand the gear differences and their thought process. Buy them a beer or a meal and pick their brain. You should be able to find a gear nerd who gets the larger, tamer end of the sporty canopies and their relationship to student canopies and talk with them with or without an instructor who knows your flight, depending on how much overlap there is. A couple hundred dollars over time feeding them and learning from them is money well spent, even if you don't see that ad a way to avoid a medical copayment! This understanding should also help you know if you can reasonably expect to find rental gear that works for you or if transitional gear purchase is a better option. I got a a Dolphin with a Raven reserve that fit me and worked through borrowed/rented canopies until I got where I wanted to be and bought new gear. I sold it for pretty much what I paid for it, and it enabled some nomadic jumping with lower jump numbers than I otherwise could have accomplished. YMMV, but a good understanding of your gear horizon both now and in the near future has tons of benefits.

I'm mostly concerned with the parents narrow focus on the legal consequences of a pack job gone bad. Will this kid be able to handle the emotional consequences if someone ends up badly injured on a rig where (s)he packed the main? I would be more worried about making sure my kid was mature enough to understand just how much "responsibility" (s)he was taking on than just assessing the legal risk. Look at how messed up people can get when they made a bad decision behind the wheel that ended in life changing impacts for others. Now consider those that caused life changing injuries even when they did everything right. I have no problem with the right kids packing. I just hope that all these considerations are thought through to start. I do applaud the parents in your scenario for considering that there are risks to this part time gig, they just need to expand their horizon a bit more.

There are some bigger guys up at Skydive New England in Maine. It is a drive from RI, but there are people who absolutely make that work. See if CPI has bigger guys jumping and figure out how to make it happen, especially if you are leaning toward AFF. It is a bigger challenge to have your size, but it can be overcome with some help and creativity. The tandem question can be tougher, as having a small instructor who feels comfortable with a student of your size can be tough, or so I hear. I'm not so involved in the tandem world.

His father used to delivery babies for free, until Medicare laws made it so that if he (or any doctor) performed free procedures he would not be paid for any Medicare patients treated. Given the current reimbursement system (Lowest cost billed minus 6%), the only way that a surgeon can donate their services is if they have no Medicare patients or travel outside of the reach of Medicare.

As a woman in a very male-dominated industry (Wall St) I find that mentioning skydiving makes them call into question all the assumptions they have placed upon me as a woman. It also helps to make me a bit more memorable with clients. For me, it is helpful but I work in a strange, strange world. Back on topic, if you really want to have an officially sanctioned club at your school I would suggest walking an informed middle ground with the next level up in the chain. Present a list of other schools, I'd look for peers and above in both academics and endowment, and mention that risk management hasn't presented these institutions from having a skydiving team, and it apparently hasn't presented a problem for these clubs at our school (insert SCUBA, rock climbing, etc). Ask them what information they need in order to evaluate the risks to the school for a skydiving club so that you can gather that specific information for them rather than presenting information that isn't important to them. Ask for a timeframe, figure out what you want from the school, and determine the roadmap to get you to the real go/no-go decision. I helped start the Cheerleading Club at MIT. It didn't take too much to start since we weren't asking for much from the school, just the ability to reserve practice space, have an online persona and use the name. If you are looking to be recognized so that you can be in the directory, have a school website, have a booth, make shirts, etc. but aren't looking for any funding from the school it may be a much easier path when you lay out specifically what you are looking for.

Yup, don't count out Jumptown. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to further confuse the issue for him. I did a tandem at Peperrell, AFF 1-3 at Vermont Skydiving Adventures, finished AFF at Jumptown, and did at least some of my student jumps at SNE, tried to do student jumps at Peperrell during a boogie but couldn't get in the air, and got my A license at Skydive Perris. Unless you feel a reason to change, stick to once place for at least AFF. I got top notch training everywhere I was taught, but it does make it more difficult if you move around. If you feel you want to change or want to get a different instructional perspective, do it. Your gut can tell you a lot that you can't quite put into words early on in a new experience.

I did my tandem at Pepperell too. I jump at SNE (Lebanon) now, and I haven't been to Pepperell in years. Are you looking to spend your weekends at the DZ while you are learning, or are you planning on heading home once you finish up your jump(s) for the day? If you plan to spend your weekends jumping, the difference in drive won't really end up being a major issue. If you plan to head home to other plans at the end of the day vs hang out, the shorter distance might be a good thing for you. People who live in Boston jump regularly at SNE, Pepperell, and Jumptown. (I'd bet CPI too, but I've never actually been there so I can't say for certain.) I haven't compared the open space measurements at the two dropzones, but learning anywhere near Boston will give you a better level of basic accuracy than jumping somewhere that you can land off easily. You'll train for the more forested areas we have here, and so long as you are heads up you can minimize the risks that come from that. While your choice of DZ for AFF is important, you aren't locking in a single DZ for the rest of your career. You can (and should) jump at the different DZs in the area after you have enough experience to feel comfortable traveling to new environments. OK, unbiased response is now over. SNE rocks! Come join us there. :)

Very true! Work on your accuracy with a strong incentive, or join the SNE Arborist Society! In all honesty, people do a very good job of opening with enough altitude to make it home most of the time and there is a strong culture of preventing out landings through early decision making. At Jumptown you could land in a reservoir if you don't bother looking before you exit the plane, and there is a river next to Pepperell. No matter where you jump, it pays to learn about the outs and to stay smart. Some DZs just provide more incentive to make it home (in a safe manner.) On the plus side, there is usually already a car on its way to pick up jumpers at SNE once it is clear they will be landing out.

I was thoroughly unimpressed by my first jump, a tandem. I had been so excited to jump that I had already read a ton about skydiving and even attended safety day with my skydiving boyfriend. After the jump, everybody at the DZ was asking how I liked it.. until my response that it was just alright made it around. I figured that maybe jumping wasn't for me, because if I didn't have the feeling of freedom I associated with skydiving in the air it didn't seem worth the risk or quite frankly the effort or money. About a month later I was at a little Cessna DZ with my boyfriend for Memorial Day weekend. I saw how much fun the jumpers were having and I just knew that I had to do it. They set me up with an instructor for an AFF first jump course and I was in the air 4 times that weekend. (Thanks Vermont Skydiving Adventures!!!) I now have a few hundred jumps, though I only have 8 jumps since 2009 due to my own stupidity (injury on landing, all because I froze up and had an undiagnosed bone issue that meant I broke when others would not) and now motherhood. I will be back, I just don't know exactly when that will be. Basically, if the sky is still calling your name give AFF a shot. Jumping on your own is entirely different than riding tandem, both for the control/responsibility and for the feeling of your body in relation to the air. There is also nothing wrong in deciding that skydiving is not for you. Be honest with yourself, and allow that to dictate your course.

Wendy, the first point in the article you linked refers to Accountable Care Organizations. ACO's don't remove the profit motive, they just shift it. Instead of making money by doing everything possible, they will make money by doing as little as possible. This is made even worse by the fact that costs of providing care have increased so much that many doctors (especially oncologists) and even smaller hospitals are joining up with big hospital systems to be able to keep the doors open. Their new employers (the hospitals and their accountants) are unlikely to look favorably on those doctors who spend the most money on each indication. Sure, there will be studies of outcomes and some data on who provides good care. But those data are available today for some disease states and the data are woefully inadequate. Check out the scores for some of the hospitals you would run from to see for yourself. I agree that the system is too expensive and could benefit from quality and access improvements, but changing the system to provide financial benefit to doctors who do the least is a really risky move. We will soon be paying far more money for far less care. A basic study of the bill and the way our healthcare system and insurance industry makes that quite clear. Sadly, those of us who could clearly and coherently put together these arguments in 2009 were shouted down as kooks, even when analyzing these things is our day job. It is and was painfully obvious, but the burning desire to "do something" caused most people to stop thinking before getting to the consequences of the bill. Instead, we should have looked to when healthcare costs jumped with the introduction of HMOs and realized that continuing down that path was a bad idea. Instead people were so out to get the insurance companies that they forced a bill that will make them even more money.

Unless you need to book your rooms or other things early, you don't need to lock in a decision now. Jumptown, Pepperell, and Skydive New England would all be excellent choices and all have their strengths. It has been years since I jumped at Jumptown or Pepperell, but that is mostly a logistics thing. Over the years, there are reasons people drift to or away from a dropzone, but it seems that those root causes fade away relatively quickly. With three excellent DZs within a short drive, the market sorts out issues pretty quickly! If you don't need to make a decision right now, consider taking a tour of all of the local DZs on your vacation. If you hit one and don't want to leave, don't! As your trip gets closer, check out the calendars for each DZ and see if there is anything in particular that grabs your attention. You won't go wrong with any of these places.

Chris, great to hear! Great job on the 30 pounds too. My comment on weight was two-fold: landing with less weight is less stress on the joint, and day to day life is less stress on the joint. I know that higher weights lead to shorter lives on hip replacements, so if you ever need to go that route things are easier on you if you are already down to a nice weight. Plus, it seems like more weight is related to needing a replacement in general, so even outside of skydiving that is a good thing for you. As you get further into jumping, see if the pain on the left side gets better or not. For me, pushing my prior limits left me really sore but so long as I was doing it in a nice balanced way it built up the strength to make it better in the future. If it works that way for you, great! If it stays the same or gets worse it might be worth working with a physical therapist to get exercises to bring that hip back to above-normal function. Either way, plot your course and enjoy the ride!

I had a minor acetabulum fracture (from skydiving) that didn't require any surgical stabilization. I know a bit about the field as an outsider too. Make sure you focus on becoming a top-notch lander, with nice soft fluffy landings. Choose canopies and jumping conditions that enhance that. Realize that in some of the fringe events (extra hard opening, bad landing on runway, etc) that you will suffer greater injury than someone without your prior history and figure out if that is OK with you. Lastly, I hope this doesn't sound harsh but making things easier on your hip everyday by losing weight will probably have a much better overall effect for you than trying to do funky things to offload your hip in the air. Increased muscle strength around the joint will also help a lot more than in-air contortions. Get to the point where you aren't favoring the 11 year old injury, but rather expecting it to perform its full role and succeeding. Bracing a joint with your own muscle strength is the ideal, not something you strap on. Either your hip can handle routine skydiving, or you should really consider whether setting yourself up for an earlier hip replacement is OK with you or not. You pretty much only get two shots at replacing a hip, and then there is not too much that they can do for you. Determine your own personal cost/benefit ratio and make your choice.

This might be considered objective if the author mentioned why he puts Ron Paul in the same category as the rest of these jokers. With no mention of why he believes that Ron Paul is a liar, demagogue or ignoramus I can only assume that since he is none of these things the author could only ignore him and hope he goes away. If you are fed up with the status quo we see here and in Europe, Ron Paul is the only viable choice for President. He scares a lot of the power brokers and media types because he doesn't play their game, so they try to shut him down or ignore him. Unless you actually like what these power brokers and mass media are doing to the world, it is time to look seriously at Ron Paul.

From what I know about hip replacements, after you get your first total hip replacement you usually have one good shot at a revision hip replacement. After that, things get much more difficult. For that reason, your uncle should be ok with putting his replacement at higher risk. Then again, there are much more common ways to loosen the implant and those of us with our original hips only have 2 (or 3 if you can get resurfacing) more chances to get a new hip anyways. If he is serious about skydiving and concerned with this he should probably seek out the opinion of an orthopedic surgeon who is comfortable with active patients. The American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (www.aaos.org) has a search function where you can find doctors by town. Through referrals from his doctor, or calling around to AAOS doctors’ offices from the site, he should be able to find a doctor who is comfortable with skydiving itself (or with other physically demanding sports and the ability to consider skydiving as a sport and not a daredevil stunt) and then can look at his case without wuffo concerns and evaluate it based on his unique situation.

Those sound like they could cause a really bad day! I guess this is something most important to consider before deciding to take something out the door, be it a camera helmet, a skyball, or something else. With a helmet that snags you can't be worried about what could happen to some poor soul on the ground and consider keeping your head tied up in the lines - the risk is a lot more certain to the jumper in that case. But with a skyball its all for fun, so the jumper needs to be 100% confident that they can handle it and realize what could happen. Right?

You might want to check out MythBusters on penny drops. I don't know what a jettisoned helmet would do, but they busted the myth that a penny falling from the Empire State Building would kill someone. On the other hand, I remember hearing of a chunk of toilet ice going through someone's roof. That's gotta hurt... and stink when it melts. I think on the ground I'll worry about jettisoned helmets as much as I don't about meteors or toilet ice hitting me. And in the air I'll keep doing everything I can (short of endangering myself) to keep from dropping anything. Good question though. I wonder if anyone here has any experience with this.

I'm not Polish, but I'm going to a wedding in Poznan over Memorial Day!

They're probably happy I wasn't on the JetBlue flight into Long Beach that couldn't get its landing gear down and had to circle to burn fuel before landing. The kicker - with DirectTV the passengers were watching the commentary. I would have been hitting that call button... are you sure you can't let me out on the next pass? Pretty please? I know you guys will be fine, but I have some great landing gear here (points at feet). Pleeeeeeeease?????

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Isn't it just the best thing in the world telling those guys to take a hike? Too bad you didn't start your trip by heading north for a bit, I've been free for about a month now. We could pester Doorboy and then all jump this weekend. If I'm still free when you get back from the carribean, come visit!!! I'm thinking it'll still be a little while before I hop back onto the Street. and in case I didn't get my point across before... WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Man, I hope my reserve handle comment isn't taken as a negative. Everyone has different preferences, and it was just too small for my big hands (and gloves for cold weather). I wasn't completely comfortable with how small it seemed to me, so Sunrise switched it out for me no problem. I see where they're coming from offering a more low profile reserve handle - I've heard people get grumpy about other manufacturers low pro handles being to big. The regular Wings reserve handle is nice - it's big enough for a nervous nellie like me but not a monster like you see on some of the student rigs or older rigs.