kittikat

Hi Everyone - I don't post much, and haven't posted in this forum before, but I'm hoping to get some advice and help from others.... My little sister was just in a bad accident and lost her right arm, so I'm looking for resources, ideas, and basically any and all suggestions on what to learn, what I can do to help her, and everything else regarding amputation. Any help for right now or further down the road would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

A simple search will yield the appropriate results come boogie time. Sshhh! So will a google search!

lol. There is a second one... anyways, no one will remember this next August!!

Two ducks Three squawking geese Four limerick oysters Five corpulent porpoises Six pair of Don Alverzo's tweezers Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array Eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical, denizens of the deep who hall stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery, all at the same time.

Lyal, Aidan and John Scott from Eden North were all on it. Congrats guys!! yep Okay, Karnac ... Were Aidan Walters and Lyal Waddell from here on it?? Oh, BTW, miss you...

There is no other requirements - there are three jumps working on pins and levels because it usually takes people at least three to put it all together and demonstrate everything in one jump. By the last jump you will need to demonstrate a stable (freeflown) exit, four pins with levels, altitude awareness, breakoff and an adequate track for 2-way separation. That is just the in-air portion. Some C2's modify this slightly, but this is basically what CSPA expects. Good luck with them!

That is not always a good thing. Neither is paying off your cards every month completely in the eyes of the Issuers. They don’t make money if you do that. They would prefer you make minimum payments forever and maximize their revenue. A credit score has nothing to do with how happy you make the credit card companies or whether or not you pay off mastercard every month. To build credit it will take quite a while, and you will probably need loans other than credit cards to really improve it. Talk to your bank, but a good idea would be to take out a thousand dollar loan or so, and pay it back every month - you will loose some money on interest, but that will go a long way and look much better than credit card payments. Make sure it is a loan from a bank and not a money-mart kind of thing. Those can hurt your credit score because you look bad with your money if you are borrowing from a place like that any paying 30% interest!! Credit scores are really finicky - you will loose some points if you are using too much of your credit (borrowing more than you should for your income) or if you under-utilize your credit! Definitely try to pay off credit cards completely each month - you will save money if you aren't paying 18+% interest, and as long as you are making minimum payment (more doesn't matter - just make the payment!) every month it will improve your credit score slowly. Good luck - it will take time.

Already been done - a guy at my DZ has the t-shirt!

In the standard progression method, they are not jumping with other people. They are doing solos with increasing delays - the instructor followed him out on the 20 second delay, probably just to watch and give advice since they weren't doing anything else that jump. The students are trained for solos, and if the instructor wants to follow it is completely up to the instructor to deal with separation etc. Until they are actually jumping with other people, waving off is not taught. You should not be giving advice to very new jumpers, especially when you do not understand the training method.

Hey - as a IAD instructor I see this pretty often. One thing I always tell people is that if I can do it, you can do it. I'm 5'3 and 115 pounds, and so I doubt you are significantly smaller than I am. You know it is going to be windy, so just climb out slow and deliberate. Plant your foot down hard, get a good grip on the strut before you put your other hand out there. Climb out very deliberately - there is no reason why you can't do it well. It doesn't have to be graceful or girly though!! Mentally rehearse the exit, and see yourself doing it well (already mentioned, but great advice). And once you are hanging take a second before you let go to push your hips out into an arch and look up. That way when you let go the arch is already there. Good luck - the worst thing you can do is start believing that you cannot do it. Once you give up, it won't go well. So don't even entertain that thought!

Thanks everyone for the links - there is some very good info that I wouldn't have found on my own! I really appreciate anything that may help their skills and keep them motivated. Any other tips, suggestions etc. would be great. Thanks again!

They are obtaining CSPA licenses; some came from a CAPS DZ that is no longer operating as under CAPS, so those with over 150 jumps all have CAPS licenses of some sort I believe. The others were just unfortunate enough to start at a DZ that did not really work with up and coming jumpers, so they ended up doing a lot of solos and or zoo dives that they legally should not haved been on. The former management didn't really seem to care I guess - I'm not sure, I wasn't around for that. Now that a friend of mine has bought the DZ they are pushing for everyone to get their licenses. Unfortunately they don't have many C2's at the DZ (I think for a long time the only C2 on the DZ was also the only tandem master, so it was nearly impossible for anyone to get coach jumps in), so we came down do help out and had a great time doing it. All the jumpers were incredibly eager to learn and really great people to coach. If no one required you to have any license, and you can't get coaching then it makes sense why none of these people tried to obtain licenses of any sort.

Hi everyone - I am looking for some information / books / videos on basic RW skills. My friend and I just spent a couple weekends at a small DZ (not our home DZ) doing all CSPA coach 2 jumps with people - this DZ previously had very little coaching available, so there were quite a few people with 60-250 jumps that had no licenses or ratings, and had largely been doing solos filling the plane. This DZ is under new management, and we were asked to come out and help all these people get their A and B licenses (Coach 2 rating allows you to teach the basic RW skills and sign them off for 2-way endorsement for the A licenses and group RW for the B license). Now that we have completed the coaching requirements for the licenses I don't want all these people to go back to doing solos or cluster f**ks. I really want them to continue to build on the skills we taught and challenge themselves to become better, more controlled, safer skydivers. My friend and I will be returning hopefully soon to work on some basic 4-way skills, but until then I am hoping to find some information I can pass on to them so that they can continue to learn. I am hoping to keep them motivated to do RW. I am looking to find videos or books etc. to pass on that cover basic 2-way skills to mid-level 4-way skills. I will be sending them copies of the random dive pool, and giving them this web-site as well as FastTrax - what other resources are out there? Any suggestions are appreciated!! Thank you for your help!!!

I thought that if I waited a day or two I'd know what to say... I still don't know what to say. Chris was an amazing person, who approached life with passion and amition. He was intelligent and quiet, but lived life to the fullest and truly believed in what he was doing in Afghanistan. He shouldn't have even been there, though. He was supposed to leave for 3 weeks vacation in New Zealand on that day, but for some reason his departure got pushed back one day. In that one day he was killed. He told me he was going to scuba dive, climb, cave explore, ski, and do something called a Sky Jump (he said to look it up - its in Auckland), as well as skydive if he could rent gear, while on vacation. And a month after that he was going to be home, and doing some 4-way with us at Eden. He also said that it was probably his last tour overseas because he has been away so much with the military. This is so wrong... he shouldn't have been there that day. I wish I could think of something better or more eloquent to say. We lost an amazing soldier, skydiver and friend. Blue skies Chris... We'll all miss you. I'll take a rain check on that 4-way. I'll try to post some pictures later...

Lol. Of course not - as a rookie I did what I was taught. The reason I was given in the course for leaving the door open was that the students get used to the wind noise and it reduces anxiety. I'm not arguing with anyone, just answering the question.

Hmmm... I've always left the door open after jumper #1. I tell the students to wait in the back of the plane for me to come back and check their gear / get the PC out, and so there is no messing with the PC right by the door. I understand the reasoning for closing the door, but for an experienced instructor there should never be an issue of losing control of the PC - I simply pull it out of the pouch (all our rigs have IAD pouches on the reserve handle side of the container, so there is no reaching over the students back / rig to get the PC), pull out some excess bridle, grip the students reserve side lateral and get them to shuffle forward to the door with me. In a wide-body 182 there is plenty of room. This is the way its been done at both DZs that I've dispatched students at, and I've done several hundred without any incidents, and never heard of any incidents. It certainly could happen, but it shouldn't be an issue with an experienced instructor.

I am using Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn - I love it.

I'm so sorry to hear about this. I'm at a loss what to say - I've been thinking about it for a couple days and still can't express what I'm feeling. Skydiving has lost two incredible people, and I was very lucky to have met them. To everyone at LP - you are in my heart and thoughts. Chandoline - take care, I really wish I could give you a big hug right now. BSBD

i agree,i think the only time animals should be kept in cages/zoos is when they are near extinction and they are there for breeding...once their levels are back up, release then in to the wild zoos are very outdated, we don't need them in this day and age Unfortunately for most endangered species, the biggest threat is habitat destruction, inevitably caused by humans. There are many species right now that only exist in zoos and breeding programs because they have nowhere left to live in the wild, and that number is increasing rapidly. I don't think that zoos are the way to go, but there really is no right answer here because humans are not going to stop our activities anytime soon, and probably not going to leave large areas of land untouched to ensure that all the species have an equal right to life. Even national parks are being shown to be too small in most cases to ensure the genetic diversity that species need, and the parks are too separated to allow interbreeding. But national parks are not even an option in a lot of diversity hot-spots in the third world... It's a tough call whether a life in a zoo is better than extinction for these species, but reality is that many of them would not be alive if it weren't for human intervention, zoos and breeding programs (and wouldn't be facing extinction if it weren't for humans in the first place).

I have seen quite a few 16 years olds jump in Alberta. My sister did a tandem at 16, and two weekends ago I dispatched a 16 year old girl who came all the way from Flagstaff to jump because she wanted to jump solo. Not sure why they chose Edmonton, but she did two IAD jumps and had a great time. I believe it is fairly standard in Canada - 16 is a minimum age with parental consent and 18 is the minimum without. That is also subject DZO discretion of course.

The point I got from this, was that the money goes to someone who can figure out not how to prevent 1b/tons of CO2, but to physically remove 1b tons per year from the atmosphere that is currently there. They are still encouraging people reduce their emissions etc. but this is for someone who can not stop the increase, but actually decrease the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. And if it does cause an ice age - well, we know how to deal with that!

I did pretty much the same trip two winters ago, except with a couple friends. It's a great idea, you'll have tons of fun. Take lots of pictures! Some advice: Take a reliable car that's good on gas. Stay in hostels lots - they are cheaper than motels, you can meet people and they have a kitchen, so you save a ton of money on food if you cook for yourself. Definitely stay in Seaside Oregon - they have one of the best hostels in the world there, with free internet, laundry, nice kitchen, coffee shop... there is tons to see in the area and the town is really nice. Get a hostel international membership - its not too expensive, and it gives you listings of all the hostels through the states. Don't just go to DZ's - see some stuff along the way. I love Joshua Tree National park, and it's right on the way to Perris. Camping might be a pain in the ass if it's only you - it's a lot of work to set up camp, especially if you're only staying one or two days. Washington and northern Oregon are rainy at this time of year - if you're camping, bring a couple blue tarps, one for over and one for under the tent! Olympic National park and Mt. Rainier are also awesome! Bring a cooler, so you can have some snack like cheese, fruit, crackers, bagels... that way you can snack throughout the day and spend money on only one larger meal a day. Saves time and money. It sucks not being able to drink - I went when I was 19, so I had already been drinking in Alberta for 2 years (since 18). Luckily the people I was traveling with were over 21. Good luck, have fun, take lots of pictures and be safe!!

Oops - didn't mean for it to be a lecture... just thought it would be interesting. BTW - although I agree with the ban, I don't think that it should be a municipal decision.

Canola oil and all vegetable oils are not trans fats. Trans fat is a modified oil, man made, although very small quantities occur in cows, sheep and goats I believe. In the oil, it is a double bond between carbons that makes vegetable and fish based oils liquid at room temperature. Typically any that are liquid at room temperature are healthy for you. Animal fats (like bacon grease) are solid at room temp, because they have no double bond. Trans fat were first made because of products like margarine - since plant based oil is much healthier, they were making a healthier alternative to butter but no one wanted liquid oil to spread on their bread! They took the vegetable oil and altered it, so that instead of a cis double bond that occurs naturally, it is a trans double bond. The cis double bond gives the lipid structure a kind of kink in the tail, so it doesn't stack very easily, hence the liquid at room temperature. The trans fat does not have this kink, so it is solid at room temp. For a while, before any studies were done, it was advertised as a much healthier alternative to butter. Other than trace amounts found in cows etc. trans fats are all man made, processed oil. Our bodies have never had to deal with this before, and so we cannot break it down. This is why they are so unhealthy - they do not occur in nature, and so our bodies pretty much can only deposit them as fat. Now experts say that no amount of trans fat is healthy. Because of this, I don't see the ban as telling people what they can and can't eat, or as insulting to one's intelligence. It seems they are fixing a screw up, kind of like getting rid of DDT or banning chlorofluorocarbons.

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll look them up on Amazon! I have read several articles on atheism, and Dawkins are by far the most intelligent, well argued ones. The others (I can't remember the authors' names) came off as poorly thought out rants for the most part. I remember I disagreed with (or didn't like) a few of Dawkins points, although like a said it was just a short article, so maybe he explains it better in the book. It's interesting how atheism seems to be fairly elitist - self-proclaimed elitist.