Taikoen

What, you can get something for this? I was getting mad at myself for my own skydiving performance when someone told me that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I did a 4-point 8-way on my 52nd jump with a free fly exit. I would've made someone sign my logbook or something if I knew it was worth something. I was proud of myself but didn't think there was something noteworthy in it other than to myself.

I think it has to do with taking into account different drop zones having different standards for passing each aspect of all of the AFF levels along with the coach having a different standard. On top of that, different people respond in different ways to different tasks. That can get pretty complex. I was having a problem not staying on heading while doing one of my unstable maneuvers. I was turning 90 degrees, and the AFFI wouldn't pass me. I tried twice, failed twice. When I came out the next weekend, I was still turning 90 degrees but this AFFI said that the point was to get unstable and stable again, 90 degrees wasn't a huge deal to pass AFF (the on heading was actually for the A license). And I'm sure that's just a single example.

I had an ex get an M&M stuck up her nose. She had to wait for it to melt before she could get it out.

Omigod! Are you serious??? I won't even shop there, let alone look for a date there. You've never been to the Wal-Mart just up the street from where I live. Here's the news story when it opened: http://www.nbc5i.com/newsarchive/8161624/detail.html. That Wal-Mart and the Target on the next block are full of all kinds of hot girls almost every time I go.

I'm in a weekly game with some close friends and monthly game with a friend of a friend, and I've noticed the same thing. I always get good hands at the beginning of the night when blinds are nothing. The most I've pulled out of a hand like that is maybe 25% of the starting stack. Then I get stuck with shit for the rest of the night and end up overplaying some combination of J/Q/K/A to lose to someone with a bigger stack who calls with a low pocket pair or just to call and the flop is much nicer to them. I think I need to work on my late game as I almost always end up with the chip lead at the beginning of the game but lose to the really aggressive players later in the game as they slowly bleed me. I call when they have a great hand and fold when they were bluffing. I wish I'd catch great cards when they have nothing instead of the flop always being the opposite of what I needed. The only redeeming quality is that my bets aren't consistent, so no one can read if I have something or not.

Perfect throw right between the eyes. It kept telling me to start over, though... Missing isn't nearly as fun.

I wouldn't trade my automatic 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line in for a manual any day. I know, sports car, you have to get a manual or else you're not a man. Turbocharged 2.0L 4-cylinder with 19mpg (even with the way I drive it), the auto is half a second faster than the manual 0-60. With the Stability control, it can tell how much I'm turning and how fast I'm going and won't upshift through a turn where I would die hitting the wall at 60 or so getting on the Tollway. Hmm...Dallas North Tollway traffic, I'm going to pass on the shifting. And it's not any less fun to drive. Top down, music up, going 80 on the highway...beautiful thing.

As far as I can tell from the information I've seen it is perfectly legal for me to take my rig on a commercial flight as carry-on luggage. Since it's with me on the flight, I should be able to access it halfway during the flight and put it on. Go ahead and tighten up all the straps, check my handles, then sit back down and put my seatbelt on. There should be no reason I couldn't get a good grip on the arm rests, look around and say, "I'd hold on if I were you..." Legal, right? I'd love to see the look on people's faces if I did that. How many hours do you think I'd spend talking with TSA after the flight?

They made 1200 Sky Turbos in 2007, the first year the turbo version of this car was made. They didn't actually start shipping the Turbos (Red Line, same thing) until December. So it's been 5 months, and I'm the first guy to ever wreck one. Since Saturn dealerships typically don't have body shops, there are apparently very few people who know how much it will cost to fix my car. Combine that with Saturn not having groups of part for this leads to the damage evaluators having to list each part and the service/labor charge associated with it manually. Initial damage estimates are at $20,000 right now. And yes, I did have GAP insurance, but seeing as how the accident wasn't my fault I have two possibilities. Most likely the car is totaled, and I'll get a check for what I gave the dealership for the car to pay off the auto loan. Then, it's like I never bought the car. The other option is that the car gets repaired (and I'm stuck in a rental for a couple months since they have to rebuild the frame) and I trade the car in when I buy a new one. Once the car is repaired I can file a diminished value claim with the other party's insurance company that basically does the same thing the GAP insurance would do - pay the difference between what I paid for it and what it's worth after the accident. I thought I was going to be screwed since there are so few of the cars made, and they're made to order but I've become somewhat of a local celebrity with the Saturn dealerships in the DFW area and Sky drivers that have seen the car. They've told me that I'll get another one built the same as the one I lost when the next couple of shipments come. Some other owner may have had their order "delayed" in the process, but at least I'll be happy with my second first new car :P

I had LASIK done, and I'm permanently disqualified from all pilot positions at this time. I don't know how they would change the regulations if they ever do, but it sucked. My grandfather was a pilot and eventually a flight commander and Lt.Col. in the USAF. I wanted to be a fighter pilot since I was a little kid but have worn glasses since second grade. After I got LASIK, I worked at the USAF Institute of Technology (graduate school for the AF) and someone told me I was eligible. I can't even fly helicopters for them. I guess I'm stuck with my cushy consultant job.

I posted a thread about my new car last week (with pictures). As my luck would have it, some woman pulled out in front of me less than one week after I bought the car. I've attached pictures of how it looks now (not that pretty). No one was injured besides a few scrapes, bruises, and my seatbelt soreness. Judging by this luck, I shouldn't ever buy new gear because it'd get wrecked in less than a week (and wrecking while skydiving is very bad). That, or since I've now been in an car accident I don't have to worry about being in a skydiving accident :P I wish statistics worked that way. This is a tragic end to a beautiful, brand new car with less than 300 miles. At least it's entirely the other driver's fault for failure to yield to oncoming traffic.

Mostly the way the two dealership I went to treated me. They were both nice, but the base Solstice has so many add-ons that it's difficult to find a car that had everything on it I wanted. The base sky comes with almost everything standard. I didn't want to wait 3-6 months to order one, especially when the 2008s would be coming out by then. Pretty much every Sky that gets ordered has all of the available options (like...upgraded sound package?). The one on the lot was perfect, and I definitely preferred the Saturn dealership over the Pontiac dealership. As for storage, I have an attached garage at my apartment. The pictures were taken outside my dad's apartment. I don't want a house yet. That's like getting married or something. I'm too young for that crap :P

Sticker price was $34k. As for jump money, I'm a consultant - we just make prices up. I hope to pay this off in a little over a year depending on how much I jump.

After driving two Buick Regals and one Dodge Intrepid for nine years, I finally got the car of my dreams on Saturday (pics attached). It's my first new car, first sports car, first convertible, first turbocharged vehicle, and first car that gets me as excited as skydiving. As I turned towards my work laptop this morning with "something to show them," they all expected me to talk about my jumps this weekend instead of pictures of my new car. Sorry about the other people in the picture and the door being opened on the last picture. My dad and his wife couldn't stay away from the freakin' thing for me to take a couple of pictures while there was still daylight. I'm sure I'll have my own huge gallery of pictures by the end of the week when there's some sun and outside my OWN place. It's the most beautiful car ever, 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line. My grandfather said, "Leave it to a skydiver to buy a car named 'Sky.'" I didn't mention the whole Cutaway "Red Line" coincidence as I smirked as I hadn't even thought about the name of the car in correlation to skydiving.

Actually, plasmas do blacks better and are generally more colour accurate in general. Furthermore, LCDs do not really have a longer lifespan anymore. If anything, a plasma can outlast an LCD these days, since LCD backlights haven't improved much. Comparing a good plasma to a good LCD, plasma is going to have better image quality. LCD is better only in that it doesn't glare in a bright area, and is totally impervious to burn-in... but plasmas are pretty tough to burn in with modern units. 1080i LCD TV regardless of the size. Then again, I'm only banking on all of the research, testing, and sales information of a few of the largest manufacturers of both LCD and Plasma TVs. Those companies say LCDs last longer and have fewer returned units. No, I can't provide the data to you because I'd get fired. You could go with 1080p, but it will be a while before there's enough support to make it mainstream. Then again, if you don't mind spending the money, it'll cover everything you need for a while. I'd do 1080p personally.

I used to work for a company that sold video security systems, and we used our office as the demo site. It's something to get used to, especially when we had access to all of the videos. When someone did something particularly embarrassing it became an e-mail circulated around the office. I have several of these, but this was probably the most popular video. At the end, that's my boss and I looking up the video to see what it looked like. No one believes me, but I did realize what I was doing when I turned directly opposite the camera to enhance the comedic affect of the video.

Oracle is the enemy. Well, they just need to stop trying to butt into my company's area. They can keep the databases coming :P

Since I can change the, uhh...flight path? of my canopy, I'd say that I'm flying it. Since I'm flying my canopy (wing), I'd say that I'm the pilot of my canopy. A pilot controls the wing, while a passenger is controlled by the wing, right? I'd like to think I have a measure of control over my canopy.

I got an e-mail about two months ago that Dell was looking for a bunch of Software Developers. And where there's a software developer, there's the opportunity to do all the non-programming tasks that developers hate doing. I deleted the e-mail or I'd give you more information.

I'm not the only one who finds thread titles funny, am I?

I thought they were employing a similar machine at Heathrow International Airport? It's almost like looking at a naked person from what I understand. I remember them talking about using same-sex operators for the machines.

I'll have Ernie or Brett (I did a jump with him) point them out. I talked to a guy named Ron for about ten seconds. I was going over a dive in my head and he gave me a ten second coaching lesson on how to efficiently make a turn (spilling air as he called it). Not sure if it was the same guy. I'll have to start taking people's pictures and attaching a name and jump information for future reference :P

I did coaching jumps through my A license, and yes, the are great. However, even with my own gear and doing my own pack jobs, the jumps are still $80. If a coach came down to a matter of finances, I'd rather pay for someone else's jump ticket and pack job and save about $50 a jump.

I'm looking for someone in the central or north parts of Texas to help me work on my RW skills. I've got 48 jumps, about 10 of those hop and pops, 10 solos, and the rest AFF or SDU coaching. My goal is to find someone experienced and skilled enough to bring me into the RW world through planning, dirt diving, being a good free fall base, and debriefing my free fall fall skill progression. I live in Dallas but don't want to confine myself to the hour drive to Skydive Dallas if I can find a great coach in the region. I know there are several good drop zones in Central Texas extending down through Houston (probably as far south and east as I'd like to go). I'm available only on the weekends and am willing to do all the planning, drilling, dirt diving, and jumping it takes to get a good RW skill set. I'm posting here so I don't end up asking every one I see at Skydive Dallas if they have free time and because a suggestion to find some other jumpers with low numbers interested in RW for the Texas Skydiving Rookie league was made to me. So if there's any one else with low jump numbers interested in RW in this area, get back to me as well. At this point, I can fall, but it's not pretty and I don't have the control I want. However, I am dedicated and have a good awareness of what's going on around me and how to correct it; I just lack the skills to execute all of the movements. John

You're making a blanket assumption that every guy can't admit that they have done something wrong and make up with a girl. I have no problem admitting when I do something wrong (in part because it's so rare! :P). I have noticed that most people seem to find it easier to focus on the fact that someone did something wrong rather than thinking about how to fix it or get past it.