andyvaughn

I've read faulknerwns log book more than once myself, it's helped me dust myself off and try again a few times! I too have had more than my share of struggles in my few jump numbers learning curve, and more than once I've compared myself with those who I started skydiving with who don't seem to have any struggles, but that's not really a fair comparison. I have my own journey in skydiving, and it may not be not a very graceful one - but it's my journey! I really appreciate the old timers that take the time to encourage me to keep trying, that are willing to share their struggles with me, and give me the courage to try, try again. I too still get a teensy bit jealous when someone gets their A in 25 jumps and in their first month in the sport, but if I spend much time on that mental masturbation I wouldn't have the self confidence to show up again. So now when someone asks me why I don't have my A yet I just smile and say I'm trying (and of course am getting a ton of coaching to get over my particular variety of skydiving hurdles) Never ever give up!!! Andrea

Thank you so much for posting your journey as a novice to skydiving. I'm 28 jumps in, and have watched those that started after me gather up A and B licenses, head off to boogies, etc, And here I am, still struggling with the exit portion of the event There have been multiple times I've thought to myself I should just toss it in, clearly this sport isn't for me. Sharing your journey really helped me not feel so inept ... thank you thank you thank you for sharing it!!! Andrea

Well...as I said, I've personally never seen any case of abuse on the part of the insurance company I case manage for. I absolutely have never provided benefit for a patient with a dollar figure in mind. That being said, yes, I have heard of insurance abuse - just because I haven't seen it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened, I acknowledge that. But, what I have seen is what I said earlier, someone who becomes very ill, cancer, etc, who is uninsured, suddenly buy insurance and try to slip it by - you might find, for a hypothetical example, a patient new to insurance under the pre-existing timeframe clause, who says "no, I never knew I had cancer" yet a brief review of their records show that they were handed their diagnosis 6 months before they bought insurance. I've seen that a number of times. While I can't blame the patient for trying, it still at the base of it is insurance fraud. Just like it would be fraud if I had a contractor say my floors were 15thousand to replace when they were really 9, and pocketed the difference. While I may think my homeowners insurance is a bunch of assholes, it's still me that has to lay down with me at night...and I prefer a clear conscience, I can't excuse my conduct on the sometimes shady conduct others may engage in... Andrea PS - and yes...it was a hell of a flood...who knew water could trash your whole damned house like that? I'm roaming around on slab staring at studs where drywall used to be...fun.

Lying to obtain insurance benefits is fraud, period. I work for a health insurer, as a case manager - not because I particularly like the work, but rather because I got tired of taking care of 12 patients by myself on the graveyard shift and telling my kids I wouldn't be there for yet another holiday...but I digress. In the event you have health insurance that excludes coverage for skydiving - buy another policy. It's not exactly common language for skydiving related injuries to be excluded from coverage. Life insurance yes, health insurance no. And as it was noted earlier, large employers actually have more discretion to eliminate coverage for certain diseases/accidents. I know of a employer group that has decided to exclude any benefits for genetic disorders for the children of their employees, have a child with Downs...sorry, no coverage. That is the employers choice, NOT the insurance carriers. There is another employer that refuses to pay for any accident that occurs while the employee is intoxicated - and all accidents require a drug screen before benefits are paid...again, the employers choice, not the insurance plan. While I won't argue that insurance is sometimes a nasty business, I can tell you in my years as a case manager I have NEVER seen a patient denied benefits, claims denied, etc, on any shady level. What I have seen is people who are seriously ill, cancer, etc, buy insurance and then expect payment. If insurance worked like that, then I personally would not carry home/health/auto/life insurance. I would just wait until I had a major catastrophe, then pony up to the bar with my check and buy insurance. But, insurance companies wouldn't stay in business very long...would they? I just had a major flood in my house,...one could say it was skydiving related, as I was out skydiving when a pipe ruptured, and I returned home to several inches of standing water throughout my first floor. Now I'm already about 15 thousand into the demolition, and looking at 60+ thousand in repairs...I pay 1400 a year for insurance...so - basically, they are never going to make a profit or be able to stay in business on a customer like me. And I certainly wouldn't expect them to have paid this claim if I called them the day of the flood and suddenly decided home insurance was a great plan. They assumed a risk when they insured me, and their gamble failed..on me at least. This same insurer won't insure my home for earthquake damage, why? Because I live in So.Cal...it's too high a risk and they know they'd go belly up next major earthquake. Do I blame them? No...I wouldn't do it either. Do I blame life insurers for not offering skydivers/scuba divers life insurance, NO...too high a risk for them - but I was able to purchase life insurance on a group plan that doesn't exclude my leisure activities...so, my kids are financially covered in the event of my untimely demise. I think the argument here really goes to personal responsibility. The talk is of the government mandating every person carry health insurance, and quite frankly, I don't disagree with that. If you drive you must be insured, so that the rest of us don't have to worry about you slamming into our cars and wrecking it leaving us car-less if you can't pay for the damages. Why should the rest of us be forced to pay for the health care of those that choose not to carry health insurance?

I was told to throw the PC like a live hand grenade that was about to explode in my hand...

I sent you a PM, I live about an hour south of you, would be happy to grab you on the way up whenever I'm heading up! Andrea

I did some research today on this issue, just outta my own curiousity. I am a case manager (which is basically a concierge service to the ill, when you break it down) so I get exposed to quite a bit of health plans and exclusions. I've yet to see one that excludes skydiving, in my 10 years of doing this, but a quick search showed me that there are some individual plans that actually do write out high risk sports, such as skydiving, scuba diving, etc. It also looks like many travel insurance policies exclude high risk sports. Just for clarification, while this may be obvious to me, it may not to some, an individual policy is one where you go straight to the insurance carrier and pay a monthly sum for insurance coverage. I wasn't able to find one large group insurance policy (where you work for an employer with and they pay a bulk of the premium and insure the group of ya'll) excludes high risk sports, but I did find one large group employer that excludes ANYTHING that happens to you as a result of being intoxicated...wow. So, I guess that's something to keep in mind when shopping insurance.... And as to the comment that you can pay out of pocket for any injuries, I am not sure you have any idea how much a BRIEF hospital stay would cost...most hospitals charge a base rate for a bed, typically in the thousands, then you have specialist fees, xray fees, lab fees, medication fees, and since you don't have insurance, there is no negotiated rate in place, you'll be paying full charges...a simple broken ankle could run thousands of dollars, just for the hospital coverage, physical therapists bill out at about 150 an hour here in California...those visits would add up quick, pain medication ain't cheap, antibiotics aren't cheap...you get my point....

I agree with the all of the above - if you can't afford insurance, you can't afford skydiving. You may very well be able to qualify for a state sponsered plan, like Medi Cal in California, to cover an accident, but that's a whole nother discussion on personal responsiblity and not counting on the generosity of your fellow tax payers...and if an accident did happen, you better believe you don't want Medical - or free clinics, doing your follow up care. Just for the record, I'm an RN, and have worked around the insurance industry for a long time. You'd have to look long and hard for health insurance policy that will exclude injuries that happened while skydiving. However, you may get denied on underwriting BECAUSE you skydive, much like obtaining life insurance is damn near impossible if you skydive/scuba dive.

So the end result is that most juries, rather than representing a fair cross-section of the community, tend to be disproportionately populated mostly by retirees, college students, people who have lower education levels, and those who are are chronically under-employed. So much for a "jury of peers"

When you say "we" executed (as in past tense) children, do you mean Zimbabwe? As far as I know the USA will still execute a person who committed a crime as a minor, though they are obviously usually no longer a minor when the death penalty is carried through. To the best of my knowledge the last person executed who committed their crime as a minor was in 2003 here in the USA. That's a whole other argument - I don't understand how we can hold someone responsible for their actions to the point of executing them, when that same person would not have the right to vote, purchase tobacco or alcohol, live alone, rent a car, etc, etc. It's a huge double standard - you're resonsible here, but not there.... That being said, I still believe strongly in holding offenders responsible, regardless of their age. I don't know about other countries, but the most violent of crimes here tend to be committed by young men. But I have seen cases - not just in theory but in reality, where those young men "outgrew" their violence.One of my friends that I mentioned earlier was a very violent young man, who committed a gang related murder when he was a juvenile. He was in CYA (california youth authority) until he was 24 - he was/is one of the incredible stories of redemption - he is off of drugs, of service to his community in a way that he is particularly powerful, he works with at risk youth - they understand him, they speak the same language. Those kids aren't going to trust a middle aged white lady - I haven't come from where they come from. But I've watched him in action - and those kids trust him, if he reaches just one person, helps one kid get on the right path....then his life isn't in vain - but this man of whom I speak would have never gone down for the death penalty anyways. He killed another gang member, violent warfare on the streets that the cops and DA have just come to expect - I suspect if he had killed someone of prominence, and someone not of his race, he would either be at the very least a lifer himself.... Just in case there is any confusion, I still am very skeptical about the possibility of reforming some of these people, I've known many people who ARE reformed - yet there are many men, and women, who truly deserve to live a life behind bars - and never walk amongst us again. I for one wouldn't be asking a parole board to please give Richard Ramirez a chance to reform himself. Some evil belongs tucked away from us - we as free people ALSO deserve to feel safe.

It was Ghandi who said "If everyone takes an eye for an eye, the whole world will be blind"...and if we are going to take the Bible literally, then there are crimes for which I should have been put to death - the Bible prescribes death as punishment for contempt of parents, trespass upon sacred ground, sacrifice to foreign gods, profaning the sabbath, adultery, homosexuality, prostitution, bestiality, .... there's more...but you get my point. At the very least, I've held my parents in contempt - so I'm quite delighted we aren't interpreting the Bible in exact and holding these as executable sins. And sick of big brother -how do you marry the opinion that the government should have the ultimate right to take the lives of it's citizens - EVEN when the government is wrong and the citizens they execute/imprison are sometimes innocent, and then take the stand that the government is "big brother" - let's look at the company we keep, China, Iran, Vietnam and ourselves are the worlds top executors - that doesn't even need elaborated upon....do you want MORE or LESS government power?

Sadly, the case of Adams, and many like him, are more common than not. Our system is corrupt, for just a bit of reflection - also google padon board and bribe. There has been numerous "upstanding" men and women who serve on pardon boards who have been tried and convicted of accepting bribes to either uphold the death penalty or pardon it. Howard Marsellus, one of those men who sat on a pardon board openly admitted to believing in the innocence of a man that he upheld the death penalty conviction on, a man named Tim Baldwin who was indeed executed - for a crime he likely did not commit. While I'm certain no one could argue that pedophiles and serial killers should be set free - it weighs heavy on my personal conscious that we live in a system where the life or death of a person is determined by men and women who are sometimes corrupt, who are always human and therefore prone to error, by lack of or the having of money, and the whims of elected officials - who may not want to appear soft on crime, etc etc etc.

I do hope that this man, guilty of a horrible crime, as well as guilty of the emotional pain that all of those who love Lee are feeling, never has the opportunity to be amongst free men again. I agree with you in point also - our prison system is seriously in trouble. You have seen the inside of these human warehouses - they are nothing more than a training ground for violent crime. Entire criminal empires are run from within the walls of these places. There is something seriously wrong with that picture. There is very little effective about our system of punishment - we have the highest percentage of incarcerated persons of any country in the world - yet we've shown no negligible affect on crime. But I digress...the question still is on the death penalty. And in a system so radically flawed as ours, where justice is often determined on greenbacks - the poor and the minorities bearing the brunt of injustice in this country, and so prone to human emotion and error, I can't - even in the case of this kind of violent, unthinkable, murder, be a proponent of the death penalty.

China also lists crimes such as tax fraud, defacing of national symbols, and theft on their execute list. Last year they executed a British man for smuggling herion into the country. As far as a country - I wouldn't want to base our legal system on China's, they aren't known for scoring high on humanitarian rights.... Andrea

ok....

I haven't worked for pay in any maximum security prison - but I have been inside the walls of more than 1 - not as an inmate. It's not a friendly place, and I cannot possibly comment on the conditions of employment within those confines, as I have never chosen to work in that capacity. As to your question - how many inmates have been put to death since DNA began to be a viable defense - I don't have numbers, but if you count 1987 - the first year that DNA was used in a trial, as your starting point, and count the number of persons WRONGLY convicted - that have been overturned by the innocence project, from 1987 to current there are dozens. I'm not suggesting that the current justice system works well. I'm not suggesting that persons who are a threat to free society should be out amongst free men and women. However, what is factual information can't be ignored, innocent people are convicted - and the inverse is certainly true, guilty people walk free. And if you dig back, several posed the argument, "I'm for whatever is cheaper" - if that's your entire basis for supporting the death penalty, then the facts are clear. Life in prison is cheaper. I've also had the opportunity in my life to know 4 men who have once served time for murder. All 4 men were, and are, very guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted and served time - by their own admission. All 4 of these men are rehabilitated members of society, all 4 of these men are welcome in my home. They are fathers, husbands, employees, and members of their respective communities. I won't discard the fact that somewhere, on the other end of these mens crimes is a family, a community of people whose pain can never be eased. That there is pain, and a debt that can't be erased. I can't speak to that - I've never lost a family member to a violent crime. But I also know that 3 of these men have spent a lifetime of service, that they have spent their lives as free men in service to the communities in which they live. It is with 1 of these men that I have been able to carry service work into the state prison system, sometimes to men who are true lifers, who will never again know the taste of life outside of the walls of a maximum security prison. I often have wondered - what void - what would we have lost, if these men had been execued for their crimes? What would we have gained. I also understand that these men are indeed an exception. Often the perpertrators of violent crime come from a lifestyle and an upbringing that could only be described as hellish. I've worked in inner city projects in Los Angeles, I've seen young children so immune to violence - so violent themselves, that I've honestly felt there was absolutely no hope for them. Some of them have proved me right...some of them have proved me wrong. I've seen some of these young men become institutionalized at young ages, codes of conduct and sub-societies that i pray I never truly understand, and pray even harder my children only see on TV or read about in books. Not to go so far off track as to be misconstrued. While I've seen men and women who have been convicted of the worst of human crimes become useful members of society, I'm not about to suggest we try to release violent offenders. But for me, informing myself on the death penatly and its ramifications - trying to understand it from something other than a purely emotional reaction to a very emotional subject, swayed me to hold the convictions I feel deeply about. As for the age old question - who will guard the guards - I believe it is not only our right, but our responsibility - if we are -as we do - put men and women to death for violent crimes, then who shall hold responsibility for the checks and balances? I'm no attorney - I have almost zero understanding of the law, but the cases I've read about of death row inmates, both already executed, and those pending execution, allow for some pretty shocking facts about how the appeals process is handled, what types of attorneys represent these men/women, and how often times it seems there is no true justice. There is of course the victims side of that story. It seems to me that on the flip side of this coin, our system is so badly mangled that victims have less rights than those accused of the crime..... I don't have any answer, but the solution we've been using isn't working....

Congrats and thanks for sharing!! I'm definately not one of the got my A in 25 crowd myself. My yellow card is filled out...except for the hop n pop. I've strugged with getting anything even resembling a clean, stable exit myself, and just decided several jumps ago to stop the race to the A - since I started to relax and take the pressure off myself, I've enjoyed skydiving MUCH more...I've filled everything out on the A but the hop n pop and check dive - and I'm not gonna face that demon until I get those exits down. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the journey!!! Andrea

It seems that the public in America is widely misinformed about the Death Penalty, it’s cost to society, in both financial and spiritual terms. America and Turkey are the only 2 NATO countries that use the death penalty. Amnesty international has done a signifcant amount of research on the issue of the death penatly – stating that the penalty of death is disproportionately meted out to the “poor, the powerless, the marginalized or those whom repressive govenments deem it expedient to elimnate.” It’s of note that it is a rare day indeed to see a person face the death penalty who been able to afford adequaate legal counsel. The United nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human rights, stating “every human being has the right not to be killed and not to be jubjected to torture or to creul and degrading punishment”. Consider for a moment the electric chair, still in use in 4 states in our country, which has been ONLY used in the United States. This form of execution is considered creul and inhumane in most of the world, but still used to this day here in the USA. If we can leave the scriptures out of it – just for a moment, and look at the humanitarian issues behind the death penalty. It is not emotional grand standing to say that people have been erroneiously sentenced to death. Take a look at The Innocence Project in a spare moment…and wonder what it might be like to be sitting on death row, truly innocent of the crimes for which you’ve been convicted. And to counter the argument that it is cheaper to execute, it is by far much more expensive to execute a human being than it is to house them for life, in any state in the union. In a report on the cost of the death penalty, written in 2008, it was stated “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually.” As for those that counter that prison is a sort of college dorm atmosphere, where the living is easy – I’d suggest you spend a day or two in a maximum security prison. The tension is high, the threat to life is constant, fear and aggression rule the halls. There is no hope for reform, only for removal of the threat that these men and women pose to free society. Finally, I’d ask you, in considering the merits of the death penatly, and the consequences of this form of punishment that any society mets out, to contemplate the words of Plato…who will guard the guards?

Hi Wendy! I live out in this area, if you have ANY questions, send me a message! If you like Rollar Coasters, I'd suggest magic mountain over Knotts, hands down. Knotts is geared more towards families with smaller children, Magic Mountain has some pretty fantastic rollar coasters. There's also Neptunes Net, which is in Malibu, on a beach called county line. It's a great surf/kiteboarding spot, I can't vouch for the food, it's a seafood fare, I am a vegetarian, but the people watching can't be beat. Venice Beach is pretty much a must do for tourists. It's very crowded, but another great people watching place. You can't find a more eclectic group anywhere. The Getty/Malibu has a great collection. You'll need to plan your trip there in advance, they require reservations, as the parking is very limited. It's free to enter, and I believe somewhere around 10dollars for parking. The Griffith Observatory is another place that's worth a look see. There's plenty of hiking around the observatory, and the observatory itself is worth a couple of hours of entertainment. Last time I was there it was free. Right now it's pretty crispy, that area is very warm and smog prone, FYI. If you're free on a Sunday the House of Blues does a Sunday Gospel Brunch. I haven't yet been, but I plan on it, and have heard it's amazing. There's the original Farmers Market in LA, with a new add on called the Grove. Hope you have a great trip!!! Andrea

I too found skydiving after losing my soulmate. I did my first jump 10 months after my husbands passing. I went on a day marking what was an important anniversary to him. I never once thought it would be something I loved, had to do more, just thought I would do it to honor him. What happened though is I found that my world lit up, for the first time since his passing. I felt better than I could remember feeling in a long time, it was like the world came back into technicolor. I've never been one to not live my life in it's fullest capacity. I can honestly say there were no regrets when my husband passed, we lived our lives full of love and enthusiasm. I was worried however, after he died, that I wouldn't ever feel that way again. Skydiving gave me that enthusiasm back. It gave me the courage to trust myself, to trust others, the ability to be vulnerable - and to persevere. I haven't been the exemplary student. I'm proof that the ol saying "if at first you don't succeed, so much for skydiving" is malarky. What I do have is the courage to be afraid and do it anyway, to mess it up and try again, to learn to say I don't know how, to look silly, to share my victories, accept my limitations... and in return I get the freedom, those beautiful minutes of freefall and canopy time, where I'm truly free and as present in the moment in time as I've ever been. Welcome to the sky - hope you persevere, and find your wings! Andrea

That sounds amazing! Welcome to skydiving, and who needs any of the extra money anyway? I haven't done my hop n pop yet, that hard ground just seems so damned close at 3500 feet! But I'm slowly working up the courage, every time the plane is at 3500 I look out and contemplate the idea ... one of these days. I wonder if the static line students get the reverse fear when they head up to 13K, look down and go HOLY BATSHIT, the ground is so far away?! Tell us about it when you work your way up the free fall scales! Welcome to skydiving - and thanks for sharing, heck - if you can do a hop n pop on jump one I should be able to do it on jump 21?!?!? Andrea

I'm afraid my scuba gear is collecting a rapid layer of it's own dust, that whole can't dive then fly thing is getting in the way of me going scuba diving...there's only so much free time to spare, and, well, skydiving wins the time allotment. Andrea

That is AWESOME! I'm right behind you, at 40, and creeping up on my A (if the weather would ever cooperate, that is ). best thing said to me so far, by one of the youngsters also on student status "so, uh, what made you take up skydiving, at, you know, THIS stage of your life?!?!?!" Hahahaha. Andrea

I'm brand new too, so take this with a grain of salt. I too went rigid on my first release dive, and did the 360 flat spin that is so much fun . I did 10 minutes in the tunnel which helped me correct that. Another thing that helped me, (I'm very much a visual learner) was watching AFF videos on youtube/here. Watching students on level 6 and 7, doing barrel rolls and front/back loops made me realize that the relative air actually is a cushion. I can now feel myself fall back into it when I do flips, but it also helped me to SEE it. It's kinda like falling onto a thick down mattress. And I can always hear my instructors voice if I'm wobbly, "A good arch fixes everything". At my DZ this weekend I was listening to an instructor who was working with a young man who was repeating level 3 - he was also going rigid on his release dive. This instuctor was so great about understanding how out of alignment we are as students, it's a very new, overwhelming enviornment, and not to put huge pressure on ourselves to get to point Z when we still are tying to understand point B. But, my experience is, in skydiving and in life, that we often make deductive leaps, somewhere along the line - we begin to make reason out of the unreasonable, and can't even remember why we couldn't do it in the first place. I heard a quote once, and I'm paraphrasing, but it says "many who fail never realized how close they were to success when they quit". You may be just one jump away from that deductive leap, never give up! - Andrea