Canopyflyer

I had two full rigs, both containers were Sunpaths. One Javelin and one of the first Odysseys off the production line (this is going back a ways.) Both rigs had PD mains and PD reserves, plus CYPRES AAD’s. On top of several jump suits, including three that were competition quality with larger grips and reinforced seams. I competed in both 4-way and 8-way.

I am overstating things just a bit with the down payment on the house, but I did pay for the wedding and honeymoon to Maui by selling most of my gear. I actually still have my Javelin container. It’s from 1995 and lacks the bridal protection that the later containers all have, so even back then it was obsolete and wasn’t worth much.

I live in Wisconsin and have a co-worker that lives in the general Tallahassee area. She sent me some photos of her making snow angels. She has a LOT more snow on the ground than we do.

It’s rather disturbing.

Both my competition and Demo teams decided to call it quits, for various reasons. One was we were all burnt out and it caused some of the deep seated interpersonal issues in the teams to explode. That actually all happened in 2004 and I jumped another two years. However, by that time I had met and started dating Mrs Canopyflyer, who is not a jumper. No, she did not force me to quit. Being with her just made me realize that there were other things I wanted to do in life. I’m also neurodivergent, so when I burn out, I tend to burn out completely and have to leave what ever activity that caused me to be in that state. So I sold my gear, turned that money into a wedding, honeymoon, and down payment on a house. We’ve been together 20 years and have two kids.

Today, I’m old and have a bad back so there is no going back, but I have no regrets.

They can go as high as they have fuel and oxygen for. The highest skydives ever were all done from balloons, although they were helium and not hot air balloons.

I’m in the USA, so a BASE rig would be illegal to use from a Balloon. Any jumper exiting from an aircraft must carry two parachutes, one of which is packed by an FAA Certified Senior or Master Rigger. The other chute must be packed by a Senior, or Master Rigger, someone under the direct guidance of a Rigger, or the person who would be jumping the chute. BASE rigs typically do not carry a reserve as there typically isn’t enough time to deal with malfunctions.

To specifically answer your question, yes I used a sport skydiving rig. The lowest was from 2500 feet, so essentially I pulled my pilot chute right as I exited the basket (at least that’s the story I tell). I’ve jumped from as high as 5k on other balloon jumps. Early in my career I jumped a Sunpath Javelin J2. Later I had a Sunpath Odyssey. The only BASE jump I’ve ever made was off the bridge in West Virginia and even that was using a sport rig where the main parachute was modified with a mesh slider and a BASE pilot chute.

My favorite was being the only jumper going up. There were 4 or 5 other passengers plus the pilot. She took off from the DZ and the DZO told her if she used his airport, yes he owned it, then she had to take at least one jumper up. No one else was ready to go, as it was really early in the morning, so I got to go. The eyes on those passengers when I jumped… Oh man you would have thought they were seeing someone killing themselves. I was probably safer than they were.

I’ve been retired from skydiving since 2006.

I have around 6 take offs in a Hot Air Balloon.

Never landed. Jumped, deliberately, out of each one.

Doing a Horny Gorilla skydive with 5 friends.

Representative photo of a Horny Gorilla not a photo of me or my friends:

We get into the formation, actually get stable and the next thing we all see is a one jumpers deployment bag, with their main parachute in it, come out from his back. Goes above the formation, then the deployment bag comes down into the middle of the formation… goes back up… comes back down. Lines are streaming all around and it’s turning into a really dangerous situation. Getting tied up in the lines, while in free fall has a great chance of being fatal.

But it was just a surreal moment for all of us, seeing this deployment bag dancing around in the middle of the Horny Gorilla.

The person next to the jumper with the deployment bag out, reaches down and pulls the affected jumper’s Pilot Chute, which is what actually deploys the main, and tosses it into the air stream. The affected jumper went flying out of the formation as his main parachute deployed. The rest of us break and track hard.

The guy actually landed his main parachute! He did not end up cutting away and pulling his reserve. The way that deployment bag just danced in an out of the middle of the formation was just unreal and we all just stared at it for what seemed an eternity.

25 years on and we all still talk about it.

Guy who runs Plex on a Ubuntu container on Proxmox.

Given:

You lack the capacity to experience imposter syndrome.

I know it scared the shit out of me the first time I saw it.

I was 15 and my family rented it. So I didn’t get to see it in its full theater screen glory. Just a 25" console TV from a well worn VHS cassette where the top 25% of the screen was wavy.

And yes, I’m old.

Not a horror film per se, but definitely leaning that way:

The original ‘ALIEN’.

The building of tension throughout the entire movie is brilliant.

I have named some of the cars I have owned.

1970 Chevy Impala: Liberty. I purchased it from a guy that lived in Liberty, KY.

1997 Nissan 200SX SE-R: Dot. It was one of ~700 200SX’s made that year that was the Pacific Blue color and it reminded me of Carl Sagan’s “The Pale Blue Dot” documentary.

2003 Acura TL: Sally. No specific reason, other than it just fit the personality of the car.

2014 Camry (current car): Pearl. It’s painted in Toyota’s Cosmic Mica Gray and it glitters in the sunlight, vaguely reminiscent of a pearl.

Just for reference, I’m 54 and have had a license since 1986. Liberty was my first car. There are a few cars not mentioned above, because I just never named them. The 200SX was the second SE-R I owned. The first was a 92 Sentra SE-R, which I liked a lot more than the 200SX, it just never got a name.

54m here, can I join in?

Pay yourself first. You pay rent, you pay a car payment, add paying yourself first. That payment can be as little as $1, but it goes into a savings fund AND IT IS GONE, just like any other payment EVERY MONTH. When the savings fund gets to an amount that it can be rolled into something that makes more interest, do it. But that money is GONE, for all intents and purposes. When do you use it? You will know, when you can pull it out for something that is not an emergency, but rather something that will last the rest of your life. No, cars don’t count.

Cars, trucks, etc… Here is the thing about cars and trucks. THEY ARE A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY AND THE NUMBER ONE WAY YOU STAY ENSLAVED TO MAKING PAYMENTS ON EVERYTHING ELSE. But wait Canopyflyer, you say with a roll of your eyes, I HAVE to have a car, because there’s no public transit where I live. Dude, I live in the United States, no one takes public transit here, I fucking know. So thanks for dropping anchor there admiral obvious. Buy the most reliable and cheap to run car you can possibly find. That doesn’t mean an old shitbox. Buy a car that’s a couple of years old that has a reputation for reliability and has already lost that first year’s depreciation. I currently drive a 10 year old Camry LE, that I bought with 7k on the odo. Using a car to show how big your cock isn’t, is the epitome of stupidity and is disastrous to your future financial health. If you’re driving the latest SmallCockMobile with a $1k payment +… You are a complete fucking moron.

CAVEAT ON VEHICLES: If you can have someone else pay for it, then sure, go buy that ego mobile. That includes the company you work for, or if you’re in a business where you have to have a certain type of vehicle. I have a great deal of respect for a person that works with their hands and needs a truck to carry their tools.

OK, maybe that’s two bits of advice, but both are financial, so I’m sticking with it.

Do you think it’s Oreseur, or Tensoon?

Dungeons and Dragons miniatures and all the paints I want to paint them. When I was a kid, I couldn’t afford more than just the characters I was playing.

Now I have hundreds and my wife, who has a lot of artistic talent, has taken to painting them with enthusiasm.

I just saw my last sentence and cringed. I meant to say there’s no reason for you to NOT crack a book and start learning. Sorry about that.

Programming, or Software Development is not Sysadmin work. While becoming a Software Developer will give you some Sys Admin skills, that’s the long way to go about it, if your primary goal isn’t to be a Developer.

Experience sells in Information Technology. Next in line are Certifications. Getting a helpdesk job would be your first step. While working on the helpdesk, start studying for certifications. It is said that Microsoft Engineers drive their Chevy’s, Network Engineers drive BMW’s, and Linux engineers fly their private jet to work.

If you have no experience, then start looking for low end help desk jobs and start studying ASAP. There are many online study guides and courses.

Self study here, but I’ve been in IT for almost 30 years now.

For someone that is determined most of the certifications out there can be attained through self study. That’s how I got my MCSE, CCNA, Red Hat Linux, and CLP (Certified Lotus Professional, yeah I know, no one has ever heard of it). I studied while working a helpdesk job and was hired by the sysadmin department of the same company. I attained the CLP, because at the time 2002 or so, there were not many Lotus/ Domino admins and there were a lot of companies, particularly insurance companies and Coca Cola, used it extensively. Being a Lotus/Domino admin got me a lot of attention at the time, but today it is worthless.

Knocking door to door with a cert and no actual experience will be a much tougher route to take, but it is definitely possible.

If it is what you want to do, there is no reason for you to crack a book today and start learning.

Gen X here and an older one at that.

I don’t think I’ll get SS and I will be of retirement age in the next 12 years.

My funeral will also be my retirement party.

That’s why Dr McCoy absolutely hated the things. He viewed them as death machines.

53m

Learned how to drive synchro’d transmissions on a 86 Ford Escort.

Learned how to double clutch and rev match on a non-synchro’d transmission in a 49 Willys.