SKYDIVING IS AWESOME!!!!

pingafritanice, I bet you can't stop thinking about it. The sport has def. picked up in the last 2 years possibly because its not perceived as an extreme sport anymore.

What drop zone were you at? If you have the cash, spend some time and get your license and start jumping with others as it NEVER gets boring.

it was 10,000 ft. my favorite part of the free fall was when you break thru the clouds, that was wild. we had a clear view of nyc, atlantic city, the shoreline, etc. im still on a post-skydiving high

bears1208I'VE only been twice but liked it both times. Too short though. Definitely want to get my certification to jump in my own. But next up on my bucket list is summitting mt mckinley this summer.

I've been interested in climbing for a while. What kind of training do you have to do and what type of mountains do you summit before going for McKinley?

pikachuwhich is more prestigious climbing or sky diving?

Yup multiple times in the US and overseas. Just man up and jump

Yeah I have. One of the realest things you'll ever do. I'd recommend it. It is actually very hard to breathe when you first jump, don't panic though.

I've done it 30+ times and have my "A" license. It's awesome, I highly recommend it. But I do say it gets more boring than I thought it would. I'm going to get into some base jumping soon I think.

It was great!!!! Dont think hahaha!!! Hardest part is getting on the plane.

Did it in the army (static line...gay) and with a company. Its fun and really easy. In the words of my airborne instructor 'Its the easiest thing in the world, just fall'

Ill also leave you with this little gem of wisdom.

Private: "Staff Sgt. How long do I have to deploy my reserve if the main chute doesn't open'

Staff Sgt: "The rest of your life'

I did it in New Zealand. It's awesome. Do it.

Also, you are strapped to an instructor. Unless you really freak the fuck out in the plane, he will kinda guide you into making the leap. Once you are airborne he will make sure you have a good fall.

One of the best things to do. Its pretty surreal even, you just gotta go. And ask your tandem/instructor guy if you can do some flips or something. When I went we backflipped out of the plane per usual, but never leveled out and did a few backflips and spins at the beginning of the fall. Great time.

Absolutely worth it, make sure to have your instructor do some flips and shit when you jump out of the plane.

Thanks for the info guys!! I guess I gotta man the fuck up

@IlliniProgrammer yea I went to the USPA's website and the probability of accidents was around 0.07 for 2 million jumps. I think I can "live" with that!.

If I don't make it...its a fucking kick ass way to go out...

This is my bucket list so far (in no particular order) feel free to share yours!

1. Start a $30 Mil AUM bizness by 30
2. Have sex with all races
3. Have a threesome
4. Go skydiving
5. Fall in love, marry and have children
6. Get boxing/ jujitsu lessons
7. Go to K2/Everest base camp
8. Make my parents life as easy as fucking possible
9. Buy a Ferrari and Ducati
10. Fuck a pornstar

What's the point of living if you aren't having fun doing it? Base wingsuit jumping is in my future, who cares if it has a higher mortality rate?

The bottom line is that we only get about 4,000 weekends as human beings. That's it. And that should encourage a lot of risk-taking, but then you also have your family and friends to consider. I set my risk limit at a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying or serious injury in a given weekend. Skydiving is well within that parameter, but I happen to get more fun out of hang gliding. And while you are narrowly dodging rocky outcroppings doing wingsuit base jumping, I'm doing inside loops and making my own roller coaster. I think both are equally fun; why not opt for what costs less of my life in average risk?

So I guess my question is, what if speedgliding was safer and more fun for you. Wouldn't you choose that over base jumping?

I've jumped a few times, once in Vegas. You should definitely make it out to the place (I can't remember the name of it) that jumps from 15,000 ft. It's about 60 seconds of free fall and you can see the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Vegas Skyline, and Colorado River while you're falling.

So hitting a rock at 130 mph and instantly dying sounds a lot better than spending 3 years fighting cancer in my eighties until I just can't fight any longer.

Of course things that are perceived as more dangerous tend to be more fun. But then as a STEM kinda guy, it is impossible for me to avoid getting out the clipboard, taking my pen out of my pocket protector, and actually running the numbers. It's a force of habit (Insert Simpsons professor shouting "Blyben" here).

Things that I thought were scary- like hang gliding- actually turned out to be fairly safe. An hour-long mountain-launched flight (one launch and one landing) is generally safer than the 200 mile car ride there and back.

Fear is healthy. It's what keeps us alive and keeps us from doing stuff that's stupid. Exposing and dismissing the irrational fears allows us to have a lot more fun, but we shouldn't dismiss the perfectly rational fears too quickly, either. My rule is that if the risk of death or serious injury for a weekend of activity is less than 1 in 10,000, it is probably an irrational fear.

My hunch is that wingsuit BASE jumping has that risk profile. In which case, I am willing to put on my thick-rimmed glasses and go ahead and do it.

It's an amazing experience. Not even frightening. Do it

Love the bucket list, but a few of those items are at crossed purposes, no?

Maybe not. I guess you could fall in love with a porn star and get married and have kids after she hooks up multiple threesomes with women of every race. In fact, that'd be the new killing it.

^^^ Jeb Corliss recently crashed. He lived, but they got it all on tape, naturally. He just got a little too close to the ground.

I just want to have fun and do crazy things along the way. My hope is that in a couple years i'll be experienced enough to feel comfortable rock climbing into remote locations and then wingsuit jumping off of them. It takes some time but it sounds like the ultimate vacation.

Also, Rainier and McKinley are two completely different beasts. Rainier is something you can do in a day or two, while McKinley requires multiple back-and-forths. The last 5000 make it five times as much work as a 20000 foot mountain. Then tack on an extra 5,000 for Everest, where you will have to go up and down those 5000 feet a few times to make the last 5000.

Sure you don't want my clipboard?

^^^ So then you already have a clipboard and you're constantly analyzing this stuff. You're probably also estimating the probability distribution of the wind. And at the end of everything, you size up the odds that the jump is successful and you decide whether it is worth the risk or not to make the jump that day.

And that's great. That's what I do too. This is not a "let's go do this and not worry about whether we'll hit 80" thingamajig. In which case, you are thinking like an engineer and analyzing the problem and the tolerances and building in appropriate margins for error.

As long as you realize that Denali is 5-6x the work of Rainier and it's 5-10x easier to die on Denali, that's great. And as long as you understand that wingsuit jumping with your climbing gear drastically changes your glide profile, that's great too. Now if you haven't, you need to get out the TI-89 and figure out exactly what needs to happen for you to make that jump and make it to the summit.

Because I wanted to make sure that the TI-89 is going to come out and you're actually going to analyze the risk and what needs to happen to mitigate that risk before you take an uncalculated risk. That's all.

Life is about calculated risk. We do it every day with the markets. The way you lose money- and the way you get hurt- is when you take uncalculated risks.

What's the point of living if you aren't having fun doing it? Base wingsuit jumping is in my future, who cares if it has a higher mortality rate?

Your original comments to me about living life sounded a little young. Hence the lecture.

I went to the base camp of one of the top 10 peaks and let me tell you that was enough. I only got to the base camp. Scaling the mountain , not my cup of tea.

Of course. My point though is that part of calculated risks is also optimizing risk. And the point of doing risky stuff isn't for the sake of taking risk- it's for the sake of adding life to your days.

If there were something safer than hang gliding that was just as much fun and offered as much of an adrenaline rush to me, I would do that instead.

I'll do it this summer. Luckily for me, we have a great skydiving simulator in Montreal ( http://www.skyventuremontreal.com/en )

Keep us updated!

bears1208I've done it 30+ times and have my "A" license. It's awesome, I highly recommend it. But I do say it gets more boring than I thought it would. I'm going to get into some base jumping soon I think.

You're not getting into BASE-jumping with only 30+ skydives, I know that much.

I'm finishing up my AFF license in the spring and will go for the "A" after. Skydiving is a little pricey to get into though. I need to make more money.

Just recently got into freestyle skiing and that is a blast. Getting big air is one of the free-est feelings you can have. Skydiving fills that same void.

Absolutely exhilarating. My ears hurt initially because of the rapid pressure build-up from the free-fall. Do it and enjoy it.

There is a big difference between people with 30 skydives and 200. The ones with 30 will probably die somewhere between their 1st and 3rd BASE jump.

bears1208Of course.... which is why I want to get another 130 or so jumps before I get into an FJC..... which is what I already posted....

Update: Jumped today and it was awesome, don't know why i was so scared :)

Flow, where do you live? Not many places jump during the winter, maybe 1-2 days a month, but I suppose we've been having a mild winter.

Twice this past summer. First time changes your life.

Ahh okay, I'm in Northeast so we have pretty awful jumping weather.

For those talking about Corliss, he released his crash video from multiple angles here:

First thoughts, just how fucking talented he is to be able to hit the edge, break both legs in multiple places as well as taking off substantial portions of skin and muscle, and be able to stop the tumble within a matter of seconds and get his emergency chute out over his head.

Second thought, awesome choice of song.

Third though, I hope he recovers and wish him all the best. He is a fun guy to watch.

Dude, that was GNARLY. Homeboy's a straight psychopath. I'm still waiting for my balls to descend after watching that.

LOL. you're a moron

You're topics have been much better...

in most states your first 3-5 jumps must be with a trained partner. I was really interested in doing it myself till I realized I would have to jump with a partner. Will persue this one day though. Does it belong on the resume... probably not... when asked what the most risky thing you have done then you have something to say.

I was going to through it in interest/hobbies section, since right now its "roller hockey, politics, philosophy, independent movies" which is about as boring as you can get, and since I can't ad "excessive drinking" I'm coming off as fairly lame.

i've been skydiving...and if someone told me that was the riskiest thing they'd done, i'd laugh....i'm looking for real risk taking.

Yea, I guess jumping out of a fast moving object at 10,000 ft with nothing but a piece of fabric strapped to your back doesn't constitute risk-taking. I bet Jimbo is looking to hire an analyst willing to type a report in Sanserif Bold font. Go get'em tiger.

If you list sky-diving as an interest, you better be prepared to tell me all about how you first got into it, what your favorite jumping locations are, etc. Myself and an associate who had grown up surfing ended up having lunch with this guy who put surfing as an interest. The kid was able to talk about what wet-suit he wore, the board length he uses, the brand, etc. This, to me, is what defines a hobby.

You really don't need to list 100 different interests on your resume to show you have personality. Personality will be determined during the interviews. If you have 3 or 4 TRUE interests that you can talk about intelligently about, that is all you need.

"Haha SOMEONE wants a cookie. Seriously, do you really work in this industry? Ugh"

yeah i really do, and I really think it's a silly answer.

Wow, 5 minute response, must be a slow day...

yeah, it's boxing day, nothing is going on/

Touché

i say go skydiving when you can but it doesnt belong on your resume. its a blast though.

I've been skydiving, its not risky. If it was risky they wouldn't charge a 100 dollars for it and let everyone do it...haha seriously, how can something be risky? Even a 1% "failure" rate for skydiving would make it illegal.

I also think sternmonkey was just trying to get a rise out of people, maybe I'm thinking I'm more perceptive than I actually am.

Under hobbies and interests, but don't answer "skydiving" when they ask what the riskiest thing you've ever done is. I would laugh if someone said that during an interview actually (this ignores the fact that bankers are really risk-averse and would probably never even ask you this question).

Just make sure you're able to speak to it in some detail if they decide to grill you or someone is also a skydiving fan... sometimes I do this to candidates if we share an interest.

Jimbo,

My greatest (and only) weakness is being a perfectionist; now go make me a pitch book and get me a cup of coffee.

"Im looking for real risk taking" - what a joke

my only weakness is that sometimes I lose bowel control when nervous

The only hobbies I've talked about during interviews on my resume are the ones that I've actively participated in for years, decades even. What are you honestly going to say about skydiving? "It was fun. It was scary." I don't see how it makes you a risk taker or a badass. And I'm not bashing skydiving, its something I definitely want to try but really, its rather superficial. It's like saying, "I like roller coasters, I was on a roller coaster once." Maybe if you climbed a couple big mountains or something.

I can't make it sorry; not really interested in skydiving but do want to do it in the future so it looks cool and is a good talking pt on a resume. Any thoughts on going once a month or so to get that on the resume under interested?

Haha I'm going with friends, not looking to get a WSO get-together going. Sorry!

Look up "The Ranch" in Gardiner,NY. While you will either have to rent a car or take the bus to get up there the company is very popular and people from the city go up to jump all the time. If you have the resources, there is even a charter helicopter service that will take you up there.

ask illinprogrammer pretty sure a while back he was talking about skydiving in the nyc area

if you're a real g you'll just go buy a parachute at sports authority, climb to the top of the empire state building and free fall down.

if you think skydiving would be sweet to have at the bottom of a resume, you should see the looks i get when people see base jumping on mine.