Canopyflyer @ Canopyflyer @lemmy.world

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Joined

2 yr. ago

I have several direct antecedents that lived over 100. The last was my paternal grandmother, who died in 2004 at the age of 103. She was born in 1901 and outlived 3 of her 6 children (one child was stillborn). Her last child, my Dad, died just this past February at the age of 88. He was the youngest.

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.

Former skydiver.

Performed a lot of Demonstration jumps into everything from airports, race tracks, professional sports stadiums, high school sports stadiums, golf courses, and a few other places that required skill and knowledge to land in safely.

Also, spent a lot of time teaching canopy skills to up and coming jumpers.

I KNEW IT!

I'M A LESBIAN!!!!!

I've known my whole life and it's a relief to FINALLY to be able to come out officially.

THANK YOU PRESIDENT RUMP!

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.

54m here for reference.

Best long term romantic relationship: We will be celebrating 20 years married this year. Two kids and we're well on our way to spending our dotage together.

Best Friend: We've been friends for 5 years. Have literally played hundreds of hours of D&D and other role playing games, along with a group of fellow fathers and mothers that all like family. We got to play D&D in Lake Geneva, WI at the very birthplace of Game Cons this past year. That was pretty great.

Familial (specifically, blood relations): Terrible. My parents are dead and I would be estranged from them now if they were still alive. Estranged from both my older brothers. I have no plans to reconcile with them. They made their choices and it did not involve their younger brother. I have a FB connection to ONE of my many many first cousins.

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

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

You mean before it blows up in ours?

Yeah, me too, but I'm not holding my breath.

Asparagus, Broccoli, and broccolini... although to be fair, I didn't discover broccolini until about 20 years ago, when I was in my mid-30's.

Also, I found out it wasn't the veggie that I disliked, but the way it was prepared. My family boiled (ok Blanched) all vegetables when I was growing up. That's about the worst way possible to cook most veggies, especially the three I mention above.

Here is what I do to prepare them:

Asparagus: Heat oven to 350F. Trim woody ends and place them in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. Finally top with Parmesan Reggiano. Roast in the oven for 25 minutes or when cheese is browned.

Broccoli (florets only) and broccolini (trim woody end, but leave as much of the stem as possible: Heat oven to 350F. Place veggie in a single layer in an oven proof dish. Salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle with olive oil. You can top these two with Parmesan, but I usually do not. Roast until slightly charred about 25 minutes.

I will never blanch a veggie ever again, except for green beans. There are times when you're serving a spicy dish, or something with a sauce and just need something plain to go along with it. Case in point, for my General Tso's Chicken, I serve it with blanched green beans. Otherwise, I sautee them with salt pepper and red pepper flacks and a bit of high temp oil.

Commoner Adventurer: All stats are 10. You start the campaign at level 0, no class. Throughout the campaign, the characters attain a class based on their actions.

Wrong class for the race: Halfling Barbarians, Half-Orc Wizard, etc. This can be a lot of fun, as instead of having an optimized character that can deal a lot of damage, you have to think through things and come up with strategies. I personally have always liked playing characters that are small that have to use their wits to survive in combat. Oh, I like playing a tank once in a while. Currently, I'm in two different sessions. In one, I'm playing a Dragonborn Cleric that has served as the melee support for the party's paladin. The other session I'm playing a halfling rogue Soul Knife that rides the barbarian into battle. I have a lot more fun with the Rogue.

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.

Heinlein has entered the chat.

He was a hedonistic bastard, that's for sure.

It was also in "Paul" 2011 as a homage to "Close Encounters".

I have several silicon spatulas and absolutely love them. Still have some wooden spoons around though, to help break up things that the silicone is too soft for. An example is heating frozen chili on the stove top, using a wooden spoon to break up the frozen bits as they thaw. However, the silicone spatulas are far more versatile. Plus you can scrap every last drop of sauce out of a pan with them.

Longer tongs. I have a gas top stove and using shorter handled tongs can get uncomfortable if I'm cooking something for a long period of time.

Flat strainer. Essentially a spider, except the mesh is the same as a fine mesh strainer. This was a purchase that my wife made that I thought was totally useless and indeed, it sat in the drawer for months. Until I needed just one more strainer, as all the others were used already. Turned out that it is very useful and easier to use than a full strainer in a lot of circumstances. It also doubles as a spider and it is really great at cleaning up hot oil in between batches.

Spray bottle with 50/50 white vinegar and water. Great for cleaning and disinfecting the counter top, also spray it on my cutting boards after washing them to keep them from smelling like what I last cut on them.

Lastly, a really good set of thermometers. I love the Thermoworks thermometers and have the Dot, Thermopen IR, and the 4 probe Smoke for BBQ. Along with multiple types of probes for various applications. They were expensive, but have proven themselves time and time again.

Lastly my absolute favorite kitchen item and by far the most expensive is my Wolf DF304 stove. I found one on Craigslist several years ago that was being sold by a couple who were retiring and did not want to move it to their new condo. It's a heavy SOB. So I bought it for a song and it really is a serious cooking tool. It is by far the most even cooking oven and the stove top is extremely flexible. It also is standing up to me cooking on it every single day. A lot of people buy Wolf/Sub Zero products as a status item, which is a crying shame. They are well built, they are designed to be used in a commercial kitchen, and they cook spectacularly well.

Ka'Dargo in "Farscape Peacekeeper War". They were on their way for Moya to pick them up. The worst of the fighting was over and BAM.

At least he went out as a warrior.

The concept behind Cloud Atlas made for a much better movie than book, IMHO.

Having the same actor play the same part in each time made following the plot easier, at least for me. The book was a bit of a slog at times and following each characterization was confusing.

Plus some of the casting in the movie was really good. Jim Brodbent in particular, I thought, delivered a spectacularly good performance.

Spaghetti is not my favorite either, but if the pasta you're using is not holding onto the sauce, then try a "bronze die cut" brand.

The brand I use and have had good luck with is Delallo.

But I completely agree with you, pasta that has a smooth exterior is useless. Since the whole point of it is to be a vehicle for the sauce.

Level 1: Can put something edible on the table, but lacks experience or does not practice enough. People may or may not want to eat it.

Example: Cooks ribs at high heat with a cheap jarred sauce.

Level 2: Capable of putting edible food on the table consistently, but still not a lot of experience.

Example: Has learned that reducing the heat on the ribs makes them come out slightly better, but still not smoking them and still using a cheap jarred sauce.

Level 3. First level of competency. Cooks often enough to have the experience to put decent food on the table, still uses some jarred sauces, higher quality ones, and the like, but starting to make their own too.

Example: Cooks ribs low and slow, but may not quite yet know what the 3,2,1 method is, but realizes that some wood chips along with temperature control makes for a better product.

Level 4: Competent cook. Cooks many times a week has a broad experience with a variety of cooking techniques. Mostly makes their own; spice mixes, sauces, gravies and the like.

Example: Not only is capable of using the 3,2,1 method for ribs, but knows that is not the only method. Is quite capable of making either fall off the bone ribs or competition worthy ribs with a delightful chew. Able to control not only temperature, but the amount of smoke on the meat.

Level 5: Professional cook, maybe even a chef. Quite capable of putting food on a table that people would pay a lot of money for.

Example: Quite capable of producing competition winning ribs using their own spice mix, sauce, and cooking method.