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Rick Astley did the best? Rick Roll ever and RickRolled the entire Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade

I think this is a sign that RickRolling is over now.

Alright.. its time to do a catch up post since I have completely neglected this site since I got on Facebook a month or two back.

1 - I’ve decided to upgrade the gallery but I’m not sure what I am going to go to yet. No matter what it is I’ll be getting it to tie into Lightroom so I can do direct uploads from there since I am in love with that program.

2- Home repairs. The storm that rolled through weeks ago did minor damage to the house. It blew off about a dozen or so shingles and exposed some tar paper. After working with the insurance company they agreed to pay for some repairs. We manged to get them to agree for about 50% of the roof in repairs. The roof was 14 years old so it was showing some wear and the valleys were rusted. I got the check and had my dad and his friends come over and the 4 of us reroofed the house in 2 and a half days. I screwed up big time and couldn’t find a Power ladder to move the shingles to the roof so I spent all last weekend carrying the shingles up and down the ladder. In total I made around 75-80 trips up the ladder carrying between 45-90 pounds of singles on each trip. I slept like a rock after that work out. We stripped and replaced the entire roof for not more then a grand past what the insurance paid out.

 3- Home upgrades. We upgraded the shelving in the master closet for Kristi to spread her clothes out more and organize them better. Hopefully now she will get rid of some of them.

 4- 10 year HS Class reunion. I was considering going to this but the closer it got the less I really wanted to go. There were only 5-10 people total that I would have been interested in bumping into and talking for a few minutes, even less that I would have wanted to hang out at a bowling alley and spend a Saturday night with. I do reget not getting to see K and G since they were in from Seattle but this was the night I finished the roof and I was barely able to walk that evening due to the knees killing me let alone go drive for 2 hours and then hang around all night bowling or watching everyone drink. Looking through the assembled class Bio’s made me smile. Out of the entire class of about 85 only 9-10 have really moved away from the area. I’m lucky that my brother and I have both split from the area and are making a good life for ourselves. I’m even happier now that I am out of there.

5- Skydiving. I passed 1400 jumps and am really close to 1450 now. I wanted to finish the year out close to 1500 but I’ll take what I can get. I’m getting the 270’s really dialed in on the Sam, its a shame I am going to get rid of it if I can this winter and get a Katana or a Mamba. I’m finally tired of the airlocks when I have to ride the truck back or run into the hanger for a drop and go for the next load.

6- Photography. I am loving Lightroom2 more every time I use it. I need to buy it now that my trial has expired. I just bought a 580 EX II so I’m looking forward to learning about ETTL flash usage. I am also thinking about what the next purchase is going to be. I’m leaning towards the 10-22 lens or potentially the 100-400L. I’ve also decided the 70-200L f4 isn’t going to stick in the bag, its going to be replaced by its big brother the 70-200L f2.8 IS at some point. Before that I’ll get a better body to use though.

K or G, if you are reading this and are going to be back in the area again let me know via email so we can get together and catch up some time.

It looks like Gallery has crashed and wants to upgrade itself to a new version but I’m trying to decide if its worth it to keep upgading it since I rarely post photos onto it anymore. I have a lot of skydiving photos but not much else, and now that I’m on Facebook it just makes it so much easier to upload and share them.

I love my Teva’s. I’ve had them for years. Really. I bought them back my senior year of high school to use as camp shoes for my back packing trip that summer. I’ve worn them every summer since then. They have been across the country a few times. I’ve taken them to Colorado, New Mexico, California, Florida, South Carolina, New York, and Illinois. I’ve worn them canoeing, backpacking, walking on the beach and on skydives. They are the most comfortable shoe I have. Typically every summer I get tan marks on my feet from the Teva’s.

An issue started to arise last summer that I overlooked since I loved the shoes… an odor. It usually only would occur after the sandals had gotten wet and wasn’t bad enough to really think twice about unless I had the shoes close to me. Last summer when we went backpacking and had them on the tent floor with us they smelled enough that I put them outside the tent. I originally thought it was my hiking boots but other then that they never really bothered me. Soon enough winter came around again and the Teva’s were put away and I didn’t think about them until this spring again once it warmed up. I started wearing them every day again (perk of W@H) and they really started to smell.

I tried throwing them in the washing machine with some bleach but that did’nt help. I tried spraying them with Lysol and that didn’t help I sprinkled them with foot powder and they were as bad as ever. They got to be so bad that my feet started to carry the odor. I saton the couch one night and Kristi could smell my feet even though she was on the other end of the couch. I thought I was going to have to throw them away since the odor was just horrible. I searched on line and tried most the solutions but they didn’t work until I tried probally the easiest one. I soaked and scrubbed the sandals with anti-bacterial hand soap and a nylon brush. The water coming off in the first rinsing was brown so it took a few scrubbings and then like magic the odor was gone. I am so happy that the nasty teva funk is gone and I can wear my sandals for hopefully another 10 years!

I was one of the people that was really excited about seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls when it was released back in May. I went and saw it on opening night and I honestly left a little disappointed. In terms of the original triolgy I would have said it and Temple of Doom were the best match. My favorite of the trilogy has to be the Lost Crusade followed extremely closely by Raiders of the Lost Ark and then a distant third is ToD. Crystal Skulls was just a mish mash of all sorts of things and while the story line was clear it was just so far out there and unlike the previous films that I left feeling like they were just using KotCS to set up another movie with a replacement for Harrison Ford to take over the role.

I was out at a site the other day and they posted a leaked copy of the original script proposed for Indiana Jones 4 before it was rewritten and turned into the medicore film that they ended up with. Here is a link to it the draft script: http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/indiana-jones-4.pdf I’ve also got a copy locally if they ever remove it from there. This version is SOOOO much more in line with what I was expecting out of the film and if it would have been produced this way I think it would have rivaled even Lost Crusade but It appears they decided to change it and deprive the fans of the best possible story.

If you’ve seen the movie then take a bit of time to read the script and tell me which version you liked better.

If you have to ask this as you are going through a drive through it might be a sign that you need to get out of your car and go inside to place your order.

We were coming back from Cedar Point on Sunday and hit a Taco Bell in Marrion on the way home around 10:00 to get some food for Kristi and as she pulls into the drive through the car that was ordering ended up getting over $30 worth of food and needed to have the entire order read back to them to make sure it was all right, the car in front of us pulls up to the speaker and asks "How many seperate orders can I make?" They ended up needing to make at least 4 or 5 orders since everyone in the car needed something. They actually pulled their car up the 3 or 4 feet so the people in the back were lined up with the speaker so they could place their order too. When we finally got around the bend the first car was still getting bags handed out the window to them and the car in front of us ended up having everyone pay by credit cards so there was a ton of time needed for all those to be autherized and approved. Kristi kept making comments out the window the the driver behind us was laughing about. Finally after about 12 minutes in line we finally got her food.

 Seriously people… its not that big of an issue to get out of your car to order food.

I was out at the DZ this weekend and there was a copy of Rolling Stone sitting out there and the cover story was "The 100 greatest guitar songs of all time". I took a glance through the list that they came up with and agreed with a majority of them but had to disagree with their placement of a few also.

Here is the top 10 they picked. I agree with all of them except 3 & 9. Each one changed or expanded the sounds that were being generated at the time. Some of them really pushed the cultural limits and others transended them completely. Its a really good list if you have a minute to take a look at it.

1. "Johnny B. Goode," Chuck Berry

2. "Purple Haze," The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)

3. "Crossroads" Cream (1968)

4. "You Really Got Me" The Kinks (1964)

5. "Brown Sugar" The Rolling Stones (1971)

6. "Eruption" Van Halen (1978)

7. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" The Beatles (1968)

8. "Stairway to Heaven" Led Zepplin (1971)

9. "Statesboro Blues" The Allman Brothers Band (1971)

10. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Nirvana (1991)

I’m now down to 2 Joomla sites that I maintain. That works for me as it frees me up to make some major changes to Parachutemanuals.com. I’ve got some thoughts that I want to impliment on there for something like a rigger database where you can look up riggers based on their location. This can help people find local riggers if they do not already have one or can find one if they are on a trip.

 I’ll let you figure out what site I don’t maintain anymore if I still operate this site and PM  is on Joomla