Monday, 30 June 2008

Jump Level 4 and 5

Slowly but surely I am becoming an independent skydiver progressing in the first part of the certification. Up to Jump 8 (or AFF Level 8) I jump with two or one jump master. After that I am able to jump solo only guided by a coach. Still every higher level is giving me a little bit more freedom and more tasks to perform like checking the gear, do more advanced programs during free fall and even during the landing.

So level 4 programs (dive flow) was less than level 3 but I was let go earlier. Unfortunately I somehow got the idea that I need to turn which caught my jump master off gua  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 8:12 PM in Adventures in Skydiving

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Friday, 27 June 2008

Third Jump this Morning

Another day another jump. This morning I had my level 3 jump which means that I did not have to do much but the jump masters would let go of me after I was stable and did the initial checks and the practice touch (touching the puller that will pull the chute open went pulled out). My master jump master was confident enough to move in front of me leaving my side meaning I did good. So next jump will be the same but with only one jump master and we will jump out backwards and not side ways as we did up to know.

Have fun - Andy

Posted by schaefera at 10:40 AM in Personal

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Thursday, 26 June 2008

A License, Second Jump and Thoughts about Risks

Yesterday I decided after all the adrenalin cleared my body that I love Skydiving and that I want to make the A license to become a certified skydiver. So today I was back at the Drop Zone for my second jump which was more or less the same drill just with turns rather than forward movement which is more exiting because going forward is hard to judge on 8,000 feet and 120 miles free fall but a turn is quick and noticeable. The jump went through quite well even though I have to make sure that reading the altimeter is not glancing at it but really understand what it means and to read it right. Around 6,000 feet I oversaw the altitude and later on 5,500 I though we are still at 6,500 because the altimeter runs counter-clockwise. After I saw the needle move I realized the mistake and pulled the chute.

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 3:58 PM in Personal

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Rip a DVD to post on Dot Mac

For my folks back home I wanted to put the video from my first jump on Dot Mac so that they can watch it over the Internet. Unfortunately this was a longer undertaking that expected. Anyhow I finally succeeded with some help from the folks at the sky diving school. ATTENTION: this is not an invitation to publish copyrighted material / DVDs but rather to convert material legally even though the entertainment industry has a quite corrupted view of that but that is another story, isn't it.

First, I downloaded keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 12:28 PM in Mac

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Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Jumping out of a Perfectly Good Airplane

Today I got an early Birthday present in form of a jump out of a perfectly good airplane at around 12,500 feet above ground. Living in Lake Elsinore, California, has the advantage that there is a Skydiving facility just around the corner.

Yesterday I took the First Jump Course lessons which ends with a jump but because of strong winds that was not possible. Therefore this morning I was at the facility bright and early to take the first plane. There I met my jump master which went through the procedures of the first jump several times. Eventually it was time to gear up and to rehears the jump again:

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 12:42 PM in Personal

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Sunday, 22 June 2008

The Clock is Ticking

Sorry for not blogging quite some time. First I was busy with the j-community.org site and then my wife started to building a nest for our forth son which is due by the end of the month. I, due to some experience, am still relaxed because the baby will be two weeks late like all the others. But one never knows and so I let my wife do what she has to do. So far everything goes nearly as smooth as glass and we are looking forward to our first, and hopefully last, home birth. My wife's sister is here helping us with the kids and to make sur  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 9:02 PM in Personal

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Sunday, 15 June 2008

Announcement: j-community.org launched

After a long time thinking on how to build a stronger Java Community in Los Angeles I started the new LA Java Community website. It is a social networking site for Java (and all Java related technologies) developers in Los Angeles (but , of course, also from outsiders are welcomed). It should bridge the gap between the JUGs in LA and the broad and widely scattered Java developers community. All of the JUGs in LA, as far as I know, have less than 100 attendees per meeting which is only a little slice with respect to the thousands and thousands of Java developers. With the high gas prices this will not change in the near future.

Every Java developer registering at:

http://j-community.org

can have their own public and community private web site, own blog, add or change content on the community websites. The only rules are to show basic etiquette and no commercial exploitation. Other than that the sky is the limit, well, as much as my server can take for now.

Consider this an invitation to join and to become a member which is free with no strings attached.

Have fun and see you there soon - Andy

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 9:22 PM in Community

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Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Evaluation of Liferay

Since quite some time I am thinking about changing our Content Management System (CMS) which is currently Magnolia. I still like it but I would love to have all the communication channels I currently use or indent to use in the future into one single CMS. Magnolia does not support Blogs and Wikis and I desperately need to look for a new blogging software because Blojsom seems to be dead. After looking into Drupal, Joomla and TikiWiki I finally stumbled over Liferay which looked promising. Drupal was too blog centric, Joomla was to commercial (at least getting templates) and TikiWiki was too, well, wiki centric.

  keep on reading here

Posted by schaefera at 11:34 PM in Madplanet.com Inc.

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