[Gay State Conservative]

Hate to say this, but it appears that you, yourself, may have missed some of these very important "rites of passage".

My attitude is based both on childhood experience and,*far* more importantly,on a career of 20+ years working in the ER of a large hospital.

I could tell you stories about things that I saw during those 20+ years that would make you weep uncontrollably.

[TXnMA]

Re-read my post. In every case, I started off with minimum risk and allowed increased risk as limits were learned.

I'm sorry that you had to witness and treat the results of high-risk activities -- performed by the unfortunates who jumped right in at the life-threatening level -- without the benefits of having learned their imitations through incremental experience!

Thank you for your long service to humanity!!