Monday, February 28, 2011

this weekend and other stuff that's on my mind

I got to see some sats on friday... but i'll post more on that later.

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I can't remember what I did on Saturday. I know the Mrs took lil N to the zoo. And that's all I remember, other than getting up early with the lil ones. And then the Mrs and I watch The Mentalist that we taped from Thursday evening... I thikn that's what we did on Saturday.

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Sunday, the Mrs had her sister and mom come into town to watch the kids while we had a date. The Mrs and I went to a movie. We saw Hall Pass. It's what you would expect from an Owen Wilson movie. For being from the Farrelly brothers (Something About Mary, etc), it didn't have that many 'OMG I can't believe they just showed that' moments.

Later that evening we watched the Oscars. I beat the Mrs in guessing the winners.... 12 to 10 (out of 24). That may be one of my better showings really. In recent past year, I've been getting whomped pretty good. But I managed to have a couple good picks, even without some of my 'dark horse' picks. We went to bed around midnight... Ugh...until

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Monday morning the Mrs woke me up at 2am. The tornado sirens were going off. We went to the living room, watched the TV and went through the 'do we wake the kids up and go dawnstairs or not' conversation. Eventually, the warning was cancelled. So I went back to bed. Then the Mrs woke me up at 4am. Sirens were going off, the kids were up this time because the power had one out which meant the nightlihts went off long enough for their brains to figure out 'hey its REALLY dark now'. So we went to the basement for about 15 minutes until that one had passed. I tried to get back to sleep and probably managed to get another 1/2 hour in.

Needless to say, I'm dragging ass today.

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I had been tracking the progress of the Red Bull Stratos project. The point of this 'project' was to try to break the world record for falling from the greatest height. The current record was set by Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger in 1960 when he jumped from 102,800 feet from a big honkin' balloon as part of Project Excelsior. During freefall he reached speeds of 614 mph.

The Red Bull Stratos project was to attempt to brea those records and possibly have an unassisted human (other than gravity) break the sound barrier. They had a person (Felix Baumgartner) picked out for this attempt and I believe Red Bull had most of the technical stuff figured out.

Unfortunately, in October 2010, a man how claims to have spoken with Red Bull about this stunt in 2004, only to be told 'no thanks' is suing Red Bull. Red Bull in response to this law suit has ceased any work on the project until the lawsuit has been settled.

What a drag. However, there is still some hope of it occurring. There are still two people still chasing this record.

One There is a French guy (who I think lives in Canada) who is attempting to break this world record as well. His name is Michel Fournier. The goals of his project can be found at his website. He's 66 years old, has no sponsors and is basically coupling together his equipment from old discarded military items. He was banned from making his attempts in France, but he found a new home in Canada, eh? I remember seeing something about this earlier, and his website was pretty shoddy then. Seems like it has gotten a massive update since then. I'll give the man props. He's made several attempts at them... of of which failed before he even left the ground, I believe. In 2003 the balloon ripped while being inflated. In 2008, he had another attempt lined up, but fate intervened again and this time the balloon detached from the gondola and floated away. In May 2010, another failure due to the reserve parachute deploying inside the capsule during a pre-launch test while the balloon was being filled. D'oh! The next attempt is slated for May 2011. Good luck Michel!!!

There is also a UK stunt man, Steve Truglia, who has expressed interest in breaking the record as well. His website appears to show that the planning is done but that he needs sponsorship. His plan was to make an attempt in 2008, however that obviously has not occurred and there is no news other than needing sponsorship. Regardless of where you are in the preparations, Good luck Steve!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You got our Sunday and Saturday mixed up. But, that's okay it was the same information.

Boy, are we tired or what?

So looking forward to more relaxing weekend / weeks with you after 3/15.