Over the weekend, Felix Baumgartner fell a really long way out of a thing. Setting or breaking all sorts of world records, Baumgartner took a hot air balloon 24 miles into the air before jumping out and free falling for nearly 5 minutes at speeds well over 700 miles per hour. He spent the rest of his trip down to Earth (another five minutes) floating down via parachute. It’s a very impressive and life-affirming testament to the power of the human spirit that didn’t need to be done at all. The actual feat is wonderful, but what’s more interesting to me is that, to get to these ten minutes, Baumgartner had to sit by himself in a tiny capsule underneath a helium balloon for 2.5 hours to get to the right altitude.
Two and a half hours to sit and contemplate the billions of ways this could go wrong. 150 minutes to question whether what you’ve chosen to do with your life is really worth all this. It’d be very interesting to know what was going through his mind. Well, being the liar I am, I actually know some of the things he DID think about from the moment the balloon took off until it was high enough to jump out of.
- I hope I don’t pee or poop myself. Talk about embarrassing.
- New Mexico sure is boring.
- Hey look, a dog.
- I wonder what Honey Boo Boo’s up to today.
- Should I start wearing a derby?
- “Piccadilly” is a funny word.
- I wish Red Bull HAD given me wings.
- Shouldn’t have had that burrito.
- Did I leave the gas on?
- I wonder if I should tell the guys there’s a bolt loose.
- I better start thinking of what I’m gonna say before I jump.
- Technically, this is a much giant-er leap for mankind, but whatever.
- Whatever, Bob; there’s totally enough room for a TV in here.
- If there weren’t so many people watching, I’d really like an anticipatory wank.
- Mmmm… barbecue sauce…
- Ooh, The Walking Dead comes back tonight.
- I really hope I don’t die.
- I should have practiced falling out of more trees.
- Am I there yet? Hehehe.
- Balloons sure are slow.
- Fuck, I have “Gangnam Style” in my head again.
- So this is space, huh? Thought it’d be cooler.
- Really bad time to have an itch on the bottom of my foot.
- Where’s my teddy bear?!?!
- I still don’t know what I’m gonna say. Maybe just something like “I’m coming home now.”
- No, that’d be dumb.
- Dammit, I just lost.
- This is a pretty sweet door. I’ll have to tell Bob he did a good job later.
- My mom better not cry the whole time I’m falling.
- I’m from Salzburg, Austria. I doubt people remember that most of the time.
- I’m gonna sing that Tom Petty song the whole way down… “American Girl.”
I can only dream of one day falling from such a great height and not dying. It’s a metaphor. For not dying after falling from a great height.
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