Larry Walters' of Los Angeles boyhood dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to satisfy himself with watching jets fly over his backyard.
One day, Larry, had a bright idea. He decided to fly. He went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and purchased 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium. The weather balloons, when fully inflated, would measure more than four feet across.
Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn chair. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with the helium. He climbed on for a test while it was still only a few feet above the ground. Satisfied it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches and a six- pack of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun-figuring he could pop a few balloons when it was time to descend-and went back to the floating lawn chair. He tied himself in along with his pellet gun and provisions. Larry's plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his back yard after severing the anchor and in a few hours come back down. Things didn't quite work out that way.
When he cut the cord anchoring the lawn chair to his jeep, he didn't float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn't level of at 30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 11,000 feet. At that height he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting, cold and frightened, for more than 14 hours. Then he really got in trouble.
He found himself drifting into the primary approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport. A United pilot first spotted Larry. He radioed the tower and described passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun. Radar confirmed the existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the airport. LAX emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was dispatched to investigate.
LAX is right on the ocean. Night was falling and the offshore breeze began to flow. It carried Larry out to sea with the helicopter in hot pursuit. Several miles out, the helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew determined that Larry was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a rescue but the draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they neared. Finally, the helicopter ascended to a position several hundred feet above Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was hauled back to shore. The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by the helicopter crew.
As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked why he had done it. Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."
The idea is to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields. British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new high speed trains. Arrangements were made. But when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens, crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.
Horrified Britons sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions.
NASA's response was just one sentence, "Thaw the chicken."
Speaking of Chicken:....
Shop Blunder Stops Chicken-Hypnotist Tour
Tue Jun 25,10:11 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - An Alaskan chicken-hypnotist who cycles around the world with a traveling circus has ground to a halt after a charity clothes shop in Scotland sold her bicycle by mistake while she was in the fitting-room.
Emily Harris left the $1,800 bicycle leaning on a mannequin inside the British Heart Foundation shop in Edinburgh while she tried on a shirt. By the time she came out the bike had been sold for $15.
"I went into shock. I started shaking and I said 'what a lot of' with some expletives attached a few times," Harris told Reuters on Tuesday.
She said the shop staff apologized profusely but did not give her the proceeds of the impromptu sale.
"We're hoping the person who bought it will have the decency when he realizes the mistake to bring it back," said Jo Hudson, a spokeswoman for the British Heart Foundation.
"Someone's got an incredible bargain unbeknown to everyone including our unfortunate shop attendant."
Harris had built the bike herself around a German-made frame while working in a bicycle shop in New Orleans and had ridden it across much of the United States and Canada as well as Spain, France and Britain.
The 25-year-old from Palmer, Alaska, was touring Britain with a group of bike-riding circus artists who perform for children, financing their travels by busking in town centers and parks.
Harris performs as a fire-eater, puppet-master and concertina-player but her star act consists of hypnotizing chickens and making them play the piano, she said.
She was hoping the person who bought the bicycle would realize the mistake and return it to the shop, but failing that planned to request a working visa to make enough money to buy a new one.
"My plans are put on hold until I can get a bicycle. I can't do anything without one," she said.
Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Sir:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie".
It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.
This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.
We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities
HUGH GALLAGHER'S COLLEGE ESSAY
3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:
ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
Rolling on the River: For an amazing series of boating pictures,
look
here,
or
here,
or
here,
or
here.
William Shurcliff noted the following: Every lone-wolf inventor (but no big-corporation executive) knows that when the US government hands over $500,000 to a big corporation to develop a reliable and cheap solar heating system, the corporation struggles valiantly and produces a system that is hopelessly complicated and expensive. Contrariwise, if a lone-wolf inventor, using his own savings, starts to design and build a solar heating system for his own house, he has a good chance of ending up with a system that does the job and costs little.
Bewildered by this paradox, I consulted economists, engineers and corporation heads. But to no avail. Finally, I consulted the famous Parkinson--the man who discovered that, nine times out of ten, when you enter a crowded post office and carefully choose the shortest line to wait in, any other choice would have been preferable. Parkinson listened to my question, gazed at the ceiling for a minute or two, and said: The explanation is simple enough. When you pay a corporation $500,000 to invent a solar heating sytstem, the corporation officials have no choice at all. There is no way that they can escape making a complicated, much-too-expensive system. They are 100% trapped by the Principle of Pyramiding Pride.
They order all of their department heads to cooperate fully. Each department head enlists the aid of his best engineers. Each engineer tries to design the very best equipment. The public relations director calls a press conference and explains that the company is about to score the long-needed breakthrough in solar heating, is about to Lead the Way out of the energy crisis. Hearing this, the engineers redouble their efforts to devise the very best equipment, so that everyone will agree that the government has gotten its money's worth--government officals will be wreathed in smiles, the technical journals will publish salvoes of praise, and the company stockholders will cherish feelings of real reverence for their company. The project is completed on schedule. The result is a technological masterpiece. A joy to behold. It is praised by everyone--government officials, company heads, press, and public. (The user soon finds the equipment to be too complicated and costly to maintain, and (quietly, shamefully) he abandons it.) I was shocked. "This can't be true," I pleaded. "Surely the corporation heads are intelligent. They know the meanings of the words reliable and cheap ."
"But they have no choice," Parkinson replied. "Surely you remember the Central Africa writing-machine competition?" I did not, and he explained: Fifteen years ago the United Nations awarded identical contracts to two corporations: Trans-World-Products and the Sam Botts Co. Each was given $1,000,000 and told to design a writing machine that would be truly suited to African countries. The device was to be capable of writing in small letters or large, in English, French, German, or Swahili. It was to withstand tropical dampness and floods. The Trans-World-Products engineers went to work with a will. They used up all the money and time allowed. They produced a 200-lb. stainless-steel machine, housed in a fiberglass container, which included a rechargeable battery, a 5-year dessicant cartridge, flotation gear, and a 100-page maintenance manual written in twelve languages.
Although the first model cost over $100,000 to build, later units could be mass-produced, it was claimed, for only $1500. The device was a marvel to behold, and the world was lavish with its praise. The president of the company was given a 15% salary increase, the department heads were given bigger offices. Even the stockholders in the company felt ennobled by being involved in such a successful and altruistic project. TWP's final report (in four volumes and weighing 8 lb.) is available in all major libraries.
"The Sam Botts Co. took no visible action for many months. Old Man Botts said nothing to his department heads. He asked no one for help. He built nothing. Day after day he sat in his small office staring off into space. Finally, he mailed off a small package (a Manila envelope, which required 30 cents postage) to the sponsoring agency. The envelope contained an ordinary Faber Co. wooden pencil, a check for $990,000, and a brief note which read: "This machine (pencil) meets the requirements--it writes in any language, is unaffected by damp climates, and when caught in a flood, floats. Am returning the money we didn't need. Yours truly, S. Botts." The sponsoring agency was furious with Botts. The press ridiculed him. The stockholders felt crushed; they cut his salary and eventually eased him out of the company entirely.
Today, there are 2,237,000,000 wooden pencils in use in Africa. No second TWP machine was ever built. Before I could catch my breath, Parkinson said, "Sorry. Must leave. Am to attend the dedication of the new NSF-funded solar heating system of the local high school. They say it is a technological masterpiece."
Called "Encounter 2001," the spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in 2001 as a payload on a Ariane 5 rocket launched from Kourou Space Center in French Guiana. The lower "blub" portion of each hair, which contains the most DNA, will be processed by a laboratory in California already gearing up to preserve the DNA in millions of hair samples.
"Individuals will be charged $50 to submit hair samples along with their pictures and small messages for launch," said Charles Chafer, president of Encounter 2001. Mr. Chafer is also president of the Celestis Foundation affliiated with Celestis, Inc., the same company that has made a business of launching symbolic portions of cremated remains of humans into orbit as a "space burial."
The other partner in the Encounter 2001 venture is AeroAstro, a company experienced in building small innovative spacecraft. Participants will be able to launch up to six strands of hair along with digitized pictures and short messages. Hair from people's pets will not be allowed. "This is for humans only," Chafer stated. "The mission would be preceded by radio telescope transmissions beamed from Earth -- radioing, in effect, 'Here we come, ready or not' -- to any intelligent lifeform in deep space that might take an interest in the hair/DNA mission,"
In April 1997, Celestis launched the cremated remains of Star Trek creator
Gene Roddenberry, 1960's pop icon Timothy Leary and 22 other individuals into
Earth orbit . For more information contact (800) ORBIT-11
Sometimes Murphy's Law intervenes.
More humorous items here
Laste updated: 4/30/04