Earlie, I think EasyAl is about as smart as this guy and probably feels the same as he did after things went haywire.
The Truck Driver and the Balloons
In 1982, Walters floated three miles above Southern California in a lawn chair rigged with 42 helium-filled weather balloons.
Walters, then a 33-year-old North Hollywood truck driver, had no aviation experience but had always wanted to fly. Armed
with a two-way radio, a parachute, a pellet gun and some jugs of water for ballast, he expected to rise gracefully into the sky
from his girlfriend's back yard in San Pedro, Calif., then shoot the balloons down to make a gentle landing.
When the mooring was cut, however, Walters shot up into the sky unexpectedly, soon reaching the 16,000-foot level. He
passed a few private planes on the way up and was spotted by baffled jetliner pilots. The dizzy balloonist managed to shoot out
about 10 of the weather balloons before his gun fell overboard 90 minutes into the flight. His craft then drifted back toward
earth. The balloons eventually became entangled in power lines near Long Beach Airport, and Walters was able to hop down
from the lawn chair into the waiting arms of the law.
Thats as far as the story goes in the Darwin Award announcement, which trumpets Walters as one of the few Darwin winners
to survive his award-winning accomplish ment. But the saddest part of the story was yet to come. [Editor's Note: This is not a
Darwin Award Winner. Because he survived intact makes him ineligible.]
Walters had to pay $1,500 in a settlement with the Federal Aviation Administrati on, which accused him of flying in a reckless
manner, operating too close to the airport and failing to maintain contact with the control tower.
He parlayed the stunt into a brief moment of fame, including late-night talk-show appearances and a Timex watch commercial.
But fortune eluded him, and within months he had declared bankruptcy. Thus began a long string of disappointments. By 1993
he was working only sporadically as a security guard and did volunteer work for the U.S. Forest Service. And in October of
that year he hiked into a remote canyon of the Angeles National Forest and shot himself in the heart.
MSNBC's Alan Boyle recently did a story on this located at msnbc.com;
Unlike most urban legends, this story is actually true, however, the sad end may wind up with more analogies drawn to this market than we really need. -ng-
Regards, Ice |
