I watched the entire thing. I felt like the man deserved all of my attention. This is what I was referring to in my previous post— we, the human-race, are capable of doing anything. Felix Baumgartner (a "Daredevil" they call him. I wish that I could be referred to as a Daredevil. How badass is that?) The man sat down in a little capsule attached to a huge (the largest ever constructed) helium filled balloon (the thickness thereof was something like the thickness of a sandwich-baggy), then floated up 25 miles-ish, 128,100 ft. into the stratosphere, stepped out onto a platform the size of a skateboard, and let himself fall into the void.
You can read all about this online. I'm not saying anything new, but still, I feel compelled to write about it. It was special. Is it strange that I almost cried? Maybe— maybe not. I had my son next to me, and I was trying to get him pumped up about it (I succeeded, I think). I told him that this crazy guy was going to jump out of a spaceship and go faster than any man has ever gone before. I tried to explain about the sound-barrier, but he wasn't having it.
When Felix fell from his craft, and the cameras were showing his body mercilessly spinning around and around, as if he were about to disappear into the drain of Earth's kitchen sink, my son looked at me and said, "I want him to do it again, Dad."
Today a man broke the sound-barrier with his body— what did you do this weekend? I sat on my couch with a Diet Pepsi (wishing that I had a RedBull—all of those advertisements were really taking a toll on me), and watched Felix fulfill his lifelong dream. Way to go Felix. Unfortunately, you will probably be forgotten by Wednesday of next week, but for now, you're the #1 Badass on Planet Earth (last week it was that guy that gave his life for his lifelong dream of devouring twenty-pounds of cockroaches).
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