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pmenhusen

Jedi Trainee
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A skydiver jumps out of the plane and pulls his rip cord. Nothing happens. He pulls the cord for the reserve chute. Nothing happens. He's making peace with his Maker, when he sees another guy coming up from the ground. He yells, "Hey buddy, do you know anything about parachutes?". The other guy yells back "No, but do you know anything about gas grills?".
 
Here's another true story....a guy in SoCal decided to take his lawn chair for a ride so he connected it to an Army surplus weather balloon...grabbed a 6-pack & his trusty pellet pistol (for deflating the balloon) & untied the chair.....he was picked up over LAX at 5-figure altitude as he drifted out over the Pacific....forget how they solved the problem but know he won an award for the stupidest way to kill oneself....anybody remember that news item?
 
Lawn Chair Larry did it, and lived.

See

https://www.darwinawards.com

For the story:

"Lawn Chair Larry
1982 Honorable Mention
Confirmed True by Darwin

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair dubbed the Inspiration I, and filled the 4' diameter balloons with helium. Then he strapped himself into his lawnchair with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. He figured he would pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend."
 
Do you have the rest of the story somewhere? I couldn't find it on the site you referenced....
 
I lived in the neighborhood where this happened. Everybody (except the FAA and local authorities) thought it was pretty funny. Of course the story was in all the local papers but we never dreamed the guy would become a kind of cult figure (hero?).

If you Google around a bit I’m sure you can find the details. I think there are websites dedicated to him. Somebody wrote a folk song about him and there might have been a book written.


PC.
 
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