FRQNC


Friday, August 31, 2007 Oh Christ... For those of us who are ever-so-slightly arachnophobic, this is about the most horrifying thing imaginable. It's all fun and games until the little 8-legged bastards start working together people... j.s.



Thursday, August 30, 2007 The Red Bull version of our jump. (And we would, of course, not be averse to you clicking the link and favoriting it... =] ) Thanks. j.s.



Monday, August 27, 2007 Okay folks, it's finally time to talk Flugtag. I apologize for being relatively vague up to this point, but I was worried about violating the Red Bull NDA by talking too much about our "Chupacabra Iditarod Sled." Thursday Headed up to Austin in the morning and met with Bryan. A friend of his was kind enough to not only let us use his trailer, but drive the craft to the launch site as well. We arrived on-site and, after working on the sled for a bit, got a chance to wander around a little. The air conditioned tent. Center of the site before the teeming masses arrived. Taking note of the location of the first aid tent. Friday More of the same. Started work at 10am, called it a night at around 10pm. In between we attended a team meeting where they covered some basic rules and regulations, then took us up to the flight deck to get a look at where we're going to launch ourselves off on Saturday. The view from the edge The idea that we're actually going to have a completed craft by launch time the following day starts to creep in, which brings a little nervousness along with it. Flugtag Got up early and had breakfast at our hotel, then headed over to finish the last bits of sled construction. By noon the sled was finally finished, and we celebrated by relaxing for a little while in the Pilot Lounge. You can see the nervousness beginning... At 4:00 the "soft gates" open for friends and family, we get in costume, and the show officially begins. Goat Bryan working the trajectory to the moon. I suck goats. Andre the Giant wants to hug me. Hours pass, we pose for hundreds upon hundreds of photos and videos. Then we look around and find that people are EVERYWHERE. The 1st Street Bridge View of the ramp/crowd from across the lake. They move the crowd out of the hangar area at 6pm, and the call goes out for all pilots to head to their crafts immediately and prepare for launch. And I'll tell you kids something, 105 degree temperatures + a black Lycra bodysuit + nervousness about leaping off a 30' cliff attached to over 200lbs. of pvc and aluminum = some serious dizziness. Perry Farrell sang us the National Anthem, and then the first craft moved into position. At this point the world is spinning around me, and I have to sit on the ground (in the shade of a giant vacuum cleaner), dumping bottle after bottle of water on my head just to keep from passing out. The vertigo continues until we carry the craft up the ramp (thankfully we were the fourth people scheduled to jump), and I turn around to look out over the audience. All 85,000 of them... Suddenly, the dizziness instantly disappears, leaving pure exhiliration in its wake. Strange, I know. You'd think that if someone were already hot and nervous, and saw all those people staring at them awaiting a performance, that would make it much worse... Not so in my case. Adrenaline kicked in, and I started pumping my fist at the crowd and getting them charged up for our jump. The team of hippies in front of us finished, we moved our craft to the runway and got into position. They introduce us, the music starts, and we go into our skit: The goats frolic happily for a bit... Suddenly, out pops the chupacabra... And attacks the poor goats. [The crowd collectively "OOOHHHH!"ed as I hit the first goat and blood spurted everywhere.] The last goat standing fights back as the crowd yells, "Not the girl! Not the girl!" Too bad. At this point I stand in the center of all four dead goats, raise my bloody claws in the air, and pose triumphantly for the crowd... And they go absolutely nuts. Cheers echo off the downtown buildings and rain down on us. The announcers are at a loss for words. And still breathing hard, I can't help but smile a little. I "raise the goats from the dead" as soon as Van Halen's "Jump" starts to play, and they run to the front of the craft to pull the sled. At this point, we had to amend our skit...since it was (wisely) decided that having the goats go off first would simply be too dangerous. So after 3 attempts to pull me, they pretend that the sled is too heavy and shrug at me. I look disappointed for a moment, then command them to the back of the sled to push. And off we go... I swim back to the surface, where the jetski picks me up and drags me back to the shore. Here's a video of the entirety of the skit... Chupacabras at the Flugtag Once we're back on dry land we give interview after interview, then wander over to the Friends of Red Bull or "FORB" area for the open bar. (After I spent quite some time searching for my ID that is...) At the end of the show, the event staff told us we needed to come backstage as we were going to be part of the award ceremony. This completely threw us off, since we hadn't expected to actually win anything. And yet there we were, getting ready to come onstage when they called our team name... And we waited... And waited... They called the names of four other teams... And we still waited... Confused, we stopped to ask someone why we were back there. "It was too close to call, so we pulled you back here. But they decided to go with the Austin teams instead." "Oh... Um, okay." Please don't read anything into that, as I certainly don't want to sound like an ingrate. Honestly we were more than happy just to be in the event, and we had an absolute blast. Winning anything was the last thing on our mind. But that was just kind of an odd (and disappointing), twist, right at the end of the evening. Overall the event was a huge success though. And as I said earlier, we had an awesome time. Huge thanks go out to Red Bull for picking up the tab for our hotel rooms and our bar tab in the FORB lounge. Maybe we'll see you again in 2011. j.s. [[And here are a couple links to videos that have been posted so far: Video from Fox News Austin Video from CNN



Up next, The Chupacabra Iditarod Sled Team... j.s.



Wednesday, August 22, 2007 I said "PG-rated, not "G" dammit... j.s.



Monday, August 20, 2007 My God...I can't recall ever being as busy as I am right now. The day job has been packed full of random responsibilities like client reporting, promotional item ordering, restructuring of management, etc. I finish one month's articles, and the next one seems to be due almost instantly. And I've spent nearly every weekend for the past two months in Austin building a Chupacabra Iditarod Sled. The Flugtag commences in 6 days, and as you can see from the following picture, I'm way behind on construction: I'm heading back to Austin on Thursday morning to finish construction and tote the sled (somehow) to our on-site hangar, and I'll be up there until Sunday evening. So I apologize once again for the lack of updates, but something has to give...and unfortunately blogging regularly is one of those things. After this Saturday things should quiet back down however, and I can get back to your normally scheduled ranting. And pending nothing goes catastrophically awry, (i.e. an emergency room is involved), I'll have an interesting tale to tell once I get back. Thanks for hanging in there, j.s.



Tuesday, August 14, 2007 Yes, it was my birthday this weekend. And I'll be back to update you on it when I get a free minute... Thank you very much to everyone who emailed/called/texted. =] j.s.



Friday, August 10, 2007 This really, really, really pisses me off. The following video is a comparison between what actually played during Pearl Jam's set at Lollapalooza, vs. (zang!) what AT&T broadcast over their "Blue Room" service. Now I ask you, if they'd censor something like Eddie Vedder droning his fatuous rendition of some Pink Floyd lyrics, what do you think they'll do with something that's actually important? Support Net Neutrality everywhere you can...or get used to it. j.s.



Thursday, August 09, 2007 Kinda silly, but this made me grin a few times. j.s.



Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Today's episode is entitled, "The Hand Towel Headscratcher." [Brought to you by Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and the letter "H."] Every single day, upon entering the stall in the Men's room, I find a neat pile of hand towels stacked up on top of the toilet paper roll dispenser. And the question is...why? What's the point of toting them into the stall? I could only come up with three possible reasons: 1. He's using them for post-poop cleaning. Now while our T.P. isn't exactly comfortable, compared to the 60-grit paper towels in there it's a lush, aloe-vera dappled, palm frond. So, unless our mystery pooper is some kind of rectal sadist, this theory is easily debunked. 2. He's creating a modern art installation. This happens to be my favorite theory, although it's the most unlikely of the three. Unfortunately there's no one in this building who would even understand the term "neo-dadaist," nevermind have the artistic presence to create a protest piece about the effects of corporate avarice on bathroom toiletries. 3. He's afeared of germs. Now on the surface this would seem the most likely. But taking this expositional route means that this man is unsettled not by the germs on the lid/flush handle, but by the ones he feels are lurking on top of the toilet paper dispenser. Strange... So...what do you think? j.s. [[Ed. This has now turned into a building-wide warlock-hunt. Due to the above picture being posted in the downstairs common area, I've been asked to continue gathering evidence until our caca-culprit is found. I'll keep you posted.



Tuesday, August 07, 2007 And for those of you who happen to follow the World of Warcraft game...I give you their newest expansion: j.s.



Hi there. I apologize for the delays in posting, things have been really hectic around here lately. There's been scads of work to be done around the office, and similar scad-ly amounts of Flugtag building on the weekends. The combination of these has left little time for blogging. Although I will mention, in an utterly shameless self-promotion, that yours truly is the featured columnist in a particular magazine this month. And I am definitely the odd-man-out as far as pictures our other featured contributors go. For those outside the borders of our distribution (i.e. not in Houston or Dallas), basically there are 3 professional headshots of smiling, well-dressed, well-coiffed young people...and one picture of a guy in a beanie cap and a Diesel t-shirt riding on the hood of a Jeep. I'll leave it to the deductive prowess of your inner Hercule Poirot to figure out who is who. So what else is cooking? The Chupacabra Iditarod Sled is coming along swimmingly. Wings were built and attached this weekend, and our next steps are: Lining the wings with fabric Attaching the wheels. Finding something suitable for huge "fangs" for the chupacabra costume. Procuring a bullwhip Lighting a Paschal sized vigil in the hope that I don't end up in the E.R. Outside of those, we're pretty much done. Which is a huge relief to me because honestly I'm really tired of driving to Austin every weekend. And speaking of weekends... This Saturday, August 11th, will mark the 32nd anniversary of Mr. Shaw's reserved, top hat & tails, martini-wielding arrival into the world. 32 years... Christ that's a long time. Roughly the lifespan of a hippopotamus, a venerable lobster, or 2 & 2/3 camels. And just in case I haven't mentioned it this year, thanks to each and every one of you for sticking around with me for all this time. I'm well aware that I'm not the easiest guy to get along with, and there are times that I worry about your masochistic tendencies for willingly spending time with me. But there you are. Thanks. =] Love, j.s.



Monday, August 06, 2007 Still working on End-of-Monthiness/deadlines. But I wanted to drop in and mention that I'm rather disappointed that the Democrats buckled like a belt when Bushie threatened threatens to take away their recess. After all, we couldn't possibly miss out on hopscotch with Kay Bailey... j.s.