One of Jason's colleagues from the company's Mexico City plant was in town over the weekend, and one of Jason's coworkers offered to take him rappelling in a local park. Several other employees were going, and I figured that if my husband was going to kill himself in a colossally stupid way, I was going to get it on film so the insurance company wouldn't fight my claim to get the "accidental death" benefit. That started to look like a not-so-great idea when I learned we needed to leave the house at 7 am to meet the others ... there's just something fundamentally wrong about getting up earlier on the weekend than during the week.
Anyway, the climb up to the rappelling bluff was arduous, but we all made it without any heart attacks, poison ivy incidents, or broken bones. Jason was especially glad when we made it to the top, as he was carrying a bit of an extra burden:
The experienced rappellers gave the newbies a refresher course on how the rigs worked, then one of them went down to "belay" the rope for the others, acting as an emergency brake in case someone lost their cool or hit their head on the way down. Jason, who had told me the night before he was nervous about the whole thing, somehow volunteered to be the first newbie to go. Here he is, with a coworker showing more than a polite amount of interest in his crotchal region:
That little metal thingee on the ground - called a "figure eight" - is what is used to control the rate of descent down the rope - it's pretty nifty that something that has no moving parts can be so useful.
Anyway, here's Jason on the rope, having just walked down the top of the bluff, about to leap into the cutaway beneath him:
He looks very manly and experienced, doesn't he? Especially with the baseball hat on backwards ... that's a sign of testosterone poisoning if I ever saw one. Anyway, here he is on his way down:
He did very well the first time, ended up twirling around a bit on the second try, and looked like a seasoned veteran on the third run. And you don't have to take my word for it; I have video! Of course, I pulled a Douglas* and filmed it with the camera sideways, so you'll have to tilt your head to your left to view it correctly. Be sure you turn up the sound so you can hear Jason's impressed Mexican colleague saying "wow," and his sarcastic American colleague singing "I want to be an Airborne Ranger."
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8223435645221964605And no, I didn't try the rappelling - I had my hands full dealing with Liza the Dirt Eater, and jumping off a cliff just didn't appeal to me. I suspect that I would be able to do it if I needed to, but I doubt I would enjoy it ... after the bungee/trampoline incident at RenFest last summer I've about decided that my time for enjoying extreme sports ended about five years ago.
After so much tiring whining and rock-eating, Liza got a much-needed nape - er, nap - on the way down:
*Note: "pulled a Douglas" refers to the cross-country Jason and a friend made after college. Douglas brought his a video camera to document the trip, but some of the decisions that were made about the filming were a little, um, unfortunate. For example, when taking a photograph of a tall building, it's fine to turn the camera sideways to fit it into the frame better. However, it's best not to do that when videotaping, since it means that all of your viewers have to tilt their heads to one side to see the shot properly. It's also best not to roll down the window to get a clearer view of something while the car is driving, because the sound of air rushing by drowns out your description of whatever it is you're filming (otherwise known as "pulling a Jason").
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