OCTOBER 31st - Things Get Dark. Things Brighten Up.



On this day in 1992, Don Kellner jumped out of a plane for the 18,000th time. That’s a lot of times to jump out of anything, much less a plane. In fact, that’s 18,000 more times than I have jumped out of a plane. And of course Don didn’t just stop there. He’s kept jumping out of planes. He got married jumping out of a plane. He conceived his first son while jumping out of a plane. Okay, no he didn’t. That’s going a bit too far, and I’m not even sure it’s physically possible. Patrick Swayze might have been able to accomplish it while filming Point Break as the incomparable Bodhi, but Patrick Swayze was also Dalton in Road House. Not talking about a mere mortal here. But Kellner currently has skydived (skydove?) over 42,000 times. Obsessed much? It could be the fact that he runs a skydiving school, but I mean he could delegate a bit more. Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t be all too impressed. He’d say that any man who jumps out of plane that many times is mentally unstable and should be sent to a loony bin. Of course, today isn’t the best day to ask for TJ’s opinion, because this day in 1941 was also the day Mt. Rushmore was completed. Except that it wasn’t. They just ran out of money and left all the Presidents as floating heads. You can imagine that TJ was none too pleased. But it was completed enough. I mean if you're comparing things, I’d rather semi-complete a mountain sculpture of great past Presidents than semi-complete skydiving. “You know, I’ve got the jumping out part down pat, but the whole opening the parachute before Jackson Pollocking my brains on the ground? Didn’t quite get that part. And I can’t fix that now. Cause I’m dead.”

Wow. Things got dark.

Happy Halloween! Consider going as Don Kellner Base-Jumping off of Thomas Jefferson’s Mt. Rushmore head. Close to a dozen people will know what you're attempting. Or you could save it for next year, after this blog goes global when Jimmy Kimmel reads an excerpt on TV. MarkedThisDay Worldwide.

Things brighten up.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more