As dawn broke at really early-thirty over the New Mexico desert where aliens made news many years before, an Austrian born daredevil named Felix Baumgartner rose from his slumber, dined on a bowl of Luck Charms, and went to work.
A thousand-something miles away on the cusp of the Texas Hill Country, your favorite blogger on the worldwide web woke to the call of nature which had been inspired by a bottle of water guzzled some six hours earlier. He then went back to bed after jiggling the handle.
Upon arriving at work, Felix donned a suit capable of withstanding the elements he would endure in the coming hours.
TharpSter the blogger remained unconscious while wearing an old t-shirt (sans sleeves) and a pair of shorts.
Felix then sealed himself in a space bound capsule, attached an over inflated Mylar balloon featuring a “Happy Administrative Assistant’s Day” slogan, and let it fly.
By then, a dog jumping on the bed interrupted what could have been a really good dream for TharpSter.
For the next two hours, Felix ascended waaaaaaay up into the sky to an altitude just short of 25 miles up. I’m not sure if that’s considered the stratosphere or not. Since the song line featured in today’s blog title involves the stratosphere, I’ll take careless and uneducated license.
The dog food supply at the TharpSter domain came up empty during that ascent, so the the chief and only blogger went to pick some up and put some gas in the jeep.
Upon reaching the designated altitude, Felix opened the door of the capsule, stepped out on it’s front porch to admire the view, said something inspirational involving how small we are, and jumped.
By then, TharpSter was eating pizza in front of the TV. He watched a little white dot fall threw the sky at about 800 miles an hour (give or take). It was Felix.
Ten minutes later, Felix safely returned to the ground using a parachute and some shoes with springs attached to the bottom.
An hour later, TharpSter took Juniorette out to give her a driving lesson in the aforementioned jeep.
It’s been a harrowing day.
