I have done some crazy things in my life. Jumping out of an airplane has probably been the coolest, and scariest one, up until this point. When I went skydiving, I was scared leading up to it, but once I was inside the plane and standing at the door about to jump, I felt good. It all went smoothly. I never had the “I am not doing this” thought. Well, on Friday, I actually said “I don’t think I can do this” before my lil Red Bull stunt.

I am afraid of heights. A lot of people are, so I try to do things that help me with that fear. When I was asked to do the Red Bull flugtag launch, I didn’t even consider the height factor. In my head, I was going to go down a ramp, that had a lip, and that lip would launch me into the air. I also thought I would have a contraption that would have wings, strong enough to help me glide for a few feet, and then I would land in the soft water, thus ending my very easy flight.

That dream quickly turned into a real nightmare once I saw what I was supposed to do in person. First of all, my imaginary ramp, was not a ramp, it was actually a flat surface, with an edge at the very end. I walked to the edge of this flat surface, and realized that this thing was pretty high up in the air. They said it was about 30 feet, but for some reason it seemed taller to me. It seemed like 80 feet. Then I started noticing all the emergency crew people, and started thinking, “why do we need them?” It’s just water. Reality set in. This nice little flying contraption I had imagined was actually a very heavy piece of wood, with small wings. My “push” team, the people who are supposed to give me enough speed to help me have a safe flight, consisted of two girls that way less than me, and Big Al Mack, who was wearing high top dress shoes, on a very slippery wet surface. So I started visualizing falling 35 feet, and being crushed by this contraption.

 As we headed up to the “launch area”, my lunch almost came up. HA! See what I did there? It made it even worse when one of the guys who is in charge of the event looked at the flugtag, and then looked at me while saying, “wow… I don’t even think we would allow this to fly tomorrow. It’s so heavy.” Oh great! Loved hearing that. Was I nervous? Hell yeah! Very. My goal was now to abort the flugtag as soon as it went over the edge.

 So we counted down, they started pushing, and I think we reached speeds of up to 3 miles per hour (not idealistic for this) and I hit the launch. My craft did not soar… at all. In fact, it took a nose dive right away, so I ejected. I got hit by something on the back on my head and shoulder, it was a pole on the back of the flugtag, but I was wearing a helmet, I didn’t even really notice. It happened fast, but I was just trying not to belly flop. See, I asked how I should enter the water once aborting my craft, and the guy looked at me and said, “just do what feels natural.” Well, as I was in that position, flying in the air… nothing felt “natural”. Somehow, I entered the water feet first, my arms were spread like wings, and once I entered the water, I felt a weird pull on my left side. Did I scream a bad word under the water? Yes. Yes, I did. It kinda knocked the wind out of me too. So all an all, it could have been worse. I only got a nice lil shoulder strain. Nothing broken, didn’t bit my tongue, didn’t belly flop, and my shorts didn’t come off. Would I do it again? Yes, because now I know what to expect. The scariest part of this whole thing was not knowing what it was going to feel like, and not having experienced it before. Next time, I know to try to tuck my arms in! Boom!

I did do a lil of the filming this weekend. We had nice overnight work. I actually hurt myself filming too. We had a bit of a fight scene. All I have to do is kick a guy in the man part, and then the face. This leads me to let the children know that we all need to stretch before anything physical. Yeah, I pulled my groin, kicking a groin. To make matters worse… I accidentally kicked the guy in the face… twice. Once on the forehead, and once on the mouth… and he is a cop. So I kicked a cop in the face. Pretty sure I can join NWA now. haha.