Man Straps Balloons To Lawn Chair, Brings Drinks And Snakcks Up To 13,000 Feet; *But Completely Forgets To Bring Hi-Def Television!*

Whoops! Now that's what I call "a real boner!"

(AP) -- Last weekend, Bend gas station owner Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some drinks and snacks - and a parachute.

Attached to the lawn chair were 105 balloons of various colors, each 4 feet around. Bundled together, the balloons rise three stories high.

Couch carried a global positioning system device, a two-way radio, a digital camcorder and a cell phone. He also had instruments to measure his altitude and speed and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as a ballast - he could turn a spigot, release water and rise.

Destination: Idaho.

Nearly nine hours later, Couch was short of Idaho. But he was 193 miles from home, in a farmer's field near Union, having crossed much of Oregon at 11,000 feet and higher.

Ironically, his high-flying stunt coincides with the grim milestone of the 3,519th American soldier killed in Iraq.

I added in the last sentence. But you know AP wanted to slip that in. So I just re-wrote the story the way they all feel it should have been written.

Thanks to dri.

posted by Ace at 03:02 PM

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