{"id":117,"date":"2003-12-01T02:48:25","date_gmt":"2003-12-01T07:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=117"},"modified":"2005-12-04T12:41:38","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T17:41:38","slug":"airborne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/airborne","title":{"rendered":"Airborne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Took my first helicopter trip today. We took it to Fox Glacier, which is situated above a rainforest, for a morning hike, which was gorgeous. The geography of this place is insane. The helicopter ride was smooth. The pilot banked kinda severely to show us a waterfall, and I had a little lurch from the g-force. But I got used to it and rode out the next few banks.<\/p>\n

But I actually had two separate sessions of aerial activity today. The first was the round trip to Fox Glacier. The second was when our bus driver drove (a little <\/em>quickly) over a little bridge that was recently paved. The bus (38 people and all their luggage) went airborne as we hit the joint of the pavement. Did the same thing when we reached the other side, two seconds later. That’s an adventure tour for you.<\/p>\n

Now I’m down in Queenstown. Tomorrow, I take the Shotover jetboat in the morning for 20 minutes of zooming around. In the evening (5:10pm), I leap off of The Ledge for a 47m (155 ft.) bungy jump. I’m scared, but I think it’s more fear of embarrassment, rather than life-and-limb. I spend too much time inside myself, making cosmic explanations for things that are really just childhood neuroses. Spending two weeks without talking to a single person who knows me, I’ve come to realize that some dumb aspects of my behavior are just contingent on my need to please present company. That’s not happening as much here.<\/p>\n

So I’m going to jump off The Ledge tomorrow, and if I don’t do a beautiful swan-dive, it’ll still be a great experience. I’ll have a video of it, and a bunch of pix that’ll make their way into the Big Slideshow.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, the camera is well and truly shot. I’ve been using disposable ones here, and I’ll have to grab a new Minolta when I get home. Grr.<\/p>\n

(My New Zealand pix via Flickr)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Took my first helicopter trip today. We took it to Fox Glacier, which is situated above a rainforest, for a morning hike, which was gorgeous. The geography of this place is insane. The helicopter ride was smooth. The pilot banked kinda severely to show us a waterfall, and I had a little lurch from the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Airborne”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4C7K-airborne","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":111,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/greatest-adventure","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":0},"title":"Greatest Adventure","author":"Gil","date":"December 5, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Sure, I've taken a helicopter ride up the side of a glacier, climbed a mile-high mountain, jetboated the Shotover canyon, and bungee-jumped off a 155-foot platform, but nothing prepared me for the experience of my last night in New Zealand: drinking with a bunch of Australian guys.I have a newfound\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6072,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/thunderstruck","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":1},"title":"Thunderstruck","author":"Gil","date":"July 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2003, I took a 2-week vacation to New Zealand. During that trip, I bungee-jumped, jetboated through river-canyons, took my first helicopter ride (over a rain-forest, onto a glacier), table-danced to AC\/DC, and otherwise had the time of my life. The most daring thing I did on the trip? Drink\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Zealand"","block_context":{"text":"New Zealand","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-zealand"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weather-with-you","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":2},"title":"Weather With You","author":"Gil","date":"November 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A year ago today, I embarked on a 15-day trip to New Zealand (click over to the 11\/03 and 12\/03 archives for the wacky details). At the time, I was struggling pretty badly with a broken heart. During my two weeks on the other side of the planet, I discovered\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Zealand"","block_context":{"text":"New Zealand","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-zealand"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/downdate","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":3},"title":"Downdate","author":"Gil","date":"November 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Got socked with the office head-cold. Grr.Amy & I are about to head down to Philadelphia for a friend's wedding, so I'll suck it up, take some Airborne, and leave you with this quote from Latrell Sprewell's agent, Bob Gist:Anyone who thinks he should play [$1.1 million], that's absurd. [...]\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":813,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/813","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":4},"title":"Wholesale Destruction?","author":"Gil","date":"January 22, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a cheap ethnic stereotype, but I've concluded that there are things you cut corners on, and things you don't. When I was in Vegas and wanted to take a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, I decided to avoid the signs out on the strip that read, \"Discount Helicopter\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":314,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/fighting-for-des-moines","url_meta":{"origin":117,"position":5},"title":"Fighting for Des Moines","author":"Gil","date":"August 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"A Marine helicopter pilot in Najaf wrote an opinion piece in the NYTimes today. Read it.Norman Podhoretz writes a long neocon interpretation of modern history and World War IV in Commentary. Read that, too.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}