Story time with GG?: A younger GG? plus ropes and pullies = bad idea.

[Got Gear?]

TweetI was a builder when I was a kid. When I wasn't building lego spaceships, I was outside building another tree fort or renovateing on of the 3 I had already built.

Then I went through a rope and pullies stage. Mechanics like this always fascinated me...

My first project was inspired by a science fair project where a student had used string and small pullies. It showed how a 1lb block of wood could lift a 2lb block of wood (only 1/2 as high tho). This really got me thinking...

That weekend I decided to get rid of my rope latter, and build a pully system with sling so that I could just pull myself up the tree. Course I had to make it so that it took my like 3/4 of the way up this tree..

It actually worked well...I pulled myself up the tree.. then pulled my younger brother up.. I was amazed at how well it worked. Then it came time for my younger brother to pull me up.. He got me about 1/2 way up the tree then stopped and said "I can't pull you up anymore, my arms are tired" To which I responded "Fugh that! I pulled you up, you have to pull me up!" Well, this is where my brother comes up with an idea. You see, right beside this tree was a really steep dirt bank.. almost straight down. He decides to hold onto the rope and jump off the cliff.

It sorta worked... he went down.. I went rocketing up.. the problem occured when I hit the top of the tree (with my head BTW) about 4 feet before he hit the bottom of the cliff. And you guessed it... he let go...

The only thing that saved me serious injury was the rope that somehow got wrapped around my leg. Unfortunately, that rope also gave me the wickedest rope burn known to man!! About a 3" circle at the back of my knee was burnt right off. Even then, that wasn't the most painful thing.. the most painful part occured about 2 days later when mom went to check the dressing. She had used a 4" square gause pad to cover the wound. When she took off the tensor bandage I was horrified to see that the scab had grown RIGHT THROUGH the gause pad. You could only see the 4 corners. Had to soak that bastard in warm water then rip it all off. OUCH!! Then we put on another gause pad and had to repeat the whole thing 2 days later.. each time getting slightly better.

OH, I broke my arm in that fall too..

[jipped genes]

Tweeti always did stupid stuff like that too in fact i had a pulley and tied a rope between 2 trees going down a hill. grabbed the pulley at the top rode down i figure i was hittin 20-25 mph when i let go to prevent myself from hitting the tree, i broke my left arm. if i only knew then what i know now.

[edvedr]

Tweetbro, when i grew up i beat the hell out of myself, smashed my face a few times, scars on my body that i can't even remember where i got them. and that story made me cringe. OUCH!!!

[SUGARBABY]

TweetWhoa! That is so gross *cringes* I was pretty adventurous, too, but I never BROKE any bones or have many permanent scars.

[Got Gear?]

TweetYes, them were good times... we did infact only have 2 channels. We had videogames, but it was only a crappy atari 2600 with like 3 games.

So anyway... on to the rest of the story:

After that incident, it was decided a pully system wasn't a good idea. Well...actually mom made dad take it down...

It only took about 3 weeks to get the cast off, and by then the rope burn was pretty much healed. But I still had ropes and pullies in my head.. Being laid up for a couple of weeks gave me lots of time to think. And I came up with what seemed like a genious plan. I had been daydreaming of the pully and cable contraption they had at scout camp. You could ride a pully down this rope strung between 2 trees. Fricken cool! What I thought would be even cooler is if I could ride the pully from 1 tree fort down to another tree fort! And it would have been cool...

After much deliberation, I decided I was going to need to build a landing platform. Rideing in through the window didn't look like it was going to work. But before I built the landing platform, I wanted to get the rope and pully thing setup to make sure this was even going to work.

Didn't even take all that long to do... I was ready to do the first test run that same afternoon. Everyting went great for about the first 10 feet. That's when I realized I was picking up speed too fast. I basically froze and rode that sucker right into the tree. Damn that hurt! Busted my lip, bloodied my nose, and smacked my forhead damn hard.

It took about 10 minutes before I decided to try it again. This time I had a plan tho. I was going to stick my feet out and stop myself before I smacked into the tree.

Turns out this wasn't such a good plan. I don't know what I did differently, but somehow I got twisted around backwards.. This time I slammed into the tree back first. I think I passed out for a second cause the next thing I remembered was sitting at the base of the tree. Enough for 1 day...mom was already pissed about the blood all over my new shirt.

I spent the evening nurseing a headache, watching TV, and trying to think of a way to solve my slamming into the tree dilema. And just before I went to sleep, a solution came to me.. it was so simple! Tie a knot in the rope about 3 feet from the tree. When the pully hit's the knot, it'll jam and I'll stop before I smash into the tree! Already my head was starting to feel better.

The next morning I took everything down, tied the knot, and put it all back up again. This time makeing sure I had the rope extra-tight. By lunchtime, I was ready to bask in the thrilling glory of my genious.

Again after the first 10 feet, I came to a conclusion... I was going much faster this time. The extra rope tension was probably to blame. But I wasn't worried..my knot would stop it. And stop the pully it did...with so much quickness and force I went flying off and flew head first into the tree.

That's how I got my concusion. I don't remember much after that.. But apparently my head hit the tree with such a sound, my mom came out to investigate and found me unconcious under the tree. I awoke shortly after, but wasn't making any sence and kept repeating myself so mom took me to emergency. I also had asthma as a kid so mom was very familiar with the procedure. I think she quotes something like "now over 250 emergency room visits".. but I'm being sidetracked. I don't remember the hospital, I don't remember repeatedly asking mom if I was going to have to pee in a bottle. I do however remember going to bed with a headache again.. and that evenining's episode of transformers.

Mom took the pullies and rope away the next day