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07/11/2007: "Bucking For A Darwin"
Here at the MB, we love the Darwin Awards - you know, the ones that reward acts that are fatally stupid. Every couple of months, a good example crosses our desk ... like this guy.
Kent Couch of Bend, Oregon, decided he wanted to fly to Idaho, but opted for a different way than you or me. Apparently, higher education hasn't reached Bend, yet, or perhaps Couch has spent too much time on the ... couch ... watching reality TV. Why? Because he decided to fly to Idaho using 105 helium balloons and a lawn chair ...
With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast -- he could turn a spigot, release water and rise -- Couch headed into the Oregon sky.
Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.
"When you're a little kid and you're holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind," Couch told the Bend Bulletin. "When you're laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them," he said. "This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It's just like that."
The scary thing is that this wasn't the first time he'd tried it. An earlier test flight ended after 6 hours when he began to descend uncontrollably and had to parachute to safety. You'd think that'd be enough to end that particular dream.
SoCal residents may recall an earlier unconventional balloonist named Larry Walters who in 1982 flew a similar contraption to a height of 16,000 feet over Long Beach. He got in trouble with the FAA for interfering with airline traffic patterns and was fined. It is perhaps telling that he later committed suicide in 1994.
Start the watch on Couch ... 
