DANGEROUS LIAISONS

Isn't Adventure Just Another Word For, "Oops!"?

Greetings Thrill-seekers,
     The human race, to which so many of you regular SUNFUN
readers belong, has a vast number of peculiarities separating us
from the other forms of life on this rock.  High on the list of
things that make us the oddest of Earth's half-million odd
species is our peculiar desire to seek out danger when we have no
need to do so.  Now other creatures may, though stupidity or
miscalculation, find themselves in a tight spot from time to
time.  Life can be a pretty difficult proposition when you not at
the top of the food chain.  But only humankind will have such
near misses and then brag about their close escapes to their pals
for decades afterwards.
     No matter what period of history you look at, people are
always convinced that things are pretty dull and colorless these
days in comparison with the brave old times.  One of the big
movies of last year was "Gladiator," an adventure set in the days
of the Roman Empire.  Looks exciting to us, certainly.  But the
ancient Romans thought that their era was only a pale shadow of
the brilliant adventures of the Greeks.
     One part of the ancient adventures theory I will agree with,
at least as far as the movies are concerned.  Modern adventure
films seem to be mostly concerned with shooting and blowing
things up, with wise-cracking heroes who are darkly complex and
morally compromised.  Which pretty much makes those movies a
confused mess, since you can't tell the good guys from the bad
guys without a scorecard.  I just saw the old Errol Flynn version
of "Robin Hood," which is simplistic and even a little silly at
times, but always fun - and one of the all-time great adventure
films.  But then, any movie with swords has a built-in advantage
over those with automatic weapons and ray guns.  With the large
cutlery, the hero and villain are slashing away toe-to-toe, which
is just about the perfect distance for hurling insults at each
other.  Unrealistic?  Sure.  But it's loads more fun.
     Thanks this week to our adventurous friends:  Jerry Taff,
Larry Ford, Chuck Maray, Tom Hoelzer, Joshua Brink, Tim McChain,
Sharon Nuernberg, Dan Monaghan, Jan Michalski, R.J. Tully, Bruce
Gonzo, Charles Beckman, Kenn Venit, Kiyomi Kanazawa, Carol J.
Becwar, Phil Hudgins, Nancy Wohlge, Anna Macareno, Nnamdi Elleh
and Peter Adler.  As always, we could never do this thing without
your contributions and support.  And hope you'll remember that
life is always an adventure, just as long as you're smiling.
     Have A True-Adventure Week,


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ADVENTURES IN LAW
-----------------
     Danish courtroom some time ago, a 33-year-old man had just
been found guilty of aggravated battery for attacking an innocent
bystander with an iron club.  For this, the defendant was
sentenced to a year in prison.
     Apparently, the criminal bozo didn't care much for the
sentence.  So, to prove how non-violent he was, he jumped out of
the dock and knocked down three police officers to get at
prosecutor Claus Larsen.
     What the unnamed defendant didn't know is that the slightly-
built prosecutor is more than he seems, and the bad dude quickly
found himself pinned to the ground in a particularly painful judo
hold.  And that was how the defendant discovered prosecutor
Larsen is also a black belt in judo.  (Reuters)
          [  The good news is, he'll now have lots more
          time to think this over. ]

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     "Life is not a static thing.  The only people who do not
     change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in
     cemeteries."
                            - Everett McKinley Dirksen

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HI, HONEY.  I'M GOING TO BE A LITTLE LATE...
-----------------------------------------
     There's at least one man in Taiwan who had a little
explaining to do.  First, he was going to have to explain to his
wife why he was out so late drinking.  Then he was going to have
to try to tell her what happened to the Mercedes.
     But the tough one was going to be explaining where he was
for most of a week.  That's how long he was gone after the car
was stolen.
     After a night on the town, the unnamed businessman tried to
drive home.  Finding that he'd had a little too much fruit of the
grape to stay awake, he climbed into the back and fell sound
asleep.  Very soundly.  When he eventually woke up, he had far
more problems than just a hangover; he and the car were in a
cargo container headed for Mainland China as guests of a ring of
car thieves.  When the car theft gang snatched the Mercedes, they
didn't even notice our hero sleeping it off in the back.
     After they arrived in China, the thieves let the hapless
businessman go, but kept the fancy car.  It took the victim
several days to arrange a lift back home on another cargo ship. 
(AFP/Asahi Shimbun)


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PROFESSIONAL STRENGTH
---------------------
     If you follow this sort of thing, you might be aware that
one of the most famous - and craziest - of professional
adventurers over the past few years has been Frenchman Alain
Robert, better known to the media and police as "Spiderman." 
Famed for his aerial adventures climbing many famous tall
structures around the world, the 38-year-old Robert has scaled
famous vertical structures from Paris to Tokyo.  Naturally, local
authorities have arrested him nearly every time, but he is rarely
off the streets for long.  He is rarely off the buildings for
long, either, to the point where you begin to wonder if the guy
has some kind of phobia about elevators.
     Among the tall buildings the Spiderman has conquered from
the outside include Empire State Building in New York, the Eiffel
Tower and the Obelisk in Paris, Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers,
London's Canary Wharf building, San Francisco's Golden Gate
Bridge, and the Sears Tower in Chicago.  A couple of years back,
Robert brought crowds to a halt in the central Tokyo district of
Shinjuku with his ascent of the 54-floor Shinjuku Center
Building, where he breezed up the outside in only about an hour. 
As usual, he climbed the 54-story skyscraper using just hand and
toe holds on the face of the building.  It seems more fair that
way, I guess.
     "I free-climb buildings firstly because they exist, but also
because they are the urban mountain," Robert said in a recent
interview.
     Not that Robert hasn't had the occasional problem.  Two
years ago, the daredevil had to be rescued halfway up a 110-meter
Paris building after suffering cramps and dehydration.  That
time, firefighters had to pull him to safety.  Then there was his
most recent humiliation in Shanghai.
     Last February, still looking for new vertical challenges,
the "Spiderman" decided to try shimmying up the 88-story Jinmao
Tower in Shanghai - China's tallest building.  While there had
been some advance publicity, Robert took a good, close look at
the building in person, and, for once, decided this was one risk
too great.  It was too cold, the building was too shear, and the
wind was blowing too hard.  Only a fool would climb under those
conditions, declared Robert.
     Which leads us to shoe salesman Han Qizhi, who just happened
to be passing by.  When he heard that Robert's climb was off, he
was, according to media reports, "struck by a rash impulse."
     How rash?  When security guards weren't looking, the 31-
year-old dropped his jacket and leapt onto the steel framework
grid that sheathes the building, launching upwards while dressed
only in ordinary street clothes and shoes.  Though reportedly
trim and athletic, the shoe salesman had never done any climbing
before.  And certainly not on skyscrapers.
     By the time police in a window-washers platform caught up
with Han, he was just short of the top of the building.  He was
arrested, of course, but Han considered it worth the risk to help
promote his shoe business in the central Chinese city of Hefei.
     "He just wanted to show off and make a name for himself,"
police spokeswoman Fang Dinghua told reporters.  (AP/Reuters)
          [ Finally!  A shoe salesman who doesn't mind
          getting that rare model off the top shelf. ]


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     "All serious daring starts from within."
                            - Eudora Welty

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ADVENTURES IN DINING...
--------------------
     Westerners are usually only aware of one kind of rice - the
usual "Minute Rice" stuff.  But there are literally hundreds of
varieties known in Asia.  Even more variable are the kinds of
foods made from the many sorts of rice.  Some of these can even
be hazardous to your health.
     Take the gooey rice cakes from Japan known as "mochi," for
example.  Every year there are warnings in the media there on how
the very old and very young need to be especially careful with
the sticky treats, which are traditionally served at New Year's. 
Sadly, there have even been a few people who died when the rice
cakes blocked their breathing.
     That was almost the case with one 70-year-old gentleman from
Hokkaido in far Northern Japan, who began to choke after eating a
large chunk of sticky rice cake last New Year's Day.
     Fortunately, the man's daughter was ingenious, if not
exactly medically trained.  Thinking quickly, she quickly grabbed
the family vacuum cleaner, using it to stuck out the mass of
mochi stuck in the old man's throat.
     "Although he is all right, you have to be careful since such
actions can harm you," a local official said, cautiously - if a
little obviously.
     One thing is sure; that will be a New Year's that one old
gent will never forget.  (Reuters)


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     "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every
     experience in which you really stop to look fear in the
     face."
                            - Author and First Lady Eleanor
                              Roosevelt

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ADVENTURE RIDES THE RAILS
-------------------------
     While its detractors might say that an adventure on Amtrak,
the U.S. national passenger railway, means a train just getting
where it is going, we can think of at least one passenger who
might disagree.
     In February of this year, a Boston-based assistant conductor
on Amtrak train 86 was astonished to hear an unusual knocking
sound outside of one of the cars.  The train, on its regular run
from Richmond, Virginia to Boston, was rolling through the
countryside at about 60 miles-per-hour (100km/h) after departing
from Mystic, Connecticut.
     Investigating, Assistant Conductor Charles Amaru found a
late-boarding passenger who had apparently leaped for the train
just as it was pulling out.  So late, in fact, that all of the
train's doors had been closed.  So the shivering male passenger
was hanging on the grab irons just ahead of the cafe car as the
train flew down Track 2.
     Afraid that the un-boarded passenger wouldn't be able to
hang on all the way until the next stop in Rhode Island, and that
putting the train into emergency might throw him under the
wheels, Amaru flung open the vestibule doors and finally pulled
the guy to safety after a short struggle.
     "Amaru should get a letter for saving [the passenger's]
life," said Conductor Mo Burke Jr.  "He thought of others and did
his job in a very professional way."  (Train's Magazine Website)
          [ Professional?  Sure - he immediately asked
          for the guy's ticket. ]

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     "Courage is rarely reckless or foolish . . . courage
     usually involves a highly realistic estimate of the
     odds that must be faced."
                            - Margaret Truman

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WHAT A CROC!
-----------
     Crocodiles are known among folks who love lizards as
alligators with attitude.  While alligators are relatively
passive and not much danger to humans unless provoked, crocs are
happy to demonstrate to humans who rules in their area.  Which
makes them endlessly fascinating, as well as dangerous.
     But guests at Thailand's biggest crocodile farm got a closer
look than they wished in 1999, when the glass wall that formed
the underwater side of the croc tank suddenly burst, spilling out
thousands of gallons of water - along with a couple of angry and
surprised reptiles.
     Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt and zoo workers
quickly captured the crocodiles before they could do any damage.
     But the folks who will brag about that adventure have
nothing on South African fisherman Elmos Khumalo, who was trapped
up a tree for five hours after a lurking crocodile apparently
decided he looked like lunch.
     Cold and hungry, Khumalo watched from his perch while the
big croc and a smaller accomplice appeared to drift off to sleep
while waiting for him to drop off his branch.
     "That was when I jumped, right on top of the biggest one,"
Khumalo said.  "It got a huge fright and vanished.  By the time
the second crocodile realized its prey was escaping, I was out of
the water and running for my life with my fish."  (Reuters)
          [ A true fisherman if there ever was one. 
          Note the 'with my fish.' Even death threats
          don't liberate the catch of the day. ]

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     Fortune favors the bold but abandons the timid.
                            - Latin Proverb

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AT CLOSEST RANGE...
----------------
     No matter what kind of adventure you have, or what brave
thing you might have done, those closest to you are still likely
to see you for who and what you are.  It is far easier to be a
hero to an entire nation than to one person who knows the real
you.
     In illustration, I give you one Moshe Bik, a Hasidic Jew who
is a seminary student in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in
Jerusalem.  You've heard, of course, that the bombings and
violence there have everyone on edge.  So it was when Moshe saw a
suspicious knapsack next to a school.  Investigating carefully,
he found a lump of explosive and a cellular telephone, commonly
used to set off bombs from a safe distance.  The highly religious
Moshe put his trust in God as he quickly disarmed the explosive
charge by pulling out its wiring just before the cell phone rang,
which would have set off the charge.
     "I was the messenger sent from Heaven to neutralize the
bomb," the Maariv daily newspaper quoted Bik as saying.
     Following the rule, though, his heroism didn't necessarily
translate to increased respect close to home.
     "I think he's nuts," Bik's wife, Leah, told reporters. 
(Reuters)


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