Are you afraid of heights?

[Square Wheels]

Or widths? 

[Road Runner]

Is this another sex thread?

[Fret Buzz]

17 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

Or widths? 

Girth.  Not sure why RR didn't know that.

Tom

[Zealot]

As a child, tremendously.  Worked diligently to conquer.

[Chris...]

I have a healthy fear of heights. Keeps me safe

 

[Zephyr]

I don't like heights, but have bungee jumped at my daughters insistance, and have flown in doorless helicopters with no belt on (that was an 'oops').

Not my favorite thing.  Gimme black water and rotting corpses any day

[maddmaxx]

Depends on the nature of the height.  I love to fly and it bothers me not one single bit.  I don't like edges with drops, even if there are guard rails.  In fact, my brain dislikes that so much that I begin to suffer from vertigo near edges and I lose my balance.  I prefer not to drive in the right lane on a bridge with any appreciable height and if forced to will simply concentrate on down the road instead of the view.  I don't like it so much that I even get a bit messed up watching a television picture of something like the work crew on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sure it's all in my head and even my head knows that but it doesn't matter.

[2Far]

Nope. Not sure why not.

When I interviewed at the glass company, the prez took me up to the ~32nd floor. We got out of the buckhoist & immediately walked over to the edge barricaded with a single 3/8" strand of cable at 40" off the floor & a cable at 20" of the floor. He proceeded to show me how they attached glass to the sides of a building.

I think it was two tests rolled into one, 1) getting on & riding the buckhoist & 2) ability to stand at the edge of a floor at altitude.

[Guest]

After high school I worked building ( was going to say erecting but we all know where that would go) steel silos.  When I first started I couldn't find enough ways to hold on to something constantly. By about 6 months I thought nothing of balancing on a 3/8" wide lip 90 feet in the air while bolting panels together. Luckily I'm back to a healthy fear of heights.

[12string]

yes.  for sure.  which only messes with my affinity for roller coasters and flying

[BuffJim]

41 minutes ago, Zephyr said:

I don't like heights, but have bungee jumped at my daughters insistance, and have flown in doorless helicopters with no belt on (that was an 'oops').

Not my favorite thing.  Gimme black water and rotting corpses any day

Not sure if you heard, but here in Buffalo we had a police diver drown this week in the line of duty - a training exercise. Very sad.

http://www.wgrz.com/news/police-officer-lehners-body-located/484018956

[Zephyr]

28 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

Not sure if you heard, but here in Buffalo we had a police diver drown this week in the line of duty - a training exercise. Very sad.

http://www.wgrz.com/news/police-officer-lehners-body-located/484018956

Yes, I heard.  We are a rather small community and news like this gets to everyone.  Have been following the search with great interest.  I am glad he has been located.  Very sad indeed

[ChrisL]

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Depends on the nature of the height.  I love to fly and it bothers me not one single bit.  I don't like edges with drops, even if there are guard rails.  In fact, my brain dislikes that so much that I begin to suffer from vertigo near edges and I lose my balance.  I prefer not to drive in the right lane on a bridge with any appreciable height and if forced to will simply concentrate on down the road instead of the view.  I don't like it so much that I even get a bit messed up watching a television picture of something like the work crew on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sure it's all in my head and even my head knows that but it doesn't matter.

I'm like Max in that heights are generally OK.  I can look out of a tall building or fly planes and in helo's no problem.  Cliffs and drop offs screw me up.

[Ltdskilz]

Only if I'm stuck on a bloody bike and there are rocks at the bottom of the drop . . . 

[Further]

I'm not afraid of height, or falling, the sudden stop at the bottom concerns me...

 

PS  what's funny is, anybody can dance on a table. Raise the table up 40 feet and most people are holding on for dear life. What changed, it's the same table ?

[2Far]

2 hours ago, Further said:

 What changed, it's the same table ?

The raised table has decreased the acceptable level of risk. Everyone who dances on the table knows a mis-step and fall is possible, I mean what the hell, how hurt can I get by falling 30"?? 

But at 40' that mis-step has a significantly higher probability of ouch. 

[Ralphie]

I loved rock climbing but was always a pretty leery of the heights.  Now I am old and safely earth-bound.

 

[Square Wheels]

So no one notices the Steven Wright reference, or was it so obvious it just went without comment?

[BuffJim]

28 minutes ago, Square Wheels said:

So no one notices the Steven Wright reference, or was it so obvious it just went without comment?

It's all in the delivery. SW is hilarious. Steven Wright, that is. 

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

 

Sometimes to get a better picture, one needs to spend a few moments 'living (or at least standing) on the edge'...

 

[Wilbur]

I don't mind heights. I just don't like falling from them. 

[roadiejorge]

I don't like heights. 

[MickinMD]

Not unless its something like 50 feet up the side of a ship's smokestack on scaffolding while painting it.

It was March of 1969 and college kid me and my soon-to-graduate high school cousin Richard were looking to line-up summer or permanent (him) jobs.

One day we drove around filling out applications at several promising businesses and then stopped at the Bethlehem Steel Key Highway Shipyard in Baltimore, where my father had once worked and Richard's father, my father's brother, still did.

I was called in to the personnel guy first.  After some pleasantries and easy questions - including fond remembrances of my father and my uncle - he opened the Venetian blinds to expose workers very high on scaffolding painting a ship's smokestack. With a sly grin he asked, "Can you climb?"

I gazed at a sight that gave my stomach butterflies but, knowing the job paid $3/hr in a $1.25 min. wage era, I replied, "Sure!  I've never done that, but I've climbed trees high enough to get a scolding from my mother and jumped out of tree forts high off the ground."

Next was Richard's turn while I waited outside the office.  His father was Foreman of the Hull Department and I knew he had an even better inside chance than me.  So when he emerged I exclaimed, "I've got a really good feeling about this one. Three dollars an hour!"

"But," Richard interjected, "Didn't he ask you if you could climb?"

After telling him my answer he replied, "Well, I told him I couldn't do that."

Richard wasn't hired, but it was the last non-chemistry full-time summer job of my life - and I was also working 20-30 hrs/wk at night at a fast-food restaurant that was my normal school-year job so I wouldn't lose my $2/hr pay rate.  It turned out I didn't have to climb and paint: I was assigned to work for the top man, the Yard Superintendant, modifying his files to the "Navy System" based on numbers rather than alphabet.  It did get my heart racing when I had to walk up long, shaky gangplanks onto ships being repaired to drop blueprints, etc. to Ship Superintendants, etc.  I also got to work a little with my Uncle Tom, which was cool!

The next summer, I had completed my sophomore year and was doing chemistry research for Professor Victor Vitullo, a great advisor and friend who had a major role in my getting a full-scholarship and a teaching assistantship to Graduate School at IIT in Chicago - where he had gone to grad school.  And, beginning with Vitullo, my life's work was set in motion.

[Voodoo Child]

Depends on the situation. On a ladder, yes. Roofing a house. Definitely. Flying. No (in fact I always try to get the window seat), Ferris Wheels. At first, but I get over it quickly. When I was in the Air Force many years ago, as a reporter, I had to cover drills and exercises. Once a big shot general from Europe was coming to our base (Izmir, Turkey), and I was well known for carrying multiple cameras around my neck when doing the tourist thing, off duty. The base photographer only had a 4X5 press camera, and the commander, whose office I worked next door to, wanted some aerial shots of the countryside and a nearby Turkish base (which we were not allowed on), so he asked me if I was interested in doing some aerial shots in a helicopter, out the open door (strapped in). I wasn't crazy about the idea, but it's kind of hard to say no to a brigadier general who you work closely with, even though it was a request and not an order, so I went. Grabbed my Pentax 35mm and got some great shots for the generals. It got to the point that the commander of the helicopter squadron asked me to go up quite a few times with him. My boss, who was a captain, wasn't crazy about me being out of the office, but the commander was a major, so my boss reluctantly agreed.

Now i can't climb a ladder because I have stability issues due to my accident and with only one good arm, I can't do things like changing bulbs, because my bad arm is useless for holding on to things.

[sheep_herder]

10 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

So no one notices the Steven Wright reference, or was it so obvious it just went without comment?

Who?

[Slow_Guy_On_Bike]

Quote

Are you afraid of heights?

When I'm in an enclosed structure, or a plane, no. I've stood out / looked down from the enclosed Ledge on the Sears Tower observation deck (103 floors up) and didn't bat an eye. However, get me "open air" and then yes, I am definitely afraid of heights. It was all WoSGOB could do to get me on roller coasters or Ferris Wheels. 

[pedalphile]

Sadly, yes, which was allus a bit of an issue with the climbing malarkey.

[Dirtyhip]

not really. I used to rock climb a buncg and hang off rocks, no big deal.

I have a respect for steep drops off a side cut trail. Some of them just drop off into nothingness. When riding trails like that, I don't look at anything except the foot wide trail tread. Use speed accordingly.