Up in the air

An interesting experience occurred a few weeks ago. I posted a photo of the new ride on the top of the Stratosphere – this one swings out over the edge – about 1000 ft high – then spins you around, so that you look almost straight down at the Strip.

Two sisters were on the ride, ages 11 and 18, at 12:30 in the morning – yes, lots of questions in the newspaper letters to the editors column about where were the parents. They were the only ones on the ride at the time. It swung out and started spinning around, then stopped. It seems that there is a safety feature in the ride that prevents it from running when the wind is blowing over 50 mph. It was gusty, and during the ride the wind speed up there went up over 60 mph. The ride stopped as it was supposed to, but they were left hanging out over the edge of the building, looking between their feet at the lights below over 1000 feet down. The wind kept blowing at that speed, and they were left sitting there – for over an hour and a half. Evidently the ride safety features are pretty good. But the designers forgot to put in an override that would permit the thing to be swung back in so they could get off. Eventually somebody had to crawl out on the arm, attach a rope and chain, and the workers pulled the arm back onto the roof so the girls could get off.

Imagine hanging out over the edge, at that height, with winds of 60+ mph, looking down at the cars and people below. The girls complained that with the wind they could not hear what people were yelling to them from the roof. One had a cell phone and called 911, but fire rescue said that employees were working on it and did not respond. The girls complained that the workers were pointing and laughing at them – but if they couldn’t hear how would they know? I don’t know if they got a refund, but maybe they should have been charged more for having the ‘thrill’ extended from the normal three minutes to 90 minutes.

I have not planned on going on this ride, and an event like this just reinforces my opinion.

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I came across a great quote today - over at weeklyscheiss. Mamacita talks about seeing the very first Star Wars years ago in a theater. She said they were near the front, and behind them was a row of teenaged boys.

When the movie came on, one of those boys said "This first part is really hard. You have to read words."

She says that's been a catch-phrase in her family ever since.

I think I'll adopt that when ever a problem comes up and somebody doesn't seem to understand what is going on (probably several times a week where I work).