Sunday, February 22, 2009

Always looking for an excuse to do something stupid (for charity)



I've done my share of stupid things. I once took Mikkena river rafting rafting on the Provo River during spring run-off. In high school I continued to drive my van for a month after the break lines were cut. But now that I've gotten a little older I confine all (most) (OK some) of my risk taking to charity. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to, um, jump into a frozen lake to support the special Olympics of Utah. I put together a plunge team of troubled youth (it seemed to fit), and raised $300 in sponsorships.




The location was the beautiful, pristine, and tropical Utah lake. I don't know many people that want to swim in Utah Lake when it's 90 degrees out, so I was surprised by the amount of people who wanted to jump into it when it was frozen. After they cut a hole in the ice I could see that it was as disgusting as ever. I don't know why I was surprised by the nastiness. I guess I expected the water to be less nasty because it was so cold. But no, there it was nasty and frozen. I was kind of hungry so my plan was to jump in with my mouth open and just see what happened.


This is a shot of the "maybe this isn't such a good idea" thought I get sometimes. But I ignored it and it went away like it always does.


I'm not breathing in this picture, that didn't start again for another minute or so.





2/3rds of my brain froze, so I think I'm missing some memories, but suddenly I had a doughnut in my hand. I wanted to meet the genius who thought it was a good idea to hand the plungers a doughnut while they were still dripping with pond scum. But after I ate the little bacteria-infested crud-soaked delicious morsel I understood. MMMMMM Good!
Thanks for everyone who sponsored me, especially Stacie for the last-minute pull-through so we could meet our goal! Without you, my stupidity wouldn't have had a cause. I think we should have more of these. I'm thinking dodging traffic for the homeless, or cliff jumping for cancer or something like that.