What's your biggest fear?

I'm glad that old p.o.s. has been taken down. It was extremely narrow too. I would drive in the middle, taking both lanes. The new bridge is nice and large.

 

Snakes. "Raiders of the Lost Arc" damn near put me in therapy when I was a kid.

 

Tight, confined places. Spelunking off the beaten path didn't go so well. Heights - love to watch the climbing/sky diving/hang gliding videos. But if that plane has plenty of fuel & not on fire - don't think I'm bailing on my own - you'd have to be much bigger, bear hug me & jump. Plane on fire ? - I'll probably be the 1st one out. Riding with someone else driving gives me the sweats at times. Not real keen of wobbly azz lifts.

 

I used to be really afraid of confined spaces (thanks to my older brother and sister trapping me under a coffin-like laminate table when I was a kid) - when I joined the fire department and started doing confined space rescue and blind rescue training, I stopped having issues with it.

I am afraid of jellyfish and flying. I don't like spiders, but I deal with them when Darren isn't around to dispose of them.

 

I don't like heights. That is I don't like heights with perspective, such as looking over a cliff or standing on the edge of a tall building. I am a pilot and love flying and am very comfortable, even in an open cockpit with no doors. I really want to go skydiving, but have no interest in bungee jumping.

To my credit, I did fall over a cliff when I was a kid. I ended up getting a handfull of plants on the way down sloped section that stopped my fall before the vertical drop. If I hadn't, the fall would have killed me.

 

If I can't see the bottom of whatever body of water I'm in this the image that is constantly in my mind. I still swim in lakes and oceans but I'm kinda tense the whole time "waiting for it".

 

I'm guessing that you guys that are afraid of sharks don't have a lot of exposure to them?

They're just fish. They even act just like fish. Hell, I got bit by one once and they still don't bother me (bit in the ass, to boot.)

 

Any tongue action?

 

I don't think they have tongues.

I caught a small reef shark/spinner shark/whatever you want to call them (about three feet long). I was goofing off, holding it up by its tail. Damn thing started thrashing around and swung in and bit my ass. I guess I'm lucky, there was probably a 50% chance that I would have been bitten in the dick.

 

Oh yeah, I'm afraid of eating undercooked chicken. I ate "what the locals ate" while in Asia once (I think it was chicken) and spent the entire 26 hour flight in the shitter. Couldn't even hold down water (it would shoot out of both ends). I even passed the anti shit medicine fast enough that it didn't have a chance to work. I lost almost 20 pounds in a day and at that time, I couldn't afford to lose 5 much less 20 pounds.

I tried getting over the heights deal a couple of times and decided WTF, everyone is afraid of something. This one keeps me off the roof of the house.

 

good thing that didn't effect your riding...imagine going back to hit a corner with your other knee.

 

A midget that's afraid of heights. That's good stuff!

 

I have no qualms about heights, none about flying etc, i just hate climbing ladders.

 

I could just imagine... " uh, Marco, could we run the afternoon session counterclockwise...you know, just because?"

 

That depends on the type of shark. I grew up surfing and surfed Smyrna probably 4-5 times a week in college. Spinners, black tips, they don't worry me. I had a buddy get tagged surfing at the inlet and one week and 20 stitches later he was back out there. It's the 10+ foot tigers and bulls that lurk a few hundred yards or more out from the jetties and great whites elsewhere that freak me out.

Even with Daytona/New Smyrna being the sharkbite capital of the world I don't worry too much about sharks surfing there. Even after a couple incidents when one would show too much curiosity toward me in the lineup or having them schooling fish in knee-deep water between me and the beach while I'm paddling in. Hell, I see sharks damn near every time I'm out there. It's not completely comfortable, but it doesn't haunt me.

It's when I'm out in California, where you almost never hear of incidents with sharks, that I get freaked out. For one, the kelp beds and cold water just make it a little spookier. But when you get tagged there, you can pretty much guarantee it's going to be ugly. Losing a limb in a more lucky attack, but having a pretty good chance of dying... That shit weirds me out pretty good. I've never seen a shark out there with being out there to surf every year since high school, but it's constantly on my mind.

 

Bats.




Nasty little fuckers.

 

Night diving and full moon surfing will mess with your mind. Just remember, if we tasted good to sharks, we'd all be dead because it's not like we are hard to catch.

 

Anything less than a "4" braking marker.

 

The cooling towers at the nuke plant where I worked are concave in shape. The first 350 feet are climbed on an open ladder while facing the tower. Then there is a small (4x6 foot) platform where you unhook from the first ladder and climb the last 200 feet while facing outwards towards free space with the tower to your back. This on an open ladder with nothing but a safety drag.

When you get to the top the walkway is about 18 inches wide but there are hand rails on both sides. When I got up there to do an inspection and supervise the replacement of the flashing lights I found that the steel handrails were mostly rusted off at their bases!!!!

You were supposed to tie off on the handrails but I could just see all three of us going over at once all tied to the same handrail. The next year we replaced the handrails. :up: