@f00l Mr. LaVikinga used to do this (if it’s where I think it is–somewhere in The SandBox). There’s an ancient video tape of him zipping about with Van Halen playing in the background tucked away in our entertainment center. Said it was pretty weird to look at the instruments and have them say they were flying underwater.
Edit–OK, this ISN’T where I thought it was, but the idea is still the same. Hot shot pilots are still hot shots.
Military pilots can get away w being assholes sometimes. My dad did all kinds of fun stuff - those kids needed to know how to fly after all. Somebody gotta teach 'em.
@f00l Gotta have a uber confident ego if you’re going to be screaming through the skies with thousands of pound of metal & thrust under your ass and be able land it on a pitching deck the size of a football field in a raging storm in the middle of the night. Or at least that’s what the guys all say after the booze starts to flow & they’re all pointing to their watches with their hands. Yep, you guys led quite the life & I know you all miss it. Now zip your fly before your wife & my husband wonder just what in the hell is going on and please tell me you didn’t pee on my bathroom floor.
I love his "brothers."
Trouble, just looking for a place to happen. Every last one of them.
@f00l@LaVikinga when I lived in the Hampton Rds area of VA, I was on the James River on a “tall ship” once when very early in the morning a military plane flew UNDER the James River Bridge (and so totally against the rules).
Because it was WWII, people in the service could get away with a lot. My Dad was a flight instruction more or less as his first assignment after he got his license. So he and the kids he worked with flew under a lot of bridges. Why? It was fun.
AFAIK there were no major mishaps.
Every so often some bigwig would call the base commander to complain about the pilots and the stunts. The base commander would say “I’ll have a talk with them”. The gist of the talk was always “So-and-so called to complain, so lay off that direction and find someone else to annoy for a few weeks, ok?”
@f00l@LaVikinga@Kidsandliz This reminds me of a story I heard, which I can’t find any reference to right now so might not be true or maybe was from a movie or something, about some pilots flying their fighters too low in a desert valley. One time their flight killed some sheep on the ground. The shepherd was an old guy who’d fought in the Yugoslav resistance during World War II, and had shot down planes during the war using just his rifle. The next time the planes came through he shot at them and landed a few hits. He was arrested, and at his trial explained about them killing his sheep. The pilots insisted they were thousands of feet up and hadn’t done anything wrong. The defense attorney asked how the bullets had entered their planes from above, then, if they had been as high as they’d claimed. They were flying so low the shepherd was actually above them on the side of the valley and was shooting down at them. The jury acquitted the shepherd. Again, I don’t remember where I heard this and can’t find any mention of it, so I don’t know if it’s something that actually happened.
It isn’t even a guess. My elevation is just over 1000 feet. Although I live in a city that’s sea level, I live outside of town (used to be outside the city limits, but they moved them, dammit), and it’s a pretty steep rise. It means that Spring arrives at my house about two weeks after it shows up in town. I can tell what will bloom by what’s bloomed in town. It’s fun to see it in action, just as if there were actual rules governing nature, and the climate and all.
About 830, right now. I miss when I lived in Colorado. I was always tracking elevation, making notes, being an insufferable nerd. Also, any time I travel, I could hold my breath forever.
@KDemo Mount Hood’s Timberline lodge at 6,000 feet. I did take the first chairlift up and back down but never got off, so I guess I never had my feet on terra firma up there.
@huja Same here Pikes Peak, although the tallest one I have walked up is when I worked in Germany (for DoDDS outdoor program), the Watzmann, which is 8901’
@huja 1614 feet at this “mountain” that was next to the island I lived on that depending on where you lived it was either 6 feet above sea level or 60. Sometimes the 6 feet turned into zero feet, or -2 feet depending on the tides.
Interesting question. In long ago days, driving a car with a carburetor tuned for sea level, I drove from CA to CO (Denver, to be specific), and was reminded that both the car and I needed far more oxygen than was available. I think the top elevation was about 11k or 12k , but after 10k, that poor old muscle car was really struggling. We made it to the top, and back down, but it was a memorable experience. I ended up with altitude sickness while living there, and was glad to return to SoCal and sea level a year later (and with a different car, I might add).
Truthfully, I think I’d already had the carburetor adjusted, but not for the altitude we reached. More excitement than I ever want to have again, thanks.
@huja For my 45th birthday we visited my (younger) brother and his wife who lived outside Telluride, CO at about 9500 feet. On my birthday, his wife took me and my wife on a walk further up the mountain outside their front door. We got up to about 11,000 feet.
@huja Around 12,300’ at the top of Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix/Mont Blanc, France. Though it may have been higher when skiing at Arapahoe Basin in Colorado.
@jqubed I’ve been there also. I even have 8mm movies of us there in the early 60’s.
I’ve also been through Denver area & the ‘high plains’ of New Mexico, driving up to some peak there (can’t remember the name of it). The Ford RV we had drove like crap at high altitudes.
@f00l Yes, in Denver. This happens more than you’d expect. It wasn’t severe, and I was lucky to work in a field where someone else paid for the move there, and the move back to SoCal.
When I’ve gone climbing, there was always an enforced period of rest at a given altitude first. When I went up past St Mary’s glacier after 1 week at altitude, we had to stop and rest like every 30 steps. After 2 weeks, we only stopped to rest tw or three times total?
I should mention what we were kids and quite active, so aside from thin air and altitude, the climb was not a physical challenge in the way it would be now.
@huja
Do some people simply not adapt properly? Is it genetic? When I’ve been at Denver altitudes, I never even noticed unless I went for a run or something.
Last summer in Santa Fe at around 7000’ I went jogging and didn’t notice much altitude effect - but then I was jogging pretty damned slow. Like slower than a turtle.
About 650’. Use to be seabed once. Them a dinosaur strip club - after hours place.
Highest ever IRL
About 12000-13000 in Colorado. Something like that. Top of St Mary’s Glacier near Idaho Falls.
Also some way up Mt Blance in France. Not that near the summit, not that far down from it either. 10000’-11000’? Maybe.
Higher than that in a 747 from London to JFK and also and some other shitty charter aircraft that had to dump fuel and return to Oahu cause the landing gear wouldn’t come up but we finally made it to Guam anyway.
Higher than that thank you thank you New York City and the delights you offered me once upon a time.
When my wife and I lived in Norway, her parents came over and we took a two-week trip around the country. When we were driving around the fjords, we stopped at a cute little restaurant for lunch. My father-in-law, who was an avid mountain climber and usually took his vacations in the Sierra Nevada or Swiss Alps, asked the waitress what the elevation was there. She looked out the window down at the fjord, turned back to him, and said “About three meters.” That was twenty-one years ago and it still makes me laugh. I miss my father-in-law.
@RiotDemon We were in Oslo at Hegdehougsvn. 36C on the top floor. We could see Holmenkollen from our living room window. If we went out on our balcony and peeked around the building we could see the king’s house and Oslofjord. It was way more than we could afford but we didn’t realize it at first and then we didn’t want to move. One of the guys from A-ha lived in the apartment next to us.
@RiotDemon We were there for a year and a day. We would have come home a few months sooner but then I would have had to pay US income tax on top of the Norwegian income tax on my Norwegian income.
6050’ At work anyway. I live about 500’ lower at 5500’ Work takes me to places over 10000’ You know if you count the total height of Mauna Kea on big island, Hawaii, (the part below the water line) it is taller than Mt Everest. Over 33000’ 13800’ above sea level.
@jqubed You are close, very close. But, Mauna Kea is the next island over from me. I just pop in every once in a while these days. I’m mostly a mainland observer now.
El Paso’s about 3,800 feet, but I live quite a ways up the slope of the mountain so I’d guess my place is a bit over 4,000ft. When you asked this question, I was at sea level, on a cruise ship.
/giphy How high?
@2many2no
For the below sea level send O2, shouldn’t that be send scuba gear?
@Kidsandliz Maybe they’re in a submarine? Or secret undersea base/lair?
@Kidsandliz
/giphy Death Valley Days
@f00l Mr. LaVikinga used to do this (if it’s where I think it is–somewhere in The SandBox). There’s an ancient video tape of him zipping about with Van Halen playing in the background tucked away in our entertainment center. Said it was pretty weird to look at the instruments and have them say they were flying underwater.
Edit–OK, this ISN’T where I thought it was, but the idea is still the same. Hot shot pilots are still hot shots.
@LaVikinga
Military pilots can get away w being assholes sometimes. My dad did all kinds of fun stuff - those kids needed to know how to fly after all. Somebody gotta teach 'em.
@f00l Gotta have a uber confident ego if you’re going to be screaming through the skies with thousands of pound of metal & thrust under your ass and be able land it on a pitching deck the size of a football field in a raging storm in the middle of the night. Or at least that’s what the guys all say after the booze starts to flow & they’re all pointing to their watches with their hands.
Yep, you guys led quite the life & I know you all miss it. Now zip your fly before your wife & my husband wonder just what in the hell is going on and please tell me you didn’t pee on my bathroom floor.
I love his "brothers."
Trouble, just looking for a place to happen. Every last one of them.
@jqubed OR maybe in one of those very expensive resort underwater hotel rooms?
@f00l @LaVikinga when I lived in the Hampton Rds area of VA, I was on the James River on a “tall ship” once when very early in the morning a military plane flew UNDER the James River Bridge (and so totally against the rules).
@LaVikinga
My Dad was Army Air Corps in WWII.
He had infinite admiration for the Navy pilots who flew off carriers. He thought that an unbelievable skill
@Kidsandliz
Because it was WWII, people in the service could get away with a lot. My Dad was a flight instruction more or less as his first assignment after he got his license. So he and the kids he worked with flew under a lot of bridges. Why? It was fun.
AFAIK there were no major mishaps.
Every so often some bigwig would call the base commander to complain about the pilots and the stunts. The base commander would say “I’ll have a talk with them”. The gist of the talk was always “So-and-so called to complain, so lay off that direction and find someone else to annoy for a few weeks, ok?”
@f00l @LaVikinga @Kidsandliz This reminds me of a story I heard, which I can’t find any reference to right now so might not be true or maybe was from a movie or something, about some pilots flying their fighters too low in a desert valley. One time their flight killed some sheep on the ground. The shepherd was an old guy who’d fought in the Yugoslav resistance during World War II, and had shot down planes during the war using just his rifle. The next time the planes came through he shot at them and landed a few hits. He was arrested, and at his trial explained about them killing his sheep. The pilots insisted they were thousands of feet up and hadn’t done anything wrong. The defense attorney asked how the bullets had entered their planes from above, then, if they had been as high as they’d claimed. They were flying so low the shepherd was actually above them on the side of the valley and was shooting down at them. The jury acquitted the shepherd. Again, I don’t remember where I heard this and can’t find any mention of it, so I don’t know if it’s something that actually happened.
Depends on who you buy your weed from.
When am I not high as fuck???
(current elevation is 980 feet)
@Pavlov
You’re sober compared to me right now. I promise.
Whatever this shit is, its damned good. Neat.
@f00l And now I’ve found another sipping whiskey to add to the Gotta Try This list.
@f00l
Any clue I was seriously drunk when I uploaded that pic? Hmmm.
@f00l I had no idea.
Wouldn’t locations below sea level have more than enough oxygen, due to having atmospheric pressure higher than normal?
@lljk
Below sea level = under water in this context.
It isn’t even a guess. My elevation is just over 1000 feet. Although I live in a city that’s sea level, I live outside of town (used to be outside the city limits, but they moved them, dammit), and it’s a pretty steep rise. It means that Spring arrives at my house about two weeks after it shows up in town. I can tell what will bloom by what’s bloomed in town. It’s fun to see it in action, just as if there were actual rules governing nature, and the climate and all.
@Shrdlu
Naw. You can’t mean that. That would be silly.
22 feet
@uraqtc me too.
803 feet, unless I sit up
6.562′
I am doomed.
@mfladd - Not doomed if you live in a submarine. No worries.
@mfladd
Sounds like the Eastern Shore.
My niece and nephew still live. So you have no excuse to fail at continuing to live.
@KDemo No worries?
@mfladd
@mfladd - No worries.
504 feet at the edge of the driveway.
68 feet. Well, adding the height of my floor and chair above the ground outside, about 75.
This site will supposedly tell you yours: http://veloroutes.org/elevation/
1000 feet higher than AWESOME
/giphy dealwithit
Or, uh, I guess, about 650-700ft.
My best guess was ~4000 feet off.
I am a bad guesser.
235 feet. Looked it up in the past. I’ve been higher.
@KDemo I have no doubt.
675 ft
594 feet
50 feet.
4500 feet
My phone says I am 137 feet, but I think I am lower.
@conandlibrarian well then cheer up!
looks like I guessed wrong, 1100’
1760
Actually, how high is an ounce of endo?
Pretty easy to guess since I’m a ten minute walk to the beach.
@huja GPS says 108 feet above sea level. Better haul ass if there is a Tsunami!
@huja Me too. I live on a cliff above the ocean (no, not with a view). It’s maybe 120 feet up?
/giphy I’m high as a kite
@SSteve looks like sea level to me
1039 m
About 830, right now. I miss when I lived in Colorado. I was always tracking elevation, making notes, being an insufferable nerd. Also, any time I travel, I could hold my breath forever.
Currently in South Lake Tahoe and the elevation is over 6,000 feet.
Related question . . . what’s the highest elevation where you’ve stood on terra firma?
@huja - Possibly Donner Pass - 1,883′
@KDemo Mount Hood’s Timberline lodge at 6,000 feet. I did take the first chairlift up and back down but never got off, so I guess I never had my feet on terra firma up there.
@KDemo - Correction - Donner Pass - 7,057′
@KDemo Did you get hungry?
@jqubed - It was weird. We had a party, but people kept disappearing.
@huja Whatever Mt Mitchell is at the base of the observation tower, or is Tuckerman Ravine higher?
@huja Quito, Ecuador 9,350 ft
with Pichincha Volcano spewing ash
@huja Pikes Peak, 14,115 feet above MSL. Next time, I’m riding my bike up.
@huja Same here Pikes Peak, although the tallest one I have walked up is when I worked in Germany (for DoDDS outdoor program), the Watzmann, which is 8901’
@huja 1614 feet at this “mountain” that was next to the island I lived on that depending on where you lived it was either 6 feet above sea level or 60. Sometimes the 6 feet turned into zero feet, or -2 feet depending on the tides.
Interesting question. In long ago days, driving a car with a carburetor tuned for sea level, I drove from CA to CO (Denver, to be specific), and was reminded that both the car and I needed far more oxygen than was available. I think the top elevation was about 11k or 12k , but after 10k, that poor old muscle car was really struggling. We made it to the top, and back down, but it was a memorable experience. I ended up with altitude sickness while living there, and was glad to return to SoCal and sea level a year later (and with a different car, I might add).
Truthfully, I think I’d already had the carburetor adjusted, but not for the altitude we reached. More excitement than I ever want to have again, thanks.
@huja For my 45th birthday we visited my (younger) brother and his wife who lived outside Telluride, CO at about 9500 feet. On my birthday, his wife took me and my wife on a walk further up the mountain outside their front door. We got up to about 11,000 feet.
@huja Around 12,300’ at the top of Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix/Mont Blanc, France. Though it may have been higher when skiing at Arapahoe Basin in Colorado.
@jqubed I’ve been there also. I even have 8mm movies of us there in the early 60’s.
I’ve also been through Denver area & the ‘high plains’ of New Mexico, driving up to some peak there (can’t remember the name of it). The Ford RV we had drove like crap at high altitudes.
@cinoclav I think A-basin is the highest ski resort in the U.S.
@huja It’s Silverton.
@Shrdlu
Altitude sickness in Denver? Or were you higher a lot?
@f00l Yes, in Denver. This happens more than you’d expect. It wasn’t severe, and I was lucky to work in a field where someone else paid for the move there, and the move back to SoCal.
@Shrdlu I’ve had altitude issues in Denver/Boulder before as well.
@huja
@shrdlu
What does mild altitude sickness feel like?
When I’ve gone climbing, there was always an enforced period of rest at a given altitude first. When I went up past St Mary’s glacier after 1 week at altitude, we had to stop and rest like every 30 steps. After 2 weeks, we only stopped to rest tw or three times total?
I should mention what we were kids and quite active, so aside from thin air and altitude, the climb was not a physical challenge in the way it would be now.
@f00l Feels like a mild hangover at Denver altitude. Feels like a monster hangover at 12k+ feet.
@huja
Do some people simply not adapt properly? Is it genetic? When I’ve been at Denver altitudes, I never even noticed unless I went for a run or something.
Last summer in Santa Fe at around 7000’ I went jogging and didn’t notice much altitude effect - but then I was jogging pretty damned slow. Like slower than a turtle.
@f00l All of the above.
About 470 feet.
High as a kite. Quite deliberately. Drunk as a skunk and flying pretty.
@f00l
Current lemme see
About 650’. Use to be seabed once. Them a dinosaur strip club - after hours place.
Highest ever IRL
About 12000-13000 in Colorado. Something like that. Top of St Mary’s Glacier near Idaho Falls.
Also some way up Mt Blance in France. Not that near the summit, not that far down from it either. 10000’-11000’? Maybe.
Higher than that in a 747 from London to JFK and also and some other shitty charter aircraft that had to dump fuel and return to Oahu cause the landing gear wouldn’t come up but we finally made it to Guam anyway.
Higher than that thank you thank you New York City and the delights you offered me once upon a time.
Higher and higher
Jus’ sayin’
Thanks Bonnie
@f00l
@cranky1950
Get some Higher Ground there.
@f00l
Sometimes, whatever the elevation I might want some Shelter.
According to @baqui63’s link above, I’m 22 feet. I think my water in my well starts at less than 10 though.
@RiotDemon
Love Florida but gotta admit it’s kinda a glorified expensive sandbar.
@RiotDemon
More Florida info
I’ll be at GRR later today, which they say is at 794′.
225 feet over here in New Hampshire!
@ragingredd Please go climb Mount Washington and report back.
@ragingredd @cinoclav
Also don’t forget to put one of those “This car climbed Mount Washington” stickers on.
Lord, I hate those.
Will be on k2 in a brief smoke up
“Hey, Siri, what’s my elevation right now?”
Apparently, my top floor apartment on top of a hill is only 144 feet above sea level.
8 feet in Florida. Yes, we fear global warming.
@olperfesser of its only a little, my house might become a water front property.
I guessed that I was over 1000’. Turns out I’m at 983’. I guessed wrong!
@Breakmedown I guessed wrong too. I selected below sea level and not as a joke either.
Roughly 80 feet.
750 feet, in the foothills of the Coast Range, overlooking the Columbia River.
@macromeh
We are a bit higher up (~1250), but also near the Columbia.
When my wife and I lived in Norway, her parents came over and we took a two-week trip around the country. When we were driving around the fjords, we stopped at a cute little restaurant for lunch. My father-in-law, who was an avid mountain climber and usually took his vacations in the Sierra Nevada or Swiss Alps, asked the waitress what the elevation was there. She looked out the window down at the fjord, turned back to him, and said “About three meters.” That was twenty-one years ago and it still makes me laugh. I miss my father-in-law.
@SSteve which part did you live? I was off the west coast.
@RiotDemon We were in Oslo at Hegdehougsvn. 36C on the top floor. We could see Holmenkollen from our living room window. If we went out on our balcony and peeked around the building we could see the king’s house and Oslofjord. It was way more than we could afford but we didn’t realize it at first and then we didn’t want to move. One of the guys from A-ha lived in the apartment next to us.
@SSteve woohoo!
/youtube a-ha take on me
/youtube frog leap studios take on me
@SSteve did you live there long?
@RiotDemon We were there for a year and a day. We would have come home a few months sooner but then I would have had to pay US income tax on top of the Norwegian income tax on my Norwegian income.
6050’ At work anyway. I live about 500’ lower at 5500’ Work takes me to places over 10000’ You know if you count the total height of Mauna Kea on big island, Hawaii, (the part below the water line) it is taller than Mt Everest. Over 33000’ 13800’ above sea level.
@accelerator
Whatever it is you do, you win my prize for Best Job.
@f00l I think someone on here works at the Mauna Kea observatory? @accelerator might be that person?
@jqubed You are close, very close. But, Mauna Kea is the next island over from me. I just pop in every once in a while these days. I’m mostly a mainland observer now.
383’ feet at home. http://www.whatismyelevation.com/
347’
El Paso’s about 3,800 feet, but I live quite a ways up the slope of the mountain so I’d guess my place is a bit over 4,000ft. When you asked this question, I was at sea level, on a cruise ship.
3,754
Guess’n