Up was apparently not scientifically accurate

Well, it looks like for all intensive purposes that the entire balloon boy incident was a hoax and not a very well thought out one at that. Let me put on both my scientist and con artist hats to explain just where they went wrong.

First off, from a basic science perspective there is no way that balloon would have ever gotten off the ground (much less to 7,000 feet) with a six year old inside. As anyone who watches Mythbusters knows the amount of helium balloons required to lift a small child into the air roughly fills up an airplane hanger. There just isn’t enough displacement to lift that much weight. Now, while watching the highlights on Thursday I did not have a sense of scale until they showed it landing. Given that it was the size of a backyard trampoline and flimsily constructed at that it made even the concept of it being real very doubtful.

I will say the kid being scared and hiding to be a pretty decent story. It makes sense as to what a six year old would do. He’d accidentally untie the balloon, get nervous and hide. Except that they filmed it taking off, which doesn’t tie into an “accident”. Or the fact that the attic in the garage had no apparent ladder in which a kid could reach it. Whatever happened to hiding under the bed or in the closet? That would have worked at least for a few hours.

Then there is the mistake of trying a cry wolf defense when you were already on Wife Swap as well as some viral videos. That immediately calls your motives into question. You can’t try to pull off a con when everyone already assumes that you are an attention whore. There were questions regarding the reality of this from the beginning just because they were on reality tv.

Finally, and the biggest mistake of them all, is that you do not hinge the entire con on a six year old named Falcon. (Seriously, if you are going with that name spell it Falken in honor of War Games.) Do you trust a six year old to stick to a story with hundreds of cameras in front of his face? Or when the morning shows have him talking at four or five in the morning because you are in Denver? Of course the kid forgot what he was supposed to say. That is what kids do. Have you ever seen a grade school play? Plus, isn’t there something ethically wrong about dragging your kids in front of the camera crews less than 12 hours after all this drama unfolded? Wouldn’t you as a parent want to keep them off camera for at least a little while and wait a week to be on Dateline?

Oh well, the parents are looking at jail time and no hope for their reality show. See, this is what happens when you try desperately for your own show. They should have just gone for the tried and true method: attempt to date Flavor Flav and be interesting enough to warrant your own show.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Richard Thompson “Live from Austin, TX”
2) Fionn Regan “The End of History”
3) Beausoleil “La Danse de la Vie”
4) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”
5) Cowboy Junkies “At the End of Paths Taken”

Up, up and away

I have reached the point in my career where I am sent on business trips. Not overnight trips mind you, I yet have reached hotel room status, but still a trip there and back is now part of my job criteria. Outside of allowing me to see things that I might otherwise not see (mainly Sbarros at various airports) it does create a very strange disconnect from what is going on in the rest of the world.

I’ll explain with today’s big news story. When I made it to the airport for my flight home this afternoon I saw a television turned to CNN with a Breaking News logo and something that looked very similar to a UFO. I was thrilled that a UFO invasion would be considered breaking news but rather surprised that CNN didn’t already have graphics premade with “Aliens Attack!” I look at it and quickly find out the a six year old has floated away in a helium balloon and am a combination of surprised, amused and concerned about the little guy’s well being.

So I fly out and as I make my way out of the terminal after landing I make sure to try to find a television. The image of something falling from the balloon took most of the humor out of the situation. The story was now somber and dire. It is not the way you wanted that story to end.

I drove home dealing with crappy traffic due to the rain and when I get to my apartment I flip on CNN to get the update only to find that the kid was never in the balloon. He had been hiding in the garage because he was scared that he would get in trouble for releasing the balloon from the parents’ backyard. This was a great relief because no one wants to see a six year old hurt and it raises fun questions like what did this cost law enforcement and who builds a flying saucer balloon and keeps in the backyard in plain reach of small children anyway?

Thanks to the internet I was able to find out just who. Apparently the family had appeared on Wife Swap: the reality show that isn’t nearly as dirty as it sounds. It also mainly exists to highlight the most unstable families in America as we get to see the worst parenting techniques imaginable. So the next time you see a madcap character on a reality show remember that they might be building their own spaceship in their backyard.

For the record though, I still feel sorry for the little guy who is going to get yelled at for starting all of this. I remember when I was his age and my robot got loose in the neighborhood and destroyed several garages and scared more than a few dogs before it was stopped. Sure, it probably wasn’t wise to allow a six year old to equip flamethrowers to a machine that had a high probability of becoming sentinent but how is a kid every supposed to learn unless he makes mistakes? It wasn’t my fault that I got the sign backwards in the source code.

Enjoy the weekend everybody. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.