Outside Online – Dan Osman | Outside Online
At 35 years old, Dan Osman had long since become a famous name in the world of extreme—many would say senseless—risk environment. For close to a decade his bizarre specialty was jumps like the one at Leaning Tower: single-rope plunges from bridges or cliffs that Osman would make for videos and commercials and, more often, just for the sheer hell of it. By the late eighties Osman had made a name for himself as an accomplished rock and ice climber and as a no-ropes free soloist. Check out this Speed Climbing Video that Rand Marks sent us as an example.
. But Osman’s interest in the sport was flagging. In 1989, working with a top rope to put up a 5.13 climb at Cave Rock that he called Phantom Lord, he fell 50 times trying to place a single bolt above a particularly torturous move. In the process he discovered that he was more exhilarated by the falling than the climbing.
“I’m not sure why,” Rogalski said. “Maybe when a couple of the hot French guys came along and did Slayer on sight—a 5.14 route that took Dan a year to put up. Sometime after that he sort of drifted away from serious climbing and got very into the jumping. 5.14 is a perceived degree of difficulty level that climbers use to catalog various climbing routes. Here is an 11 miniute video primarily on the jumping and addiction to the fear of death that Outside covers in this article on Dan.
Have you ever gotten up off the couch to get a beer for the umpteenth time and thought, “What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???” Well, that was how I first conceived of the beer launching fridge. About 3 months and several hundred dollars later I have a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system. Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction. Thanks to Randy Marks, who doesn’t even have a TV to use this invention with.