So, you say you are a down-to-earth person?

[digitS']

View this:

Bird's Eye View Of 1 World Trade Center's New Spire (click)

Go ahead, then click full screen. Might want to use a little windex on your monitor first and put your glasses on .

Steve
#vertigo

 

[canesisters]

Did you notice that the 'rail' the guy with the crowbar is leaning against is just cables???!!!!??!!

I have to call a neighbor to change the spotlight bulbs in the peak of my barn's roof....

 

[ninnymary]

I imagine there's only a handful of people who would take that job!

Mary

 

[digitS']

I am not sure what it would be like.

When I first started working on top the greenhouse where I used to be employed, I was in a little bit of a panic. Very quickly, I realized that I was okay.

I'm not very coordinated. I have big feet and hands. It probably helped that it wasn't all that high and it was easy for me to see the ground - right thru the glass . . !

With my new found confidence, I went on to "bouldering." That's just rock climbing without the equipment. That was a wonderful experience!

I lived within a short walk from cliffs which were ideal for that sort of thing. Then, altho' I'd already had a few years of problems, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. That was the end of my bouldering - particularly since I began to have more problems with the disease.

What I might have problems with is that I'm given to 2nd guessing what I'm up to and false starts. An iron worker could probably get away with only so many "wait a minute" moments. (As he turned back to grab the hammer, his foot slipped and he disappeared over the edge . . .)

digitS'

 

[thistlebloom]

Wow. I've never been a height lover, and the only time I want to see cars the size of ants is when actual ants are driving them.

Back in the day dh and I use to go bouldering too Steve! Such fun,....., maybe what I remember as bouldering is not technically the real thing. We climbed huge piles of boulders, jumping gaps and scrambling up and down faces, but nothing too vertical. Back when knees actually functioned....

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

my grandfather used to do that crazy stuff for a living down in Mass as part of the Saugus Iron Workers till he retired in the 80's. i certainly know i didn't get my fear of heights from him!

 

[digitS']

I think we may all be afraid of heights, naturally.

Did you know that you can put a baby that knows how to crawl on a glass table and the baby will be afraid to move?

Focus is important. I learned to work on the glass. When I went out to climb rocks, I would focus very closely on the rocks (and plants) right in front of my nose. It was sometimes difficult to focus on the rock right in front of my toes . . . but, I was still fairly skinny and fairly strong in the upper body.

Then, I'd get somewhere secure, turn around, and look out on the world! Wonderful contrast in perspective!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

True and real VERTIGO.

Hard to describe what it is to someone who does not have it.

My eye doctors did a lot of testing. A lot. They even used calipers and levels. Using those they decided I have a minimal unnoticed sort of cross eyes that my eye muscles automatically compensate for. I can actually judge distance much better than normal because I possibly feel the eye muscles being used to focus together on an object. So, oh this was a couple years ago, the eye doctors had me do a full head scan in the MRI. (Actually I think they wanted an MRI of a half Neanderthal brain...). Yea, it showed a skeletal anomaly, very slight, of how my eyes are directed. They described it in 15 syllable words so I just said, uh huh, will I live? Eyes aim outward a few percent more than normal from the shape of the sockets. See what happens when your mother carries a lot of Neanderthal genes? Lol!

Anyhow, vertigo. Let me describe a normal situation that is horizontal. The concept is the same except it is vertical with heights. Next time you are a passenger in a car on a wide open highway, especially if there are distant hills, look out the window at the hills in the distance. Notice how nearby fence posts or trees whiz right on by, hardly even noticed. Next, while watching the distant hills, notice how things such as a building a couple hundred feet away ooze on by, barely noted while watching those distant hills.

Next, change your focus to a mid distant thing such as a farmhouse. Those nearby fence posts suddenly zoom past more noticeably.

Now try shifting your focus from each distance to another to see as much as you can, close, mid, and far. Notice it does not feel very good after awhile?

Moving around on something like a fire escape does a similar thing to me. It is not that twisty spirally effect that was used on some Hitchcock movie. The near to my eyes feet, and the farther away ground have different apparent motions.

In that situation I have to focus only close. It is not a fear of heights so much as, ooph, things are geometrically enhanced. Oh, I have a solid respect for heights like anyone else, just, add that tendency to have that visual vertigo. I kind of felt it watching that video, even though with the wide angle view most distances were in focus, and it diminished it some, but the camera view slowly moved, or seemed to.

 

[MontyJ]

My job puts me in some high places now and then, but nothing like that. When you are working at height, you concentrate on what you are doing and almost forget how high you are...almost. It's always there in the back of your mind. Those guys are earning their paycheck.