Almost Made It, Frenchie...

So, this guy decided that his calling in life is to row across the ocean from Massachusetts to France. Alright. Not my cup of tea, but I guess everyone needs a hobby. Personally, I never understood these people who decide that they need to do stupid things when no one really called for it. You see, we've come up with better systems of ocean travel than the row boat: sails, engines, planes. All of these are much more efficient ways to get to France. There is no need to row the Atlantic - you're just spitting in the face of progress. Girard is a mechanical engineer, he should be spending his time working on technology to move society ahead, not set us back 5 or 6 inventions. Also, he's not even the first guy to try this: some guy already did it in 2004, the new guy just wanted to do it faster. So not only is this idea not smart, it's not even original. But, I digress...

He tried this before a couple years ago and made it almost 50 whole miles before he called in the Coast Guard to come and save him. Not to be undone by his epic failure, he tried again 10 days ago and this time he made it 150 miles... before calling the Coast Guard to come and save his ass again. He told the Coast Guard that he didn't have any equipment problems and the sea was calm, he just became tired of rowing. Did no one telling him that rowing across the Atlantic Ocean would require quite a bit of... you know, rowing? It's not like he was trying to row across the Charles River - the ocean is quite large.

In his defense, his second attempt was wildly more successful than his first, as he tripled his effort from the first time around. But, it should be pointed out, he still missed his goal by about 95%. I guess that's better than going 95% of the way and then calling for help. Had that happened, he might be tempted to try again; as of right now he says that he's done. I think the best way to convince him to stay on shore next time is to tell him that the Coast Guard has better things to do and won't be coming to his rescue next time. That'll make him think twice.

I could be swayed into letting him try again, though, provided his sponsors pay the rescue fee. The 5 hour search to find this guy cost about $15,000 (as you can imagine, helicopter fuel is expensive). If he has to keep shelling that out every time he tries then that could be a nice economic stimulus for the state.

Now, to wrap up Video Week and in honor of our French friend, here's some classic Monty Python: