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This is The Way. Once upon a time a young teen-aged me climbed up the side of a stack of drying lumber on a dare, probably about twenty feet high, perhaps higher. It was an easy climb, with plenty of room for my feet between the layers of lumber, and I quickly ascended almost to the top. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't thinking at all about the properties of the pile that I was climbing, and so when the shim that my right hand had grabbed onto came right out of the side of the pile thanks to all of the force I had just exerted on it, I had nowhere to go but down. I had exactly enough time on the way down to think to myself, "oh, shit," and that I should break my fall in exactly this way before I hit, and I did so in an instant. I didn't do it perfectly, because my back hurt like Hell for the next couple of days, but I was otherwise unharmed.
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