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Was it worth it? You bet your life it was. Ponzi and I were totally psyched to ride on the G-Force One, which is a specially modified aircraft that provides a zero gravity experience. Flying and floating around is just a feeling that is hard to describe, other than to say WOW! Even iJustine loved every second of it.

Your flight begins like any other commercial flight. You taxi out to the runway and await permission to take off. Once granted, the captain flies out for about a half an hour to the airspace that the FAA has designated as our playground for the day. About the time the captain of a commercial flight would be turning off the seatbelt sign, you are given the okay to unbuckle your seatbelt and truly “move about the cabin”. Your team leader will guide you to the floating area and instruct you to lay on the padded floor to prepare for the first parabola.

After a few moments of feeling pressed gently into the floor as you experience 1.8g’s, the Flight Director will call out “Martian 1” and you begin to feel lighter. Okay, so you haven’t done a pushup since Junior High, but suddenly it doesn’t seem that difficult – even if you are only using one finger. Between parabolas you assume the prone position on the floor as you mentally prepare what you want to do on the next parabola. Then you hear “Lunar 1” and jump up excitedly to see what this will feel like.

“ZERO-G.” It’s like nothing on Earth. Fly like Superman; drink a bubble of water floating by you; walk up the side of the plane; let your imagination stretch.

The first time we all floated up into the air, you can hear the screams and exclamations. People couldn’t begin to believe what they were doing, flying around that way. We thought we knew what to expect, but we were so completely wrong. After my first time, I learned not to push off. You’ll go skyrocketing around. I just let myself float up and away after that.

It was so unreal, almost like being on a roller coaster with no harness. By our third time ‘up’, no one was screaming anymore. All you could hear was shouts of how amazing it was, and laughter. By the fourth time, Ponzi was doing flips in mid-air and yelling out “awesome!” over and over. iJustine had a small, stuffed ostrich with her. She proved once and for all that ostriches DO, in fact, fly. My friend Peter Ha of Crunchgear had some sage words: “I can’t even describe it. It’s just amazing!!!”. I have to agree.

Ponzi tried to organize everyone to get together and hold hands. Then we would all go up in the air at the same time, and attempt to look like we were just jumping out of an airplane together. Everyone loved the idea so much, the crew helped us to do something really cool together. I had a water bottle, that had the cap nearly off. With no gravity, the water came out in spurts, and looked like these very cool bubbles.

Towards the end, I did a flip finally. I freaked out. I mean, seriously. I did a complete 360! It was just unreal. At the end, they had us all lay down on our stomachs in one line, and link arms. We pushed off all together, and the crew took some excellent pictures of us. Then next ‘lift off’ was all of us doing the Superman pose! I always knew I was supposed to be a super hero. And of course, someone busted out singing “I believe I can fly”.

What an amazing experience this was. I know I speak for us all when I say that it was life-changing, and something I am not ever going to forget. Thanks, Symantec!

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