Bert, The World’s Highest Ranking Law-enforcement Camel

After reading countless blog posts on planet about Download Day and a chance to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, I admit, I got a bit of nostalgic and curious.  So, I thought I’d write a bit of different post than the ones we’ve read so far…

To start, how cool would it be to add this record to our list of cool things done by the community?  Since I’ve been working at Mozilla, I’ve gotten to participate or witness Firefox Flicks (the very tale end of it), the Firefox Crop Circle, and Operation Firefox.  All were such cool community-driven ideas.  This is just one more to add to the list.

But here is why I felt nostalgic:

The last time I paged through a GBWR was probably in the 4th grade (sometime in the late 1980s), waiting at the library for my mom to pick me and my brother up after school finished.  At the time, there really wasn’t a more sought after book to page through for a young guy like me.  The pictures alone were awesome!  I’d go straight to the page which showed Moses Malone palming a basketball and almost slam dunking without jumping…just standing.  There was the woman with the longest finger nails in the world.  Then, there was the Mongolian man who stood 7′9″ tall.  And, then the World’s Largest Pizza.  Does anyone else remember any others?  Please comment with some pictures!

All the nostalgia, got me thinking…what’s today’s book look like?  And, who’s going to be our company in the present day GBWR?  Without trivializing how cool this record will be, I decided to pull out some of the more fun records I could find, very similar to the crazy records on the Download Day site.

You gotta admit, this is some pretty good company:

“The world’s highest ranking law-enforcement camel is Bert, who was accepted as Reserve Deputy Sheriff for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, San Dimas, USA on April 5, 2003 and regularly goes on patrol with his handler Nance Fite (USA).”

“David Huxley pulled a Boeing 747-400, weighing 187 tonnes (184 tons), a distance of 91 m (298.5 ft) in 1 minute and 27.7 seconds on October 15, 1997 at Sydney, Australia. David has now retired from the strongman circuit. He currently owns and runs an event management and public relations company called Tartan Warriors, based in Sydney, Australia.”

“It’s death defying, it’s daunting and it’s downright dangerous. But, England’s John Evans balanced a 159.6 kg (352 lb) Mini on his head for 33 seconds at The London Studios, UK on May 24, 1999.  John’s a gigantic guy. He’s 2 meters tall and weighs in at 155.7 kg (343 lb). But it’s his 60.9cm (24-inch) neck that’s the only part of his body strong enough to take such immense weights.  This big fella has broken 25 records in 11 categories and is going for more.”

“The longest journey on a lawnmower is 23,487.5 km (14,594.5 miles) in 260 consecutive days by America’s Gary Hatter. Hatter started his drive through Portland, Maine, on May 31, 2000 and passed through all 48 continuous US states as well as Canada and Mexico before arriving in Daytona Beach, Florida, on February 14, 2001.”

“A Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by a host of music legends fetched US$2.7 million (then £1.57 million) at a charity auction for Reach Out To Asia at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Doha, Qatar, on November 17, 2005. Stars who signed the guitar included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page and Brian May (all UK). The Reach Out To Asia campaign seeks to support worthy causes around the world, with particular emphasis on the Asian continent.”

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We have to get in this book! This is great!

Please add more records to the comments in this post.  Seriously, what else is out there?  It’d be great to have this post be a catalog of the great world records out there.