I'm sorry I stole your avatar

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by lightning_8669
You for got Mamoth Cave! Not exactly a roadside attraction but well worth the trip.

But go someplace in Tennessee and see if you can avoid a bill board for Ruby Falls. Cripes, what an irritant.

Hi Lightning

Like the Potent Punster, Don, I like the avatar. You feel the need to pull your mouse to a protection zone to avoid a hit.

The heading "Stands under Clouds" has a nice Native American ethnicity to it also.

Here's another one for you:

"Lies under Oats"

Joe

Good one

This past weekend I was at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds for an Indy Car race. (good race even if the temp outside was only 50 F with 25mph winds, yuk). The fair puts up billboards every year to get people to show up and the theme is based on puns. Gets to be a bit much sometimes but some of them are kind of "cute". The only one I can remember off hand is "Come to the fair and smell our Dairy Air". The fair still attracts a fair amount of cows and pigs. Of course they have livestock at the fair too.

As for the "native American" ring I'm actually decended from German/Polish/French ancestory. I'm "native" in that I was born in the States. A good thing 'cause I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have "let" me in. The beauty of the nation is the etnic mix (Milwaukee, the "City of Festivals" has about 8 ethnic festivals each summer) and I guess I'm no exception. A German/Polish/French mutt driving a Japanese car designed by an Italian rolling on British tires.

What kind of avatar would cover that?

[Aredubjay]

Lightning, I thought about you when leaving Memphis yesterday. You wouldn't have made it out alive! It was EVERYWHERE! Even I had some close calls, so, you would've probably been in for some BIG fireworks, daddy.

They are calling for thunder storms around here tonight. Guess I won't be going golfing (gonna have to find some other way to embarrass myself)

Heard a story a couple of weeks ago about a guy who was driving his car and got tagged. Blew out the tires and all the windows. He was unhurt although he was sitting a bit higher in the seat I'm sure.

The house spouse was talking last week about putting a flag pole up in the front yard. I just gave her a look and shook my head. Then I went to refresh my memory about how much life insurance I had to see if I could find her motive. As soon as I canceled a couple of policies she forgot about the flag pole.

[Aredubjay]

I actually have a friend who's survived, not one, but two, direct strikes. He scoffs at those statistics that say, "you have a better chance of being hit by lightning, than . . ."

My electronics instructor (a person who should NOT play with electricity) would argue (not that your friend would agree) that he didn't get struck by lightning but suffered a "near miss". That what happened to him was he was very close to a strike and the electrons in his body were accelerated. Sort of magnatized him. He ran the calculations for electricity to overcome the resistance of the atmosphere and calculated a small bolt would generate something like 90,000 AMPs. 1/10 of an AMP across the heart can kill. His calculations indicated that a peson (75% water) taking a direct hit would pretty much turn into free molecules and blow away on the wind. Like I said, I doubt your friend really would care about his formula.

Here's a personal story for ya. Pumping gas into my old '67 Plymouth about 20 years ago under the canopy at the Super America. A small, green padmounted transformer across the street, about 300 feet away took a direct hit. Blew up in a big shower of blue white sparks and a large mushroom cloud of burning transformer oil. People were running and screaming. I thought it was pretty cool.

[eddycat2000]

Originally posted by lightning_8669

Here's a personal story for ya. Pumping gas into my old '67 Plymouth about 20 years ago under the canopy at the Super America. A small, green padmounted transformer across the street, about 300 feet away took a direct hit. Blew up in a big shower of blue white sparks and a large mushroom cloud of burning transformer oil. People were running and screaming. I thought it was pretty cool.

I had a customer come in with his Legacy and he'd been hit by lightning, (the car I should say). Looked like somone hit his roof with an arcwelder. Funny too, he said he had to change his shorts, but the only 2 things that went wrong with the car was the ABS control unit, and all four of his tires developed millions of tiny pinholes in them. By the way, that's the car I found out about the fake code 10 for ABS failures...follow the trouble tree and it tells you to replace the abs unit, and then when that doesn't work, you call tech line and they say..."Oh yeah, that code *really* means the control unit is bad!" DOH!! Heck, as I recall his insurance bought him the new control unit and 4 new tires.

<<and all four of his tires developed millions of tiny pinholes in them>>

Cool! Electricity flowing out of the steel belts burning holes in the rubber carcass. Could have used them for fish tank areators?

Airplanes get hit pretty often by lightning. Usually not too big a problem, unless you are flying a composite ship. Turns the structure into something resembling fiberglass insulation. Now imagine something as stucturally sound and aerodynamic as Owens Corning pink attic blanket!

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by lightning_8669
My electronics instructor (a person who should NOT play with electricity) would argue (not that your friend would agree) that he didn't get struck by lightning but suffered a "near miss". That what happened to him was he was very close to a strike and the electrons in his body were accelerated. Sort of magnatized him. He ran the calculations for electricity to overcome the resistance of the atmosphere and calculated a small bolt would generate something like 90,000 AMPs. 1/10 of an AMP across the heart can kill. His calculations indicated that a peson (75% water) taking a direct hit would pretty much turn into free molecules and blow away on the wind. Like I said, I doubt your friend really would care about his formula.

Only half agree with your electronics instructor. Everyone has put their hand/hair/go on, be brave, on a Van Der Graff generator, and been tickled by the shock. The voltage is tremendous, but the current flowed, the bit that harms, is negligible.

A lot of people have survived strikes, a lot are cooked. I think the essential difference is where you are and how well insulated you are from the "earth". Cars, diggers and planes all act as a Faraday Cage. The strike hits it, but flows around the surface and away along a path of lesser resistance. Same thing can happen with people. Lightning uses your skin as a transmission path, and does not flow much current through your system. You will be burnt at any point you are touching an earth, most of the current will escape through this point, so higher amps.

You need good shoes, preferably not wet. Lightning hitting you, or places near you, probably indicates that you are highly ionised. Solution could be as simple as you like to wear nylon shirts, or even fancy underwear. It is statistically easier to be hit by lightning than to win a big lottery prize.

Which reminds me, another pun for Lightning, with due acknowledgment to the Eagles:

"Honey, you can't hide, you're ionised"


I know, I know, I couldn't resist it.

Joe

Hmmmmm... A Faraday Cage? So if I smeared myself with something like that zinc oxide sun block stuff it might conduct the current around my body? (anyone want to test this? ). Fancy underwear? Huh? They have such things? My wife asked me what happens to my underwear. I said, "I'm a guy. I wear it until it turns transparent and then I throw it away". It took her a while to stop laughing long enough to get up off the floor. But I couldn't imagine wearing nylon undies and getting zapped by lightning. Removing that melted plastic would certainly bring a tear to the eye. Even Irish eyes.

I used to work in a place where I performed final hi pot tests on big electric switches. Ran 35,000 volts over them to see if they would arc out inside. Only ran a couple of AMPs but still had a big cage between me and them. You could smell the ozone and hear them "cooking". The guys in the other test cages ran simulated lightning strikes on them, 9,000 amps. You could hear them crack all the way across the shop, about a half city block. Inch and a quarter diameter cables would be jumping like crazy. Of course there was the day the tester connected one up backwards or something. Splattered the walls with molten copper and blew a big transformer off its rack out behind the plant. They had to send people home until the power was restored and the fire put out.

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by lightning_8669
Hmmmmm... A Faraday Cage? So if I smeared myself with something like that zinc oxide sun block stuff it might conduct the current around my body? (anyone want to test this? ). Fancy underwear? Huh? They have such things? My wife asked me what happens to my underwear. I said, "I'm a guy. I wear it until it turns transparent and then I throw it away". It took her a while to stop laughing long enough to get up off the floor. But I couldn't imagine wearing nylon undies and getting zapped by lightning. Removing that melted plastic would certainly bring a tear to the eye. Even Irish eyes.

Well, true,

You wouldn't want to be causing ionic discharge or any other kind of discharge around that area!!

Joe

[Aredubjay]

<<Everyone has put their hand/hair/go on, be brave, on a Van Der Graff generator>>

Uh, not EVERYone I feel so cheated.

Well I suppose that explains why I haven't been vaporized yet. Must be coming up just short of the the proper level of ions to attract enough attention. Though it doesn't seem like it is by much. There was that one night camping in the woods. Could hear trees exploding and smell burned wood and fried air. Didn't get much sleep to say the least.

<<<<Everyone has put their hand/hair/go on, be brave, on a Van Der Graff generator>> >>

Hey aredub, you think there might be a pick-up line in here someplace?

Doesn't the thing generate its charge through friction?

Ok, I'll stop, I just hope the chains holding me back hold!

[svxistentialist]

Originally posted by lightning_8669
<<<<Everyone has put their hand/hair/go on, be brave, on a Van Der Graff generator>> >>

Hey aredub, you think there might be a pick-up line in here someplace?

Doesn't the thing generate its charge through friction?

Ok, I'll stop, I just hope the chains holding me back hold!

Yep

You are right, friction. So moral is, pickup line or not, if you are in a tent in a thunderstorm, keep away from all high friction activities.



Joe