Duly noted, but I'm having some trouble believing this. Might he have been smoking a cigar at the time? Perhaps an errant spark from a bonfire?
I have not seen plastic bags exhibit "static cling" in relative humidity of 40% as it is here today. Saran maybe, but not polyethylene. I tried to get a baggie to cling today by rubbing it vigorously with a cloth. No cling. If there isn't enough charge to make thin film cling, there sure isn't enough to spark.
Further, I made a 30-quart baggiebomb once. Just once. The bang knocked garden tools off the wall in a garden shed some distance away. I think a 30-gallon version would destroy the eardrums of one carrying it.
I'll be limiting volume here to considerably less than a gallon.
Yeah, I'm quite familiar with it. I thought it was quite funny how an item that is now relatively difficult to obtain was so common in the early years, much like almost anything you can imagine today. My father was a hard rock miner before I was born and still did his share of prospecting years later. He had a couple carbide lamps that I used to play with while I was growing up.
Calcium carbide is still used in rare items, but don't recall what
Not really necessary, but I can add to your list the use in Big Bang model cannon, and in lowering the level of sulfur in iron previously melted in a cupola so it can be converted to ductile iron. It's made by "cooking* limestone with coke, as I recall.
Don Foreman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
No, he doesn't smoke. It actually went off inside the house. His garage and basement are on the same level. He was filling them then carrying them up the basement stairs to a small hallway then out to the back yard. It went off in the hallway. I can't say for sure if it was static electricity but that seems to be the only plausible cause. He's a very big boy if that makes any difference.
She is a rare gem. She's quick and gentle, been around the block. She has a definite opinion on any subject broached, offered only as response to query. She is able to express her opinions quite succinctly.
When Harry died a few years ago, I visited with her a bit the following spring. I mentioned that I'd asked and received Harry's permission to use their long driveway to East River Road as occasional egress from my adjoining back yard with my boat -- but thought that I should ask her after Harry had gone. She said, "Oh, yes, any time, please do feel free..... and yes, Don, you were right to ask!"
Mar brings her a bunch of iris or tulips from her garden each spring. Lillian likes flowers. (Who doesn't?) She has followed up more than once with a bouquet for Mary one way or another.
Lillian doesn't mind how many tatttoos or punctures a young person might sport, as long as they live responsibly and exhibit decent manners.
Cindy and Sue show up most weekends to mow during summer, deal with autumn leaves and winter snow. Lillian 'n Harry had no children of their own, I think Cindy and Sue are nieces or something. They come from some distance on weekends. I don't know the whole story and it's none of my beeswax, but I think Lillian and Harry helped them thru some trouble when they were growing up. Good for them for now being willing to give back. Things still work like that in MN here and there, now and then.
Cindy 'n Sue are also interesting characters. One weekend some years ago Cindy couldn't get Lillian's mower started. Lillian mentioned the problem to me. I walked over and asked if perhaps I could help. Cindy said, "do you think you can fix this @#$#@ or do I need to find a real man?" Mmmph. I said I'd try if she'd like me to. Lacking any real men in hover at the moment, she accepted my offer.
I pushed it over to my place. Found good spark but no gas breath at the exhaust when pulling the string. Pulled the carb and disassembled it. The float bowl was full of sand. I cleaned the carb, reassembled. I drained, flushed and refilled the fueltank, and pulled the string. Zoom on first pull.
I shut it down, pushed it back over there and presented it to Cindy. She looked at it, then at me. "Does it work now?" "Works for me." Her expression showed that she knew she had that coming and accepted.
She pulled the string. Zoom. She grinned fit to split a lip. "Works for me too!" We've gotten along great ever since.
When I recounted this tale to Lillian, she laughed. "We do have sand here." (We live on an alluvial sand deposit) She noted that Cindy was a bit owly that day, PMS and she'd just quit smoking. I guess Lillian didn't think I needed to know that up front. She was right. She's been around the block.
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:41:37 -0500, the inscrutable Don Foreman spake:
She sounds a lot like my grandmother on Mom's side. Nana grew up in a different world than we have. My grandfather owned 5 car lots way back and Nana used to teach people how to drive, long before driver's licenses were required. When the Depression hit, the majority of folks had to turn their cars in since they couldn't afford them. One guy bartered with Harry (my grandfather, another Harry) and traded an old gas station way out of town (HelL.A.) for his truck. When Nana sold that little lot (on Sunset Blvd and something) in the 70s, it was worth quite a bit more. Nana also flew airplanes, one of which some friends crashed into Lake Tahoe without her. She had an iron will, a quick wit, and lived to a ripe old age of 96 when her heart gave out. I think she and Jack Lalane may have had something going once, long ago, and she did his exercises daily until her dying day. I believe that the only time she was in a doctor's office or hospital was to have Mom. My eyes are leaking remembering her. I was lucky enough to have really gotten to know her after I sobered up. She had moved down to a rest home 15 miles away and I drove over for several-hour visits once or twice a week. Harry's heart went long before I was born, so I didn't get to meet him. Another of his trades was for a dozen shacks. He had them towed up to the mountains (through another trade) and made a mountainside cabin/motel out of them. From what I understand, he was quite the Jack of All Trades and I wish I could have learned some of that from him.
Goodonya, mate.
Lovely.
So you two get along alright? ;)
That's great. I see some of that here in backwoods Oregon, too, bt don't remember much of it during the 31 years I lived in LoCal.
How gracious!
[doubletake here] Oh, I thought she meant that about Cindy. That thought works both ways, doesn't it?
Heh heh heh. "A bit owly." I like it! Is that an old MN saying? I haven't heard it before.
Thanks for letting me meet Miss Lillian, Don.
---------------------------------- VIRTUE...is its own punishment
When I lived in the Sierra there was an asbestos mine nearby. The guys on night shift would inflate huge plastic bage of oxy-acetylene mix in the back of a dump truck. The bags were for transporting the asbestos. Anyway, they would drive the truck out on top of a tailing pile, remove the bag and roll it down the hill. Shooting it would set it off with a big boom. One night the bag blew up while being filled. It blew sections off the top and sides off the big tin building and sent the two guys to the hospital with minor burns and bleeding out both ears. It was the talk of the town for a good while. ERS
When I was a kid we used a piece of fine wire from the field coil of a dead electric shaver (my father was in the business). Wraped this around a small piece of gun cotton (HNO3+H2SO4+cotton batting, soke well for a while, rinse thoroughly and let dry). These could be fired with a six volt lantern battery.
It can spark to itself. As you separate the two surfaces the charge builds. Same deal for rolls of tape. [For that matter when you rub the cat there is no metal in you (usually) or the cat.]
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