> Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 23:44:31 +1200 > From: Michael Adams <mbadams@paradise.net.nz> > Subject: Re: [nzlug] UPS fuse (Was: picnic, lightning) > > We lived close to the generating powerstation i worked at. A neighbour put a multimeter across two poles in the ground ten feet apart and got 230V. This was not usable as it dropped to nothing if you tried a lightbulb on it. > > Safety recommendations during a major oops in the switchyard were "take very short steps when heading for cover" as the voltage from left foot to right foot if you started running could get you. > Reminds me of a very scary thing that happened to me. In a small town in the New Mexico high desert at ~7500' I was walking down the street (like lucky La Rue) and one of those sudden thunderstorms kicked up. I was in town, not out in the middle of a golf course, so I figured it would be safe to put up my umbrella. Saw a few lightning strikes nearby, so I hold the plastic handle and note that I'm wearing rubber-soled shoes. Should be safe, right? Wrong! Hair stood on end and was suddenly surrounded by a ball of St Elmo's Fire that seemed to go on for several seconds. The umbrella ribs were a great conductor, especially as they were streaming water down to the ground. What could I do? Take the umbrella down, and have it go through my *head* instead? I took short but very quick steps to duck into the nearest doorway--*then* took down the umbrella. A workmate who saw me from a passing car said I looked like I was in an electric blue birdcage. I had gotten a sensation of mild electric shock through my whole body, but I was basically unhurt. Unfortunately, I did not emerge with super-powers. Anyway, here's the lightning story to end all lightning stories from Cormac McCarthy's -All The Pretty Horses- In this scene, John Grady Cole, Lacy Rawlins and Jimmy Blevins have crossed the Rio Grande and are riding their horses through northern Mexico when they see thunderstorm brewing. -- You afraid of lightning? said John Grady. I'll be struck sure as the world. Rawlins nodded at the canteen hung up by its streap from the pommel of John Grady's saddle. Dont give him no more of that shit. He's comin down with the DT's. It runs in the family, said Blevins. My grandaddy was killed in a minebucket in West Virginia it run down in the hole a hunnerd and eighty feet to get him it couldnt even wait for him to get to the top. They had to wet down the bucket to cool it fore they could get him out of it, him and two other men. It fried em like bacon. My daddy's older brother was blowed out of a derrick in the Batson Field in the year nineteen and four, cable rig with a wood derrick but the lightnin got him anyways and him not nineteen year old. Great uncle on my mother's side--mother's side, I said -- got killed on a horse and it never singed a hair on that horse and it killed him graveyard dead they had to cut his belt off him where it welded the buckle shut and I got a cousin aint but four years oldern me was struck down in his own yard comin from the barn and it paralyzed him all down one side and melted the fillins in his teeth and soldered his jaw shut. I told you, said Rawlins. He's gone completely dipshit. They didn't know what was wrong with him. He'd just twitch and mumble and point at his mouth like. That's a out and out lie or I never heard one, said Rawlins. Blevins didn't hear. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead. Another cousin on my daddy's side it got him it set his hair on fire. The change in his pocket burned through and fell out on the ground and set the grass alight. I done been struck twice how come me to be deaf in this one ear. I'm double bred for death by fire. You got to get away from anything metal at all. You dont know what'll get you. Brads in your overalls. Nails in your boots. -- Ah well, ATPH is a great book--shame about the movie. What this has to do with Linux, I have no idea. Except maybe I'm suddenly much more interested in fibre optics than copper wire. Cheryl ------------------------------------------------------------------- To remove yourself from this list, email nzlug-request@linux.net.nz with "unsubscribe" in the body of the message.
|
If you have any questions or comments about this page, email the
Webmaster Copyright © 1998-2002 Linux.net.nz |