Coffee Shop Part V

[rhoward]

I'm Baaaaaccckkkk! Anybody miss me?

Mornin Ken L!

Mornin Steve!

Mornin' Nick!

Mornin' Bill!

I spent the last 3 days going to, coming home from, or actually in Indiana. South Bend to exact. My son and I went out to get the rest of the woodworking tools that my late Brother-in-law gave to my son and I. My sister's house is a block away from the main East - West RR Artery out there. Heard or saw a train almost constantly on Wednesday as we packed. Unfortunately, I never seemed to have my camera handy or time to walk to the park behind her house to get any good shots.

 

[OldGettysk]

Afternoon All ! Steve sounds like your gonna have fun . Another spectacular day here . Good start to the weekend . Everyone have a fun weekend !!!

 

[rhoward]

Afternoon everyone!

You asked for it (Your gonna get it!).

Look what came in the mail while I was gone........

 

[NZRMac]

Very nice Ray!! all the hard yard work has paided off.

Ken.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Very nice award there, Ray.

I stopped at the Sundown fire station on my way back from town a little while ago and found that the station had taken a major lightning strike last night. It hit the service box on the outside of the building, causing the box to explode. I found pieces of it (big pieces) scattered in an almost straight line out from the building to a distance of about thirty feet. Upon examining the phone lines inside the station I found that all the connections were blown apart and the lines were melted. This is looking like a total rewire. Also their computer took part of the hit. It was plugged into the biggest, baddest surge protector that Dell sells and still got hit. The port in the protector where the phone line goes in is burned and melted. This was a really big strike! One of my fellow fire fighters asked me if that phone line was grounded. I told him the same thing that many professional electrical techs have told me. There's no such thing as a grounded phone line. Anybody who tells you that phone lines are grounded is talking through his hat. I've worked on many homes and businesses as an electricians apprentice and I know a lot about it. I rewired my own home when I rebuilt it and it and it passed as surpassing code, no problem.

 

[Steve B]

Ray welcome back and thanks for sharing the certificate with us.
Jeffery lightning is SCARY,,, i saw it hit a big tree not long back, the tree just burst into a bright orange fireball and was gone in seconds, WOW.

went to watch a few trains today and on the way back saw a huge cloud of smoke over our side of town, it made your eyes water so we went straight back out to investigate and saw a huge fire erupting on the hillside about 8 miles away, we went up on the safe side to find the place we went to a few days ago raging, you could here the tree's burning from over a mile away, thankfully not near any homes.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Happy Friday y'all,

My weekend's just starting - a tall one on ice for me please, Flo!

Ray that Golden Spike certificate looks mighty fine, congrats again!

Jeff, that's quite a terrifying display of Nature's supreme power - I don't think any of us can ever be 100% safe! I'll have to share your story with my daughter who insists there's 'nothing wrong' with using a PC on the 'net during a T-storm...yeah, uh-huh...

Steve - a brush fire?! Wow I thought we only had 'em on this side of the pond. Hope nobody loses their home to it.

 

[jbaakko]

Jeff, that's quite a terrifying display of Nature's supreme power - I don't think any of us can ever be 100% safe! I'll have to share your story with my daughter who insists there's 'nothing wrong' with using a PC on the 'net during a T-storm...yeah, uh-huh...

Whats wrong with that, it'll only trip the surge protector. (know this one from experience). Though this was back in the days of Windows 95....

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Jeff, that's quite a terrifying display of Nature's supreme power - I don't think any of us can ever be 100% safe! I'll have to share your story with my daughter who insists there's 'nothing wrong' with using a PC on the 'net during a T-storm...yeah, uh-huh...

Ken: Tell your daughter to wake up and smell the coffee! I was trained by a professional electrical tech and I know what lightning can do. I had a good friend who was killed by a lightning strike while using the computer during a storm. The lightning came right up the phone line into the computer and zapped right out the keyboard to him. The coroner said he died instantly and probably never knew what hit him. His system, like mine, was on a high quality surge protector. When A thunder storm comes round my way all the computer equipment gets turned off, the surge suppresor (I have a really big one, 3,500 joules) gets turned off, the cable line to the modem is disconnected and the breaker (the line going to the computer has it's own) gets turned off. The surge unit at the fire station is/was an APC unit, the biggest, baddest one they make, and the lightning took it out like it wasn't even there, and STILL zapped the computer!

 

[rhoward]

Thank You folks! It is now hanging on the wall next to the train rooms down stairs.

Whats wrong with that, it'll only trip the surge protector. (know this one from experience). Though this was back in the days of Windows 95....

You might want to check this out.... http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lls/incidents.html There isn't much that can survive a direct hit. Your equipment doesn't even have to plugged in to get fried. I have lost equipment to lightning hits that were two or three blocks away. I now have my entire house protected by a surge protector as well as inline ones for all my (several thousand dollars worth) recording and computer equipment. Even that couldn't help if a hit was right near my house. Several years ago the secretary at one of our local elementary schools picked up the phone during a storm. The call was from a mommy that wanted her child to know that she would pick her up because of the weather. The secretary wrote down the message and as she was hanging up the phone, a lightning strike hit near the school. She was hospitalized overnight but was lucky in that she had only minor burns.

 

[IronBeltKen]

Ken: Tell your daughter to wake up and smell the coffee!

I did. She reluctantly accepted it, she knows I'll simply yank the cords myself if she can't excuse herself from her precious AIM conversation...!

 

[SpaceMouse]

Nice award Ray,

Electricity is nasty stuff. Cut into 220 once with bulldikes. Next thing I knew I was floating above myself looking down at myself shaking. Don't know how I let go.

I shake every time I think about it. That was 220. It takes 10,000 volts for a spark to jump 1/2 inchin air. Lightning jumps an 1/8 mile or more.

It'll make smoke come out your ears like a decoder on the club layout.

 

[Steve B]

Even if lightning hit's solid earth it still has the power to track 20 - 30ft underground to power lines, phone lines etc etc
Look at this tree, it's a huge beach tree and was hit by lightning at the back of our house, the whole middle was blasted right out

 

[Bill Tidler Jr.]

Good morning ! from Indiana.

05-05-07

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Ken: That's good. It all comes down to a simple choice. What's more important, a conversation you can come back to later, or your life, which can't be replaced at ANY cost. I had to put that same choice to my niece, and she's the Fire Chief's daughter for crying out loud! You'd think she'd know better.

Chip: 220 can hit with a pretty hefty punch! I got hit by 380 from a defective plug on a dryer when I was in Germany back in the late 70's. I woke up on the other side of the laundry room, about 15 feet away.

=========================================================

Good morning and top 'o' the day to all of ye.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 5/5/2007

Sundown Fire Dept., Station 23

Heat Index: 80°F
Humidity: 89%
Dew Point: 72°F

So Far Today
High: 76°F
Low: 75°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 9mph SSE

Today High: 88 Partly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight Low: 70 Mostly cloudy. Lows around 70. Southeast winds around 10 mph.

 

[SpaceMouse]

Even if lightning hit's solid earth it still has the power to track 20 - 30ft underground to power lines, phone lines etc etc
Look at this tree, it's a huge beach tree and was hit by lightning at the back of our house, the whole middle was blasted right out

I've seen lightning do lots of strange stuff but I've never seen one leave a perfectly carved kid in the middle of a tree.

Say, that 's not a wood gnome is it? You could cut it out and put it in the front yard.

By the way, is that a monkey I see in the background?

 

[OldGettysk]

Good Morning Steve , Bill , Jeffrey & Chip .Another great day here in Buffalo , Lightning is really something. It hit our phone lines back in the eighties and it blew out our power all the phones two televisions and vcrs. But at least the family and home were not hurt . And insurance replaced the things which were damaged . Talk about storms, another Tornado wrecked havoc in Kansas with loss of life . Just wish we could figure out how to keep the warm air and cold air from connecting. Take care all and have a nice Saturday !!!

 

[Steve B]

Chip, a monkey,,,yes, that sounds like Robert

Just been up to look at the fire damage, it's almost out but they recon at least 2 days to kill the hot spots. While we were there we explored an old lead mine complex that shut down in the mid 1800's, got loads of pictures to go through but we gotta go out for the river cruise soon.
Later

 

[jbaakko]

Thank You folks! It is now hanging on the wall next to the train rooms down stairs.



You might want to check this out.... http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lls/incidents.html There isn't much that can survive a direct hit. Your equipment doesn't even have to plugged in to get fried. I have lost equipment to lightning hits that were two or three blocks away. I now have my entire house protected by a surge protector as well as inline ones for all my (several thousand dollars worth) recording and computer equipment. Even that couldn't help if a hit was right near my house. Several years ago the secretary at one of our local elementary schools picked up the phone during a storm. The call was from a mommy that wanted her child to know that she would pick her up because of the weather. The secretary wrote down the message and as she was hanging up the phone, a lightning strike hit near the school. She was hospitalized overnight but was lucky in that she had only minor burns.

Very very true, but remember every one, and every strike is different. I'm not trying to defend my laziness during a thunderstorm or anything.

But I seem to remember a friend of mine putting 75000+ volts in through his left arm & out through his boots and he's more then alive today.

 

[rhoward]

Mornin' Bill!

Mornin' Jeffrey!

Mouse, Paul, afternoon Steve!

That is a pretty good sized hole in that tree. Makes a nice home for that little wood gnome you found.... About a dozen years ago out at our Boy Scout Camp a Thunderstorm came through just after breakfast. Lightning was bouncing around pretty good in the area so we held the scouts back at the campsite and gathered in a large leantoo in the campsite to wait out the storm rather than sending them off through the woods for their first class. Several of the new boys in the troop were scared so I calmed them down by teaching them how to tell how far away lightning was by counting the seconds that pass after you see the flash. We saw a flash and counted. I said well that one is about 2 1/2 miles away. The next flash, that is about 1 mile away. After several times, there was a FlaaBOOOOM!, The scouts were terrified but I calmly said, "that one hit about 100 yards from us across the gorge". In fact it hit a tree next to Native American Culture jumped over to the next tree came down blowing a one foot hole in the roof and jumped to a water pipe just outside the building. The Director of the area who was one of my students, was standing on the other side of the wall less than two foot from where the strike grounded. He was unhurt but spent the rest of the summer looking up into the sky, shaking his fist and saying, "You missed me!" He was one shook up Eagle Scout for a while!