On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 23:03:30 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

My wife asks: "Is there any protection to be gained by placing a thick
rubber mat in front of the circuit panel where someone working on the panel
would normally stand?" It would seem it would have to help a little.

I suspect my turning my head upside inside the box and pushing wires aside
to read the label information has got her worried again. (-:

Might have something to do with my neighbor who was going to move the dryer
for his wife for her birthday and ended up breaking the main gas line. Said
the emergency gas tech that responded "it's a miracle you didn't blow
yourselves up." Fortunately the wife had the presence of mind to have
dialed "9 + 1" as he turned the wrench.

Seriously? Did her husband know or learn later how little faith she
had in him?

The closest story I have to this is from college, one of our fraternity
members was always elected House Manager. Sometimes they knew nothing
about repairs and just called a repairman, but many years they knew more
than that, and my roommate was house manager and I was very impressed by
him. I'd never known anyone before who knew what he was doing.

So one night first-year students were invited over for rush, and Don
hated rush events (and meetings etc.) and because it was old and
rusting, he had removed the metal shower on the third floor so that only
the galvanized pipes were standing there, and a bunch of us are talking
and the pipes are rocking back and forth, only an inch or two, but I'm
thinking Maybe that's bad, But Don knows much more about these things
than I do. And less thana minute later one pipe breaks and water is
going everywhere, and Don goes to the basement and turns off the water,
and gets to spend the whole evening repairing the pipe and doesn't have
to talk to the first-year students at all!!!

I don't know if this was partly intentional or not. Hard to believe it
would be but Don was a complicated guy. From a tiny town, St. Peter
Minnesota, population 8500 then (11,500 now) , maybe grew up on a farm,
enrolled in (and graduated from) U. of Chicago, built his own record
player amplifier, mounted speaker in the closet put a hole in the wall
for the sound to come out (Infinite baffle, he said it was) to listen to
classical music. Built a jammer so the guy across the hall couldn't
listen to his rock music. Rich'd change stations so Don would change
frequencies on the jammer. Rich never found out what was going on.
Enlisted in the army after college, 1967, Viet Nam, became a drill
instructor. Before or after that, he parachuted in behind enemy lines
to do special ops. Came back alive in one piece, I'm told, but I
haven't talked to him since the end of his fourth year.


It only took a second to dial the
last "1" and get emergency services. He had no idea where the shutoffs were
located, either. He figured not much gas would leak out by the time he
fitted the new flexible pipe. jeez The gas guys don't screw around,
either. They immediately shut off the gas at the meter right after they
rolled up and saw the panicked homeowners standing outside.