IT'S A MAN THING

About 2 weeks ago, I was looking around the Web for the
BIGGEST sky
rocket that I could get shipped to me via common freight
carrier. I
located a fireworks importer in Wisconsin who had this mondo
sky
rocket--biggest thing I had ever seen--called a SkyDragon.
These things
are 48 inches tall and are mounted on a 1/2-inch wooden
dowel. Pure
aerospace engineering.

I plopped down a bunch of money and had him send me two
cases of these
things. They arrived at the freight dock a few days ago and
I had to
drive the van over to pick them up. Two boxes each 2 feet
by 2 feet by 4
feet in size containing 80 rockets each. The 'Class 4
Explosives'
sticker on the side of each box was a real bonus. I am
gonna have to save
them for the scrapbook.

That night, me and the kiddos had a gen-u-ine rocket launch
ceremony. I
placed one of these beauties in a liter-size glass bottle
and the bottle
fell over. Hmmmm- this thing was waaay too big. I looked
around the shop
for a pipe to set it in, but realized that the only dirt I
could drive the
pipe into was in plain sight of my neighbor's house. I knew
he was a cool
guy, but I didn't want him to call the cops. You see-
'projectile-type'
fireworks are totally illegal in this county. I was
surprised that the
Buncombe County Sheriff Department wasn't waiting for me at
the loading
dock when I picked these things up. Anyhow, I finally
rigged a launch pad
by prying up one of the driveway drain grates with a crowbar
and sitting
the stick into the deep pit. Looked sorta like an ICBM silo
with its
hardened lid slid aside.

I asked which of my three kids wanted to light the fuse, but
all took a
few steps back and politely declined. Chicken****s. Kids
just aren't
made the same nowadays. They fulfill their danger quotient
by shooting
bad guys in video games. About as far from real danger as
you can get, if
you ask me.

I told the little weenies to stand back as I bent to light
the device
with a Bic lighter.

The lady at the fireworks importer promised me that these
things would
NOT make any noise. I told her that they HAD to be
relatively quiet so I
could shoot them off in my neighborhood without causing
'undue alarm'. She
said I wouldn't have any problem. I emphasized the
particular legal
problems I would have if there were any type of loud report
at apogee. I
emphasized the fact that I lived right next to a National
Park and that
any type of firework that was discharged or assumed to be
discharged on
that property would get me sent before a FEDERAL judge right
before I got
sent to the COUNTY judge. She again assured me I would have
no problem.

That lying bitch.

That rocket engine had a burn time about as long as any I
had EVER seen,
and the ascent echoed off the surrounding trees. Diamond
shock pattern
extended from the back end. It kept going and going and
going. When it
hit apogee at about 1000 feet, the rocket disintegrated
into a huge
shower of silent red sparks. Pretty cool, I
thought......until the shower
of sparks burned out and suddenly transformed into a cloud
of extremely
bright and loud explosions. The kids scrambled into the back
door 'Three
Stooges' style (ie: where all three try to get through the
same closed
door at once) and left me standing in the smoking haze
waiting for the
cops to arrive. The dogs that live along our street were all
barking their
heads off at the apparition they had just witnessed in the
night sky

That ended the fireworks test for the night.

The next day, my oldest son Doug and I decided we were gonna
'neuter' one
of the rockets so it wouldn't make any noise. I took him
into the closet
where I store the gardening tools and he saw these two huge
cases of
fireworks standing there. The kid went nuts. He wanted to
open BOTH
boxes so he could see what all 159 rockets looked like lined
up next to
each other. This kid has promise. I told him: "Since mom
only thinks I
have a few of these things lying around, maybe that wasn't
such a good
idea." He mulled that over for a few seconds, then gave me
a real big
smile in agreement.

We pulled one of the rockets out of the box and re-locked
the closet
door.

He and I both sat down on the driveway and proceeded to take
it apart. It
was a standard issue big-ass Chinese sky rocket. I bet they
used these to
kill people 500 years ago. As I sat there taking layer
after layer of
paper off, his brain was filling with the details of
construction. Tissue,
cardboard, plastic, fuses...etc. Realizing that he was
mentally storing
the design for some future project sorta made me shudder.
All I was
thinking was the fact that this thing was probably put
together by a
political prisoner in a hellhole somewhere who is probably
gonna get
'executed' so they can sell his internal organs on the
transplant market.

Probably not too far from the facts, but I managed to do a
bit of
explaining to him from the standpoint of aerospace
engineering regarding
how the thing worked. Doug is probably the only 4th grader
in the U.S.
who can now describe the principle of thrust using a control
volume model.

The rocket was pretty simple. It had a very large booster
engine topped
with a warhead that contained the red sparkly things that
exploded.
Removing the warhead was as simple as giving a quick twist,
and I assumed
the neutered rocket would fly higher without the payload. I
was correct.
Doug and I did a daylight 'stealth' test and were able to
add about 50% to
the altitude attained the previous night. We decided to
modify four more
rockets and put them aside in the closet for easy access.
When this was
done, Doug had a jar full of stuff that came out of the
warheads
including: 12 fuses about 3-inches long each, some paper, 4
plastic
nosecones and a big handfull of these little black balls
about the size of
12-gauge buckshot that turned out to be the 'red sparkly
popper things'.
It appeared that the outer layer was a simple gunpowder
coating designed
to quickly burn off as red shower of sparks. I surmised
that the inner
core had some kind of magnesium thermite that gave off an
intense white
light and a loud bang. Pretty cool if you ask me. Lots of
energy packed
into one teeny little ball.

I didn't want to see the popper thingies go to waste, so I
told Doug we
were gonna put them in a hole in the ground and set them
off. He gave me
another big smile.

It's amazing how kids think alike...even when separated by
30 years.

As I was digging a shallow hole with my hand, Doug asked if
it would be
alright to put an army man next to these things so that
"When they go off,
it would look like he was getting shot with a maching gun".
Dang....exactly what I was thinking. I agreed and he ran
off to his room
to dig something out of the mess. He returned in about 3
seconds, out of
breath and holding a cheap plastic imitation of Robert E.
Lee on
horseback and a Civil War cannon. I pointed out that they
didn't have
true machine guns in the Civil War, but we would overlook
this for the
purpose of the demonstration. He handed me the action
figure and I placed
it and the cannon next to a rather large pile of black beads
from which a
few of the fuses extended.

I figured that three inches of fuse would take 2 seconds to
burn, so I
had at least that amount of time to stand up and take a few
steps back. I
neglected to recount the night before.....when the warhead
ignited
IMMEDIATELY upon reaching apogee. Tricky Chinese. They had
installed
extremely fast-burning fuse in these things and that fact
totally escaped
me.

I squatted next to Robert Lee and gave a short eulogy. Doug
laughed. I
took the trusty Bic lighter and placed it next to the fuse.
One flick got
the lighter going and THIS IMAGE IS ONE I WILL REMEMBER FOR
A LONG TIME.
My hand holding a lighter next to a pile of explosives.

There is usually a short but noticeable mental pause that
occurs
immediately before something bad or really stupid happens.
It is where
that little voice in your head says: "You dumbass."

The fuse burn time was in the 1/1000ths of a second range.
The pile of
little popper thingy's immediately ignited into a
tremendously brilliant
ball of fire. All I could think was
...."...th....th.....thermite..."
Unfortunately, when they are viewed at ground level, these
little popper
thingies become REALLY BIG POPPER THINGIES and have a
tendency to jump up
to 15-feet in every direction from their point of ignition.
I
instantaneously became engulfed in a ball of fire that
sounded a lot like
being in a half-done bag of Orville Reddenbacher's popcorn.

It was all over about as fast as I could snap my fingers.

After the smoke cleared, Doug started laughing his butt off.
That meant
I was still in one piece. Doug does not laugh at
dismembered limbs. He
said I jumped about 10-feet, an action that I do not
remember. I checked
my clothes for burn marks, and found none. He checked my
back to make
sure it was not on fire. No combustion there. The driveway
was peppered
with black holes where the concrete had been scarred from
these things.

A close one. Another REAL close one. My mind ran the tapes
again to
re-hash what it had seen. All I remembered was being inside
something
akin to a 30-foot diameter........flaming dandelion. Whew.

We examined Ol' Robert E. at ground-zero.

Instead of a machine-gun peppering, he got nuked. He and
the horse he
rode in on.......and his cannon too. One side was
untouched, but the
other side was arc-welded. Real warfare. Doug examined it
real
quiet-like and then started laughing again.

I assume he will remember the finer points of the lesson as
he grows
older. When I now speak of 'almost being burned beyond
recognition' he
will have a slightly better understanding of what I mean. I
hope that
this vivid image tempers the knowledge he now has regarding
rocket
construction. O well. After all, if your dad isn't gonna
teach you how to
get your ass blown off, who will?



Disclaimer:
I did not write this, but it still makes me laugh every time
I read it

Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents
that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

And if you'd like to meet with other amateur pyrotechnics, you can visit one at your local hospital's burn center.
Call ahead for visiting hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States

If it's worth sending, it's worth sending twice?
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..
..
"ChairMan" wrote in message ...
IT'S A MAN THING

Disclaimer:
I did not write this, but it still makes me laugh every time
I read it

Fortunately, this is the land of the free. Well, not really such any more.
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..
..
"Frank" wrote in message ...
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents
that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

On Thu, 04 Jul 2013 13:26:20 -0400, Frank
wrote:

Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.

Yes, you have to show out-of-state ID.

Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents
that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

In Baltimore there are ads on tv for a fireworks seller just a couple
miles into Pa. on the road to Harrisburg. Shrewsbury.

And there's another big store 5 miles south of Gettysburg, a couple
miles north of Md., a few miles west of the first store.

Hmmm. They used to have a big trailer selling stuff in the
supermarket parking lot right by me, but it wasn't there this year, I
think.. But it had baby fireworks, things like Black Snakes and
sparklers.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

Fortunate, no one I know in person.

Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 8:01 PM


Just sharing anothers childhood experience with archery.


Teach Archery to our Younger Generation!


This is why the boys will be archery hunting. It gets your
blood
pumping. read below..... it is worth your time.


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass
compound bow beginner kits. Of course, the first month I
went
around
our
place sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by
an arrow.
Did
you know that a 1955 40 horse Farmall tractor will take 6
rounds
before
it goes down? Tough sumbich.

That got boring, so being the 10 yr. old Dukes of Hazzard
fan that I was, I quickly advanced to taking strips of cut
up Tshirt
doused in chainsaw gas tied around the end and was sending
flaming
arrows
all over the place. Keep in mind this was 99.999% humidity
swampland
so
there really wasn't any fire danger. I'll put it this
way - a set
of
post hole diggers and a 3ft. hole and you had yourself a
well.

Anyway, one summer afternoon, I was shooting flaming
arrows
into a large rotten oak stump in our backyard. I look over
under the
carport and see a shiny brand new can of starting fluid
(ether).
The
light bulb went off. I grabbed the can and set it on the
stump. I
thought it would probably just spray out in a
disappointing manner ..
..
lets face it . . to a 10 yr. old mouth-breather like
myself ether
really
doesn't "sound" flammable. So, I went back into the house
and got
a 1
pound can of pyrodex (black powder for muzzle loader
rifles) to add
to
the excitement.

At this point, I set the can of ether on the stump and
opened up the can of black powder. My intentions were to
sprinkle a
little bit around the ether can but it all sorta dumped
out on me.
No
biggie...1 lb pyrodex and 16oz ether should make a loud
pop, kinda
like a
firecracker you know? You know what? Screw that. I'm going
back
in
the
house for the other can. Yes, I got a second can of
pyrodex and
dumped
it too. Now we're cookin'.

I stepped back about 15ft and lit the 2stroke arrow. I
drew the nock to my cheek and took aim. As I released I
heard a
clunk
as the arrow launched from my bow. In a slow motion time
frame, I
turned
to see my dad getting out of the truck... OH SH!T! He just
got home
from work. So help me God it took 10 minutes for that
arrow to go
from
my bow to the can. My dad was walking towards me in slow
motion with
a
WTF look in his eyes. I turned back towards my target just
in time
to
see the arrow pierce the
starting fluid can right at the bottom. Right through the
main pile
of
pyrodex and into the can. Oh. ****.

When the shock wave hit it knocked me off my feet. I
don't
know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me
back or
just
reflex jerk back from 235 fire trucking decibels of sound.
I caught
a
half a millisecond glimpse of the violence during the
initial
explosion
and I will tell you there was dust, grass, and bugs all
hovering
1ft
above the ground as far as I could see. It was like a
little, low to
the
ground, layer of dust fog full of grasshoppers, spiders,
and a
crawfish
or two. The daylight turned
purple. Let me repeat this...THE DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE!
There
was a
big sweetgum tree out by the gate going into the pasture.
Notice I
said "was". That mother got up and ran off.

So here I am, on the ground blown completely out of my
shoes with my Thundercats T-shirt shredded, my dad is on
the other
side
of the carport having what I can only assume is a Vietnam
flashback
-
ECHO BRAVO CHARLIE YOUR BRINGIN' EM IN TOO CLOSE!! CEASE
FIRE
DAMIT
CEASE FIRE!!!!!
His hat has blown off and is 30 ft. behind him in the
driveway. All
windows on the north side of the house are blown out and
there is a
slow
rolling mushroom cloud about 2000ft over our backyard.
There is a
Honda
185s 3 wheeler parked on the other side of the yard and
the fenders
are
drooped down and are now touching the tires.

I wish I knew what I said to my dad at this moment. I
don't know- I know I said something. I couldn't hear. I
couldn't
hear
inside my own head. I don't think he heard me either...
not that it
would really matter. I don't remember much from this point
on. I
said
something, felt a sharp pain, and then woke up later. I
felt a sharp
pain, blacked out, woke later.... repeat this process for
an hour
or so
and you get the idea. I remember at one point my mom had
to give me
CPR
so dad could beat me some more. Bring him back to life so
dad can
kill
him again. Thanks mom.

One thing is for sure... I never had to mow around that
stump again. Mom had been bitching about that thing for
years and
dad
never did anything about it. I stepped up to the plate and
handled
business.

Dad sold his muzzleloaders a week or so later. And I
still
have some sort of bone growth abnormality either from the
blast or
the
beating. Or both.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, get your kids into
archery.. Its good discipline and will teach them skills
they can
use
later on in life. Something they won't learn in school.

Frank wrote:
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents that
want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

We in pa. buy from Ohio.

Greg

Frank wrote:
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents that
want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

If you Start to look at phantom fireworks locations, nearly all of them are
at state borders.

Didn't the Boston bombers buy them in ny or conn.

Greg

On 07-04-2013 13:26, Frank wrote:
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents
that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

We used to have such a hypocritical law in Indiana. Too dangerous to be
used in Indiana. But we'll sell them to you, if you sign a promise to
blow yourself up in some other state.

--
Wes Groleau

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable.
€” John F. Kennedy

On Fri, 5 Jul 2013 02:01:12 +0000 (UTC), gregz
wrote:

Frank wrote:
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents that
want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.

If you Start to look at phantom fireworks locations, nearly all of them are
at state borders.

The ABC news (which I don't recommend) said that Ameicans spend
600,000,000 dollars on July4 fireworks and 400 milliion of that are by
private parties to use in their back yard.

(I'm sure they mean for the whole week.)


Didn't the Boston bombers buy them in ny or conn.

Greg

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 00:10:19 -0400, Wes Groleau
wrote:

On 07-04-2013 13:26, Frank wrote:
Reading in paper today that it is illegal to use fireworks in
Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them to out-of-staters.
Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use fireworks so residents
that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

We used to have such a hypocritical law in Indiana.

Just for the record -- and because this is a thing for me -- that's
not hypocrisy. It's a double standard, a protective standard for
state residents and a careless one for others.

Hypocrisy is
1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious
beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
2. a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

There has to be a pretense involved, and Pa. doesn't pretend to care
about fireworks and people from other states, at least not enough to
not sell them. . It's no secret that they can buy fireworks in Pa.
Pa. doesn't try to say otherwise.

Hypocrisy is one of the most misused words in American English, maybe
elsewhere too. Not by you, but by some of those who use it, I think
it's appeal is that it's strong and it's criticized in the Bible, and
just telling someone they have a double standard doesn't seem
insulting enough.


Too dangerous to be
used in Indiana. But we'll sell them to you, if you sign a promise to
blow yourself up in some other state.

Mitt Romley wrote:
And if you'd like to meet with other amateur pyrotechnics,
you can
visit one at your local hospital's burn center. Call ahead
for
visiting hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States

there's also a ward for removing sticks and heads from your
ass, too

On 7/5/2013 1:45 PM, ChairMan wrote:
Mitt Romley wrote:
And if you'd like to meet with other amateur pyrotechnics,
you can
visit one at your local hospital's burn center. Call ahead
for
visiting hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States

there's also a ward for removing sticks and heads from your
ass, too



Here's a factoid I betcha didn't know:

Fireworks have built-in homing devices that were used to locate over 9600 idiots last year.

http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/0...ourth-of-july/

In ,
Charles Darwin belched:
On 7/5/2013 1:45 PM, ChairMan wrote:
Mitt Romley wrote:
And if you'd like to meet with other amateur pyrotechnics,
you can
visit one at your local hospital's burn center. Call ahead
for
visiting hours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._United_States

there's also a ward for removing sticks and heads from your
ass, too



Here's a factoid I betcha didn't know:

bull****


Fireworks have built-in homing devices that were used to locate over
9600 idiots last year.
http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/0...ourth-of-july/

must have come directly to your house as soon as you bought them, because
not only are you an idiot you're a liar too

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in
:

Fortunately, this is the land of the free. Well, not really such any
more. .

Only if you're a foreigner.


Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
.
.
"Frank" wrote in message
... Reading in paper today that it is
illegal to use fireworks in Pennsylvania but it is legal to sell them
to out-of-staters. Here in Delaware it is illegal to sell or use
fireworks so residents that want them buy them in Pennsylvania.

Paper said that there are a lot of arrests.