"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:33:36 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

Me, too. It was Mom's 15 yr. old collection of Sears and Monkey Wards
catalogs she finally realized were useless. She said burn 'em in the
burn barrel. I dumped them in the empty barrel, which they just
barely fit. Knowing they'd be difficult to burn because of the
tightly packed pages, I decided to help them along with about 1 gal.
of av gas, then realized I'd forgotten the matches. To keep all that
good gas from getting away, I put a torn open fertilizer sack over the
barrel (you can see where this is going). When I got back with the
matches, a couple of neighbor kids and my brother had arrived.

I proceeded to strike the match, lift the sack, and flick the match
in. In the next instant, we were all knocked down around the barrel
by the concussion, and I had an impressive view of about a 150' tall
column of catalog pages with fire between them. Then the damned
burning pages drifted into the dry grass in the pasture next door.
After Dad pounded me, we got to spend the next 30 minutes putting out
the grass fire. The neighbors about 1/4 mile away said it shook all
their windows.

A rather unique tech I had working for me once spoke my favorite quote
of all time. " I believe the best value for your entertainment dollar
is gasoline."

Pete Keillor

Yeah, those burn barrels. I remember throwing half a can of motor oil on the red hot side of a burn
barrel. Until then I thought that oil was not flammable - or explosive.

Bob Swinney
"Pete Keillor" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:33:36 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

Me, too. It was Mom's 15 yr. old collection of Sears and Monkey Wards
catalogs she finally realized were useless. She said burn 'em in the
burn barrel. I dumped them in the empty barrel, which they just
barely fit. Knowing they'd be difficult to burn because of the
tightly packed pages, I decided to help them along with about 1 gal.
of av gas, then realized I'd forgotten the matches. To keep all that
good gas from getting away, I put a torn open fertilizer sack over the
barrel (you can see where this is going). When I got back with the
matches, a couple of neighbor kids and my brother had arrived.

I proceeded to strike the match, lift the sack, and flick the match
in. In the next instant, we were all knocked down around the barrel
by the concussion, and I had an impressive view of about a 150' tall
column of catalog pages with fire between them. Then the damned
burning pages drifted into the dry grass in the pasture next door.
After Dad pounded me, we got to spend the next 30 minutes putting out
the grass fire. The neighbors about 1/4 mile away said it shook all
their windows.

A rather unique tech I had working for me once spoke my favorite quote
of all time. " I believe the best value for your entertainment dollar
is gasoline."

Pete Keillor

"Pete Keillor" wrote in message
...


Me, too. It was Mom's 15 yr. old collection of Sears and Monkey Wards
catalogs she finally realized were useless. She said burn 'em in the
burn barrel. I dumped them in the empty barrel, which they just
barely fit. Knowing they'd be difficult to burn because of the
tightly packed pages, I decided to help them along with about 1 gal.
of av gas, then realized I'd forgotten the matches. To keep all that
good gas from getting away, I put a torn open fertilizer sack over the
barrel (you can see where this is going). When I got back with the
matches, a couple of neighbor kids and my brother had arrived.

I proceeded to strike the match, lift the sack, and flick the match
in. In the next instant, we were all knocked down around the barrel
by the concussion, and I had an impressive view of about a 150' tall
column of catalog pages with fire between them. Then the damned
burning pages drifted into the dry grass in the pasture next door.
After Dad pounded me, we got to spend the next 30 minutes putting out
the grass fire. The neighbors about 1/4 mile away said it shook all
their windows.

A rather unique tech I had working for me once spoke my favorite quote
of all time. " I believe the best value for your entertainment dollar
is gasoline."

Pete Keillor


i used to know a guy, i think his story was like, as a kid he was told to
rake the leaves, he had an abandoned well (that had gone dry) in his yard, i
think the story was that it had stone slabs over it but there was a large
enough space between them were he had the idea to rake the leaves down into
the well and then burn them there (or, maybe it was that he noticed there
was a large accumulation of leaves that had fallen down the well between a
smaller gap?) he too wanted to accelerate the process and so poured
gasoline down the well onto the dry leaves. i think the story was that the
"rapid oxidation" caused the stone slabs to be thrown completely free from
the well. there was a lot more hysterically funny detail that i've
forgotten. i think, like the first story, his father may have just arrived
to see the show too, can't remember.

b.w.

William Wixon wrote:

i think, like the first story, his father may have just arrived
to see the show too, can't remember.

Fathers have a way of showing up at just the right (or wrong) moment...


Jon

"Robert Swinney" wrote in message
...
Yeah, those burn barrels. I remember throwing half a can of motor oil on
the red hot side of a burn
barrel. Until then I thought that oil was not flammable - or explosive.

We went deer hunting in Central Nevada. Brought a big tent and expedition
gear. We found a cabin with a sign above the door that said, "Use it, just
don't tear it up." We thought we had died and went to heaven.

The people before us were pigs, so we decided to pick up and burn some
trash. We filled the can with debris, then set it afire. I think there was
a propane canister in there. One hell of a bang. Fires all over the place.
We managed to stop the worst one just before it got to the cabin. The cabin
and all our stuff would have gone up.

We were sweaty dirty sooty do gooders.

Steve

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:51:12 -0600, Pete Keillor
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:33:36 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
. ..
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

Me, too. It was Mom's 15 yr. old collection of Sears and Monkey Wards
catalogs she finally realized were useless. She said burn 'em in the
burn barrel. I dumped them in the empty barrel, which they just
barely fit. Knowing they'd be difficult to burn because of the
tightly packed pages, I decided to help them along with about 1 gal.
of av gas, then realized I'd forgotten the matches. To keep all that
good gas from getting away, I put a torn open fertilizer sack over the
barrel (you can see where this is going). When I got back with the
matches, a couple of neighbor kids and my brother had arrived.

I proceeded to strike the match, lift the sack, and flick the match
in. In the next instant, we were all knocked down around the barrel
by the concussion, and I had an impressive view of about a 150' tall
column of catalog pages with fire between them. Then the damned
burning pages drifted into the dry grass in the pasture next door.
After Dad pounded me, we got to spend the next 30 minutes putting out
the grass fire. The neighbors about 1/4 mile away said it shook all
their windows.

A rather unique tech I had working for me once spoke my favorite quote
of all time. " I believe the best value for your entertainment dollar
is gasoline."

Pete Keillor
Around 1969, SWMBO bought a pair of those couch beds that flatten out
into a 3/4 bed. they came flattened out in cardboard boxes. came time
to get rid of the boxes, I rolled them into a bundle about 18"
diameter with about a 6" hole up the middle and about eight feet
long. next evening I had a fire going in the burn barrel out back and
when it had burned down a bit, I stood one of these in the barrel.
within miutes I had a column of fire must have been at least fifty
feet in the night sky. Fortunately, no one put in a fire call. The
next bundle got cut in half before burning!
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

Robert Swinney wrote:
Yeah, those burn barrels. I remember throwing half a can of motor oil on the red hot side of a burn
barrel. Until then I thought that oil was not flammable - or explosive.


Reminds me of outhouse duty. RVN '68

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:33:36 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

We had two galvanized 30-gallon garbage cans. The pickup guy had
stacked the empties and they were stuck together. Ma told me to go
outside and separate them.

I tried tugging, banging, prying, etc to no avail. I set them back
upright in the driveway and drizzled an ounce or so of gasoline into
the space between them, gave that a minute to creep down to the bottom
and vaporize, and then tossed a match at the assembly.

The cans separated with a FWUMP! The inner can went high enough to
land on the roof, but it rolled off. The bottom of the outer can was
convex while the bottom of the inner one was concave but a bit of
hammering with a rubber mallet fixed those minor aberrations.

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:29:10 -0500, Gerald Miller
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:51:12 -0600, Pete Keillor
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:33:36 -0800, "Steve B"
wrote:


"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
One of the best emails Ive had in a very long time...G


Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow
beginner kits.

Funny story snipped.

I had a similar experience with a 55 gallon barrel, two tbsp. of gas, and
pure O2.

When the cops got there, they asked us if we heard a blast.

"Huh?" was our response.

By then, we had picked up the pieces of the barrel we could find. My
hearing is still wacky.

I have set industrial explosives, but I have never heard one like that.
Maybe it was the range .........................

Steve

Me, too. It was Mom's 15 yr. old collection of Sears and Monkey Wards
catalogs she finally realized were useless. She said burn 'em in the
burn barrel. I dumped them in the empty barrel, which they just
barely fit. Knowing they'd be difficult to burn because of the
tightly packed pages, I decided to help them along with about 1 gal.
of av gas, then realized I'd forgotten the matches. To keep all that
good gas from getting away, I put a torn open fertilizer sack over the
barrel (you can see where this is going). When I got back with the
matches, a couple of neighbor kids and my brother had arrived.

I proceeded to strike the match, lift the sack, and flick the match
in. In the next instant, we were all knocked down around the barrel
by the concussion, and I had an impressive view of about a 150' tall
column of catalog pages with fire between them. Then the damned
burning pages drifted into the dry grass in the pasture next door.
After Dad pounded me, we got to spend the next 30 minutes putting out
the grass fire. The neighbors about 1/4 mile away said it shook all
their windows.

A rather unique tech I had working for me once spoke my favorite quote
of all time. " I believe the best value for your entertainment dollar
is gasoline."

Pete Keillor
Around 1969, SWMBO bought a pair of those couch beds that flatten out
into a 3/4 bed. they came flattened out in cardboard boxes. came time
to get rid of the boxes, I rolled them into a bundle about 18"
diameter with about a 6" hole up the middle and about eight feet
long. next evening I had a fire going in the burn barrel out back and
when it had burned down a bit, I stood one of these in the barrel.
within miutes I had a column of fire must have been at least fifty
feet in the night sky. Fortunately, no one put in a fire call. The
next bundle got cut in half before burning!
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

Yep, classic chimney fire with an all combustible chimney. I did that
once with a bunch of empty Sevin boxes (Dad was crop duster) stuffed
one inside the other to about 10' or so. I cut an air flap in the
bottom box. Gets rid of them quickly.

"Jon Anderson" wrote in message
...
William Wixon wrote:

i think, like the first story, his father may have just arrived to see
the show too, can't remember.

Fathers have a way of showing up at just the right (or wrong) moment...

That's why some of us are still alive I imagine.

Jon Anderson wrote:
William Wixon wrote:

i think, like the first story, his father may have just arrived to see
the show too, can't remember.

Fathers have a way of showing up at just the right (or wrong) moment...

and Gummer has a way of coming up with fantastic stories. This one the
tale of a ten year old that has access to gunpowder and is out shooting
flaming arrows. Smells fishy to me. But then I am not the kind to just
buy into any story someone tells especially when it comes from someone
with a known history of telling tall tales.

Hawke

Don Foreman wrote:

We had two galvanized 30-gallon garbage cans. The pickup guy had
stacked the empties and they were stuck together. Ma told me to go
outside and separate them.

I tried tugging, banging, prying, etc to no avail. I set them back
upright in the driveway and drizzled an ounce or so of gasoline into
the space between them, gave that a minute to creep down to the bottom
and vaporize, and then tossed a match at the assembly.

The cans separated with a FWUMP! The inner can went high enough to
land on the roof, but it rolled off. The bottom of the outer can was
convex while the bottom of the inner one was concave but a bit of
hammering with a rubber mallet fixed those minor aberrations.


Was that your first 'whack' at metal working? ;-)


--
Greed is the root of all eBay.