BS: hit by lightening

Subject: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST,Don Hakman
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:39 PM

Two Sundays ago I was standing near an upstrairs window when I felt a simultaneous burning heat on my face and ear splitting explosion.
Anything that was a reciever/transmitter in the house was fried.
Surprisingly the TV's and monitors reset but our internet was out for over a week. I called the geek squad to come out after 10 hours of telephone support had proved worthless.

After the lightening strike my brain has seemingly reset after 72 hours of fairly intense depression. I thought shock treatments made people happy.


btw Millenium is now totally unsupported by Microsoft.
Its time for Mac

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: bobad
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:42 PM

Very enlightening.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 03:46 PM

The good news is you didn't get swept away by flood waters?

Glad you weren't seriously hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 04:06 PM

Glad you are OK, Don. Revolting thing to have happen, aye watt?

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: gnu
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 04:14 PM

Lard t'underin Jaysus b'y!!! Some shockin news eh wha'? Glad to hear you're grounded again.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM

Does this ring a bell, Don?

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 05:45 PM

A lightning strike indoors? That's odd. All buildings should have lighning conductors on them. In the UK they're a strip of copper about 5 x 30 mm, running up to the highest point of the building. Or don't US building codes call for them? ( or are you canada? Memory like a orangey swimmy thing....)

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Kaleea
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 06:25 PM

Now, Don, did you say, "Mother may I," before you did your impersonation of a lightening rod? I thought not. Mother had her revenge, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: John O'L
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 08:19 PM

I'm shocked. Glad to see you've taken something positive from it though.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 08:30 PM

Doctor: Well, Bobert, seeing that yer depressed we're gonna stick yer finger in this here light socket..

Bobert: You sure this is safe, Doc???

Doctor: Yeah, we've done it hundreds of times...

Bobert: Well, okee, dokee, all righty then...

ZZZZ!!! ZAP!!! ZZZZ!!!

Doctor: How you feel now, Bobert???

Bobert: Much better!!! Please don't stick my finger in there no more... I feel great.. Really, I do....

---------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, Don, that you got half-fried...

Bummer...

I once saw a cow that had been hit... She was purdy messed up but lived... Reckon that's why folks don't go grabbing a metal rod and run 'round in lightnin' storms...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 08:32 PM

They play golf instead.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 09:50 PM

My cousin was struck by lightening while talking on the phone - there was no storm, not even rain.
The latest news is that cell phones are more dangerous during thunderstorms EVEN WHEN YOU ARE NOT TALKING!! Seems they attract lightening.
Glad you are OK Don. Now you can pawn yourself off as a psychic.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Alba
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 09:53 PM

Don....can I PM you for a reading? I want to be the first to benefit from your new psychic powers...:)

Glad your ok! Scarey I bet though.
Best Wishes
Jude

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: bobad
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 10:38 PM

I think Michael Jackson got hit by lightening.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 10:44 PM

He got hit by something.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 10:53 PM

Don:

How did this happen? Are you burned? How's your state of mind now?

A

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 11:50 PM

Don,

I posted the text of an article in my "I Read it in the Newspaper" thread last week. Here is the article. The descriptions are amazing (they'll certainly knock your socks off!)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 04:18 AM

Hit by lightening - now A Whiter Shade of Pale?

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 07:46 AM

I never bothered with lightening protection on my modem/PC because the wires are underground - so what happens?

The bloody 440V 3 phase down our street drops a nuetral. All those on Red phase get melted clocks - Very Dalieqsque. I lost a few heat fuses on power supplies.

PC not on at the time - but I have a scarificial protector on the PVR/VCR/Sat/dooveries - NOW! And a UPS/surge limiter ready now for the recordings to continue.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST,Don Hakman
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 08:46 AM

I am sure I was not hit by the bolt but rather inside its primary magnetic field which was to say the least rather intense.


I missed all the good stories this week like:
Ken Lay getting laid
to rest beside a tearful ex President Bush.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As for recent enlightening ideas this is it...


Machines should serve ideas, ideas should not serve machines.*

Which is to say that employers or governments that see its workers as a cog in the gears of thier great machine are backward in their premise of reality and oppresive in thier operations.

When machines serve ideas it is more in keeping with the way the Universe/Multiverse as a whole actually works.

* This idea has been stated in different ways and how far one could take this premise is up to the individual but I am sure everytime one feels abused by the system it is because of a system where ideas/people are serving machines.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:44 AM

This week my best friend will have his piano concerto world premiere at the Kennedy Center in DC. The five movements involve five different states of water. The work bridges New Age ideas with Classical music.

There are problems. One is that it will be missing the first and last movement which contain the main theme enhanced by a children's choir that appears again in the last movement.
Another problem is that if the Mainland China ambassador were to merely recieve an invitation, all hell would break loose and many people would lose their jobs since it is the Taipai Symphony Orchestra that will be also be making their US debut under the baton of the conductor of the Isreal Symphony Orchestra.

This situation flies in the face of the time when the universal language of music and cooperation of nations were paramount as in the day when Leonard Bernstein conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in a work by Shostokovich.

Political grand standing should not belong in the concert hall, even in DC.

If both Chinese ambassadors were to attend I believe diplomacy would be enhanced and not compromised. But I have been warned in no uncertain terms that the danger outweighs the benefit.

what to do
what to do

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:52 AM

oh well I suppose who snubs who in the audience is not important.
That the work is performed at all is all that will be remembered.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: LilyFestre
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 10:16 AM

Glad you are ok.

When I was a kid, my sister and I were sitting at the table having lunch during a thunderstorm. The sliding glass door was open slightly and another window in the room was open, creating a cross-breeze. My sister was holding a forkful of potato salad when the lightening struck the fork. The veins in the back of her hand stood out immediately (think old, gnarly witch hands). I don't remember what else was medically wrong (I was 7 or 8) but she was in the hospital for 2 weeks and for months afterwards, she would have to go to the ER as she'd wake up hyperventilating. Scary stuff.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Dave Swan
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 01:31 PM

Highly recommended reading is A Match to the Heart by Gretel Erlich. It's her account of being struck by lightning and what that strike has done to the rest of her life. A work that follows is called This Cold Heaven in which Erlich travels to Greenland. What takes her there initially is her search for a treeless place. As a result of the strike's damage to her autonomic nervous system, she is unable to tolerate high altitude, thus can't get above the treeline. But treelessness is also a function of latitude, hence the trip to Greenland. She falls in love with the place and returns seven times. Among her many fine works, I'm most fond of these two.

D

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Nessie
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:29 AM

Interesting BBC programme Wednesday about lightning - apparently the charge travels through moisture on the skin to ground, brain scans of survivors appear normal but brain function scans show significant changes - response activity of a right-handed person you'd expect to find on the left occurs on the right-hand of the brain etc - as if it's been re-circuited. (These are only direct strikes Don!)
Lightning's on the increase over built-up areas due to pollution (more dust particles=more water/ice droplets) but it may have played a part in our creation through amino acids released in strikes in the primordial sludge.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 08:52 AM

"rather inside its primary magnetic field"

OK with 1000's of amps flowing there has to be a magnetic component but my understanding (MIEE good enough understanding?) it would be the electric field. Which is why they tell you to crouch, tuck your head in and put your feet together, so your body does not provide an alternative path to air (read short) which if it goes through your heart and conducts more than about 20 mA it will stop the heart. The reason "legs" is because even when the lightening hits the ground there is a potential gradient in the ground from the very low resistance but multiplied by 1000's of Amps. Even if you are yards away, and especially if you are wet. Cows, with there legs further apart suffer because of this.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 09:30 AM

so your body does not provide an alternative path to air (read short)

Your body is not going to avoid providing a path to air, no matter what shape you tuck it in to. P'raps you meant a path to ground?

A

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST,Murray Macleod
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:30 PM

Amos, if you think about it, you will see that Mr Red is describing a procedure for increasing the chances that the lightning will seek a path to ground through the air, rather than through one's body.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 05:42 PM

Sounds like a concert that doesn't deserve to be messed up by politics. I can only think of 3 states of water, but music is inspired by things, rather than exactly reflecting them...

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST,rangeroger
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 03:02 AM

Amos. Mr Red was correct in his statement in that the electrical path for lightning is from the earth upward to the clouds. Our eyes and mind "see" a lightning strike as coming from above, but it is actually the reverse.

rr

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 01:12 PM

I learned that lightening is coming in both directions. Small feeders grow upwards and attract the large charges that are desending. When they find each other WHHOOMP.

Lightening still is a surprisingly unkown quantity in its exact mechanics. Its only been a decade since we learned conclusively that lightening "sprites" shoot upwards into the ionosphere and disperse in a widening cone. This was folklore by airline pilots until satillites captured some pictures.

Lightening is hotter than the suface of the sun
T or F ?
Lightening is part of the electromagnetic spectrum
T or F ?
Lightening makes glass when it hits sandy soil
T or F ?
Ben Franklin had someone else hold the kite in the storm
T or F ? :)

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Polly Squeezebox
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 05:41 PM

Commiserations, Don. I know it's easy for those who have never experienced it to make a joke of this kind of experience. I was relatively lucky in that it was the car I was in that was struck not me myself - it punched a hole through the metal in the wing. My husband and son loved the experience, our friend and I were scared sh----ss - well, I went out with constipation and certainly didn't have it when I arrived home! The blinding white light is indescribable and it felt like the car had been lifted in the air and then dropped about thirty feet. First thing I needed was a very large brandy!

Polly

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 06:12 PM

Three members of the Everett Mountaineers were volunteers to do some maintenance work on the Mt. Pilchuck lookout in Washington State one summer, and we sat through a lightening storm in the lookout. It was grounded so was the best place to stay. We sat on an ensolite pad with our rubber-soled boots on and didn't touch anything metal. I'd been in the doorway when it moved in, and the rain was so hard I was being silly and stuck my spoon out the door to "wash" it. When I saw the lightening and the pink sizzling sky around and below us I put the spoon down and that's when we assumed our seats.

Amazing storm.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 07:45 PM

Do you have positive or negative feelings about this, Don?

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 01:11 PM

I suppose most of the depression is due to losing 10 years of poems and illustrations on a website I have maintained for a decade.
-NOT DUE TO LIGHTENING- but due to a few less than flattering depictions of President Bush which were judged as inflammatory and against thew rules of Lycos Inc. and Angelfire.com

I wonder if the ACLU would think I have a case.

Anyway as for physical damage, all the damage to electronics have actually led to an upgrade of various systems and discarding wireless devices and going to wired networks.

I have come to realize that I have no support at home for any of my artistic projects. My wife has never once asked to see what I am working on and provides negligible encouragement at best.
Now if it concerned washing dishes or vacuuming or the laundry ( which I do) then there is tons of praise.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 01:33 PM

URGENT NOTICE TO MANY POSTERS ABOVE:

There is no "E" in "lightning!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 02:16 PM

And no F in need to be a pedant, Dave (grins).

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 03:06 PM

enlightening!
The lighting made me spell poorly

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 11:15 PM

Well, Don, all I can say is more power to ya!!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 11:26 PM

He'll get a charge outta that, Art.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Crystal
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 06:51 AM

I was in a car which was nearly hit by lightning once. we were stopped at some tempory traffic lights and the lightning hit the verge next to us. Huge bang which shook the car, and a blue/white flash which left afterimages for a good hour! VERY scary!

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 08:23 AM

Amos -
"Your body is not going to avoid providing a path to air, no matter what shape you tuck it in to. P'raps you meant a path to ground?"

No, I think if you think it through - we are both right but yes if I had used the word than rather than to, it would be more universal linguistically - if you see what I mean.

The message is the same "feet together and crouch".

Now how does that work with ball lightning? tuck yerself into a ball, hmmmmmmmmmmm. And what is ball lightning and does it really exist or is it just a plasma bubble?

Lightening is hotter than the suface of the sun
T or F ? Dunno
Lightening is part of the electromagnetic spectrum
T or F ? No it is a plasma created by the ionisation of air and the current that passes to ground and the electrical potential from cloud to ground radiate EMI
Lightening makes glass when it hits sandy soil
T or F ? no the sand makes glass (SiO2 type glass) the heat is the catalyst.
Ben Franklin had someone else hold the kite in the storm
T or F ? :) No - it is not clear he ever flew a kite in a storm - he claimed to, but most historian question the veracity. He was a publicist.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 02:34 PM

I've seen ball lightning twice. One was a WHITE ball perhaps 7 inches in diameter- it travelled down a hall and winked out; the other was a large - easily a foot and a half in diameter - glowing orange ball. I even saw it compress into a squashed shape as it came through an open window. It went past me at about thigh height and out the open door.

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: open mike
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 04:36 PM

ouch! hope you will come thru with no ill effects
and maybe even some positive ones..new powers, perhaps?!

Subject: RE: BS: hit by lightening
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 09:39 PM

Sigh...

One of my best song friends many years ago was dumb enough to climb a Mayan temple in the middle of a storm. He did not survive the lightning strike. I still miss the dumb lug.

Charley Noble