Another one for the "Dumb crap I've done" file

[AncientArcher76]

ROUND 2..................  Last summer we had a family get together at my house I made a big cinderblock pit  to make a bonfire/ grill and here it is dark out Im throwing wood on the fire and drinking Jack Daniels,  Everyones having a great time up till when one of the blocks fell off...NO PROBLEM I GOT IT... well I proceeded to grab the block with my bare hand got about two steps and my hand was blistering up.  OUCH I was screaming and yelling everyone got in there cars and left... I had to sleep with a frozen chicken in my hand all night.  The pain was so intense I cant describe it.  I should have went to the ER but a few days later when all the skin peeled off of my hand I fealt much better... OH yeah Im nuts!!!!

[Hardawaypoints]

Not to hijack this thread about fire, but I have a fireworks story to share that happened a long time ago.  It involves alcohol as well.  In 1981, I went with a buddy to Pembroke, N.C. to visit a friend of ours in school there.  My friends and I ended up going to South of the Border at the N.C./S.C. line and bought a bunch of fireworks.  After some beers with our supper, we needed to get back to Raleigh. We bid or friend in Pembrook goodbye and hit the road. Driving back toward Fayetteville, I lit a roman candle and held it out the window as we were going up the interstate.  The fireballs would shoot past us, then the car would catch up to them.  It had recently rained, so we weren't too worried about the grass alongside the road catching fire. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something sparkle at my feet.  As I bent down to check it out, it exploded.  My buddy, the driver of the car had lit a firecracker and threw it at my feet.  I returned fire and tossed one at his feet.  Next thing I know, there is another one sparkling at my feet and after it blew up I bent down to get another to throw at him.  All of a sudden, a second firecracker went off, he had twisted the fuses of two together and tossed both at once.  We were just heading into Fayetteville and coming to the traffic lights, when I decided that I was going to achieve peace through superior firepower.  When we were stopped at a red light I lit the end of a string of 1,000 firecrackers and tossed the whole pack at his feet.  We had to roll down all the windows as firecrackers were exploding everywhere and smoking up the whole car.  Other motorists were either looking at us like we were insane, or laughing hysterically.  The law never saw us or pulled us over. I'm sure we were both over the legal limit. I'll never know how we didn't get arrested.

Jim

[cracker]

Ah the memories.

[JW_Halverson]

It was a just over a year ago and Mikey and me were up in Harding County (as far north and west as you can be in South Dakota and not be in NoDak, Montana, or Wyoming) to hunt antelope.  We drove up in a blizzard, set up my wedge tent in a blizzard, hunkered down for two days and nites in a blizzard and burnt up almost a week's worth of wood keeping from freezing to death.  Man, I love antelope hunting!  (year before I hunted with no shirt and the sunburn qualified as Hunter Orange)

Anywho, we had saved a couple chunks of pitch pine for an emergency...and since we were almost outa firewood, but not out of blizzard, AND it was time for dinner, we threw them both in the woodstove and proceeded to put on a pot of taters and something else.  We were changing outa wet clothes and consuming adult beverages of choice when one of us noticed a funny smell.  It was the tent burning.  The wind had tipped the stovepipe against the canvas wall and it was smoldering.  The stovepipe was cherry red all the way up and out the smoke flap.  Seems the combination of pitch pine and 40 mile an hour winds causes the stovepipe to really-really draw well.  In my longhandles and barefeet I run out into the storm to secure the stovepipe. 

I only caused it to lean further onto the tent and do more damage.  Mikey throws the pot of taters on the canvas so now I got boiling water and taters splashing on my half nekkid body ... but not to worry, the blizzard soon cooled it off!  I ran inside to grab leather gloves, when I came out I stubbed my toe on a tent peg, but the accumulated snow soothed that broken toe and helped reduce the swelling nicely.  Of course the stovepipe came apart in my hands and I had to hand the stovepipe off to Mikey and crawl into the smokefilled tent to guide it back on the cherry red stove. 

Had it not been for my strong scandanavian ancestors looking down on me from Valhalla I would have headed into town to the emergency room.  Maybe I just didn't want to explain the combination of frostbite, 2nd degree burns, busted toe, swollen shut eyes, and smoke inhalation. 

That reminds me, I gotta call Mikey tonite and firm up the plans for muzzleloading deer camp next week. 

[cracker]

No doubt those ancestors were laughing they're butts off. Ron

[stickbender]

     Some......how......I don't think you two should be around black powder......
We used to run on quite a few adult beverage/party, and cook fires......Only we had to explain to them a cook fire is one you can step over.  Not one that you had to stand back 12 feet from.  One of our medics used to go to Sebring each year, and would load his van up with old couches, and anything else that would burn, for a bon fire, and drinking party.  One group who brought an old mattress, was pretty well into the alcohol, decided that after the mattress had burned up, to do a fire walk, well one guy starts off, and gets tangled up in the mattress springs, and falls flat on his face.  The other drunks, proceeded to drag him and the springs out of the fire, and started getting him untangled.  Off to the ER with him....they finally put a ban on bringing in stuff for bon fires, but they still smuggled in stuff.  My Buddy, would load the back of his van up with stuff, and put the empty beer cases on top of it, to camouflage it.  I have friends who work at the track, and they said there were some pretty bizarre stuff with those bon fifes before they banned them.  Yeah, I remember the old TV commercials, with Willie Mays, holding a blasting cap, and saying " Kids, this is a blasting cap.  If you see one do not touch it!  Then they would show a leather shoe being blown up with one.  Wrong thing to show kids.  We immediately went out looking for blasting caps! Then they had one about the dangers of gasoline, and it showed that a pint of gasoline was equal to 14 sticks of dynamite!  When the vapors came in contact with a spark or flame.  WE couldn't get it to do that.  I remember seeing pictures of boats blowing up, when they didn't vent the engine compartment, and started the motor.  Yeah, gas is not the thing to start a fire with.  As I have personally found out.  Singed eyebrows, and once long hair, just don't add to to the ambiance of a nice fire.  Not to mention the smell.  Good ol Phosgene gas! From burning hair, feathers, bodies, etc.  Ah yes, fond memories, thankfully I survived not just my scientific experimentation with fossil fuels, but those of my Buddies!  Not to mention that of throwing cans of Raid into the fire pit, and watching the ball of fire, go up, as it exploded.  Ah just something invigorating about burnt raid fumes lingering in the air as you camped out.


                                                                                       Wayne

[sailordad]

wel im glad i aint never doe noting like any of that

well there was this one time when i was 16 yrs old.it was sumer here in minnesota.it was,humid and very ttler wind.
a very nice miserable minnesota summer day.
well me and about 4 friends decided we needed to go swimming.our favorite swimmin hole as about 13 miles west of town in a little town called Avon.
well a buddy "borrowed" his dads new little 4 door import,gas sipping,low end car.you know the kind 4 cyl engine,5 spd trans,manual window locks etc. vynal seats not carpet. a real money saver(his dad communted about 75 miles to work one way ach day)
well we al lodaded into this car,got another older friend to stock us up with beer,we all had our fav "smokes" with us etc.
well we hit the lake and swam for hours and dranka whole lot of beer and partied some of the gilrs that were at the lake that day.
well it started getting late and we needed to head back to town and get my buddies dads car  back.
we stopped at the local grocery store and grabbed some munchies and soda for the road.
well at the counter they were selling smoke bombs(firworks were illegal here at that time)so we bought some of themm too 
as we are crusing down the freeway we are lighting them and throwing them out the window
well one of my frineds throws one out the front window and in the back window it came.
ot landed right on top of them new vynal seats.
now it dont know if you know how a hot a smoke bomb actually burns,but trust me them little suckers get VERY VERY HOT very quickly.
it burned a hole in the back seat cushion the size of a cantelope in less than15 seconds.
that vynal started to melt which also caused the foam cushion to melt,plus the smoke from the smoke bomb.
there was some much smoke rolling out the windows from this car,the car full of girls following us said they thought were on fire.
my friend never even pulled over,just drove home and stashed the car before his dad got home.
he wasnt allowed to hang with us for the rest of the summer,his dad said we were a bad infulence on him 

[iowabow]

When I was in the military I was on an m60 competition team. We spend a lot of time on the range practicing. We did not need the tracers during the days target practice so removed them from the belts. These tracers were saved so that we could fire this belt as one long belt after we night qualified. These rounds turned the down range into a wildfire and the fire department was called to put it out. At the time we thought it was great fun to put the fire dept to work on the weekend.

[stickbender]

     Iowabow, When I was stationed in Italy, my unit was going out to a range to train on the M60, and Fifty, but I had changed my MOS from Crypto Clerk, to company clerk, to mail clerk, so I didn't get to go.  I was upset at the time, because I had never fired the fifty, I dearly wanted to.  Well they were only going to be gone for about three hours.  Well they left in the morning, and didn't get back till late in the afternoon, and they were all beat.   And smelling of wood smoke.  Seems, the first round of M60, and Fifty fire,WITH tracers, set the woods on fire, so they spent the whole day, beating out a woods fire, with shirts, shovels, and whatever else they could use.  Glad I missed that.      Still wish I could have fired the fifty though.  That has always been my favorite weapon.  I would love to have a twin mounted fifty, on a cruise ship, going real slow pass Somalia........  Like my Brother said, they could put a commando boat, with twin fifties, mounted on it, and when the pirates, come up to the side of the boat, they lower the commando boat from the opposite side, and while the pirates are busy making their demands, the commando boat comes around the stern, and proceeds, to shred the pirate boat, and pirates, into chum.  Back to the ship, hoisted back up, drinks and shrimp cocktail all around, and on with the cruise.......    Sounds like a plan to me. 

                                                                                       Wayne

[JW_Halverson]

Always thought the NRA should charter a smaller, slower cruise ship and cruise that area.  Raise the price a little to cover the requisite insurance and an extra ship's surgeon on staff and there ya go. 

[JustinNC]

Dang I didnt even get to hear that story Jonathan.

Don't let your wife fool you Jonathan...you do realize she consulted her brother to blow up  a cardboard Fort Sumter (i think) for a high school project? pyrotechnics, black powder, and canon fuse involved 


Gas and fire don't mix..........at all..........I still have the scars to prove it, and sure I could dig up some insurance stuff from the ER, plastic surgeon I had to see a couple times afterwards (no surgery involved thank God) and probably some paper work from the physical theropist.