James Newton wrote:
>Some day I'll have to tell you my ejection seat story.


Eh?  This sounds good.  Please tell.


I have another coupple of stories: (promise to shut up soon :o)

When I was in junior high school I was playing around with DC-DC converters
for xenon flash tubes.  After accidentally discovering that you can get
quite a jolt from them, I pieced together a tiny "zapper" (for practical
joke purposes) consisting of a 9V battery, 555 timer, small potcore
transformer, rectifier, and capacitor.  The circuit would charge a .47uF
capacitor to 1200V -- enough to momentarilly give you the sensation that
your arm had been yanked out of its socket if you were unfortunate enough to
touch it (at least that's how I remember it and I don't care to try it again
to see if it hurts any less now that I'm grown up).

One day I was toying with the idea of leaving the "zapper" hidden in a pants
pocket and running a cable out under my clothes to a plug I could conceal in
my hand.  I connected a coaxial cable to the "zapper" with a bannana plug on
the end that I could touch my victims with.  To test it, I zapped various
metal objects and marveled at the nifty sparks produced when the capacitor
discharged.  One object I got especially nice sparks from was an iron pipe
which I was stupid enough to pick up with my other hand to go show my friend
in the other room.  The first coupple of times I zapped the pipe, I was
lucky that the terminal that contacted the pipe first happened to be the
same terminal as the shield on the coaxial cable.  The shield happened to be
partially exposed on the end that connected to the zapper ... pants pockets
are not thick enough to stop 1200V!  But then the other terminal made
contact first!  YIPE!!!  I jumped halfway across the room and cussed like
the devil!  My friend laughed his a** off!


---
Another good story from roughly the same time (about the 7th grade) was when
a friend of mine gave me a bag of assorted firecrackers.  Up until this time
I had never encountered a cherry bomb and the only things I knew of that
came in little spherical packages were smoke bombs.  So the first one I lit
I just set on the ground and stepped back perhaps 2 or 3 feet.  I was
wondering why my friend was running off so fast for a smoke bomb.  Boy was I
surprised!!!  Them damn things sting when you're wearing shorts!


---
Then there's the ultimate in stupidity -- when I was in 4th grade I once got
a bunch of free plastic spoke decorations with a box of cereal or a happy
meal or something.  I put them on the front wheel of my bike just for sh*ts
and grins.  Then, as I was riding down a long hill at significant speed, I
noticed a coupple of friends of mine a ways ahead and decided to get rid of
the dorky spoke decorations before they see me with them.  To remove the
spoke decorations I commenced to rubbing my foot up against the rapidly
spinning wheel.  It was working quite well -- the little plastic thingys
were flying everywhere.  Then the damndest thing happned!  Somehow my foot
managed to become wedged between the spokes and the fork!  (who would have
seen that comming?)  Then I had one of those "OH SH*T!" moments where time
was going really slow and the bike was becomming more and more vertical and
I was trying to jump off but couldn't because my foot was stuck!  Then the
pavement came up to greet me and my bike landed on top of me and we both
slid a ways resulting in a nice case of road-rash.  Luckilly I managed not
to break any bones.  My original objective of avoiding embarasement was,
well... not terribly successful (to put it mildly).