From: IN%"KENNEDY@Eisner.DECUS.Org" "Terry Kennedy" 1-AUG-1995 14:31:06.64 To: IN%"terry@spcvxa.spc.edu" CC: Subj: Notefile HOBBIES_AND_INTERESTS Note 179.106 Return-path: Received: from Eisner.DECUS.Org ("port 2390"@Eisner.DECUS.Org) by spcvxa.spc.edu (PMDF V5.0-4 #9417) id <01HTK8Y7128G8WY8N9@spcvxa.spc.edu> for terry@spcvxa.spc.edu; Tue, 01 Aug 1995 14:30:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from Eisner.DECUS.Org by Eisner.DECUS.Org (PMDF V4.2-12 #4291) id <01HTK8SE8N3K000DHU@Eisner.DECUS.Org>; Tue, 01 Aug 1995 14:26:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 01 Aug 1995 14:26:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Notefile HOBBIES_AND_INTERESTS Note 179.106 To: terry@spcvxa.spc.edu Message-id: <01HTK8SE96EA000DHU@Eisner.DECUS.Org> Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society X-VMS-To: in%"terry@spcvxa.spc.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT <<< EISNER::$2$DIA7:[NOTES$HIVOL]HOBBIES_AND_INTERESTS.NOTE;1 >>> -< HOBBIES_AND_INTERESTS >- ================================================================================ Note 179.106 Jokes (clean and not sick) 106 of 109 EISNER::FURZE "Jane Furze - WHO_AM_I #572" 155 lines 1-AUG-1995 12:23 -< Fahrenheit 452 >- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fahrenheit 452 Wade H. Nelson A few years after graduating from college, I returned to my folks house to deal with a number of boxes that I had left with them. These boxes were filled with my college books, course notes, term papers, etc. that I had kept. I decided to weed through them and eliminate as much junk as I could. Not having the heart to simply dump four years worth of Vanderbilt University into the garbage, I decided to grab a six-pack, settle down in front of the downstairs fire place and ceremoniously burn most of it. I managed to get through about three of the 15 or so boxes piled around me when I realized I could not possibly sort through each box page-by-page. In the interest of saving time, I decided to do a cursory scan of the contents of each box to determine if it contained anything worth saving. Well, box number four appeared to be loaded with Psychology and American Literature junk so I took the short cut and tossed the entire box on the funeral pyre before me. I popped open beer number four and watched the box begin to smolder. Raising my beer, I gave one last salute to those two unmemorable courses as the box erupted into a roaring inferno. The papers were consumed rapidly. So were the ancient contents of the dresser drawer that I had hastily dropped into the bottom of that box when packing five years earlier. Dang, I had forgotten all about that stuff. The toothbrush and hairbrush went up rather well.....also that packet of disposable plastic razors, dental floss, contact lens case and a bunch of junk I couldn't identify through the flames. I couldn't recognize most of what was going up in smoke as I sat there. I just chugged my beer and watched. It burned great...right down to that full can of Right Guard. I had gotten about half the beer down when that deodorant can finally decided it had had enough. What happened next I can only compare to the scene from "2001" where the Dave Bowman character is falling through all these lights with that 'O S**t' look on his face. I heard a BOOM so loud that my brain only registered it as a high-pitched squeal. The contents of the fireplace right down to the last ash were propelled out with such velocity that all I could see were a multitude of bright streaks emanating from a point about three feet in front of me (ala 2001). Big blue shock wave knocked me back. Spill the beer? You bet. Caught me off guard? He-- yes. Felt like I jumped on a live grenade? I Guess so. One second I was watching that inferno burn from the outside, the next second I was the fire. The human brain reverts to 'primordial slime' mode when thrown into a situation like this. All higher-order functions vaporize. I guess it's all those endorphins and adrenaline peaking simultaneously. It took a couple of seconds to get the 'reasoning' capability of my brain back on-line. I jumped up, looked at my hands and feet, touched my face and realized that I was indeed intact. Except for my eyebrows, which felt singed, I was completely untouched. Although I might look like a chimney sweep, there would be no Richard Pryor imitation tonight. I felt my hair for fire and decided a mach two trip to the shower wasn't going to be needed. Just in case, I checked again, and patted down all my clothing. Nothing. I looked through the thick smoke toward the fireplace. What had been a 6-inch deep accumulation of ashes was now gone. But all of the fire I had been watching was now all over the furniture and the sculpted dark green carpet behind me. Instantly, I knew I had a decision to make. Go upstairs and call the fire department, leaving 100 burning embers behind to ignite a dozen or more carpet and upholstery fires before I could get downstairs again, or immediately begin throwing all of the burning material I could back into the fireplace and stamp out any carpet fires which threatened to get out of control. If I failed with the second approach, the question would be asked "Why didn't you call the fire department." If I failed with approach #1, there might be fewer recriminations, but no house left. I considered all 72 permutations of success and failure and my possible choices of action in under a millisecond, and immediately began slinging burning bits of wood back into the fireplace with my bare hands. I also began screaming FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! louder than human lungs are normally capable of, hoping a meandering neighbor might somehow hear me. At this point my hands must have become totally impervious to flame, because I grabbed several fully engulfed pieces of wood and slung them into the fireplace without even sensing the heat. That Tony Robbins firewalk DID pay off! I threw the first log so hard it bounced back out, but it landed on the fire bricks in front of the fireplace so I didn't consider it a millisecond further. I grabbed the little shovel from the fireplace set and began scooping the smaller embers as fast as I could. As soon as I filled the shovel, I'd run to the fireplace, empty it and run back. Some embers were 30 feet down the hall, drowning themselves in little piles of melted nylon carpet. I'm sure I set the Guinness World Record for "Hot Ember Pickup with a Tiny Shovel". I did manage to avoid setting my folks house on fire, and the carpet only had one or two seriously melted spots on it. I DID find the deodorant can too- it had left the fireplace at some ungodly velocity, dented the wall at the far end of the room and came to rest directly behind where I was sitting. The thing was split wide open along the weld and peeled back almost flat. Blackened. It looked like a piece of re-entry junk. After I finished the Smokey the Bear routine I grabbed beer number five, popped the top, farted, (I'd been a little tense up to this point) and thought about how I was gonna get the remaining mess cleaned up. Everything in the room was coated with a heavy layer of ash, including myself. It looked like the aftermath of Mt. Saint Helens. "But heck, a vacuum cleaner will get this stuff up with no problem" I thought. Hoover. Kirby. Red Devil. Dustbuster. Great machines, one and all. No problema. "How lucky could I be?" I thought. I didn't get decapitated, the house didn't burn down, I collected a GREAT story to tell future grandkids and the cleanup was gonna take under twenty minutes. I grabbed my mom's antique upright out of the closet and started to work. No point in anyone besides me seeing the room in this condition, even if the carpet was a mess. Have you ever had one of those split-seconds of consciousness when you realize you miraculously survived something really bad but then you sense that it's not quite over yet? I never have, but I sure wish I had at this point. There I was, sucking up the ashes with an upright vacuum. Too bad not all of them were cold. That upright vacuum swallowed ONE ITTY BITTY LITTLE HOT EMBER that was hiding somewhere on the carpet. It flew right up inside and parked itself on that big ol' pile of carpet lint and dog hair inside the bag. Heck, that bag hadn't been emptied in years. And all that air rushing in there made that little bitty hot ember REAL happy. The next thing I know, the side of the vacuum is glowing red hot. By the time I figured out what was going on, there was a two foot plume of flame jetting out a hole in the side which was getting larger by the second. It really looked and sounded kinda neat, like a fighter jet on full afterburner taking off a carrier. My brain again reverted to primordial slime mode. All higher-order functions ceased and all I remember is seeing the sliding glass door and thinking "T-h-r-o-w v-a-c-u-u-m". I pitched it as hard as I could towards the open door, knowing I could easily get it to the patio outside. Whew. The distance was about 12 feet. In slow-motion it looked like one of those old NASA films where the rocket starts slowly going psycho after leaving the launch pad. There it was, sailing brush end first with a nice slow roll...fire belching out the side. As the umbilical pulled out of the wall, the flame settled into a exquisite trail of sparks. The vehicle had plenty of initial velocity and it looked like it had a good downrange trajectory........right up to the point it passed through the plate glass window to the right side of the sliding door. I decided another six pack was indicated. ------------------------------