Dumbest thing you've done recently...

Is that why you were off the computer for a week?

Regarding the whole electricity posts, well, I have had my fair share of voltage. And as for my friends......

The stupidest thing I did... And I still feels it.

I went to a little tavern with friends and had quite a few beers.

Then we were enjoying night life in Quebec city (There are really beautiful sights in Québec by night). I had rained so the ground was slippy.

Then the big mistake. Québec's an old "fortress" and has some old (and high) ramparts I went on the side to get a better sight of the city. Remember I told you the ground was slippy... I fell... 22'... That was on june 22th. One day only before Quebec National celebration (that is on june 23th evening/night even if the National day is june 24th)

I still have backaches and my ankle and leg still hurt...

EDIT: corrected "remparts" to ramparts

Oo, ouch! The word is "ramparts" in English, btw.
I've never had a serious fall or broken any bones. I'm extremely acciden prone, but it's always things that should have been bad but ended up way better. Times when my leg should have broken, my hand should have swollen up too much to use, I should have got stiches from my knife slipping into my hand, stuff like that. Once it's cleaned up though, it isn't as bad as thought. Sometimes it's been as close as a fraction of an inch from hitting a major artery or something, and I would have had to rush to the hospital.

As is, I've been in the hospital once since birth, and that was when I had my appendix out just nearly 2 years ago.

Oo, ouch! The word is "ramparts" in English, btw.
I've never had a serious fall or broken any bones. I'm extremely accident prone, but it's always things that should have been bad but ended up way better. Times when my leg should have broken, my hand should have swollen up too much to use, I should have got stiches from my knife slipping into my hand, stuff like that. Once it's cleaned up though, it isn't as bad as thought. Sometimes it's been as close as a fraction of an inch from hitting a major artery or something, and I would have had to rush to the hospital.

As is, I've been in the hospital once since birth, and that was when I had my appendix out just nearly 2 years ago.

Some precisions... I HATE hospitals, I went once too in my lifetime and was really forced to go. I never had broken bones too.

After I fell, I had nothing broke, so I just stayed home. Didn't want to get to an hospital.

Oh, by the way, I heard a band's singer (don't remember who) fell 15' (less than me! ) and then was in coma for a week...

Well, here is the winner of the dumbest thing done award,
with a much more minor and less painful dumb thing commited.
That is, I was golfing, driving the golf cart, and wasn't paying attention. I was looking for my friends ball, and all of a sudden, BOOM! I had driven over this thick short pole, it was embedded in the ground on its side, so we pulled it out, and stuck it back in the ground. Boy did I feel stupid, not at all like when I burn myself.

Shanamir's recent brush reminded me of a another stupid thing I did!

Where I work, we create huge piles of woodchips, like pyramids. Rather than walk the long way around, I chose to climb over a side. The chips began to slide under my feet and I caught myself just before sliding/falling into a reclaim pit. The chips above me would have covered me over and I might have been shipped in pieces to Japan!

That sort of product contamination is unacceptable!

I had to carefully brush chips away from the edge of the pit with one foot and hand, leaning slightly back against a mountain of woodchips that threatened to give way and push me in and bury me. Gradually, I made my way away from the pit...

I walk the long way around now!

stupid sick joke ahead...

"oh my gods! this whole batch has WAY too much hobbit in it! our woodchips must have less than 2% hobbit, by volume!"

aryne *

:lol:
You would be surprised at what contaminants they won't accept!

Oh, another one. I like this ID better I think.
Bravo, very clever.

Yeah! I couldn't bear the thought of wandering around as Saruman all the time!

the dumbest thing that i did happened to me today.... i was walking in the hall of my school and i see my friend mary so i walk up to her and put my hand on her should and said "hi .... oh my god i am sorry i thought you were someone else.!!!" i was beat red wher i did that.... i mistaked my freind and it was someone else i hate when that happens

yeah, that happens to me too.

Gil, you should have gone for Eagle! My brother got his last year, and my other brother (Gimli) just has to do his project. My dad was Scoutmaster for about 10 years, and his mom and brothers are or have been leaders too. I got a church award that I had to qualify and work hard for--kind of our young woman's equivalent to Eagle Scout or Duty to God award. And instead of a medal to wear on a uniform I have a necklace I can wear anytime!

dumb things lately? Well, I was riding my bike, and I hit a pole when I was going around a corner too fast. And for some reason, for the past week or so, I have been biting my nails all the time! I almost never bite my nails, so I don't understand why I have been now. By the time I notice it, it's too late; they're all jagged and I have to cut them. They are way too short. I have been a bit homesick this year...maybe that's it.

I have heard it said that if you chew gum, you do not chew your nails.

I don't know about that.

I've also heard that nail-biting is symptomatic of a nutritional deficiency. You might want to talk to someone about getting some multivitamins or something.

(I don't really know about that either...)

Many girls find painting their nails (even with a clear coat!) makes them more aware.

Of course, you may just be homesick!

I seem to do a lot of things with fire......

Well, looks like I managed to do something dumb again, what a surprise, and with fire of all things. Who would of thought that I would do something with fire? I'll bet no one saw that coming.

But anyways, what I did was I was playing with my lighter during science class underneat the desk, just making it spark and what not cuz I was really bored. Then it happened, I accidently released some fuel and held it in, scorching my thumb because the lighter was pointed that way, burnt the hair on my thumb off and now I have this big mark on my thumb. You'd think I would of released the fuel, but nooooo, I just kept it going untill it was really hot and you could smell the burnt hair. Then my teacher walked back and smelt it and was not too impressed with me, so instead of suspending me I have to clean her class up everyday after school next week.

Hooray!

Sauganast beats you all five times over :lol:

That is just silly!

That is just silly!

With today's Zero Tolerance schools, I'm surprised you're not in jail!

DON'T TAKE FIRE TO SCHOOL!!!


================================================== =========
Now here's what happened when I played with fire at high school! (You'd have thought I'd be older and wiser by then. They could have thrown the book at me!)


I had been experimenting with various mixtures of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and powdered sugar.

Ignition was fast, hot, intense, and smokey!

I couldn't resist bringing some to show my classmates.

They couldn't wait for after school.

I took perhaps a gram of it and placed it in a tiny pile on a shelf in the back of the lab. One of the older boys who smoked, lent me his lighter. I quickly lit it, backed away and we watched from a distance as it burned for several seconds with a white hot six inch flame as big as a quarter. It produced a prodigious amount of smoke!

Our science teacher, a poor tormented little woman who had been a biology major, was THE science teacher at the backwoods high school. I was quite the smart-a** in those days and probably made her life a living hell. I mean it! She didn't really know what she was doing, she was a step ahead (of most of us), teaching physics and chemistry, and we were not at all appreciative that she was at least trying.

Anyway, the poor thing came out of the storeroom wearing a smock and goggles and heard people exclaiming at the smoke and we bad boys were trying not to laugh. She started running water in the sink of one of the lab tables!

We gathered around.

"I was cleaning out some old containers in the storeroom," she explained. "I must not have flushed it out well enough. You have to be very careful!"

We did laugh at that, and she was puzzled mightily, I can tell you.

She turned and started to get ready for class, and one of the black girls, from the previous class volunteered, "Oooh, Mizz ____! Mizz ____! That didn't come from no sink! There was a fire back there! I saw it! It was that tall!"

The teacher wasted no time in quieting everyone down. She ran to the principal's office. Soon, the baritone voice of the principal was on all the intercoms. The fire alarms rang, and the entire high school was evacuated. All of us stood outside in lines by class and the teachers came out and checked against the roll and made sure all were accounted for.

The guys were all telling me how much trouble we were all in. I was as cool as Clinton.

"Don't worry. No one saw who did it."

We resolved not to tell, and I promised not to involve any of them in any case.

Later we found out that they also evacuated the elementary school across the street. And of course, the fire department was also called out. There in Rural, Alabama, the fire department was called with the old civil defense siren that blew every day at noon. We knew how long they would blow it for anything and would often get in our cars and come to see them put out the fire, but we had to be fast to catch them and follow them. (Not much else to do in Rural, Alabama in the 70's! We had one guy in town who checked his watch every time, noon or not, because if it blew for six minutes, then that meant a nuclear attack.)

Anyway, no one got a phone call that evening. No one was called to the office the next day. No phone calls the next evening. The second school day was almost over when I felt the big meaty hand of the principal on my shoulder in a friendly way. He irresistably turned me around, grinned and said, "You started that fire. Didn't you?"

I had to grin back and say, "I can't lie about it!"

"Come with me to my office." He was happy he had solved the mystery. He sat back behind his desk and stretched his huge arms behind his bald head, and said, "I knew it was you! Now tell me the truth and you won't get in trouble, but we need to know how you got into that storeroom."

"I didn't go into the storeroom."

"Son, I used to teach chemistry, and that looks like the residue left over from a sodium fire, and that had to come from the storeroom." He showed me the smooth rock like residue that had puddled in the remains of the blaze.

"I didn't use sodium!" I cried, relieved that they were now more concerned about the security of the storeroom. "I used a mixture of..."

It took a little convincing. He asked the science teacher what she thought...

Before it was all over, they decided we needed a demonstration. That Friday, the entire class was turned out onto the old parking lot for a forensic comparison test.

The teacher was dressed again in smock and gloves and goggles. She had a large beaker full of water. With tongs she extracted some sodium from a jar and was oh so careful! She was actually a little frightened. She had warned us diligently and earnestly about the dangers!

She dropped the chunk in...






It fizzled in the water like Alka Seltzer. She said it must have been old and bad.






Then it was my turn.

I unrolled a whole roll of aluminum foil and folded it over and over to make a big show out of having a lot of thicknesses of foil.

I set this on the asphalt.

On this I poured about a pound of my mixture.

Right in front of the teacher, the principal, and the class, I borrowed a lighter from the very guy I had borrowed one from before. (They wanted to know if I had carried a lighter and whose I had borrowed. I wouldn't say, and they didn't press it hard.)

I tried to light it. It didn't catch. Laughter.

I tried again. This time it started sparking off just a little. I backed away quickly, and this must have looked funny, for the class laughed again at me backing off so fast from the sputtering little pile.

But each little spark ignited several more and suddenly it went critical and white flames half a meter high blasted straight up and a thick column of white smoke rose into the sky!

The aluminum had melted straight through. So had the asphalt. Deep in the bottom of the meltdown was the red clay of Rural, Alabama.

I said, "As you can see, this was not a sodium fire!"

================================================== ====================

I doubt that these days anyone could get away with what I did.

Don't even go there!

Huh, well, now we know what that big hole in the chemistry room is from! jk

I have done something else rather idiotic recently. I had a cold a few weeks ago, and put cough drops in my backpack so I wasn't all sniffly in school. I then did not take the extras out of the backpack. It then started raining a few days ago. My backpack is now filled with cough drop goop, which is reacting in interesting ways with that exotic peruvian mildew that still lingers in the bottom. Strawberry cough drops and peruvian mildew do not mix!

Well Gil, pardon me. Hobbit Hood, that's quite the story. I've managed to scorch my carpet, ruin my bedspread, and char my curtains from fires, but that's the worse I've gotten. I'm quite a fire-bug, which is why I teach survival.
I make my campers light their fires with one match, and if it's raining...all the better!