[Regia-NA] Re: Kim's Shocking Advice

[rmhowe]

"J. K. Siddorn" wrote:
> Magnus wrote. 
> (I got my sophomore housing at college because my predecessor
> at the house electrocuted himself with a vacuum cord he'd
> dropped into a puddle he'd made washing his car mats.
> I am told that can be a slow way to go.)
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> 
> It's a lot quicker over here with 250 volt mains! Mains voltage is something
> you learn an early and deep respect for in the UK. However .............
> 
> When I was 14 or so, I had a fishing friend and he showed me a good way of
> collecting worms. Take two six inch nails, connect them to two bits of wire
> and push them into the ground about six feet apart. Attach a plug to the
> other ends of the wires and shove it in the socket. You should see those
> little critters come flying out of the ground!
> 
> To the naive and the youngsters who might read this I will simply say this
> DON'T STAND IN THE GARDEN WHILST YOU TRY IT!
> 
> Usual disclaimers ..............
> 
> Regards, > 
> Kim Siddorn.

I've got some suicide cords. I also have a ten-amp plug box
with breaker and some portable GFCI's. These things wear out.
They come in quite nice when I want to test the odd useful
looking motor. I switch out older 3 phases for single phases
as we don't have industrial wiring in my shop. 

For quite some time - 30 years or more after WWII they
used to sell ex-army DC hand generators here in Popular Mechanics
for the very same purpose - levitating worms. 

I want to see someone do it at high table during feast. 

(But then I am a subversive. There was that John Goodman film 
where they wiped out all the Royals though.... 
Boy, I wish. Not yours, ours. 
The third worst failing of the SCA 
(after the name, and the ridiculously wide time period) 
is the lack of ability to outlaw obnoxious 
ex-royals from reentering Crown Tournament. 
You simply have to try to outlive or ignore them. 
The idea of Swearing Fealty to some is flat out repulsive.)
At least Regia avoids this.

Of course our household wiring is alternating current. 
Yours is direct. Both will grab you or throw you. 
I walked off of a mountain onto an unfamiliar ridge in
near dark one night right into an electric fence.
I picked myself up about ten feet back. 
Hit me on both thighs -I think-. May have been the second
time I've been consciously knocked out outside an Operating Room.
The first time I browned out at age two plugging a bobby-pin
into a 220 circuit in a J.C. Penny's store. The whole world
went chocolate color, not to mention the burned flesh smell.
I remember. Extremely clearly.

At NCSU one of our electricians got caught. Another man tried
to grab him at the panel and was killed. The third knocked
them loose losing his thumb. I knew another electrician who
had all his fillings melted and spent months in the hospital.
A couple of others landed in the hospital by digging for a
major electric line under the asphalt with a pneumatic spade.
They actually found it. They were burned by hot flaming
asphalt too.

I knocked my sister (and Dad) loose once from a fan in a Kmart.  
I now have a -similarly- once botched up Industrial size fan I got 
for $15 in a charity where they had hot-wired the chassis too.
Worked fine when I connected it up right. Might have killed
them. Good thing it didn't appear to run - on a wet floor.
Not often you can save someone's life by buying something they
later want back either. Ingrates. I told them how close they'd
come messing with it. It makes for very nice whirlpool cooling
downstairs.

My wife has nearly been killed by delivery men who hot-wired a 
new stove case hot soon after we married. So when -others- did it 
twice more on the new Kenmore washer/dryer(s) I caught them.
Nine deliveries to get one not dented with a good transmission.
Whirlpool ain't what it used to be. Neither are delivery-men.
There must be a huge warehouse of Kenmore machines with goobs
running around like a bunch of monkeys switching parts to make
ONE GOOD ONE. I shit thee not. Colored wires should go to the
same color - right? They should test these goobs for color-
blindness before they send them out. I caught one throwing
a rubber gasket he'd torn into the belting as well.

Ignorant people can kill you. So can stupid assumptions.
One reason I try to explain potential dangers so clearly in 
my articles. 

I don't think any of us are necessarily safe from ourselves either.
I don't know too many men outside of some machinists who make it to
old age in physical demanding trades like construction. If an
accident doesn't get you, and most trades people average one major
one every four years, you gradually break down. You don't really
realize it until you work in shops with lots of older men, and
watch them disable one after another.

Magnus