Explosive Confession


One day, when I was a teenager, some friends and I had several boxes of those snaps that you throw on the ground during fireworks season. For some reason, we decided to come up with a creative way to use them. In the end, one of us (possibly me; I have largely repressed my memory of the incident) suggested that we unwrap them all and combine their minuscule amounts of gunpowder to make a super snap. So, we got a paper towel and sat on my friend Krista’s porch, unwrapping the snaps and pouring their contents onto the paper towel.

Star formation is very interesting, aside from all the math. It turns out that one way a star ignites is through gravitational collapse, which occurs when the mass of a dust cloud becomes so great that it collapses in on itself, heating up to the point that the fusion reaction begins.

So anyway, there we were, sitting on the semi-enclosed porch, with our heads close together over the ever-growing pile of explosives. And then the pile reached the Jeans mass, and the weight of the gunpowder caused it to explode. In our faces.

Diving from the porch, it took some time for us to recover, especially our hearing. But you know what’s even more valuable than five sense and two eyebrows? Knowledge. G. I. Joe would be proud.

Comments

Jen said…
ha ha! so awesome
Ann said…
Laughing out loud. :) I'll bet your mom was happy...
joel said…
You know, I don't think I ever told my parents...
John said…
Ah yes, I remember that day fondly.
joel said…
Yes, you don't forget a thing like that... no matter how hard you try.
buy silver said…
..Response by Vaughn at 2008-08-13 08 39 46.A friend of mine his son rides bulls said he seen you at that rodeo and said you looked good out there!..Response by DOF at 2008-08-13 12 15 41.Events like those are a super way to share our hobby and heritage with others that have little or no knowledge of such. Wow its hard to believe that it has been twenty years ago...Response by Bioloigcal Woodsman at 2008-08-13 15 47 15.We have volunteered to do this several times at bigger shows around the area but the tractor dealerships have a lock on it as an advertising strategy and they werent interesting in real horse power.

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