h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I got watered by two of the children I can only assume that because I'm only 5 foot they were hoping I would grow it makes me wonder what they're being taught in science since both children are 15. so after getting wet feet and mildly traumatised hwmbo brought me a 99 with juice however when it arrive it just had one sorry looking drip of juice

Maybe they thought you looked hot and might find some cool water refreshing.

It might be nice to roll with that idea

However

It's very rarely hot in the UK. If we actually have to take our cardigans off during the summer there's all hell on.

I wear short pants and short-sleeved shirts from late May through September.

Just repaired the huge water squirting device of my oldest son at the risk of getting wet later. I did tell him about the bucket I have for counterstrikes. Hope that works.

We had quite a thunderstorm earlier this evening.

It works (for now)

Buckets of water can be very useful, especially when you try to teach the neighbour's cat where not to poo/pee. We nicknamed that cat Chateau.

I don't like thunderstorms Paul

Chateau

Neither do the people who run the local municipal pool. State law requires them to close the pool when there's lightning in the area. They closed it last night.

I like to watch thunderstorms, provided they are not too close.

I once saw a lighning strike within 25 meters of me, that's too close. It hit a traffic sign in the middle of a pedestrian crossing I was about to cross. That's a lot of light, heat and noise, all at once. Took some time to get rid of the after-image.

It looked like a 20cm diameter straight shaft of white light. A lot of sparks flew around. The traffic sign was unharmed (but probably rather hot). The noise was cracking like a gunshot, but louder.

I've never been that close, thank deus.

I like to hide behind the sofa and count,

I think I'd have had a meltdown had I been that close to lightening.

"Maybe they thought you looked hot and might find some cool water refreshing."

Now, that's the spirit.

"I like to hide behind the sofa and count" [The Lost]

The Count must be pudgy if you can hide behind him.

I met a man a while back who worked at a sub station, when I was there to do some work and as we sat down for smoko the chat turned to earth stakes and the array of what looked like pawnbroker balls(do you know what I'm referring to here?)afixed to various grey boxes and other utilitarian structures who function was unknown to me but well known to him.
The talk turned to storms and lightning and the chances of someone connected to the ground touching one of the big chrome balls set at an angle and looking very pawnbrokerish.

You don't wanna touch one of them if a storms about as they attract the lightning and they diffuse it. Ah. I said.
Yes,he said, it's a safety measure but I touched one by accident in a storm with a shovel that was on a cart like that one behind you(think electric golf cart)as i raced to get into the lunchroom. It's not good to be outside here in an electrical storm.
Ah. I said.
Yes, he said, not good at all. I got zapped by the diffuser and a lightning bolt went down the shovel through the cart and through me and out and up again to the next closest ball.
Really. I said.
Yes, he said, it blew the end of my toe off as it exited and it took the end of my boot off.
Ah.I said.
Yes, he said, would you like to see it?
The boot or your toe? I asked.
Both he said. And we got up and walked into the lunchroom and there on the wall mounted on a plaque was a Dunlop leather boot(non steelcap for obvious reasons)and it had a neat but slightly ragged hole in the front of the left boot. He sat down and took his boots off and a sock and there in all it's ugly bluntness was a stump just below where your big toe nail's quick would start.

Ah yes indeed, I said, that is a decent hole in your boot. Did it hurt?
I didn't feel it at all as I passed out, my heart stopped briefly they think and then I woke up in hospital.

He's dead now, died a decade or more ago but I found out that it's not an uncommon occurrence at least anecdotally anyway.

So that's my lightning story apart from a bolt from the blue that struck the ground near where we were sitting one morning at a place called Keerong and it blackened the grass in a rough circle and stood our hair up.

Wet story...I have plenty but the most rain I've experienced is just under 700mm in a 24hr period and for people stuck in imperial measures that's 27.5 inches in the old scale. It was a year and a bit ago and the intensity in rain of that amount is staggering to behold;a flash flood that doesn't stop.

Apols for waffling.

If there's thunder then the Count, or to give his full name Count von Count from Sesame Street, would be a very helpful person to hide behind. Counting the seconds between the lightning and thunder tells us how far away the storm is, and what better way to count than with 'Von bolt of lightning, hah-hah-hah, Two bolt of lightning, hah-hah-hah...'

They must have done that - hang on...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgWU0qWi5E0

<BB<

A park ranger in Virginia was hit by lightning seven times, and survived them all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan

I wonder if there's been any research into whether you are safer hiding behind the sofa with the count

I know what prawn brokers balls are. They used to be called "brass monkeys" here in the UK hence the say "it's that cold it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey"