What surprises me.

It's been a strange couple of days. I don't know if it's sun spots, volcanic ash, or what but today at about 2:00pm in my lab I suddenly realized my button down shirt was on in-side-out. I discovered this while trying to put a ballpoint pen in my shirt pocket which mysteriously wasn't accessible. Why some nice coworker didn't alert me to this fashion faux pas I'll never know but that's not what surprises me. And this has happened before so that's not what surprises me either. What I'd like to know is why my wife let me out of the house this way. I'm not blaming her you understand (I accept fully responibility for inproper dressing)it's just that she usually notices these things and in an unlikely turn of events she was actually up and about when I left for work.

Yesterday provided another moment of interest. I'm sitting in the truck parked in front of an Albersons supermarket waiting for a friend when out of nowhere a police car screeches through the lot, lights blazing, and pulls up in the middle of the road about 50 yards away. Seconds later this is repeated twice more with cops converging on a store from all points of the compass. All the officers were scrambling out of their cars, loading up fully automatic M-16 rifles, and taking up defensive positions around the business of interest. I'll admit this isn't an event that I witness every day but that isn't what surprised me. What surprised me was that not one driver in the lot seemed at all deterred by the three squad cars parked at random awkward positions blocking the main eastern exit to the shopping center or seemed to feel it was even necessary to avoid the area. In fact, John Q. Public seemed to view this as more of an inconvenient slalom course to be nonchalantly negotiated....weapons, bullets, and flashing lights be damned. Doesn't say much for the average citizens sense of self preservation. On the other hand, I was maintaining a generous standoff, watching carefully, and preparing to kiss pavement when the first shot was fired.

Footnote: The business was a MoneyTree check cashing and usurious lending institution. I guess someone must have accidentally triggered an alarm as the officers soon returned to their cars looking rather dejected. My first real shootout was a bust.

"Honey I shot up the propane tank"

Kids...don't try this at home. What you are about to see are results of years of experience in ill advised activities. Did you ever wonder what happens if you shoot a high power rifle through a half full tank of propane? Well the surprising answer (for most people) is not much. The tank does rupture as you would expect and the escaping gas causes it to flop around on the ground but that's about it.

Warning science content!!

Most people who have watched way to many Hollywood movies would expect a large explosion (and believe me we weren't very close to the tank just in case) but if you think about it this is probably the normal outcome. Fire requires fuel, air, and an ignition source. A tank of propane is all fuel with no air, and when it is suddenly released it's also very cold. A bullet is not really a very good ignition source although it could cause a spark as the result of friction, but the cold all-fuel bath is not real conducive to an explosion. I wonder if the Mythbusters have ever tried this.

So this was one of the many Darwin award like activities we participated in during the annual spring shootfest at Paul and Carols down in Walsenburg. We sprayed a lot of lead around in those two days. Probably the most fun was Paul's new AK-47 which we used to pepper the tanks. I've never shot one before but it's actually a very shoot-able cartridge....kind of a 308 Winchester short, if you will. Carols brother Kyle and his daughter Emily joined us this year and I got to shoot his .45 ACP Kimber handgun...very nice.

Steve Hiebert had bought some land in the vicinity and it had an old windmill on it. The pump was pretty broke up so we used Paul's tractor to yank it up out of the hole. (Dang, I just realized we could have shot that up too!) Steve is going to try and replace this with a solar pump of some sort 'cause it looks like he's got some good water down there.

Winter is a long time going in the Rocky's. The Spanish Peaks were still covered in snow and a cold 50 deg F wind was blowing the whole time. Regardless, it is still a pretty place to hang out.