Stijn!!

[Flieger]

Dave, where'd you go to HS? As you probably know I went to Crespi in Encino.

[slodave]

Ah, Crespi. Drove by it today. Pretty much drive by it everyday. I went to a little private school in Northridge, Highland Hall. It's not a traditional school.

I think we used to play baseball against Crespi (though if the school has a diamond, I've never been on it). If we did, we crushed them every time.

[Flieger]

I can't really remember now but I don't think there was a diamond. They just practiced on the football field with temporary bases and lines and such from what I can recall.

[porsche4life]

Originally Posted by Flieger

I guess budget cutbacks...

My HS chem teacher went to Penn State or something. He talked about sneaking large amounts of sodium out of the lab and putting it in paint cans with a few holes in the lid. They threw them in the river and drove a good distance away to watch from a multi-story building. Said they could see a big plume of water when the things blew up.

I think there is a whole lot of exaggeration going on there though.

You'd be surprised.... Sodium is some violently reactive stuff.... The PH of that river was seriously effed if they did that very often too.....

[Flieger]

From what I have seen on Mythbusters it is not so explosive though. Not to the point where it would be like a bomb going off- nothing, nothing, ... BOOM!. The way he described it sounded like C4 or something.

[vas930]

Originally Posted by slodave

I actually fed instructions for neat experiments to my HS teacher. He in turn, decided to amend what I said and sent about 5 kids to the hospital.

hehe

[slodave]

Originally Posted by Flieger

I can't really remember now but I don't think there was a diamond. They just practiced on the football field with temporary bases and lines and such from what I can recall.

They have a really nice football field, though I think it was revamped a few years ago. Looks like some other nice areas as well, but kinda hard to tell through the fence.

[Flieger]

Originally Posted by slodave

They have a really nice football field, though I think it was revamped a few years ago. Looks like some other nice areas as well, but kinda hard to tell through the fence.

They built a whole new building! I think it has a cafeteria and a chapel, but the main purpose is for... the arts! What a waste. No auto shop or anything cool like that. We already had an art room, why did they need a whole building?

They had to cut down the only trees that were actually on the grounds and not on the perimeter. I used to like to sit under them at lunch and look at the view of the hills and watch the planes flying over head to/from VNY.

[Flieger]

We did not have FIRST robotics, either. Now that I have worked with some guys here that were in it in HS and currently run the Atascadero HS team, I feel so left out. Those HS kids have awesome shop skills.

[slodave]

I'd go back to HS for that.

[RKDinOKC]

My lab partner and I had lots of fun in gen chem. Our goal was to use all the apparatus we could get our hands on for every exercise no matter what we were doing. We never measured accurately, just close guess pouring stuff together laughing maniacally. The funniest thing was the oriental chicks at the station next to us. They would point at our data sheets and say "How you get dat?"

[slodave]

Screw chem class! I had a HS chem set in grade school. Granted, I did land in the burn ward for a weekend and had several months of healing and lost skin, but that's another story. There used to be a chem supply store near that would sell anything you wanted. You didn't have to be a school or teacher. Too bad about all the regulations now. That store is long gone.

[Geronimo '74]

Morning ladies!

[RKDinOKC]

Had a chemistry lab program for my old Apple IIe. Think it was from Simon and Schuster. it was a robotic lab. You picked apparatus and chemicals then it would animate the apparatus, mixing and reactions. It blowed up real good.

[RKDinOKC]

Ah, the good ol days of "collecting" software.

[slodave]

How do you de-cock a crossbow without shooting it?

[svandamme]

with muscle power and potential for bruised fingers

[slodave]

I guess you are right in most cases. That's what I thought.

All of them can be done, but with varying degrees of danger.

With rope cocking aids:

Excalibur, Horton, Barnett do not have anti-dry-fire systems, so no problem. Hang on tightly.

Parker, Ten Point need to have an arrow loaded to allow the trigger to disengage, so in order to uncock them you have to have an arrow (or more accurately, a piece of an arrow) in the mechanism. EXTREMELY UNSAFE in the event that something lets go - you get an arrow through the foot. Don't try it on these bows that have the anti-dry-fire mechanisms.

With cranks: Not recommended on any bow, since you have to disengage the ratchet and if your hand slips, bad things will happen.

Though or the rope cocking aids, it seems like a two person job. 150# is a lot to hold on to with one hand.

[slodave]

Okay.

I have yet to find a crossbow that couldn't be let down with a rope aid, those without a anti dryfire can be simply let down by hanging on to one side of the rope and pull the trigger then let down even the 225lbs recurve are quite easy.

[slodave]

Okay, just watched a vid. 225#, xbow, no problem with one hand.