Post by El Sid on Jun 26, 2003 7:15:44 GMT -5
This is a story. Does it have a technical flavour? Well, depending on your politics and preferences, I'll leave you to decide of whether it has or not. I just thought of the transfer of energy, hence this story. Possibly a bit of a memory-lane stuff.
In my early twenties I was dating a very, very nice girl whose folks had a farm - a week-end sort of farm - some 40km's outside of Port Elizabeth. Pippa's old man used to be a dentist (as is her brother nowadays) and they used to stay in town during the week but, without fail, every week-end was FARM time! You would not really call it a farm, farm as it was of no significant size. Possibly just an overgrown smallholding for farming hobbyists. The location actually made it the best place to be. On the one side it bordered on the ocean with a loooong beach with the most beautiful and huge sand dunes. Uncle Jack and I sometimes spent week-ends there alone. Pippa used to be at Varsity in Grahamstown and her Mom used to visit her at times. We did all sorts of things, the old man and I. If it was not repairing the beach-buggy or a tractor then it was hunting for spring-hares at night, using a small .22 and a spot light. All in all it was great fun.
Bear with me please. Have a so long! The curdled milk (calabash-milk) seems to have run out.
Now, it so happened that their neighbours in town were also their neighbours on the "farm". A bit of "keeping up with the Joneses" sort of thing if you ask me. However, their son, the neighbour's son that is, Laurence, and I became quite big buddies. They also had all the same sort of stuff. Two buggies and not only one. 60 head of cattle and not only 30, a real dip tank with no hand spraying, a bigger custom built house, a bigger this and a better that. Needless to say, as a student, one capitalises on that sort of extravagant friendship.
Other than the live-stock (and the spring-hares) the farms were also quite rich in game. Bushbuck, Bluebuck, Steenbuck and a host of other creatures. Laurence was/is a bit of a gun happy sort of chap. He had a large collection of hunting rifles and other fire arms and sometimes these were used for experimenting with.
Now we're getting close to the technical bit. Thanks for bearing with me so far. BTW, have a Good!
I told Laurence about Dum-Dum bullets and what damage they can cause, and that the use of these in a war situation is in contravention of the Geneva Convention. OK, so to illustrate the damage a dum-dum can create we take a .303 (ancient calibre) cartridge with a soft nose and cut the protruding lead bit off, using an ordinary knife. In real "The Day of the Jackal" style, we then drill a 2mm hole into the front, break one of his Mom's clinical thermometers, and put a drop of mercury into the hole and solder the lot up. Next we find a 4 gallon paraffin tin. You must remember those. Rectangular in shape and very light - when they're empty. We fill it up with water and set it up as a target. OK, so we stand about 10 yards back, load up the old WWII Lee Enfield MkIV, take aim and fire. BANG! The paraffin tin opens out flat on the ground like a sheet of paper. And all the water goes straight up into the air, almost vapourising! Great fun!
On closer inspection we noticed that only a tiny piece of the brass jacket had penetrated the away side of the tin. Amuckingfazing! Isn't it?
Now I really have TGFAP. 's tend to cause that.
In my early twenties I was dating a very, very nice girl whose folks had a farm - a week-end sort of farm - some 40km's outside of Port Elizabeth. Pippa's old man used to be a dentist (as is her brother nowadays) and they used to stay in town during the week but, without fail, every week-end was FARM time! You would not really call it a farm, farm as it was of no significant size. Possibly just an overgrown smallholding for farming hobbyists. The location actually made it the best place to be. On the one side it bordered on the ocean with a loooong beach with the most beautiful and huge sand dunes. Uncle Jack and I sometimes spent week-ends there alone. Pippa used to be at Varsity in Grahamstown and her Mom used to visit her at times. We did all sorts of things, the old man and I. If it was not repairing the beach-buggy or a tractor then it was hunting for spring-hares at night, using a small .22 and a spot light. All in all it was great fun.
Bear with me please. Have a so long! The curdled milk (calabash-milk) seems to have run out.
Now, it so happened that their neighbours in town were also their neighbours on the "farm". A bit of "keeping up with the Joneses" sort of thing if you ask me. However, their son, the neighbour's son that is, Laurence, and I became quite big buddies. They also had all the same sort of stuff. Two buggies and not only one. 60 head of cattle and not only 30, a real dip tank with no hand spraying, a bigger custom built house, a bigger this and a better that. Needless to say, as a student, one capitalises on that sort of extravagant friendship.
Other than the live-stock (and the spring-hares) the farms were also quite rich in game. Bushbuck, Bluebuck, Steenbuck and a host of other creatures. Laurence was/is a bit of a gun happy sort of chap. He had a large collection of hunting rifles and other fire arms and sometimes these were used for experimenting with.
Now we're getting close to the technical bit. Thanks for bearing with me so far. BTW, have a Good!
I told Laurence about Dum-Dum bullets and what damage they can cause, and that the use of these in a war situation is in contravention of the Geneva Convention. OK, so to illustrate the damage a dum-dum can create we take a .303 (ancient calibre) cartridge with a soft nose and cut the protruding lead bit off, using an ordinary knife. In real "The Day of the Jackal" style, we then drill a 2mm hole into the front, break one of his Mom's clinical thermometers, and put a drop of mercury into the hole and solder the lot up. Next we find a 4 gallon paraffin tin. You must remember those. Rectangular in shape and very light - when they're empty. We fill it up with water and set it up as a target. OK, so we stand about 10 yards back, load up the old WWII Lee Enfield MkIV, take aim and fire. BANG! The paraffin tin opens out flat on the ground like a sheet of paper. And all the water goes straight up into the air, almost vapourising! Great fun!
On closer inspection we noticed that only a tiny piece of the brass jacket had penetrated the away side of the tin. Amuckingfazing! Isn't it?
Now I really have TGFAP. 's tend to cause that.