midjd
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Post by midjd on Jun 7, 2017 22:28:38 GMT -5
At the time I got my driver's license I was dating a guy who lived about 30 minutes outside town, one of those areas with more cows than people. One night as I was taking him home I passed an old church and saw what looked like an animal in the middle of the road. I stopped and we got out to find it was one of those decorative concrete geese. We moved it and drove past, figuring it was a prank. On the way home, it was back in the road in such a way that I couldn't drive around it. As I was moving it, a car I hadn't noticed in the church parking lot started its engine. I then set a land speed record in my old Taurus.
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weltschmerz
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Joined: Jul 25, 2011 13:37:39 GMT -5
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Post by weltschmerz on Jun 7, 2017 22:52:28 GMT -5
I saw a fascinating documentary about marine bioluminescence not too long ago. Did you know that most sea creatures omit or reflect some kind of light? We can't see most of it with our naked eyes, but we have the wrong kind of eyes. Other fish can see it. They have "black-light" vision. We don't.They showed how it looks with a special camera lens, and holy crap!! I had no idea! It's stunning.
It's lit up like downtown Tokyo at night.
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toomuchreality
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Joined: Sept 3, 2011 10:28:25 GMT -5
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Favorite Drink: Sometimes I drink water... just to surprise my liver!
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Post by toomuchreality on Jun 8, 2017 4:04:38 GMT -5
Holy crap, you guys!
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zibazinski
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 24, 2010 16:12:50 GMT -5
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 8, 2017 5:21:17 GMT -5
Holy crap, you guys! No kidding
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jun 8, 2017 7:20:32 GMT -5
The house where I mostly grew up in wasn't on a road where a car could get to it, you either had to walk or take an ATV about a mile down a extremely rutted, muddy trail. We had been somewhere as a family and came back late at night. The rest of the family took the ATVs in, but as usual I chose to walk. I didn't have a flashlight, and it was fall, so it was pretty dark and rainy. I wasn't worried as I always walked and knew the trail well. About a quarter of a mile from the house someone grabbed my arms from behind and threw me to the ground. I was pissed and rolled over quickly and repeatedly kicked them and started cursing them out. I think I was only 9 or 10, but had a pretty extensive knowledge of curse words. I then turned and ran to the house to tell my mom that one of my asshole relatives was being a jerk so she could curse them out too when they got back to the house. When I got in the house my entire family was there and supposedly had been the entire time. We didn't have any neighbors for miles, so we don't know who else was in the woods that night. Could the attacker have been Bob Ewell and do you have a brother named Jem?
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milee
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Joined: Jan 17, 2012 13:20:00 GMT -5
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Post by milee on Jun 8, 2017 7:34:04 GMT -5
I saw a fascinating documentary about marine bioluminescence not too long ago. Did you know that most sea creatures omit or reflect some kind of light? We can't see most of it with our naked eyes, but we have the wrong kind of eyes. Other fish can see it. They have "black-light" vision. We don't.They showed how it looks with a special camera lens, and holy crap!! I had no idea! It's stunning. It's lit up like downtown Tokyo at night. Yes, that's what my friend the shark researcher said when he talked about not swimming in the bioluminescence. It's like putting a spotlight on you and ringing the dinner bell while you jump up and down yelling "come eat me!" Actually, the shark attack I'm thinking of fits pretty nicely in this thread since it sounds like something out of a horror movie... Some of the local college students borrowed a small boat to paddle out to a floating platform several hundred yards off the shore in the bay. The bioluminescence was gorgeous, making the water light up with every stroke of the paddle and streaking fish that darted by. Even though it was after midnight, it was still hot and they decided to swim to cool off and to enjoy being lit up by the blue-green sparkles. All of them were splashing and playing in the water, fascinated that their every motion made an electric trail. One of the girls was floating on her back when she was jolted by something hitting her side. She screamed and paddled hard for the platform. When she pulls herself onto the platform, it's obvious she's been bitten across the torso by a fairly large shark - blood is running down her side from gashes arranged in a telltale crescent on her stomach, chest and corresponding crescent on her back (she later needed over 100 stitches). Her friends are horrified by the bite but even more horrified when they realize that in all the panic, the boat drifted away and is now many yards from the fixed floating platform. Understandably, nobody wants to swim after the boat... Luckily, one of the students has a cell phone and calls 911. Since the students all sound drunk/stoned and it's such a bizarre story, 911 doesn't believe them at first. Eventually, help is sent, the girl taken to the ER and everybody gets a reminder not to swim in the bioluminescence...
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milee
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Post by milee on Jun 8, 2017 8:08:28 GMT -5
Brief nonscary threadjack about how no matter how many times we've been reminded and no matter how scary something is, we all sometimes still do dumb things... The club I sail out of is very close to where the shark attack I described in the past post occurred. From the main dock, we can see that college swim platform and right around the corner is one of the foremost shark research facilities in the world, where my friend the shark researcher works. So we all are aware there are sharks in the area. We all still swim, we just try not to be too dumb at night and when there's bioluminescence. Well, that is unless we've been drinking and then really stupid things happen. This was one of those times. The club was about to replace one of the docks, which meant that a bridge was going to be eliminated. Some of my friends and I were having some drinks and talking about how sad we'd be when the old bridge went away, since it was so much fun to jump from. Of course that spurs us into jumping and swimming one last time before it's gone. It's around midnight, the drinks are flowing and we all keep climbing to the highest post, balancing, jumping off, swimming and splashing around. All maybe in 8' of water 100' from shore. I'm floating on my back when suddenly something bumps hard into my leg and a half second later I feel a burning pain on the bottom of my foot. I paddle quickly in to the ramp and my friends help me up. As we walk out, I'm leaving a trail of blood - bloody footprints, drops, the whole thing. But by now, I'm actually kind of happy because I think I've been bitten by a shark and in my tipsy mind that means statistically now that I've been bitten I don't have to worry about being bitten in the future because the odds of being bitten once are low, but the odds of being bitten twice are astronomical - I'm safe from now on out!!! Who cares if it hurts? I'm going to be fine and this is like some future protection. I'm now sharkproof! Alas, it was not to be - when we get into the bathroom and took a look, it was obvious it wasn't a shark that got me. Apparently, someone scared a stingray from its resting place and when it took off to escape it bumped into my leg, causing it to sting me. I had about 1/2" of barb buried in the ball of my foot. And it turns out you can be allergic to the stingray venom, which became obvious when my tongue started swelling and I had trouble talking. So it was a pretty dumb injury, obtained in a pretty dumb way. And it probably won't be the last dumb thing I do...
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zibazinski
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 24, 2010 16:12:50 GMT -5
Posts: 47,912
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 8, 2017 9:47:14 GMT -5
Brief nonscary threadjack about how no matter how many times we've been reminded and no matter how scary something is, we all sometimes still do dumb things... The club I sail out of is very close to where the shark attack I described in the past post occurred. From the main dock, we can see that college swim platform and right around the corner is one of the foremost shark research facilities in the world, where my friend the shark researcher works. So we all are aware there are sharks in the area. We all still swim, we just try not to be too dumb at night and when there's bioluminescence. Well, that is unless we've been drinking and then really stupid things happen. This was one of those times. The club was about to replace one of the docks, which meant that a bridge was going to be eliminated. Some of my friends and I were having some drinks and talking about how sad we'd be when the old bridge went away, since it was so much fun to jump from. Of course that spurs us into jumping and swimming one last time before it's gone. It's around midnight, the drinks are flowing and we all keep climbing to the highest post, balancing, jumping off, swimming and splashing around. All maybe in 8' of water 100' from shore. I'm floating on my back when suddenly something bumps hard into my leg and a half second later I feel a burning pain on the bottom of my foot. I paddle quickly in to the ramp and my friends help me up. As we walk out, I'm leaving a trail of blood - bloody footprints, drops, the whole thing. But by now, I'm actually kind of happy because I think I've been bitten by a shark and in my tipsy mind that means statistically now that I've been bitten I don't have to worry about being bitten in the future because the odds of being bitten once are low, but the odds of being bitten twice are astronomical - I'm safe from now on out!!! Who cares if it hurts? I'm going to be fine and this is like some future protection. I'm now sharkproof! Alas, it was not to be - when we get into the bathroom and took a look, it was obvious it wasn't a shark that got me. Apparently, someone scared a stingray from its resting place and when it took off to escape it bumped into my leg, causing it to sting me. I had about 1/2" of barb buried in the ball of my foot. And it turns out you can be allergic to the stingray venom, which became obvious when my tongue started swelling and I had trouble talking. So it was a pretty dumb injury, obtained in a pretty dumb way. And it probably won't be the last dumb thing I do... I'd have died from fright. I think I could just reading some of these.
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beergut
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 11, 2011 13:58:39 GMT -5
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Post by beergut on Jun 11, 2017 20:36:54 GMT -5
Brief nonscary threadjack about how no matter how many times we've been reminded and no matter how scary something is, we all sometimes still do dumb things... The club I sail out of is very close to where the shark attack I described in the past post occurred. From the main dock, we can see that college swim platform and right around the corner is one of the foremost shark research facilities in the world, where my friend the shark researcher works. So we all are aware there are sharks in the area. We all still swim, we just try not to be too dumb at night and when there's bioluminescence. Well, that is unless we've been drinking and then really stupid things happen. This was one of those times. The club was about to replace one of the docks, which meant that a bridge was going to be eliminated. Some of my friends and I were having some drinks and talking about how sad we'd be when the old bridge went away, since it was so much fun to jump from. Of course that spurs us into jumping and swimming one last time before it's gone. It's around midnight, the drinks are flowing and we all keep climbing to the highest post, balancing, jumping off, swimming and splashing around. All maybe in 8' of water 100' from shore. I'm floating on my back when suddenly something bumps hard into my leg and a half second later I feel a burning pain on the bottom of my foot. I paddle quickly in to the ramp and my friends help me up. As we walk out, I'm leaving a trail of blood - bloody footprints, drops, the whole thing. But by now, I'm actually kind of happy because I think I've been bitten by a shark and in my tipsy mind that means statistically now that I've been bitten I don't have to worry about being bitten in the future because the odds of being bitten once are low, but the odds of being bitten twice are astronomical - I'm safe from now on out!!! Who cares if it hurts? I'm going to be fine and this is like some future protection. I'm now sharkproof! Alas, it was not to be - when we get into the bathroom and took a look, it was obvious it wasn't a shark that got me. Apparently, someone scared a stingray from its resting place and when it took off to escape it bumped into my leg, causing it to sting me. I had about 1/2" of barb buried in the ball of my foot. And it turns out you can be allergic to the stingray venom, which became obvious when my tongue started swelling and I had trouble talking. So it was a pretty dumb injury, obtained in a pretty dumb way. And it probably won't be the last dumb thing I do... tl;dr, milee is not shark proof
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