Lightning Storm Puns

Thus began the Zeus Toot Riots.

Turns out he was a conductor.

And then it struck me....

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

As a Boy Scout, we would camp a lot and go on hikes.

One night, we had to do a night hike, alone, for a merit badge. I had left the campsite about an hour earlier and a terrible storm rolled in. The sky opened up and the ground was quickly saturated. I tried to continue my hike for another few minutes, but it got cold and I was chilled and soaked to the bone, so I decided to try to head back to camp.

Lightning was starting to crackle above me, so I thought I should try to take a shortcut to make my hike back quicker. I pulled out my compass and found my direction, but the rain made it impossible to see more than five feet in front of me.

I was looking down at my compass, not paying any attention to where I was going, and suddenly felt weightless. The feeling didn't last long as I thumped down on slippery earth a second later.

I had fallen onto a ledge on the side of a rather steep cliff, the bottom of which was at least fifty feet down.

I sat there, contemplating on how to get back up this cliff as water rolled over the edge ten feet above me. There was nothing to grab onto to pull myself up. I was stuck there.

After a few minutes, I noticed the little ledge I was standing on was slowly getting smaller. The water was coming down so hard it was eroding the tiny bit of safety I had.

I dug through my pockets, thinking maybe I had something, anything, to help me out of my precarious situation. All I had was my compass, a cough drop, and a match. I was screwed.

So, I sat there, watching the edge of the ledge I was on get closer and closer to my feet, when suddenly I felt something pushing on my back.

I turned slightly and saw a wooden box sticking out of the cliff behind me. It was working its way out of the side, the rain surely helping it along. I tried to move away from it, but the ledge wasn't very wide and the box kept coming out, pushing me farther to the weak and failing edge.

As more of the box came out, to my horror, I realized it was a coffin! I had no idea how old it was, but it looked rather rotten. All I could think of was being pushed off this ledge, and the rotten coffin breaking and dropping a skeleton onto my broken and battered body at the bottom.

The coffin crept closer, my foot began to slip. I grabbed onto a root that was sticking out of the cliffside and dug in my pocket once more.

I hurriedly tore the wrapper off the cough drop and stuck it in my mouth. It stopped the coffin.

This joke has been told to me

Why? The sky is clear, there's no chance of a storm or lightning.

I don't know really, they just look kind of shady to me.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/front-range/arvada/arvada-man-knocked-out-by-lightning-while-videotaping-monday-nights-storm-from-inside-his-garage (video autoplays)

>His daughter Ileah heard the crash, ran over, and found her dad convulsing on the floor.

>"At first I thought he was joking, because that's the kind of person my dad is..."

Doctor Grant would have been proud. https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/a6a9170d54b98df4d8ef9f4f9c39b2ae/tumblr_inline_mlme68KRS11qz4rgp.gif