ZIGGURAT: Dubai Carbon Neutral Pyramid will House 1 Million

Carbon neutral and off the grid while housing up to a million people! Is it do-able? Hell if I know but it sure is cool to think about.

Mike

BBC - Quantum Physics

A clip from a nice looking BBC documentary. The Standard Model in Quantum Physics (which predicts the behaviour of subatomic particles) is arguably the most successful and well tested scientific theory in history. In fact, modern electronics wouldn't even be possible without it. If you are reading this post, you can thank Quantum Physics for it.

The documentary looks very accessible, getting more into the personalities and the general ideas without getting into what backs those ideas up.

My Course Is Done!

It's almost two months after my original plan but...

I'M DONE!!!

I wrote the exam on Tuesday and finally submitted the final assignment (that I've been working on all summer!) this morning.

It's gonna be nice not having to worry about any courses for a while.

Now I get to put in for the pay increase. :-)

Mike

Mike & I Sailing

It was blowing a stink last weekend. My son Michael and I went out to horse around and my sister-in-law happened to have a camera. I've got all her pictures on my Orkut page.

Mike

My Dead Rising Achievements

I started keeping this once I made the decision I was going to go for all sixty achievements in XBox360's Dead Rising. Although I didn't quite pull it off (and am unlikely to try for the 7 Day Survivor achievement again) I thought I would post this anyway. What follows is a little diary of each of my excursions into the game and the achievements I earned, as well as a few tips on how to get them.

Enjoy

During my first run through the game I got a little over zealous with a sledgehammer and killed Brad during the very first case, thus ending the games storyline. Rather then restart, I figured I would just go with it, putting my energy into exploring, rescuing the odd survivor, and taking pictures.

Portraiture: Photograph at least 10 survivors during a single play. My first achievement, so obviously an easy one. You can photograph them before they join you, while they're following you, or after they're safe. The first option is the best in case they don't make it.

Group Photo: Get 50 Target Markers with the camera. I took mine from the roof outside the warehouse, but anywhere where you can find a large group of zombies to photograph will work. The maintenance tunnels are good.

Free Fall: Drop from a height of at least 16 feet (5 meters). It's hard not to get this one. Simply drop from the second level, anywhere, to the first.

Photo Journalist: Score at least 1,500 PP from a single photo.

The Artiste: Score at least 3,000 PP from a single photo. I got these last two with a single photo, but I can't remember what it was a picture of. I suspect it was one of the "PP moments" the game provides with certain characters. Look for the PP icon to pop up above the characters' heads. The easiest one to get is when you reunite Natalie and Jeff, who are the first two survivors you can save. Though, based upon when I got this achievement, I know that's not how I got it. It could have been a picture of Sally and Nick hanging from the giant rabbit during day two. That one's big points too.

Self Defense: Defeat at least 1 psychopath. I believe my first psycho was Jo the cop who had the four young women tied up - likely used a katana on her. By this point I had realized that the melee were more effective then the guns.

Zombie Hunter: Defeat at least 1,000 zombies during a single play. How you can go through this game without killing at least a 1,000 zombies is beyond me.

Raining Zombies: Knock at least 30 zombies aside with a parasol. This is a piece of cake and is most easily done by grabbing one of the parasols around the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza and simply running around this rather densely zombie populated area.

Humanist: Get at least 10 survivors out of the mall during a single play. Having completely bunged up the story and killed Brad, I still had Jessica and Otis safe without even having to do anything. Frank himself is a survivor as long as you are at the helicopter in time. That leaves only me only having to save seven of the 48 people in the mall. I know I lost a lot of survivors and missed a lot of scoops and still made this with people to spare.

3 Day Survivor: Survive for at least 72 hours. Simply make sure you are at the helicopter at noon on day four.

During my second run through the game I decided to put my energy into completing the story.

Marathon Runner: Cover a total distance of 26.2 miles (42.195 km) in all your games. Since this one spans multiple games, and you spend a good part of your time on foot, this one is pretty easy and will pop up eventually just having to play the game enough.

Item Smasher: Break at least 100 items over all your games. Another one that spans multiple games so all you have to do is play enough. All the melee weapons break after a period of time. So eventually everyone will get this one just whacking zombies.

Peace Keeper: Defeat at least 5 psychopaths during a single play. During my first round through the game I discovered the SMG in the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza and learned to save it for bosses. I also realized that Adam the Clown, the first psycho, can only be shot while he is blowing up his choking gas balloon. Armed this this, he suddenly became easy and once he was killed he leaves behind his blue chainsaws which makes defeating the remaining psychos not even a chore.

Legendary Soldier: Defeat at least 10 Special Forces soldiers during a single play. During the final 24 hours of the story the special forces arrive. Certainly they are tougher then the zombies, but they can't stand up to more then a swipe or two from Adam's blue chainsaws. The mall is full of these guys during the final act and you'll kill at least ten in self defense without even having to try.

Stunt Rider: Jump a motorcycle at least 33 feet (10 meters). If you follow the story, Isabella will leave a motorcycle for you outside the supermarket. There's plenty of places to get air, but the easiest is to drive it down to Wonderland Plaza, up the stairs to the second level, and then just jump off from the top of another flight of stairs.

Overtime Mode: Unveil all CASES and be at the heliport at noon. That says it all. Easy stuff.

I then started another game in overtime mode.

Bullet Point: Fire at least 1,000 bullets during a single play. Overtime mode has you running around the mall for another 24 hours dealing with the special forces who each carry a machine gun. This means you will have an abundance of machine guns, a great weapon, that each have 150 shots. That means all you have to do is empty seven machine guns to get this achievement, which you'll do without even trying.


Unbreakable: Get the true ending without being knocked out. You get the true ending at the end of overtime mode. If your health runs while battling special forces, you don't die but instead are knocked out and captured. You'll awaken tied up with all your clothing and items gone. You can escape, but you end up in the park without any weapons, making it even easier for you to get captured a second time. I found this such a pain that, when I was captured, I simply restarted from my last save point, earning me this accomplishment when I got to the end.

∞ Mode: Get the true ending. As mentioned, this happens at the end of overtime mode, which is more annoying then challenging to get through. The only tough part is fighting the final boss, Brock the special forces commander. During this battle you have no items, so you have to fight him hand to hand. I tried a variety of the special attacks Frank had by this point but kept being defeated until I found a simple trick. You are fighting on top a tank. Go down from turret to the main body of the tank. Brock will hop down and while he does simply jump kick him. He'll end up on top of the turret, after which you just keep repeating this process until he's defeated.

Now into my fourth time through this game (no one can claim it doesn't have reply value) I decided to make my primary goal to rescue everyone that's possible to rescue. I also looked down the remaining achievements and tried to get as many of those that I could at the same time. To aid me in this I got a list of every survivor and where they are located.

Carjacker Steal the convicts' vehicle. By this time I had killed the convicts a couple of times but never noticed this achievement. To kill the convicts, lure them into the trees or near a wall where they will crash and take a few seconds before they put the vehicle into reverse. In that time take out the gunner with either an SMG or chainsaw. Get them to crash again, then walk to be the back of the vehicle to take their machine gun. After this it's pretty easy to take down the other two. Obviously, after killing them I then took their vehicle for a ride. By the way, a fun thing I discovered is that the machine gun will respawn every time you encounter a load screen. So driving the vehicle in and out of the maintenance tunnels will keeping giving you a new one.

Level Max: Reach Lv. 50. Because Frank maintains his experience between games, this one is not hard to achieve. All you have to do is play enough.

Psycho Photo: Photograph at least 4 psychopaths during a single play. You can take a picture of the psychos either alive or dead (dead is easier, but I prefer alive). Make sure to see their name appear when the game rates the picture. Carlito, Isabella, and the convicts don't count as psychos.

Punisher: Defeat at least 10 psychopaths during a single play. Not at all hard once you realize that the blue chainsaws are the weapons of choice here. You will get calls from Otis about all the psychos except Cletus who is in the gun shop during the first 24 hours or so.

Full Set: Collect all portraits in the NOTEBOOK. These portraits in appear in your notebook as soon as you meet a person, so you don't have to take pictures for this one. It also doesn't matter if you save them or not - indeed, some cannot be saved. As well, this one spans multiple games, making this not too hard. Viewing where the ones you are missing appear in the notebook will give you a rough idea of when (but not where) you should be looking for them. You don't get calls about all of them but most, even some of the ones without calls, are pretty easy to find, but a few are tough so I'll list them here. Bill is hiding in a second floor store of the Entrance Plaza during the first day - you won't get a call about him. Get him after meeting Barnaby with Brad. Cheryl is locked in the closet, trapped by the psycho Sean. Don't forget to release her after defeating him. Gil is sitting on the floor drinking in Carl's Fine Food in the Food Court during day three - again, no call. Tad is captured by Kent and you'll only meet him on the third day if you have completed all of Kent's photo challenges.

Life Saver: Get at least 20 survivors out of the mall during a single play. This can be accomplished by just following most of Otis' scoops and following some simple tips: keep you group together using stores a relatively safe rest points; set way points ahead of the group and follow behind; don't arm your survivors (it just slows them down); keep an eye on their health and feed them if needed; look for survivors you can carry, support, or hold hands with as this will make things go faster.

Census Taker: Photograph at least 50 survivors during a single play. There are 53 survivors, so this is pretty close to a complete set. Having a list of them all, including where and when to find them really helps. Again, take their picture before trying to escort them back to the security room.

Zombie Killer: Defeat at least 10,000 zombies during a single play. Not doing the story this time through left me with some time to kill during the final hours so I went for a few more achievements. The fastest way to kill zombies is to drive through a densely populated area, and nowhere is more dense then outside the butcher shop in the maintenance tunnels under the super market. Even more convenient is the truck that is parked right here for you to drive. Get yourself into the truck, drive around this area until you've run out of zombies or the truck dies, go in, and then back out of, the butcher shop to get both the truck and zombies to respawn, repeat until you hit 10, 000 kills.

Strike!: Send at least 10 zombies flying with bowling balls during a single play. There a few sporting good stores that carry bowling balls. Get yourself a few and head down to the maintenance tunnels. Find a densely populated area and let the ball fly. Piece of cake.

Saint: Get at least 50 survivors out of the mall during a single play. You can only save a maximum of 53 people, so this doesn't leave you a lot of leeway. It's one of the tougher achievements in the game and you really need to know where and when you can expect to meet survivors so that you can plan this out. You can check out my own save the max walkthrough if you like. Saving strategically is very important as you should expect to mess up now and again and have to retry.

Game five had me simply going around trying to collect even more achievements. A couple of the achievement required me to go through most of the story. So doing the cases became a priority, but otherwise I was free to indulge.

Stunt Driver: Jump a car at least 33 feet (10 meters). To do this one, I drove the convertible into park looking for air. I found it on a small hill to one side of the pond where I managed to fly the distance and flip the car over to boot.

Sharp Dresser: Change into at least 20 different costumes. Really easy one. Just systematically visit each store that sell clothing and try on everything. You'll have this in no time. Don't forget that sports and toy stores often sell cloths too.

Tour Guide: Escort 8 survivors at once. Not too hard to do. Just don't bring survivors to the security room until you've got eight, at which point you will get the achievement. You can then abandon them if you like. The game will not let you escort more then eight, which means that if you have say six survivors and its normally time for a call from Otis making three more available, you won't get this call as that may potentially have you with nine survivors. This makes a little planning useful. One way to do this is to get Pamela and Heather who appear in Paradise Plaza in the morning of day two. Wait for The Lovers scoop and warp to Wonderland Plaza to collect Tonya and Ross. After that, head to the North Plaza, kill psycho Cliff and rescue his three captives (Josh, Barbara, & Rich). By now you will likely have gotten the Restaurant Man scoop which has you getting Ronald in Paradise Plaza, giving you eight. There are certainly other ways to accomplish this.

Costume Party: Place novelty masks on at least 10 zombies at a single time. A number of the toy stores sell novelty masks (bears, horses, goblins and Lego like heads). All you gotta do is put 10 of these on ten zombies. I went down to the Entrance Plaza where there are two stores selling masks (bears and goblins). This isn't a hard one.

Snuff Shot B: Successfully photograph zombie Brad. During the later stages of the story, a cut scene will show Brad trapped outside the maintenance room surrounded by zombies. Right after this cut scene, head on down there to snap a picture of him and score this achievement.

Psycho Collector: Photograph at least 10 psychopaths during a single play. Although I managed to kill ten psychos during my last game, I somehow messed up the pictures. Make sure to see their names come up when your picture is evaluated and that the picture is of a decent quality (the name should be coloured, not gray).

Snuff Shot J: Successfully photograph zombie Jessie. When the special forces arrive during your final night in the mall, a cut scene will show Jessie turn into a zombie. Immediately head to the security room to snap a picture of here.

Karate Champ: Defeat at least 1,000 zombies barehanded during a single play. Other then the occasional jump kick, I don't use much of Frank's hand-to-hand moves. So I had to deliberately go out to get this one. That said, it isn't hard. Use the double lariat which has Frank spinning in circles with his fists clenched. Each contact, pretty much kills a zombie so just do this move with a horde for a while and you'll have the achievement in no time.

Zombie Road: Walk over 33 feet (10 meters) on the backs of zombies using the Zombie Ride. Find a large group of zombies - this is easiest down in the tunnels - and zombie ride on top of the group. If the group is densely pact, this is easy as you don't have to go in a straight line and can simply walk in circles.

Cloths Horse: Change into all costumes available in the mall. Visiting all the clothing stores (including sports and toy stores) will get you all the costumes but one. This last one is located in an abandoned store near the gun shop in the North Plaza where you will see the cloths icon on a pile of boxes. This is the only costume that is a little bit hidden, the rest are easy to find.

Game six was all about one thing, getting the Zombie Genocider achievement. Once I found out that this unlocks the Real Megaman Blaster I had to get it. The problem was I was too eager for the blaster and once I got the achievement I quit my game and started a new one. That was when I discovered that you only get the rewards if you actually complete the game with the achievement. Frustrated, I put the game down for a couple of months before trying again. To be safe, I did what was required for the achievement again and ran around trying to get the Gourmet achievement, which I failed at.

Zombie Genocider: Defeat at least 53,594 zombies during a single play. Like with Zombie Killer, simply drive the truck around the tunnels below the supermarket, regularly jumping in and out of the butcher shop to respawn the truck and zombies. This achievement is not hard, but it does get boring. By the way, the number (53,594) is the population of the fictional town of Willamette where the game takes place.

Game seven now and you gotta know that these achievement will be getting tougher. Though, armed now with the Megaman blaster, taking down whomever was in my way certainly wasn't a problem. I was doing the story again in this one because I was going for the Transmissionary achievement even though that one ended in failure.

Frank the Pimp: Simultaneously escort 8 female survivors. This one is tougher then it sounds as there are only a few of time where eight women become available. I did this starting in the early part of day two by rescuing Heather in Paradise Plaza (Pamela had died). I then took her up to the North Plaza, killed Cliff and rescued Barbara (leaving the two guys behind). It was then down to Wonderland Plaza rescuing Kay, Lilly, Kelly and Janet who were prisoners of the psycho cop, Jo. With my six ladies, I warped back to Paradise Plaza, then ran down to the Entrance Plaza where the The Woman Who Didn't Make It scoop was waiting. I put my six ladies into a store and completed the scoop which had Jolie and Rachel join, giving me eight and the achievement. I then abandoned them all and rescued Floyd because I knew I needed him for the Tranmissionary achievement.

PP Collector: Photograph all PP Stickers during a single play. There are 100 PP stickers placed on objects of interest around the mall, but the stickers are minuscule. Some can only be seen through the scope of the sniper rifle! So I wasn't about to try and find them all on my own. Here's a great site which shows all the pictures you need to collect.

Gourmet: Eat all types of food available in the mall during a single play. I tried for this during my last game and didn't get the achievement. So this time I found a list of all the foods. Most are very easy. In fact, all but the ones I'm going to specifically mention here can be found in the supermarket. Here are the ones that are easy to miss: there are two types of milk (carton and jug - both in the supermarket), drink both; there are pies in Columbia Roadmaster's in Paradise Plaza; cook the raw meat and uncooked pizza in a microwave to get well cooked stake and golden brown pizza; leave frozen vegetables, uncooked pizza, ice pops and raw meat in your inventory for a while to get thawed vegetables, rotten pizza, melted ice pops and spoiled meat (these are the ones I missed on my first attempt); use a blender to make each of the cocktails: nectar (OJ + OJ), quick step (milk + milk), spitfire (snack + snack), untouchable (pie + pie), randomizer (wine + cooking oil), zombait (corn + corn), energizer (randomizer + zombait). You'll find some of this stuff will, not surprisingly, give Frank stomach cramps.

Indoorsman: Spend at least 24 hours indoors during a single play. Just stay inside for at least 24 hours, which sounds easy but it means you can't go in and out the security room (because you do that via the roof). So this isn't one you can do while playing the story or rescuing people. As it turns out, by this time I had realized I had messed up the Transmissionary and the Indoorsman was the only one left that I could still go for during this game.

Game eight was in Overtime mode in order to get these two military related achievements.

Hella Copter: Successfully repel a Helicopter. I hate that helicopter and have tried doing this before a number of times, always unsuccessfully. I read some posts on the topic where people provided some advice and even watched a YouTube video where someone seemed to do this almost effortlessly with the sniper rifle. All of this didn't help and what I did was stocked up on a lot of health items and charged after the thing blasting away with the Megaman blaster. Eventually the helicopter started smoking from the rear rotter and went away, earning me the achievement.

Perfect Gunner: Don't miss with a machine gun. Another one that's harder then it sounds. First, realize that this isn't the SMG but the military machine guns that you get from the special forces troops. No matter how hard a tried, I always seemed to miss with a couple of shots. Then I read that the hanging meat in the butcher shop counts as a hit. So I went down to the butcher shop, got on a table where the zombies couldn't reach me and emptied a fresh clip into a side of meat. Well, that turned out to be easier then I would have thought.

Game nine was about one thing ...

Transmissionary: Answer all calls from Otis during a single play. Another one that's harder then it sounds. I figured I could just play through the story and just keep answering phone calls. I knew that certain survivors (Ronald, Floyd, Kindell, Paul, Simone and Cheryl) generated further phone calls after they were rescued. I also knew that Otis will stop calling on a scoop if you cut him off twice and that he won't call regarding a scoop that would put the maximum number of people you are escorting over eight, but I was still not getting the achievement. So, I looked up where I was going wrong.

It does help having a check list, but basically follow the story and answer all the phone calls with the following caveats:

• Know the situations in which Otis will not call (I mentioned them in the preceding paragraph)
• You must save Ronald, Floyd, Kindell, Paul, Simone, Cheryl, and - I'm pretty sure - Jennifer.
• You will not get the second call about Ronald and Kindell unless they have at least three people in their rooms by the security room. This means that you need to keep rescuing survivors until there are three in these rooms (I messed this up on my first attempt). Their rooms are the two on the left as you enter the survivor area from the security room.
• Otis calls you to remind you of to be in certain places as the times for those cases approaches. That means DON'T be in the security room on time. Wait for Otis' call (I messed this one up at first too).
• Once you've completed case six (Isabella has woken up and told you about Santa Cabeza), Otis will stop calling you with case reminders. As well, you now have the information you need to rescue Simone later, so you can let the case time out if you like.

Game ten, and this may pretty much end my Dead Rising experience.

5 Day Survivor: Survive for five days. Once you've completed the full story, you unlock what the game calls "infinity mode". In this mode you are on your own. Everyone that was a survivor in the previous mode is now an enemy out to get you, in addition to the other psychos and, of course, the zombies. As well, you lose health on a regular basis forcing you to continually eat. More over, the food items no longer respawn and they've locked up the grocery store. All this is a neat idea and fun, but then the bastards at Capcom added one more twist - they took away all the save points meaning playing in this mode has to be done in a single sitting.

Now, five seconds of play time equates to one minute of game time. I you do the math you will realize that to survive 5 days requires 10 hours of playing! There is also a 7 day survivor achievement which requires 14 hours! I figured I would never even attempt this, but in a prolonged moment of insanity I decided I was going to pull an all nighter going from 10:00 pm until noon the next morning to pull these off. Earning these achievements is not hard, but it's dull as hell. It helps to get a list of all the mini-bosses that are around and when they show. Each one releases a box of goodies when killed, but you only need the food. There are also three books you can get whose combined effect is to triple the health benefits from eating food. With these books and a few choice weapons, its a simple matter to dispatch a boss, collect the food, wait in a safe spot for a while, then move to the next boss. I was doing fine when I passed the ten hour mark (earning this achievement and a laser sword) when disaster struck. I was running down a hall way when Frank got suddenly stuck in a same spot in a running animation. I couldn't do anything to dislodge him and one of the bosses simply walk up and beat Frank to death.

GAME OVER!!! ARRGH!!!

I doubt I will ever do this again, so here are the only two achievements that I've left undone.

Outdoorsman: Spend at least 24 hours outdoors during a single play. Because of the need to keep moving when getting most other achievements, I never got this one though it would be easy to get any time I want. Simply go out to the park, climb up on the roof above the picnic tables, and wait and let the game run for two hours.

7 Day Survivor: Survive for seven days. Fat chance I'll ever go for this! One try was enough.

Mike

Christian the Lion

This is weird. About two weeks ago a tried to post this from YouTube. I tried a few times, but it didn't seem to be working (I wish YouTube would just let you lift the code) so I gave up. Suddenly, today, all three attempts pop up here. Strange.

Obviously I deleted two of them.

Anyway, this is an old one, but true - it's easily verifiable despite some of the comments by the moron brigade at YouTube.

=>UK Daily Mail story<=

The production of the video is schmaltzy as all hell which is too bad because it is pretty amazing. If it happened today there would undoubtedly be an IMAX movie made (I've seen lamer premises on the monster screen).

Internet Update

	Well, my brother-in-law certainly went above and beyond the call last week repairing, and improving, the network on the island. The modem and all routers had to be replaced after the thunderstorm the other week which, in hindsight, isn't that surprising. However, this time he ordered exterior routers (see picture one). There's one on the shed about half way between his place and ours, and another to service his sister. I convinced him to get a GFI on the outlet that the one router on the shed is plugged into. The new routers can also be properly grounded (you can see that with the chain which goes under the shed and lies on bedrock). This should certainly help. We also extended the cord on the antenna in our cottage so that we can now plug into the network in our dining room. Now if only I can get the computer away from the kids. :-) Last night, it was put to the test with another good thunderstorm. The next morning, my computer couldn't see the access point. I went to investigate, found the power out there because the GFI had tripped. I reset and everything booted up normally. Maybe we finally have this thing licked. Mike

Earth like Planets Should be Quite Common - Well, Not Really

telegraph.co.uk

Neat article, but I'm not sure the guy who concocted the title read it that closely. The article says that, though small rocky planets may, in fact, be a dime a dozen; a nice ordered solar system like what we've got may actually be pretty rare.

We maybe be more special then we realize.

Nice read, and kinda ties into my SETI post from last week.

Mike

My Weekend Part 2 - The Sailing Race

So, with the Flying Scot out of commission from the lightning Michael and I decided to put together a couple of Lasers for the race. I use a communal island Laser that has been put together from a variety of sources over the year while Michael used his grand-dad's Laser that was bought about ten years ago. Both boats have the issues but it was going to be fun. Michael's grand-dad took some pictures of the race that I'll have to get my hands on.

Anyway, it went far better then I would have expected even though I couldn't have botched the start of the first race any worse if I tried. I hit the mark and was forced to restart. The wind was much stronger then I thought it was going to be and three of the eight Lasers that were there dropped out of the first race.

Michael finished both races, which is fantastic for his first time solo. I worked my way up to a close second despite having my outhaul way too loose. This put too much power into the sail and I had a great deal of difficulty holding the boat flat on the upwind legs. The boat has only a stock rig which is difficult to adjust mid race. Between races I hauled in my outhaul and, of course, the wind died off. I spent the entire race battling with another boat for the lead (he with a racing rig at that). I was leading most of the race and in the final leg.

During that final leg I continually covered him which means I always remained on the same tack as he did which makes it difficult for him to pass, but I messed up at the end. I spent too much time watching him and not enough watching the finish line. I tacked too soon and realized I wasn't going to make it to the finish line without one more tack, while my opponent had it lined up right. That extra tack put me on port which leaves me without the right of way. When I encountered my opponent shortly before the finish line, I had to give way and go behind him.

Now on opposite tacks, he was heading to the left end of the finish line and me the right. The committee boat was at the right end (where it usually is). I figured I was done but then I could hear the judge watching the line getting excited and concerned. He couldn't call it and gave us a tie (which I can't even recall happening before).

The irony of it was, my opponent wasn't wearing a PFD and was disqualified anyway. Michael finished fourth and third. I'm really proud of the guy. A really fun day.

Mike

Lightning Hit My Boat!

Well, an interesting weekend that I may have to spread over two posts.

Early Friday evening, before dark, an intense, and thankfully brief, thunderstorm rolled right over our island. Being on the lee of the island, it makes it hard to see these things coming. I was standing on our veranda when my sailboat, which is moored about a hundred feet from where I was standing was hit by lightning. I wasn't looking in that direction on at the time. I just saw and heard the simultaneous boom and my first response was literally duck and cover, and then get the hell inside. A number of neighbours saw it hit the boat and reported seeing welding like sparks flying off.

Needless to say, this got me a bit concern so when the storm had passed I went out to investigate. It was immediately obvious the main halyard had broken. It is a metal cable which runs up the mast and it was melted from it's top most point. Otherwise, everything else seemed okay and, since it would be getting dark soon, I decided further inspection would have to wait until tomorrow, starting with taking down the mast.

First off, other than scorch marks in various locations (that I'll get to), the boat was fine. The block (pulley) for the halyard that is at the top of the mast is nylon and I suspected it would be a useless blob. It was fine. There was scorching all around it (obviously the point of impact) but the block itself was completely intact. What's interesting is that you can follow the scorch marks and determine the path the electricity took to the ground.

I noticed minor scorch marks around the bottom of the bow plate, at the bottom of the forestay, at the very front of the boat. So some charge went this way where it either traveled along the wet painter (bow line) or, more likely I think, jumped the gap to the anchor chain. There was significant scorching around the goose-neck and where the boom rests on its crutch. The head of the crutch is plastic, so the charge likely jumped the gap, went into the crutch (which has a heavy, galvanized, steel pipe inside) and, perhaps, out the bottom of the boat through the half inch or so of fiberglass and wood that makes up the hull. But then again, maybe not. There was not evidence of any marks at the bottom of the crutch, which actually sits on a one inch block of wood too.

I didn't notice this until the next day, but I found perhaps the most scorching around the gudgeons and pintels that attach the rudder to the boat's transom. Perhaps this is where most of the charge left the boat. For this, though, it would have had to jump the gap between the end of the boom and the rudder head. Pretty impressive.

Anyway, the end result is the boat is out of commission until I can get a new halyard, which I can get from a store in Peterborough. So it shouldn't be a problem. There was a sailing race on Sunday, so Michael and I decided to rig up a couple of Laser's instead, but that story will have to be pending for my next post.

Oh, I should add that a minute later another bolt hit the metal roof of my brother-in-law's cottage (you can see the scorch mark) and our satellite modem got completely roasted. It seems the charge didn't go through the power cord (where the serge protector would have helped) but instead up the Ethernet cable - ouch! The power transformers for the two routers are also pooched, but where holding off buying new routers until we get a new modem which is owned by the ISP and may be covered under warrantee. Either way, it looks like know Internet at the cottage for a while so I'm back home in Peterborough now.

Aw well!

Mike