[Hurlburt88]

I also remember on in 85 Or thereabouts.    Win flop any better recollection from you?

[Hurlburt88]

I also remember on in 85 Or thereabouts.    Win flop any better recollection from you?

[JJJ]

Back in 1982-83, when I was a Roble resident, Lake Lag nearly overflowed. JJJ was there and will backup my story, I'm sure. Good memories indeed!

The years are running together and my memory is suspect at best, but yes, lag nearly overflowed, we had windsurfing, the Big Way Yacht Club (enterprising students selling overpriced inflatable boats and captain hats to fellow students; I couldn't afford one), and even one bonfire (if not more) during my '81-'84 Roble days, when a silver-haired alum in a sweater with a block "S" read "give'em the axe" on stage.

Here's an article that came up in a quick search, for anyone with too much time on their hands.

http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/05/bring-b...e-lag.html

[JJJ]

Back in 1982-83, when I was a Roble resident, Lake Lag nearly overflowed. JJJ was there and will backup my story, I'm sure. Good memories indeed!

The years are running together and my memory is suspect at best, but yes, lag nearly overflowed, we had windsurfing, the Big Way Yacht Club (enterprising students selling overpriced inflatable boats and captain hats to fellow students; I couldn't afford one), and even one bonfire (if not more) during my '81-'84 Roble days, when a silver-haired alum in a sweater with a block "S" read "give'em the axe" on stage.

Here's an article that came up in a quick search, for anyone with too much time on their hands.

http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/05/bring-b...e-lag.html

[stupac2]

But still lots of fun... I hear.

Is this uncommon? We did it in high school chemistry, albeit with small pieces in water, but it definitely made flames and you could see it scoot around. IIRC we went up to Cesium but maybe it was just Na/K.

On topic, Lake Lag was often full while I was there, and I spent much of my time at nearby dorms. My freshman year my RA bought a small sailboat and my roommate and I fixed it up, that boat kicked around the lake for a few years (getting stolen with some frequency by the frats) until some damned bureaucrat decided it was a HAZARD and had to go. Such a shame. I have some great pictures buried on my facebook account.

[stupac2]

But still lots of fun... I hear.

Is this uncommon? We did it in high school chemistry, albeit with small pieces in water, but it definitely made flames and you could see it scoot around. IIRC we went up to Cesium but maybe it was just Na/K.

On topic, Lake Lag was often full while I was there, and I spent much of my time at nearby dorms. My freshman year my RA bought a small sailboat and my roommate and I fixed it up, that boat kicked around the lake for a few years (getting stolen with some frequency by the frats) until some damned bureaucrat decided it was a HAZARD and had to go. Such a shame. I have some great pictures buried on my facebook account.

[bbm233]

I took windsurfing in spring of '85, my last quarter on the Farm. By the end of the quarter the lake was pretty skanky. Also had a Club Big Way inflatable raft that I would take out to do my reading assignments. I recall the tennis teams were good (Jim Grabb, Patty Fendick) and the baseball team made the post-season. I didn't spend very much time in the classroom...

[bbm233]

I took windsurfing in spring of '85, my last quarter on the Farm. By the end of the quarter the lake was pretty skanky. Also had a Club Big Way inflatable raft that I would take out to do my reading assignments. I recall the tennis teams were good (Jim Grabb, Patty Fendick) and the baseball team made the post-season. I didn't spend very much time in the classroom...

[CowboyIndian]

Oh....and I dumped a healthy caiman in there in the spring of '67. They actually used to sell them at a pet store in Town & Country Village.

[CowboyIndian]

Oh....and I dumped a healthy caiman in there in the spring of '67. They actually used to sell them at a pet store in Town & Country Village.

[RuralFan]

Hopefully your healthy caiman spent some good days in Lake Lag.  My spouse and I were present when the cops captured "Sam", put him in the back of a police car, and drove off.

[RuralFan]

Hopefully your healthy caiman spent some good days in Lake Lag.  My spouse and I were present when the cops captured "Sam", put him in the back of a police car, and drove off.

[cctop]

That article from the Alumni Association implied that there was a bonfire in the late 1980's.  Is that true?

Yeah, there was a bonfire my first three years at Stanford (fall of 86/87/88).  I didn't know that it had been cancelled before.  There was no bonfire my senior year (fall of 89), then it returned for a couple of years before sputtering out for good.

On the topic of explosives:  I really enjoyed high school Chemistry class simply because the teacher was so entertaining.  One day he decided to show us a thermite reaction.

If you're not familiar with thermite, you should know that it burns extremely hot and is almost impossible to put out once started...you just have to let it burn.

So my teacher puts the thermite in a bowl on his desk, lights it, and grins as it flares up bright and hot.  His smile slowly fades when the reaction shatters the container holding it, spilling the burning thermite onto his desk.  His face turns serious as he shouts, "I forgot to put a marble slab under it!".  The thermite burns a hole through his desk and falls onto the floor, where it continues burning its way down.  Our classroom is on the second floor of the school.  I start wondering whose classroom is beneath ours and whether I should run downstairs to warn them.  Just as I'm getting up out of my chair the reaction peters out leaving just a desk with a smoking hole, about a 1" deep crater in the floor below the desk, and a very shaken Chemistry teacher.

[cctop]

That article from the Alumni Association implied that there was a bonfire in the late 1980's.  Is that true?

Yeah, there was a bonfire my first three years at Stanford (fall of 86/87/88).  I didn't know that it had been cancelled before.  There was no bonfire my senior year (fall of 89), then it returned for a couple of years before sputtering out for good.

On the topic of explosives:  I really enjoyed high school Chemistry class simply because the teacher was so entertaining.  One day he decided to show us a thermite reaction.

If you're not familiar with thermite, you should know that it burns extremely hot and is almost impossible to put out once started...you just have to let it burn.

So my teacher puts the thermite in a bowl on his desk, lights it, and grins as it flares up bright and hot.  His smile slowly fades when the reaction shatters the container holding it, spilling the burning thermite onto his desk.  His face turns serious as he shouts, "I forgot to put a marble slab under it!".  The thermite burns a hole through his desk and falls onto the floor, where it continues burning its way down.  Our classroom is on the second floor of the school.  I start wondering whose classroom is beneath ours and whether I should run downstairs to warn them.  Just as I'm getting up out of my chair the reaction peters out leaving just a desk with a smoking hole, about a 1" deep crater in the floor below the desk, and a very shaken Chemistry teacher.

[UltimateCard]

Remember Aquafollies?!  My only prior water show was one I saw as a kid at Cypress Gardens when on a family vacation - I thought it was really cool that college kids could do something like that!

Yes, the bonfire was something to behold! Hal Michelson, the voice of the Band, would tell the story of the Axe. And didn't the Rally in the City follow? I was just on Nob Hill over the weekend and had a flashback to following the Band as we romped through the streets of San Francisco. Ah, the good old days!

[UltimateCard]

Remember Aquafollies?!  My only prior water show was one I saw as a kid at Cypress Gardens when on a family vacation - I thought it was really cool that college kids could do something like that!

Yes, the bonfire was something to behold! Hal Michelson, the voice of the Band, would tell the story of the Axe. And didn't the Rally in the City follow? I was just on Nob Hill over the weekend and had a flashback to following the Band as we romped through the streets of San Francisco. Ah, the good old days!

[M T]

BOOM!!

There was a fireball about six feet across which took out his eyebrows and a fair chunk of his hair.  He couldn't hear for a few days.  The ceiling turned black, and there was smoke everywhere.

Please don't try that at home...

We've all done stupid things and those of us writing today happened to survive them.  That isn't always the case.  I had a high-school history teacher in Houston who was missing a hand.  Of course, students are curious and have to know, so he would tell the story of how it happened.  In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class.  In the parking lot after school, a couple of chem students called him over to show him what they had whipped together.  It was a Mason jar full of things like sodium and phosphorus.  They had set it down on the hood of a dark Oldsmobile, in the hot Texas sun.

He started walking to it and was closest when it exploded.  He got "sucked into the explosion" (what I figure the police or doctors told him, based on physical evidence) while the other boys were killed.  He said that going for chest X-rays (this was before current airport security) was interesting because his chest was full of shrapnel, while he has a perfectly round hole in his skull (forehead).

Seriously, guys.... Anyone reading these comments and thinking about recreating such a stunt, please think again.

(If you're thinking he fabricated the story, I did find the incident mentioned in a Illinois paper (1.5yrs ago when Google newspapers had a lot more stuff.)

[M T]

BOOM!!

There was a fireball about six feet across which took out his eyebrows and a fair chunk of his hair.  He couldn't hear for a few days.  The ceiling turned black, and there was smoke everywhere.

Please don't try that at home...

We've all done stupid things and those of us writing today happened to survive them.  That isn't always the case.  I had a high-school history teacher in Houston who was missing a hand.  Of course, students are curious and have to know, so he would tell the story of how it happened.  In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class.  In the parking lot after school, a couple of chem students called him over to show him what they had whipped together.  It was a Mason jar full of things like sodium and phosphorus.  They had set it down on the hood of a dark Oldsmobile, in the hot Texas sun.

He started walking to it and was closest when it exploded.  He got "sucked into the explosion" (what I figure the police or doctors told him, based on physical evidence) while the other boys were killed.  He said that going for chest X-rays (this was before current airport security) was interesting because his chest was full of shrapnel, while he has a perfectly round hole in his skull (forehead).

Seriously, guys.... Anyone reading these comments and thinking about recreating such a stunt, please think again.

(If you're thinking he fabricated the story, I did find the incident mentioned in a Illinois paper (1.5yrs ago when Google newspapers had a lot more stuff.)

[CTcard]

In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class. 

High schools have TAs?



My version was in my first year of teaching. Intro course for physics majors, and we're talking equations of state and all that, and I decided to demonstrate PV=nRT with helium balloons and liquid nitrogen. That was all well and good, but for kicks I thought that while I had the nitrogen out I'd do a bunch of fun "things are weird when really cold" demos including the classic blow up a soda bottle as liquid turns to gas.

The room only had the mini steel garbage cans, and I somehow decided it would be a good idea to flip the can upside down over the bottle to containt the shrapnel. I put the LN2 in the bottle and placed it under the can at the start of lecture and told the class we'd come back to that later.

As lecture was nearing the end, nothing had happened yet and I was getting a little worried. I couldn't leave it there and I didn't want to pick it up when it might explode. But that didn't turn out to be th problem. Right on schedule, just as I said, "that's it for today", the bottle explodes, the can launches into the air in a remarkably stable fashion, slams into ceiling taking out the ceiling tile with a circular hole, and misses the giant flourescent light by an inch or two.

After a moment of shock, I have a near heart attack at the near miss and the class gives me a standing ovation for the show.
Eventually I confessed it wasn't all exactly as planned.

[CTcard]

In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class. 

High schools have TAs?



My version was in my first year of teaching. Intro course for physics majors, and we're talking equations of state and all that, and I decided to demonstrate PV=nRT with helium balloons and liquid nitrogen. That was all well and good, but for kicks I thought that while I had the nitrogen out I'd do a bunch of fun "things are weird when really cold" demos including the classic blow up a soda bottle as liquid turns to gas.

The room only had the mini steel garbage cans, and I somehow decided it would be a good idea to flip the can upside down over the bottle to containt the shrapnel. I put the LN2 in the bottle and placed it under the can at the start of lecture and told the class we'd come back to that later.

As lecture was nearing the end, nothing had happened yet and I was getting a little worried. I couldn't leave it there and I didn't want to pick it up when it might explode. But that didn't turn out to be th problem. Right on schedule, just as I said, "that's it for today", the bottle explodes, the can launches into the air in a remarkably stable fashion, slams into ceiling taking out the ceiling tile with a circular hole, and misses the giant flourescent light by an inch or two.

After a moment of shock, I have a near heart attack at the near miss and the class gives me a standing ovation for the show.
Eventually I confessed it wasn't all exactly as planned.

[martyup]

[quote author=MT link=topic=16660.msg189717#msg189717 date=1488968606]
In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class. 

High schools have TAs?



My version was in my first year of teaching. Intro course for physics majors, and we're talking equations of state and all that, and I decided to demonstrate PV=nRT with helium balloons and liquid nitrogen. That was all well and good, but for kicks I thought that while I had the nitrogen out I'd do a bunch of fun "things are weird when really cold" demos including the classic blow up a soda bottle as liquid turns to gas.

The room only had the mini steel garbage cans, and I somehow decided it would be a good idea to flip the can upside down over the bottle to containt the shrapnel. I put the LN2 in the bottle and placed it under the can at the start of lecture and told the class we'd come back to that later.

As lecture was nearing the end, nothing had happened yet and I was getting a little worried. I couldn't leave it there and I didn't want to pick it up when it might explode. But that didn't turn out to be th problem. Right on schedule, just as I said, "that's it for today", the bottle explodes, the can launches into the air in a remarkably stable fashion, slams into ceiling taking out the ceiling tile with a circular hole, and misses the giant flourescent light by an inch or two.

After a moment of shock, I have a near heart attack at the near miss and the class gives me a standing ovation for the show.
Eventually I confessed it wasn't all exactly as planned.
[/quote]

[martyup]

[quote author=MT link=topic=16660.msg189717#msg189717 date=1488968606]
In mid-1950s he was a TA in a high school chemistry class. 

High schools have TAs?



My version was in my first year of teaching. Intro course for physics majors, and we're talking equations of state and all that, and I decided to demonstrate PV=nRT with helium balloons and liquid nitrogen. That was all well and good, but for kicks I thought that while I had the nitrogen out I'd do a bunch of fun "things are weird when really cold" demos including the classic blow up a soda bottle as liquid turns to gas.

The room only had the mini steel garbage cans, and I somehow decided it would be a good idea to flip the can upside down over the bottle to containt the shrapnel. I put the LN2 in the bottle and placed it under the can at the start of lecture and told the class we'd come back to that later.

As lecture was nearing the end, nothing had happened yet and I was getting a little worried. I couldn't leave it there and I didn't want to pick it up when it might explode. But that didn't turn out to be th problem. Right on schedule, just as I said, "that's it for today", the bottle explodes, the can launches into the air in a remarkably stable fashion, slams into ceiling taking out the ceiling tile with a circular hole, and misses the giant flourescent light by an inch or two.

After a moment of shock, I have a near heart attack at the near miss and the class gives me a standing ovation for the show.
Eventually I confessed it wasn't all exactly as planned.
[/quote]