Stupid Human Tricks

[Geezer]

Blowing up outhouse: Six months of jail time
from Gillette, Wyoming
By TONY RAAP, News-Record Writer traap@gillettenewsrecord.net
A 22-year-old man has been sentenced to serve six months in jail for blowing up an outhouse at a federal recreation area north of Gillette.

Friday’s sentence comes more than two months after David Everett Smith pleaded guilty to a felony charge of property destruction.

Smith was one of four men charged with destroying an outhouse last summer in the Weston Hills recreation area about 25 miles north of Gillette. Prosecutors say the men used an oxygen tank, acetylene, fire extinguishers and several Molotov cocktails to cause the explosion.

Smith’s attorney, Christina Williams, urged the judge to hand down a suspended prison sentence. She said Smith has taken steps to rehabilitate himself since his arrest.

He has moved to Cheyenne, has gotten engaged and has worked on controlling his anger issues.

“He is a changed person,” Williams said.

Prosecutor Bill Eichelberger recommended a prison sentence of two to five years but suggested that Smith be sent to a six-month boot camp in Newcastle rather than the state penitentiary.

When it was his turn to speak, Smith read a statement in which he apologized to his family and the U.S. Forest Service.

“I have changed and will no longer make poor decisions,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.
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No more poor decisions ...other than moving to Cheyenne, Wyoming and getting engaged.

Let's get this straight...oxygen tank, acetylene, fire extinguishers and several Molotov cocktails...just to blow up an outhouse??

[Oldpres]

It was a six seater and required 5 Sears catalogues between the seats, a lot to blow up.

[Geezer]

from firefighterclosecalls...

FIREFIGHTER WITH BEER IN HAND, CRASHES FIRE APPARATUS-AND IS CHARGED         
Thursday, July 29, 2010 Plainfield Township (PA) police say the man who crashed a North Bangor Fire Department fire apparatus earlier this month was driving drunk and had a beer in his hand. In a criminal complaint filed Wednesday, police say Zachary R. Romano, 20, of Upper Mount Bethel Township registered a 0.16 percent blood-alcohol content after he crashed a Mack fire engine July 10 on Kesslersville Road in Plainfield Township.

A passenger riding with Romano at the time of the crash said Romano had bought a 30-pack of Coors Light from a Stockertown beer distributor earlier in the day before heading back to the fire department with the beer. The driver of another firetruck told police Romano had a beer in his hand while in the North Bangor truck. Romano is charged with DUI, drinking while underage and reckless driving, among other related offenses.

 www.wfmz.com
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Caution: Genius at work.
 

[Geezer]

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - August 9, 2010 -- The state-run news agency says a groom has killed his father and two aunts after opening fire into the air with an automatic weapon to celebrate his wedding.

The Anatolia news agency says eight other relatives were injured during Sunday's celebration in the southeastern province of Gaziantep.

It says the groom lost control of the weapon and accidentally aimed at guests. He was arrested.

It is tradition in Turkey to shoot into the air to celebrate weddings, circumcisions or sports victories. Turkey has failed to curb the practice despite imposing harsher punishments to cut down on stray bullet accidents.

Police in Gaziantep were not available for comment.

(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Another wonderful tradition that has endured through the years.

I bet the circumcision parties are REALLY wild.

[Geezer]

Without copying any of the numerous articles out there, which I hope most of you have seen, I'd like to nominate the ladder operator (and the rest of the crew that was watching) for attempting to arc-weld his ladder to the 230,000 volt transmission line running along the side of his station (yeah, not in the middle of the night in a unfamiliar location - in broad daylight sitting on the pad at the station).  Guess they just ran those wires through there overnight.
Extra credit for hitting another FF with debris from the pieces of ~6" of concrete pad that exploded up out of the ground & starting a fire in the electrical box of his own fire station.
Public relations brownie points for the 31,000 homes that lost power from the incident.

[Geezer]

Looking for Ghost Train, Man Killed by Real One

AOL News (Aug. 28) -- Christopher Kaiser spent early Friday morning on a railroad bridge in North Carolina's Iredell County. He and a dozen others were hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost train -- the chilling apparition of a passenger train that came off the tracks there in 1891, killing 30 people.

Instead, these ghost hunters encountered something far scarier: a real locomotive train hurtling towards them on a track that was 150 feet from safety.

Kaiser and the others tried to get away with some falling as much as 40 feet to escape the locomotive. Most escaped.

Kaiser was struck by the train and killed.

"They probably didn't hear the train coming until the last minute," Iredell County Sheriff's Capt. Darren Campbell told The Charlotte Observer.

According to local legend, an apparition of the 1891 Bostian's Bridge crash appears every year on the anniversary of the accident, complete with screaming passengers and grinding metal.

It has even become something of a local industry, with memorabilia such as T-shirts for sale to the spook hunters who gather each year. Nearly 300 gathered there in 1991 for the 100th anniversary.

"We were there looking for what people say happened. You hear the train wreck or hear people screaming. We were just watching," one woman told a local CNN affiliate.

Campbell said he has never met anyone who had seen the ghost train, though there are sometimes reports of railroad barriers falling for no apparent reason.

Engineers on board the real locomotive sounded the horn and did their best to stop the train, the Statesville Record & Landmark reported.

Kaiser's mother told a local CNN affiliate that the family was too distraught to discuss the accident.

Most of the ghost hunters were from out of town. Some fled from police investigators because they were trespassing on the railroad property.

According to the blog CreepyNC.com, the site of the crash is haunted by the ghost of Hugh Linster. He was the baggage master for the railroad, and was winding his new watch just before the accident.

According to the blog, Linster's ghost appears at the scene, accompanied with the sound of a terrible accident. The ghost will ask for the correct time, tip his hat, and vanish.

"Linster goes looking for the correct time," the blog says. "Perhaps he always will."

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Natural selection hard at work again.

[Geezer]

NORTH EAST, Pa. - September 2, 2010 -- Police say an Erie-area woman somehow managed to zap both herself and her brother with a stun gun during a drunken dispute.

Forty-five-year-old Darlene Newara, of North East, will have a hearing Oct. 18 on charges including driving under the influence, disorderly conduct for fighting, and public drunkenness in the Aug. 8 incident.

State police say the responded to a disturbance outside an Erie-area store about 6 p.m. to find that Newara had been arguing with her brother and stunned him with the device, then accidentally shocked herself with it.

Police say she was intoxicated and had several unopened bottles of liquor in the vehicle with her three sons, who were not hurt.

(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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DUI
Disorderly conduct
Public drunkenness
Stunning her brother with a stun gun
Stunning herself with the stun gun
All in front of her 3 kids...
All by 6 PM on a Saturday night...

"Hey, Ma, remember that night you and Uncle Cletus got all sloppy drunk and were fighting over the stun gun...?"