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+---
+title: Ricochet Rockets in the Basement
+---
+
+Life Lesson: Cleanliness and organization are good habits
+
+The fireworks lab was in the basement in our home in Windham, Maine. I
+was not yet very tidy down there and often left odds and ends from long
+past projects lying around on the workbench. It was on a Saturday when
+this next little fiasco occurred. Lori was away from the house for some
+unknown reason, but at least some of the children were home. However, I
+was working alone in the basement at the time. I don\'t remember what I
+was even working on, but I was using my electric grinding wheel to
+sharpen or shape some piece of metal. The nature of grinding wheels is
+that they quite often produce a lot of bright metal sparks shooting out
+the back side of the grinding wheel.\
+\
+Now, normally, this is not a real fire hazard because the sparks are not
+hot enough to start fires or even cause damage to the surrounding
+surface of the work bench. However, I had left a paper cup of flammable
+powder of some kind on the work bench. It was left over from some other
+project and never properly disposed of. After many months of sitting on
+the back of the work bench, I didn\'t even take notice of the cup or
+what dangerous substance might still be lurking inside. As you can
+guess, the sparks from the grinding wheel ignited this cup of powder and
+caused a large poof of flame that startled me quite a bit. This was not
+the end of the incident, however. Lying next to the paper cup were a few
+fireworks rockets. They were meant for large stick rockets, a lot like
+bottle rockets, but much larger. Whereas bottle rockets are about one
+and a half inches long and attached to a foot long stick, my stick
+rockets were about six inches long and normally would be attached to
+3-foot-long sticks. Well, the flash and flame from the paper cup caused
+the fuses of the rockets to ignite and before I could react they were
+flying around in the basement, ricocheting off the walls and ceiling
+just like a Wiley Coyote cartoon. The whole basement quickly filled up
+with smoke and then the smoke alarm started wailing.\
+\
+All this racket caused Megan to wonder what was going on in the
+basement. She opened the door to the basement, only to discover it was
+filled with smoke and the alarm was still making an ear-piercing noise.
+About this time, I finally got my wits about me and quickly told Megan
+to close the door so the smoke wouldn\'t go upstairs. My first act to
+recover from this disaster was to grab a pillow and stuff it around the
+fire alarm to deafen the awful noise. Then I opened the patio door to
+let the smoke go outside. Gradually, the smoke cleared and the fire
+alarm stopped its annoying wail. It was then I realized that some sparks
+of some kind had managed to get under the cuff of my shirt and caused a
+nasty burn. I still have a nice little scar on my arm that reminds me of
+my stupidity to this day. Fortunately, no other harm was caused by the
+incident and I again considered myself very lucky that I escaped with
+only a bit of a burn on my arm.\
+\
+From this scary incident, I learned that cleanliness and organization
+are good habits to have when working with explosives. A little
+carelessness on one day can cause a serious accident to sneak up on you
+many days in the future when you least expect it to happen. Alas, my
+lesson still didn\'t prevent other fiascos to follow.