Extra tid-bit here..   
      
      
   RN> Last month there was a most interesting article that described RN>   
   lightning travelling upward from a cloud.  That was a new one on me.   
      
    HG> That of course is possible but lightning between clouds is common here.   
      
   Not mentioned in my comments here and there that 29 times I've been personally   
   involved in close lightning strikes is a bit more than posted above!  Of my so   
   called out 29 such events, six times my airplane was hit directly!  I started   
   learning to fly airplanes in 1958 here when I graduated from high school and   
   started my eight years it took me to pay my way through to my first degree   
   here at A&M.  Which a few years after this started, I wound up as the Chief   
   Flight Instructor at Easterwood Airport!   I rode with over 1500 Aggies that   
   flew in VietNam, as well as did a huge number of Part 135 charter flights for   
   my employer, Texas Airmotive Company, at the time.   
      
   I knew a bit more about lightning strikes and such from a lot more than most   
   pilots know, chuckle.  Including that a lot of thunderstorms that grow up as   
   the big bubble up clouds, can actually pop up from very level flat top solid   
   clouds near the earth in some kinds of fronts.  In the early 1970's before I   
   quit flying planes, I was flying my employer's Beech Baron twin from up in   
   Pennsylvania back to Texas through a massive frontal storm issue one day.    
   Yes, on an Instrument Flight Plan.  But my Baron didn't have any radar system   
   on it.  The top of the 'level' cloud mass was only about 8000 feet high.  So I   
   asked the FAA controller if I could remain on IFR but climb out on top of it   
   in VFR weather so I could see the thunderstorm growth spots and wobble out   
   around them VFR to keep from getting whopped.  Sure that was fine with them.    
   As well I had a very smart and important person that I was having to fly back   
   to Texas that day so he could testify on 'our' behalf in Federal Court in   
   Houston.  He had little experience in flights.   
      
   Hmmm.  He was elated when we popped up VFR on top that day.  And was very   
   surprised to see all the little actual not so high up topside thunderstorm   
   clouds!  I had seen it all many times before and done a lot of personal   
   experimentation on this.  So I showed him a trick I had learned!  As we would   
   get from one 'bulb' miles away from another of these growing storms, what I   
   would do is then nudge our Beech Baron closer and closer to the EDGE of the   
   growing up cloud!  Then, at first with this passenger screaming at me when I   
   started this, I'd GENTLY touch us to the very outside edge of the swirling up   
   cloud!  POOF BOOM!  From the disturbance to the growing cloud but *NOT* to us   
   in the airplane, I would TRIGGER A LIGHTNING STRIKE IN THE CLOUD!  Over an   
   over I did this when we had gotten most of the way back to Texas that day to   
   just the right place in the front to do this!   
      
   My passenger was STUNNED at this!  He said, just as I had learned years   
   earlier abou this, that this was just exactly the way one of the old ball game   
   deals you played with those game deals on the floor of a bar of a gambling   
   place did!  If your ball hit just the right place on the sort of storm like   
   mini light bulb deal, it would flash it into a light blink!   
      
   We did that MANY, MANY times before we got back to Easterwood Field home here   
   in College Station,  When he went away from me he told me he would NEVER   
   forget that day.  And later did a WONDERFUL job testifying for my boss and   
   company in Federal Court in Houston,  Grin!   
      
   And about the below:   
      
    HG> IBM laptops are nowadays made and sold under the name Lenovo.    
      
   RN> Chinese, isn't it?   
      
    HG> Correct but under quality control of IBM.   
      
   RN> I never saw them that small.  The ones I have are in the 4-8GB RN> range.   
      
    HG> Same here, the ones I have now are 4-16 Gb.   
      
    HG> Have a nice afternoon,   
      
    HG> Holger   
      
   Well depending on what you might know about the whole computer technology   
   issue and all the world dis and dat.  Including the history of IBM and China   
   and a lot more.  Although it supposedly was to be 'under the quality control   
   of IBM', as the years and years have gone by and even more than the IBM   
   desktop computer systems were also farmed out for 'manufacture' in this or   
   that 'place'...   One wonders if anyone actually really knows at all if even   
   IBM had any quality control of any of this?  Or. multiples in what is now   
   possible being revealed by dis and dat.  What is really going on for all us   
   'humans' in life as we know it ------ dimentionally?   
      
      
   Mike Luther as N117 at 1:117/100   
      
   ---   
    * Origin: BV HUB CLL(979)696-3600 (1:117/100)