poor yaya

as a kid i played around all kinds of such minor dangers.

i learned how to use a soldering iron when i was, i think, 6 or 7. I learned how to use it on old circuitry boards, how to turn the tin connections liquid and then pull out the resistor or capacitor or whatever using tweezers at the right moment when the tin is liquid. Yes i burned myself. But as a child such minor injuries heal so damn quickly, when i get injured today (age 30) it takes so much longer to heal anything. At age 11 there was a project where they gave me a bag full of electronic parts and a blank circuitry board and a plan that shows which part needs to go where and i was focused and skilled with the soldering iron and put it together and it worked, it was just some LEDs going on and off in a pattern controlled by an 8-foot IC. But i still remember that many others had trouble soldering the 8-foot thing onto the blank board. (for clarifications: not feet, its just a little black ceramic thing with 8 metal parts sticking out of it, like an insect with 8 feet). And all the LEDs just went blinking as they should when i put in the battery.

Yes i got exposed to soldering irons at a very early age AND DID BURN MYSELF ACCIDENTALLY, and i did play around with the soldering iron and melted plastic and burned stuff with it, and here i am, no scars. I just know how to solder stuff together and how to fix electrnics by replacing components, and i also learned about chemistry from that, and by playing with fire. Yes i was allowed to play, only ourside and only when adults did set up the fire, i was allowed to play with fire as a child. Now at age 30 people freak out when i suddenly pick up a piece of burning coal out of a campfire and throw it somewhere with my bare fingers. Quite a party trick. I just learned that ash insulates and speed matters when dealing with burning coal. For others its magic when i pick up a red hot burning piece of coal and throw it from the right hand into the left hand and then into the river. Risk management, i know if it goes wrong it will hurt for a week or so. Also, few people reached into a pool of liquid nitrogen (-196 celsius, for slow non-scientific people: -321 fahrenheit), i did it, and i even put my hand into liquid helium, almost. (-269 celsius, around 4 kelvin which means around 4 degrees above absolute zero. for slow non-scientific people: -452 fahrenheit). The helium evaporated too quickly.

One thing i have not done yet but would like to try out: soak your hand in a solvent with a low evaporation point, and then submerge it in liquid lead for 1 or 2 seconds. No harm if done correctly.

Anyway, the more or less risky stuff (without any danger for lasting damage) turned me into a guy with fundamental and intuitive understanding of chemistry, physics, electronics, biology, basically all natural sciences and much of technology. This put me at a great advantage in these subjects at school and college.

Now at age 30 i meet people of the same age at parties at the river, and i am totally stunned when i realize that they do not know how a campfire works. And many years back i figured i want to do a party outside, nice weather, but it rained the day before, i wanted a fire anyway, so i prepared some non-toxic weaker variety of napalm by dissolving styrofoam in acetone, only a small quantity, but enough to start a fire on wet ground with wet wood. If you now think about Apocalypse Now: I know how napalm smells in the morning.

but then, even at an early age, geeks and nerds attract each other, soon i was in the business of telling others what not to do. The world really got more restrictive after 9/11.

What i gained is basically my intelligence and my knowledge of all the natural sciences. I got burned, super-glued and frozen and fell and so on, but i still remember when i was in treetops as a child, high up, as high as they grow, all the way in the crown. Maybe 25 meters / 75 feet, who knows.

Too bad one didn't actually get you.

Hes tagged me a couple times. He gets calm after a few minuts after beimg out of his tank. My son went to sew him yesterday. Lol