Sitting here in the basement computer room, semi-reclined, typing on the powerbook and I notice a strange friction as palms move across the laptop's aluminum surface. Hmm...this is familiar, very familiar.

Alternating current, that's it! Turns out my bare feet are on a (painted) electric floorboard heater and "something" isn't wired right. I'm feeling a little voltage buzzing under sweaty palms. Not surprising, I've found a number of places where the previous owner (and builder) of our house made mistakes or took a dubious shortcut .

Like the wall plug for the well pump that looked like any of the dozens of 120vac plugs in the house except it was wired for 240vac. Kiss goodbye to any gadget plugged into that outlet.

When we were kids we created a homemade hot dog cooker. Hammer two nails into a board, wrap a stripped wire lead from a 120vac extension cord around each nail, spear a hot dog on the nails, and plug into a wall socket. Not very safe, sure, but this was back in the days when people stopped for DWI were told "I think you've had a few too many. Time to drive home and call it an evening."

Us kids would entertain/challenge ourselves with the hot dog cooker by putting fingers on the middle of the electrified dog and see how far we could move them apart. The hot dog, just a big red resistor, had higher voltage the further you moved the fingers from each other, essentially working towards complete electrocution. Kids!

Bob, the radio station engineer I worked with had a method of approaching questionable electricity. Mind you the radio transmitters had enough high voltage and current to instantly smoke a hot dog or ruin the day/life a clumsy engineer. He'd touch circuits (after shutting them off, but you never know) with the back of his knuckles. His theory was that electricity would cause muscles to contract, thereby pulling the fingers away from the source.

Bob had been shot across a transmitter room after a close encounter with a transmitter's undrained capacitor bank. His back was never the same after that. I pulled a similar trick with an old color tv, trying to ground out the picture tube and instead waking up a few minutes later on the other side of the room.

Bob also told me, "When you can plug a damn electrical cord in that way, then you can damn well unplug it that way!" after one too many times of me grabbing a cord and yanking it out of the wall. He spent a lot of time yelling at me, this I remember well.

Granted, I was a bit of a klutz and rarely paid enough attention. Take for example the day he had to climb the AM radio tower to replace the beacon on top. The tower was couple hundred feet high and he would climb it while the station was on the air (feeling a bit of alternating current himself near the top).

Unlike an FM (or TV) station which uses a set of antennas attached to the side of the tower an AM Radio tower is all antenna, which means the whole thing is "hot." There's a huge insulator at the bottom to keep it from shorting to ground and the guy wires that hold it up have insulating material as well.

You don't want to touch an AM radio tower when it is broadcasting. The way Bob accomplished his feat was to get ready to jump on the tower, signal me to turn the transmitter off (me, the klutz), test with a knuckle, wince/pray, jump onto the tower, and then signal for the station to be turned back on.

I'm happy to say I never electrocuted him. That should count for something.

Once on the tower Bob would start the long climb up, with loaded tool belt clanking all the way. My job was to pay attention in case he needed anything. He had a spool of fishing line he'd drop to which I'd tie a forgotten tool so he could reel it back up. Smart guy that Bob.

Folks will vouch that I'm not very good at sitting still and it was only worse when I was a teenager. Bob got up to the top and, straddling the tower, started the slow process of removing the huge glass lens cover and replacing the bulb. Making sure that I stayed within shouting distance I set about entertaining myself.

Actually I found a pretty fun thing to do and was thoroughly enjoying it when it started raining. Or was it hailing? Something sure was falling from the sky...oh, look, tools!

To entertain myself I had started climbing the tower's guy wires, the wires holding the 200+ foot antenna in one place while chief engineer Bob precariously balanced himself on top. Seems he suddenly found himself in a Wiley Coyote situation: tower going one way and Bob the other.

After he'd frantically regained his grip he started unloading every tool he had. Luckily for me anger totally messed up his aim...