Day 129 - Fire a Cannon

Date: May 15th, 2010

"Where is your drill sergeant, men?"
"Blown up, sir!"

After much deep thought and contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that explosions are amazing, but only in a few select situations.  Fireworks at the Fourth of July and Chinese New Year both come to mind.  Controlled blasts to destroy buildings in Vegas are so cool they throw parties to watch them.  Any and all explosions in movies are amazing as well.  That is what is known as the Michael Bay Principle.

And, of course, explosions of flavor.

Also on the list of amazing things that explode are cannons.  Our friends Dawn and Wes have a miniature cannon that is surprisingly powerful.  Well, not that surprising.  It is a cannon, after all.  Wes agreed to teach me how to fire it for my thing of the day on Saturday.  It was surprisingly uncomplicated.  I had to pack the cannon with black powder (not too volatile, which was nice), put a wick in, and then pack it with wads of newspaper.  He explained the the mini-cannon could actually fire ball bearings if we wanted it to, but paper is safer.

Aww.  Who's a cute little cannon?  You are.  You are.

That cute little cannon packs a pretty significantly punch, actually.  I had to stand a little ways back to avoid ear damage.  Well, further ear damage.  I had a loud music phase.  And then there was the water balloon incident of aught-3.  In addition to the inherent coolness of the cannon itself, we got a great reaction from the neighbors.  They considered our cannon shot to be less of a fun experience for us and more of an... opening blow against them.  They spent the rest of the night setting off M-80s and when my dad jokingly called them out on it, our neighbor's response was "hey, you guys are the ones who brought weapons".  Hilarity ensued.

As for the cannon shot itself, well, it just seems wrong not to have a video of it for y'all.  Which I why I have a video of it for y'all.  Good times.

And I took one for the team.