Scars

Here is an interesting exercise in storytelling: Locate a non-surgical scar on your body and tell its story. Don't make up a mountain lion attack or an old war injury from the Battle of Verdun, just tell the truth.

Ok, I'll go first.

I have a small scar on my left leg that is actually a series of three small scars in a row. Here's what happened...

My father and I built a go-kart sometime in the mid 70's. I posted about it here. I was constantly working on it, fine-tuning the engine, tweaking the chain drive, and generally trying to coax more speed from the little thing. It had a rather primitive chain / centrifugal clutch drive system and a long flexible electrical conduit as an exhaust pipe.

One day I was running the engine and tweaking and adjusting when I touched the hot exhaust pipe with my leg. I could hear it sizzle. Because of the helical shape of the conduit, I ended up with three really bad blisters and later scars.

This event taught me about insulation the hard way. It's fairly ironic that I went on to engineer, among other things, exhaust heat shields. Better late than never, I guess.