Two flashlight stories

It01Firefox

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jul 7, 2009
Messages
173
Location
Germany
Hi,

I just thought to share two flashlight stories that happened to me recently.

1.
A couple of weeks ago I was with my parents to look at a house they thought about buying. We were in the basement and my father wanted to check out the furnace, but of course he couldn't see anything in that dark hole there.
So he turns around to me and says: "Don't you have a flashlight in the car? Go get it.
I answered: "Well of course I do, but it's raining outside and I don't really want to walk to my car, so.." and I whipped out my E1B, clicked it on high and handed it over to him.
Instead of thanking me, he gave me that look (you know, the "I can't believe my son is such a geek" look), shakes his head and complains: "You could have given me that when we came down here!"

I just stood there, grinning, one hand in my coat pocket, resting on my E2e, thinking: "Any you have now idea how much of a geek I am!"

Oh yeah, in case anyone was wondering, the E1B lit the whole thing up pefectly.


2.
I'm a volunteer firefighter and last night we had a drill with a neighbouring squad in their town. It was in an old empty building that the town owns.
After the drill when all the smoke had cleared out of the house we did a walkthrough with the guy who set up the drill to take a look at some of the problems and dangers our teams faced inside.
Since the building is empty all the power is turned off we had to rely on flashlights. The instructor asked me to turn on my helmet light (UK 4AA) which I openly refused because I had used it constantly during the drill (I was team leader on the first team from my engine that went in to search for missing persons and fight the fire) so it was running pretty low on batteries plus the tight narrow beam that is pretty good at cutting through smoke isn't really suited to light up whole rooms. So I pulled out my PD30, pointed it towards the ceiling and clicked it on turbo. The whole room lit up and the instructor turned around to me and says: "OK you have me convinced." And he turns of his own UK. So I provided illumination for the whole squad during the walkthrough, nobody else needed their lights, except when they wandered around the house.

I think I have convinced a few of them to invest in a good flashlight and since Christmas is coming up quite a few are actually thinking about treating themselves to one pretty soon.
I'll probably have to recommend them something in a more common AA format or they are gonna be put off when they check up on prices for CR123s.

And I also think I'm not going to give them my Surefire speech.:D
 

Zeruel

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
3,286
Location
SIN
Storey 1.
You mean you only have 2 lights on you? :nana:

Storey 2.
You should try to activate the strobe... you'll get helluva party. :naughty:


Thanks for sharing. :)
 

Juggernaut

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Feb 18, 2008
Messages
1,490
Location
A place in need of light.
Hi,

I just thought to share two flashlight stories that happened to me recently.

1.
A couple of weeks ago I was with my parents to look at a house they thought about buying. We were in the basement and my father wanted to check out the furnace, but of course he couldn't see anything in that dark hole there.
So he turns around to me and says: "Don't you have a flashlight in the car? Go get it.
I answered: "Well of course I do, but it's raining outside and I don't really want to walk to my car, so.." and I whipped out my E1B, clicked it on high and handed it over to him.
Instead of thanking me, he gave me that look (you know, the "I can't believe my son is such a geek" look), shakes his head and complains: "You could have given me that when we came down here!"

I just stood there, grinning, one hand in my coat pocket, resting on my E2e, thinking: "Any you have now idea how much of a geek I am!"

My fathers funny, it seems like we are always in need of a light:candle:, so he always says: "hey do you have a light on you?" He knows I carry 5 around whenever I'm not sleeping:D, but he always asks:ohgeez:! He's always grateful, but he never just says: "Can I borrow one of your lights?"
 

It01Firefox

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jul 7, 2009
Messages
173
Location
Germany
Storey 1.
You mean you only have 2 lights on you? :nana:

Please forgive me, I was young and inexperienced at the time (about three weeks ago:D), but have since learned and now a LD01 SS is doing keychain duty, so I won't be caught with only two lights the next time.

I also know that I'm still missing the SF T1A Titan necklace, even though I never show enough cleavage to display it as well as some SF representatives. :whistle:

would TK20s be useful to cut through smoke?
I have no idea, I've never seen a TK20s beam. It would have to be a very tight beam without much spill to work effectively. I don't think tint is that much of a factor. The UK lights work very well in that respect, but our big box lantern work much better as they have a very collimated beam, at least as long as you remember to remove the diffuser disk before entering the building. And believe me, not every one of my fellow firefighters does.

We're using the Eisemann HSE7s :http://www.eisemann.ch/ (Warning: It's in German)
 
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