Saturday, April 26, 2003

 

Ironing as an extreme sport
The next big extreme sport has made the news, ironing. A team went 17,800 feet up Mount Everest, carried an ironing board and iron all the way up, and ironed the Union Jack. well, not really, as it seems the iron does not have to be hot to be considered for the record for extremem ironing. Ben Gibbons from England, led the team up the mountain. I kid you not, I heard this at 2340 hours PST on my local public radio station. Had this been me, I would have carried a different iron. Back in the late 50's or maybe early 60's, Coleman, of Coleman stove and lamp fame, made several white gas powered items in addition to the kelly green stove which most will know and the gas mantle lanterns which came in both red and green. They made coffee pots and irons which used the same generator technology to make heat to make them work. I do not own any of these other items. I only own the stove and a gas mantle lantern models, well, actually I own 2 of each, a smaller and a larger model of each. My red lantern has only a single mantle and holds about 16 ounces of fuel while the green one has two mantles and holds about 32 ounces of fuel, and my small stove is only 2 small burners about the size of a briefcase but a bit thicker, while the big stove is 3 larger burners and is quite heavy and about the size of a medium suitcase but wider to accomodate the 3 burners. All of these gas items use the same method to make heat, a "generator" through which the liquid fuel flows where it is heated to become a gas, which then goes on to the burner where the flame is located. There you have it, the next extreme sport, ironing. I would have taken one of the old Coleman gas powered irons to make it really what we all would recognize as ironing. I hardly think the weight is that much different.

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 4/26/2003 06:15:00 AM

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