SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.

Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.

When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.

“It sounded almost like a firecracker,” Clewer told Australian radio Friday.

“Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt.”

Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.

“There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise — a bit like a whip — both inside and outside the building,” said fire official Henry Barton.

Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.

Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.

“We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited,” Barton said.

“I’ve been firefighting for over 35 years and I’ve never come across anything like this,” he said.

Firefighters took possession of Clewer’s jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.

David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.

“Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them,” said Gosden.

And here is where it really gets funny…

Today is one of those cold and dreary days that makes me want to just sit down in front of a fireplace and watch a movie, or read a book, or spend time with a close friend…maybe with a cat on my lap, or a blanket around my shoulders, or a blond haired cutie on my shoulder. I think a combo of all of those would be perfect.

Alas I don’t exactly have those things here…so instead I decided to see just how far up the mountainside I could get.

Mission accomplished…sorta. I did manage to get up further than I have before, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted.

Up the mountain are some fairly big ski areas and there are several gondolas that run up there. I have a couple little maps of the area and after checking them out a bit, I talked to Magnus a bit (considerably more on that in another post), gather my stuff, grabbed a friend and set off for the journey.

I was ready…I had comfy shoes on, plenty of cold weather gear (it’s like 10 C here right now), brought my phone, GPS, camera, binoculars, and map. Let’s do it!

We caught the Funi up the hill (after missing the bus…stood for like 30 minutes at the wrong stop…doh) and proceeded to wander around until we found the gondola.

It wasn’t easy to find. We had a rough idea of where it may be but no specific directions…on top of that the signs were “strange”. They weren’t that descriptive, not to mention were written in French. But the pretty little pictures helped.

We eventually found an electronic sign that said which lifts were running…and (mistakenly) thought we were on the right track.

Eventually we found the place…and it was closed. There are several gondolas that run up but the one we were at was decidedly closed…in fact it looked nearly abandoned. We took pictures, wandered around a bit, hit up a store, ran into some friends with a car and hitched a ride back to Bluche.

So here I am now…I got my apple juice, I got some pistachios, a couple of decent pictures, and a warm room listening to a mix of U2, The Police, and the Rolling Stones.

Not too shabby for a Saturday afternoon.

And yes…I did get higher up the mountain than I ever have before. But sadly, it was only a new record by a couple dozen meters. At least it’ll be easy to beat.

Yow…meters…degrees C…I’m becoming all European. Now that is a scary thought.

This, I felt, was a cool shot down between some houses. I wanted to walk down there but…didn’t.

A typical selection of beer at a typical Swiss grocery store. As you can see there isn’t much anything “dark” available. Sigh!!

Neil sitting in a gondola wishing it was moving up the hill.

The creepy looking entrance to the gondolas. The whole place seemed so run down and kinda scary. I loved it!

Last night was Mexico Night at school (or just Latin America…I’m not sure, it was a bit confusing). But I was pretty excited about the whole deal because I knew I was going to be eating food that was pretty damn close to what I am used to at home.

And they hit a home run.

We had quesadillas, a wonderful variety of salsas, tacos al pastor, nachos, tequila, Coronas (with lime…the Swiss prefer lemon…bah), and all kinds of other yummy treats.

I ate a TON…so much that I was concerned about drinking that night…but amazingly enough I survived.

Towards the end of the event they even had a bunch of piñatas that created quite a sensation. Several of our teachers were there including the Dean…and a bunch of them got some piñata smacks in. It was hilarious.

After all that it was time for good old San’nick’s and more beers. The place was hot, smoky and packed…and a total blast. So…gasp…I decided to “go up”. It was Friday night and I knew I didn’t have anything seriously major to do Saturday or Sunday.

We caught a taxi up to Cran (where the late night bars are) and hit up a couple different places. I kept the drinking at a manageable level and ran into all kinds of people and probably had at least 30 separate conversations with people. It was all good times.

So at around 3 am the last group I was with decided to head on home…and I ended up talking with a friend until about 5 am.

All in all I’ve got to say it was a great time.

Until this morning that is…

I was woken up by Magnus and Jamaica (I want to call him Philip but that isn’t his name damnit.) To make a longish story short they had gotten back home about an hour earlier (that’s 9 am for those of you that last count) and were having a seriously heated and deep conversation. Magnus is pretty loud and Jamaica isn’t exactly quiet either…and with my balcony door being partially open I heard pretty much every word.

I don’t want to tell the world things about these guys private lives but I can say this…they’ve had some seriously hard core life changing shitty experiences. It was intense…there was crying and yelling and nearly a fight. And all of this at 11 am now.

Eventually Magnus came into my room…tears in his eyes, drunk as hell, telling me to wake up (which was kind of funny because I was awake, dressed, and goofing around on my computer). He barely made any sense…telling me (not asking me) to come into his room to talk about things, about life, telling me how much he respected me, wanting to hug me, wanting to just pretty much fall on the floor and flip out. It was heavy.

I calmed him down a bit and decided it was high time I get the HELL out of Bluche. And that leads me to my attempt to get high.

Alcohol, late nights and emotional people are a dangerous combination.

Andrea smoking…which means she was extremely drunk.

Carl…passed out. Which means he was EXTREMELY extremely drunk. I happen to like the artistic nature of this picture.

Chris dancing at Absolute with Susan looking…odd.

Here is Mr. Harrison whacking at the pinata. He is the head of the BBA program and was my International Relations teacher. He was fairly drunk and we had a deep conversation about world politics.

Here is Mr. Taylor…the Dean. Hilarious.

The results of a massive Mexican buffet. Oh how heavenly it was!

Here is Cal being bottle fed by a giant (and very creepy looking) British BBA student.