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St. Paul Fire Schools Students with Dorm-Room Fire Demo

05.10.11

Twin Cities students watched as fire consumed a typical dorm room in a fiery show-and-tell on the dangers of fires in student housing in St. Paul Tuesday.

St. Paul firefighters put on the demonstration along with the University of St. Thomas and the Michael Larson Memorial Fund.

Larson was a sophomore who died in an off-campus fire in December 2010. His family created the fund to promote fire prevention and smoking cessation programs. Tuesday's event focused on both.

The dorm-room demonstration featured a towel tossed on top of a halogen lamp. Within 15 seconds the towel smoldered and smoked. By 20 seconds, flames appeared. A short three minutes and 30 seconds later, black smoke rushed out of the room and temperatures reached 1800 degrees.

The fire that killed Larson spread quickly from the porch into the home, spurred on by high winds.

Source: KSTP.com

Pigs and a Blanket

29.09.11

I had always thought that the Porte de Vanves market, a smallish affair on the Left Bank, was the ne plus ultra (do French people ever say this?) of the Parisian flea experience. But I was disabused of this notion by the Antiques Diva , a native Oklahoman who has an enviable life traipsing around European antiques fairs. When I sang the praises of Vanves, she shook her head. “It’s the Ham & Antiques you want!” she said. “It’s on the Île de Chatou, 800 dealers, and the best ham you ever tasted.”

Because there is a God, the H&A — the official name of which is the Foire Nationale à la Brocante et aux Jambons , but is known more familiarly as the Chatou (it is entirely possible that only I and the Diva call it the Ham & Antiques) — takes place over 10 days, twice a year, around the same time as the women’s fashion shows in Paris. I like to sneak off, say, between Dries and Dior, and take the RER to Rueil-Malmaison where a ridiculous Toonerville trolley transports you, after a terrifying if mercifully short ride on a vicious French highway, to the Île de Chatou.

Source: New York Times (blog)