# Most esoteric thing you have ever done (I handled a moon rock).. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2008, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105 "2008-07-11T09:07:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/61 "2008-07-11T22:30:01Z")
My autograph is right next to Shaquille O’Neal’s in numerous (at least a dozen) basketball programs. After the 1989 Dapper Dan high school basketball classic in Pittsburgh, my friend and I went onto the floor and were somehow able to enter the locker room with the players. I was in my first year of college, so I was almost the same age as the players. Anyway, they also let in some younger fans to get autographs from the players. I was standing next to Shaq, Bobby Hurley and Jerry Walker as they were signing the programs. Shaq was the last one to sign and then he would just hand me the program to hand back to the kid. For some reason, the first kid thought I was one of the players and wanted me to sign. I’m only 5’ 10", but I guess he couldn’t tell. After that, all the other kids assumed the same thing. So I kept signing them. I also managed to steal Dick Vitale’s personal notes from the game. He left them on the announcer’s table. They were little notes on each of the kids playing the game, so I’m pretty sure he was done with them. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/62 "2008-07-11T22:40:34Z")
I set up a Chess Scholarship at my School. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/63 "2008-07-11T22:44:34Z")
I’ve gone swimming in Loch Lomond (slippery rocks, long story). I’ve chased dogs out of my yard while wielding an oosik. I’ve gotten drunk with the President of Sauza tequila, from a bottle of his private stash, while listening to a very bad surf band on the beach at Todos Santos. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/64 "2008-07-11T23:00:00Z")
I’ve played football at the Rose Bowl. ---
**Author:** ![krisolov](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/krisolov/32/3724_2.png) [@krisolov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/krisolov)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/65 "2008-07-11T23:14:00Z")
I’ve played Dungeons and Dragons with Gary Gygax at an early gaming convention. It was a lot of fun. I think I was 14 or 15 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/66 "2008-07-11T23:34:49Z")
I’ve made superconductors, chilled them with liquid helium, and used high-power electromagnets to perform experiments on them. I’ve stood on the north polar ice cap, dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and boots. (Fairly esoteric for a southern boy.) I’ve picked a lock while hanging upside down from a cargo net. [QUOTE=ArrMatey!] Oh, also, forgot to add, just for essoteria: Was playing the part of a pirate in a little interactive-theater thingum (used to be part of an acting troupe), and had to remain as ‘background’ the entire day because my sweat was radioactive; I’d been told no one should come in contact with me. (Our director retroactively named it ‘Radioactive Pirate Day’) [/QUOTE] _Please_ tell me that at some point you climbed up a ladder or something so that you could be “elevated background radiation”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/67 "2008-07-11T23:44:09Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] How many nets did you catch? [/QUOTE] Actually, we caught one of [these](http://homepage.mac.com/wildlifeweb/mammal/duiker/blue_duiker_5440tfk.jpg): a Blue Duiker. The researchers I was visiting were tracking forest antelope using radio collars. When they had to replace a battery, a couple of their Bantu assistants would locate the animals using an antenna. Then a team of pygmies would race out into the forest to surround it with nets and drive it into them. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/68 "2008-07-12T00:29:30Z")
I nearly got hit by Concorde. Kind of. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/69 "2008-07-12T01:02:32Z")
This is a turning into a really cool thread. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/70 "2008-07-12T02:45:19Z")
I just remembered another one. When I was about 9, a good friend’s dad was a geology professor in Washington state. He got a call one day from a farmer who’d turned up mammoth bones in his wheatfield (not all that rare an occurrence), so my friend I got to go spend a day helping to excavate the mammoth. The bones had been too near the surface, unfortunately, and were very crumbly, but they were also _very_ large. Another time he took us fossil-hunting and we found a fossilized seahorse. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Topologist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/topologist/32/3208_2.png) [@Topologist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Topologist)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/71 "2008-07-12T03:55:36Z")
While in college, I was a bellringer at the Old North Church in Boston, ringing the same bells that Paul Revere had, about two hundred years earlier. It was because he was a bellringer that he was familiar with and had access to the steeple. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/72 "2008-07-12T04:22:35Z")
My boss and I flew to Houston to bring home a moon rock (encased in a lucite pyramid) for temporary display in the museum where we work. Most mornings I got it out of the safe and put it in the display case, and returned it to the safe at the end of the day. [Here I am underneath space shuttle Discovery](http://www.circumspectfiesta.com/images/sdmb/shuttle.jpg) in the orbiter processing facility at KSC, shortly before its first flight after the Columbia accident. I’m quoted in a [book](http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Heretic-Reflections-Computer-Contrarian/dp/0385489765), and appear in the index just before Newt Gingrich and Al Gore ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/73 "2008-07-12T04:55:56Z")
Launched (simulated) nuclear missiles from an Ohio class submarine. Had sex on the exhibit floor of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Smoked pot _inside_ the Biosphere 2 Got drunk with Stephen Stills Jammed with Mickey Hart Been personally blessed by the Dali Lama ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/74 "2008-07-12T05:07:08Z")
I had nine birdies in the final nine holes to win a frisbee golf championship. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/75 "2008-07-12T05:18:35Z")
I’ve held a beating human heart in my hand. (I spelled the surgeon during open massage and the heart re-started while I was holding it.) The person lived. ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/76 "2008-07-12T05:44:03Z")
I also held a human heart, but it was inside the man’s chest (and stopped and on ice). I once felt an unborn baby wink—I was doing a vag exam before mommy went to C-section for face presentation… ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/77 "2008-07-12T07:54:07Z")
[QUOTE=Attack from the 3rd dimension] I forgot to mention the time that I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate. That was cool. [/QUOTE] Okay, I had to go look that up. Good one. I assume that “c-beams” is just a phrase that sounded right, with no correspondent in actual fact? **picunurse** , you rock! What a beautiful feeling that must have been! Let’s see, I just rode my bike through Chinatown in a micro-mini skirt after seeing Flipper play live… what a show that was! I once played a gig where David LaFlamme (of It’s A Beautiful Day) opened for us. Oh, and I’ve played “Battleship” with the guy who invented Java. And “Old Maid.” He used to play me, “You Are My Sunshine” on his harmonica. No shit. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/78 "2008-07-12T08:08:23Z")
I found some interesting rocks on my way home from school yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![phil417](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6bbea6/32.png) [@phil417](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phil417)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/79 "2008-07-12T08:10:02Z")
I’ve been privileged to cuddle three of my four grandchildren within an hour of their births. Every doper parent knows the privilege of which I speak. My sister turned me onto a wonderful song by the Oak Ridge Boys, “Thank God for Kids.” [http://youtube.com/watch?v=AHWaTXMKT3s](http://youtube.com/watch?v=AHWaTXMKT3s) Granted, touching my grandson isn’t touching a piece of the moon, but to me it’s touching a piece of eternity. Love, Phil ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105/80 "2008-07-12T08:17:45Z")
[QUOTE=Koxinga] I found some interesting rocks on my way home from school yesterday. [/QUOTE] What kind of rocks?! I found some amethyst geodes a few months ago by complete weird coincidence (accident on the freeway opened up a bunch; no one was hurt and I scored some geodes!). I have a few fossils (that I found myself in the field), but they aren’t very special to anyone but me. Trilobytes on one, and I think the other is some kind of plant. Not sure, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-esoteric-thing-you-have-ever-done-i-handled-a-moon-rock/456105.md?page=5)