I watch Mythbusters often. Or, if you ask The Wife, too often. And she may be right because, when I read the story below, my first thought was: “That’d be cool to be that homeowner. I’d let them do that!”
One of the zany experiments staged by the “Mythbusters” television show nearly turned into a suburban tragedy Tuesday afternoon in Dublin when the crew fired a homemade cannon toward huge containers of water at the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department bomb disposal range.
The cantaloupe-sized cannonball missed the water, tore through a cinder-block wall, skipped off a hillside and flew some 700 yards east, right into the Tassajara Creek neighborhood, where children were returning home from school at 4:15 p.m., authorities said.
There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all – only awakening because of plaster dust.
The ball wasn’t done bouncing.
It exited the house, leaving a perfectly round hole in the stucco, crossed six-lane Tassajara Road, took out several tiles from the roof of a home on Bellevue Circle and finally slammed into the Gill family’s beige Toyota Sienna minivan in a driveway on Springvale Drive.
That’s where Jasbir Gill, 42, who had pulled up 10 minutes earlier with his 13-year-old son, Manvir, found the ball on the floorboards, with glass everywhere and an obliterated dashboard.
Hey, as long as they paid to fix it all, I’d still kind of like to be that homeowner. Oh, and if I got to keep the cannonball.
In the meantime, Jamie and Adam, remember to always be sure of you target and what is behind it.
In the case of a cannon, “Check your target and what’s behind it and what’s behind that, and what’s behind that, and what’s behind that…”
When I worked in the ATF building, we were only a few blocks from that exact spot. I’m pretty sure you drove past it on the way to my house when you came down to visit, Phil.
The real question is why were a man, woman, and child sleeping in the same room at 4 in the afternoon?
No Problem, Just pay for the damage to my house, fix or replace my car, let me keep the cannonball after we take a picture of you all holding the cannonball and pointing to the hole in my house, everyone has to autograph the picture, and I want to be a guest member on one of your teams for an entire episode. (and no, I won’t take Buster’s place)
I’d love to see the video of the scene when they realized they’d overshot: either a great big, heartfelt “Oh, FUCK!”, or a quiet “Adam, I think we have a problem.”
I was imagining Adam freaking out while Jaime goes to Full Moustache Bristleâ„¢ and says “Well that’s not good.”
I guess Jaime is kind of a jerk in person. But then, I have met very few SEALS, active or former, who weren’t. So I guess that fits.