Okay, I used to be okay with enduring Texas Thunderstorms, till this one time...

We were doing sewer system analysis in Houston to check for breakdown, shifts in the line, blockage etc. On one occasion, we happened into an area relatively sparsely populated with trees and structures, and set up our little rig, which consisted of a sonar array connected to a 2000 meter braided steel cable spooled onto a motor driven drum with four conductors inside the cable. The cable draped over a set of guides mounted to 3" aluminum I Beam that stuck up out of the manholes about 14 feet. The cable then ran down into the effluent stream behind the sonar array, sometimes the runs would be nearly 1/4 mile long. Anyways, a storm came upon us faster than we could react, as Texas storms tend to do, and I found myself sitting inside the van, with the drum at my feet, at least 400 feet of cable run out into the sewer system, and that danged aluminum I-Beam sticking out of the hole not 25 feet from me. The poor little generator that was running the motor to spool in the cable was getting swamped by the deluge coming down, and meanwhile lightning strikes are coming down around me so close there's virtually no delay between the flash and the boom. I chanting prayers faster than the rabbis at the wailing wall can, thinking the whole time that I am going to become like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. Someone must've been listening, because I am here, but I lost my nerve that day, and for a long time thereafter if a boomer was heading my way, I would head for cover quick. It wasn't till I had done my time in Baghdad that I was able to keep my cool and not react so bad to ole zappy.

As far as going out on the water and getting caught, well, I don't enjoy water that much anyways, thanks to the Navy, so maybe they done me a favor after all.