CNN’s News To Me program, which covered the Exploding Whale back in February, is now having a contest to determine which segments will appear in their self-proclaimed “blockbuster special” on May 17.

Obviously, I’d like to encourage you to vote for the Exploding Whale! So go do it. Now. What are you waiting for? I’ll still be here when you come back. Go on now. Vote for the Whale!

A: When you use explosives to get rid of a dead one!

Last week’s story of how the U.S. military shot down a satellite carrying toxic rocket fuel brought at least a couple comparisons to Oregon’s Exploding Whale. The military had lost control of the crippled satellite in late 2006 shortly after it was launched. The bus-sized hulk was finally threatening to fall out of orbit, and people’s lives were at stake should the fuel tank, or any amount of the one thousand pounds of unused hydrazine rocket fuel it contains, return to Earth. In order to minimize the amount of material that might be left in space, the government waited until just before the satellite was ready to fall out of orbit before conducting its operation. The goal was to blast the satellite into as many small pieces as possible, and to have those smaller pieces burn up as they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? At least they weren’t expecting sea birds to eat up all the small pieces!

Anyway, Bob Welch made a passing comment about it on his blog. And then there was a nice little piece by Marlene Lang in Chicago’s Southtown Star. Here’s an excerpt of a few key passages:

[Most] of the satellite debris burned up as it re-entered the earth’s atmosphere…. Other debris will reportedly re-enter the atmosphere during the next 40 days…. It’s not likely to rain down on us like splatters of whale flesh. In fact, it’s unlikely to hit anyone at all…. [The] planet is covered with a lot of water, and people don’t live on the oceans’ surface. I just hope the debris doesn’t hit any whales.

You can read both articles at the following links:

• Close to Home’s Best of the Week: Feb. 17-23, 2008 - Bob Welch’s “Close to Home” blog
• Rocket fuel story a whale of a tale - Southtown Star

Much to my surprise, one of the Exploding Whale limericks I submitted to Bob Welch’s Oregon limerick contest was chosen as the winner from the 286 submissions! This clearly says more about the unending appeal of the Exploding Whale story than it does about my ability to rhyme, but I am honored nonetheless. As detailed in a previous post, four other would-be poets were sufficiently inspired by the Exploding Whale to make similar submissions — again testimony to the enduring nature of the story!

So, for the record, here is my winning limerick:

Florence is home to a tale surreal
In which a dead whale stunk a great deal
Boom! went the dynamite
One chunk took quite a flight
And crushed Walter’s new Oldsmobile.

Of course, “Walter” is Walter Umenhofer, whose brand new Oldsmobile 88 was crushed by a huge piece of flying whale meat following the explosion. Walter is mentioned in several of the newspaper articles covering the incident (e.g., 1, 2, 3, and 4) and was profiled by Bob Welch in a recent column.

You can read Bob’s original columns regarding the contest here:

• There once was a state known as … - Register-Guard
• Limerick loot goes to whale of Oregon tale - Register-Guard

And here’s a link to our permanent archive of the column announcing the contest results:

• “Limerick loot goes to whale” (2/21/08) - TheExplodingWhale.com

Update 2/22/08: Bob posted an entry on his blog with the winning limerick and a brief mention of TheExplodingWhale.com, stating:

Hackstadt, of course, has more than a passing interest in the infamous exploding whale story and in Walter Umenhofer, the Eugene man whose car was crushed by the blubber. Hackstadt is the self-appointed curator of everything “exploding whale.” If you doubt me, see his Website at www.theexplodingwhale.com.

Here’s a link to the the entry on Bob’s blog:

• Close to Home’s Best of the Week: Feb. 17-23, 2008 - Bob Welch’s “Close to Home” blog

Well, it certainly didn’t take long for the Exploding Whale to make an appearance on Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch’s blog! I mean, seriously, what do you think he expected when, in honor of Oregon’s 149th birthday (which was on Valentine’s Day, February 14), Welch asked his readers to submit limericks honoring the state’s places and geographic features?

Well, I for one felt obligated to submit something related to the Exploding Whale. And apparently, I was not alone. In addition to my three entries, four other readers were moved to poetry by our beloved cetacean detonation. Please, feel free to read through all 286 submissions. Or, at the end of this entry, you can read just the limericks that referenced the Exploding Whale.

From the 286 submissions, Bob will pick the top three and award them gift certificates to a local book store. In addition, the best limericks will be published in his February 21st column. (Update: See this posting for the surprising results!)
Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick heads up to let you know that Register-Guard columnist and longtime admirer of Oregon’s Exploding Whale Bob Welch has officially entered the Blogosphere with his new RG blog titled Close to Home with Bob Welch. Welch has written several columns (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) about or referencing the Exploding Whale, and hopefully we’ll see periodic mention of it in his blog as well. Welcome, Bob!

The CNN program News to Me recently aired a segment on Oregon’s Exploding Whale. In addition to the original KATU video, the piece features clips from interviews with Paul Linnman and Doug Brazil, the reporter and cameraman who in 1970 documented the momentous event.

While the video contains a brief, unattributed screen shot of our Dave Barry page, TheExplodingWhale.com is, unfortunately, not directly featured. (And why not?) But the animation by Abdul Hameed Gamiet and the comic strip by Greg Williams — both covered on TheExplodingWhale.com in recent months — were featured prominently in the story.