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Clearing the air, the real story behind Ben Nadel's scar
By now the entire ColdFusion community has read the story of Ben's altercation with an unruly .NET developer. He finally admits at the end of the story that it's just fabrication. I was with him this weekend and wanted to tell the real story behind his injury. Sorry Ben...here it goes.
So I was hanging out in NYC with Ben Nadel this weekend when he gets a wild hair and says "let's go check out this Physics convention over on the West Side." Now I'm not from New York City so I'm willing to do just about anything. We catch a cab and head over to the Javit's center where Ben says he knows a guy that can get us into the hall. We walk in and the place is filled with science geeks. White lab coats abound, pocket protectors, "Albert Einstein is my hero" t-shirts, you name it.
I'm wearing jeans and a polo shirt, but Ben decides he wants to rile these guys up a little. So he pulls on his "I <3 ColdFusion" shirt and start to mingle. Free drinks, free food, and great conversations about Condensed Matter and Nonlinear Dynamics, Cosmology and Astrophysics, Dark Matter and our heads are spinning. All of a sudden this tiny women jumps up and gets in Ben's face. She starts spouting off on how Cold Fusion is impossible, how it requires too much deuterium for it to be economically feasible, and how the excess heat can't easily be managed via fluid circulation within the fuel cell. Then she pushes him.
Now if you've ever met Ben, you know he's a soft spoken guy. So he just looks at her and tries to walk around her. Well then some of her science friends walk over and back her up. They start yelling at Ben on how maybe he should consider Fleischmann and Pons' results before walking into "their hall" wearing a shirt like that. We turn around and start to walk only to see another group of them right behind us. Next thing you know, someone throws a Pyrex beaker at Ben and nails him right in the forehead. We realize this scene is gonna turn ugly quick so we jet out of there, fearing for our lives. We finally made it out of there and into some Bingo convention where I snapped a quick pic of Ben's head before heading to the hospital.
So, if Ben Nadel ever asks you to hang out with him, don't turn him down...you'll have the time of your life! ;)