I stayed at a hotel in a Boston suburb (Westford) two weekends ago. VERY cold and DRY!
After taking off my jacket and walking across the (carpeted) floor of the room I went to turn on the radio.
When my finger fumbled for the bandswitch to turn the radio from FM to AM (I wanted to listen to WRKO) I felt a zap and the clock on the radio started flashing 12:00 - 12:00 -12:00.
I just reset the clock....but good thing I didn't fry the hotel's clock-radio!!! First time I had ever had that happen iwth static electricity. I've heard of static discharges frying computer equipment and other microchip based stuff.
At work I'm constantly getting zapped from the low-voltage switches used to release the magnetic locks on the doors to the various floors in my company's offices. They are metal push buttons mounted on stainless steel plates. Either that or the elevator buttons which are also metal....or even doorknobs.
I wonder if walking around with a little grounding strap attached to my shoe would work. But those are expensive.
