OOPS! Let's see them!

[NCL4701]

What do I win?

View attachment 54059

A new tractor!

 

[random]

I never see ads either but if the one that Geohorn posted is visible without an ad blocker, I think it is highly inappropriate for a family oriented site.

The advertisers and the ad providers (mainly google) don't care. And you can report all you want, doesn't change anything. If anything it seems to make the problem ad show up more.

I'm particularly disgusted by the earwax ones. I'm not sure how grossing people out is a good marketing strategy.

 

[L275]

What do I win?

View attachment 54059

Hope insurance was available to cover that...

 

[D2Cat]

Here's an example of a barn fire a tractor was stored in. I put the old truck tires on the front so it would roll to haul. After the fire the tractor set out for about 4 years.

 

[skeets]

I guess ripping my garage door off with the B dont even come close

 

[nbryan]

.

 

[Mark_BX25D]

I guess ripping my garage door off with the B dont even come close

Oh, yeah it does! Too close!

 

[bmblank]

Not sure if you win anything, but sure lost all your attaboys. Takes 10 attaboys to make up for one awshit.

How many for an f-bomb?

 

[Old_Paint]

How many for an f-bomb?

The F-Bomb is actually mandatory when an awshit occurs, which I believe is the justification for at least 3 of the 10 attaboys. However, depending on the magnitude of the awshit, if the F-Bomb is not used correctly or at the right instant, I'm thinking there are more severe attaboy losses. I've lost my manual on swearing, and can't find the Stupid Mistake Penalties guide book either. I'm pretty sure both books are needed to determine exact penalty costs. Losing both books was my latest attaboy penalty. However, attaboys are usually one of the objectives in a task, so that's part of the cost equations. Unfortunately the tasks usually take a whole lot longer to do that the Awshit does to destroy the goals and objectives of the task. I was going to develop an Excel spreadsheet for these ratios, but learned very quickly that the number of awshits committed by different professions was disproportionate, and had a sliding scale based on the risk of unintentional results occurring. Since I couldn't quite model the sliding scale in Excel, I decided that I'd have to see if I could get a Federal Grant to study it further and model the scale. I was unsuccessful in my application for the grant.

 

[Old_Paint]

I guess ripping my garage door off with the B dont even come close

That's so much worse than the (ex)wife backing through one THREE times in one week with the car.

 

[GeoHorn]

That's so much worse than the (ex)wife backing through one THREE times in one week with the car.

My wife has backed into so many parked cars of our friends and our own...

It got so bad around here.... I special ordered a rear bumper sticker which I placed on the back of my wifes car. It said, “if you can read THIS.... You’re parked in the WRONG PLACE!”

She didn’t notice it for two weeks until another woman asked her about it.

 

[Old_Paint]

My wife has backed into so many parked cars of our friends and our own...

It got so bad around here.... I special ordered a rear bumper sticker which I placed on the back of my wifes car. It said, “if you can read THIS.... You’re parked in the WRONG PLACE!”

She didn’t notice it for two weeks until another woman asked her about it.

And that's when the fight started .....

 

[GeoHorn]

Here is ONE of the events: My Jeep was parked in the front yard to the LEFT fo the breezeway-driveway where my wife’s car was parked. Her car was parked inside the breezeway one lane to the right.
I was out flying that day and when I landed and parked the plane it was after dark, and I walked to the house, crossing in front of my Jeep... continuing behind her car in the breezeway...and into our kitchen where she was sitting at the table with her head in her hands.
”HI, Honey!... How was your day?”
She breaks into tears and says “Terrible! I backed into another car!”
I asked, ”you BACKED into another car? I just walked past your car and it looks fine! You must mean someone ELSE backed into YOU?”
”NO... I backed into another car... didn’t you see the damage?”
I replied, “I just walked past the back of your car... it’s not hurt! What are you talking about?”
”Did you see the FRONT of my car?”, she said between sobs...
”HUH..??”, I said.... and we walked out into the darkened breezeway and SURE ENOUGH... the LEFT FRONT of her car was smashed.... all the left front quarter-panel was caved-in.... as was almost 2/3rds of across her front grille.

“You must mean someone ELSE BACKED into YOU... Right?”
”NO! NO!.... I BACKED INTO the other car!”
I simply couldn’t imagine what she was talking about...clearly she was confused... so I just thought I’d make a JOKE and she’d realize she was describing whatever happened incorrectly... “SO...”, I said.... “HOW is it that YOU backed into someone else and smashed the FRONT of YOUR car...? You can’t possibly do anything WORSE than THAT! HA HA HA....”. (I thought I’d get her to laugh and she’d realize her story made no sense)

The boo-hoos gained in volume....”It was YOUR JEEP I BACKED INTO!”

“That’s not possible, Honey.... I just walked in front of my Jeep and LOOK!... it’s just FINE!”, as I walked aft and pointed to the front of my Jeep.

”Did you see the BACK of your Jeep?”, she asked?

WHAaaaa....???

I walked to the back of my Jeep and SURE ENOUGH.... the RIGHT REAR quarter-panel is completely smashed.

”HOW do YOU BACK UP....and HIT another car... and DAMAGE the FRONT of YOUR car....and the BACK of the other..???”””

And then she explained:
My Jeep had been in the shop that day and normally I park it inside the two-car breezeway beside her car. But that day, the Jeep Dealer had been working on my Jeep ...which is why I flew our airplane into town to go to work.... and flew back that evening, landing out here on the ranch.
The Jeep Dealer had returned the Jeep, parking it outside the breezeway, behind and to the LEFT of my wifes car. She should have been able to back STRAIGHT BACK and nothing happen.
BUT.... she was backing up...and looking over her right shoulder, intending to back up in a right-turn into the front yard... so she did not see my Jeep... and as she entered the reversing-turn...the left front of her car swung wide... and her left front quarterpanel struck the right rear quarterpanel of my Jeep.
She described her feelings as it occurred....
“As soon as it hit... I KNEW what had happened...but I was so Horrified that I’d just had another wreck in my new car....and knew in the back of my mind that it was your new Jeep I was striking.... I just FROZE... as the sliding/grinding/crashing continued in S L O W - M O T I O N ..... so MY car WIPED it’s ENTIRE FRONT across the back corner of YOUR car!..... for some reason I just couldn’t stop or hit the brakes as it continued!”

State Farm repaired both and waived both deductibles for some unknown reason...


It was about 6 months later that a friend came to visit overnight (who also participates here at OTT) and he and his wife went to bed in our guest bedroom. As my wife came to bed she reminded me she had to leave at 5 AM the next morning. Gary had parked their SUV in the front yard... but over to the right TWO lanes over to the right from my wife’s car.
“Sweetheart..... You do remember Gary has parked over in front of the kitchen window, right?”
”OH... YES! I remember...but let me go look before I come to bed.” ...and she did...and came back into the house and said, “OK...no problem...he’s waay over ...no where near... it’ll be fine.”

”I can move his car you know....???”, I said.
”OH NO....no problem at all“, she said...and we went to bed.

5 AM she was gently kissing my cheek saying GoodBye as she headed out in the pre-dawn....

I dozed back off....
What seemed like a long time because I was quickly back to sleep....but was actually only a few minutes.... she came back into the bedroom, flipped on the lights, and was crying.....“I CAN’T BELIEVE IT! I DID IT AGAIN!”

“What do you mean?”, I asked.

“I backed up in the dark and turning into the front yard like always as I came out of the breezeway .... and I crashed into the SIDE of Gary’s Blazer!”....

Years ago she backed into the side of the house. She once stopped a bit into an intersection slightly...so backed into a cop who’d pulled up behind her unnoticed.

So I bought her the bumper sticker “If you can read THIS.... You’re parked in the WRONG PLACE!”

Oddly enough... she’s actually a very careful person.... (She’s also very tolerant of me retelling these stories.). She’s wonderful and I’m the luckiest guy alive to live with her.

 

[Old_Paint]

Ok, ok, you win, LOL.

Just glad all of them have been reversing accidents and low speed. I'll be the cop was impressed.

 

[GeoHorn]

Ok, ok, you win, LOL.

Just glad all of them have been reversing accidents and low speed. I'll be the cop was impressed.

She was so horrified...but the cop car had a sturdy push-bar mounted on front and was unhurt... He didn’t even cite her. She said she was “Humilified”. .... a somehow understandable portmanteau.

I made a horrible mistake of buying her a new car .... the mistake being a new model in its introductory-year.... It was a 2000 Saturn LS1.
I knew better than to buy an introductory model car.... but had a bran-pharrt... anyway...

We special-ordered it and when it came in we drove 40 miles to town to pick it up. She drove another 100 miles to visit our daughter up in Waco where Tabetha was attending college, and spent the night with her.
Next morning, before dawn, she left for work... a small-town elementary teacher in another town 50 miles southwest of our home.... so it was a 200 mile drive and she had to be there by 0730....
About half-way thru the pre-dawn journey she hit a large buck that dashed across in front of her... completely wadding/crumpling the front of the car to the windshield. The car still drove and she had another 90 miles to go and she said two old men sitting out in front of a country store/gas-station.... rocking, smoking, sipping morning coffee saw the accident and asked her if she was OK... she said “Yes”... and they told her the old gas-station was obsolete...no longer in business.... so she drove-on.... she HAD to greet the schoolbus of kids which would arrive at 0745 and she would barely make it on-time now.

Her headlights still worked for some reason but the hood of the car looked like the Alps from low-orbit.
The next town has a well-known radar-trap and she entered it just as the sun was rising and the local cop stopped her as she blasted thru his radar. She was having a “really bad day” was in her thoughts, as see saw the red/blue flashing lights coming up behind her. She pulled-over and rolled her window down as the cop walked up to what remained of her new car ...which now had almost 300 total miles on it.
As he arrived AT the drivers door he suddenly became aware of the wreckage he’d just stopped on a public highway.... He walked forward and inspected the damage, then came back to her and asked, “When did THIS happen?”
“About 20 minutes ago”, she replied.
”Where are you going so fast... you were doing 60 in a 50 zone”.
“Yes”, she responded, “I teach down in Blanco and I’ve got to meet the schoolbus in an hour.”

He let her go with a warning... apparently feeling sorry for her I suppose, besides the typical local considerations of small-town schoolteachers.... she was doubtless looking pretty pitiful... (I also believe this to be the same officer who had stopped her the previous month at the same radar-trap when she blew-through distracted by what we call a “Texas Red Wasp” that suddenly attacked her hair.... No idea how long it had been in her previous car. She got the citation that time tho’.)

When she got to school, met the kids, got class started and the first recess occurred at 10AM, she called me to ask what to do about the car. As usual when these things happen, I was out-of-town and suggested she call Saturn since their new cars at that time came with free wrecker-service during the warranty... then it occurred to me that since this wasn’t really a Warranty Claim.... that the wrecker service would not apply.
I asked her, “Did the car drive OK?”
”Yes, except it was really hard to steer after a few miles after the deer....“

“The power-steering reservoir probably was ruptured. Did you consider calling a wrecker after you hit the deer?”
”I HAD to meet the schoolbus! There was no one else to do it, there was no cell phone service where I hit the deer... And besides, it was still 6 AM and NOTHING out there between little towns!”

”Well, you’re lucky the brakes didn’t fail or the engine didn’t overheat!”, I said.
“The instruments had all kinds of little warning lights but they make no sense without reading the Owners Manual and I didn’t have time! Besides, ... If it overheated .... the warranty would cover that wouldn’t it...??”



“Honey... I don’t think the Warranty covers owners who drive the car 150 miles after hitting a deer and ripping-up the radiator.”

”Oh.... I didn’t think about that.....”.

Since the car was an introductory year-model.... Saturn had ZERO body parts to fix it. They kept that car SIX MONTHS before they called to say it was ready for pick-up. No consideration for lost warranty-time, of course. That car never lived up to it’s promises and we decided never to buy another Saturn..... IF... they ever make Saturns again, of course.

Life is never boring with this cutie....

 

[Old_Paint]

Since the car was an introductory year-model.... Saturn had ZERO body parts to fix it. They kept that car SIX MONTHS before they called to say it was ready for pick-up. No consideration for lost warranty-time, of course. That car never lived up to it’s promises and we decided never to buy another Saturn..... IF... they ever make Saturns again, of course.

Life is never boring with this cutie....

Actually, they probably had the parts, but the red tape for a dealership to get them wasn't the easiest to get through at first. I was on contract work at Saturn from the time they bull-dozed the pad until production was at 60 cars per hour, nearly 5 years total. A car a minute. Except for the one day that I accidentally caused a bus differential trip in the main switchgear room. I talked to a lotta people wearing ties that day. That woulda been one of my worst awshits. Fortunately I had a surplus of attaboys to protect me. Being the ONLY GE employee that knew how to send unsolicted data from a Series Six PLC to a DEC MicroVAX computer probably helped protect me some, too.

I put in the energy management system, and two of the 28 substations the system was monitoring were in the SSPO building (Saturn Spare Parts Operation). That's a bloody big warehouse. The plant was producing spares using the new JIT (Just In Time) principles of manufacturing, and in fact was producing spare parts before the first car was sold. The car was inexpensive to build, and GM was hoping to tap what was left of the old air-cooled VW market with it, so they included a wonderful warranty with it to compete with the Ford compacts. For the first 5 years of operation, if there was a manufacturing or workmanship defect in the car, the warranty would replace the CAR, not the part that failed. That made it a very attractive car to buy. Can't tell you what all the materials cost, but it normally cost about $40/car for the electricity to build it. That included the cost to run five 5500HP chillers to keep the buildings cool for the employees, and nearly 8 megawatts of outdoor lighting. My guess is that the majority of the cost was in Body Fabrication were all the welders were. The vast majority of car assembly is done with air or hydraulics.

Got a really cute walnut plaque with a bronze inlay for that effort, and a check for $500 from what was at the time the #1 corporation on the planet. I hope I didn't put pressure on their finances, but they ain't #1 no more.

 

[GeoHorn]

You must be describing a different model Saturn.... the 2000 LS1 had a body mostly plastic. We live out here in deer country and have killed a dozen or more with our cars over the last couple of decades.... The Saturn advertisements demonstrating plastic body-side-parts that flexed and “popped” back out was one of the attractions of the car for us and why we ordered one. We had to wait a month to get it (being told because it was a brand new introductory model).
Of course, the hood was metal as was a lot of the front-end and so it didn’t exactly “pop back out”. It took them 4 months to call us to tell us it was repaired.... but when I inspected it the paint and fitment was so bad I rejected it. Saturn send a factory rep who agreed with me and it took another two months before it was actually presentable.

The FINAL straw for me over that car was after 4 years the alternator failed. My wife was driving back home from her teaching job (55 mile drive) and about 20 miles away she got the “charge light” warning and called me on the cell phone to ask what she should do. I told her to come straight home... surely feeling that the car could drive 20 miles if she turned the AC off...which she did...but unfortunately she stopped at the post office about 4 miles from home and ran inside to pick up our mail. The Shift lever refused to come back out of “Park” when she got back into the car.... The solenoid/lock had insufficient voltage to operate.
I drove down to the post office and using jumper-cables re-charged the battery about 20 minutes and then drove it the 4 miles home. I put a charger on it overnight and completely recharged the battery. I called the dealer in Austin (40 miles away) to make an appt to bring it in.... and they told me DO NOT DRIVE THE CAR IN! They would send a specialist out here with a suitcase-battery to stick in the trunk so the car would make it 40 miles.... because they said that model would not go under it’s own battery more than a few miles It required a special high-capacity suitcase battery. (NAPA, AutoZone, etc did not carry that alternator and couldn’t get it.)
I cancelled the appt and decided to drive it the 12 miles to the nearest Automotive Electric shop where the owner specialized in repairing starters and alternators. He had told me he repaired Saturn alternators in one-day and had all the parts.

I drove the car to him and as I pulled into his shop the car died from a dead battery. TWELVE MILES is all it will do on a fully charged battery with NO appliances switched on. (The daytime driving lights I’d unplugged even.)
He then looked at the LS1 and noted it was a different alternator than other Saturns and kept that car a week before the parts came in. The repair for that alternator was ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!
$900 for the parts, the rest shipping and freight and his labor. (But that was still faster by 5 days than the Dealer had promised and also $600 cheaper than the replacement alternator they insisted upon exchanging. I simply couldn’t believe a car couldn’t go farther than 12 miles on a battery or that an alternator swap would cost $1700. There’s a reason or two Saturn didn’t make it. Lots of ‘em.

I LIKE G.E. My last job before retiring was with a subsidiary they used to own, a flight training outfit in DFW called Simuflight. We had about 35 simulators, mostly jets and ”turbo-prop” civil aircraft but also a few other military and helicopter types. Good company, great workplace... until G.E. sold it and the new owners have run it down quite a bit.

 

[Old_Paint]

I LIKE G.E. My last job before retiring was with a subsidiary they used to own, a flight training outfit in DFW called Simuflight. We had about 35 simulators, mostly jets and ”turbo-prop” civil aircraft but also a few other military and helicopter types. Good company, great workplace... until G.E. sold it and the new owners have run it down quite a bit.

I liked GE too, until they sold the division I worked for because they'd failed to invest in it for 30 years, and it would cost too much to fix the problems from lack of investment. But man, the managers sure made that lack of investment look like a real boom on the bottom line. They hadn't hired a new field engineer in our office in 20 years, and some of our test equipment was just as old if not older. I won't say I didn't benefit. I got early retirement, starting the day before our last day with GE. That included an early retirement benefit of nearly $21K over 3 years and 8 months. I turned 60 the day before I became an ABB employee.

Nope, not a different model Saturn. You'll note I said the same panels you did were stamped from metal. Hood, roof, and trunk deck. The presses for that are right next to the ones that make up all the components for the unibody framework, and right next to the long flight of stairs I described. I had a bird's eye view of most of the process lines from the overhead catwalks.

The side panels were made by high pressure injection molding, and were produced kinda between Body Panels and Body Fab. Trimmed, cleaned, finished, then sent over to Paint, around the east end of the welding lines. The robotics in that place were fascinating to watch. Originally, all the fenders/door skins sent to dealers were pre-painted. Not sure how they decided what colors to stock, but it was probably based on area sales. Maybe you bought an unpopular color? The pre-painted panel idea was rethought and just primed panels started shipping. That let dealers stock fewer and just color match the paint, and meant fewer had to be produced. A cost saving, right?

Never really looked closely under the hood of the Saturn, so can't say what the labor would be to replace that alternator. But something tells me the mechanic saw you coming. Aftermarket alternators and repair parts are usually a LOT cheaper than OEM stuff, and usually better, too. My step-son and daughter-in-law have the SL2. He found a dog with it one night. Lots of plastic damage, but no real serious stuff. One piece of plastic poked a hole in a coolant hose, so I had to go get him with a tow dolly.

A very good friend of mine, and co-worker, retired from ABB after they bought us and took a position with GM which keeps him at the Saturn plant still. He decided like many in my generation, that the cancel culture and entitlement generation running corporations today do not have the best interest of the front-line worker in mine. Saturn now makes some Corvette components for the assembly plant in Bowling Green, KY, and are currently re-tooling for the newer EV's from GM. Their casting line has been down for quite a while now. They can buy engines cheaper than they can produce them because of all the EPA restrictions and labor. He's one of the few of us that had a primary customer of that magnitude where he never had to worry about phone calls from idiots that have no idea where Alabama or Tennessee are to go do 4 hour warranty calls in Montana in mid winter. We are the unwilling doing the impossible for the unknowing.

I'm all too familiar with hitting deer, or more correctly deer hitting me. Had one destroy the entire left side of a 2008 Impala after I managed to miss the first two in the herd of 20+ that decided to wait until I came along to cross the road. The car had less than 800 miles on it, and I'd had it about 6 weeks. Back in the day, I had a 1976 Mercury Monarch. The deer I hit with that didn't stand a chance. I think I broke one section of the grille which was the only plastic on the front of that car. It was like driving a tank. I'm probably in an exclusive minority of Americans that can say I've been in a car that hit a kangaroo. The missus was driving because she's from there, so I had plenty time to watch it happen right in front of me. You just THINK hitting a deer is bad. There was kangapoop and hair all over my side of the car. It's also a little weird and unnerving to look out the passenger window (on the left) and see an emu looking back at you, running 60 KPH. Oh, in the match up between a 1963 VW beetle and a wild razorback in LA (Lower Alabama), razorback wins. Almost like hitting a stump. Wile E. Coyote once mistook my '86 T-Bird for a Road Runner. Took some damage, but not as much as the coyote. I was running 80 MPH when he came out of the high grass in the median. And yes, his ears drooped and his eyes got big and he held up a "The End" sign. Some of the best fun I ever had was the Diller Killer (1964 F-100 pickup) that belonged to my step-father's dad. Front axle had about 4.5" ground clearance, and armadillos are about 6 inches tall. Friday nights were slow where I grew up.

As for dead alternators, this was not a new problem on GM products. In 1984, I picked up a brand spankin' new Chevy Celebrity for a company car (which had already been wrecked TWICE by the dealer and a 3rd party cruise control installer). I went ONE BLOCK after leaving the dealership before the first of 8 alternators died. The second lasted almost 3 weeks. That car spent more time in the shop than it did on the road. It should have gone back to a factory for crash testing with Buster and just give me a new one.

 

[GeoHorn]

The 200 LS1 we had was a standard “silver” color. The alternator was unique to the model, and ZERO aftermarket existed. It also was not interchangeable with other Saturn models. Dealer said it was back-order and $1700 installed.... (just out of warranty, of course.)
No automotive parts house carried it.
I never would have thought that situation possible... but that’s what can happen when you buy an introductory model.... and I simply forgot it was a bad idea to do that because my cousin had a Saturn she just LOVED (regular widely available model... I forget which one) and I insisted on buying an AMERICAN car.... (My wife wanted a Honda... and I said “No.... only an American built car”
Anyway..it simply was a troublesome car.

Here’s another thing about that car... the air conditioner compressor went out. It was a variable-stroke type pump and although it would pump refrigerant... it would not push sufficient volume.
I can’t recall exactly but it seems the price was almost $2-Grand and it also had failed almost the day after the warranty expired.

That car also had a lot of “road noise” at highway speeds. We didn’t test-drive that model on the highway before buying it.... another mistake on my part. Even on smooth pavement... above 55 mph that car sounded like it was dragging a chain beneath it..... A week after we got it back from repair we took it back in thinking it was a bad repair from the deer-strike.... but driving another brand new demonstrator was exactly the same..... Just really poor soundproofing.
I don’t think anyone has fond remembrances or miss the fact Saturns are no longer made....not even the cousin who owned one and talked me into owning one

 

[Nicfin36]

I almost created a new thread and then remembered this one, so I am going to revive it. I needed to do a bit of rearranging equipment in the barn today. I had my pallet forks on and took them off and attached the grapple. I figured I would move a brush pile that I had created from months of yard debris. There is an old cross tie that was in the ground as a post in the yard and I was going to see if I could pull it up with the grapple. I wasn't going to tug on it too much as it is near my service pole to the house and I have a tree/post puller that would work better anyway. I clamped the grapple on the cross tie and the next thing I know, the grapple detached from the loader! I was stunned for a second. Trying to stay calm, I locked the brakes, got off the tractor, and looked over the situation. I unlocked bother levers and was able to attach the grapple to the loader. The grapple was clamped on the post tightly, so it was not likely to fall off, although that was on my mind. So, word of advice, make extra sure your levers are locked in at the top and bottom. I had both levers down, but one or both of the levers must not have been properly locked into the bottom holes. I snapped a quick pic to document my shame as a tractor operator Thankfully, it worked out in my favor this time. (BTW, I snapped the pic after I unlocked one lever in preparation to re-attach the grapple.)