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Brain Fart of the Day

They were all precious to me though they didn't have a particular value. Most were paperbacks and at least half of my library was sci-fi. I had everything I could find by Hermann Hesse. I had a number of old books that were handed down through my wife's family that were written in German. I had a nice series of books that were published each year and I think they were called A Year In Review. A book for each year starting in the forties though the early sixties. The books were nothing but current events for that year and great period pictures. I even tossed the very first book that I owned and well remember begging my mother to buy it. It was a book about birds native to America. It had great pictures of each bird and a bit about each. I had kept the book since the early fifties. No matter what I had, it's sad to lose them.
 
When I was a young married man, I spent a lot of time fishing with my cousin's husband. Just about ever weekend we were heading to a nearby lake and set lines in one of the feeding creeks. We always tried to hurry back to the cabin where our wives and our children were so we didn't make them any madder than necessary. One night after setting our lines we put the john boat in the back of his Toyota pickup and flew down the sand / gravel roads at break neck speed. When we got to the cabin we found that the john boat had bounced out of the pickup and we had drug it for miles. There was about four feet left attached to the rope and truck. The rest of the boat was just a memory.
 
I used to service the a/c for the beach houses managed by a Real Estate company on the West End of the island. Back then it was mostly highway and cow pastures.

One day I drove very fast out there for a call, wanting to get it done, and get back home to what I was doing that day.

All of the beach houses are on stilts and the a/c platforms are at least 10 foot off the ground on the side of the house. I had some houses that required a regular extension ladder and some that required the long one. This was a short reach so I just threw my 8 foot aluminum ladder in the bed of the truck and took off.

When I arrived at the house and went to get the ladder out it was MIA ! Apparently it had gotten out somewhere along the trip, I looked for it on the way back into town to get another one but never found it ...


Doh !
 
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As a trim carpenter one of the chores was to replace the temporary stair steps with permanent skirts, risers, and steps. Skirt boards are installed first and by design fit between the stair jack and sheetrock so they don't have to be cut around each step. Often the temp stair material would have to be removed from the staircase on a step or two to allow the skirt to fit. I had to remove two consecutive steps on this particular staircase. I picked out two suitable 1"X12"s and went running up the stairs to my saw and fell right through the hole created by the missing steps.

In another new home I built an ornate mantle. Later on I could not find my 30" level. I looked everywhere with no luck. Remembering where I had last used the level it just had to be close to that fireplace. As a last resort I hit the bottom of the mantle and I could hear my level rattle inside. Those owners not only got a nice mantle but a quality level cleverly concealed within.
 
olbriar said:
As a trim carpenter one of the chores was to replace the temporary stair steps with permanent skirts, risers, and steps. Skirt boards are installed first and by design fit between the stair jack and sheetrock so they don't have to be cut around each step. Often the temp stair material would have to be removed from the staircase on a step or two to allow the skirt to fit. I had to remove two consecutive steps on this particular staircase. I picked out two suitable 1"X12"s and went running up the stairs to my saw and fell right through the hole created by the missing steps.

In another new home I built an ornate mantle. Later on I could not find my 30" level. I looked everywhere with no luck. Remembering where I had last used the level it just had to be close to that fireplace. As a last resort I hit the bottom of the mantle and I could hear my level rattle inside. Those owners not only got a nice mantle but a quality level cleverly concealed within.
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I found my titanium framing hammer in the rafters of a house, (witch the boss left when he "borrowed" it) when I returned to fix a problem the lead contractor said wasn't acceptable.
 
I lost a hammer once. I was hired to fix and finish another trim carpenter's work in a new home. I know I had my hammer in the kitchen but when I was done it was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere, trust me. A carpenter's hammer is a precious personal tool. I broke one, lost the one mentioned, and had one stollen. I have number four to this day. Not bad for a 55 year run.
 
I used to find tools on the a/c equipment in attics. It is hot as Hades in most attics in the summertime and I have left tools on machines while packing up to leave and forget a nut driver or a screwdriver, only to discover it missing when packing up the tools on the truck, but not going back into the hot attic to get them, I have many more ...

My best finds were nice pocket knives and flashlights ! ! ! !
 
ozonetrooper said:
I used to find tools on the a/c equipment in attics. It is hot as Hades in most attics in the summertime and I have left tools on machines while packing up to leave and forget a nut driver or a screwdriver, only to discover it missing when packing up the tools on the truck, but not going back into the hot attic to get them, I have many more ...

My best finds were nice pocket knives and flashlights ! ! ! !
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I've carried a multi tool and mini flashlight for neigh on 5 decades. Saved many a trip to the truck.
 
I always wore a tool belt that kept all of the small tools at the ready. I went through a number of them through the years but the contents remained the same for decades. Just a few years before retirement, the new home I was trimming was broken into and all of my tools including my tool belt were stolen. It was impossible to buy back many of the old tools that I had used since the late sixties. The newer replacements were junk and were just not second nature to use.
 
Copper thefts became frequent here in Kansas as well. Cutting wires out of a house before drywall was installed was a nightmare for the electricians. Newly installed AC units took flight often. All sorts of materials, not just copper, often walked off the job sites. Theft is almost as despicable as vandalism.

Stealing a man's tools that he has invested in is the lowest creature IMO. Not only does it take years to accumulate the tools of a trade, once they are stolen he has no means to work. It took me over a week to buy back enough tools that I could resume working and easily cost me over 15K for the replacements.

Stealing my tools took a great deal of effort. All of the big equipment was chained and locked. They also had to be disassembled to carry out of the home. The small tools were in a locked safe room that had to be broken into. They even took my brooms and dust shovels and trash cans. The saddest cut of the theft was the tools would bring pennies on the dollar for their efforts on the black market. Thieves are low life scum.
 
olbriar said:
Copper thefts became frequent here in Kansas as well. Cutting wires out of a house before drywall was installed was a nightmare for the electricians. Newly installed AC units took flight often. All sorts of materials, not just copper, often walked off the job sites. Theft is almost as despicable as vandalism.

Stealing a man's tools that he has invested in is the lowest creature IMO. Not only does it take years to accumulate the tools of a trade, once they are stolen he has no means to work. It took me over a week to buy back enough tools that I could resume working and easily cost me over 15K for the replacements.

Stealing my tools took a great deal of effort. All of the big equipment was chained and locked. They also had to be disassembled to carry out of the home. The small tools were in a locked safe room that had to be broken into. They even took my brooms and dust shovels and trash cans. The saddest cut of the theft was the tools would bring pennies on the dollar for their efforts on the black market. Thieves are low life scum.
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I can remember when I was about 9 or so I was walking by a site and the crew started to heckle us. After a week of that we took our revenge. Saturday came and we dug some holes and buried every loose nail we could find. Not deep, just enough to make them work a bit before they could continue with the job. We hauled all the loose materials up to the roof tops as well. ....... Monday: We pass by again and the foreman is yelling at all of them to finish getting things back where they belong so they can do the job the next day (it was after 4 at that time). He asked us how we were and we asked why they weren't working on the project. He told us they discovered stuff moved around and found "some of the missing nails buried in multiple holes",to which one of my friends told him that we'd tell him where to find the rest of the nails if he promised to "punish" the hecklers. We struck a deal right quick.
 
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AugieTN said:
There were numerous jobs I was on in Chicago where all the Plumber's copper, even installed copper was stolen overnight. A few times we had copper wire stolen off a wire cart, but it was normally locked up at night.
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I took care of several commercial buildings for a real estate company in a past life.

One day I got a call to go check the a/c at a bowling alley. I had been there before for small service things. It had 2 20 ton units on the ground in a fenced in cage with the copper lines running up the side of the building to the roof and into the building from there. The lines were 3" and 1 inch lines with refrigerant in them.

When I drove up to the first unit I noticed right away what the problem was ... The copper lines were missing ! ! !

Also took care of a very ornate church that had copper rain downspouts that were stolen several time before they went to another material for replacement.


I sill sit here and wonder what it must have been like to cut open one of the 3 inch lines at the bowling alley, freon must have come out of there like a volcano erupting ....


laughinghard
 
Ya know I have been playing on my psp vita for more then a bit from now,maybe a few weeks in a row, were as the along stick hurts my right thumb,but some how my brain fart is like "OOOOOOOOO I got to finish up this level" like when I first started both of my wrist from it hahahaa...from switching back and forth from here and to my psp vita..
 
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