Troy's Rants and Ravings

Cliff Notes version: Princess wants bookcase. Troy nearly kills self. (“AGAIN!!??” Yes, again. Go figure.) Paramedics get rich off of Troy. The End.

“Well, Hell !! Norm did it in a half hour, so I should be able to whip it out in 2 weekends…”

Why, oh why, do I never listen to those little voices in my head? (Not those, the other ones.)

It all started when I was invited to a Bar-B-Q hosted by Fred and Lou, the local paramedics. Seems that they were being given some big award for something to do with fastest response time and highest “customer retention” or some such nonsense. Personally, I don’t see how they have time to get much done since starting at 6pm on Friday untill about 6pm on Sunday, they are generally parked across the street from my house swilling coffee and scarfing down on chinese take-out…

Anyway, to make a long story boring, they were talking to their supervisor about how slow it had been lately while staring at me. I was struggling to put mustard on my hotdog without staining my fresh dressings. I said “Sorry, guys, but since I got the DIY Emergency Surgery for Dummies, Walgreens is getting all my business…” I said this while nodding to my Radio Flyer Wagon filled with tape, gauze, bandages, Bactine, Benodyne, aspirin, a singer sewing machine and my Dummies book on top bookmarked to the accidental amputation chapter.

They looked at each other and with a slight nod (like the one Friday and Gannon always gave each other on the old DRAGNET show) they produced a package. Excitedly I stuffed the rest of my mangled, mustard saturated hotdog in my pie hole. Then, having been revived after nearly choking to death, I tore open the package to find a New Yankee Workshop Plans and Video. It was the Mesquite Bookcase set.

My surprise and appreciative “Wow!! Thanks guys!!” was drowned out by their insane giggles. Feeling bad about being left out of the joke, I shrugged into my harness and started to limp home towing my wagon. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Fred and Lou were keeping pace in their rig. It was rather disturbing to watch Fred joyfully lubing the defibulator paddles while Lou drove and kept flicking his finger against the side of a Adrenaline Heart Syringe getting all the air bubbles out… I sensed, somewhere in the back of what’s left of my mind, the robot from Lost In Space flailing his arms and not yelling, but shrieking “DANGER, Troy Donson! DANGER you big, dumb, stupid, son of a bitch, DANGER!!!”

The Princess was equally excited: “Is your life insurance paid up? It is? OK, in that case, go have fun and don’t track blood in…”

So here it is, week 46.

The doctors say I should make a full recovery. My thoughts are, that after I sand out all the layers of blood and grey matter, I will start on the finishing. I figure I don’t have that much further to go. I would really like to finish this thing, well, probably sometime in the fall…

…of 2010.

Oh, and by the way, Fred and Lou have both turned down promotions. Seems it would be a huge cut in pay. They wouldn’t get the kickbacks and commissions like they do now…

Did I tell you they gave me another set of plans and a video on building a garden shed?

Ok, So I'm an Idiot...

Well it seems that Poindexter ( my oldest son ) has still got his eyes on single handedly saving the world via the GREEN MACHINE. (Meaning he is looking for work in the San Francisco area in the field of renewable energy). And while I applaud his high ideals and his tenacity in persuing his higher education, it seems to me that I am at the other end of the mechanical ladder of evolution.

While my oldest son can tell you how the molecular structure of steel allows it to become a number of different harnesses on the Rockwell scale due to the exacting temperature and the medium that is used for the quenching operation during manufacture, that does not really
matter to me when I smash one of my digits between a car’s alternator bracket and a high powered air ratchet. “Damn that shit is hard!!” is all that escapes my mouth while looking for an extremely greasy rag to stop the bleeding before it stains the car’s fenders… Trust me, how the hell they made it hard does not really matter to me while I am bleeding.

Ever.

Period.

End of thought.

You see, the theory of making steel does not help me in my job. I know steel is hard. That is good enough for me. I know that if I need to drill into a piece of steel, it will require a sharp drill bit, a little cutting oil and a relatively SLOW drill bit speed.

So why do I see guys using an extremely fast air drill, WD40, cheap drill bits and a lot of pressure on broken exhaust bolts?

Read the following carefully, this is what $2,894.72 worth of burned out and/or broken drill bits have taught me:

When an exhaust bolt has become so rusted, corroded or “seized up” that it breaks and you need to drill it out, follow this process:

A) Center punch the damned thing to give your bit a place to start. Try and do this in the middle of the bolt.

B) Slow that damned 8,754,248 rpm air drill down to about 200 rpm.

C) Get some good cutting oil ( ATF will work in a pinch )

D) Buy a NEW drill bit 1/2 the size of the bolt you are drilling out.

E) Dip the bit into the cutting oil. Re-dip every 5-7 seconds of drilling.

F) Start drilling using firm ( Not bench pressing 300 pounds!!!! ) pressure.

G) Drill ALL THE WAY THROUGH!! This will allow you to punch through the next size drill bit if/when it breaks. You really don’t want to try and drill out a drill, eh?

H) Now using the first hole as a pilot, reduce the drill speed to 100 rpm and go up a size and redrill until you are at the size where the bolt can be removed or the hole can be retapped to the proper size.

This is what I have learned in 30+ years.

It works very well.

So why do I watch clowns use PENETRATING OIL, 22,731,571rpm DRILLS, dull drill bits and then yell and scream that they are not getting anywhere beside catching drills, bits, cars and themselves on fire??? (Picture very high speed boyscouts with 2 sticks making a campfire… “Please welcome our next guest, FRICTION!!!!”)

Honestly I am going crazy with all the loons I am seeing in this industry lately. Don’t get me wrong, though. There are a bunch of really good guys doing this. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any that are stupid enough to want to start doing this for a living. The ones I do know are trapped doing this for a living. And _that_ is another story for another time.

I have tried to SPEAK to the loons. I would say “talk”, but that infers a two way intelligent conversation. Such has never been the case. Allow me to illustrate what happens when I start to speak of my proven methods. These are the, uh, “reactions” to what I deem to be intelligent tutoring to show them the errors of their ways:

1) The Blank Stare of Incomprehension
This is the look I get when saying “Have you checked the fuses?” The complaint was “the cigarette lighter does not work”. The muldoon working on it has disassembled the dash looking for a open circuit. My response is automatic: fuse. Next response, also automatic, “What else
is not working?” Personally, I get the keys, get the wiring diagram book, THEN go to the car and see what else is on the circuit with the lighter. “Oh-ho!! Look at that. The clock is not working and neither is the dome light!! And, gee, they are on the same circuit as the lighter!!” The whole time Muldoon-boy is giving you the Blank Stare of Incomprehension. Then: “So what do you think I should charge?” I want so bad to kick him in the nuts just to see if his brain and his balls are on the same circuit because his brain IS NOT WORKING!!!!!!

2) The Nod of I have No Idea What You Are Telling Me
Same scenario as above. This bonehead just nods and then goes on to the next guy he thinks might be able to solve his incompetence until, having run out of people to ask he goes back to the car and continues tearing it apart untill he decides to order a complete wiring harness with attached fuse block and fuses. He gleefully installs the parts and pats himself on the back for diagnosing it correctly. Kinda like a doctor amputating a leg at the hip for an ingrown toenail…

3) The Smirk of Idiocy
This one is smarter than the other 2. He KNOWS that it is too complex a problem to be “just” a fuse. He starts checking the computer with a scan tool…

4) The Snort of Stupidity
This knuckle head is closely related to the Smirker. He calls the Technical Assistance Hotline.

5) The Mad Mechanical Mumbler
A (lucky for us) rare breed who is known to mumble about the theory of electron flow which actually flows negative to positive and how in a higher state of excitement the electrons may have accidently bumped into each other setting off a chain reaction in the 9th dimention and thus taken away the ability of the cigarette lighter to function on this plane of existence. “Hmmmm. Maybe new brake light bulbs will recenter the universe thus tipping the scales slightly and luring back the wayward electrons into a balanced state thus re-enabling the cigarette lighter to reach tempratures approaching that of the sun…” Folks, do us all a favor and kill him on sight.

Currently I do not work with any of the above examples, although I have in the past (and my wife does currently). If I did currently work with any of these “people”, needless to say, I would be either on death row or be declared the Emperor of The World!!!

Personally, I would prefer the second option but that is just me…

Work