In reply to GPz11 (Forum Supporter) :
Almost did that to an owl once. Sorry for both you and the hawk.
In reply to GPz11 (Forum Supporter) :
Almost did that to an owl once. Sorry for both you and the hawk.
j_tso said:In reply to Appleseed :
That's about as far from a JEEP as you can possibly get.
Toyman! said:My father is one of the most unsmooth drivers I have ever ridden with. Every input causes a jerk in a different direction. I've been borderline car sick all day.
Yuck.
Something tells me he didn't grow up where it snowed 
mtn said:My aunt - different side of the family - thinks that cruise control doesn't exist and that the gas pedal is a binary switch. You've got whiplash by the end of a 2 mile drive.
My best friend from High School is like that still, 35 years later. On the throttle, off the throttle, one the throttle, off the throttle. If he ran a car with open pipes it would sound like a WW1 era biplane with their weird cylinder cutting throttle system.
It's really not that berkeleying hard to be safe while operating a lift truck- Don't rush, smooth control inputs, double-check everything, and don't move with the forks elevated.
The dent at the top of the freezer door frame and the bent rack on the forklift this morning shows me that somebody missed at least one of those steps.
mad_machine said:mtn said:My aunt - different side of the family - thinks that cruise control doesn't exist and that the gas pedal is a binary switch. You've got whiplash by the end of a 2 mile drive.
My best friend from High School is like that still, 35 years later. On the throttle, off the throttle, one the throttle, off the throttle. If he ran a car with open pipes it would sound like a WW1 era biplane with their weird cylinder cutting throttle system.
There's a decent sized repair shop down the street from my office. Their old parts runner drove like it was a touch-tone throttle in an old square body pickup with an SBC and glass packs. There is a speedbump on either side of our building.
So 10-20 times a day I had to hear that thing go by my window: BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAP bubububububub BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAP bubububububub BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAP...
Thankfully the guy retired, I guess, because I haven't heard it in a few years.
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
I rarely go through the drive-thru myself for that exact reason- and when I do, I always pull off to the side after getting the food to check and make sure it's not messed up (which it usually is). Thankfully The Dancer understands and doesn't have any complaints when I do it when she's in the car (especially since historically it's her order that gets messed up most often).
Friday night's race has already been postponed to Nov 10. I won't be going to that one either because I have another wedding to go to.
I just got a new Doctor. First two visits are E36 M3 shows already.
Glad to see I'm not the only one with relatives who have a binary throttle control habit. For people who are so concerned with fuel economy (MIL, specifically) to the point of not exceeding 63mph, ever, you'd think learning a few habits to improve that economy would be paramount. You'd be wrong though.
It's funny, in a way, because I sold them the MGM and they don't believe I ever got 20+ mpg because neither of them can do better than 14. Firstly, stop hauling 1000lbs of crap in the trunk full time, and secondly, learn to drive. I don't say that, but I want to.
I swear, the guy in charge at the Nissan electrical connector design studio goes home, looks at youtube videos of people explaining how to undo a Nissan electrical connector, and jerks off furiously.
There just has to be some sadism there.
So, I've not been fishing much this year.
Fishing is my Zen, my time to get my head in order and decompress. I don't even care if I catch fish, I just get out there in my kayak and take everything in while getting some good exercise. If I go fishing often, my head is usually in a good place.
I'm feeling... spread thin. Just worn out. My head is full of clutter. I could be in a better space- it's not critical or anything, but I feel like I have some baggage I'm carrying around that I don't need.
I'm going fishing this weekend. I'm going to get out on the water and throw my troubles into the ocean.
My daughter failed to notice that the toilet was running when she used it. It ran for about 90-120 minutes before my other daughter noticed and woke everyone up. My office was directly below the bathroom as was a whole boat load of storage. It's all drenched.
Streetwiseguy said:I swear, the guy in charge at the Nissan electrical connector design studio goes home, looks at youtube videos of people explaining how to undo a Nissan electrical connector, and jerks off furiously.
There just has to be some sadism there.
I don't see the problem.
You don't ever need to take any connectors apart on a Nissan, ever! They don't give you any good service information, they give you scantool data that meets the letter of the law but not the spirit, and the car's going to be rusted to the point of being unsafe pretty soon anyway, so why bother trying?
My favorite is the VQ40 that had a head gasket leak into the valley, AND the block corroded through to an oil passage. Repaired the leaky head gaskets, still had major oil leak. I ended up removing the intake manifold, supercleaning the valley, and then cranking the engine with a starter while watching with a blacklight to see where the oil was coming from.
The truck was too rusty to come apart the way Nissan intended. Nissan also intended that the head gaskets be done with the radiator support in place, working down in a hole instead ofpulling all that and sitting on the bumper while you worked.
I always forget how busy October is. May is similar. It's 5-nights a week of kids activities and the weekends are long ago booked up. I have been trying to adjust coilovers on my truck and tighten 4 bolts since the first weekend of October. I'm booked solid the next two weekends and the weather is about to turn to E36 M3 until May when I get busy again.
Similar to the binary throttle - My wife and kid uses the same all-or-nothing approach with the car temperature controls. It's cold out, immediately set the heat to 80 degrees and then complain it's not working. Now too hot, switch to 60 degrees... Even after multiple lessons/conversations about how car coolant works and the fact that setting it higher doesn't heat it faster. If they left it at 70 +/- 2 degrees it would be a less chaotic ride...
I was tuning dual SU's on the Amazon LeMons car last night. When I came in the house about 10PM I saw a text from Wife reminding me we had two littles trying to sleep upstairs (while I was ensuring the engine revv'd smoothly throughout the RPM range). I wondered how she thought I was going to hear my phone notifications over all that noise.
Old_Town said:Similar to the binary throttle - My wife and kid uses the same all-or-nothing approach with the car temperature controls. It's cold out, immediately set the heat to 80 degrees and then complain it's not working. Now too hot, switch to 60 degrees... Even after multiple lessons/conversations about how car coolant works and the fact that setting it higher doesn't heat it faster. If they left it at 70 +/- 2 degrees it would be a less chaotic ride...
My wife does the same thing. It is really annoying. I understood it when it was a Corolla a blue to red dial with a manual fan selection... But we have a thermostat that we can dial it in precisely. Why are you trying to outsmart the thermostat?
I hate business sometimes. I order up a 13 foot scissor lift for a couple of days. $668.26 pick up and delivery charge! WTF?! I've had consultants tell me that to make money in my HVAC business, I need to charge for every little thing - and cover it up in a fixed price. So if a technician finds that a clogged filter is what's making a furnace malfunction, it's not 10 minutes on the job plus the price of the filter. It's a travel charge, plus a diagnostic charge, a minimum labor charge and a fixed price repair of another $75 bucks.
I get it. Because I don't pile on is largely why I'm driving a 15YO truck, I'm 60YO and still have a significant mortgage, et cetera. Maybe you have to pile on wherever you can to make money, but that doesn't mean that I remotely like it. If I could do it all again, I'd have worked my ass off on speculative real estate for 15 years then retired. Or I'd be a member of a cushy union like for the local university where they give you a $800,000 retirement bonus. But being a small businessman in a high cost area sucks.
The noddaz family needed to buy a new freezer. What a hassle. Look online, go look in person. No, I can't pick it up and then wait a week for it to be delivered with a 12 hour delivery window (8am-8pm) on delivery day.
Damn I miss Sears.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
Also consider that for every 10 minute and a filter job you do, there's going to be one jackass who calls you in a month and says his furnace motor crapped out, and it must have been your fault because you were the last one to touch that thing, so you need to come out and replace it, free of charge. There goes what little profit you did make on that job.
I'm no management consultant, but everything you wrote makes perfect sense. Your time isn't free, and the federal mileage rate is 65.5 cents per mile. If HVAC work was easy, everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't pay E36 M3. You have a very specific and desirable skill set, and decades of experience. And trades work isn't like consulting, where you can kind of do it forever. At some point your body says "nope". If you're 100% booked with a backlog, you're not charging enough.
Noddaz said:The noddaz family needed to buy a new freezer. What a hassle. Look online, go look in person. No, I can't pick it up and then wait a week for it to be delivered with a 12 hour delivery window (8am-8pm) on delivery day.
Damn I miss Sears.
We have some second hand appliance places near us. Good deals on equipment with lots of life left in it cash and carry.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
I charge a base rate of $145/hr. I also have a 1.5 hour minimum. That gets you one man and a truck full of tools and parts. We are not the cheapest in town but we do some of the best work in town. People more concerned with price over quality are welcome to call someone else.
I suggest chasing the top of the market, not the value customers. Trading nickles for nickles doesn't make you money, it just makes you tired.
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
Last time I had a local HVAC company on site, it was winter and my furnace wouldn't stay running. Before I called, I figured out exactly what the problem was - the impeller bearing on the draft inducer went out. I gave them the part number and already knew it was a $100 part.
They told me up front it would be a $150 minimum trip / diagnostic charge - not a problem. As a homeowner, I don't have any trouble with a diagnostic / travel charge. A tech's time, knowledge, equipment, and vehicle aren't free.
Now, once the tech had spent 5 minutes confirming what I already knew, he quoted me $1300 to replace that $100 part held on with 4 screws... PLUS the trip charge. I laughed in the guy's face before I could stop myself. I thanked him for his time, told him that whoever was on the other end of his iPad was an idiot, and sent him on his way.
But I still didn't have a problem paying the $150 trip charge, even though I had already correctly diagnosed it myself and it cost me less than that to actually fix the problem.
In reply to Duke :
Charging that much for a common part that is listed on the internet is just stupid. That's how you lose the customers who are willing to pay extra for quality work.
I mark up most parts 20% to 100% depending on what it is and how much it costs. I'm going to be higher than internet pricing but not by so much that the customer's ass hurts when they get the bill.
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