Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

My house caught fire yesterday. The tree guy cut a branch and it landed right on the power line and shorted it out. I warned Oncor a week ago when the power was out that there was a broken branch hanging over the line. They said it was my backyard and my problem. OK. Called every tree service in town. All were busy. Power went back on Thursday. Called Dallas 911. They actually put me on hold. Called Oncor. They asked me to leave a message. Transformer behind the house blew up. Power went back out. Came home from work Friday to find the power back on again after leaving messages with Oncor about the hanging branch and asking them to please leave my power OFF! Many more calls to Oncor and to tree companies. Finally got the tree company out on Saturday They started out with the tree that fell on the other side of my house. I started cutting up the branches and cutting moving them to the front. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to NickD :

Left NY in 1999, will never take up residence in that gawforsaken "state" again.  Jobs, taxes, regulations.  

This whole area is circling the berkeleying drain. Squatters in abandoned houses everywhere, theft is going up, you go in any store and every third person is a meth zombie, and that's on a good day.

Ok Mike, I get it.  You're the HMFIC of the shop.  Been working here for 30 years.  Know the ins and outs of everything.

This is a new product, though.  Brand new, prototype even.  I'm up to speed on it, and I designed half of it.  Please let me explain how it goes together so you dont just start drilling holes in everything and "making it fit."

Then a thunderstorm started and the tree guys left, saying they would come back tomorrow.

Sunday morning comes and the tree guys aren't here. I wait for them till noon then I have to take Mrs Snowdoggie to the airport to catch a 3 pm flight. Just as I am driving into Terminal A at DFW my neighbor calls to tell me that the tree guys are back and working in the backyard. OK. I hope they called Oncor but I left Oncor many messages about the branch hanging over the power line.

When I get home I pull in the driveway just in time to see one of the tree guys run out my front door with a spent fire extinguisher. Then two fire trucks with lights and sirens full blast roll up in front of my house, blocking my Mustang in the driveway. The firemen open my front door and run in, and my three dogs run out. I call the Border Collie and he comes to me. The two huskies run down the street. My neighbors help me catch the huskies and all the dogs get leashed up just in time for me to watch the smoke coming out of my house.  The fire department is trying to call Oncor to get them to shut off the power that is now feeding the fire. They get the fire out. Then Oncor gets there to shut off the power. They bring the burned power line out front like a dead snake to make sure it can never be connected again. 

The fire department leaves. Oncor leaves. My neighbors and all the spectators leave. Mrs. SD is half the way to Europe on a 787 by now. Here I am sitting on the porch of my burned out house by myself trying to wrangle three large dogs. A guy in a fancy Dodge Ram Hypertruck pulls up and tries to hand me a card. Something about fire and disaster clean up. Then for the next hour, while I am trying to call somebody to help me haul the dogs to the other house, a steady parade of salesmen and women from fire cleanup places, private insurance adjustors, contractors and other such things come by, chasing the fire radio call with their expensive cars and their flashy brochures and business cards. Not a single one of them offers to help with the dogs. 

All I can say is, Berk Me.

I had three people today call saying that they were sorry about the fire and hoped my family was ok, and they would like to make an offer on my house as is. 

Do these people chase fire trucks like deranged Dalmations?? Berk me again. 

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

My friend, if this is all a minor rant I'd hate to see what would  be a major rant

Glad you and the pups are ok

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Wow. That's some messed up E36 M3. Where are people's manners and compassion? I wish that I was closer so I could offer some help.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Berk.... that is pretty high up there as far as nightmares of mine go. I'm glad you and the dogs are OK.... 

And as I type this the wind and rain outside have picked up massively and I'm hoping that I'm not dealing with something similar soon myself- our neighbor has a few trees that worry me a lot will blow over or large branches will break off and take out power lines...

Hopefully I won't need it, but I am at least glad I took the time to charge the new honking huge 'solar generator' that should be capable of powering our sump pump for a while if the power gets knocked out for days like it did last year...

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Dude, glad you and the dogs are ok.  I think you win this thread.  Watched a tree limb fall off the oak in my front yard and take out the back window of my work hooptie Saturday morning.  Covered by insurance, but the deductible is probably worth more than the car at this point..  At least it didn't hit my truck.   

Mr_Asa said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

My friend, if this is all a minor rant I'd hate to see what would  be a major rant

Glad you and the pups are ok

Did I tell you about the time my mother died of COVID after getting infected by a nursing home employee a few years ago. Then two of my dogs died two weeks and a month later?

The weather has been a total clusterberk in Dallas. Nothing but rain, high winds, tornados and flooding. Power outages are in the hundreds of thousands. Trees breaking everywhere. 911 takes messages. Better not have a heart attack and need an ambulance.

And just when you thought it was over it starts all over again. When I woke up this morning it was raining.

jimbob_racing said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

Wow. That's some messed up E36 M3. Where are people's manners and compassion? I wish that I was closer so I could offer some help.

Don't get me started on the house flippers around here. One of them conned a sweet little old lady out of the house that she and her late husband lived in for years for $37,000 when comperable houses on the street were selling for $250,000. The house at the end of the block has been flipped from one investor to another for six years while it sat empty. The investors kept dumping money into it until they got the price over $300,000 and nobody but another cash buyer could get it because it is too overpriced for a mortgage. This is a working class neighborhood full of 1,000 square foot brick homes built after World War II. These are NOT mini-mansions. 

The real estate people here have gone crazy.

My race car needs a new windshield

NickD said:

Some berkeleying scumbag rode up on a bike, stole my camera and my hat out of my car, and rode out of the parking lot at my work. In broad daylight. At 8:30 in the morning. Un-berkeleying-real. The hat is whatever, although the fact that he put his old hat in my car and rode off wearing my Cleetus Macfarland hat is pretty wild, but the $800 camera with 2 years of photos from my adventures is what really frosts my pumpkin.

Found the camera listed on marketplace, had my tripod mount on it and everything, for $150. Shoulda just gone and bought it back for that little, but instead tried to do the right thing and the safe thing and called the police and told them the guy's name and location, gave them the serial number for my camera and told them what photos would be on the memory card. Aaaaand they did nothing and now the listing has been removed from Facebook.

In reply to NickD :

Several years ago my car was broken into and some items stolen. I did the same as you; found the items on Craigslist (okay maybe quite a few years ago), gave info and serial numbers to police, aaaaaaand nothing. Infuriating. Few things irritate me more than theft and vandalism.

In reply to budget_bandit :

I'll bet they'd suddenly become interested if someone met up to sell those items and got their ass savagely beaten.

In reply to Appleseed :

They would, and they'd take the person who beat the thieves ass in for assault and leave the non felony level theft amount dickhead to continue doing his thing.

Useless berkeleying tax collectors with badges. 

In reply to RevRico :

Plus, the dickhead would sue you for damages.

It ain't worth it.

In reply to budget_bandit :

What was really frustrating was that the sheriff's were really interested when they came and made the initial report (my boss called the police and they dispatched a sheriff) and I gave her as much information as I could and she seemed really fired up about handling it. Then, when I discovered the ad, I tried to call the sheriff's office, but their office hours are only 8-4:30 and you can't get ahold of it after that. My boss had gotten her e-mail address when sending her the camera footage, so we e-mailed her the ad, and then I called Rome PD and told them everything and just got a "Yeah, we'll send someone over" and then never heard from them. Then, a sheriff showed up at my house and was like "Deputy so-and-so was off-duty but got the e-mail and asked me to come out and follow up" and I gave him all the info and he was otherwise pretty helpful, but by that time the listing removed, although I had screenshots of it all. I'm hoping even if the Rome PD doesn't do anything, the sheriffs might follow up at least, since they seemed a bit more on-the-ball.

In reply to budget_bandit :

What was really frustrating was that the sheriff's were really interested when they came and made the initial report (my boss called the police and they dispatched a sheriff) and I gave her as much information as I could and she seemed really fired up about handling it. Then, when I discovered the ad, I tried to call the sheriff's office, but their office hours are only 8-4:30 and you can't get ahold of it after that. My boss had gotten her e-mail address when sending her the camera footage, so we e-mailed her the ad, and then I called Rome PD and told them everything and just got a "Yeah, we'll send someone over" and then never heard from them. Then, a sheriff showed up at my house and was like "Deputy so-and-so was off-duty but got the e-mail and asked me to come out and follow up" and I gave him all the info and he was otherwise pretty helpful, but by that time the listing removed, although I had screenshots of it all. I'm hoping even if the Rome PD doesn't do anything, the sheriffs might follow up at least, since they seemed a bit more on-the-ball.

The only two things that really made me bristle with the sheriff's was, when I showed the receipt for the camera to the first sheriff she said "It's only $800, are you sure you want to pursue this?" My tempered response was "Well, I have no tolerance for this kind of stuff." But I was thinking "Only $800, that's more than I make most weeks." 

Then when the second sheriff was at my house he looked over at my Impala and went "Your temporary inspection is expired on that car." Is that really pursuant to what we're discussing? And yes, I know the temporary inspection is expired, because I've put 500 miles on the sonuvabitch and it still hasn't set one of the last two monitors it needs to pass.

In reply to NickD :

The difference being, the inspection expiration is a violation of the state, the theft is a personal crime. The police make zero money chasing down thieves, but they can write some nice tickets for automobile registration infractions. 

In reply to NickD :

i would have been seeing red at the $800 comment. I've definitely paid more than $800 in taxes to fund that useless department, so you're damned right I want my E36M3 back.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Well, fortunately once I said I was trying to set OBD-II monitors, he went "I was a mechanic, I get it."

And then after he left, I noticed that the Impala had also blown out a power steering cooler hose literally as I pulled in the driveway. So add that to yesterday's tribulations.

I'm starting to realize why, after working for GM for 12.5 years, I've never owned a GM product. I really don't like this Impala so far, in the three weeks I've owned it.

RevRico said:

Useless berkeleying tax collectors with badges. 

They don't pursue property crimes because there is no money in it. A cop looking for a thief brings in no funds. A cop writing traffic citations pays his salary. 

The only reason clearance for murders is above 50% is the bad press that goes with them. 

I have spent the last 13 months running development on some parts that are culminating for a delivery in late August. It's been a ton of work the whole way through. 
 

Yesterday, leadership changed direction completely, with zero change to our August delivery. We cannot meet that, likely won't even have the paperwork done at that point. Unbelievably frustrating.