Date Published: December 11, 2011, 10:33pm
Written By: WildKarrde
Since we already have a thread to vent anger in I was wondering if we could have one about things that happen in our lives that make the anger and frustration worth it? There are so many instances in our daily lives that give us reason to be pissed off and its my firm belief that any occasion that we have to be filled with joy and happiness should be acknowledged. Dumb idea? Let me know please.
I’ll go first.
The other day I had a craving for some KFC and I drove over to the closest one immediately after work. I hadn’t taken my uniform shirt off yet since it offered a little extra warmth. As I start placing my order the girl working the drive-thru window looks over and says very loudly “Hey! Thanks to you my car is running again! I followed your advice and its fixed!” (If you aren’t aware, I work at an auto parts store.) At this point all of her coworkers that are within earshot turn and stare at me as though I’m some sort of car resuscitating miracle worker. I’m not of course but the attention felt good. To be honest though, I don’t even remember this girl because I see so many people every day that its darn near impossible to recall the face or name of anyone who isn’t a regular but I was happy that I could help her and I was even happier when her friend at the register gave me a free drink!
Re: Things that made your day.
I just google+ my bosses and/or coworkers. I can put them in a work circle and I just share things with certain circles. I have family, each job I worked at, friends, acquaintances, and tech people that I follow.
Re: Things that made your day.
Iâm either crazy orâ¦â¦â¦happy!
Coming from me this is gonna sound like complete lunacy. I had a great day today, in fact, it was AWESOME! Why? I went to work!!! (See? Crazy.) I just had the last six days off to go up to Northeastern Oklahoma to visit my grandparents, during which time I helped out wherever I could, worked on my car and was otherwise incredibly lazy. I did my best to forget about work, even though I had to visit one of our stores in the area to buy a fuel filter for my car. I drove 13 hours and 800 miles (100 of which were through dense rain!) through Dallas, Austin and San Antonio traffic and got home at 10 pm Wednesday night to be at work at noon on Thursday. SUPER SORE!!! I dreaded going to work because I figured it was going to pick up where I left of; total misery. Iâm ecstatic to say that it was the best day of work Iâve had in at LEAST six months!!! Most of the anger I usually feel was nonexistent and I found peace amidst the chaos! Iâm gonna see how long I can ride this train.
Re: Things that made your day.
Today my mom called me and said that the tumor on her liver has gone down enough that they feel radiation may be best to start instead of continuing Chemo. This is great news for me, because I have watched for the past year, a strong independent woman go from the way she was to a frail practically living in a hospital person, and its been hard on her not being able to do see her grandchildren as often as she used to(almost daily but at least 5 times a week as we would always ride bikes or take the golf cart to her house), but had to cut back due to the chemo and her weakened immune system
Re: Things that made your day.
Still laughing hours laterâ¦â¦
Today had a bright spot. A very HILARIOUS ray of sunshine you might say. Its my firm belief that some people should never try certain tasks as they could be a danger to others or themselves (in that order for a reason.) Enter a man who I now refer to as Jed Clampett, a large and mechanically un-inclined individual who should never pick up a wrench again if only to spare his family the heartache. Jed walks into my store telling me that he bought a starter solenoid for his 1990 Ford Ranger 10 minutes earlier was no longer working. (Pretty fast work to install that in less than ten minutes) He said that he had to bridge the solenoid just to start the truck to get it back to the store. I agreed to go out and look at it and upon inspection I immediately noticed the smell of burned wiring and plastic. I also noticed that a large piece of the solenoid had broken off and that one of the terminals had melted plastic around it. If youâre familiar with old Fords you know what Iâm talking about, for those who arenât Iâm getting to the funny parts. So Jed tries to defend himself when I say that the damage I can see is usually caused by installation error and not defective parts. To which he replied that he didnât use much force when putting it in. I tell him to go ahead and pull the part off so that we can get him another one. Now, the FIRST thing you do when working on automotive electrical systems is unhook the battery; its far safer and you wonât shock yourself if done right. Does Jed do this? Nope! He immediately takes his socket and ratchet to the solenoid as though to remove it. In the process of flexing his stupidity he causes the solenoid to bridge and since his truck has a standard transmission and its in gear, the whole bloody thing starts to lurch forward under the power of the starter alone!!! The keys arenât even in the ignition! It jumps the parking barrier, then the sidewalk then proceeds to make its way toward the outer wall of my store! Whereâs Jed you ask? Heâs in front of the truck actually trying to push it back!!! It was hysterical and if my store and Jed werenât both in immediate danger of minor damage I would have cracked up in the parking lot! As it was Iâm not the idiot he is and I ripped the mostly broken terminal (the one that caused all of this commotion in the first place) out of the solenoid and the truck stopped. He asked what happened and I gave him a bewildered look, like âHow on Earth could you not figure that out on your own?â. So now his truck is on the sidewalk about a foot and a half from the store and to get us some room I told him to take it out of gear and let it roll back. I informed him that it would do so violently and so not to be surprised. Did Jed listen? Nope! He hits the clutch when heâs only halfway in and gets knocked down when the door of his own truck hits him in the chest with the only thing saving him from getting tired being the parking barrier it had rolled over earlier. Iâve never wanted to laugh so hard only to have to keep it in because Iâm supposed to be a professional, but Jed Clampett made my day by showing himself to be less capable than a few of the pregnant women who have walked in the store! I was still laughing (audibly) hours later and of course I told my coworkers!
Re: Things that made your day.
Wow. Metal tool on an electrical part while the battery is still (directly, as thatâs a straight run from the posi terminal to the solenoid) connected?
Side note: I used to have a '78 Granada I literally got for free (the owner âsoldâ it to me for a dollar - it was one of those âif you can get it running, you can have itâ deals). It had some bad wiring that caused it to blow solenoids on a regular basis. So, me being a broke teenager, I stopped replacing them after the first one, and instead got a chunk of 6 ga battery wire which I fashioned into a loop, and thatâs how I started my car - put the ignition in the on position, pop the hood, and jump the solenoid.
Re: Things that made your day.
Iâve still got an old pocket knife that i used to regularly start a tractor at the dairy I worked at during my teen years. Same method as above. Oliver tractor, Schrade knife.
Re: Things that made your day.
Purged_User link=topic=4923.msg50120#msg50120 date=1328201980:
I donât even know what a solenoid is, to be honest. lol But I think I would have been bright enough to know to unhook the battery first. However, if I hadnât, I also would not know why the truck lurched forward (Iâm still not sure), and I have an MA. So donât assume that someone just automatically should know that sort of thing.
The assumption WK made was that, if the guy was savvy enough to figure out that the solenoid was bad and how to go about replacing it, he was also knowledgeable enough to understand why leaving the battery connected was a bad idea. Itâs a reasonable leap to take, honestly.
Hereâs the mechanical engineering breakdown:
The starter solenoid is the electrical relay that engages the starter when the ignition switch is turned. It is possible to âjumpâ the old Ford firewall-mounted solenoids without turning the key by shorting one of two pairs of terminals, bypassing the internal switch and engaging the starter as if the battery were connected to it directly.
When this guy put metal tools in close proximity to one of those pairs of terminals, he no doubt inadvertently shorted the connection, engaging the starter. The truck lurched forward because it was in gear when the starter engaged, forcing the engine to turn. Because the truck was in gear, this also forced the driveshaft to spin, turning the wheels.
Re: Things that made your day.
I started my first car with a screwdriver to the solenoid after some guys showed me how to do that because it wouldnât start any other way. That screw driver was so pitted. Once I replace the starter solenoid so I could start it normally, there were times I had to rock the car because the flywheel had missing teeth in certain spots so the starter wouldnât engage unless it was at the correct orientation. Lovely.
Re: Things that made your day.
WBDaddy link=topic=4923.msg50121#msg50121 date=1328204226:
Purged_User link=topic=4923.msg50120#msg50120 date=1328201980:
I donât even know what a solenoid is, to be honest. lol But I think I would have been bright enough to know to unhook the battery first. However, if I hadnât, I also would not know why the truck lurched forward (Iâm still not sure), and I have an MA. So donât assume that someone just automatically should know that sort of thing.
The assumption WK made was that, if the guy was savvy enough to figure out that the solenoid was bad and how to go about replacing it, he was also knowledgeable enough to understand why leaving the battery connected was a bad idea. Itâs a reasonable leap to take, honestly.
Hereâs the mechanical engineering breakdown:
The starter solenoid is the electrical relay that engages the starter when the ignition switch is turned. It is possible to âjumpâ the old Ford firewall-mounted solenoids without turning the key by shorting one of two pairs of terminals, bypassing the internal switch and engaging the starter as if the battery were connected to it directly.
When this guy put metal tools in close proximity to one of those pairs of terminals, he no doubt inadvertently shorted the connection, engaging the starter. The truck lurched forward because it was in gear when the starter engaged, forcing the engine to turn. Because the truck was in gear, this also forced the driveshaft to spin, turning the wheels.
Thatâs EXACTLY what happened! You canât do this with modern vehicles as they donât have firewall-mounted solenoids anymore, and I did tell him to unhook his battery before it happened. He just tried doing it from the solenoid instead of the negative battery cable.
Re: Things that made your day.
WildKarrde link=topic=4923.msg50125#msg50125 date=1328214831:
Thatâs EXACTLY what happened! You canât do this with modern vehicles as they donât have firewall-mounted solenoids anymore, and I did tell him to unhook his battery before it happened. He just tried doing it from the solenoid instead of the negative battery cable.
Most of them donât have any sort of solenoids, what with electronic ignition and what have you, but even back then Chevy and most of the Japanese companies were smart enough to mount the solenoid directly onto the starter. But, as my uncle used to joke, âFord had a better ideaâ¦â
(For 100 bonus points, name the era that particular Ford slogan came fromâ¦)
Re: Things that made your day.
The late
WBDaddy link=topic=4923.msg50127#msg50127 date=1328217306:
The late 60âs?WildKarrde wrote:Thatâs EXACTLY what happened! You canât do this with modern vehicles as they donât have firewall-mounted solenoids anymore, and I did tell him to unhook his battery before it happened. He just tried doing it from the solenoid instead of the negative battery cable.
Most of them donât have any sort of solenoids, what with electronic ignition and what have you, but even back then Chevy and most of the Japanese companies were smart enough to mount the solenoid directly onto the starter. But, as my uncle used to joke, âFord had a better ideaâ¦â
(For 100 bonus points, name the era that particular Ford slogan came fromâ¦)
Re: Things that made your day.
WBDaddy link=topic=4923.msg50127#msg50127 date=1328217306:
âFord had a better ideaâ¦â
Tell me about it. My door stopped shutting properly on my pickup. The nylon on the striker bar wore off, so I had to buy a new striker bar. It just happened that I had to also buy a special tool kit to bolt it into place. Ford uses some star shaped bolts.
Re: Things that made your day.
Write And Left link=topic=4923.msg50138#msg50138 date=1328256966:
WBDaddy link=topic=4923.msg50127#msg50127 date=1328217306:
âFord had a better ideaâ¦â
Tell me about it. My door stopped shutting properly on my pickup. The nylon on the striker bar wore off, so I had to buy a new striker bar. It just happened that I had to also buy a special tool kit to bolt it into place. Ford uses some star shaped bolts.
Sounds about right. But at least you can buy them at most auto parts stores; shoot, we sell em. When you have a rare truck like mine you have to fabricate stuff just to keep it on the road. I had the same problem and I ended up pulling the strikers out and putting several coats of Plasti-dip® on them and then letting em dry. It worked!
Re: Things that made your day.
Write And Left link=topic=4923.msg50138#msg50138 date=1328256966:
WBDaddy link=topic=4923.msg50127#msg50127 date=1328217306:
âFord had a better ideaâ¦â
Tell me about it. My door stopped shutting properly on my pickup. The nylon on the striker bar wore off, so I had to buy a new striker bar. It just happened that I had to also buy a special tool kit to bolt it into place. Ford uses some star shaped bolts.
I actually had to take a socket to a machine shop and have them laser cut it to fit a VW strut mount bolt. Cost me $25. The alternative was ordering this tool from VW for $160â¦
Re: Things that made your day.
Just gonna leave this here, definitely made my day.
388Ã750 40.6 KB
Re: Things that made your day.
Jaclyn link=topic=4923.msg50338#msg50338 date=1329282890:
Just gonna leave this here, definitely made my day.
Just wow. Wonder what the percentage is for 2 minutes. Everyone should be able to give you the opposite of a normal word. I think we had to do an assignment about opposites in second grade.
Re: Things that made your day.
Seriouslyâ¦.Are you being sarcastic or do you really not get the joke?
Re: Things that made your day.
Just wow. Wonder what the percentage is for 2 minutes. Everyone should be able to give you the opposite of a normal word. I think we had to do an assignment about opposites in second grade.
Say the opposites aloud, then look at the creepy are-you-kidding-me face at the bottom.
Re: Things that made your day.
Jaclyn link=topic=4923.msg50341#msg50341 date=1329289841:
http://memeorama.com/wp-content/uploads ... e-Face.png
Seriouslyâ¦.Are you being sarcastic or do you really not get the joke?
Oh, you rickroll us. Just now got it.
Re: Things that made your day.
Thatâs all there is to the actual image
It took a moment for it to register for me, and considering what song was playing at the time, thatâs really sadâ¦