What Annoyed You Today?

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My friend's dad got his first new car in 1988, an Oldsmobile super 88 4 door hardtop with two tone paint. No one was allowed to drive it but him. He took his wife to the grocery store and parked in front in the no parking area to protect it and stayed in the car. A woman backed out of a spot several rows away and backed toward the store. When it became clear she was not stopping, he used the horn continuously until impact. Her response was " I don't know why you are so upset. It's only a dent."
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
Still gotta get it in gear.
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Probably in 1st, parking brake set, clutch engaged, engine not running, but warmed to operating temperature. An engine powerful enough to pull one of those pigs probably has a pretty hefty starter motor that can drag the whole rig far enough to get that nice warm, well primed engine through the necessary couple of revolutions. In an attack of cranialrectumitis I once started a diesel F350 with a 3 1/2 ton boat trailer on back that way. Didn't faze it at all. Years later that rig is still running on it's original starter, though it's alternator, fuel pump, steering pump, A/C compressor, clutch and most everything else has been changed. It's headed for 200K miles.
 
Both my Toyota 4X4 pickups have a clutch start cancel button that enable you to bypass the interlock and start the engine without stepping on the clutch pedal. I guess it is to prevent you from rolling back into the Grand Canyon or something. And on my 88 truck you pretty much had to push that button every time you started it because the clutch was very heavy and was the starter was never happy unless you did.

Speaking of leaving it in gear, I drove that truck for 9 years and then gave it to my brother. He drove it for a few years and then sold it. The guy he sold it to parked it at a gas station, fueled the truck, pulled away from the pumps, and went inside to pay for the gas. He neither applied the parking brake nor left it in gear and it rolled down the hill into a ditch and flipped. That truck survived a woman in a Nissan that ran a traffic light, doing 50 in a 35 mph construction zone, but it did not survive the owner's stupidity.
 

Most kids nowadays don't know how to drive a stick. Sad.
 
In the 50s, the cars kids could afford were from the 30s with floor shift and bench seats. On a date, if she sat close, shifting was done very near her knees with occasional confusion. Most of you will never know the advantages of bench seats in cars and pickups. Many seats had aftermarket seat covers of some kind of plastic weave, and if waxed, provided some close up excitement in a hard right turn. For those of you in parts of the world where you drive on the wrong side, here the driver is on the left seat.
 
special ed said:
Many seats had aftermarket seat covers of some kind of plastic weave, and if waxed, provided some close up excitement in a hard right turn.
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That's known as a COD. (Come Over Dear!) Works on even the most determined door hugger. Aided by cars of those vintages pronounced body roll in turns. My parents' 63 Chev had an aftermarket single seatbelt to cover both center and right front seat occupants, so not even a cinched up lap strap could save a hardcore door hugger from a COD.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
I was almost sliding down a 15% gradient backwards.
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I WAS sliding down a gradient backwards....in a Beech 99. The taxiway down to our hangar in the hollow hadn't been treated yet when I flew in with the morning freight after a freezing rain event. Ground cleared me from the unloading ramp to the hangar and neglected to mention the untreated taxiway. As soon as I started down I realized braking action was nil, and tried to steer by manipulating beta thrust. That lasted til a puff of wind swung the tail further than I could correct with beta and she swapped ends. At that point I realized she slid more stable going backwards than forwards, so I went to idle thrust and used the PT6's precise throttle response to keep her out of the snowbanks and sliding slowly backwards. Fortunately, at the bottom of the taxiway there was a large level parking ramp with no aircraft parked close enough to be a problem. As soon as she stopped sliding I called Ground and told them they needed to close and treat that taxiway. Their response: "We've been trying to call and warn you of that taxiway, but you haven't responded! You've got to pay attention to ATC. You need to call the Tower Supervisor on the landline ASAP! Ready to copy the phone number?"
Funny, I don't remember hearing a thing. Too busy aviating and navigating, I guess. In the Northcountry you get used to that sort of thing and develop skills unheard of in warmer climes.
 
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XBe02Drvr said:
Funny, I don't remember hearing a thing. Too busy aviating and navigating, I guess. In the Northcountry you get used to that sort of thing and develop skills unheard of in warmer climes.
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As the old saying goes, "FIRST, worry about taking care of the out of control sliding airplane. Then worry about telling someone else about it."

One of our local pilots managed to run out of gas right over Melbourne airport. He concentrated on getting it down safely. Then he called the tower. He need not have bothered. They had not even noticed his landing.
 
My Volvo 360 broke a cam belt and dropped some valves just outside Paris, I got it off the motorway using the starter motor with the engine in first. I was living in Paris at the time and learned a lot of new "engine French" in the next two weeks.
 
XBe02Drvr said:
Funny, I don't remember hearing a thing. Too busy aviating and navigating, I guess. In the Northcountry you get used to that sort of thing and develop skills unheard of in warmer climes.
Click to expand...
I was talking about this with my wife the other day, things you do and things you remember. In football (soccer) it has been noticed that players are making really exaggerated screams when tackled to get the referee to give a foul (with no spectators the ref. can hear it, normally they don't). I had 40+ accidents on road and track and cant remember ever making a noise, because there is no one to hear it. Similarly I cant remember breathing or being out of breath during a race but remember many times feeing utterly knackered as soon as it was over. A friend of mine broke his knee cap on the first lap of a race, finished the race and won it then hopped off the bike in the pits when it was finished, unable to walk let alone ride a bike anymore.
 
All this talk about cars led me to recall a memorable incident.

I was on TDY, driving up to VAFB from Los Angeles, on the northbound 101 Ventura freeway right around Canoga Park. I was driving in the center lane and there was a box truck about like the kind you'd rent from U-Haul in the Right lane, just ahead to my right. Traffic was moving quite well, around 60 mph, but that was about to change

Suddenly the back doors of the box truck flew open; they were the swing out types rather than a roll-up. Stuff started coming out, small items like bric-a-brack from a mantlepiece or coffee table, fragille items just about big enough to fll up your hand. It looked like jelly jars and ceramic owls and cats, that kind of stuff. And it was not just tumbling out onto the road but had some velocity with it. The result was as if a deranged troop of chimpanzees had gotten loose in a china shop and was throwing everything they could get their hands on.

Right behind the truck, at the nearly mandated LA formation distance of half a car length, was a sedan with two little old ladies ; based on their trajectory they well could have been from Pasadena. I don't know if those gals had been WASPs in WWII but even as they exclaimed at the objects smashing into their car's grill, hood and windshield, they refused to break formation, no matter how bad the flak got. It looked like that scene from Star Wars, where they pop out of subspace and find that Alderon has been totally blown away.

The gals were excited but steady on course; behind them carnage was occurring on the freeway amongst less stolid drivers.

I decided while this tableau was fascinating and quite unlike anything I had ever viewed on the CA freeways, including the time I outran most of the rolling stock of the Dukes of Hazard, this was a Good Place Not To Be. I figured I had an excellent excuse if the CHP or the Hazard County boys pulled me over. I stepped on the accelerator, honked at the truck as I passed it, and escaped.
 
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Model cars! WTF!
I just want to build one of each of the 4, I had owned in the States.
Who in their right mind would build cars. '56 Chev, nothing Really fits. How do I attach the bloody bumpers?
I had a 4 door HT and I never had this much trouble even changing syncros inna four speed trans.
Then I noticed Made in China stamped in the thing. Ready to pull out what little hair I have left!!!!!!
 
The PRC has come on very strong with its model kits industry. And before they went bankrupt Revell-Monogram transferred all their production to China, even of the kits they originally came out with 50 or 60 years ago.

Atlantis Model Co has gotten some of the old Monogram, Revell, and Aurora molds and are reissuing the kits, made in the USA. One astonishing things is that some of the ones they have reissued they probably will not reissue again because of what they call "licensing issues." I think that means that the companies who built the airplanes want to be paid a royalty by the kit makers, which is just about the dumbest thing I have ever heard (and I used to work in the Pentagon).
 
Been battliing back, hip, upper leg, and glute pain and weakness for 2 months now, been going to physical therapy sessions twice a week for a month. Just started to get rid of the pain in legs and gaining some strength back this week, and I just now pulled what I assume is a groin muscle! Not happy at the moment.
 
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