Sometimes everything goes right

[Red Baron]

Turned on cell phone this morning - it's always a bad sign when I have a message from late the night before. Sure enough, a lady was calling to say the IBA didn't work for her. Ok, 9 times out of 10 it's just driver error, but her voicemail sounded like she knew what she was doing. Wife and I get there on our morning run to Starbucks at 5 am...gantry is down in front. Uh-oh! Yep, I can see hyd fluid splatters even before I park. Yep, blown hose.

Usually that would irritate me enough that I'd stop what I'm doing and fix it, but it's cold and rainy...might as well go to Starbucks first.

When I got back, rarely does replacing a gantry hyd hose go so smoothly. I was able to identify it without turning on the hyd pump and squirting more hyd fluid everywhere. So far so good. Got lucky again when I had just the right hose with the steel elbow. Old hose came off easy enough, new one threaded right through the 2" sleeve much easier than usual...ready to add hyd fluid and walk the gantry back home...but wait, the hyd pump came on without adding fluid, saving me a trip thru the cold rain to lug a 5 gal bucket of fluid from the shop. Sheesh, 15 minutes and I'm up and running again and don't need to change clothes and take another shower.

I must be living right. It helps to have spare parts on hand, too.

 

[Whale of a Wash]

Thats great it worked so smooth. I used to have a rats nest of hoses that would always blow when I owned a Nustar. I had to wash Hydr oil off a new car for 3 hours. It got in the window seals and oiled the windows when they went up. We used to have a starbucks on every corner, and now they are all gone.

 

[Waxman]

You've come a long way, baby. Um, I mean John!

 

[jprb]

Is that part of Murphy's Law? Things go quickly and easily on rainy days, but everything goes wrong on sunny weekend days!

JPRB

 

[mmurra]

Sounds like a once in a lifetime experience!

 

[BayWatch]

Where's the Starbucks in Idalou?! Life must be good.

 

[Red Baron]

Where's the Starbucks in Idalou?! Life must be good.

No, we drive the 28.5 minutes each way to the one at 82 & Quaker every morning. Yeah I know, I built a drive-thru coffee/espresso shop 25' from my car wash, but I sold it and they don't open till about 7 am which is too late for me.

At 5:30 am I'm at the drive-thru at Starbucks ordering my chai and my wife's coffee. You have to get there that early, otherwise the blinking light west of Walmart on Quaker changes to the normal red-then-green at 6 am, and that of course could risk losing 45 seconds or so. Every morning the same 6 or so addicted fools (myself included) are racing to be first in line, including some dweeb in a tourquiose Honda Ridgerunner that will cut in front of me if we get there at the same time (how I'd love to show him that my Powerstroke can out-torque and out accelerate his riceburner...alas, my wife isn't in to such meaningless displays of machismo), and a nice guy in a red Lubbock Fire Department Charger.

Sometimes the drive-thru attendants tell me my usual order on the speaker before I can tell them. I don't know whether to be flattered by that, or embarassed.