Pretty scary that he didn’t even understand the term
"there was a lot of arguing going on."there’s still a lot of arguing going on
“It was also a lot of fun . . . you could learn about politics, guns and any other subject.”
That’s still true, because we get off-topic pretty quickly
What was that thread that got closed? ‘Hail to the Chief’?
That one would have made a great R&R thread
Ok. I guess I’ve been dragged out from under my rock. Something of a sucker for the more personal conversations, I suppose and pretty familiar with all of the regulars reporting here.
I hate choosing screen names. You just blow something out of your nose one day and years later you still live with it. I feel about halfway that way about mine.
Mine is indeed about rolling cigarettes. When I chose it, I was trying to think about my own relationship to mechanical work. I’m not a mechanic. I just work on my own cars (and house, and septic, and well, and …) - partly because I like it, partly because it’s way cheaper, and partly because no matter how badly I do it, it can’t be worse than what I’ve gotten from shops.
And sometimes I do it badly. Professional mechanic or not, if you tinker under the hood and such then you know how frustrating things can be when they don’t go right. Well, I have a long fuse but explosive temper. More than once I have totally screwed myself by being impatient and brainless. You know - like when you get frustrated and do something incredibly stupid that costs you hours and hours (or days) of work where if you had just walked away for ten minutes and come back fresh after a deep breath you could have saved a lot of trouble.
So anyway, older and wiser than I used to be, I feel it coming. When I get stuck on something on a car - as I frequently do - I stop. I put down the tools. I pull up a milk crate. I sit down. I carefully hand craft a smoke, and then I smoke it. As I do that, I either think about nothing or I just rethink what I’m working on or how I’m trying to do it. It works wonders.
Of course, sometimes it might take me 3 hours to change my damn oil but I’ve yet to crossthread a drain plug, strip one out, or forget to add the oil! LOL
So that’s it. If you happened by my garage on a Saturday morning you just might find my hood up and me hunkered in a corner on a milk crate, looking a little annoyed, busily rolling - but no, its not a joint.
[For those who have the moral crusade hang-ups about smokes - give it a rest. This is CAR talk. I tell the moral crusaders that I’ll join them as soon as the last ICE leaves the roads of the U.S. - especially the diesels. Most of the moral crusaders I know drive SUVs 20K miles per year. We have bigger issues than all of that]
“I’ve yet to . . . forget to add the oil . . .”
Years ago, one of my shop foremen got demoted back down to line mechanic
He had to ask us “regular” mechanics what the lug bolt torque was for his own personal vehicle
Shortly after that, he forgot to put an oil filter back on . . .
Self-explanatory. I’m 6’8" and 260lbs so the moniker’s been with me for a while…
“What was that thread that got closed? ‘Hail to the Chief’?”
There was a group of people here then that kept complaining about censorship. The moderator finally got tired of it and this place closed for a while then reopened without a Rant & Rave forum and no longer put up with all of the bullbleep.
Why are you upside down?
Perhaps he owes the bank more than he is worth.
It has been so long I don’t recall the origin of my name.
Welcome back Cigroller.
@cigroller, welcome back and you would never catch any grief from me about smoking. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my entire life but have no problem at all with anyone who chooses to smoke.
My temperament leads me to be quiet and patient but inside I’m pretty volatile. It’s kept bottled up for the most part but now and then a car problem, or person, causes me to become less restrained.
I had to wrestle a Volvo at my shop once and was so disgusted with that car one afternoon I locked the doors and went 2 blocks down the street to a tavern where I sat and calmed down over 4 or 5 cold brews.
The refreshed perspective must have helped; went back and an hour later had the cause sorted out. Who would have thought that an ECM would have been done in by the residue from an empty can of Donald Duck orange juice… 
I’ve always been a stalwart Oldsmobile man, from the time I got my first ride in a friend’s '67 442 W30 while in high school. I’ve owned a lot of them over the years. The name I use is based off of this Olds Advertising theme they used in the late '60s to early 70’s for Olds performance cars.
There we go. That’s better!
I just found this thread! The name I use is a mashup of my last name and my wife’s last name that we started using when we moved from New England to the West Coast, just about the time the internet broke open. Before that I was using a 2400 baud modem and did not have a graphic interface or a browser, and didn’t really use a web name. With the start of Explorer and Netscape, and email, we came up with this name combo that summed up us and our life changing move.
When I started out in my profession as an apprentice I used to sometimes be in the restroom or stockroom getting supplies when the foreman came out of the morning meeting and was ready to leave. He would walk around looking for me asking everyone, “wheres rick”? The foreman was a angry, petty man and we used to go out of our way to aggravate him.
There was one day he was especially ornery and he came out to the truck raring to go, I was in the bucket cleaning the tools. He never looked up and never seen me and he went around looking for me and finally came back into the garage and exclaimed " where the &^&( is rick"
Its an inside joke where I work.
So Doc,now I know who to ask(with the expectation of great insight and answears)
Mine is simply first initial and last name(I dropped “Free Erg” a long time ago,too corny)-Kevin
@kmccune Thanks for the compliment. I grew upo on a farm and had to fix farm achinery and was the first ine in our family to go to universsity and study engineering. As a result most oif the familiy questions on technical things landed in my lap.
However there are always situations where I, or whoever gets asked, does not have an answer; then it is wise to refer the questioner to the best source you know. I’ve always had good luck with that and respect from those that asked. Our family doctor is very smart, but he readily sends you for a second opinion to the best specialist he knows. That’s the mark of a good manager as well.