How'd it go today?

Ran out of fuel in the new truck today leaving the job. Having multiple trucks is hard. With one truck I could tell you on any day about how much fuel was in it, but with two I can't keep track and I'm obviously not smart enough to look at the gauge.

Anyway, the truck died and I pulled off the road. Called my ground guy since he was only a couple minutes behind me, he picked me up and carried me home to get my diesel can. Got back and it still took me almost 30 minutes to get it started again. I kept priming and priming but it wouldn't pressurize. I finally cracked the fuel line and cranked the engine over to get fuel through the line, then tightened it up and pumped the primer some more. After 3-4 false starts it finally ran.

Remind me not to run a diesel out of fuel again, it sucks.
 
The old Volkswagen bugs used to have a supplementary fuel tank, a lever between the front seats opened it up. Very helpful at times, and when you were running off the spare tank, a gas station was the priority. My brother had a bug until he flipped it over on the freeway, unhurt though.
 
I heard use wd40 to prime the pump... what we used for starting tow trucks....

Never use ether it's supposed to FSU.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk
 
Two days ago I got stuck in my own back yard trying to park my dump trailer. It's rained every day for almost 2 weeks (after 4 months of no rain). We all know that mulch works for a little while until it doesn't work any more, then it turns to muck. At that point you either have to keep adding more mulch or scrape it all off. I decided for long term benefits I would scrape it up and extend my gravel (crushed recycled concrete) driveway. I don't own a skid steer so I did it with a flat shovel and wheelbarrow.

In my front yard I have a ditch that runs the entire length of the property. But I'm on a slight hill so water only gathers in the last 10' of ditch then runs over. So I decided in order to better catch the rain and make my property more user friendly I'd fill in a bunch of the ditch that wasn't doing anything anyway. A month ago I got a load of about 5 yards of dirt. Today I added the mucky dirt scraped from the back yard and about doubled the amount of ditch filled in.

Either this afternoon or maybe tomorrow I'll go buy some gravel. Looks like I can use 2 loads, or about 8 tons.
 

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We had a big blow last night .There is phenominum often called straight line winds or gust/nados ahead of a weather front that can produce winds of up to 110 MPH for a short period .Sure enough it hit my woods and snapped the top out of a 3 feet at the base 100 foot 200 year old bitter nut hickory .What a fine kettle fish I have now .That pot licker was solid as rock,no rot and 2 feet in diameter 40 feet up where it broke over .Now I have to figure out how to get the top cut off without squashing myself .I'll get some pics in a day or so .As if I don't have a lot to do now this .:(
 
Got home from our company excursion to the Alps.
4000 kilometers and roughly a billion hairpin turns.
Terrific weather until the last day, camping at the foot of Eiger Nordwand, when we got rained on a lot.
Did 10 of the highest passes, some of them 2 or even 3 times.
The best driving experience was Bernardino, coming up from the Italian side, The prettiest was Nufenen and the old stone pawed road over St. Gotthard was amazing, both for the drive and for the thought of how long it must have taken to lay all those stones.
I'd driven a lot of them before and my favourite has always been Furka, because it is so unforgiving. Bad road surface, steep dropoffs and nothing like a guard rail.
The apprentice led on his Honda CBR 600, Richard and I were hard pressed to follow, as we drive touring bikes.
Still, taking a touring bike to the limit through a mountain pass is a lot of fun.
The guys got a good introduction to Swiss food, we ate at some really good restaurants.

You'll notice that my old SOTC t-shirt got it's picture taken in the Alps! Getting to be a well travelled shirt, that one.

Hell of a fine trip.
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freaking awesome pictures. having been to the eiger and swiss alps, I can relate.
 
Really cool Stig.


Fancy looking scooter in the upper right. I guess a motor bike with brakes and such is not dangerous enough.

We took the cable car up to 3200 meters, so the guys could try some thinner air than what we flatlanders are used to.
They rented those things out, and one could ride all the way back down in the valley.
Great fun, but lots of opportunity to get hurt.

Afterwards we talked about how you'd never get to do something like that in the US with all the litigation lawyers you have.

Too much risk of a lawsuit.
 
Great pictures there....especially all those hairpins. We visited Haleakalā in Hawaii approx 2000...rented bikes and did the 27 mile ride downhill from the summit to the valley. 27 miles and no pedalling was cool. Apparently they stopped that activity in 2007...too many fatalities.

That guy on the scooter looks like a dead man riding!
 
They could sell at the top of the mountain, buy at the bottom of the mountain.

Looks like an awesome trip in the real sense of the word.

I'd love to ride a motorcycle on something like that, but think I have enough risk exposure, as is.







Had a house cleaner in for a first go-round. More to come. How nice! Smells good in here. Might be able to help with dinners and such, maybe business errands, shuttle driver for mobilizing equipment. Single mom, college student, transplant, hippie-ish chick.Her younger kid is a little 7 y.o. girl who made fast friends with Dahlia (5 y.o.) when they came over to look at the job.

Bought out the neighbor's garage sale of her late husband's tools. $35, whole mess of little tools, bolts, odds and ends, bins, tarps, hand tools, etc. The pick that was used to dig for the railroad in eastern Washington is stubby. It has had a few handles over many decades.
 

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