Conjecture

Theres your problem!



Yep, this one's working correctly!



Last week when I arrived at the farm I was greeted by the sight of a shiny new Ford tractor standing in the yard. The cocky has four already, but you can never have too many tractors…or so I am told!
The cocky and I were going to be busy the whole week with a long list of things we were never going to complete. (as usual)
He made a call and got a local worker to come in at short notice for three days work to run the new tractor in. This is done by dragging the Stone Roller, a ten tonne roller rather like a road roller on steroids. This particular roller is about five feet in diameter and forty feet long with sharp angle feet which crush any stones that it runs over. This is done to improve the soil and get rid of the rocks which damage seeders and harvesters.
The first days rolling went perfectly as you would expect, right up until it was time to knock off for the day…the worker radioed in to say the tractor would not go faster than a fast idle. (as it had been doing all day)
The worker had to persevere as we were too busy to come out to take a look at it but when the tractor finally made it back to the homestead we went right over it, checking everything we could think of. The cocky took it for a quick run and it went perfectly, accelerating fast and clean and going as fast as he wanted it to.
We spent the evening deep in conjecture.
The next day went well again with the worker using the cruise control to vary the speed regularly and towing the ten tonne roller back and forth over another huge field…right up to knock off time again. With the roller disconnected and chocked for the night the run of several miles back to the homestead should have taken just a half hour…
Again the tractor would not accelerate beyond walking speed, this time the worker stopped, turned off the motor, waited for a while then restarted and retried. The thinking was maybe there was a glitch in the computer and a restart might fix the problem… it didn’t work. Again the poor worker had to crawl back to the farm and when we checked it over we found nothing wrong with it, nothing at all!
We spent the evening deep in conjecture.
Day three started well enough, the cocky went out at lunchtime and checked the motor over…everything was perfect, the motor running perfectly, the computer was doing everything right. The cocky asked the worker not to use the cruise control in the afternoon in case it was a fault somewhere in the sensors.
He had barely made it back to the homestead when the worker radioed to say the tractor would not accelerate again…
He told the worker to leave the machine running and touch nothing while we drove out…
When we got there the worker was wandering about the field waiting for us, the cocky and I crammed into the cab, closed the door and set off along the furrow.
Sure enough, the machine would not accelerate but continued to crawl along at walking pace while we tried every setting we could think of…
The cocky said the accelerator pedal felt spongy, like it wasn’t connected properly or something, he tried to look but the steering column protruded underneath and restricted visibility. He stopped the machine, pushed the door open and half hung out of it so he could inspect the accelerator pedal, then started to laugh like a fool.
He reached underneath and came out with the workers handbag, threw it to me and climbed back into the seat. The machine went perfectly!
While trundling along in cruise control mode her handbag had vibrated its way forward until it lay directly under the pedal…three days in a row.

Dress To Impress

Number 5 in the series
‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Women’

‘Dress to impress’

So you want to attract attention, but not by having the lady of your dreams laugh hysterically, tears streaming from her eyes.
Open the door of your closet and take a good hard, honest look… If what you see looks like a rack of 70’s fashions in the costume shop, or something you last saw when the circus was in town… it’s time to make the hard decisions…
It’s time to buy some now clothes.

Sorry, but this is going to involve shopping!

There are those who believe that you should enlist the help of a sister or trusted female friend.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM
Can you be completely certain that she hasn’t just been dumped by her boyfriend and is itching to find a way of getting back at men in general?
Can you be sure that she can resist the temptation of the enormous comedy potential of seeing you emerge from a dressing room wearing the sort of outfit that would make your dog laugh?
(I think this explains pastel Safari Suits, cummerbunds and eye wateringly loud shirts)

“No, honestly Gavin, it makes you look dead set sexy, trust me.”

With this in mind there are two phrases that should see you scrambling out of the change room window to your freedom.
“ trust me” and “ would I lie to you”

Do not be tempted to buy through a catalogue.

The clothes in them only look good on chiseled muscle men with lacquered hair, who stand around in small groups looking intently at a clipboard.
In addition you will not be able to try them on beforehand, so you will end up with a parcel of uncoordinated, ill-fitting style crimes, that you will convince yourself will fit ‘one day.’
“I’m planning to lose weight anyway”
“This style will come back soon” (yeah, like bell bottoms and four inch platforms)
“It’s fine so long as I done breathe too much…or sit down”

The simple solution is to go into town, walk around a bit, and take a good look at what everyone else is wearing. Then, all you have to do is copy their style.
What could be simpler?
(Don’t attempt this during Gay Pride Week or when the carnival is in town)
Generally speaking, if you model yourself on someone who already has a girlfriend, you wont go far wrong.

Nicknames are funny things

Here at Watson Ball and Chain we have a large crew of highly trained personnel covering a large range of trades and helped by several trades assistants, (TA’s) our trade assistants are better known as TA’s, Gophers (Go for’s) or Shit kickers.
This week one of our longest serving TA’s was given a new nickname after what turned out to be a very expensive week…
Now this fellow is none to bright, but a nice enough chap in his mid 40’s. If given a task and left alone he does a first class job…but our 2IC (2nd in charge) rides him constantly because he enjoys freaking him out. He doesn’t handle stress very well…

We also have rules..
#73. The bloke that takes something apart is the bloke that puts it back together again.

Now lets call our trade assistant Brian, partly because it’s easier to write than ‘trade assistant’ and partly because it’s his name.
One of our trucks reached the ripe old age of 8yrs..Yahoo, whoopee… we get to strip it down and rebuild most of it. Off comes the tray and a new custom made tray is fabricated and fitted complete with new huge toolboxes, water tanks, hose reels, generator, compressor and lots more boring industrial stuff besides.
The chassis is grit blasted and repainted as is everything else…about here I notice a small rust hole in the air intake so I send Brian to remove the intake, air cleaner box and all the air hoses for cleaning, inspection, repair and repainting.
…rebuilding an entire truck is a long job and falling right on Christmas makes it take a lot longer. Last week the final things were finished and the now new looking truck went for the electrics to be done.
The worker that delivered the truck reported big problems..
The motor was running very rough, refused to go faster than 50km/hr (30 mph) and sounded decidedly sick. Despite it’s age this truck does very little work and spends its days idling around a huge industrial complex on permanent lease, very easy work for a big diesel. Records suggest that it’s done somewhat less that 200,000km…. Barely run in!
Our 2IC sent it to one of the towns best diesel mechanics who did expensive/extensive testing and decided that it showed all the hallmarks of broken rings…it was stuffed and needed a complete rebuild running to over ten thousand Aussie dollars.
Brian got the blame…after all, a motor simply does not break rings all by itself and our 2IC decided that he must have dropped something into the motor while taking the critical air cleaner parts off the manifolds.
It came back to our workshop to have the motor removed and my team was put in charge of taking the motor out.
Before we started in earnest we took the offending air cleaner and associated bits and pieces off to see if there were any parts missing that may have dropped into the motor.
The 2IC was not happy…wasting time we were!
He was just giving me the lecture about how much had already been spent on the truck when one of my guys came up and presented us with a piece of charred cloth as big as a hand…and the news that there seemed to be more inside the manifolds.
I clicked straight away…I’ve seen this before in a car motor.
With a strong light and various bits of bent wire we managed to pull most of an old shirt from inside the motor manifolds…
Brian had done exactly what he should have by stuffing the shirt into the open engine to stop dust, rust or water getting in and ruining the motor while the repairs were being done.
But he should have removed it as he refitted the air pipes, filter and snorkel. In fact he must have fitted the air hoses right over the manifold with the shirt still hanging out…
As soon as the motor started it sucked the shirt into the motor where it restricted and choked the motor as it slowly carbonized and would have eventually burned away.
One of the workers chided “Good one Einstein” …and a new nickname was forever branded.

..and the motor, is fine!

Number 17 in the series

Number 17 in the series
‘Everything you ever wanted to know about Women’

Meeting women

It’s going to happen sometime… Your eyes meet across a crowded wine bar, you smile, she gives the briefest sign of encouragement (she doesn’t run screaming into the traffic), you walk over to her, she turns, anticipating your wicked one-liner and…

Nothing! Zero! Blank! Your mouth is moving but no one is home…

All your carefully rehearsed spontaneous wit has dried up like camel pee on a hot rock, leaving you doing your ‘fish out of water’ impression.
You can skulk away without another word, ruining your one and only chance with this ‘Venus’, or you can go so far out into weirdland that she will think you really original and funny…Or the evil withered twin of someone whose jacket does up at the back….
Either way you’ll know soon enough.
Bear in mind though…if her reply is as weird as your question, you are in trouble deep.

One of the complications of talking to women is that sometimes they actually reply.
If you are lucky this might occasionally involve them using the word, ‘yes,’ …but don’t count on it.
It’s much more likely that you’ll hear something aimed at making Mr Twinky recede like a salted slug…

..It’s going to happen, so you might as well get used to the idea.
Write down a list of the worst put downs you and your friends can think of and get a friend to read them back at you…Loudly!

Practice being unfazed..

Walk away in a manner that suggests you’ve got to get back to your penthouse full of adoring love slaves….
Try not to cry…

Keep your nose in the air, chin up, best foot forward, eye to the future and ear to the ground. If you can do all this and still keep walking, you’ll be doing ok!

Next Week
Number 18 in the series
Talking to women

The Kindness Of Strangers

The Kindness Of Strangers
(Ok, so some of them aren’t that strange…)

Have you ever slagged off about Facebook?
…..Yeah, me too!

But all that has changed, I’m a new man, changed…now I love Facebook.

….Ok ‘love’ might be too strong a word for a soul less web site, but I’ve been awakened to something far bigger…the spirit of mankind! (mainly womankind actually)
Apart from the great, the funny, the uplifting, the wise, the thought provoking, the wonderful, the sexy and the nutters among you… you know which categories you belong in… (Whew, got out of that one)

But something else happened recently that has left me simply stunned….
My daughter, her husband and their four kids under 6yrs old moved here from a long way away and on the way lost most of what little they had…not remarkable in itself, but…
One of my other daughters best friends put a message on Facebook asking for spare bits and pieces for them to set up house…the result was staggering to say the least.

We live in a small manufacturing city of just over 20,000 people, how many of them would you think were Facebook users?

How many of those will have seen the little call for help or had spare stuff to contribute?

Daughter 2 (D2) has been inundated with gifts from people we don’t know… a bag of clothes here, a box of toys there.. a spare this or an old that, furniture otherwise destined for the shed, and some much better than mine!
In all, perhaps 3 or 4 trailer loads of household items which will be added to the 3 or 4 trailer loads contributed by family and friends of family.
The great and the good among us have come forward to set up this small family, piece by piece. Their first days in their new home will be quite comfortable…

We move them in today!


I wish I knew how to thank them all!