[The "unsubscribe" in the second line tagged this as an admin message, which
of course it isn't. mjb.]
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 15:40:22 -0500 (EST)
From: "W. R. Gibbons" <gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu>
Subject: Big errors (was Dan's penance)
I think it is unfair to compare our major errors to Dan's faux pas; as I
understand it he *did* try to unsubscribe. Anyway, I got twice as many
messages as others and survived. But I am enjoying the monumental error
thread.
Back in 1975 or so, I had a much loved 71 Toyota Corona Mk II hardtop
that was suffering terrible rot. I bought a gas welding outfit, enrolled
in an adult welding course, and set to work on it. I jacked it up as far
as possible, put it on jack stands, and started welding. It was pretty
far gone; I had to weld angle iron to the remnants of the frame members
all down both sides to have something to weld sheet metal to.
After 3 weeks of gas welding (much of it done lying on my back and welding
overhead) I was proud of my work -- no more holes! (Well, one little one
in my ear, perhaps, suffered when the torch popped and blew a tiny nugget of
molten metal into my ear -- heavens, that hurt, and the sizzling sound was
something I shall never, ever forget. But I digress).
I let the car down off the jacks, backed it into the sun, and noticed only
then that the door gap at the front of the door was much wider than the
one at the bottom. Whoops, have to adjust that door. Wait, the gap at
the rear of the door was much wider at the top, too. Same thing on the
other side. The car had been so weak that it arched on the jacks like an
angry cat, and I had made the arch permanent. I drove it that way for 5
more years, until large stuff like the bumpers started falling off. Our
climate is not kind to motorcars.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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