Turns out the specialists that were 50 miles away have all recently died, retired, or never existed in the first place.

The next closest is 200 miles. Is it worth a 6 hour trip for a five minute appointment?

edit - And my basement keeps flooding.

edit - And I'm getting really fat.

Visited a new customer Tuesday and Wednesday. They had purchased a custom, one-of-a-kind machine back in 2008 or 2009, and needed some things looked at. The OEM got them in touch with me and the customer gave me the call; not sure why the OEM didn't contract with me, but I can make a guess.

So I'm checking out some things, making adjustments, finding stuff done wrong from when it was installed, and hearing about the troubles they'd had since the installation. The incorrect installation points didn't surprise me much when they told me who the tech was - a guy always in a rush, and one that I've cleaned-up after several times before. Good for my business, I suppose. Generally it was correct but there were some important smaller details that were done wrong, and things missed. Not a big deal - I fixed what I found.

They'd told me about some intermittent faults with a specific axis, and showed the very detailed notes (I wish every customer did this) of what had been done over the years to find the gremlin in the system. They then asked that I run the 'autotune' procedure on it; they'd tried it themselves previously but some bad info from a third-party meant they had the wrong instructions. I ran it, and made a minor mechanical adjustment. Didn't notice it was running any better or any worse.

Fixed up a bunch of other stuff, showed the operators some things on the software (poor training from the other tech), and we started running production. Ran a couple hours and everything looked good. I was five minutes from leaving, and as we were poking around in the software one operator noted the motors stopped. Okay, what the hell. The intermittent fault, that they hadn't seen in a few months, decided to show up right then.

Naturally, someone in management asks if it's something I screwed up. LOL. Yeah, you've been having this problem off and on for a few years now - well-documented by your own people - but the problem is the tech who saw this specific machine for the first time just the day before. At least the maintenance guy and the production manager both backed me up.

Didn't find the fault but we're suspecting a bad cable; they've swapped or replaced nearly everything else... Intermittent faults suck.

Ain't that the truth. Intermittent faults always have to reappear when you are either about to leave or between there and your home on your drive home. Why can't it ever happen a few hours after you leave, so you can charge them for an additional trip and day of expenses.

Lightening hit my septic system. Everything is okay now so it's not a major bitch but I think I win the "oddest bitch of the day" award. :D

And then you tell them, "I THINK this is the problem? Maybe? Sounds like it?" Hell, we got it to reoccur and left it in that position to test the cable - and it checked okay. But they've done virtually everything else except replace an expensive motor (and it's been replaced twice previously) so what's left? Cable. And the cable requires a special plug on one end that is a complete bitch to install.

I'll take a hard fault over this intermittent BS any day of the week.

Are you sure all your SHIT is alright.

*rimshot*
It actually struck the circuit board and fried it which shut down the pumps. Fortunately our tanks were only half full so we didn't need the pumps until that night and by that time we had replaced the board so it was working again.

Speaking of board, how dull is this post!? Man I'm putting myself to sleep.

Speaking of lightning strikes...

Two years back, my brother got woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of a car crash. Looked outside to see a van had plowed into the back of their truck (parked on the street), which was then pushed into the back of one of their cars. Both got totaled, and the guy 'got away'; a neighbor also heard the crash, went outside and started to chase but the driver got away. Van was still there so it wasn't exactly Perry Mason detective work to figure out who owned it. But without getting the driver, it couldn't be proven that it was the owner who did it. Either way, insurance took care of it and the guy skipped town - literally, as he and his wife fled in the middle of the night "on vacation" and left the front door wide open.

Found out later that a patron at a bar had seen the owner / driver drinking quite a bit earlier that night, and had actually called the police to report a drunk driver. They didn't catch him on the streets so he got away to - presumably - smash into my brother's vehicles. But again, they never caught him and couldn't definitively pin him as the driver. Oh, and he has priors.

Fast forward to the 16th of this month. I get a text from my brother: "U can't use the truck. it got hit by a drunk driver while parked out front last night." I figured he was dicking with me since I wanted to use it that day to haul some big stuff as we moved Mom to her new house. Then I saw the time on the text - 1:41am. Oh shit - he wouldn't text me at that time of the morning just to make a joke.

Same thing happened: drunk idiot smashed into the back of his new-used truck. He heard the noise and looked outside, and saw her back out and drive off. He ran outside and chased after her barefoot and in his jammies. She didn't get far as the car was utterly toast so she had to pull over a block down. He caught up and about blew a gasket on her and she's oblivious to the whole thing. "Sir, I don't understand why you're yelling at me." "You just crashed into the back of my truck and drove off!" "No, I don't think that was me..." "I watched you do it!" LOL And apparently it went on like that until the cops cuffed her and took her away after blowing 0.25 BAC. Apparently, as she's sitting in the back of the cop car, she told them, "I sure do hope you catch the person that hit that guy's truck. He really seems upset." The cop brought back her out of the car, pointed out the trail of antifreeze leading from her car all the way back to the back end of the truck, and said, "It was you."

WTF? Too funny.

But yeah, lightning strikes twice.

Damn, what does he live near a lot of bars (pubs to the Brits)? Maybe he needs to buy a junker for a buffer in front of his car.

Nope, just a regular street, though it's the main (just 25 MPH) street through our village. I'm about 4 blocks down on the same street and no problems on our end of things.

He and his wife were joking that they're going to start renting the space in front of their house, to people who want to have insurance pay for a replacement car.

The latest truck is a big honkin' dually that he uses for his side biz, and he says the tire marks show it was pushed forward 8 feet. She must have been cookin' along to move that heavy thing 8 feet...

0.25? Holy shit! I'm amazed she was even able to get into her car and start it.

Muscle memory? I dunno.

Right when my brother caught up to the car, he pounded on the driver window with a closed fist. Really jacked-up on adrenaline and quite irritated, to say the least, being the second time and all that. Apparently she was texting someone at that moment, and he said she looked up, gave the "one moment" gesture, and kept on texting.

Odd thing was that he said it wasn't readily apparent that she was drunk, so they're guessing she had something else besides the alcohol that was calming her nerves.

He and the wife were laughing it off the next day, one of those "what are the odds?" things, but they kept coming back to how oblivious she was throughout. It's a bit frightening to ponder what might have happened another mile or two down the road had she not hit the truck. Hopefully this is a wake-up call for the young lady...

Girlfriend is gone, just left me. Fuck.

I know your pain(if you were in a serious relationship). Pointless trying to get her back. I recommend lots of alcohol and gaming to deal with those sweet painful memories of you two together. Then try to convince yourself to see the truth. If she left you like that, she has no honor. If she has no honor, then she is a backstabbing snake bitch and you don't want such a woman in your life. She did you a favor by leaving you now. Imagine, you married such a cold blooded woman? She would of raped you a new asshole if she left you, the husband as a "wife" due to the divorce laws in the USA being very much pro woman. Your whole life could of been destroyed but you dodged that bullet.

Got my blood test results back.. all clear! Good right? eh, I don't know. I feel like if I feel like shit then they should show that something is up... so what do I do now? Just deal with it until I don't feel crap anymore?

on the upside, it's the weekend.