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Just wanted to find out how many of you guys out there have had any disasters that they would like to own up to and hopefully the rest of us will learn from.
I will be first to confess to drilling through my armoured mains cable into the hut at the weekend where the power for my lights comes from, thank god for RCD's.
So come on whos next...................................................to Confess.
Does having a ladder slide out from under you, and crashing on the paved driveway count? And does it make it better if it's in front of a photographer from the Twin Cities' biggest newspaper?
Happened 2 years ago. And fortunately he neither got it on film nor mentioned it in the related article!
ITs not funny but kinda is. I mean the fact that you fell wasnt but I can just imagine the Situation. Tim on the Ladder all humble about his display looking like an old pro and WHAM Down he goes. Tim pops up hiding the pain acting likes its all part of the show. Later that Night Tim Sobering Uncontrolably in the bathroom With his wife saying it will be ok Dear...
A couple of years ago my brother Sam, brother-in-law Micky and myself were putting up my Mega Tree. It "WAS" about 35ft, had 40,000 lights... The lights were put up in triangles of 4,000 lights each - 10 pulleys were attached to a top ring to hoist up each section of lights. We were working on the last triangle.
It was a windy day (too windy to be doing this) and we only had the three main support cables in place and the ten minor support cables that support the bottom ring but the 8 center cables (set at 1/3 and 2/3 of the pole length that kept the center of the pole from buckeling were not in place because it made it hard to work inside the tree to get the lights up.
Anyway to make a very long story only a little long, a hard wind gust came pushed the tree in the center, the center pole (two 2x4s bolted together, staggered joints with steel straps at the connections) snapped into three Sharp Jagged sections and the whole tree cam came crashing down with us standing in the center! The miracle is that the three of us just stood there (it happened fast)... When it was done, some how there was a clean spot on the ground around each one of us... It was like a hand reached down and pushed everything away from each of use.
Last edited on Thursday December 1st, 2005 12:14 am by Dan Baldwin
Scott Colson wrote: ITs not funny but kinda is. I mean the fact that you fell wasnt but I can just imagine the Situation. Tim on the Ladder all humble about his display looking like an old pro and WHAM Down he goes. Tim pops up hiding the pain acting likes its all part of the show. Later that Night Tim Sobering Uncontrolably in the bathroom With his wife saying it will be ok Dear...
Well, the back story is that the photographer showed up a day early. We had just got back into town from Thanksgiving away, and I was out plugging things in for the first time (fortunately virtually everything was set up beforehand). Then the photographer comes, and I was all freaking out that thinks weren't "perfect" yet. I noticed there were some icicle lights that had blown up on the roof -- I said "hang on let me fix those", grabbed the ladder, set it up against the garage roof, didn't properly check the footing, scampered up, and BAM.
I'm still shocked I didn't break something. My wrist and elbow were sore for literally months, though. And the ironic thing -- I pulled down about 40' of icicle lights...
Fortunately, the guy came back the next day. All in all, he shot a couple hundred pictures, made us pose in all sorts of crazy poses (reminded me of our wedding photograhy). In the end, they used NONE in the paper, and one generic one of the house on the website.
Thats really is a tough break! Im glad your ok no major injuries. So you stopped before you got to the part about sobering uncontrolably in the bathroom after the reporter left. You get kisses to make it all better..
Tim, I understand about the photographer. The pic of me in the paper yesterday was taken with a 30 second exposure. What you don't see is about 100 of those hungry FL skeeters all over my legs and neck! We blew one pic cause one tried to land on my eyebrow and I took a swat at it just before the shutter closed.
I was smiling in the pic because the photographer was almost on the ground laughing at me. While he was on the street swatting them too.
Oh bad thing on light up. Nothing. Bad thing on set up, I missed a stake a few years ago with a 12 pound sledge hammer and hit my leg. Big egg for weeks.
Oh cut a hot wire this summer putting my minis on a snowflake does that count?
This past Saturday I was at the house of some friends of mine down in Charleston helping them hang their lights because their usual light hanger has been in the hospital for a long time.
A couple of hours into it, we started talking about ladders, and I was telling them how bad I dislike going on ladders, though I had been on one most of the day there, because I'm afraid of heights and falling off.
All this talk of ladders...
And I fell off the porch!
I was still talking about ladders, took a step, and down the stairs off the porch I went a-tumblin'!
No serious injury, though. Just a slight pain in the rear for a very few minutes. Now if only I could start missing that hole on the way to school and not twisting all kinds of things every day, and start falling and just hurting my rear like I did off the porch, things would be great.
____________________ OK, take hands four from the top of the set and pass it on down to the bottom of the hall. Get ready to dance!
Last year, was on the roof. It was windy. Really windy. Why I was on the roof, well thats a good question, but I was. All of the sudden, a 40+ gust comes, and I hear a clang. My extension ladder is now laying on the ground. No worries, I thought. I still have 50 light clips and a couple dozen strands of lights up here, I'll get some work done until someone comes by. Then something hits me in the neck. Then something else. And another. And another. I look down, and theres dark spots all over the roof. It was starting to rain.
As I huddled under an eve in the roof, I was thankful for my cell phone as I called Dad at the house. He must have fallen down on the floor laughing and sprained something because I swear he took 15 minutes to drive out (its only like 2 miles).
Larry Hazeltine wrote: Another benefit of living in Colorado. The bugs all fly south for the winter
Yeah, I noticed...thanks.You can have them back!
But otherwise, would something like this count as disasterous:
Just about everyday when I'm hanging lights on a ladder I do the same stupid thing at least once. I get up there and can't figure out what I was going to do. I look around trying to figure it out, and then look down, and realize that I'm empty handed...I've left the lights I was going to hang on the ground! I swear I do that ALL the time.
____________________ OK, take hands four from the top of the set and pass it on down to the bottom of the hall. Get ready to dance!
This is the first year that I did not require medical treatment while setting up the display. Last year while cutting the zip ties from cords (I wrap each light cord around the blowmold then zip tie it) I was using a box cutter (razorblade) slipped off the zip tie right down my finger. Never knew a finger could bleed so much. The year before that (same finger) I was using wire to secure a blomold in place and stuck the wire right through the finger. Got a bad infection from it. (cellulituse) <--sorry if misspelled... the infection spread up my arm.
Last year i was trimming a large conifer tree ready to put lights on it (about 30ft.) and was half way up the ladder. My father in law was holding the bottom of the ladder. Somehow some moisture got on the rung of the ladder and my foot slipped, not off, but through the rung. I lost my balance and ended up upside down hanging by one leg half way up a 30ft ladder.
My father in law did not help the situation as he had to calm down for a good 5 minutes before he could help me down where he had been laughing so hard.!!!
Another year i was changing a 4 gang extension cord into a 6 gang one and took off the old strip. It wasn't until i got to putting the new 6 way strip back on the cord, i found that i had forgotten to disconnect from the mains!!! Curly hair time!
I had a ladder blow over once. I have fixed that problem now though. I got this trick from a home inspector. He took a bungee cord and hooked one end of the bungee cord to the side of the ladder, went through a gutter nail and then hooked the other end of the bungee cord to the other side of the ladder.
This year i learned to make sure i don't leave a hammer on top of the A frame ladder and then move the ladder. A hammer falling from a foot and half still hurts pretty bad when it hits you on the Head. Lesson 2 DO NOT keep you leg in the path of a 32 oz hammer when banging in fence post, that also hurts. and lesson 3 move hand then swing hammer. My only defense is this all happened after 3 very long days and at 1:00 am
About five years ago I talked my wife into helping me stand a very tall mega-tree. I had pre-attached all the lights with the pole laying on the ground since I hadn't yet figured out how to hoist them once the pole was in place. Well, I was pulling on one of the support cables while my wife was pushing up the pole. The bottom of the pole kicked out and the pole went flying along with my wife. It wasn't until this year that she agreed to help me with anything on the display again.... I said "agreed" not "did." Maybe next year she'll take that step.
I just melted a 16/3 50' extension cord last night.
I had a circuit breaker pop so I needed to connect another section of lights to one of my spare X-10 SuperSockets. I ran the cord starting inside the garage door on the left, above the inside of the garage door and out the right side of the garage door. I left the excess wrapped around a cord reel. I noticed something smelled hot last night when I got home from basketball practice. The cord reel had fallen on the floor. I picked it up to put it back into place and about burned my hands off.
Needless to say, the extension cord was immediately unplugged and I ran to Lowe's and spent $40 on a 12/3 50' extension cord. Got back home installed it and didn't wrap the excess on the cord reel.
Both times were in the exact same spot, from the exact same height, and less than 2 minutes apart. I was up hanging cords, and I started down, and stepped off one step too early instead of walking all the way down, and tumbled over.
And you would think I would have learned the first time...
Note to self...make absolute sure you are on the bottom step before you step for the ground.
____________________ OK, take hands four from the top of the set and pass it on down to the bottom of the hall. Get ready to dance!
You can have them back!
