"Ay Dios Mio!" as my Aunt Coriine used to say. Today I was installing a 83in by 23 in piece of Etchmark window film. I knew I had bit off more than I could hold. Well it buckled, right in front of the customers. I had about 5 people watching me as I put it on. They thought it was looking real good, but I pointed out to them the bad mistake, torn it down and said "I'll be back,,,,on Tuesday. Where I messed up is that I cut the vinyl the exact same size as the window. It wasn't laying down flat to start with. "What's for dinner?" "83 inches of vinyl" "Dummkopf"
Posted by Wayne Webb (Member # 1124) on :
Wanta hear something REALLY dumb, although maybe less costly? Today I got some DOT #s emailed from a new customer. So I 'copy pasted' it into Signwizard; this is the actual copy/paste from the email........
So, I says to myself..."self, these folks goofed and got these here DOT #s all backwards, I'll fix'em", So I "fixed" 'em, cut them, and when the driver brought the truck, I proceeded to install them on the sleeper cab. My wife comes, out, flags me down and said I had put the ZIP CODE for part of the DOT number and the rest were all misplaced because of it. Thankfully, my wife caught it before I had finished. Otherwise, this truck would have been somewhere in Wisconsin with goofed up numbers. I ended up recutting half of it and the driver was happy. He had just got done bragging about how fast I was getting it done.
[ April 24, 2015, 09:10 PM: Message edited by: Wayne Webb ]
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
This week, I had to make a 75 mile round trip and spend all afternoon fixing a goof I could have prevented in 5 seconds.
I'd lettered an awning for one of my customers, let it dry overnight, rolled it up and put it in the cage I have out front for them to pick up and drop off items. When I put it in the cage, the end of the roll dropped down and folded. It was pouring rain and my back was hurting so badly, I didn't bend over to straighten it out properly. The customer didn't make it here until the next day because of the weather and when they put up the awning, they found the paint had stuck to itself when the awning got folded. I had to go out and fix it up on a ladder. I worried when I put that thing in the cage and I learned I should have heeded those worries.
I also mentioned my back hurting. I'll be having very major back surgery as soon as the insurance company quits playing games such as approving the surgery without the implant and then approving the implant without the surgery, and then approving surgery without anesthesia. Their stunts cost both appeals they allow and now I have to go to an independent arbitrator. I guess if I just duct tape the titanium spacer to my back I won't need anesthesia anyway.
[ April 24, 2015, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: David Harding ]
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
had major back rebuild 2013..SHOULDA DUN IT 10-15 YEARS AGO!!!!!!!! i an 1 piece from S-1, L-5, L-5 TO L-4, L-4 TO L-3, L3 TO L-2, TO L-1. they took the bones off the front of my spine, lamectomy....they call it, took those bones put em in a food processor(made a paste with then)applied that to the titanium screws in each vertabra, and the titanium wire tied to each screw..i can still bend over to tie my shoes or grab my toes!!!! oh, you know that nagging pain that no amount of pain pills nor positions can make go away???? MINE IS GONE!!!!!!!!!
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
The disc is completely worn out at L5-S1, which causes the vertebrae to sit on the sciatic nerve--I should call it my "psychotic nerve" because it makes me want to kill something! I've got sharp pain in the hip and pain and numbness all the way down my right leg. I also have a cyst growing into the spinal cord at L4-L5. They will have to go in the front to fuse L5-S1 and put a titanium spacer there, then go in the back to remove the cyst and put a flexible titanium implant there. I guess they'll have me on a giant rotisserie. As long as I don't see basting equipment and hear "the secret's in the sauce", I'll be OK.
The surgery was scheduled for April 7. As I drove home from the hospital at 4:30 PM April 6 after spending all day with the final pre-op stuff, I got a call from the physician saying we would have to postpone. On the second appeal, which took a month for the insurance company to "expedite", they told us they would give us the answer on April 10, however, they knew all along the surgery was scheduled for the 7th. After many hours of phone calls by the doctor's office, Sophie and me, they weaseled out in a communication to the doctor the afternoon of April 6.
I’ve dealt with back pain for years and just sucked it up and didn’t let it slow me down, however, my back has gotten markedly worse this year. I can still play ball and hike once I get going but it all locks up as soon as I quit and sit down and it takes a long time to get up out of a chair and then I can hardly walk for a while. The doctor likened it to a rusty wheel–hard to turn until it gets going and then is hard to start again once it stops. He said the joints in my back are so bad there is no lubrication in them.
I’ve also had problems with my neck since I broke it on a trampoline in 1967 and we’d planned a rhizotomy to sever the nerves causing so much neck pain. We’d planned the rhizotomy for after I recovered from the back surgery but we decided to reverse the timing and take care of the neck while awaiting the arbitrator’s decision on the back appeal.
Two weeks ago, they did a nerve block and told me to go do everything that hurt and see if it helped. As Sophie drove home, I kept looking all the way to the left at her–I haven’t been able to turn my head to the left for decades. I went home, walked the dog, did some work and then picked up my grandson and we played basketball. I even backed my truck into the parking space at the gym, just because I could. I had a great game–the best in years. I tried 60 free throws and hit 51 of them. Rajon Rondo would probably still be employed if he shot free throws like that! By the next day, it was all back to the normal pain and lack of function but it told us the rhizotomy would work. They did the rhizotomy yesterday and although I’m still hurting and recovering from that, I can feel more mobility in my neck than what I had two days ago.
Last summer, Sophie had major back surgery and then I had hand surgery to rebuild my arthritic thumb joint. Last month, she had hand surgery and I’ll be having back surgery. She says the longer a couple is married, the more they become alike.
I also had hernia surgery last summer. I’m getting sick of operations, but I’m still not ready to try them without anesthesia.
Posted by Alicia B. Jennings (Member # 1272) on :
Okay, I just watched a youtube video on Etchmark vinyl film installtion. I did the same thing but, I just just used too big of a piece. When I re-do it, I'm gonna come in about 1 1/2 in all around then finish with a 3/4 in stripe next to the frame to give it the nice all around stripe it should have. Thank goodness I have enough 30 in vinyl to do it a second time.
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
I wasted a nice batch of epoxy last night. I mixed the PB Resin and added the Ronan lettering enamel of the proper color, and then poured it into one of the hair dye bottles my wife gives me because they have that nice long tip, are perfect for smaller batches, and they're free. Anyway, I turn the bottle upside down to start flowing the epoxy on the sign and out comes a bunch of water that was left in the bottle. I guess I grabbed the one she just used and it hadn't dried out. Wiped up the sign and mixed up another batch.
Joe, a lobotomy would get rid of that back pain too. You sure it was a lamectomy?
[ April 25, 2015, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Dave Sherby ]
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
I have half a mind to get a lobotomy.
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
dave.......apparently........... YOUR LOBOTOMY didnt help you)))))))you really need to "bone up" on your anatomy))))))
[ April 25, 2015, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: old paint ]
Posted by Chuck Peterson (Member # 70) on :
Reminds me of the story I read about a prankster who put super glue in a Visine bottle and left it on the counter in a restroom at a party.
It turns out because of the fluids in the eye it will only glue your eyes shut for about four hours and they will gradually unglue themselves.
Sign screw-ups - I recall one years ago. I used to keep water in a 5 gallon gas can to take to jobs for mixing concrete for postholes. Someone had borrowed it to put gasoline in. After they returned it I didn't realize they left a gallon or more of gas in it. We filled it with water and ended up with gas/water concrete. The scary part was when we noticed the smell and discovered it, there were plugged in Christmas lights all around in the bushes by the postholes.
Posted by Kathy Weeks (Member # 10828) on :
I did the same thing Alicia - last year I was installing "frosted vinyl" on a glass door. The door was 40" wide, and they wanted their very detailed logo in the middle of it. I used a wet application, but when I worked the vinyl against the glass and got down to the logo portion - the logo wanted to stick to the liner and would not release from it and stay stuck to my premask. I ripped the vinyl where the logo was - it was ruined. I said to the customer, "I'll be back." I ended up applying the vinyl as a panel and then made a template of the logo and hand cut it with an exacto into the vinyl. I looked great when I was finished, but took a lot of time. That's not my favorite material to work with.
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Joe, the lobotomy helps back pain because with half your brain missing you won't feel it or know you have it. I really didn't think I'd need to explain a joke to you.
Posted by Preston McCall (Member # 351) on :
I used to say: I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy....then I quit drinking...and quit painting signs!
Spelling was my main issue. I did some real doozies. Needed spellcheck installed in my brushes, I guess.
Posted by Chuck Churchill (Member # 68) on :
I win the mistake of the month award. I installed two large 1/2" acrylic directories into marble walls late on a Friday afternoon using 4 edge mount standoffs. Drilled the marble to mount the top standoffs but decided I could save a lot of time and trouble by using VHB tape on the bottom standoffs. Took about 30 minutes a hole to drill. About 10 days later one fell and chipped the acrylic backboard. Now I have to laser cut another backboard, take all the blades off of the damaged one, cut new etched film to frost the back of the marble and reassemble everything. Acrylic is going to cost me over $200. Last step is take it to Toronto and re-install with 4 holes this time. I have already anchored all 4 standoffs on the 2nd directory with plugs and screws. Did I mention the building is about 80km (50 miles) from our shop.
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
davie, davie...........as i said you need to bone up on medical stuff......labotomy has nothing to do with pain centers in the brain!!!!! it does not entail removing HALF OF THE BRAIN.......
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
davie, davie...........as i said you need to bone up on medical stuff......lobotomy has nothing to do with pain centers in the brain!!!!! it does not entail removing HALF OF THE BRAIN.......it was done in asylums and took 10 minutes to complete one. FYI In 1945 Freeman streamlined the procedure, replacing it with transorbital lobotomy, in which a picklike instrument was forced through the back of the eye sockets to pierce the thin bone that separates the eye sockets from the frontal lobes. The pick’s point was then inserted into the frontal lobe and used to sever connections in the brain (presumably between the prefrontal cortex and thalamus). In 1946 Freeman performed this procedure for the first time on a patient, who was subdued prior to the operation with electroshock treatment.
The transorbital lobotomy procedure, which Freeman performed very quickly, sometimes in less than 10 minutes, was used on many patients with relatively minor mental disorders that Freeman believed did not warrant traditional lobotomy surgery, in which the skull itself was opened. A large proportion of such lobotomized patients exhibited reduced tension or agitation, but many also showed other effects, such as apathy, passivity, lack of initiative, poor ability to concentrate, and a generally decreased depth and intensity of their emotional response to life.
Posted by Rusty Bradley (Member # 6938) on :
And before 1945 they would just stick a sharp #2 pencil up the nose and and wiggle it around.
Posted by Dave Sherby (Member # 698) on :
Joe wouldn't know a joke if it hit him in his frontal lobe. I think he's turning into Sheldon Cooper.
Posted by Kathy Weeks (Member # 10828) on :
If that's true Rusty, then would a #2 lettering quill work just as well? Hmmm, I have a customer that maybe I could . . .
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
sherwood(as in rocky and bulwinkle show)hehehehehe, i knew you was jokin....but as you seem to always want to correct me on things....it was my turn...to correct you.....heheheheheheehehe i thought that was more funny)))))
Posted by Alicia B. Jennings (Member # 1272) on :
Bad deal Chuck, plus it's 50 miles away. Well tomorrowI will give it one more try. I'f I srew this one up as well, well, it might just give me a real headache.
Posted by David Harding (Member # 108) on :
Sometimes, when I've got a tricky install a ways away, I'll just cut a duplicate set of vinyl. Yes, it's a waste but I have saved a trip back to the shop in the past. Also, if something got trashed in the shop and had to be recut, I'll take it with me to the jobsite, in case I have to fix something that didn't install correctly.
Posted by Curt Stenz (Member # 82) on :
Dave, great advice.
Posted by Alicia B. Jennings (Member # 1272) on :
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