What made you feel good today?

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by .:4:.

After a week working out of the new ute, having a decent body on the back has made my job so much easier. Shelves for smalls with full height doors really saves so much time not having to dive in and root around through crates of gear. The open section with the doors saves either saves the effort of pulling stuff out for whats underneath, or if you do, full side and rear access means you have to pull out less crap to pull out whatevers on top of what you want. So much easier when it comes to orginisation and practicality. Also with all the stop start traffic i sit in during the day, the past 10 years ive had manual work cars, the auto is a godsend. The extra power and torque mated to an auto makes overtaking less of a chore. No lag when the auto downshifts unlike a manual. Also a torque converter means you cant get off the clutch too early and really bog the car down off boost. Blindspots are the cars main detractor. The rear service body is wider then the cab. Reversing trailers may be interesting. But as a whole im liking the new rig more every day.

If you have mirrors,reversing should,t be any problem.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

If you have mirrors,reversing should,t be any problem.

Its small trailers that are not as wide as the ute that im not looking forward to. My previous ute and van both had rear glass atleast. This one does not, so skinny trailers by the time i see them its too late to correct. Ive been backing trailers since i was 15, all off the back of my dad saying 'if you think you can do a better job' because id tease him for his weak boat ramp skills. Ended up he would tow because i wasnt legally allowed to, and id do the reversing and launching etc. Plus also, i tend to take rental lifts and stuff home overnight for early morning jobs and my driveway is tight and 55m long. Backing my boat up there is easy. Its long and wide so it doesnt change direction quickly. The tiny trailers single man lifts come on, theyre a pain to reverse at the best of times.

And so it begins...

[danzvtil]

Bought a reversing camera for my van, one of those rear vision mirror ones. Nek minute I’m watching you tube tutorial vids, splicing, soldering, tracing wiring thru the tailgate for the first time and it works like a champ.
A good thing about having a van designed 30 years ago is most of the dash is held together with PH screws, so easy access, and it hasn’t caught fire yet, so happy days.

[roKWiz]

Taking the Kenworth out to hear 903 cubic inches of V8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQZf...ature=youtu.be

[Citroënbender]

Nice to see it’s not all scorched - thought there’d been a few small fires up towards VT.

What are the newish plantings beside the driveway?

[roKWiz]

CB, Callistemon and Grevillea's.
No fires around VT, small one on top of Balmattum Hill, Euroa the other day.

Took the new Carbon Stinger for a 2hr spin.

Suede steering wheel is something else !!

Mustang isn't getting much of a look in to be honest...

[Citroënbender]

Small tree-frog, mistaking chopping board for hopping board. Quite attractive, if you’re an enthusiast for critters.



I put it in one of the pond areas, where most predators wouldn’t have a chance.

[roKWiz]

That's a mighty fine critter you have.
That little bit of rain we had here brought out some Turtles, more Echidna's and I spotted a Wombat having a mooch in the forest.
CB, Remember if you travel up George Downs Drive, GNR, keep a good lookout for the poor animals looking for food especially Wombats from Wollombi to Paynes Crossing.

[Citroënbender]

...Not enough wildlife around here now, all the trees are steadily going and the blocks redeveloped. I’m waiting for the inevitable conflict with a neighbour over the beehives, it’ll happen.

Fixed my 2008 Jaycar digital stopwatch for the price of a new LR44 battery. $1.50 running cost over 12 years; not too foul. I like to check my speedometers on the 5km freeway posts with a stopwatch, and haven’t done the ute this way yet.

[roKWiz]

Cooler here and not as smoky today so had we had a nice morning mountain bike ride around Chiltern.

Rain lots of rain

[.:4:.]

The service body on the new ute just seems to get better and better. Now i dont do many conduit jobs. So for example in my old ute a box of elbows would end up somewhere in the bottom of the tray, a pain to find. The van i had before that, a box of elbows would be on the bottom rear shelf, but youd have to move stuff out of the way to get to that shelf. The new ute the shelves face out on the passengers side, 100% access. This week ive worked with a second year who only started with my mob on wednesday, so he doesnt know where stuff is in my car. But i could say get an elbow, bottom rear shelf and hed come back 20 seconds later with it, not call 10 minutes later saying he cant find it. Granted i cant fit anything big in the back like say a comms rack, but for all the smalls i carry, its so much better orginised. Big stuff work has a trailer for, so its not the end of the world having less volume in the back. The smaller volume is 100% accessible, so its really made life so much easier not wasting time moving stuff to find stuff etc. And an added bonus, neither the fresh 1st year we have or the new 2nd year are retards. Theyre both switched on and want to do apprenticeships, not dopes who are only in it because mum said to. So neither are like flogging a dead horse to get to do work. Havent had that in a while.

[MITCHAY]

I've been back at work for the past two days, actually being productive and talking **** with the team.

For the first time in living memory, I didn't come back to just having a whole heap of work piled up.

I was pleasantly surprised that 3/4 of the emails I had were basically the corporate spam BS and the rest I didn't have anything to do anyway.

I didn't really have a great time on holidays and even thought about cutting it short. It seems most didn't either. So was good to come back to that.

Still better than a lot of people at this time.

[.:4:.]

Towed a trailer with the new work car today. It was a 1750kg cherry picker so yeah it was noticeable behind the ute, but the extra torque was also noticable. My old diesel ute was a manual so hill starts with heavier trailers was a bit of a punish on the clutch, new ute is a diesil auto. So it tows nice. Could not see the trailer the whole drive though so not being able to judge my legnth made lane changes in sydney traffic a tad more stressful then they should be. That being said, i still wouldnt go back to a tub and canopy with windows, the service body is so easy to work out of. Reversing, im deffinately going to need a spotter. I can reverse a trailer easy, but not being able to see it is, well, parking sensors dont do anything backing trailers.

[Tonz]

if you have roof racks, then buy after market reverse camera and stick screen to dashboard, I have one on my ute wired to be working the whole time, always gives me clear picture of whats happening behind me.
Love it so much I refuse to drive the wifes Subaru.

[.:4:.]

I had the conversation with my apprentice today about his job role and my teaching method. He is a second year, second week at my mob working with me. So i know his previous job it was construction and nothing more then basic bones work for the apprenti. So i said his job isnt to make my job easier by doing all the work, its to make jobs run faster by doing part of the work. Now he wants to be in a service/maintenance role. Thats what i do. So im not worried about this guy falling off a ladder or have to teach him how to strip a wire etc. He knows this. But much of the basic stuff i do daily he says to me he has never done that. So i do not show him how. I get him to do it with just some verbal guidance or a 30 second explination before hand. So far the only times ive had to take over is the odd occasion something is strange and he not really knowing what he is looking at cannot sort it out. But this guy is keen and really receptive to learning from guidance and new experience. You can watch someone do something 1000 times and be crap at it. But with this guy, having someone in his ear explaining what and how to do something is working really well. Yes i could do things faster myself, but next time i can get him working on 1 thing whilst i work on another. After time i turn it into a competition. So my main goal is to keep this guy keen and make him good at stuff. Ive watched many cooking show and cant cook anything good bar a steak or bacon, you get my drift. Experience over observation.

[Mechan1k]

That lovely sound of heavy rain and a morning thunderstorm this morning.
While working from home.

Heading home

[DFB FGXR6]

Woke this morning and decided to get the FG out. Only drove it to work but sometimes it's the simple change of routine that puts a smile on your face. That and a lovely sunny day that topped out at 25 degrees made the day quite enjoyable.

[.:4:.]

I have so much fun ommitting a few poinient words from a sentance to make people think its about something else. So today where i was working there is a spitroast place over the road. I was telling the apprentice how good the roast beef rolls are. He tells me his mates rave on about places like that, but he has never been. So we go there for lunch and had brilliant roast beef rump rolls with gravy. Afterwards i say tell your mrs you had your first spitroast with your tradesman today and the rump was excellent. He gives me the youre an idiot look and says his mrs will bash him. I suppose that would be a first, getting bashed by your girlfriend over describing your lunch.
I pulled something, different topic ofcourse on my mum a few months back. I had a work experience kid. So when i went for dinner with mum i told her and she asked how he did. I said good, we did a job here and there and ended up in a hospital. She got concerned and asked if i was ok. I said fine. She aged about 2 years from concern when she asked was the work experience kid ok. I said he was also fine. We were pulling cables...

[Syndrome]

Seeing that Margaret Court's record of 24 Grand Slam wins is still safe.

Relaxing on Australia Day

No work No stress No alcohol

[MITCHAY]

I worked out, had a **** load of prawns for lunch and now smashing tinnies while listening to some Aussie tunes. Steaks on the BBQ later

[anobserver]

Driving my Australian made car on Australia day.

[anobserver]

Washing and polishing my Aus made wheelz. And the rest of it.....

[.:4:.]

Called my sister today. Well, actually i called her husband first. He didnt answer. Hence my calling my sister. Havent spoken to her in 3 or 4 years and we had a nice conversation, no bad blood or anything. The reason i called was strictly business with her husband, but he and i get along and whilst we havent spoken per say in years, we are all good. Its family business, not between them or i, its about my dads will and the fact they paid funeral costs etc. So maybe not the best way to reconnect, but im trying to sort them out before the final business, and my sister answered the phone. I was half expecting her to have a diferent number in the years past.

[Feathers]

Met up with a couple of Canadian guys who put a post on Reddit, asking if anyone in Sydney wanted to meet up while they were out here on holiday. We'd been chatting a little beforehand, to make sure we had stuff in common, and weren't nutters.

Had lunch in Darling Harbour, a beer in Cockle Bay, and then went for a walk across the Harbour Bridge, catching a ferry back to Circular Quay. Was a good day. And now I have contacts for when I eventually make it to Toronto!