Getting old!!! Did a STUPID today!!!

It seems the older I get the more stupid stuff I figure out to do. Today I needed to go the Dyersville for some business and we still have a some corn sold with a Aug. delivery date. So I decide to haul a load of corn up to the ethanol plant while going to town. We have two 700 bushel holding bins elevated above the unload at the bins. These overhead bins have scales on them. So you can easily preload what ever weight you need to be legal in the bins. The boys traded grain trailers a few weeks ago. This was the first time I used the new trailer. It has an electric roll tarp. You have a little fob just like your car doors have. It also has hydraulic sump doors too. Same fob controls both. So I pull under the overhead bins. I open the tarp as I get out of the semi tractor. I have 550 bushels in the first bin and 450 in the second. This will make the semi be exactly axle legal. The overhead bins have a hand wheel that turns a chain driven rack gear to open the slide doors. So I spin the first bin's door wide open. I am walking back to the second bin when I start to get corn running off the front half of the trailer. WHAT THE HECK!!!!!! I run back to the first bin just in time for it to empty clear out.

So I climbed the ladder to see what had happened. Some how I must have hit the tarp close button on the fob while I was opening the overhead bin door. I had watched the tarp open all the way and stop before I got out of the cab. So anyway, I dumped 550 bushels of corn on top of the roll tarp. It had closed about 3/4 of the way. Lets just say it was NOT designed for that type of use. LOL So I managed to wreck the long roll pipe, the tarp, and 3 bows. This is on a trailer that has hauled 3 loads of corn since NEW.

Then to make it even better, enough of the tarp tore and went down into the hopper that when I opened the sump door, to dump the corn back into the pit, the tarp remains blocked the corn from coming out. So I had to shovel corn around the sides to get enough room for me to cut the tarp clear off so I could get the corn unloaded back into the pit.

So I was late for my appointment, DID NOT get the corn hauled and wiped out just at $750 worth of parts to put it back in new shape. This was all before about 10 AM. I had the rest of the day to wreck something else. LOL

So I drove to Urbana after lunch and got the parts I needed to fix it back. I just told the boys to keep walking if they thought about riding me about it. LOL So just before supper I had the new tarp on and the bent bows replaced. It really is not hard to do just did not plan to do it just yet on this "new" trailer.

Now I will just have to see what else I do that is stupid this week.

Dirt Dummies just love it when they get distracted when getting ready to dump and don't get the tarp rolled over all the way. Usually you notice before you go too far. One time I didn't and going down the road after getting out of the site, I heard a fairly loud THWACK. I look in the mirror and there is half my tarp hanging down from the bar. It was ripped at the back, and fortunately close enough to the end that I was able to put new grommets in and save it. I drive a truck occasionally now and recently I was about to pull out onto the road and saw my friend who owns the project talking to the excavation contractor. I stopped for a minute to say Hi, then pulled out, and heard a load whistle. I looked back and there is my tarp straight up. fortunately the contractor alerted me.

you didnt have to tell us,we never would have found out,,,,lol

So you think it was the FOB/remote, probably in your pocket and you bumped a button ?

Any way to lock it out so you can't do that or some small hard case or what, I've done it with a garage door remote.

I'll have to admit to being intimidated whenever running a new or new to me truck/trailer or what have you, until you settle in and know the routine.

First thing I did when I started hauling oats from the field to the feed outfit's silo 40 miles south of here was dummy proof the sileage/grain body on the tandem Mack I was driving for the farmer I was helping out. I tried to think of all the "stupid" things possible. First was closing the valves on the hydraulic tail gate, whoever thought of putting gate valves there, must have opened a tailgate by mistake with a full load on, perfect, that eliminates that. Next worst thing was remembering to shut that hoist pto off, wrote myself a note and stuck it in plain sight.

It just gives you stress and an uneasy feeling, knowing if I ever made a mistake, its going to be all on me and costly.

My worst fear was delivering sawdust for calve bedding at a huge dairy north of here, the open end bins where the various materials or feed were stored, were 90 degrees off from where you backed in, and though I did get the truck backed up squarely to it once, to prove I could do it and not worry about being uneven, it was a real pain to do this, and you can't do it with other trucks waiting or the feed wagon operator mixing up a load of feed. So that means you had to dump off on uneven ground, the concrete apron ended in the dirt somewhere and there was this sweet spot where it was safe, off to either side it could be questionable and raising a 20' body laden with weight, someone elses truck, pure stress. Hated delivering there to that set of bins. I'll post a photo of this.

Worst one was forgetting sawdust will freeze to the bed and itself. Sawdust is hard to get around here, another outfit scarfs all of it up, so when you get a call you can get some, you have to go get it immediately. So I'd do this after the day job and if it was going to be dark, or late, just fine to run it up and deliver early the next morning.

I did just that and the whole load just stuck, same conditions as above and when that load hangs up and you have to lower that body..... stress!!!

2 hours to break it up and shovel it, I should have delivered it right after, just can't win, and I did NOT charge any time for doing this, he;d have paid me, I could not do that, load just did not pay enough as it was, he eventually stopped hauling sawdust, no money in it at all.

I learned the hard way not to tarp in the wind. Picked my butt up about a foot off of the ground and slammed me into the trailer. I never let go of the handle, saved the tarp.

I'm a lot younger than you and tried to load 25 tons of feather meal on the tarp once, it doesn't work very well. Also tried loading a hopper once with the bottom door partially open, that wasn't one of my better days either.

Next time you feel the need to explore alternative ways to haul corn ASK, we might be able to save you the research cost and tell you what didn't work.

I'd go with the story that the fob was in your pocket and your jackknife must of pushed the button and closed the tarp when you weren't looking. If I drive one of our vehicles with a IKT (the big key with buttons on it) I almost have to leave it in my desk or lunch box or the darn alarm on the car ends up going off, I don't even think about carrying the remote start fob in my pocket, okay I did it once it didn't work to well, okay it did work really well the darn car started, saw it was running when I went to bed, don't know how long it was running.

I have pegged out the stupidity meter a few times myself, its a wonder I am still alive with some of the things I did when I was young.
I keep telling myself I must still be here for a reason.

Nope not me! I have only done one stupid thing in my entire life back in 73. I'm still married to her.

Rick

NO need to feel "bad" or "old"!

In just a couple of generations we have gone from "the horse and buggy days" to an overwhelming pervasion of (not always user friendly) electronics, often designed by folks that will never deal with what they have done "in the real world".

I don't think human evolution has quite kept up, IMHO!

My Dodge Ram truck has remote start on the key fob. I came out of work one day and found the truck running. I don't know how long it was running.

Saw a picture of a truck going down the interstate with the box in the raised position as it approached an overpass. I would expect that the driver was asking himself , "what the h%$# did I forget" as the truck struck the bridge! Don't worry, old man, you are not done yet!

(quoted from post at 05:40:44 08/21/15) Saw a picture of a truck going down the interstate with the box in the raised position as it approached an overpass. I would expect that the driver was asking himself , "what the h%$# did I forget" as the truck struck the bridge! Don't worry, old man, you are not done yet!

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I have never done any night work, and it is always easy to know that your body is up by the light coming in your back window. When night paving you don't have that. A few years ago a guy took off down the road not far from here to get his next load. His body was still up, and before he came to a stop he had pulled down three poles and all of the wire with them. This was on a main road so it put a lot of homes and businesses out of electricity for the whole next day.

Don't feel bad, I've heard of several people using their remotes to roll their tarps at a scale and opening the traps instead. Mike

(quoted from post at 20:06:30 08/20/15) Nope not me! I have only done one stupid thing in my entire life back in 73. I'm still married to her.

Rick

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I got married too young. I was 45. I thought I made a mistake once, but I was mistaken.