Ready to sell out/move to warmer place

MM · February 04, 2005, 12:23:42 AM

I've had bad luck past few months. Had my mill at a customers location. I've cut a million bd ft for this guy. He's one of the biggest farmers in my area. He has a bunch if cattle. He is always building or rebuilding barns. Well everything was going good. Three weeks of sawing. I had to make a run south. so I was gone a week. He decided to cut timber at another farm. So he sent the guy building the barn to help me out and move my mill for me. So I could get right to sawing when I got back. Bad thing was they hooked it to a tractor. That's OK, until they pulled out on the road. The guy driving turned too sharp. Bad things happened to the hyd. control box. Really bad things. They guy driving the tractor said he would pay for it. (hasn't yet)
I have a Gehl 6635 skid loader. I was using it and all the sudden the left drive motor locked up. It was bad. I was on the road. For those who have gelhs with hydro lock. that's a bad place to be. they will not move. That was fun. After I got it off the road and took the pumps off to get to the drive motor. Bad went to really bad. I called my local Gehl dealer. The part I need is $1500. a whole new motor is 3k. ouch!!!! :-\ I think I'm going to leave all this "Junk" sit and go fishing down south!!! 8)

fstedy · February 04, 2005, 12:36:21 AM

MM
Sorry to hear of your :( bad luck :(. Hang in their things will get better. I always told my kids when they were down to look back several years to another major dissapointment in their lives. It was pretty major at the time but not so now. You'll get your equipment repaired and be ;D ;D ;D makin sawdust ;D ;D ;D soon.

Cedarman · February 04, 2005, 10:06:34 AM

When things go bad, I think back to the time I was an electrical logging engineer for a oilwell wireline service company.

One day we were getting ready to lower the shaped charge assembly down the borehole to perforate the well casing to let the oil in. Everything was ready for the tool to go down the well and the winchman was releasing cable to get us to the 9000 foot level and I had about 1/2 hour to wait. We were on an offshore platform out in the Atlantic, so we had a cafeteria near the top deck. I went up to get a cup of coffee, rest a minute and head back to my unit. About that time the rig superintendant came in and said my man had broken the cable and the tool with shaped charges had went down the hole. I thought he was kidding for about 2 seconds. I found out my winch man had done the unthinkable (I won't describe in detail) and made a big mistake.
Anyway we had to rig down and the drilling company went in with drill pipe and recovery tool and fished the equipment out. Took about 12 hours.
Rig time was about $4000 per hour in the mid 70's. So I had just cost a major oil company $48,000 since I was in charge and the buck stopped with me.

One of my fellow engineers had a chain come loose and broke a cable which sent about 4000 feet of cable down the borehole. The oil company fished cable for a few days, couldn't clear the hole, had to cement that hole in and start redrilling another. Several hundred thousand dollars lost.

So I put what happens now into perspective whenever we make a mistake. Do not like it one little bit, but learn and go on.

fstedy · February 04, 2005, 10:49:25 AM

Cedarman
You mentioned drilling in the Atlantic in the 70's. Did you use Bader Field in Atlantic City as a transportation base? I was a Captain for Allegheny Commuter during the time when they were doing exploratory drilling here and we flew the crews to Philadelphia during their duty rotations. If you did its a small world isn't it.

pifan · February 04, 2005, 11:34:32 AM

I feel for you in relation to bad luck my drain for my basement plugged up and one night after work we had 2 " of water in it we spent that night and the next whole day cleaning and drying we both felt sick about the stuff that was wrecked we finally took a break and turned on the t.v. what do you think was on a show showing floods where whole houses were floating away we looked at each other thinking the same thing we actually felt alot better it could have been alot worse!

Cedarman · February 04, 2005, 04:35:08 PM

fstedy, I was working out of eastern Trinidad and the rigs were about 40 miles offshore. I don't remember which company flew us out there. I just remember I always kept my life jacket tight and loved to sit in the copilots seat. Most of the flight jockeys were ex Viet Nam vets. They were extremely professional about their flying.
This was in 75 and 76.

In 69 they drilled some deep test holes near Kitty Hawk on the outer banks, but we drove to those sites. I remember having my first drink of Lancer's Rose from those clay looking bottles. It was real late in the year and the area was deserted. We had the restaurant to ourselves. Funny what you remember.

fstedy · February 04, 2005, 04:56:46 PM

cedarman
This drilling was done about 100 miles off of the New Jersey coast. I quess we didn't cross paths after all. We flew the De Haviland Twin Otters after Petrolem Helicopters brought the crews ashore.

SwampDonkey · February 12, 2005, 07:27:24 PM

I've flown (as passenger) in alot of single and twin otters, but on the opposite coast line and for forestry, not oil. Alot of our pilots were from the east and as far away as NZ and Australia.

Fla._Deadheader · February 12, 2005, 07:36:13 PM

C'mon down to Florida. I will sell you my place, and you and Ed can do the water logging thingy. Might just letcha run ole Homey. ;) ;) ;D ;D ;D

It's cold here, around 45° at night and 65° in the daytime. :

:D :D :D