[TheForge] and it all happened even before the coffee was done brewing ; -)

[terry l. ridder]

hello;

as the subject states it all happened before the coffee was done
brewing.


a semi-truck load of stone had been waiting to be deliver until the
road posting of weight restriction was lifted. the road posting was
lifted by the county on saturday, i received a telephone call at like
0600 am asking if they could deliver the stone today. i said sure when
did they want to deliver it, they said the truck was all ready on its
way here. ( wonder what would of happened if i had said no you cannot
deliver it today. ;-) ) 30 minutes later the semi-truck arrives and i
instruct the driver where to dump the stone and to watch out for the
overhead electrical wires. he nodded at me and smiled and went back to
his truck. backed up onto the lawn area west of the driveway and
proceeded to dump the load. by this time i was really concerned that he
was going to hit the overhead electrical lines the 7.6 kva electrical
lines. with the dump nearly at 90 degrees to the ground the driver pulls
straight out and takes out both power lines in a massive shower of
sparks and arcing and flashing. the arcing wires proceeded to start the
dry front lawn on fire. within minutes the fire department, county
sherif, commonwealth edison repair crew, the joint utilites location
service (julie) were here. thankfully the truck driver was not injured
and smart enough not to attempt to get out of the cab of the truck with
7.6 kva wires hanging from his rig. the one electrical line was arc
welded to the aluminum dump body. very impressive.

so standing outside in my pajamas with my winter coat on and brown work
boots with cap and gloves i am answering the fire departments questions,
the county sherif's questions, commonwealth edison's questions. then the
trucking company's manager shows up and i answer his quesitons.

about the time i thought i could go inside the county sherif calls me
and asks if the 6 cars carrying my friends can come past the county
sherif road block which the setup while commonwealth edison repaired the
lines. i said yes, knowing fair well that they would all ask me what i
had done to get so much attention so early in the morning. i was right.

when i mentioned the paver stone idea at the morning coffee, gary comes
over to me and begins feeling  my head, asking if i had hit my head
outside to come up with such an asinine idea as that.



-- 
terry l. ridder ><>