Administrators Eric Posted January 4, 2022 Administrators Share Posted January 4, 2022 I was sitting in the floor earlier mounting a small vise to a 2'X2' piece of 3/4" plywood. I am going to use it to hold circuit boards when I work on them. I had a towel over my lap, the plywood in my lap and I drilled three holes to mount the vise. Actually, I drilled six holes. I drilled three the bolt diameter, to locate the T-Nuts so I could chisel recesses for them in the back. Then, three more holes the diameter of the thread barrel of the T-Nuts. As I was finishing up, I had an epiphany. I had just drill six holes through a piece of plywood and towards my lap. Towards my junk, a couple of femoral arteries and all manner of other sensitive tissue. Not the smartest thing to do. The fact that I got away with it doesn't make it any smarter, but I'm glad I got away with it, just the same. Sometimes I do stupid things. Luckily, they don't bite me on the ass very often. What are some stupid things you've done, that you managed to get away with? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Eric Posted January 4, 2022 Author Administrators Share Posted January 4, 2022 This is what I was working on. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Eric Posted January 4, 2022 Author Administrators Share Posted January 4, 2022 Not my cleanest chisel work, but it got the job done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwalchmai Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 I still have a couple of years to go before I can say... 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maser Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Did a lot of stupid **** as a kid with dangerous chemicals such as Armstrong's Mix and nitrogen triiodide. How I still have all my limbs is anyone's guess. Also working on farms introduced me to ANFO. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batesmotel Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Made fireworks and explosives as a kid. Played and I do mean played with high explosives in the Marines. Have had many vehicles airborne. Both on and off road. Did a lot of dumb stuff in construction. Did a lot of real stupid stuff demolishing buildings. Things I did in (on, under) helicopters were epic. Stupid but fun. Only crashed once and only fell out once also. Working with chemical and welding in confined spaces. Tried to vent but it didn’t always work. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janice6 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 As a "child" I used to climb around on the peaks and gables of a 100-year-old mansion 4 stories above the ground to anchor guy lines and antennas. One day my mother drove up and saw me peaking over the ornamental ball on the peak of a gable 4 stories above her head. Got a lot of crap over that. Only once slipped and slowly sliding on my heels down a slippery cedar shingle roof. I could see the edge coming slowly closer and the concrete steps below me. My heels finally caught in the built-in rain gutter in the edge of the roof. I had to holler till my sister heard me and opened the top of the third story window so I could swing over the gutter into the top of the window to an inside hall. Never told my parents. Shooting .22 rifles with my buddies. We found an abandoned poured concrete structure in a field outside of town. It had a 2'x2' window in the wall next to a 1/4" steel door and was about 5 ft by 10 foot inside. It was formerly used to store ammunition for the police range many years before we were told. I got inside of the building plastered my back against the door and the other guys proceeded to shoot the hell out of the building. Many shots were intentionally through the window. I could hear the loud singing of the ricochets flying around the inside of the building with me. We took turns in there! Surprisingly, no one got shot. I had a Winchester Model 74 in .22 short. God, I loved that gun. All the other guys had .22 long or Long rifle. I was curious about the difference between them. So, I loaded a .22 Long into the ejection chamber and repeatedly kept hammering the bolt to drive it into the chamber. Then I lined it up on a fence post 10 feet away and pulled the trigger. It was pretty loud and some smoke. But no hole in the post? I knew I couldn't miss from that distance, so I looked into the bore with the slide back. Black! I took the rifle home and straightened out a clothes hanger and hammered it into the obstruction till the bullet fell out. Gun was fine and after70 more years, gave it to my son who in turn gave it to his daughter. Wonderful gun, held around 1/2 a box at one loading, through the stock. In the Navy I was the only radio operator on the ship, so I stood my duty all night instead of days. I couldn't be on any work duty during the day since I worked all night. Few were awake on my small ship at night, so I tuned the radios to the Ham Band frequencies and pretended I was in a car going down highway 1A along the coast. One time a Ham insisted that I stop at his house to see him since he lived on the highway. I faked losing him in the noise since I was in a ship at sea. On leave I got a notice from the FCC that I had the worst signal they had ever heard on a Ham band, and I was in violation of my license. I told them my transmitter had failed and I would fix it to spec's. I never heard from them again. I guess Navy transmitters were really bad back then. My ship was with the 6th Fleet anchored in Beirut harbor during a revolution in 1959 or 60. I got bored and discovered the flashing light one evening. So I played with it and called CQ to each ship I could see at night in the harbor. CQ was an Amateur Radio means of asking if anyone wanted to talk. Finally, I got a ship to answer and we BS'd for a while. Then a couple of other ships joined in and we had a flashing light round table going around midnight. It turns out that for Hams, the flashing light was slow but easy to send morse code on, so we had a good time. The next morning a notice came around the Fleet warning that the unauthorized use of flashing light would be dealt with by an investigation. It turns out that we were sending too fast for the signalmen to copy us so nobody except us Hams knew what was being said. When they came to me to explain what I was doing, I simply told them that I found the flashing light was simple to operate and kind of fun to practice on with the other Hams on the other ships. We talked about Ham radio and nothing of importance. The investigation by the 6th Fleet command found that they discovered an unknown ability in communications by people not trained in the signalman's duties and it was a virtue, not a detriment. We were told to never do it again but, be ready to back up the flashing light communications any time we were needed. We were much faster than the people trained on flashing light. I got a "ribbon" for being in Beirut during a battle that I had no part in. I buggered up our new transmitters so that we had 10 times the transmission power that the ship was issued. We could communicate from Beirut harbor to Washington, D.C. directly when the communications flag ship couldn't. On day I had to prove it to the Brass, and I did. Some were pissed and my Captain was pleased. We were tied to the Communications ship in the harbor, so it was an ego thing for my Captain. I was sitting on my ship tied to the pier one weekend in Charleston Atlantic Mine warfare Base, and got bored. So I put together a small one transistor transmitter and practiced sending code from a Ham magazine. Later in the day a group came aboard and accused me of unauthorized transmissions. The copied what I was sending but it made no sense to them. It was an article about building a ham transmitter. I showed them the little transmitter and that it was only a hundred milliwatts so they let me go with a warning. I seemed to get a lot of warnings in the Navy. I already told the story of the gate guards excitement at finding a nice wooden box in my trunk labeled "MK ?? Grenades". (I forget what type of grenades came in that nice box. They let me go after the excitement was over. Every time I tried to be the "bad guy" my friends were no one believed it was me and I was always let go. I did have some fun. But I'm better now! 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAKA Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Ham radio "used" to be fun, but it seems there are fewer and fewer hams these days.. 73 and tnx... And as far as stupid things....too many to even start mentioning.... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampfox762 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 I heard a story bout a dude that taped an M-80 to the "Bubble" on the side of a gas pump...in a gas station...after hours...WAY back in the day...There were "reasons" I heard.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swampfox762 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 4 minutes ago, DAKA said: Ham radio "used" to be fun, but it seems there are fewer and fewer hams these days.. 73 and tnx... And as far as stupid things....too many to even start mentioning.... I was a "bootleg" Ham. talked all over the world. It was a Blast till the "skip" rolled in late 70's 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostinTexas Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 2 hours ago, Eric said: I was sitting in the floor earlier mounting a small vise to a 2'X2' piece of 3/4" plywood. I am going to use it to hold circuit boards when I work on them. I had a towel over my lap, the plywood in my lap and I drilled three holes to mount the vise. Actually, I drilled six holes. I drilled three the bolt diameter, to locate the T-Nuts so I could chisel recesses for them in the back. Then, three more holes the diameter of the thread barrel of the T-Nuts. As I was finishing up, I had an epiphany. I had just drill six holes through a piece of plywood and towards my lap. Towards my junk, a couple of femoral arteries and all manner of other sensitive tissue. Not the smartest thing to do. The fact that I got away with it doesn't make it any smarter, but I'm glad I got away with it, just the same. Sometimes I do stupid things. Luckily, they don't bite me on the ass very often. What are some stupid things you've done, that you managed to get away with? You're here to admit it, with a little egg on your face. Well done, and never do anything you don't want to explain to the Paramedics. Yes, I've seen that trick that didn't work so well. The most stupid thing I did and got away with? Joined the Navy and all the antics and assignments over the next ten years. George H can kiss my salty b**ls with his "Kinder Gentler World" and "Thousand Points of Light". He decommissioned my unit and we were all sent to the unemployment line. Bright side? I hold no ill will toward the b@st@rd over it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul53 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Will be 69 next week and I keep thinking; what idiot is running this show? All the crap I got away with, never arrested or did time, it's outrageous that I'm alive and free to walk in public! Just categorizing it all is impossible, never mind alphabetizing. WTF???? Dear District Attorneys. Just kidding. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aomagrat Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Just past mid last century my cousin and I were walking through the woods and came across a clearing with an ancient brick chimney standing in the middle of it. On closer examination we discovered that the mortar holding the bricks together had almost turned to sand and with a little prying the bricks could be pulled out by hand. So being the preteen idiots that we were, we decided to try to knock the chimney over. So we started removing bricks from the base of the chimney. After about an hour of removing bricks and shoving, the chimney stood resolute against us, despite the base looking like a cartoon tree chewed by beavers. So we lost interest and decided to find something easier to destroy. As we were walking away we heard a loud rumble behind us. We turned to see that the chimney had collapsed straight down. If we had still been by the base of the chimney, we would have been buried under a ton of bricks. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
railfancwb Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 As a teen, lying flat on the seat of my Vespa, feet sticking out behind, with the machine wound out. Once was [more than] enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norton Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Rode motorcycles for more then 30 years before the first ka boom. Quit then. I loved it, but no way I would do it again at my age. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT4494 Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 When I was just a little guy, I would take the metal edges off of the wooden rulers and stick them in the outlet to watch it spark. Then there was the lighter fluid on wooden floors episode. Make a trail and light it. It would burn out before the flame would hurt the varnish. This is just a couple of the things I did as a chiold. And then I moved on to a career that included working around LARGE ordnance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batesmotel Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Car Surfing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cougar_ml Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Even if the statute of limitations has run out, I'm not saying. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walt Longmire Posted January 5, 2022 Share Posted January 5, 2022 Logging in the old growth. Commercial Fishing in Alaska. Lucky I'm still here. Other than that, the statute of limitations has mostly run out on some of the other stuff I did. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
railfancwb Posted January 5, 2022 Share Posted January 5, 2022 30 minutes ago, Walt Longmire said: Logging in the old growth. Commercial Fishing in Alaska. Lucky I'm still here. Other than that, the statute of limitations has mostly run out on some of the other stuff I did. Does the statute of limitations start running when one does the deed or when the deed is discovered by “the authorities”? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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