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I Bought A Firetruck
- claudius 14y agoDon’t you guys have voluntary fire brigades or volunteer-driven agencies for technical relief[0] over there? Sure, you can’t get your groceries with one of their trucks, but driving them is still pretty fun I was told. Plus you don’t have to park them in your driveway. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technisches_Hilfswerk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technisches_Hilfswerk
- _delirium 14y agoDepends on where you live. In this guy's case, it looks like he lives in a smallish Montana town, so yeah, it's pretty likely that his local fire department is volunteer-run, and joining it would be an alternate way to get this experience. Could be more commitment than he wants, though, since you typically have to take training courses, not to mention actually commit to responding to fires and other calls (a large percentage of fire-department calls are medical responses rather than fires). That's a bit different than just buying a truck. On the plus side, that could itself be interesting, and would be the way to go if you wanted to really learn to operate firefighting equipment. Some numbers [1]: about 70% of U.S. firefighters are volunteer while 30% are career jobs, but the vast majority of the volunteer firefighters (94% of them) serve communities with under 25,000 people. Medium-sized towns and above typically have a professionally staffed department. [1] http://www.nfpa.org/displayContent.asp?categoryID=955 http://www.nfpa.org/displayContent.asp?categoryID=955
- willyt 14y agoTraffic accidents, railway suicides, stuff like that can be pretty gruesome. You have to be a certain type of person to be prepared to deal with that sort of thing.
- jdmitch 14y agoTo be fair it's not really that much more impractical than driving a HUM-V around in urban areas (which is frighteningly common), and definitely way cooler! Does it have a built-in telescoping ladder - that could actually be quite a lot more useful than the firehose...
- nohostility 14y agoEdit: I guess I've been banned.
- bredren 14y agoDoes anyone remember the two-seater firetruck arcade game? That thing ruled. edit: this! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Truck_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Truck_(video_game)
- fudged71 14y agoNo, but firetrucks in GTA were always a fun ride.
- herpaderp 14y agoWHAT AN AMAZING STORY ABOUT HACKING! Seriously, HN needs to see if there is a service out there that spams these type of sites with these horribly uninteresting reddit/digg/boingboing/hurrderp stories.
- randomchars 14y ago> horribly uninteresting That's your opinion. And apparently the community doesn't agree with you.
- druiid 14y agoI wish I had downvote ability right about now... so I could negative karma you even more. There is this constant argument about these kinds of stories on hacker news. It's not about being 'hacking' related, it's about being interesting and informative. I'd say the story qualifies for both.
- thezach 14y agoI think its very interesting... and to be honest it is hacking in a way... not just in the technical way you want it to be.
- trafficlight 14y agoI'm coming down to Missoula for Barcamp in April. I expect a ride on this thing.
- gaustin 14y agoA firetruck ride might convince me to make the trip over for Barcamp...
- uogecko 14y agoWhen is Barcamp this year? I'll bring it :)
- trafficlight 14y agoApril 13th. https://www.facebook.com/events/337629019680637/?ref=22 https://www.facebook.com/events/337629019680637/?ref=22
- pmorici 14y ago"Even though it's 31 years old and technically qualifies as an antique" What makes something technically and antique? I was under the impression that 50+ years was measure of antiqueness but I can't remember why I think that.
- bcl 14y agoDepends on the state you live in. In Montana it qualifies for special license plates when a vehicle is 30 years old. https://doj.mt.gov/driving/license-plates/#antiqueplates https://doj.mt.gov/driving/license-plates/#antiqueplates Although by driving it to work he probably violates the 'general transportation' provision.
- uogecko 14y agoThe problem with antique registration in Montana (and this wasn't made clear on the state website) is that you can only drive an antique to and from parades and/or car shows. I had originally planned to register it with antique plates because it's more affordable than a standard registration. That was a deal breaker though.
- hariananth 14y agoI'd guess that he means relative to other vehicles on the road. He follows that with "it looks like a modern fire truck." Apart from things like GPS and maybe improved radio communication, I'm curious as to what design and feature improvements have come along, considering those in nearly all other modes of transportation over the same period, and the importance they serve. E.g. do firetrucks really need to be that huge? It seems like a huge disadvantage, especially in cities.
- jlgaddis 14y ago> do firetrucks really need to be that huge? How many thousands of gallons of water can a Prius hold? =)
- 14y ago
- unimpressive 14y agoMaybe I missed it, but how did he get it shipped to Montana?
- RyJones 14y agoflatbed semi
- shawn-butler 14y agoThat must have cost more than the actual vehicle? The "sustainable" part of my mind is competing with the "cool project" part. I'm not sure which is going to win out yet. I wonder how competitive it would have been to send it by rail?
- RyJones 14y agoHe does say it was more to ship than to purchase.
- uogecko 14y agoI've been trying to forget about that part of this - the cost of shipping SUCKED.
- shawn-butler 14y agoDid you investigate rail shipping? I had a collectible truck shipped by rail and it was much cheaper than OTR. It was some time ago though, but I imagine for something as large as a fire engine it might have been very cost-effective.
- uogecko 14y agoYep! I briefly looked into it but was told that it wouldn't be possible to get it anywhere close to me by rail.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI've always thought that an old firetruck would make a much better RV conversion platform than an old bus. The reasoning is that a firetruck (especially a pumper truck) has a suspension that is designed to carry much more weight than a bus so you would not be as constrained in what you could build on top of it. Jay Leno did an excellent column about how amazing fire trucks are in terms of durability. The OP said that "fire trucks" weren't designed to drive on the highway at highway speeds, which is a bit of an over generalization. The National Forest Service for example has a number of trucks in California that are tasked with driving up and down the state to fight wild fires. They not only drive on the highway, they end up with a couple million miles on them before they are retired. In terms of practicality (there isn't much :-) but a ladder truck has the ability to put you fairly high up somewhat "away" from the truck. (although an inexperienced operator could easily tip over their truck if they weren't careful) and they have those pretty awesome hydraulic stabilizing legs. I sketched out briefly a sort of 'circus tent' RV where the tenting was connected to a ladder truck's ladder which could then extend up and allow you to stake out a tent around it. A number of issues there, from the outgassing of the truck into your tent :-) and the ladder has a specified end load that it can move around which is often less than 500 lbs so you end can't really hoist canvas, you would get away with light nylon at best. But in terms of interesting vehicles to own I agree with the author that there is a certain cachet there :-)
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoMy bus/RV conversion weighs about 18 tons. It has 6 ton front axle and in the rear it has an 11 ton and an additional 6 or 8 ton axle. While a fire truck has a ridiculously strong suspension, if you used that for an RV, you would get a punishing amount of vibration and shaking. I guess you could ballast it, but you'll waste a lot of fuel hauling ballast around, in addition to being dangerously underpowered in some situations. I think that a fire truck is not a good candidate for an RV conversion, unless you have a very specific definition of "Recreation" in mind.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoThat is a great point about the suspension. The water doesn't care about bumps. A bit of searching lead me to this interesting page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_apparatus which supports your thesis. Since a bus is designed for riding comfort much of the suspension work is geared to that. That is something I really hadn't thought enough about.
- smoyer 14y agoSomeone got their childhood dream! Mine was shattered when I found out that my dad didn't drive trains (An electrical engineer is apparently not the same thing). Since then, I've ridden on many trains, but I haven't driven one (yet).
- ChuckMcM 14y agoWe did this http://wplives.org/ral.html http://wplives.org/ral.html with our kids, yes they let you actually drive the locomotive around, it was freakin' awesome!
- smoyer 14y agoWow! ... I live in central PA and we're blessed with quite a few "steam excursions" and there's a local historical rail society too. Unfortunately, none of them allow you to "drive the train".
- timthorn 14y agoCome to England. Steam train driving sessions are a common way for the restored branch lines to raise funds.
- mark_l_watson 14y agoThanks for that link! I just forward it to my wife and a bunch of friends we sometimes travel with. Thanks!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rdl 14y agoI still want an office in a light industrial area with a concrete wall/bollards/ditch, and a roller gate, behind which I could park a 5 ton truck and/or unimog or fire truck or something (so as to make it impossible to drive through the gate). I had no idea fire trucks were even cheaper than old 2.5 or 5 ton military trucks.
- unimpressive 14y agoOkay I'll bite. Why?
- cglace 14y agoI don't know about him. But having had my home broken into many times its easy to become obsessed with preventing entry into your home.
- rdl 14y agoOnsite power, generators, parking for cars, a big tower for RF, satellite, security, etc. A perfect office normally and set up perfectly for disaster response when the earthquake eventually hits. Being able to get $0.95/ft2 NNN on Pioneer, and taking an entire building, so each employee has 500+ square feet... Imagine being the only place with real comms, security, and competent people (i.e. non-government), just like my friend who stayed in his ISP in NOLA after Katrina, or my office in Baghdad, or any other situation like that.
- meisterbrendan 14y agoso this is my favorite thing, ever.
- carlob 14y agoIs there some sort of crazy game of one-upmanship in the USA as to who can drive the most impractical gas guzzler? First it was stretch limos, then Hummers, then Hummer stretch limos. I wonder if we're gonna see stretch limo fire trucks… Edit (since I'm being downvoted): The story is cool, I just find the fact that he's driving it daily to work completely retarded. What the hell I consider driving a car to work to be hardly justifiable at all in our trade, but a 31 year old fire truck is sending a giant fuck you to anyone else trying to reduce their carbon emissions.
- petepete 14y agoThere is a (non-stretched) Fire Engine Limousine in my hometown, I don't know which company it belongs to but I've seen it a few times in central Manchester. Looks like this: http://www.needalimo.com/our-cars/novelty-limos/fire-engine-limos/index.htm http://www.needalimo.com/our-cars/novelty-limos/fire-engine-...
- jeffdavis 14y agoIf someone wrote about their experiences travelling the world, would you make a similar criticism? After all, they are flying, which causes a lot of extra carbon emissions. Or is the fire truck particularly bad for some reason?
- Swizec 14y agoAs a European I don't understand the american fascination with impractically fhuge cars for every day commuting. Okay I get it, you want a big car for that roadtrip or vacation. Understandable, I do too. But for everyday stuff? My hatchback does perfectly fine around town ... hell, it does perfectly well on most vacations and long drives too.
- sliverstorm 14y agoThere's no complicated fascination. It is simple. People like big cars because they are spacious, feel safer, provide a higher vantage point, and a host of other reasons. Your hatchback is perfectly fine around town, but it can't tow a boat, and most people don't like to have multiple cars. So, what winds up happening is people buy the most car they think they will need. It's totally overkill driving to work, and plenty of people never actually tow that boat, but this is why it happens. Europeans would do the exact same thing, I figure, if they lived in an economic climate with similar gas prices and car taxes and such. With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small.
- geoka9 14y agoI wonder if the author realizes what a waste it is to drive a big car (let alone a fire truck) to the grocery store. We all love nature. We go out of our way to live in a place where it is more spectacular. And yet we do our best to shit on it with the damn gas guzzlers. Because, you know, it's fun!
- rcfox 14y agoIt'll be slightly offset by the fact that it has a diesel engine. Not enough to make it equivalent to car, but it's something...
- carlob 14y agoI've always wondered: why aren't there more diesel cars in the US?
- newbie12 14y agoBecause they used to stink and rattle.
- rcfox 14y agoFrom what I gathered from a quick look at Wikipedia, probably the biggest factor is that diesel engines are best used for high-torque, low-speed applications.
- shocks 14y agoThis. In Sweden 90% of the cars are diesel because they need the high-torque and low-speed in the snow, plus Sweden is big and there's only 9 million of them so most journeys are pretty long.
- tyskis 14y agoThe 90% number is not true. Although the percentage of diesel cars has gone up dramatically, it is not that high. In 2011 only 17% of cars were diesel driven[1]. During the first two months of 2013, 63% of new cars were diesel[2]. [1] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2011A01B/FORDON_2011_v2.xls http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2011A01B/FORDON_2011_v... [2] http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2013M02/Trafikanalys_1302.xls http://www.scb.se/Statistik/TK/TK1001/2013M02/Trafikanalys_1...
- nraynaud 14y agoThis is completely immature and un-professional. I want one.
- Axsuul 14y agoWould make a good movie title (We Bought a Zoo)
- shurcooL 14y agoIsn't $3600 kinda ridiculously inexpensive given that a Civic costs over $15k? What's the insurance and mileage on that thing like?
- Goopplesoft 14y agoArticle says the milage is 47k, crazy low for its age.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoEngine hours is where it's at. I bet the engine has been rebuilt several times.
- tdicola 14y agoSupply and demand. There isn't a huge market for 30 year old used fire trucks, so the prices are low. As the author found out, a fire truck isn't the most practical vehicle in the world--certainly not as practical as a Honda Civic.
- mikeash 14y agoIf you were buying a car, and were offered those two choices, which would you pick? I'd definitely go for the Civic despite the 4x higher price, because it's far more practical.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago$3600 is approximately the scrap value for the thing.
- gph 14y agoThat's pretty cool, as a toy. Too bad he doesn't seem to have any use for it in that capacity. Don't know if I can agree with him driving it on routine trips around town. Not only because of the extra gas consumption and CO2, but it also takes up a lot more room on the road, and it's a lot slower on acceleration wasting everyone's time behind him. When someone has a purpose for having a huge truck on the road you tolerate it, but if I found out I was stuck behind a slow firetruck because some guy wanted to tickle his own fancy I'd be less tolerant. Yea, practicality isn't the end all of life, but don't be a dick. Edit: Just wanted to add, it also puts a lot more wear on the roads especially during spring when the ground frost is melting. You might be within the law to drive it around, but your County Road Commission will not be pleased.
- newbie12 14y agoI'd be pissed to be his neighbor. The firetruck spews dirty exhaust, is unsafe if there are kids running around, and definitely is an eyesore. Even though there's no HOA he is probably running afoul of city or county zoning rules...you shouldn't be able to park large work trucks in residential neighborhoods.
- mikeash 14y agoWhat makes the truck more unsafe around children than e.g. a Ford Explorer or similar?
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoIf nothing else, the fact that it would attract children, whereas I've seen few kids who are interested in playing on (versus in) the Ford Explorer. It also would have far worse visibility than a Ford Explorer. That said, I don't think it is an argument for whether he should be "allowed" to have the truck or not. If there was evidence that people with large truck always hurt kids, perhaps; but I don't think that evidence exists.
- mikeash 14y ago
- ja27 14y agoWhat a great thing this would be for someone that does kid's parties or activities. I have a firefighter friend that borrowed a reserve engine for a water-themed kid event we had. He had fun for 2 hours, spraying people 100' away with water. For a while, everywhere I walked, I had a constant stream of water hitting me on the top of my head.
- jodrellblank 14y agoSomeone else has had that idea; I had a quick look on eBay UK, and found this party-limo-fire-engine business for sale: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fire-Engine-Limo-business-for-sale-/200908610237 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fire-Engine-Limo-business-for-sale...
- eric_the_read 14y agoMy kids' school had a fundraiser auction last year where one of the items you could bid on was a ride to school on a fire truck. I'm still mad I didn't have a budget to bid on it.
- gavanwoolery 14y agoI grew up in the mountains outside of Napa. One of our neighbors was very wealthy, and also paranoid about fires (brush fires are very dangerous in that region). He owned a fire truck aside from many other vehicles. One day an arsonist set fire to the mountainside, and he had a heart attack because of it. A new person bought up his property, and I would visit their house sometimes, and see that firetruck, not knowing the backstory. I just thought that wealthy people owned firetrucks because it was cool. :)
- fzzzy 14y agoNice story. Must have been amazing to grow up there.
- ben0x539 14y agoMy nightmare scenario here would be being parked somewhere near where a fire breaks out, and then having to tell people that no, I can't actually help them.
- uogecko 14y agoOr passing an emergency and getting flagged down. I'm hoping that nothing like that ever happens.
- sibman 14y agoA fire track? I always wanted to get a tank! Gabriel, thanks for this post. I now believe that everything is possible. I posted a link especially for you https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433711
- teuobk 14y agoHooray for firetrucks! Back in undergrad, my fraternity owned two firetrucks, and for about a year I was in charge of them. One was a 1940s ladder (with an open cab and still-functioning ladder), and the other was a 1960s engine (closed cab with still-working pumps). Tons of fun to drive around campus... except for the time I clipped a parked car with the engine. Oops!
- baby 14y agoI want a plane.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y agoSomething tells me that if you got yourself a plane and then posted about it here, you'd get treated a lot more nicely than the OP. The world has become a cynical and mean place. The guy bought a freaking working fire engine, and all people can do is whine endlessly about how impractical and wasteful it is... But yet these same people wouldn't say the same about an aircraft, race car, or similar. Even though those are likely MORE expensive and equally as wasteful fuel wise. Whatever, you get your plane! And you have fun with it. Ignore all these haters and cynics.
- dsfasfasf 14y agoI want a jet fighter. I wonder if I could get a relatively new one. All weapons would have to be removed of course. It would be the sports car of the air. I would need to get a billion dollars first though so that I could afford top notch maintenance. This would be my expensive toy. Instead of a yacht the new "in" thing could be buying a sport jet. In reality, I like the idea more then the reality of it. If I really had a billion dollars I would simply buy a porsche and use all my free time to do research.
- defrndr 14y agoA billion dollars for a fighter plane. Good lord, this actually brings into context how fucking rich Bill Gates is. This and the fact that he can give every single person on Earth a billion dollars each and still be among the richest people on the planet.
- chevas 14y agoHow many people looked up "aircraft carrier" sales on ebay after reading this article?
- rurounijones 14y agoAircraft carrier on Ebay you say? https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_put_up_for_auction_online https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_... The British MOD (Ministry of Defence) has an auction site for surplus equipment from shows, clothes and jeeps up to (occasionally) aircraft carriers.
- EGreg 14y agoMy favorite word starts with an f and ends in a uck. It is indeed firetruck.
- whalesalad 14y agoThis is so awesome. I used to make my mom drag me around town to various fire stations so that I could look at their goodies. I was obsessed with that stuff as a kid. Congrats on doing it! I myself have a bucket list item to grab an old Crown bus (the ones that look like twinkies) and drive that beast all around the US.
- richoffrails 14y agoAnd why is this on hackernews?
- AlexMuir 14y agoI just bought a warehouse. Similar - I always wanted one. I'm going to turn it into a house and put a roof garden on it and put a sweet garage in to fiddle with cars and set up some office space and generally cause havoc in there. I could drop dead tomorrow. It's nice to tick these ambitions off, although my ambitions always seem to make it more likely that I will drop dead tomorrow. (It's in Manchester, UK if anyone wants to come and lug bricks around.)
- lsc 14y agoman, I want a warehouse, too. A buddy just bought one and is renting some space in it to me for ventures and my workshop, and we're doing a joint business venture in another part of it, but it's not the same as owning the place. (That, and he'd not like it if I started sleeping here.)
- HeyLaughingBoy 14y agoIt's a cool dream. Just be sure you know what you're getting into. This guy ended up having a harder time of it than he expected: http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/shop-management-owner-issues/if-all-goes-well-i-will-own-my-own-building-30-days-what-c-o-259280/ http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/shop-management-owner-i...
- lsc 14y agoYeah. That's one of the things I hope to learn a bit about by partnering with my buddy on one of the ventures inside the warehouse. It's complex, but it's a negotiation, like anything else, and eh, that's something I'm not good at now, but I'm getting better.
- stuffihavemade 14y agoHow does that work zoning wise?
- AlexMuir 14y agoHave to apply for a change of use. The location is bordered by houses anyway so it hopefully won't be a major issue.
- nateabele 14y agoIt turns out there are no actual aircraft carriers for sale on eBay. I am disappoint.
- LarryMade2 14y agoThey just don't come up for sale too often... http://www.kungfo0.org/theweb/ebay/carrier.html http://www.kungfo0.org/theweb/ebay/carrier.html Never know what you may find on ebay... http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-050902a.html http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-050902a.html
- uogecko 14y agoI didn't make that up! I saw one a couple years ago that was for sale. I contacted the seller and asked if it came with a trailer. I just couldn't resist. He never wrote back but it WAS for sale on eBay!
- GFischer 14y agorurounijones posted a link: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_put_up_for_auction_online https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_warship_HMS_Invincible_...
- hcarvalhoalves 14y agoThat's too damn cool. $ 7,000,000 is surprisingly cheap since it was still in service. I wonder if they kept the armor?
- sib 14y agoDanny Hillis, co-founder of Thinking Machines (maker of the Connection Machine), bought and drove an old fire truck around Cambridge, MA, in the 1980's. I guess that was a lot harder than getting around Montana!
- mgcross 14y agoI still find myself staring at firetrucks. Kind of like muscle cars. I love the chunky, iconic design, the chrome, the impracticality and noise.
- bryanwbh 14y agoA great way to express the term "Always remember to pursue your dream." Awesome!
- jarpleadmin 14y agohow does voting work
- ImprovedSilence 14y agoI always wanted a school bus. Something to build into an rv for far away hunting trips and weekend tailgate extravaganzas. I did some searching, and running buses are suprisingly cheap. Someday when I have a place to put it, I'm going to jump all over that.
- prawn 14y agoJacuzzi/spa in place of the water tank(s)? Are they set up so that would be possible?
- jhawk28 14y agoI understand exactly where he is coming from. One of my fathers cousin decided the farm needed a firetruck and decided to pick up two. It was the first on the scene when one of our barns burnt down. Pumps didn't work so great and did a little spurt by the time the fire department came. Great memories.
- delinquentme 14y ago"A total of $3,600 which also happened to be the hard limit my wife had imposed on this particular invaluable transaction." cough
- ibudiallo 14y agoYou inspired me, i will follow my dreams and nothing will stop me. Thank you so much.
- ck2 14y agoAnd people think the homeless guy on the corner has mental health issues...
- lignuist 14y agoYou could offer rainmaking as a service during dry summers.
- 205guy 14y agoWaiting for the follow-up article: whether the pumps really work, how well they work, whether it came with a firehouse (and if not, how much those cost+shipping), and fun things you can do with a big jet of water. Actually, I'd think you'd need a bit of training to operate a firehose (assuming the sellers showed you how to operate all the buttons and levers). But once you have all the safety aspects down, you can go out to a lake, set up an intake hose and make a cool water display. Waiting for the pics.
- FireBeyond 14y agoFire hose isn't cheap, nor are nozzles (probably looking at a couple of thousand dollars for a 100' of 1 3/4" hose and a variable nozzle. Using the deck gun is another matter altogether, and is not something he's likely to be able to do other than emptying a swimming pool: Most combination nozzles on a deck gun are designed to control flow rate between 750gpm and 1250gpm at 80 psi. A Pierce Arrow typically has a 750 gallon tank, so you have around a minute run time on the deck gun before its empty (and a fire engine pump is not something you want running dry). You can set up hard suction (to draw from a non-pressurized source), but its debatable a) whether you can get sufficient flow at all from the vacuum alone, let alone b) while filtering the water sufficiently (because stones, mud, silt, trash, fish don't go well through a fire engine pump) at a rate to run the deck gun. Sadly, it's not likely to happen without being hooked into a hydrant. You might be able to run a handline or two, but that's about it.
- Nursie 14y agoI'm not into firetrucks myself but something from this rings really true - if you don't put aside time and (a little) money to do extraordinary things, your life will be an endless procession of the mundane.
- HeyLaughingBoy 14y agoReminds me of the old bulldozer that I very seriously thought of purchasing (always wanted a dozer). But in my case it was only about 5 miles away in a farmer's front yard with a "For Sale: $1,700" sign on it. Getting it home probably wouldn't have cost more than about $300.
- brc 14y agoA friend of mine bought an old excavator for $800. He spent about $1500 on fixing up the hydraulics, and used it to landscape his property. It was very rough but still went OK. When friends dropped around (like me) he would happily let us dig massive holes and fill them in again. I had a very happy afternoon digging and filling in, giggling like a kid in a sandpit. He ended up selling it for a small profit to a guy down the road, and they just drove it there - clank clank clank down the street. I was sad the day I went around and the digger was gone.
- apagade 14y agoThat's a very mad idea..!! I don't know how to drive a vehicle but by reading this now i really want to lean driving! :)
- josefresco 14y agoMaybe I missed it but did he end up shipping it? He mentions it would cost more than the truck itself, and mentioned his wife chiding him for not researching this more but no actual description of how he transported it.
- iliis 14y agoHe explained in a comment how he ended up transporting it with a flatbed trailer: "It was transported by a semi on a flatbed trailer from Ohio to Montana. I looked into all kinds of less expensive alternatives including paying someone to drive it, but I couldn't get anything reliable to pan out." http://geckodesigns.kinja.com/it-was-transported-by-a-semi-on-a-flatbed-trailer-from-458587618 http://geckodesigns.kinja.com/it-was-transported-by-a-semi-o...
- imran 14y agoso you see we can do anything we want to ! Its much more related to the "out of the box thinking". If you can't do things you were planning since childhood how are you supposed to be creative and pursue your dreams let alone Change The World!
- timjahn 14y agoThis is awesome! My kid would be ecstatic if we drove a firetruck to the grocery store.
- mst3kzz 14y agoRelevant Kids in the Hall sketch - "Quarter Life Crisis": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiESfUGC_Pw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiESfUGC_Pw