The Burlington VCF trip was my first VCF. I enjoyed myself immensely. Three
cheers for Sellam for putting in the work to organize the thing. I did talk
to Sellam a bit about possibly having a VCF central in St. Louis - I want to
bring my cherished HP2000/Access system. I refuse to cart that system across
the country to either coast, or even to KC :) Sellam, I'll be in touch to
discuss some stuff about seeing if we can have a VCF in St. Louis sometime.
The hotel (mariott) was wonderful, and it was so great to put a face with
the email address on so many of the people I've been talking to here over
the years. I will definitely make it to a few more VCF's, but hopefully with
less travel problems.
Ah yes, so many have asked about "The Great Trailer Incident(tm)". Here's a
synopsis of my trip to VCF and what all went wrong - presented here entirely
for your amusement and as a lesson so that others (including myself) may
avoid my screwball missteps.
I left St. Louis on Wednesday the 14th, about 8am. Drove non-stop to
Washington PA, about 600 miles and spent the night in the Red Roof. My van
was loaded with two HP racks, and in tow was a 5x8 flatbed trailer with two
more racks and a few 7906 disc drives. The van and trailer were handling
wonderfully. I checked the tires on the van before leaving Saint Louis, but
neglected to do that on the trailer. The trailer I had just gotten about 6
or 7 months ago for $500 (because it included a PDP-11/45 on it at no cost).
It had driven back to St. Louis from TN just fine then. So anyways...
I left Washington PA thursday morning to drive the remaining 600 miles to
burlington. I was about an hour or so from burlington, headed east on I-84,
just 4 miles from the massachusetts border when the tire blew and
disintegrated. I got out an looked and there was a few shreds of rubber on
the wheel, the majority of my tire being about 30 feet behind the trailer.
Pulled off the highway and pondered if a normal car jack would lift a
trailer that was pretty heavily loaded, or how I was going to possibly get
to the spare van tire with the van fully loaded, and if that tire might fit
the trailer, etc. etc. My adventure had begun.
I called AAA and said "I'm not a member, but I'd like to be". They laughed
and said they wouldn't sign me up for membership AND place a help call at
the same time. How helpful. But they at least said they'd get me the phone
number for a service station in my area. I had virtually no cellphone
battery left. After getting transferred around to quite a few different
service stations, one finally had a human voice instead of an "I'm sorry,
we're closed" recording. Cool. Told them I needed someone to come out with a
certain tire, and where I was located. They said that because of the
location/highway I was on, I HAD to have police come out before they could
get out there. Huh? I told the guy I had no cellphone left, and would he
please call the police for me. He said sure.
Almost two hours later, still no police. What fun. It was around 11pm by
then and I was getting pretty testy. So I called information, got the police
phone number. They said they weren't located in the area I was in, and would
transfer my call to another police station. Click... dead line. This
happened about 3 or 4 times. Apparently police stations can't transfer calls
without hanging up on people. So next call I got the original police station
to give me the phone number for the right police station. Wrote it down and
asked him to transfer me... click... hung up on again. So I dialed the other
police station directly. Fast busy. Waited a while, fast busy again. This
cycle repeats a few times. Finally called the original police station, he
transferred me and joy of joys this time it went through. The police officer
at the new station politely got all my information, location, etc... then
told me that I was talking to the Danbury police, which were on the entire
opposite side of the state of connecticut from where I was. They offered to
transfer me (ARGH!) to Troop A, who were in my area. The kind people at
Troop A said they didn't handle the area I was in, and transfered me to some
other Troop (F-Troop I suspect). When the transfer went through, I received
a recording "I'm sorry, but our offices are closed. Our normal business
hours are..." ARGH!!! So I called the original police station, again told
the guy where I was, that I had no battery left, and needed him to get
someone out there, then hung up.
About an hour later, an officer pulled up behind me and asked what the
problem was. I suspect it was too DARK for him to see the SHREDDED TIRE at
his feet. I told him I wanted someplace to come out with a tire and replace
mine, or tow to a 24 hour service station, etc. He then politely asked why I
called the police, that I should have called a towing service. ARGH! That IS
how I started out, and the towing service told me to call the police first.
What fun.
The officer informed me I had two choices. Leave the trailer, and come back
in the morning and get it with a new tire, or call for towing. I wasn't
going to pay towing to burlington, over an hour away. I couldn't get a close
hotel, because I had prepayed with late checkin for the mariott at
burlington. I didn't want to leave the trailer on the side of the road. But
not because of what the officer said... he asked what was on it (no, I
didn't jokingly say 'cocaine'). When I told him "antique computer gear" his
eyes got wide and he cautioned me about theives going up and down the
highway picking stuff off vehicles/trailers left behind. Of course I told
him that I wasn't concerned about general theives... I was concerned about
my fellow collectors who may also be driving into burlington along I-84 that
night, THEY would certainly stop and pick the trailer clean *GRIN* (just
kidding). I decided to leave the trailer, chain it with padlock to the guard
rail on the side of the highway, and drive the rest of the way into
burlington and deal with it tomorrow. I finally got to the mariott at about
1am or so and the bed never felt so good.
The next morning I got up, and drove the van to VCF so I could empty it out
and not haul that weight back to the trailer. As I was pushing gear in the
front door, I met Sellam and asked him if he could make sure the stuff made
it in the rest of the way, that I had a flat tire on 84, and had to go
retrieve it - so I'd be late to the show but would be there. Then I went to
sears just up the street from the service center, bought a tire, and headed
out an hour away on 84 in search of my trailer. Found the trailer, jacked it
up, grabbed the rim, and spent about 1/2 hour looking for a service station
that would put the new tire on the rim for me. Pulled in to something in
studbury? and the mechanic said no problem, fired up his tire machine,
and... *POOF*. Showers of sparks everywhere. His machine was not going to be
putting tires on rims anytime soon. So, he directed me to another garage a
few miles away. They got the tire on the rim just fine. As the mechanic put
the tire in the van, I asked "how much do I owe ya?" fully expecting the guy
would do it as a freebie, or maybe 5 bucks. No... he wanted 20 bucks - cash
only. At this point, money was no object, I was 100 miles away, missing a
computer show I drove 1200 miles (one way) to go to. GRRR.
Drove back to the trailer, put the tire on and thankfully pulled away. Of
course, when I put the tire on I got the bright idea that perhaps I should
check the other tire on the trailer too. It was in really bad shape,
probably would have gone anytime soon. So I limped back to burlington, van
in tow, never exceeding 40 mph cause I didn't want the other tire to blow. A
few fellow highway drivers weren't particularly happy with me driving at
that speed, and made that point quite clear with various hand gestures wild
gesticulations.
So when I got to VCF I unloaded the trailer, then dropped the trailer off at
sears so they could replace the other tire. Went to VCF and had a total
blast!! When I got into VCF, apparently the story of "The Trailer
Incident(tm)" had spread like wildfire and grown substantially. I think I
overheard one incarnation that involved my trailer being on fire and me
being put in jail. Hehee... amazing how a story grows through retelling.
Then much of the VCF folks went to Victoria's Station for dinner - where the
portions were huge and quite good! I had to leave during dinner to pick up
the trailer (Sears closed at 8), but then came back for some good
conversation and story swapping with my fellow classiccmp'ers. After dinner
I met in the lower parking lot of the marriott with Dan Cohoe, William
Donzelli, and Evan Koblentz. Was rather funny to see three vans pull up into
an empty parking lot, starting moving a bunch of "big boxes" between them,
then all go speeding off. Hummm. I got alot of really great DEC and DG
stuff. You would THINK this would be the end of the story. NOT!
I had taken four empty HP racks to the show... and confirmed with all four
collectors before I left st. louis. Of course, at the show, one of the
collectors didn't show up at the show at all, and the other one apparently
left before I got there late friday (due to the above). So, I was stuck with
two large HP racks, sitting in Sun's building. I couldn't load them back to
my van, which was already full (and scheduled to get more at bobs and
bills). So I was scurrying around asking Sellam for any ideas for disposal,
etc. Finally Dan Cohoe stepped forward to help me out and took both racks.
One is still destined to go to the person who wanted it as they aren't too
far from Dan C. The other... well... haven't heard from that collector yet
:) Dan Cohoe - THANK YOU!
I had to leave VCF a little early, because I had gear to pick up from Bob
Shannon in Leominster, then more gear to pick up from Bill Dawson in
Washington PA on the way back. Stopped at Bobs and loaded up, then headed
for Washington PA. After about 120 miles, I noticed I itched. I was getting
bug bites. I looked across the dash of the van, and there were flying ants
(or something like that) crawling over the entire dash, the seats, my legs,
etc. Apparently some of the gear I picked up at VCF or later had a low rent
housing project for these bugs going on inside of it. Opening all the
windows while going down the highway, and then (later) closing the van up
tight at night, seemed to get rid of them.
It was pouring down BUCKETS of rain, and I had to pull off the highway
several times as visibility approached 10 feet. When I got to Washington we
loaded the Reality into the trailer, and inbetween breaks in the rain got it
all tied down and ready to roll. As I was laying on the ground underneath
the trailer hooking bungee cords up, Bill mentioned to me as an aside "Um,
you do realize you're laying in a bed of poisin ivy don't you?". I now have
the rashes to prove I did NOT have any idea. I got perhaps 2 miles from
Bills house before the trailer started fishtailing wildly. Cool! More fun!
So I pulled over again but this time couldn't see anything at all amiss. So,
I called Bill, and trouper that he was... he drove up to help. After
scratching his head a bit, he stood on the tongue of the trailer and found
the problem. A seriously negative amount of tongue weight. We were pretty
sure we had distributed the weight well (especially with the 11/34 up
front), but, apparently not as the power supply for the reality is built
into the bottom of the rack, and it is VERY heavy. So, I turned on the
emergency flashers and followed Bill to a nearby closed gas station that had
a large covered area. We spent the next hour and a half taking everything
off the trailer, re-organizing how it would go back on, retarping, tie-down,
and re-bungee'ing everything. Finally I was ready to continue home. The
thing drove great on the highway now and I settled in for a long, relaxing
drive back towards home - st. louis. There was really heavy fog around PA,
and just as I was settling down into "watching the miles tick by" mode.....
Suddenly I see a large piece of scrap metal on the road in front of me. It
came out of the fog, was no way to avoid it. I patiently braced for the
dragging of metal, and my patience was rewarded with a wonderful shower of
red sparks going up both sides of the van, from the piece of metal being
drug under the van. Cool! All this fun, and a fireworks show for free to
boot! The metal looked like a piece of aluminum siding all crunched up, or
maybe part of a corrugated tin roof... something like that. I continued to
drive for about 500 feet, because the metal piece looked pretty
small/flexible and I figured it would work it's way out from under the van
in just a few feet. It didn't. So I pulled over on the shoulder and sat
there for a minute, contemplating what egregious sin I had comitted in a
different life that merited this amount of trouble. I was trying to figure
out just how (un)safe it was going to be, crawling under a van in the dark,
on a fast highway, trying to unwedge a piece of metal debris from under the
van. To my suprise, when I got under the van, there was no metal, and no
damage, in sight. Apparently the metal HAD come out just when I pulled over
to the shoulder of the road.
The rest of the trip home to St. Louis was, in fact, totally uneventful :)
Again, it was really great to meet the folks there at the show. Everyone was
most friendly, helpful, and it was just a plain blast to put a face with the
name, and just sit and chat with people about this hobby. Hopefully, people
won't hold my grumpy attitude the first day at the show against me, now that
they see just what my thursday night/friday morning was like! Well, I'm off
to sort through old email, the business cards I collected at the show... and
try to somehow get back to restoring some more of the machines in my
collection. VCF St. Louis anyone?
Oh - by the way - if I had to do it all over again, with the same problems
as above, I would. VCF was THAT fun. However, next time I will be taking
along a spare tire for the trailer :>
Regards,
Jay West
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Received on Tue Jul 20 2004 - 14:53:07 BST