A Ski Resort Owner in Maine is recovering from injuries after being run over by the grooming machine he and an employee were working on. The newspaper said "David Beers, 40, and another man were trying to fix a track on the vehicle when it accidentally slipped into gear, onlookers said Sunday."
As with all things Slope Grooming that I read in the Civilian Press, the details are pretty sketchy here...not sketchy are Mr Beers' injuries. Surprisingly, besides cuts and bruises, the only real damage is a broken jaw and dislocated ankle! He's one lucky guy!
Grousers and belts on the machine's right hand track
It sounds like Mr Beers and his helper were "tracking-up" the snowcat when the accident happened. "Tracking-Up" is Snowcat Mechanic-Speak for installing the tracks. These tracks are made of steel "grousers" driven by reinforced rubber belts. Each belt is fastened to itself with "lacings" which are nothing more than hinges really. A hardened steel bolt with a locknut keeps the connection secure.
The grooming machine in question is an LMC 3700CF It's a mid-engine cab-over hydrostatic driven tractor, built by Logan Manufacturing Company. Until his legal troubles with the DEA and DOJ began, LMC was owned by John DeLorean, and named DMC as in DeLorean Manufacturing Company. Back in the day I demoed it's predecessor the Bear Cat. It had to be in the mid to late 90s.
Hydrostatic snowcats don't have gears in the sense that automobiles have gears. Hydrostatic drives are oil driven motors and controlled with valves that select forward or reverse and zero to 100% speed. There's a center detent (think neutral), and a parking brake which blocks the control oil pressure from activating the drive. Modern cats have door safety interlock switches that prevent the pumps from being stroked so no motion will be generated by the track drive motors.
This is why I don't understand the accident. When I'm sitting in the Driver's Throne of my BR350 groomer, and I'm working with a mechanic, I either have the parking brake set, or have the RPMs set to idle with my finger on the Parking Brake Switch. I've never run over a mechanic, or anyone else for that matter...(Oh, I did "pinch" a lift operator between my tracks and a fence once, but no harm, no foul, he became a rookie groomer the following season, was a quick study, and enjoyed a good career for a few years at My Mountain....earning the handle Cap'nDan.) Man, I loved working with him...
"Be careful what you wish for" goes the Sage Old Advice...
I watched KCRA's Noon News today. On the third hot day of June the whining has become deafening! The poor tiny weatherwoman genuinely looked sorry for the seasonable temps.
I was on the road early, and I sat in the car for a half an hour listening to the radio before 11 AM. It was already pushing 80°F
I finally got into the garden at 3PM. It was uphill of 90°F, but my chore was in the shade of our big cedar deodara tree. I spent a leisurely 90 minutes trying out my new classic Felco F-2 Hand Pruner. There's no substitute for the best tool for the job, whether your talking carpenter's tool, gardener's tools, or grooming machines.
About the time I started picking up my work area, my Mom came out and said: "There's a deer in the front yard"! "No kidding"? I replied, and I walked my sweaty body down the street and had a look-see. No Bambi in sight. I finished cleaning the cedar sap off the Felcos, oiled the blades and the spring and headed back inside. Mom was in the living room, and damn if that deer wasn't right outside the front window!
Mom and I were less than eight feet from the yearling doe, but the deer's attention was riveted down our street somewhere. You don't think of glass as decent camouflage, but it did the trick in this instance.
The deer stayed there in the shade of the redwood tree for a while. I kicked back with the internet, and looked for some SF Giants injury reports. No news is good news I guess...
Mom came in with the newspaper. She found a book review of a new tome: "Go the F**K to Sleep" Published this week, she thought it would be great for my cousin who after retiring a Full-Bird Colonel from the Army, just adopted his first-born grandson. I clicked over to Amazon and ordered a copy for Cousin Brad, and one for Mom. Published Tuesday, Amazon's order page said it would ship in 7-9 days. Like the review said, Mansbach's "Children's Book for Adults" is a hit.
Not fifteen minutes later, I was scanning my Facebook wall, and there was a link to a YouTube video of Samuel L Jackson reading from "Go the F**K to Sleep"! I laughed out loud at the cosmic synchronicity. The link was posted by Cap'nDan, a groomer who worked with me 20 years ago. He and his wife became parents for the first time this spring, and we commented back and forth for a few minutes.
Somehow, our exchange knocked some cobwebs out of my brain, and I started searching for a song I've been trying to identify for months. Cap'n Dan posts a lot of YouTube videos of classic rock, jazz, and blues. The song starring in My Quest is a throbbing Delta Blues number that's the soundtrack of a Porsche commercial that's been playing on every Formula One race I've watched this spring. In fact, I searched YouTube yesterday to no avail.
I searched via ixquick.com with a couple of new search strings, and then searched Porsche Owners Clubs. I landed on a Porsche.com page with a bunch of Flash Video links, and there was the spot complete with title. I ixquicked that and there was my latest Holy Grail.
Listen to the fine Delta Blues...don't succumb to the sports car pitch!
The late artist Junior Kimbrough's "Feels So Good #2" rocks my world, but turned into yet another head-scratcher. The tune is from Kimbrough's "First Recordings" album which is not available on CD! Vinyl or MP3 download, even a 10 inch vinyl pressing, but no CD.
I surrendered, and downloaded the tune from iTunes. I really want this guy's music on CD...in WAV format...call me old fashioned...
Satisfied but stymied, I tuned in the radio for the Giants' Pre-Game. It was 106°F outside and 80°F inside Chase Field in Phoenix. Some wag actually said; "It's a dry heat"...if it hadn't been so hot, I would have done a spit take!
The Giants won and there were some real Highlight Reel defensive plays including an almost impossible relay throw to Home to get the runner at the plate! Not torture, but exquisite none the less.
It's half past midnight and still hot in the house...I'm hittin' the showers.
Here it is already. It's Sunday night August 9th, 2010. Exactly one year has passed since I wrote the first post here. Much to my surprise, this post is the 268th installment of CorduroyPlanet.
Traditionally, these anniversaries are a time of reflection and stock taking...what did I do right, where did I miss...where do I go from here, etc...
That's not what I'm thinking about tonight.
I'm sort of amazed looking back...I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year that I had to cast about to find something to write about. I live a simple life really, work, sleep, family, fun and games, fishing, politics...nothin' special, just work-a-day Dave.
Every one of the 268 times that I've written here, I've resisted writing about the political bees in my bonnet...after all, the internet is filthy with pundits of all stripes, and even I tire of the din easily.
All this started over a three week period one year ago. Here's how it played out. KirkVallus invited me to join Facebook a couple of days after I began CorduroyPlanet. I joined up, followed Facebook's Yellow Brick Road, and heard from lost friends and past employees, colleagues, and acquaintances.
Cap'nDan was the first to post on my wall:
"A blog AND Facebook???? Wow, you're getting a hi-tech!!! Welcome aboard the greatest time suckage known to man."
Cap'nDan's post was dated Sept 2nd, 2009. Cap'nDan is another groomin' human who learned the trade on my mountain. Always good energy, Cap'nDan was a pleasure to work with. He's back East these days, no longer in snow country.
I guess the thing that surprised me the most is how instructive writing daily can be. I wrote more about my day to day than I wrote about grooming, though I did get a good start on "Grooming 101"
I had a few epiphanies along the way, and writing does make one do research...I've expanded my working knowledge of climate systems, space weather, and local forecasting. Extra handy is the Blogger Software that makes keeping track of these posts simple, and going back for review easy.
Oh, and thanks to CorduroyPlanet, now I know what a “Baggy Trough” is.
