Way back in my childhood, my Dad wanted to see the Gossamer Albatross , and took me along for the ride. It’s historic flight was on June 12, 1979, so this was probably only a couple of weeks before.
My Dad found out about where it was hangared, and snuck us into the facility. I thought is was neat-looking but quickly grew bored, while my Dad, who was big into flying gliders at the time, couldn’t get enough.
Kicking around, I managed to trip on some object on the floor, and fell toward one of the wings, whose construction appeared to have been constructed of balsa-wood covered in glorified Saran Wrap. It was probably stronger than it looked, but clearly not engineered for the impact of a moronic, chubby 11-year-old.
Thankfully, my dad was right next to me and managed to catch me with a hand on the chest before disaster ensued. Lord knows what the dollar-value of the thing is.
About six months ago, my inkjet printer was attached to my computer and I had to get past the cords that were connecting them together. I tried my best to walk over them, but only succeeded in causing the printer to come crashing down onto the floor. Value when bought was about $150.
Does causing a a large computer outage count as breaking something? If so, I took a 5ESS telecom switch off the air once (with about 40,000 customer lines). We were growing some hardware into the switch, and my cow-orker and I somehow turned **two ** pages in the procedure manual, skipping several important steps. As a result, we transferred the load to an unpowered unit. Lots of pretty red lights lit up, along with multiple alarm gongs, I can tell you!
Since it was around 3AM, I think we only lost a couple of dozen calls. The switch was robust enough to pretty much recover on it’s own after we transferred the load back. In the failure analysis meetings, they were merciful, and allowed that we had made an honest (if stupid) mistake. The techs used to say that you weren’t really qualified unless you had taken a switch off the air. After that experience, I knew what they meant.
I haven’t, but a family I know is/was friends with Dale Chihuly. He gave them a piece of his glass as a “college fund” for their two boys. The piece was similar to one of these.
They lived in a house with a two story living room, with a balcony above and a staircase on either side. The Chihuly was on a stand at the upper rail. One day, the boys were running up one stairs and down the other. Someone bumped the table and the glass crashed to the living room floor.
I believe the boys are still alive.
It’s not the same as breaking, but I lost my company 21K because I mistyped a Ticker symbol (as in mutual fund). They let me stay though, I’m a lot more careful now.
A mate of mine lives in the Master’s Lodge at Clare College, Cambridge… there’s a wonderful big staircase with a banister perfect for sliding down. There’s also a Henry Moore sculpture at the bottom, which was hastily removed to another room after a close call on a drunken post-pub bannister-sliding contest.
I e-mailed my dad, and it wasn’t the Gossamer Albatross we saw. It was a couple of years earlier, and it was the earlier craft built by Joe Zinno. It was being stored in a hangar in RI, and we just walked in.
Later the craft’s wing fell apart while being towed for a launch. It wasn’t me, I swear! Although if it were, my little story would definitely qualify for the thread, so yeah, it was me. Sorry, Joe.
I once dropped my company issued laptop, not in its case, from the guards’ podium which was about 4 feet high, onto the hard marble floor of the lobby of our building. It made a heartwrenching and terrifying WHAPP!! that echoed through the room. But it came through fine.
A Lladro figurine of Cinderella belonging to my grandmother, which probably cost a few hundred dollars. It got between me and my little brother one day when he was being quite irritating and I had a Frisbee in my hand. My grandfather glued it back together.
One Christmas season when I was a child, my mom had been admiring a glass sailing ship, about a foot tall, made by hand, with thousands of thin lines and sails and everything made of carefully sculpted glass. My brother and I told my dad about it, and he bought it for her as a gift from all of us. It was around $200 back in '76, so that’s like $750 today. It was gorgeous: gleaming crystal, as if it were made from a thousand diamonds.
She placed it on a low bookcase.
It lasted only a couple of months.
I was the unfortunate child who killed it.
There was a mantle clock on the top shelf. I was actively engaged in the childhood pastime of opening the back of the clock so I could reach into the chime mechanism and play a tune on the hammers when my knee gently brushed the ship :eek: .
The sound was memorable, a low-volume reproduction of a crystal chandelier hitting concrete. There were no pieces larger than a pencil eraser left.
I knew I was dead at that point and there was no possible way to hide my crime, so I did the most rare thing: I walked up to my mom, bawling my eyes out, and told her what I had done. She did nothing!
My grandparents went to Europe in the mid-70’s and bought my mom and stepdad and handmade cuckoo clock from Germany. It probably cost around $100 in 1976 money, so, $300 or so today (guessing).
I quickly figured out that the mechanism was driven by chains with weights attached to them, and that if you pulled the chains, rather than letting gravity do the work, time moved faster and the cuckoo would chime sooner.
At first I would only pull on the chains only when it was five or so minutes before the hour and I didn’t want to wait any more. Eventually I would just pull on them at all hours, throwing all of my weight into the chains. Needless to say, the clock didn’t last long.
