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CIA · 03:09 PM

Just looking for peoples stories of amazing yet pointless luck to share, my example is below.
(no, not looking for "I won a car" type stories, more just incredible odds overcome, but no real gain)

Here's mine:
Just moved home to NH for a few weeks before I move to a new location out west.
Brought my DirecTivo (DirecTV and Tivo in one box) home with me, and quickly set up a dish in the yard using a 5 gallon pail, a cinderblock, and a block of wood. Literally slapped it on the yard, asked dad where southwest was, and roughly pointed it in that direction. Didn't even bother to level it.
Ran the coax into the window and plugged in the TiVo in preparation for a long trial and error process trying to find a signal without a compass. Last time I set it up blind in Vermont it took me 4 hours to finally get a signal.
You probably can guess where this is going......

Turned on the TV and TiVo. Bam. Satellite TV with 60% strength. Nudging the dish the slightest amount brought it up to 90%

Anyone who has ever had to point a dish knows the absolute miracle it was that randomly the dish hit the satellite when all I did was plop it in the yard and point it "roughly southwest". Moving the dish 1/8 of an inch in any direction drops the signal to 0.

So, no real gain (besides time), but I did go buy a lottery ticket that night. I think the odds of winning that are greater then the dish pointing thing, so.....

turtle777 · Sep 26, 2006, 02:42 PM

Nice, good on you.

I don't du dish, but I had similar luck with cable. Everytime I plug it in, bam, 100% signal.

-t

CIA · Sep 26, 2006, 03:11 PM

You can have my dish when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

Y3a · Sep 26, 2006, 03:18 PM

I miss Cox cable. they did a fine job for me. High speed intarweb, TV too. Never went down in bad weather like my DirecTV does.

Dakar · Sep 26, 2006, 03:21 PM

Originally Posted by CIA

You can have my dish when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

I think the entire point is he doesn't want it at all.

SSharon · Sep 26, 2006, 03:41 PM

My DirectTV has never needed adjustment in 5+ years of Chicago weather (including the most recent tornados).

My lucky story was a few weeks ago I was driving on route 4 in northern jersey and the traffic sucked. It would alternate between 40mph and 5 mph. Well there was a 6 car accident involving the 3 cars in front of me and the 3 cars behind me.

brassplayersrock² · Sep 26, 2006, 04:17 PM

my brother in law had a simiular thing:
his boss wanted him to talk to a client one day for over time, and so he was about 10 mins past his normal departure time. turns out, when he hit the road a huge trailers contents spilled out onto the highway and crushed a couple of cars a mile or so up the highway from him. if he had gone at his regular time, he was certain he would have been in that accident

Alex

davesimondotcom · Sep 26, 2006, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock

my brother in law had a simiular thing:
his boss wanted him to talk to a client one day for over time, and so he was about 10 mins past his normal departure time. turns out, when he hit the road a huge trailers contents spilled out onto the highway and crushed a couple of cars a mile or so up the highway from him. if he had gone at his regular time, he was certain he would have been in that accident

Alex

That's similar to getting a signal by just "guessing" at the direction?

I'd rather not have the DirectTV and not die... your brother-in-law is MUCH luckier!

Although it's pretty much speculative that he would have been in the wreck.

Railroader · Sep 26, 2006, 04:23 PM

Let's get this train wreck back on track shall we?

On my way home from work I dodged a hours-long traffic jam by seconds. At a construction zone the highway went from two lanes to one and there was a guy flying up the lane that was closing. I was keeping an eye on him in my side rear-view mirror and I saw he tried to cut someone off, clipped a semi-truck, and spun out of control.

turtle777 · Sep 26, 2006, 04:30 PM

Originally Posted by Railroader

Let's get this train wreck back on track shall we?

Spielverderber

-t

ort888 · Sep 26, 2006, 04:35 PM

When I was a child I missed death and or blindness by millimeters more then once. Is that luck or not, I'm not sure.

 · Sep 26, 2006, 04:39 PM

Normally I don't password protect anything on one of my Mac Pro's test account, which has administrative status. But about 2 weeks ago, I decided to take the status of administrator away from that account. I left my office and went home. The next day, I came in, and someone had tried to delete all of my major files and put them in the trash ( I leave that account open all of the time, I just put it to sleep and don't log out). Fortunetly, the account wasn't allowed to empty the trash without the password. So since I had backups, nothing really was saved, except for time.

Railroader · Sep 26, 2006, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

Spielverderber

-t

"PARTY POOPER"?!?!

Go on, discuss satellite vs cable.

I'll have no part of it.

No part.

CIA · 06:23 PM

6 years of satellite in Vermont. Only lost signal (briefly) once and that was a crazy ice storm. Power went out shortly after. Had I owned a generator, I would have had TV while all my cable loving neighbors would've gone without for the next 8 hours. And also, I've been all over the north east, and seen a lot of cable TV, and I've only seen:
Lousy picture on many different sets. (worst offenders are local channels)
Tons of Artifiacts and crap from digital compression.
Odd sound issues.

DirectTV may not have a perfect picture, but at least it's consistant. Note I can't speak in regards to HD on Satellite, as I've never seen it.

And I think I just hijacked my own thread...

brassplayersrock² · Sep 26, 2006, 09:21 PM

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom

That's similar to getting a signal by just "guessing" at the direction?

I'd rather not have the DirectTV and not die... your brother-in-law is MUCH luckier!

Although it's pretty much speculative that he would have been in the wreck.

you mentioned about cars, i mentioned about cars. similar in a way

KeriVit · Sep 26, 2006, 09:44 PM

One time, I decided to go fishing and even though I don't fish, I caught fish!!!

Spliffdaddy · Sep 26, 2006, 10:33 PM

Back in 1988 I was driving in Nashville Tennessee and I had almost a pound of weed in a Hardee's bag in the floorboard. I'd just finished smoking a joint and my car smelled like it. My tags were expired by almost a year and my drivers license had been revoked a couple months earlier. I was sitting at a red light, first car in line. It was raining. Traffic was crossing in front of me and turning left onto the road beside me. Some doofus in a Jeep Cherokee decided to lose control of his car and was hurtling toward me sideways at a high rate of speed. His Jeep came to a stop just as it lightly touched my passenger side mirror - and folded it inward. There was no impact and no damage whatsoever. Pure luck. Across the intersection sat a police cruiser..watching the incident unfold. The guy in the Jeep kinda waved at me apologetically then drove off. The police car never moved. I think my heart rate was well into the 300 range.

KeriVit · Sep 26, 2006, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy

Back in 1988 I was driving in Nashville Tennessee and I had almost a pound of weed in a Hardee's bag in the floorboard. I'd just finished smoking a joint and my car smelled like it. My tags were expired by almost a year and my drivers license had been revoked a couple months earlier. I was sitting at a red light, first car in line. It was raining. Traffic was crossing in front of me and turning left onto the road beside me. Some doofus in a Jeep Cherokee decided to lose control of his car and was hurtling toward me sideways at a high rate of speed. His Jeep came to a stop just as it lightly touched my passenger side mirror - and folded it inward. There was no impact and no damage whatsoever. Pure luck. Across the intersection sat a police cruiser..watching the incident unfold. The guy in the Jeep kinda waved at me apologetically then drove off. The police car never moved. I think my heart rate was well into the 300 range.

That is SO much better than my story. Let me sleep on it and try to think of another one.

Spliffdaddy · Sep 26, 2006, 10:44 PM

dude, I could think of dozens of stories like that one. It's a small miracle that I'm still alive. Several years ago I decided there really was a God. I've been too lucky too many times for it to be a random happening. Hell, I almost died in a U-Haul trailer. Now that's a story.