Too lazy to look it up but it's basically Tonka toys for adults.

And now I want to go there.

... started it up, and it jumped forward and ran over another of our friends. He was crushed into the soft dirt, and managed to survive serious internal injuries.

The track ran over his chest and abdomen. If not for the muddy conditions....



I would recommend professional instruction.

I am often tempted. And I've considered just going up to a construction site and asking but I'm betting they'd say no.

I messed up my chance with a neighbor when her house was being rebuilt. I think I could have talked somebody there into letting me.

but a smaller skid steer, quite often. I work for a landscape company and it is part of the job. This is not the exact model but it is damn close. I have worked a couple other similar machines as well.

That doesn't look as easy to tip over as some I've seen.

but never felt like it would tip over

Any kind of earth mover, dirt digger machine. yep.

and I want to back it up and have it beep!

We were digging in a cemetery and I figured that was a poor time to learn the controls.

and you passed it up?

Uh, yeah, I don't think I'd want to start there either!

the POWER! I hate digging by hand, a machine sure makes you power-mad - I bet it is kind of like some people's first try at shooting a gun if they didn't grow up with them.

Husband had rented one for a job nearby and we had it over the weekend so I started digging up heaven trees - I broke a hydraulic hose on it - oops!

You can rent some pretty serious machines around here. Look up equipment rental in the yellow pages. (does anybody use phone books anymore?)

The local community station does these on-line auctions to raise funds and one time they had a day of running big machines at a local recycling place - you could crush cars or move them around. I bid on it but it went too high for me pretty fast.

The operater let me play with it for a few minutes because I was facinated by the operation. No Wheel, no levers, just two joysticks. One on each armrest. What a kick in the ass. It was like playing a vidio-game.

I think it would be fun even for just a little while. <= Construction Hat not Tinfoil Hat

Just Google "Bulldozer rental" and your Zip Code. Several place should show. It won't be cheap.

What would I DO with it?

They ARE working on Peachtree Street these days. Maybe nobody would notice me!

Got to drive them all the time to test. They're a lot of fun. Below is a video of an old D8 being started using the "pony motor". This was a gas engine that was hooked up to the flywheel and took the place of an electric starter like you'd find on your car. Worked on may of these models.

Looks like work!

I suppose that counts. It looked like this:

that's another one that looks hard to tip.

It was a little bit hilly...



Harvesting was scary....

When I was a kid he used to bring me in some saturdays. We'd take a D8 out in the back, I would sit on his lap and pretend I was driving it. Words cannot describe what a thrill that was.

And, in retrospect, letting a ten year old boy wander around a shop by himself was stupendously dangerous.

but what a great memory.

in a copper mine. I decided driving trucks and running the front end loader was enough for me. Absolutely too many tricky places they need a dozer in a copper mine.

Thanks for sharing.

Fork lifts of all sizes, bulldozers, backhoes, trenchers, bobcats, and front end loaders.

Backhoes are the most fun out of all of them followed by bobcats.

and we watched There Goes a Truck and There Goes a Bulldozer dozens of times.

I can see the appeal.

Allis Chalmers front-end loader. I want to drive a dozer!

next time I'm in costco...

Every time I drove our forklift, this song ran through my head. (I'm a MST3K fan.)

But now that I do I think it would be a hoot.

Probably won't happen, though.