I figured out why "third time's a charm"!
.
We've all heard the saying. Occasionally I wonder how these "truisms" become well-enough recognized to enter the general consciousness.
Well, I just demonstrated it to myself. I'm trying to become regular with using my treadmill. First time, I realized I needed [a] a stability bar that was [b] set back from the bars that support the computer-thingy up top and [c] narrower than same support bars.
My problem is, my arms (and legs) are short. Holding onto the side bars for stability had my arms uncomfortably wide, and brought my steps so close to the front plate (the bit over the front edge of the treadmill belt) that I was afraid I'd accidentally step on it, which would throw off my gait with a potential stumble and injury.
1) So I put on my thinking cap, remembered I had an inch-thick dowel rod out in the barn. Brought it in, cleaned it up, used (LOTS of) electrical tape to mount it to the side supports where they curve farthest back from the front plate. Worked pretty good, but didn't get me as far back as I wanted.
2) So I got a couple of pieces of 2x2 wood. Took off the dowel rod, taped the wood to the side supports, taped the dowel rod to the front of the wood blocks. Better, but I still wasn't as far from the front plate as I wanted... and I was sort of worried that the wood blocks (mounted on a curved surface) would slip sideways.
3) So I took off the dowel rod and blocks. Found a couple of corner braces (L-shaped pieces of strong metal), taped them securely to the side supports. One flat side was flat against the flat side of the support. The other flat side was flush against the curved side of the support, providing a flat surface to stabilize the wood blocks. Taped a wood block securely on each side, then taped another block in front of that, than taped the dowel rod to the front surface of the double-block setup. Success!
**Note that when I say 'taped securely', I mean it! I used about 3-1/2 entire rolls of electrical tape -- 1 each the first two times, and 1-1/2 the third time. That sucker won't move!!!!
But notice the progression. 1) See a problem, figure out a way to fix it. 2) Realize that the fix isn't as good as you'd like, think of and implement an improvement. 3) Realize that the improvement needs a bit more tweaking to be even better, finally reaching the original goal as it was envisioned. And voilà! Third time's a charm.
I figure most "jerry-rigged" ideas follow the same pattern; you can't know how something will work until you try it out, and then you have to adjust, then adjust your adjustment. And maybe if you're not very ept, you might have to try a fourth or even fifth time. (Not that that's ever happened to me! ) But yeah, it seems like people would reach a satisfactory result on a third trial often enough that they started to notice, and thus the idiom was born.
.
Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -
We've all heard the saying. Occasionally I wonder how these "truisms" become well-enough recognized to enter the general consciousness.
Well, I just demonstrated it to myself. I'm trying to become regular with using my treadmill. First time, I realized I needed [a] a stability bar that was [b] set back from the bars that support the computer-thingy up top and [c] narrower than same support bars.
My problem is, my arms (and legs) are short. Holding onto the side bars for stability had my arms uncomfortably wide, and brought my steps so close to the front plate (the bit over the front edge of the treadmill belt) that I was afraid I'd accidentally step on it, which would throw off my gait with a potential stumble and injury.
1) So I put on my thinking cap, remembered I had an inch-thick dowel rod out in the barn. Brought it in, cleaned it up, used (LOTS of) electrical tape to mount it to the side supports where they curve farthest back from the front plate. Worked pretty good, but didn't get me as far back as I wanted.
2) So I got a couple of pieces of 2x2 wood. Took off the dowel rod, taped the wood to the side supports, taped the dowel rod to the front of the wood blocks. Better, but I still wasn't as far from the front plate as I wanted... and I was sort of worried that the wood blocks (mounted on a curved surface) would slip sideways.
3) So I took off the dowel rod and blocks. Found a couple of corner braces (L-shaped pieces of strong metal), taped them securely to the side supports. One flat side was flat against the flat side of the support. The other flat side was flush against the curved side of the support, providing a flat surface to stabilize the wood blocks. Taped a wood block securely on each side, then taped another block in front of that, than taped the dowel rod to the front surface of the double-block setup. Success!
**Note that when I say 'taped securely', I mean it! I used about 3-1/2 entire rolls of electrical tape -- 1 each the first two times, and 1-1/2 the third time. That sucker won't move!!!!
But notice the progression. 1) See a problem, figure out a way to fix it. 2) Realize that the fix isn't as good as you'd like, think of and implement an improvement. 3) Realize that the improvement needs a bit more tweaking to be even better, finally reaching the original goal as it was envisioned. And voilà! Third time's a charm.
I figure most "jerry-rigged" ideas follow the same pattern; you can't know how something will work until you try it out, and then you have to adjust, then adjust your adjustment. And maybe if you're not very ept, you might have to try a fourth or even fifth time. (Not that that's ever happened to me! ) But yeah, it seems like people would reach a satisfactory result on a third trial often enough that they started to notice, and thus the idiom was born.
.
Comment at Dreamwidth by Name, Anonymous, or Open Id -