Deere Power!!!1!

A couple weeks ago Buck and I made a trip to Waterloo, IA to see his new John Deere get built. An 8360RT to be specific. It turns out that they don't allow camera's on the tour. So that is the reason for the lack of pictures. So here is a pic I found on the internets.

We were supposed to get a pic emailed to us too but I haven't seen that yet.

How was the tour? Awesome. It started pretty early, 6:45 a.m., and I think we left about 12:30. You know it's going to be good when they give you a hard hat (more of a bump hat, pretty thin plastic), safety glasses, different shoes (even though I was rocking the steel toe boots I still got the special shoes (damn insurance company forcing people to wear specific shoes)), and gloves. And this was a walking tour. We did ride on the cart for maybe 45 minutes but that was just a small part through the welding area and where they make the bigger 4wd tractors. We got to see pretty much everything, except Buck's tractor actually being built. Which was kind of a bummer but not that big of a deal. Our tour guide, Harold, actually found the axles for Buck's tractor in one of the trailers waiting to be unloaded. So it was probably going to be built later that day or the following day. How did Harold know which axles were actually for Buck? Well, good question. All of the major parts have the tractors vin attached to it with a piece of paper. So they know what goes to what tractor. Pretty cool. Some of the other highlights (at least for me) was finding out that they don't paint any black at that factory, they ship it out to another place in Waterloo. Also, they top of the roof is held on with 39 screws but the whole roof assembly is only held in place with 4 bolts. Crazy, right? Buck got to drive a "simulator" tractor. Basically they had an actual seat and controls from a tractor hooked up to a computer and a monitor. Think of an arcade racing game but instead of a car, it's a tractor. How redneck is that (actually that's a million dollar idea right there. They could be outside every Walmart.)? Oh an speaking of the controls, everything is attached to the right side arm rest. And that includes the touchscreen (about a 6" screen) for controlling a bunch of important stuff (I got kind of lost when he was going through that). Even the radio and hvac controls are right there. Very nice. And Buck is getting the leather seat. Oh you fancy, huh? I could keep going on and on but there is other stuff to do. And you're probably bored of reading this. So here is a John Deere lawnmower doing a wheelie. America, fuck yeah.