Reilly's Law

Reilly's Law, states that in any scientific or engineering endeavor, anything that can go wrong will go wrong (Later this law became more commonly known as Murphy's Law).

Hypothesis: If someone with the Sibley gene's were to undertake a life changing scientific or engineering pursuit anything that could go wrong would.

Experiment one: Dad and I had some spare time (as usual) so we installed the air conditioner into our bedroom. Reilly's law states that in any engineering endeavor something will go wrong - how about the air conditioner leaking water all over our bed. Few slight adjustments, towels, fan, sunshine, skil saw, and some pounding later the bed was dry and the leak fixed.

Experiment two: After being in a small parking lot accident my car had to go into the body shop for new bumper, headlight, and fender. To test Reilly's Law I decided to take my car in for an oil change. Upon receiving my car back it had "mysteriously" been in an accident while in the possession of Toyota. Needless to say my car now needs a new bumper, fender, and paint job. $3,700 damage covered by Toyota. (Not a scientific/engineering endeavour none the less valuable evidence).

Experiment three: It has been a cold spring; the trailer came with a furnace but it has not worked since the first day. Dad pulled it out before and had it apart to fix the apparent problem. However, once he placed it back into the trailer it just sat there like a giant paper weight. Frustrated, we decided to leave it and pull it out just before we head to BC to bring it along to get fixed out there. Dad went to pull it out today and just for fun decided to see if it would work. (Please note above story of installing Air Conditioner indicating that summer is here and we are now sitting at an average 25-30 degrees every day). The furnace, mysteriously of it's own free will, has NOW decided to work!

Experiment four: After submitting the building permit on June 28th we received a list of hoops to jump through. In a miraculous display of athleticism we were able to complete said obstacle course in two days. The building permit office then informed us it would be another day or two to review our performance and get us the permit. Two days pass and dad goes in to see them. True to Reilly's Law our addendum is not even with our original application. After much searching the two valuable pieces of information are stapled together! (thank you King Louis XV). However, there was a mysterious list of new complications attached to the front of our application! Dad was able to deal with all of them then and there but I assure you it took ten more years off his life. They then informed us that the lovely person in charge of reviewing such permits is going on vacation on Monday (this being Friday afternoon). In one of my father's finer moments he pointed out the unjust nature of this situation and persuaded them to have someone else review our cause. Sure enough, my father's sweet talking one them over and we were assured that we would have the permit Monday morning. This morning dad wondered on over to the building permit office only to receive more confirmation of Reilly's Law - the permit has not been looked at yet. At this point I am sure that dad used tears and puppy-dog-eyes to woo over the lovely ladies as the counter! Later in the afternoon I received a phone call from the building permit office the lady introduces herself: "Hello, I am ______ from the building permit office; I have been asked to call you if there were any problems with the permit..." (insert my eye roll here please). So I ask her to hold and hand the phone to my father (who was trying to help the new guy pump the poop-house). Contrary to Reilly's Law; though, we DO now have our permit AND we paid less for it than originally budgeted (Looks like a bar night tonight). True to Reilly's Law - the permit was received just in time for Dad and I to take off to BC. Dad will not be returning for 8-10 days and we are most likely unable to move forward with the house until he is able to be here with the trades.

Thesis: Reilly's Law is true and inevitable in any engineering undertaking at least when you try to do it while being a Sibley (or variation there of).