One spring when I was a kid my dad drug out the old lawn mower for the first mow after the winter. He set his beer down and gave the cord a hopeful tug but it didn’t start. So he did the typical maintenance. It still wouldn’t start. More maintenance and beers came and went. The anger was steadily increasing. Finally I heard a battle cry come from the drive way and my dad grabbed the front and back of the mower and lifted it over his head. He sort of shook it three times toward the sky and then slammed it down on it’s wheels. He grumbled that he was going to go buy a new mower after one last pull on the cord. He pulled and it started. That moment may have been the happiest I have ever seen him. There was a sparkle in his eye. Might have been a tear of joy.
I remember being absolutely glued to the TV during the first moon walk in 1969 (it was my birthday). All was well until the video feed went out. The very first thing that was done about that was to whack the camera (probably on its left side; old engineering trick). Didn’t work though. Turned out they’d accidentally pointed the the thing for a split second directly at the sun and had thoroughly fried it. No one seems to remember this but me.
Is your birthday in July or in November?
A wonderful tale. But he was very lucky. It must have been an exact multipe of pi high when he slammed it down. 
Two well-known engineering principles:
“Use a bigger hammer”, and
“If brute force isn’t working, you’re not using enough.”
It was all the Pi. 
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