How's Your Day? Archives

Yeah, I didn't ask for proof either, but considering he doesn't have much room left for new tattoos, I took his word on it also.

 

I know a guy that claims to have a picture on his butt cheek of Elmer Fudd aiming his rifle and saying "Come out you waskly wabbit!"

 

.........

 

yeah, I wish I'd took some pics...but cell phones weren't exactly prolific back then, neither were digital cameras, and there were no cell phones with built-in cameras.....and if I had only known what I might have seen, I would definitely have had my camera with me

+1000000000000000000000000

 

:shocked003

 

uhhhh, no thanks....

 

I didn't make it 1 minute into that video before I had to turn it off. There is no way in 9 circles of Hell that you could pay me to climb that thing.

 

Oohhh, [slash]Scooby[/slash] Micah, would you do it for a [slash]Scooby snack[/slash] Carlos V bar?


and yes, I had to look away several times, and get up and walk around and even sit on the floor several times, but I eventually made it to the end of the video :ashamed001

 

+1000. I made it through the whole thing, but they never answered three important questions:

1. why on earth are they climbing that thing?
2. what are they going to do once they get up there?
3. are they crazy?

 

1. duh! it's their job
2. duh! their job!
3. well, probably, but who else would agree to this kind of job!

 

which brings me to the all purpose question my son asks about everything*:

"why?"

*and it's driving me crazy. who knew a simple three letter word could be so profoundly annoying.

 

I actually know someone who has this. It looks ridiculous.

 

Might have been something loose or corroded up there causing faulty transmission. I can tell you from experience that once you get past three or four hundred feet, the rest is not too bad. So long as you have safety gear like those guys did.

During my years in the crane business, I have been involved in erecting my fair share of tower cranes, some of which were in excess of three hundred feet high. When doing that, you are hanging from the side of it while huge sections are lowered down on top of you by a massive mobile crane. The hardest part of it all was getting used to trusting the gear, and knowing that the lanyards that hold you are shock tested at weights that I would never come close to putting on them.

The only time I was really ever shaky was on one job in Philly. We had to erect a 355' tall tower crane on top of an existing building. The building must have been 40 or 50 floors. I honestly do not remember exactly though. The thing that made it so bad was the wind. The tower was swaying back and forth upwards of ten feet at times from gusts. Imagine being up that high and having the entire structure moving that much, hearing the metal squealing and popping from the stress (they are designed to do that). It was a bit much that particular day, and I was so glad to be finished that night (it took 14 straight hours for our crew to get it complete).

 

Those guys are nuts. I thought my buddy Bill, an iron worker, was nuts, but thats nothing on those tower guys. Here he is building 1 Liberty in Philly.

 

I don't understand why, near the end of the video, the narrator stated that there is no quick way down

The possibility of a demo was the only reason I watched it through to the end

 

I caught that too. You'd figure they could issue parachutes in the event of such an emergency.

 

sad, ain't it?

 

My palms are literally sweating just from looking at this photo. I could not handle that line of work.

 

just to illustrate that there's a storm nearby, and that he should have planned better, because, there is no quick SAFE way down.

and yes, I've always wondered why parachute is not THE standard descent method. Sure, you may end up several miles away from the tower, but even if you had to walk back and not have someone able to drive to you and bring you back, you'd still get back quicker than climbing down.

All that said, if I absolutely had to, I could make the climb UP....but then I'd be stuck up there, not so much the ladder part, but the transitioning parts.


I'm surprised this industry hasn't fast-tracked the development of this technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n_P71mkuVI

 

Well... what an exciting discussion.

Jason, I always wonder about the cranes they set up on top of buildings and skyscrapers in Chicago. You have to have better nerves than I do. I have been up on the skydecks on Sears and Hancock... I can't say I would ever get used to being up there even with safety gear.