Friday, December 2nd, 2011
To date, writing this blog has been quite an adventure. Today, i even ventured into the realm of other blogs to get a sampling of what it is like to actually read a blog. I've not done so before. That said, this entry will NOT be about blogging, since that seems redundant. It will be about stuff I've seen in the last week, but mostly one event from today.
Someplace in Manitoba, on MB-75, there is a church. Heck, there are lots of churches. The place is surprisingly more God-oriented than I had previously suspected. I thought that it was some kind of U.S. thing, but I may be wrong. So there's this church, right by the highway. Looks decent enough, probably has a biggish following. Large, modern looking building, but I forget the denomination. That part is probably irrelevant. Regardless, being by the highway, of course they are obligated to have a sign to proselytize to us heathens, although I prefer to be called a Taoist myself. Which makes everyone else a heathen, but it doesn't matter since we are all one any Way. (Apologies for the bad pun). Now this sign is up on a large post, so you can see it for some ways off. A nice steel post, just in case somebody hits it with a car in a drunken stupor. Being so high off the ground, somebody has to go up there, probably once a week, to put up some kind of witty saying, you know how that goes. This one made me pause to consider. “Jesus is returning. Resistance is futile.” Seriously. Anybody want to follow a Borg-Jesus around? Will we be assimilated? Can anybody out there photo-shop that image for me? That would be hilarious.
Since I'm on the subject of heights, I'll carry on with what I saw today. I'm driving west on I-94, out of St. Paul. Heck, I'm probably a bit further on down the road than that, since there isn't any civilization to speak of. There is, however, a State Trooper sitting in the median. I was a bit too occupied to notice him at first, because of the guy up on the power lines fixing something. Looks like he was banging on the glass insulators that hold the wire to the pole. I'm not just talkin' any pole here... I mean the really tall metal ones. The best way to describe it would be to imagine a ram-rod straight metal tree with three branches at even, opposite intervals. From each of these branches dangles a 6' glass insulator. From this glass fruit, a high tension wire hangs. The kind of wire that carries 60,000 to 100,000 volts. And there's this guy up there, suspended from a ladder, which is hung on one of the branches, seeming to beat on this insulator.
That was pretty dang impressive. This guy is probably 60 feet off the ground (he was on the lowest branch) standing on a ladder that is hanging from a metal bar and beating on a high tension wire (effectively). He's got to have cajones the size of grapefruit! Something else catches my eye a bit further along. Is that a cop chopper? I still hadn't seen the State Patrol at this point, so I figure that the helicopter was part of some traffic monitoring operation.
As I approached, it became clear. There it was, another ladder like the one I had seen just a few seconds ago. The helicopter was flying the ladders onto the power poles. I was thinking at first that maybe the linesmen carried them up with them, but then I looked again. No ladder on the outside of the poles. Looking again, I noticed that there was this guy. He was hanging on the ladder, being flown in by helicopter, to touch down on a power line carrying possibly carrying 100,000 volts, about 150 feet in the air with a full belt of tools and a cross breeze gusting to 35 mph. What could possibly go wrong? If the guy before had cajones the size of grapefruit for being up there, this other guy must be sporting bowling balls down there. Granted I guess they both flew in, but I was certainly more impressed with the guy suspended in mid-air. Now, I'm one for adventure and all, but that much height and electricity makes it a deal breaker for me. One or the other, but not both for sure. From now on, whenever I think I'm having a bad day at work, I'll think of those guys, and be glad it was at least a sunny day.
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