Commercial Items Identified on my Commute

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I see a lot of interesting commercialitems on truck on I-75. When you make the commute many times you start to see the same items over and over again. Sometimes it is huge equipment tires, sometimes heavy equipment of different types. I see these huge blocks of aluminum going North. I think about what the mill must look like and where it is going. And how much aluminum foil a block like this will make. Using the Tesla Full Self-Driving (supervised) allows me to look for these things on the highway. The FSD also helps me through the crazy stop and goes. Easily over 70MPH and then sudden traffic at dead stops, frequently. I see accidents every trip. It is amazing there aren't more. A side note- aluminum foil has a shiny side and a dull side. The reason why is that the foil is folded as it goes through massive rollers. The shiny side is the side that faces the steel roller. The dull side faces itself - aluminum.
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Hopefully the folks who wanted to see me on the webcam did. Now I have to see if steering the camera for my personal amusement will get me in trouble. The picture of the buiding is what I was looking at for the webcam (the other side of the lens). It is the NOAA building. I am not going to tell you what the sign I was next to said. You have to come to the pole yourself. Ok. Ok... it says basically "No vehicles past this point" There are a lot of buried wires that the comms tech doesn't like to have to splice.

We have been reminded here that it was 95 years ago today 1/17/12 that Scott arrived at 90 South. Upon seeing Amundsen’s tent his words: “The Pole….Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority….Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it”. It is a good time to reflect on the heroic age of polar exploration.

There is a whole bunch of nothing out there.

The pole is a lot different from McMurdo. The culture is different. The place is different. The culture here is of a very large deep field camp. Pole people naturally pitch in. Pole peolple understand the harshness of Antarctica. Pole people know each other a lot better than folks at McMurdo.

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Anonymous said…
Charles,
Check your email.
GM
1:59 PM
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