Dust to Dust, Metal to Metal
March 24, 2013
When we saw that today (Sunday) had a better chance of rain than yesterday, Janet and I decided to go out with cameras yesterday. It gave us the opportunity to visit places that are closed Sundays (our usual day), like this wonderful metal scrap yard we discovered a few weeks ago when the gate was closed. We thought we might get chased out right away, but the guys actually let us shoot for a little while—and we shot like mad. I wish I’d asked Howard, who drives the huge piece of heavy equipment there, the name of his machine and especially the name of the pincher-grabber part. . . . After Howard sorted a bunch of things, moving them with the grabber from one pile to another (had to be some reason he did that, but I didn’t figure it out), he grabbed the wad of springs, wire and chain link that I had photographed earlier and carefully swung it like a broom to clear up the ground. Cool. He made it look easy to do, but I’m sure it isn’t. I asked Howard if his job was fun, and he said yes, that it was like playing a big video game. That’s Howard taking a break outside his cab to look at this blog on his phone. . . . I had to Google: The first name I found for the pincher-grabber thing is —ready for this?—“pincer grab,” though the generic word seems to be just “grabber” or “crane grabber.” And I think Howard’s vehicle is Sennebogen’s 825 Mobile Material Handling Machine. You can spend a good eight minutes watching these machines in action on YouTube.
Romancing Reality 