Now Grab a Shovel

Now Grab a Shovel

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Working below your feet is awful. Bending over all day to work on stuff at ground level is bad enough, but if it’s in a trench, and you’re not, it’s ten times worse. This guy’s got it all figured out. You stand in the trench, and you glue up all the bell and spigot joints at around waist level because the pipe is lying on the ground. Then you get out of the trench and crack the whip.

The internet is full of backseat drivers and Monday morning quarterbacks, so the comments appended to this video snarkily point out that the stress on the pipe as it rolls into the trench might cause leaks. Ahem. You see that apparatus at the end of the run? That’s a walking irrigator. The pipe carries water to spray on a crop, not crude oil or natural gas or something. So what if it leaks a bit? It just gets to the roots that much faster.

Now grab a shovel. The easy work is already done.

What if Mike Tyson Was a Halfback?

What if Mike Tyson Was a Halfback?

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So, Marshawn Lynch retired. He went, willingly, to NFL Siberia first. Oakland is one of those places you end up, or you start out. Never both. But going enthusiastically to Oakland to wind up his career was just Marshawn being Marshawn.

The highlight reel lingers over his stay in Seattle. That’s understandable. That’s his Lombardi interlude. But it was in Buffalo that he truly mattered. That team didn’t stink, really. It was just good enough to be transformed into something compelling to watch by adding him to the roster. If he’d have stayed there, he’d have been a god in western New York. That’s not a very steep Olympus to climb, so he went elsewhere to be noticed.

He’ll never get in the Hall of Fame. But many years after you have to look up the names and stats of the people who get in instead of him, people will still be playing the clip of the Beastquake over and over. Perhaps it’s better to be one of a kind than simply among the best of your peers.

The Junkyard Is the New Factory Floor

The Junkyard Is the New Factory Floor

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Doing the Lord’s work here, putting a 240 Z back on the road in some form or fashion. I like it better when these projects just restore the cars to their original looks, maybe with upgrades to the way they run. But we’ll take what we can get. New cars ain’t got no soul, so you have to look in the graveyard for some.