stormdog | Entries tagged with infrastructure

Living in Europe, I've thought about whether I would actually like to see Greek and Roman ruins. I finally concluded that I really don't think I would.

It's different from seeing crumbling buildings in modern-day cities in that it's not a significant part of people's lived experiences. It's not contributing to exploitation of people who live in them in the same way. People aren't living in poverty in the Coliseum of Rome or squatting in the palace of Knossos. It would be a lot more like seeing Palenque, as I did on an undergraduate trip to Mexico.

At the time, I loved Palenque, despite it's part in a colonially-based tourist system that is also exploitive. But at this point in my life, I just don't really want to see things in ruins. I'd much rather read a book about the engineering and functioning of the aqueducts (here's a nifty one with full text available via Hathi Trust! https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015032881370 ) than see them falling down and clogged with debris.

This is another way that thinking deeply about human geography in grad school fundamentally changed a number of things about myself. I don't want to see dead things anymore. I want to see life.

Current Mood: okay
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1392164.html

I like the way the parking garage at our complex is lit up at night. This isn't quite the best picture of it though.

This is the view from the walkway in front of the apartment at about 8 this morning.

Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1386952.html

I've mentioned the waste bins we take our garbage and recycling to. Here's what they look like! Restafval (garbage) in the left foreground. Plastics and metals in the right foreground. The midground bins are for cardboard and paper and often fill up even though there are two. The furthest set are of bins are are for textiles (left) and glass (right).

The green and gray metal structure behind the bins is the flower-stand I've mentioned (closed up for the day in this picture). And all the way across the street, there's a white sign with a blue circle: that's the sign for StevaB electronics, the shop that our apartment is above. If the white folding canopy the flower shop puts out wasn't there, you could see our windows above the sign.

The bins have sensors in them that detect when they are full. That triggers a truck to come out and empty the contents. The trucks have a hydraulically actuated boom with a business end that grabs those square metal columns with disks that stick out the top of the bin. It lifts the whole thing up out of the ground and over the truck. The bins are quite large: four or five foot deep rectangular boxes whose tops are formed by those corrugated metal sheets around the receptacles. A mechanism on the boom makes the bottom of those bins drop open, emptying their contents into the truck. Then the driver sets the bin back in the ground and drives away. It's a nifty system!

Just out of frame is the card-reader on the restafval bin. In retrospect, I should have made sure to include it. Those planters around some bins are relatively new. We got something in the mail about them, saying that they were intended to beautify the area and encourage people not to leave trash that doesn't fit in the bins sitting next to them. That plan has met with mixed success, as you can see from the garbage bag sitting next to the plastics and metals bin.

The waste bins across the street from our apartment in Amstelveen

Current Mood: sleepy
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1379521.html

Here in Amstelveen, garbage and recycling goes into underground containers that get emptied by truck once in a while. The recyclables are all open-access, but the garbage container requires an RFID card to unlock.
Our card stopped working last week, so we've had a bag of garbage sitting in the hallway outside our unit since, like, Thursday. (As far as I can tell, we're the only people living in our 3-unit apartment cluster above the electronics store, otherwise I wouldn't have left it out there.) Miriam called on Friday to find out what was up, and they said they'd call us back on Monday.

Turns out that, in Amstelveen (and probably other places that have them?), the garbage cards (afvalpassen) are tied to addresses. When you move, you leave the card in the apartment/house for the next residents. Ours, though, was assigned to apartment C instead of our unit, A. C just reported their card missing (why now after we've been here a year? I still never see anyone there) and got a new one, so ours was deactivated. But ours is supposed to be working again today (it takes a day to process through the system), so I can bring our stinky garbage out. Yay!

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Also, still playing the old gold box games. I made it through Pool of Radiance and am on to Curse of the Azure Bonds. The interface improvements are *so* good!

Current Mood: content
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1377184.html

I made another trip to the channel today. I was there in the late evening and the light was perfect for sharp contrasts and saturated colors! I'll see about posting a few more pictures later.

I have a question though. Why does this ship have two Plimsoll lines? This is the indicator of safe load for the ship. I knew about these already because I am an infrastructure geek and my idea of a fun time includes web-surfing for information about maritime safety markings. (I'm tons of fun at parties!)

Seeing two on one ship, though, confuses me. The unpainted one may be an old line. Was the ship refitted or changed? But one of the information sources I found online notes that the mark is raised from the surface so that even if the paint wears off, the marks are visible. What if paint wears off the second one?

Anyway, this is the Baker River, a cargo ship built in 2005 and registered in Hong Kong, on her way from Amsterdam to Gdansk.

Plimsoll Lines on the side of the cargo ship Baker River

Current Mood: curious
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1375154.html

As well as being awestruck by the steam engine, shooting yesterday reminded me of how much I enjoy the aesthetics of working infrastructure.

Railroad Bridge Over the Fox River at Elgin, Illinois

Current Mood: thoughtful
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1332405.html

I just finished reading Ed Sobey's "Unscrewed" which is a fun little book about taking household things apart and using their parts. The book notes that he also wrote a book about roadside technology systems, so I looked that one up on Amazon, and then found my way to this book.

I've wanted this book for at least ten years without knowing it existed. I have to decide when I can afford to buy it. Maybe not right now, but I must own this book.

Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape (Revised and Updated)

ETA: At first I was going to hold out for the revised edition, but I think I'm going to go ahead and order the much less expensive original now, and maybe get the revised one later on.

Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1272882.html

From the same trip as the UFO (a drive to Oklahoma with Lisa for a free dental clinic because accessible healthcare is for wealthy people), this is the Pensacola Dam, also called the Grand River Dam. At about 6,500 feet long, It's the longest dam of it's type on the planet.

This is one of my favorite kinds of things to photograph.

Current Mood: okay
Crossposts: https://stormdog.livejournal.com/1269449.html

Someone tried to steal one of my bicycles last night and failed because I have a good Kryptonite U-lock. That person also tried to steal that bike's front wheel and failed because they were stupid.

I met a resident of our building in the lobby who told me her bike had been stolen last night, despite both a U-lock and a combo lock. That's surprising, since U-locks work pretty well, but it happens. When I went out to get on my bike for an errand, I saw that both of mine (I lock them together at the end of the rack) were leaning far over on their sides. I got my Summer bike unlocked and found that the front brakes were disengaged, the quick release lever was open, and the wheel was wobbling loosely in the fork.

So what likely happened was someone tried to take the bike and was thwarted by the U-lock. Then zie tried to steal the front wheel and were thwarted by the lawyer lips. See, bike wheels used to be attached by nuts on each side. Then the quick release lever was invented to make the wheels easier to pop off and on for transportation and such. Then people started crashing because of their front wheel coming off, which in the majority of cases is caused by not using the quick-release properly. And then front forks gained little metal flanges at the bottom, so-called "lawyer lips", to keep the wheel in the fork even if the quick-release isn't tightened down. They mostly defeat the purpose of having a quick-release and make it a nuisance to loosen the lever further and wiggle the wheel around out of the fork, so some people file them off. I can only guess that this would-be thief either got interrupted in the middle of his work just as he zie releasing the front wheel, or just couldn't figure out how to get the wheel out of the fork. I'm not sure which is more likely; the timing of the former seems pretty tight. The latter option gives me a good laugh, so I'm going with that one.

I need to get my winter bike back to Kenosha for storage so I can use the cable lock it has as a secondary lock for my summer bike to secure the wheels to the frame. I can't count on the next person who wants parts being as stupid as the last.

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I started on my project of riding to each end of every line of the Chicago L. I went to Linden first, the north end of the Purple Line and the closest terminus to where I live. It's very near the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette. It's the largest Bahá'í temple in the world, both breath-takingly beautiful and of historical worth in several respects.

It's also near the north end of the North Shore Channel. The channel is a canal originally built after the reversal of the Chicago River caused the north branch of said river to lose its flow and become stagnant. The flow down the channel to the north branch keeps water flowing down to the junction at Wolf Point in downtown Chicago, and then up the river and on toward the Mississippi. There at the north end of the channel, the sluice gate controlling flow from the lake stretches across the water, and I spent a little while looking at it.

The presence of all of this infrastructure gave me ideas for a photography project. It would be really interesting to have photos of the most interesting pieces of infrastructure at each line terminus. Infrastructure connected by infrastructure. It makes me think, too, of the numerous ways that these disparate places are connected through water, rails, road, power grid, and more. Maybe I could incorporate that in some way too; photograph the network of infrastructure that connects places just as much as the railroad does, but in less visible ways. Something to think about.

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My bike is riding so nicely after the tune-up I did! Northwestern University has a few bike repair stands positioned on their campus, so I rode over and used one. It's silently oiled now and gear shifts are snappy. I'm looking forward to my next ride!

Current Mood: accomplished

Pigeons at the Burlington Canal Lift Bridge in Hamilton. I love movable bridges. This one is an impressive vertical lift span bridge. It reminds me a little of the one in Houghton-Hancock, Michigan.

Current Mood: creative

As I wrote earlier, I'm thinking of photographing active, in-use infrastructure and machinery. Here's one from my recent trip to Canada; a high-voltage pylon in Hamilton, Ontario on the Lake Ontario shore.

There are a lot of interesting pylons along the bike path north of the botanic gardens; I may head there with a telephoto lens soon and try out some compositions.

Current Mood: artistic

Wow; I'd really like a print of this! This is the kind of art that inspires and drives my own art.

http://collection.whitney.org/object/125

This is a piece of art by a female artist who was part of the first art movement native to the United States. Why don't we hear more about women like this in art? Even in my art history class that made sure to talk about important and influential women in artistic history, we didn't mention Elsie Driggs. You can't cover everyone of course; it was a short introductory class. But far too many female artists are overlooked.

Let's hear it for Elsie Driggs!

Current Mood: enthralled

An article about the "Annual International Utility Locate Rodeo." People from all over the world compete to be the best at locating underground infrastructure. I love that this event exists!

http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/08/how-to-see-invisible-infrastructure/401429/?utm_source=SFTwitter

From the article:

"Ever since I started looking for visible signs of infrastructure, I’ve heard people tell me that it’s invisible. “Invisible” is a word that people use to describe things—cables, networks, systems, people—when they don’t want to admit they are still learning how to see. It is a word that suggests subterfuge where there might be only incompetence, a master plan where there may only be a missing or outdated map. Locators see this system for what it is: fragmented, full of lost and abandoned histories, and, while very hard to see, impossible to ignore and forgotten at great cost."

Current Mood: curious

I'm finally settled into the hotel here in Fort Worth after a long, long drive from Evanston. My parents went out grocery shopping (we have a fridge and microwave here in the room). I was going to go with them, but on further consideration I decided that a little time to myself would be really beneficial. I had a better time on the trip than three people in a car for most of a day probably have a right to, but I was getting a bit grumpy and snippy as we unpacked bags. A little decompression time is good.

We stopped a few times on the way for interesting things. My parents indulged me by stopping for a photo-op at the world's largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, IL. The ketchup company is out of business and the building and bottle are for sale. This felt odd to me in a way similar to the way I felt seeing an amazing historic public office building in Detroit, bedecked with marble and monumental sculpture, for sale. It's something so iconic, so embedded in history and place, that commodifying it seems bizarre. The town still has a ketchup bottle festival; signs indicated we'd only just missed it, sadly.

We stopped at the Pensacola Dam near Disney, Oklahoma. It's the mile-long dam that Lisa and I stopped at on our trip. She and I were there in the daylight. My parents and I saw it at three in the morning. We drove across the structure and parked in the gravel turnout alongside the spillway. We looked out at the dam and up at the stars, listening to the raucous screeching of insects.

To my surprise, most of my feelings about being there were subdued by a primary emotional response of sadness. This is a place I associate strongly with Lisa, and it was strange not to be there with her. I found myself preoccupied with thoughts of being far away from her, not being able to share new experiences and wonder with her. In a certain way, it's harder to move away from Lisa than from Danae; with Danae, I know we'll be together again in a few years. With Lisa, I don't know when or if I'm going to be back living in the same region. Nostalgia and some melancholy crowded other thoughts out of my brain as I stood listening to the quietly rushing water. I was glad to get back in the car and drive back across the dam.

On the way over, my mother suggested stopping on the dam at a point where we could see the sluices and generating equipment. At that time of day, there was essentially no traffic, and the idea was really appealing. We stopped and turned the blinkers on while I walked back and forth from one side of the narrow concrete dam to the other. We were still far from the generators at the west side, and looking down I could only see a tree-filled park-like area that Google Maps had told me was a nature preserve or golf course.

We got back in the car and parked at the far west end and, still feeling like exploring, walked a distance out along the pedestrian path on the north, upstream side. I hadn't done this while there with Lisa; I didn't think there'd be anything to see on the upstream side, and there were too many cars to safely look from the downstream edge. With no cars, I wanted to do the latter. As it turned out, the former was just as amazing.

I knew that there were large concrete semi-circles on the upstream side of the dam, holding water back. I didn't realize though, until I was standing above them and looking down, that they opened into cavernous spaces full of stairs and platforms above pipes of a size that made the human-scaled walkways look like toys. Looking down into the workings of the dam was like looking into an inexplicable cavern in the middle of the river, a void surrounded by huge volumes of water. The sight didn't seem to make logical sense; it was markedly disorienting in a way that reminded me of standing on a catwalk above the tremendous, pitch-black coal hoppers in an abandoned power plant. Looking down felt like staring into an otherworldly void. I had to lean over the dam in short spans to avoid a gut-wrenchingly immanent feeling of falling.

I loved it. And I regretted not having packed my tripod. A small part of me wants to come back with an A-frame ladder to compose more interesting views of these disconcerting spaces. Honestly though, I don't think I could overcome the vertigo and fear that would come with such a view.

As well as the upstream side, my mother and I got to see the downstream side from a vantage point I'd never had before. Leaning over from the edge of the roadway, we could watch the humming generating station, thrumming with powerful vibrations that I could feel in my feet and chest where the touched the concrete. Beyond the building, a wide torrent of water, paradoxically turbulent and orderly, rushed unendingly southward.

The whole set of experiences helped me accept and release the sadness over feeling Lisa's absence. Metaphorically, symbolically, I like the reminder that there are new things to be experienced and new ways to have those experiences, even in the context of a place that has strong existing associations. Nostalgia for an experience means that something made me feel strongly, and that's good as long as I continue to explore and feel strongly. There's so much life out there not to be open to new takes on old experiences.

Anyway, I drove most of the way to Oklahoma. Not quite as far as when I drove Lisa to Tulsa this past August, but it was a long way. I've known for a long time that I tend to want to be in control of things. I realized this trip that I had just a touch of anxiety about going to sleep in a car, late at night, with someone else driving, even when she'd had more recent sleep than I had.

Finally, around one o' clock today, we made it to my dad's sister's place in White Settlement. (This is, in fact, a holdover name from when this was a White settlement in, essentially, Indian Territory.) We spent a few hours talking to her. Or my parents did. After an hour or so, I gratefully fell asleep in her recliner. Around four, we said temporary goodbyes and drove over to the hotel.

I'm so glad we're here now. The weather is bad. As bad as I remember southern Mexico feeling in Winter. I may drive around and see a few things now that it's late. Or I may go to bed early and get a fresh start tomorrow. Regardless, once my parents are back from shopping, it'll be time to find some food.

Current Mood: exhausted

One of the things I've been planning this Summer is a trip I've wanted to take for years. Getting to Engineer's Day at the Soo Locks has just never worked out. This year, I was going to make a solo drive out and sleep in my car on the cheap. To my pleasant surprise, Miriam decided she wanted to come with and make a little vacation of it with me. I've finally settled on lodging in Sault Ste. Marie and, on the way back, Marinette. With splitting of expenses, it won't end up costing me much more than I would have paid for gas on my own, and we'll have a lovely couple of days together seeing sights.

I'll have no trouble filling my day at the locks. I'm thrilled about the power plant tour, walking the walls of the locks, and up-close views of big freighters on their way through the channel! The second day should be a lot of fun too; Miriam and I love walking around historic downtowns, wandering into boutiques, and looking at architecture.

Do any of you know Marinette and Menominee? I'd love some advice from experience!

Current Mood: excited

Posi and I both love looking at wind farms. Here's a view in the midst of the giant Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in northern Indiana. The farm consists of about 355 wind turbines generating around 600MW. I have more from this farm to post.

I wonder all the time, as I drive through wind farms, what the pioneer settlers of the land would have thought if they knew that, someday, there would be these monstrous pylons six or eight times the height of their houses, topped with immense fan blades, all spinning away as far as the eye can see. Such a strange concept to juxtapose with the old, abandoned farm buildings here and there, probably remaining from property consolidation due to automation and technological development. Those buildings make me nostalgic, inspiring thoughts of forgotten history and experiences in the shadow of these turbines.

Current Mood: creative

Erik and I had a pretty successful trip up Pike Creek west of the golf course today! We didn't make it all the way through the first drain, and thus did not see the other portions I was hoping to explore. Erik's boots were not as waterproof as my knee waders and we decided it would be better to get his increasingly wet feet somewhere warm and dry.

Other than that though, this was a really easy drain to get into, and it had some interesting twists, turns, and junctions. I'm planning to come back at some point and see more of it, as well as the other portions, so let me know if you want to come with!

More photos ( behind the cut. )

That was fun! I need to do that again soon!

Current Mood: happy

It's been a long time since I've made time for getting up close and personal with subterranean urban infrastructure.

I'm planning an urban spelunking trip for exploration and photography some time over my Spring break, which spans the 28th of March through the 4th of April. If you're local or will be in the area, and you're interested in coming with me, let me know and we can talk about details!

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I'm leaving early Thursday morning for Syracuse, where I'll be attending a welcome event for prospective grad students. I'm looking forward to meeting several folks I might be working with, as well as some current grad students. I feel like I should probably have a list of neighborhoods to look at and stuff like that, but, well, I don't. I've seen a few areas where studio apartments are available near-ish to the university. I'll probably write down a few intersections to drive around near and get a feel for the areas.

restoman, would you like to get together for a little food or something, maybe Friday once the events on campus are done? I'm not sure how much you're up to doing at the moment....

danaeris is coming with, which always makes a long drive more enjoyable. She'll be staying with her parents in the Toronto area while I drive on to New York state. Roadtrip!

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Do I need to study for the GIS exam coming up tomorrow? *shrugs* I don't know. I'm having one of those moments where I feel like there's a bunch of stuff I should be doing and I'm not quite sure where to start. I think I'll read the paper that a Syracuse professor just sent me about bridging the conceptual gap between studying infrastructure and engaging in current community issues.

Current Mood: distractible

This is one of the drainage canals feeding the retention bason near Shopko.
This may or may not be part of the historic Pike Creek watershed. Historic maps don't show a direct connection. However, a 1958 topographic map shows a stream in this area that runs to near where a 1931 plat map shows a southern branch of Pike Creek that no longer exists.
History has its mysteries.