April 23, 2005:
For me, pleasant surprises are frequently associated with my
activity. If I sit for a long time in a quiet place, what I see becomes highly
predictable and rarely does anything interesting happen. However,
if I walk around a bit with my curious eyes open, something unpredictable
(and often pleasant) frequenly happens. Today, I was taking some photos of
the paving of the main span when two guys walked up and wanted to know
the address of these bridge web pages.
It turns out that one was Philip, who named the
last erecting crane
Last Dinosaur Standing, and the other was Lewis,
who I watched driving the
drift pins (scroll down about 1/3) into the splice plate that connected
the west and east decks. It is one thing to simply capture the action of
these ironworkers (and iron men) during my visits to the bridge,
but when I have the possibility to
meet them and talk a bit - well, like the Visa ad: simply priceless.
A view of Philip's crane, the "Last Dinosaur Standing" - Erecting the
last edge and floor girders. (February 5, 2005)
Philip's lonely dinosaur and two adult dinosaurs (a.k.a tower cranes)
as seen from my early morning visit. The sun was particularly cooperative
this morning, evoking a golden glow from the white edge girders.
(February 13, 2005)
During the major phase of constructing the back and main spans, cranes
were everywhere. Here is a view of a family of adult and adolescent dinosaurs
during the early stages of main span construction. (June 27, 2004)
