For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.
And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
The worksite at about 9:30. Chris Vocci and his 7750 coupled to the rear of the Grace superstructure
and Manny stablizibing the front of the Grace superstructure
Carlos (on the near side) and Stan on the far side
Nugget in the front
Fire from Nugget over the temp support and Carlos in the middle (right)
Chris holding up his end, Manny holding up his end and our acrobats doing their thing
Stan (left) and Carlos (right) making the splice plate cut
Here is a catalog of the cutting positions - according to the Nugget classification system. Nugget has revised his classfication system - check the March 18, 2006 edition. Carlos demonstrating position 1, the sitting position
Stan demonstrating position 2, the kneeling position
Carlos demonstrating position 3, the prone position
Stan demonstrating position 4, the straddle position
A full view of position 4
Stan demonstrating position 5, the bending position
Nugget demonstrating position 0, the chillin' position
Stan make a small variation in position 5, the bending position
Carlos displaying position 6, the back away position
Separation below
and separation above
and Manny starts his platex maneuver, lift and separate
Up, up and away. Click to watch Manny do his thing (4 MB mpg)
While Chris stablizes the other half
Total separation
a little rotation
and down
under the watchful eyes of Carlos and Stan
more rotation and lowering
down
Almost down
and touchdown
And here she is
Now Manny drops the lift cables
and a pleased Paul and Manny
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer