![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Maintenance, destruction
Jan. 23rd, 2010 06:25 pmReading: "Occasional Design" by Henry Petroski, American Scientist 98(1), 16-19 (Jan.-Feb. 2010)
A description, without a dull or superfluous word in it, of how a chimney sweep & his helper wrestled a slab of rotting stuff off the top of the author's chimney, and a slab of granite into its place. They did it in a hour. No belays, guard rails, or hard hats, so they were careful.
There is a drawing of the setup, and there are photographs of the house and the chimney, but -- understandably & regrettably -- none of the men. They must have been easy to look at.
As I write this, a crew with plenty of heavy equipment is demolishing the apartment house next to mine, which was gutted by fire not quite 2 weeks ago. Among their tasks is to take down a 5-story brick wall without its falling on my house. They have covered my windows with sheets of plywood & steel. They seem to know their business.
They load the rubble into a huge truck, using two big treadborne machines like backhoes but with jaws. It is mostly splintered wood, but every once in a while one of their bites contains a mattress or a blanket or a dress that somebody was once used to having. It's sad.
A description, without a dull or superfluous word in it, of how a chimney sweep & his helper wrestled a slab of rotting stuff off the top of the author's chimney, and a slab of granite into its place. They did it in a hour. No belays, guard rails, or hard hats, so they were careful.
There is a drawing of the setup, and there are photographs of the house and the chimney, but -- understandably & regrettably -- none of the men. They must have been easy to look at.
As I write this, a crew with plenty of heavy equipment is demolishing the apartment house next to mine, which was gutted by fire not quite 2 weeks ago. Among their tasks is to take down a 5-story brick wall without its falling on my house. They have covered my windows with sheets of plywood & steel. They seem to know their business.
They load the rubble into a huge truck, using two big treadborne machines like backhoes but with jaws. It is mostly splintered wood, but every once in a while one of their bites contains a mattress or a blanket or a dress that somebody was once used to having. It's sad.
