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Blow Me A River
Mar. 26th, 2013 05:22 pmOkay, so I have a Very Nice Office. It's, like, right in the river. I look down in the summer, and there's a water lily patch and ducks and terns puddling around, and sometimes you can see fish. But it's in March that things get really interesting, because that's when the dynamite comes into play.
Yep, you heard me. Dynamite.
You see, the thing is -- 200 meters further down, my little river flows into a much bigger river, by way of a waterfall that's been regulated and dammed in with concrete and all sorts of man-made shit. This becomes a problem in the spring, when the ice breaks and jams things up, threatening to flood some of the city's priciest (and highest-tax-paying) real estate. The answer? Blow a channel into the ice. Three short toots, a long one, and VROOM -- up go the chunks of ice, 100 feet in the air like Old Faithful. Every year, first Monday in March, like clockwork. Then a couple of weeks later, when it warms up (because sometimes it just all freezes shut again) they go and knock apart the remainder with mini-icebreakers. Sometimes they have to blast again at this point.
So this morning I watched the ice breakers go at it. Grown men, steering little itty bitty red boats into ice floes at top speed. You cannot tell me they weren't having a total ball... Alas, I forgot to bring my camera for the show, so the blackberry had to do for photographic evidence...
Yep, you heard me. Dynamite.
You see, the thing is -- 200 meters further down, my little river flows into a much bigger river, by way of a waterfall that's been regulated and dammed in with concrete and all sorts of man-made shit. This becomes a problem in the spring, when the ice breaks and jams things up, threatening to flood some of the city's priciest (and highest-tax-paying) real estate. The answer? Blow a channel into the ice. Three short toots, a long one, and VROOM -- up go the chunks of ice, 100 feet in the air like Old Faithful. Every year, first Monday in March, like clockwork. Then a couple of weeks later, when it warms up (because sometimes it just all freezes shut again) they go and knock apart the remainder with mini-icebreakers. Sometimes they have to blast again at this point.
So this morning I watched the ice breakers go at it. Grown men, steering little itty bitty red boats into ice floes at top speed. You cannot tell me they weren't having a total ball... Alas, I forgot to bring my camera for the show, so the blackberry had to do for photographic evidence...
