The concrete fact
For the spectator (that means me), the only important sports game is the one you are currently watching. By the next day, the vicarious pain is gone, and the statistics are of use to someone else. Therefore, I’ll take this one moment to feel sorry for the Rouge et Or football team, who did not win their playoff game today. I admit it; Halifax did not learn how to play ball today. Mea culpa. The season is over. Let the next one begin. With a team as good as this one, we’ll be back in the headlines in less than twelve months.
I finally found the answer to one of those questions that has bothered me since childhood. I learned how the inside of a concrete truck (transit agitator) is cleaned. It’s the old blackbox principle, where what one can’t see is often more interesting that what one can. I’ve seen trucks “on the road” and “on site” for most of my life, and I knew that they contained a grey viscous mess that would harden into roads and bridges and buildings if enough time was allowed. What I did not know, before this evening, is whether or not the simple action of slowly turning was sufficient to keep the inside pristine. It is not.
Turns out that drums are expensive and useful, which is enough to keep the average contractor awake at night seeking ways to get the accumulated gunk outside. Think clogged arteries. I shopped for replacement drums on eBay, but that doesn’t look like an economical way to run a ready-mix business. Instead, you drop a couple of guys inside at night through access hatches, and with enough time, muscle and a good pneumatic hammer, magic happens. The “young” concrete, which generally hasn’t had a chance to cure, can be chipped free and shovelled outside. By dawn, the truck is ready for another day near the trenches.
I’m not going to quit my day job and change careers based on this factoid, but my thanks to Mike Rowe and the folks at Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel for adding to my trivia. Life is somehow better, and when I look at a big Tonka on the road, I will know!
