Thursday, August 12, 2010

Residential Industrialists Battle The Elements

What a day! A terrible day, but there were some rewarding moments. I'm trying to keep it real, so I know there's more rewarding things going on out there. It's just that I have my own limited perspective, so I have to believe it's better than it seemed.

Of course the call went out in the last couple of days for the industrial community -- those of the Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) -- to retool and switch over from whatever they were manufacturing to make air conditioners, fans, and sprinkler hoses. We've been battling the heat, with every day being a scorcher.

But we barely got that going when the rains came down and the floods came up. Numerous houses and businesses and public facilities have had a hard time enduring the floods, apparently having been built on the sand, and unfortunately they've gone splat.

So through the day everything shifted quickly. There's lots more voices than mine, of course. Thank God, I say that from my perspective. The time I have in a day isn't time enough to get much done. It takes me a half hour to take Underbrush out for her business in the morning! Although to be fair, part of that is also taken up with feeding and watering the cat. Then I'm writing these reports -- searching for just the right words -- and I put in maybe another half hour on this.

There's nothing centralized here on me, which would be ridiculous. But being the philosophical father of the movement, of course there is some deference. However -- and, again, I'm thankful it's this way -- human nature out there takes its own course; every man is an expert in his own mind, and some want to do it one way and some another. As far as man's greed, there's a lot of that. And there's all the basic troubles with logistics, supply lines, troubles with design and functionality, etc. The short story is, if it takes a half hour to take a dog out to do her business, it takes a little while to retool and start manufacturing air conditioners, fans, and even sprinkler hoses.

Add to that the fact that Mother Nature has her other elements to unleash on us -- PMS in high places -- so we're also battling her crazy downpours and subsequent floods. I was downtown (this is true) and I was examining a cement incline between some of the buildings. I didn't have a pitcher of water with me but I was trying to visualize what would happen if I could pour one on that incline. My sense was that it would rush down the hill rather than staying in place at my feet at the top. If there's a principle there, I feel it would be the same principle operating to create this havoc from too much water that so many have been reporting.

Again, I can't handle it all, and because of human nature (O felix culpa) I didn't have to! The ink on the pledge cards wasn't even dry before folks were experiencing the problems with manufacturing entirely different appliances. And add to that all the troubles with the floods and the quick sense that we needed to be also manufacturing hip waders, sandbags, jinx spray, boats, rafts, sump pumps, scuba gear, umbrellas, mold scrapers, and downspouts. Others much more knowledgeable than I were all over this thing, and by the end of the day I heard reports of trucks leaving some of our bigger industrial plants loaded with some supplies. What, exactly? I don't know, but I hope there was at least a few air conditioners, fans, and sprinkler hoses, in addition to whatever folks need to battle the waters. Maybe we don't need sprinkler hoses at this point; I'll just throw that out there.

As for myself, what can I do? The dog and cat are taken care of, the blog is written, so I guess I'll go out to the shop and do what I can toward making a working air conditioner. It's harder than it looks ... and very frustrating if you don't have the slightest clue where to start...

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