Your Basic Standard Twin Ice Machine

First, the bad news: I'm not going to be writing about ice machines everyday, as popular as I know that'd be. The idea appeals to me, too, but it'd be such a monumental task, all the traveling, the research, etc. It's a lot easier to just make a few incidental remarks about ice machines in general than it is to have to really know a lot about them, their specs, information on the manufacturers, the history of them, and so forth.

Still, if I'm going to be the kind of fanatic and expert on them that will get me a sure booking on the Travel Channel, it wouldn't hurt occasionally to look like I'm at least going through the motions. So I'll be doing a post every once in a while on the subject, and, just between you and me, I'll probably be inflating some of this stuff, like the number of ice machines I've actually visited. At first I was thinking I'd need to visit 12,000 of them to be a qualified expert. But now I'm thinking I can just count each one as 100, because there's so many of the same kind.

So guess what ... yesterday I visited 200 ice machines, and I have pictures from both of them! That's a lot of driving to get to 200 ice machines, believe me. You get out of the car, go over and check it out, get back in the car and rush off to the next one. And since you see them everywhere, every convenience store, every liquor store, and lots of grocery stores, there's a lot of stop and go driving. It's kind of boring really.

I got a pretty good picture of one of them, seen above. (Let me say, I'm referring to these as "ice machines," but that might be an inaccurate term. I really don't know what's going on inside. But they're more or less just big freezers storing ice that some guy put in them, aren't they? The machine part, if that's the right term, would just be the mechanical apparatus keeping the freezer working. But I'm going to keep calling them ice machines, since I've already started.)

The picture shows an ice machine model that seems to be pretty common, a double whammy, and I saw 200 of them just today alone, so that's an awesome statistic. All this time, having been a guy who hasn't paid attention to ice machines, I thought they were all single whammies, like the one they discovered on Mars a couple years back. Single whammies are what I seem to recall from when I was a kid. But, clearly, these days they're going for the double wides.

The big advantage, I'm guessing, to the double wides is that they can stock twice as much ice, meaning it won't run out until the delivery guy gets back, who now shows up only half as often. I was wondering today what they call the double wide machines -- I've been calling them double wides, double whammies, the twins, or just a double. When they break down, I was guessing they're probably called double trouble or terrible twins...

As is seen in the picture, the machine makes a nice presentation. The white color is very clean. This particular design goes way back, so it's built up a lot of goodwill among the buying public. Everyone knows this machine is going to have ice that you won't be ashamed to use. Again, personally I would prefer the single, since that's what I grew up with. The doubles have about twice the size of what I'd like to see. But I don't object to the double on any moral grounds, nor would I have any big objection to buying ice from one, if I bought ice, which I don't usually. I bought some for a picnic years ago, but that's it. Even so, I'd rather buy it from a single, but that's just me. I'm wondering if the demand is really that great, or could it be the ice man is simply greedy?

Be that as it may, at least it's not a triple or a quadruple, so we can be thankful it's only a double.

I'm glad I took the picture of this machine when I did. Because, you might not believe this, my phone went on the fritz soon afterward. For the last few months my camera has been adding a green, weird effect to all pictures. But a week or so ago it started working right again. Then today, a little while after I took the picture above of the first 100 machines, it quit working again.

Evening came and I was out, and I thought I may as well get another 100 under my belt, so I took this closeup of a machine. I wanted to just get the ICE part from the top as a closeup. It wasn't till I got home, then, that I noticed the camera had crapped out again. Those aren't the true colors of the sign. I didn't check it while I was there, because I was worried that the store manager might be wondering why a guy was taking pictures of his ice machine. That's what I thought about the first one I took, too. Since video cameras are extensively in use, there's videos of me taking pictures of ice machines 200 times today alone! After a while, you'd think they'll start wondering what's up with this guy? And maybe the police will set me down for some very earnest questioning.


AN ICE FANTASY:

While I was driving today looking at ice machines, I had a fantasy about some characters from the original Adventures of Superman show from the '50s.

In this fantasy scene, Herb Vigran is of course the boss and John Doucette is the underling, and they're breaking into someone's home to steal a bunch of jewels.

Herb Vigran, in his stern, hard voice says, "I wonder where they keep the ice." John Doucette, in his goofiest voice, replies, "Uh, I think they keep it in the freezer, boss." Herb: "Not that ice, Stupid!" John suddenly remembers why they're there and says, "Oh yeah, the ice!"

I Found A Cool Ice Bag

I was driving in the country yesterday for pleasure, looking to see what I might see. My eyes spied in a field afar a group of deer. I got my binoculars to get a closer look. A buck was standing there, looking good with his masculine rack.

I kept looking -- putting the binoculars to very good use. And then my eyes were drawn to some litter. A litterbug had apparently discarded some trash by the road, then with the wind it had blown into the field.

After the deer were departed, I climbed the fence and ventured across the field, which turned out to be quite a walk -- these were really good binoculars. It reminded me of the first time I saw the Rocky Mountains; you see them from an enormous distance, then you drive toward them but you never actually arrive.

In this case, though, I reached the spot where the litter was -- which turned out to be exactly what I thought it was from a distance (with my really good binoculars ... I could've guided an unskilled hand in heart surgery from my car with just the binoculars and my phone.) The litter turned out to be an ice bag. The very kind of bag you get ice in from an ice machine.

I'm of course now interested in ice machines, trying to work myself up to a fanaticism and expertise on the subject so that someday I might be featured on the Travel channel. So I'm interested naturally in ice bags too. And what demonstrates my fanaticism any more than walking across a huge field to claim an ice bag stuck up against some weeds, being buffeted in the wind?

There was some risk in this undertaking because the field was marked 'No Trespassing,' and the farmer might've caught me -- technically the litter belonged to him. But I made it back to the road OK, so that's a little bit of extraneous karma I'll get to deal with sometime later, doubtless.

Anyway -- as to the bag -- what an interesting specimen it turned out to be! You can see it in the picture, admittedly not as good as being able to see it up close, where you'd be able to thoroughly examine it.

What I notice first is the great illustration, meant, I assume, to convey the sense of coldness. It's a polar bear standing on his back twos and holding a block of ice in his front twos. He's in a very cold land, as is typical for polar bears. There's an igloo in the scene. By the looks of it, the igloo either has a window or its simply missing a block. Perhaps the bear is going to stick the block there (the nice option), or maybe he took the block from there (not so nice) to sell it. The smile on his face doesn't show anything incriminating, in my opinion, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The next thing I see is an icy font and a slogan: "ICE WHEN YOU NEED IT!" Like I mentioned the other day, these icy fonts are expected on a bag of ice or an ice machine. I don't have much more to say about it than that. It doesn't take a genius to explain the connection between the font and the product, but if it did, I'd be well equipped to expound upon it in some detail. One genius observation I might make is maybe the bear's plugging the space with a clear piece of ice (a window) because it's 'Ice When He Needs It.'

The part I like best is actually one of the smaller elements, in the upper left corner, a small starburst mortice with the words "PREMIUM ICE." That's good. You're not just getting ordinary frozen water; it's better than that -- it's premium. It might be cubed, crushed, or extra crushed; whatever, it's the good stuff.

This was a great find. And the walk didn't bother me -- I need the exercise. I also got to see some cool deer, including a buck. I only regret that I had to trespass on a guy's field. But look, I was able to liberate an excellent ice bag!

UPDATE: I'm going to leave out the name of the ice company that made this ice and their location. The last thing I want is more competition in this ice fanaticism thing I've got going. And, besides, the ice companies already have all the ice machine groupies they can handle.

The Ice Machine Fanatic

I'm seeing some of the craziest stuff on TV. We've got an infinite number of channels trying to fill an infinite amount of time, so naturally anything goes.

I think it was on yesterday, a show on the Travel channel about the "most unique" McDonald's restaurants. The crazy thing about it was that they featured an expert on unique McDonald's places and things, a guy who's made it his mission in life to visit every McDonald's. He's already been to around 12,000 of them. Of course he has lots of stories to tell, and there was a TV show this one time, at least, that featured him.

He looked normal enough in all the typical things you look for, eyes, head size, etc. But there he is, going nationwide and around the world, looking for the elusive good meal at McDonald's.

It made me think of other fanatics, what I might be able to do to be featured on one of these Discovery-type channels and all their feature stories. Definitely going to McDonald's is now out, thanks to you know who. But you could have a guy who goes to every adult bookstore/movie place in existence. That would make a fascinating study, since you figure there's going to be less and less of them thanks to the internet. Probably the best place to find them would be where truck drivers go, the interstate. And even there, with 3G/4G network cards, we're going to lose a lot of these little pieces of imagined paradise. Anticipated paradise, anyway, although ultimately disappointing.

Just let your mind wander ... there's all kinds of places you could be a fanatic and an expert about. Fast lube places, oil change stations. The biggest drawback would be you don't get your oil changed as often as you eat. Plus it sounds very boring. I was driving around today and saw an ice machine and thought maybe that could be my specialty. Everywhere I go having my picture taken with the ice machine. Then let's say I've got 12,000 visits to ice machines -- and there have to be more ice machines than McDonald's -- and the Travel channel has a story about ice machines, guess who they're going to come to for information. I'd have all the specs, my favorite kind of machines, etc.

One thing that would be interesting in this subject is the "ICE" font they always use. With snow and ice hanging from the letters. I'd love to know how many variations there are on this. It'd be interesting also to know what psychological difference it makes in ice sales to use an icy font.

But what I don't want to happen is, say I go to 6,000 different ice machines, then I hear there's already an ice machine guy who's been to 20,000. And the Travel channel people contact him ... and I'm left out in the cold.