Another day at the office

I think I've found a new calling in life. I want to be an excavator operator! A couple of weeks ago my management at work invited my work team to the John Deere proving grounds to test drive some construction equipment. Working in an office job on computers all the time, it's easy to lose sight of what the company is all about. So every now and then they like to take us out to play with some equipment so that we can feel "connected" to the product. This is the first time I've taken advantage of one of these opportunities. Following are a few pictures of my experience.

Of all the equipment I drove, this excavator was by far my favorite. This is one of the smaller excavators that Deere makes (they wouldn't trust us with anything bigger!) but it was still very powerful. I think it's a good stress reliever, so I'm asking for one for Christmas. When the going gets tough, I'll just say, "Honey, I'm going in the back yard to dig for a while."
All the motion is controlled by two joysticks. The joystick on the left swings the cab and arm left and right and moves the main arm up and down. The joystick on the right operates the bucket and the lower part of the arm. To dig, you basically just move the two joysticks around in circles and the thing will dig in one spot and dump in another.

This is I think what is called an "articulated front end loader" (okay, so maybe I better stick to computers until I learn the proper names for these things). This was the favorite of many out there that day, but for me it didn't measure up to the excavator.
Driving the front end loader was also very easy. You basically have a steering wheel, an accelerator, and a brake (like most vehicles). To operate the bucket, there was just one joystick (forward to raise it up, backward to lower it, left to scoop, right to dump). Since you're constantly going forward and backward, there's a small switch on the joystick - switch it one way and you go forward, switch it the other way and you go backward.
This bulldozer was kind of fun. Going over this little mountain was a bit of a kick. Bulldozers typically move forward (or backward) at a constant speed. You can tell in the picture if I go just a little bit further forward, my front is going to be heavier than my back and the whole thing is going to fall forward. Well, my first time over the hill that's exactly what happened and I almost crashed through the windshield. The trick, I learned, is to push the decelerator pedal when you get to the top, then you kind of ease over the hill gradually. I'll stick to the excavator.

Here I am on a little backhoe. This was the first machine I tried out. It was fun enough, but didn't pack near the punch of the excavator. It could dig holes well enough though.
Here's the biggest vehicle that we got to drive that day. By dump truck standards, it's medium sized but I still think it's the biggest vehicle I've ever driven. You'll notice it is articulated like the front end loader (meaning it bends in the middle). That's how it steers. When you turn the wheel, hydraulic cylinders bend the front end around the corner and the backend follows. It feels quite a bit different than steering a normal small vehicle (I almost hit a fence at one point).

The guy that was riding with me said it would go up to 35 miles per hour, but I got it up to 40 and I think it would go faster if you pushed it. At one point, he said to gun it (that's when I got it to 40). We were cruising down a dirt road and at the end there was a gated fence. He said "Don't let up, don't let up, don't let up". About 30 feet short of the fence he says, "Okay take your foot off the accelerator." I did (as soon as he said the word "Okay" - I was getting a little nervous)! The truck just stopped. It didn't throw you forward like slamming on brakes, but the thing went from 40-0 in about 20 feet - no brakes required! He said it's something built into the transmission that stops the vehicle any time you take your foot off the accelerator (no cruise control in this beast!). I don't suppose friction brakes would last long trying to stop 40 tons of momentum.

All-in-all, it was a very fun day. I was very impressed by all the equipment. The most impressive thing was how simple it was to drive everything. They just gave a two minute orientation to the first driver of each machine, then they expected you to pass on the information to the next driver. It was that easy. They've made driving those complex machines easier than driving a car. Most everything was run by joysticks, and the cabs were all very comfortable. Honestly, I think I would be more comfortable moving tons of dirt around all day than I typically am in my desk chair.

So, if you ever have a chance to dig a basement or a swimming pool for someone, I highly recommend it (only if it's with a Deere of course)!

Anna update

Anna got her cast off this week and her arm seems to be healing nicely. She was rather concerned about the saw chopping away at her cast, but that turned out to not be frightening for her at all. It helped that she had a good doctor that she felt comfortable enough with that she even talked to him.

She has been very protective of her arm since the cast came off though. She was worried enough about it that the kind doctor gave her a removable splint to wear to help her feel secure. The problem is, she won't remove the splint for anything. Getting her to take it off to bathe has been quite an ordeal - it really frightens her to have her arm exposed. Today, after much coaxing, I was able to give her a bath and convince her to leave the splint off for one hour after the bath. She just sat on the chair and held her arm for the whole hour; afraid to play or run or really even move. She did finally relax some and got up and moved around a little without the splint. Tonight, she agreed to take off the splint while she sleeps. So, little by little, I think she'll become more comfortable using her arm.

Blog Silence

Hopefully you've noticed that we've been rather silent bloggers lately. Our computer is ill and doesn't seem to be recovering, so we haven't been online a whole lot lately. We're not exactly sure what's wrong, it has been just freezing up every now and then, but the freeze-ups were becoming more frequent and happening more quickly. Now we can rarely, if ever, get through a full bootup before the freeze happens. A little internet research suggests that it's a hardware problem. So, we're kind of out of a home computer for the time being.